by Anne Doughty
‘So this graph is the turnover for the shop and this is the breakdown by department,’ she began, running her eyes up and down the coloured lines. ‘And these circular charts show which lines are most profitable and at which time of the year.’
He nodded and looked pleased. ‘Are there any surprises there, Miss Scott?’
‘Well, yes. I know we sell a lot of curtain fabric, but I didn’t think there was quite so much, or so profitable. And I didn’t know, or had never noticed, we sell most of it in October and November. I suppose if I’d guessed, I’d have thought it would be the springtime.’
‘It seems Mr Hanna has been most observant,’ he said nodding vigorously.
For a moment, Ellie couldn’t think who Mr Hanna was. She smiled to herself when she realised it was Joe. But it was significant Mr Freeburn had never mentioned him before. This was the first time he’d done something on his own initiative.
The thought of Joe’s achievement and Mr Freeburn’s enthusiastic response delighted her. It was one more thing to add to the pleasures of this summer, the dance, the evenings at the Tennis Club, and Daisy’s engagement.
It was hard to believe that only a year ago, Daisy was distraught because their landlord had served notice and the anxiety it produced had made her mother even iller than she’d been. But all that was over and gone. There’d been no more difficulty with the landlord since Mr Freeburn had intervened and her mother was now completely recovered thanks to Doctor Richard Stewart.
She’d doubled her flock of hens last summer and added some turkeys to rear for Christmas. Since then, they’d had no trouble paying the rent. Daisy said they still hadn’t paid the arrears, but they were saving up a little each week in case the outstanding debt should suddenly be presented.
Daisy looked so happy these days, the ring on her finger still so new she kept glancing down at it as she cut cloth or made up a parcel. It was not a diamond ring, but it was old and pretty and had once belonged to Frank’s grandmother. He’d had it in his pocket the night of the dance, not sure if it would even fit, but it had. Ellie would never forget drinking cocoa at three o’clock in the morning with Daisy and Susie, both of whom were far too excited to want to go to bed.
It was a year now since she’d waited so anxiously for George’s first letter. He’d said before he went it would need a year, or two, to save up for her ticket, or come home to marry her. Yet not once since he’d gone had he mentioned a time or a date. All he ever said was how much he missed her and longed to be with her again which might be true enough but wasn’t much to help her with the waiting.
She turned on to her left side, stared at the beam of light striking the rag rug in front of her washstand and found herself thinking of Sam Hamilton. A dozen times now she’d caught herself going through that last little piece of conversation they’d had after the dance, standing under the trees on The Mall opposite Sleator’s house.
If there had been no George, might he have been ‘in with a chance’, he’d asked. And there was only one answer she could give. Indeed, yes, he would. He certainly would. She’d never met anyone she’d liked better nor felt easier with. Except always George, of course.
Sam was someone she could talk to. He listened and he shared his thoughts with her. He’d told her about his bad upset as well as about his good fortune in having father and sisters to help him see that running away wasn’t the answer.
If he’d gone off to New Zealand, they’d never have met, never danced together, never walked home in the starlight and she wouldn’t be going up to Belfast today by car to meet his sisters and to talk to Rose. It would have been such a pity to have missed all that.
She had no idea what she was going to say to Rose about George and his letters and their plans for the future, or rather, the lack of them. But perhaps it would come to her on the drive. There was something about Sam’s presence that always made her feel steadier.
Suddenly, she felt uneasy and anxious. It still wasn’t seven o’clock, but she slid out of bed and poured water into the china basin from the tall, flower-scattered jug. There was no doubt about it, every time she thought about George and the fact he’d still offered no plan for the immediate future, it made her feel uneasy. That was what she needed Rose to help her sort out in her own mind.
Sunday was the day Ellie did all the household chores her mother could not or would not do during the week. She had long since stopped asking herself whether her mother was really ill, whether it was simply ‘nerves’, as the doctor from Armagh declared on his regular visits, and if so what that might mean. Sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, Ellen could be quite vigorous. She’d clean out the hen-house or wash the floor, peel vegetables and make a stew, or even polish the furniture, but there was no method to her work. She did what she felt like doing and ignored the rest, knowing that her daughter would do it for her.
