by Anne Doughty
‘Granda, why do you have a limp?’ she asked as he pushed open the door into the big dark kitchen.
He looked down at her, slightly startled, thought for a moment and replied; ‘Ach, an’ oul horse kicked me, years ago.’
‘Oh dear. Did it hurt badly?’
‘Aye, it did. It gave me gip for months an’ then it just stopped. But I’ve had a hippety-clinch ever since.’
Clare was about to ask what that was, when she saw him look towards the door of the sitting room, beyond which lay his bedroom.
‘If I take haf an hour on the bed, will ye be all right?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yes, of course,’ she assured him. ‘Anyway, I have the washing to pick up and fold. Auntie Polly said to be sure and do it before the sun dropped too far and the dew fell.’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ he said hastily.
But the way he said it Clare wondered if he really did know about washing and how important it was to have it bone dry and properly aired.
It was the sunshine that woke Clare the next morning. Through the fluttering foliage of the climbing rose that had grown far beyond the wrought-iron arch framing the front door and now clothed the whole length of the long, low dwelling, a beam of light fell on her pillow, flickered and settled on her pale skin and dark curls. She felt its touch on her eyelids, opened them promptly and looked around her.
She was here. Here, in the bed Mummy had shared with Auntie Polly and sometimes when they were still little with Auntie Mary as well. A big bed with a horsehair mattress. She had thought it rather hard and lumpy when she climbed up into it the first night, but it was all right when you got used to it. She lay now looking up at the ceiling. Its wooden boards had been painted white but she thought it must have been a long time ago for the distemper was flaking. Where tiny snowflakes of paint had already fallen, the previous layer of much-less-white distemper was revealed underneath. As her eyes moved round the whole ceiling above her, she found in different places little suspended white flakes spinning in the draught coming round the door. What could possibly have made the invisible threads on which they spun?
She counted the boards that made up the ceiling. There were twenty-nine and a half by the door but only twenty-nine above the sash window that was set into the thick plastered walls. Some bits of wall were very thick indeed. Just behind the door into the bedroom there was a huge bulge that ran halfway up the wall. The windowsills were nearly two feet deep.
‘That’s why it’s only twenty-nine over there,’ she said quietly to herself, when she worked out that the walls were not even. She felt so pleased that she had solved the puzzle.
One day, she thought, when I’m old, I shall remember lying here in this bed counting the boards in this ceiling. And I shall remember what it’s like being nine years old. And I promise, absolutely, Brownie’s honour, if ever any child I know asks me what it was like when I was a child, I shall tell them all about it and not just say that I can’t remember, the way so many grown-ups do.
She wondered if she should get up. Beside the bed was a washstand with a delph basin and a big jug. The jug was only half full of water because otherwise it was so heavy she couldn’t lift it. She knew the water would feel very cold because she was lovely and warm, so she snuggled down further under the eiderdown and continued to study her new bedroom.
Across the small linoleum-covered space by the bed stood a large dressing chest, a solid piece of furniture with three big drawers and a dark-starred mirror whose screws had worked loose so that it now tilted either too much or not enough. All the drawers had been empty and had smelt strongly of mothballs when Auntie Polly had unpacked Granny Hamilton’s shopping bag and started putting her clothes away.
There was another smaller chest of drawers under the window. They didn’t need any more drawers to put her things in because she didn’t have very many things, but Clare pulled open the drawers anyway, just out of curiosity. But it was Auntie Polly who got a surprise. She thought one of the lower drawers was full of sheets and that the other one had a spare bedspread and some material for new curtains she had brought up but hadn’t had time to make. But all the drawers were empty. Completely empty, but for an old newspaper lining one of them.
‘Oh, look Auntie Polly,’ she cried pouncing upon it. ‘What lovely horses, Granda will love these.’
She spread out the faded copy of the Belfast Telegraph on the bed and began to read: ‘Three in hand pull their weight in an Ulster harvest field. Eight months ago Ulster farmers heard and answered the “Grow more Food” call. Today a happier note rings out. It is “Reap for Victory”. Never before has the autumn beauty of the countryside been so enriched by fields of golden grain. This war harvest promises to be the best in the history of the Province.’