Normally on a Sunday morning before church, Ellie did the weekly wash and hung it out behind the gable of the old house where no one would see it, then caught up on the pans and saucepans left soaking in cold water under the kitchen table. She changed beds and ironed shirts and was grateful for the hour of physical rest provided by the Episcopalian service before she came home to cook a midday dinner.
Today, along with the rest, she made time to scrub the kitchen floor, then she emptied her bucket, rinsed her cloth and retired to her room to change out of her oldest skirt into her blue dress.
‘Sure you’re well late for church, Ellie. Could ye not read the clock?’
‘Not going to church, Ma. I told you. I’m going up to Belfast to visit a friend I made when I stayed with Aunt Annie.’
‘An’ how long are you staying’ away? Who’ll bring me the spring water if you’re away?’
‘I’ll be back tonight, Ma, and Da brought two buckets in a while ago. Did you not see him?’
‘Ah sure I can see nothin’, I’ve lost my glasses.’
By the time Ellie had found the spectacles, collected her jacket and handbag, the sitting-room clock had struck twelve. It was always ten minutes fast, but she still looked out of the kitchen window. A motor was parked down on the road and Sam Hamilton was walking up the lane. Before she could go to the door, she saw her father put down the buckets of water he was carrying to the forge. He stretched out his hand to the young man.
‘Sam Hamilton, I’m pleased to meet you. I’d have known you anywhere,’ he said, his voice echoing on the silent air. ‘Yer even more like your grandfather than yer Da. Is he in the motor?’
‘No, Mr Scott, he isn’t. He said to apologise to you. He wasn’t planning to go to Meeting today, but there’s a Friend from Belfast has come to talk to them about destitute children. He said he had to go after all. So I’m collectin’ your Ellie first and then Da and Emily on my way through Richhill.’
‘Ach tell him I’m sorry I missed him. Is he well?’
‘He’s the best.’
‘An’ Rose, your granny?’ he asked, a softness in his voice.
‘She’s rightly too. To be honest, she’s amazin’ for her age. I hope I’ll be as sharp if I get to eighty.’
Ellie heard her father laugh as she said goodbye to her mother and walked down the path to join them.
‘Tell Rose I was askin’ for her,’ Robert instructed Sam as they both turned towards Ellie. ‘Is that a birthday present?’ he went on, nodding and laughing again as he caught sight of the carefully wrapped long stems of pink briar rose she was holding.
‘Oh no, Mr Scott,’ said Sam, ‘we’ve been well warned. No presents, she says. That must be somethin’ between her an’ Ellie.’
‘Aye an’ there’ll be somethin’ between you an’ me if ye go on callin’ me Mr Scott,’ said Robert with a short laugh. ‘Sure didn’t your grandfather serve his time with my grandfather and your Da an’ I chase one another up an’ down that field there.’
‘I thought maybe I should use a Sunday name on a Sunday,’ said Sam, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘Especially whe
n I’ve come to chauffeur this young lady of yours.’ he added easily.
‘See ye enjoy yourselves. An’ tell yer Da to take a run over. Even if he hasn’t some fancy motor home from work with him he can surely still ride his bike this far.’
‘I’ll tell him what ye said, Robert, and I’m glad to have made your acquaintance after all I’ve heard about you, one way and another.’
The two men shook hands. Sam took Ellie’s jacket to carry for her and together they made their way down the lane to the vehicle parked on the opposite side of the road in the entrance to Robinson’s field.
Sam did a neat turn in the road and Robert watched and waved to them as they headed back towards Richhill.
He scratched his head and wondered if he’d made a mistake. Surely Sam was the young man who had bought the furniture for the girl that had let him down. Hadn’t he told his father he wouldn’t even look at another woman for many a long day.
Or could it be that Ellie had looked at him? Well, if she had, she could do a lot worse.