Auntie Polly finished putting the clothes away and sat down on the edge of the bed. Clare looked up at her, saw how tired she looked and stopped reading.
‘Go on,’ said Polly, ‘Read me a bit more.’
‘There may be dark days ahead, times perhaps, in which hearts will be heavy, but thanks to the farmers who rallied so well to the “dig” campaign, we shall at any rate have full larders this winter.’
‘That must be September, 1940,’ said Polly abruptly.
‘Oh you are clever, Auntie Polly. Look, it’s a bit torn but if I hold it together you can see the date; 2, September 1940, just what you said.’
‘It is, it is indeed. I remember it all right. I put that paper there when I did out these drawers. That was the last time this poor old house had a spring-clean, albeit it was almost autumn. I left Davy and Eddie with their Granny McGillvray and brought Ronnie up with me. Granny Scott wasn’t very well so I spent a whole week going over the place. How long is that ago?’
‘Six years, all but three weeks,’ replied Clare quickly.
‘Long time, Clare, and a lot has happened,’ she said sadly. ‘The war was far worse than anybody ever thought it would be, even here in the country. You’ll understand better when you’re older. Often if you knew how bad somethin’ was goin’ to be you couldn’t cope with it atall, but if you take it as it comes you get by. It’s only afterwards you wondered how you managed.’
‘Ronnie told me about the barrage balloons. He said he was so frightened,’ Clare said quietly.
‘He was indeed. We were all frightened, Clare, but the grown-ups pretended they weren’t to try to help the children. I think maybe Ronnie knew how bad things were. Davy and Eddie never seemed to realise that we might all be dead by mornin’.’
‘Did lots of people die?’
‘Oh yes, lots and lots of people, not just here but all over the world. So many no one will ever be able to count them all.’
‘And children too, and babies?’
‘Yes, lots of children and babies too.’
Clare thought she had never seen Auntie Polly looking so sad even when she talked about Mummy and Daddy.
‘Do you think anybody will remember them all, Auntie Polly?’
Polly looked surprised. She stood up and with a visible effort collected herself.
‘Yes, Clare, some people will. People like you and Ronnie. Now put that picture of the horses out o’ the way in the window to show to Granda and let’s get on with our work. If we sit here talkin’ we’ll never be straight by teatime.’
On the wall beside the door leading into ‘the boys’ room’ was an illustrated text. The colours were rather blotchy and faded but the words were still clear: ‘The Coneys are but a feeble folk yet they build their houses in the rock.’ Coneys meant rabbits, that she knew, but rabbits didn’t build in rocks. Surely everybody knew that they had burrows in sandy places, like the Whinny Hills where she’d been for a picnic when she went to Brownies.
She had forgotten about Brownies. It seemed a long time ago now. Her dress and tie and hat would all have been burnt with the rest of her clothes. Gnomes, Elves, Dwarfs and Leprechauns. Those were four groups they had and each one lived in a corner of th
e big, bare hall where they met. She had been a gnome.
Brown Owl had a campfire that she kept in a big cupboard, a pretend campfire for when they met in the hall. But it did have real sticks and bits of red paper that looked like flames when she put her torch inside it and switched on. Round the campfire they sang songs and listened to a story and then they all promised ‘to be faithful to God and the King, to help other people every day, especially those at home. Lah. Lah. Lah.’ It was ages before she found out that ‘Lah, Lah, Lah’ meant Lend a Hand.
Well she could do lots of good deeds every day now, for Granda Scott certainly needed someone to help him. Auntie Polly said she thought he never washed up, that he just used the same dishes all week and left them piled up on the wooden table for Jinny to do on a Saturday morning. That was just like one of the neighbours in Anne of Green Gables. Mr Harrison used to wash the dishes on Sundays in the water barrel until Anne came to help him and taught him how to do things properly.