‘Isn’t it a lovely mornin’?’ he said glancing at her, as they drove slowly down to Scott’s Corner and turned right through Annacramp. ‘Granny’s going to get a good day for her party. We’ll be able to go out into the garden.’
‘It’s such a lovely garden, Sam,’ she nodded. ‘She and I sat out there after lunch the day I went to see her last October. She says the only thing James hasn’t done for her is move the Mourne Mountains to the bottom of it where she can see them.’
Sam laughed. ‘Aye, Da says he’s good to her. He’s more than made up for the past, as it were.’
‘What d’you mean, Sam? What happened in the past?’ she asked anxious that she might have misread a man to whom she’d taken a liking.
Sam drew in a deep breath and drove more slowly.
‘James was very ambitious,’ he began. ‘An’ as ye can see he’s a big man now in the Government … but he started off with Harland and Woolf as an apprentice. I don’t know the ins and the outs of it, but he got very full of himself and very bitter. He couldn’t say a good word about Catholics and I’m sure ye know Granny’s father was Catholic and all that side of the family still are. There was a big row and James went off. He married into a wealthy family in Belfast but then he disappeared and nothin’ was heard of him. Da thought he might be dead, but Granny said no. An’ she was right. He came back, maybe eight or nine years ago … it was the year Rosie got married, for it was she who first met him at a Trade Fair in the City Hall. That was when she was with McGredys. After his wife died and his son went to live with his grandparents in Belfast, James went off to Australia. Slater is his son’s name. He’s an engineer. Goes all over the world. I’ve never met him, but Uncle James comes to see us and brings Granny regular. He and Da get on the best.’
‘My goodness,’ Ellie said, ‘that’s a story, isn’t it? At least it has a happy ending. Poor Rose, she must have been heartbroken when he went away. She never mentioned that to me, though she’s told me so many stories about her family. I loved the one about Hannah and Teddy, who was really Lord Cleeve, and how Sarah married Hugh Sinton when she was only eighteen. It’s like something you’d read in a book.’
‘Aye and Granny herself, a wee chile thrown out on the road in Donegal that now has one daughter a countess and one a lady and a son up at Stormont … and my Da, God Bless him, away at Meeting this mornin’ to try and see how the Friends in Richhill can raise the money for another orphanage in Belfast.’
‘Is that what he’s doing?’
‘Aye, otherwise he was lookin’ forward to seein’ your Da. They don’t see other often, but they seem to be very great, as the sayin’ is.’
He broke off as they drove round Cannon Hill and he slowed on the steep downslope beyond.
‘If you look over there to your right, ye’ll see where we live. It’s just over the level crossing,’ he said, starting to laugh, ‘I don’t know why they call it a level crossing, it gets bumpier every year,’ he added as they bounced across.
To the right, Ellie saw a wide open farm gate. Beyond it, a long, low house, freshly whitewashed, a tall barn and a line of outbuildings standing opposite. As she looked, the small dark figure of a woman walked down the yard, a bucket in one hand.
‘Isn’t your mother coming to Belfast?’
‘No, no, she isn’t,’ said Sam shortly.
Ellie took a cautious look at him and decided to say nothing, but she felt suddenly sad. All his liveliness and good spirits seemed to have evaporated.
A moment later, she caught him looking at her.
‘My Ma doesn’t get on with Rose, never has. Can’t say a good word about her, though her an’ my grandfather were very good to us when times were hard and there were nine of us to rear,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Maybe it’s jealousy. She’s always resented Rose having a bit of money, though from what I hear Granda worked hard for anything he got. But then, maybe, it’s that she and my Da don’t get on. She hasn’t a good word to say for him either. He just keeps on working, gives her money and says nothing. I don’t know what went wrong between them. He’ll never say a word against her.’
‘Oh Sam, I’m so sorry. And there was I envious of you and your nice family,’ Ellie began. ‘We don’t know the half of it, do we?’
Sam laughed heartily and Ellie paused, taken aback.