From the kitchen, Clare heard the sound of the stove being raked and the rings being pulled back. Moments later, smoke swirled past outside her window flowing upwards in the beam of sunlight that still threw a bright patch on her pillow. Granda must be lighting the stove.
She climbed out of bed, shivered as her feet touched the cold lino and pulled the small rag rug over to the wash stand with her toe. She washed very quickly but did all the bits that Mummy had always done and then put her clothes on as fast as she could. She was just combing her hair, crouched down on the floor so that she could see into the mirror which had now tipped forward, when she smelt burning.
‘Clare, are ye up? The breakfast’s ready.’
She heard him unlatch the heavy front door which would stand open all day except in the very worst weather or when he went into Armagh on the bus to do his shopping.
‘I’m here,’ she said, blinking in the dazzling light of the hallway.
She followed him back into the big kitchen. Although great beams of light poured through the newly-cleaned, south-facing window and lit up the scrubbed table where all the work of the house went on, its brilliant rays were soon defeated by the smoke-blackened ceiling and the mud-tramped stone floor. Little light penetrated to the further corners of the room that were made darker still by a heavy, brown varnished wallpaper covering the lower part of the walls and the darkened wood of the furniture which stood against them.
Clare blinked, confused by the sudden dimness. She was enveloped in wisps of blue smoke that had risen from the frying pan and now oscillated in the movement of air as she closed the door behind her.
‘There’s no sweet milk,’ he said abruptly, as he sat down in his chair, dropped his cap on the fender and poured the last few drops from the jug into his half pint mug of tea.
‘I don’t drink milk, Granda.’
Clare sat down at the oilcloth-covered table which stood under the tiny back window of the cottage. Beyond the shorter grass where she and Polly had spread out the washing, the morning light glanced off apple trees that were now weighed down with ripening fruit. Already she could hear the hum of bees happily at work on the windfalls surrounding each laden tree.
On a plate in front of her was some fried soda bread, burnt round the edges and bone dry in the middle. She picked up the first piece and munched steadily.
‘What do ye drink?’ he asked, glancing at her in amazement, the whites of his eyes in his permanently grimy face making him look even more startled than usual.
‘Water mostly,’ she replied, judging that there would be no orange juice in a house with no children.
‘It’s in the enamel bucket in the press.’
She slid down off her chair and crossed to the other end of the kitchen where the tall press ran up to the low ceiling to the left of the scrubbed wooden table. The enamel bucket was nearly empty but she managed to bale out a cupful of water and carry it back to the table.
‘Whit’ll ye do all day?’ he asked, as he finished his fried bread and took a long drink of dark brown tea from his mug.
‘I think I shall go exploring first,’ she began, ‘then I’ll start digging the garden and then I want to try out the paint-box Ronnie gave me,’ she continued.
It occurred to her that perhaps she should begin with the housework but she wasn’t quite sure about what she should do, except, of course, the breakfast dishes.
‘Is there anything I can do to help, Granda, any jobs you want doing? I can sew quite nicely if you have any tears or holes in your clothes.’
‘Ach, nat atall,’ he replied, picking up his cap. ‘Away and play yerself,’ he added as he headed for the forge.
Clare collected up the cups and plates and took the tin basin from under the wooden table. It really was very dirty under there but Auntie Polly had said that that was Jinny’s job and she must have had to leave it so she could do other things to help Granny. Clare decided she must make friends with Jinny when she came and then she could ask her to show her how to do things. There were lots of jobs Auntie Polly hadn’t had time to explain to her.
She dried the cups and plates, put them away in the press and was about to throw the dirty water out through the front door, when she saw someone coming up the path from Robinson’s, the nearest of the neighbouring farms. The path ran through a flourishing bed of nettles that were so stingy on bare legs that Auntie Polly said she was to go the long way round when she went for the butter and eggs, down to the forge and across the top of the front orchard. But the figure who approached through the nettles was wearing trousers and boots and didn’t seem to notice that they were there at all.
He was carrying an enamel bucket of water in one hand and was smiling to himself as he hurried with a strange shuffling walk, towards the open front door. Peeping out of the window, Clare saw he had a flat cap over what looked like a completely bald head and he held the bucket in a funny way with his thumb stuck out as if he didn’t want it to get wet.
‘God bless all here,’ he shouted as he shuffled across the hallway, opened the inner door and came into the kitchen.
‘Hello.’
Clare watched him open the bottom cupboard of the press, lift out the almost empty enamel bucket and refill it most carefully from the exactly similar one he carried. He didn’t seem to see her or to notice she’d said hello. She wondered how he could have missed seeing her, standing as she was in the middle of the room, watching him. Perhaps his eyes didn’t focus very well. They did have a rather strange look about them.
He shut the cupboard door, picked up his bucket and was about to leave when he stopped abruptly, turned and walked towards her. Still smiling, he put out his hand and touched her hair.
‘Ach, wee Ellie, I’m heart glad to see ye again.’
Clare smiled warmly at him and was wondering how best to explain who she was, when she heard the familiar, uneven tap of boots hurrying under the arch and into the hall.
‘Hello, Jamsey. Are ye rightly, man?’ Granda Scott asked as he came through the door.
Clare noticed that his tone of voice was different from usual, louder and brighter. Normally, he was so soft-spoken.
‘I am, the best atall,’ Jamsey said cheerfully, his smile broadening yet further. ‘I’ve brought you the spring. I’ll be over later with the sweet milk.’
‘Good man, good man yerself. Have ye said hello to wee Clarey? Polly brought her up yesterday for a holiday.’
Jamsey stared at Clare, a strange blankness replacing his beaming smile.
‘Ellie,’ he said, softly. ‘That’s Ellie.’
‘Ah, yer not far wrong, Jamsey. Yer not far out atall,’ said Robert reassuringly. ‘That’s Ellie’s wee girl. Wee Clarey. Ye’ll say hello to her.’
‘I will that,’ said Jamsey, positively, sticking out his hand so that it looked as if it didn’t belong to him.
Clare took it and he shook her hand vigorously up and down.
‘I’m pleased to meet ye, Clarey. Your mother was a powerful nice lady. She used to let me
play her gramophone.’
‘Sure don’t you play it still, Jamsey, when we’ve all our work done?’
‘Ach aye,’ Jamsey nodded. ‘We’ll have a bit of a tune later.’
He nodded again as if to himself. Then a sudden look of concentration appeared on his face. He picked up his bucket and made for the door. ‘God bless the work,’ he called out, without a backward glance.
Robert looked at Clare who had moved to the window and was watching Jamsey as he disappeared at speed through the nettles.
‘Were ye frightened?’
‘No. He’s a nice man, but he’s not quite right, is he?’
‘Poor Jamsey, he’s kinda simple, but there’s no harm in him atall. He’d not hurt you,’ Robert said emphatically, ‘though sometimes he gets in a mood and ye can’t get a word out of him. Other times he’ll curse and swear. Pay no heed to that. He doesn’t understand the words atall. Sometimes he forgets things, other times he remembers what happened years ago. And he loves music, the gramophone, the radio, songs, bands. Anything like that. Yer mother useta sing to him.’
He stopped abruptly and for one single moment Clare wondered if he might cry. But he just blew his nose on a very dirty-looking handkerchief and said he must away and put more coal on the fire in the forge or it would go out.
After Jamsey’s visit, Clare felt she should begin her exploration with the house. She was not very hopeful of finding a forgotten attic in the single storey building or a secret passage set into the thick stone walls but she thought she ought at least to look at each room carefully.
She stepped into the sitting room, ‘The Room’ as her grandfather called it. It was cooler, but brighter than the big kitchen, its white ceiling and pale-washed walls almost unmarked by soot and smoke. In the alcove to the left of the decorated iron fireplace was a tall built-in cupboard. She climbed up on the armchair by the fire, opened the upper part and found it was disappointingly empty.