‘I’m not laughin’ at you, Ellie,’ he said quickly, ‘it’s just that all their lives Granny and Granda had that saying goin’ back and forwards between them. She always said he never told her the whole story about anything. She’d have to question him to get it out bit by bit. But that was no hurt between them. They both knew he could never get things out. So they laughed about it.’
‘They were a great pair,’ he went on, ‘What one failed, the other managed, and the other way about,’ he added softly, a hint of sadness and longing in his voice.
‘That’s a good way to be,’ Ellie replied. ‘Two’s better than one. It can be awfully lonely if you haven’t someone to fall back on.’
‘Aye, I agree with you there. An’ when times are hard or you’re hurt about somethin’ that’s when you know the real value of someone bein’ there,’ he said firmly as they slowed down outside the Quaker Meeting House in Richhill.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a dark suit and well-polished shoes stood on the pavement looking round him and enjoying the morning sun. He walked over to them as soon as they stopped.
‘Hello Da, this is Ellie Scott’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Ellie,’ the older man said, shaking Ellie’s hand. ‘No, sit where you are, we can change over when we pick up Emily,’ he added, getting into the back.
Ellie could see now why Sam’s father had been such a help to his son. He had the loveliest smile. Slow and almost wistful, but full of a warmth and kindness she had seldom seen before.
Ellie quickly found out what good company Emily was and they talked away in the back seat leaving Sam and his father to discuss in minute detail the performance of the engine, the fuel consumption and what they considered to be the design weaknesses. A new Morris, not long out of the showroom, it belonged to one of the Lamb brothers, a kind man who regularly lent Sam’s father his vehicle for family visits.
‘What about your wee ones?’ Ellie asked, ‘did they not want to come?’
‘Oh they wanted to come all right,’ said Emily shaking her head vigorously, ‘but Rosie and I decided there’d be no great-grandchildren and James agreed with us. Rose is great as you know, but there’s a limit. Sure they have me worn out and me about fifty years younger than she is,’ she went on laughing. ‘I’m sure Kevin will be exhausted when I get back, but bless his heart, he never thought twice about tellin’ me to come on me own.’
‘That’s good of him. I wish my sister’s husband could do the same. It’s not that he wouldn’t, he’s not lazy or anything like that,’ she explained, ‘he’s just no use with children. I suppose some men are like that.’<
br />
‘You’re right there. Some men has no notion what to do with we’ans. But of course, there’s some takes advantage of having no notion. There’s maybe some things ye just have to learn if you’re goin’ to bring up a family. Sure I’m no hand at all at cookin’, but I have to make the effort. Mind you, Kevin helps me out. He’d make a good chef if he had the time.’
Ellie laughed, delighted by Emily’s ease of manner, her openness and good nature. They talked about Macy’s and why the pair of them had come home. About saving up and trying to make a living. About Emily’s knack with figures, just like her cousin, Daisy Hutchinson. Then they spoke of Daisy and Frank’s plan to marry in a year’s time before Frank’s transfer to another town was due to come up.
It seemed no time at all before they were parking under the trees outside the broad, double-fronted house in Cranmore Park. They walked in through open doors down the wide hall through into the high-ceilinged sitting-room.
Ellie couldn’t see Rose at first, which was hardly surprising. She’d never been very tall and she’d grown smaller with age though she had no stoop on her shoulders like some old people she knew.
Suddenly there was a burst of laughter and a group of people over by the French windows moved apart and Rose was revealed in their midst. She caught sight of them and came over at once, holding out her hands to embrace each of them in turn. Ellie thought she looked quite lovely. She was wearing a lavender blouse with a brooch at the neck and a dark purple skirt. Her hair was pure white and caught up in a pleat at the back with a little beaded decoration round it that matched her earrings. She was not using her stick.
‘Poor Ellie,’ she said, as she kissed her, ‘you’ve managed James, two of my Sam’s and Emily, but you’ll have a whole roomful of people you don’t know. Except that you do in a way, don’t you? You’ve got their stories, so all you need to do is attach the right story to the right person. I’ll give you a start. That couple coming down the hall …’
