On a Clear Day (The Hamiltons Series)

by Anne Doughty

  Clare felt restless and impatient. She was thoroughly irritated with herself for spending so much time on her vain imaginings. Thinking about an encounter with Andrew Richardson only made the unexciting character of her life yet more obvious. Each day, she made up her mind she’d not waste another moment wondering if he might turn up, thinking what they might say to each other, or asking herself why he’d come in the first place. But it was not until a letter arrived from her cousin, Ronnie, that she was able to put Andrew Richardson to the back of her mind.

  Letters from Ronnie were frequent enough and always welcome, but taking the slim envelope from the postman one Monday morning in late July, Clare felt apprehensive. Ronnie’s letters were usually long, often enclosed newspaper items he thought would interest her. Recently, he’d put in his own articles about the state of agriculture and industry in the Province. He’d spent hours in the Central Library looking up material and then he’d cycled out into the countryside to talk to farmers and visit factories. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had a letter from him in an ordinary sized envelope.

  She tore it open hastily. As she’d guessed, there was only a single sheet of note paper. Carefully folded inside it were two very battered pound notes.

  Dear Clare,

  You know how hard I’ve been trying to find a job in journalism. Well, I’ve finally given up. Belfast is hopeless. I’ve just had an offer from a Liverpool newspaper and I’m going to take it. But I’ve decided I’m not coming back. I’ll try to get a second job in Liverpool, probably in a pub, and as soon as I’ve saved my fare I’m heading for Canada. Mum and Dad have said they’ll help me raise the money.

  The last year has made it perfectly clear that there’s nothing here for me and from the papers Mum sends I can see there are plenty of openings in the Toronto area. It’s all rather sudden I know and I’m sorry to spring it on you. I do so want to see you before I go. Please will you come up to Belfast for a couple of nights? My landlady says you can have her daughter’s room as she’s away at guide camp. I’ll show you the sights of the city and then you can help me pack! I’m off this Saturday. Leave me a message with Mrs McGregor and I’ll meet your train. I know it’s dreadfully short notice, but I can’t afford to miss this Liverpool job even though they say it’s only temporary and I really can’t bear to go without seeing you.

  Give my love to Granda. I’d have liked to have come up to see him properly and then I wouldn’t have had to steal you away, but I’ve some things that just have to be done before I go. Please come if you possibly can. Remind me to tell you how you helped me to earn the cash enclosed which is for you whether you come or not!

  As always, with love,

  Ronnie

  She stood in the laneway, the torn envelope and the pound notes in one hand, the single blue sheet in the other. She read it a second time as if reading it again would make it easier to grasp. But it didn’t. She’d grasped it perfectly well the first time. Ronnie was going. Her dear cousin was taking the Liverpool boat and he wasn’t coming back. She’d seen him only twice in the last six years, but he had been a comforting presence through all that time. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  She couldn’t possibly blame him. He’d worked so hard and got a good degree but he’d still not been able to find a job. He’d had to work weekends at his uncle’s butcher’s shop on Beersbridge Road, a job he hated, just so he could go on paying his rent to Mrs McGregor, for the room he’d had as a student. He’d done all sorts of temporary jobs while trying to find something on a newspaper, but there’d been so many disappointments. In his position, she reckoned she’d have ended up doing just the same.

  But the thought of his going made her feel desolate. She shivered as she went back into the dark kitchen even though the morning was warm and the room steamy from the soot-streaked shirts she’d set to boil on the stove in the biggest saucepan they possessed.

  She was surprised to find Robert so philosophical when she told him about Ronnie’s plans.

  ‘Sure that’s the way, chiledear,’ he began, ‘it’s always been the same as long as I’ve heerd tell. There’s young ones that’ll niver be able to settle. If their minds are fixed on somethin’ they want to do, or if they have an ambition to make money, sure there’s no stoppin’ them. An’ why woud one stop them? Haven’t we all to make our way with what’s given to us?’

  He dropped off his cap by the side of his chair and waited till she set his midday meal in front of him.

  ‘Boys, that looks good,’ he said, as he made a hole in the middle of the pale green mound of champ and sliced a knob of butter from the dish to put in it.

  ‘Did you ever think of America, Granda?’ Clare asked as she pulled her own chair up to the table.

  ‘Aye, ah did. I was all for it at one time. My brother William went out to Montreal and started up a business, got on his feet in no time and sent back saying he’d have any o’ the family that was interested out t’ help him. The ticket woud be seen to if we just said the word.’

  He nodded to himself and took a deep draught of his buttermilk.

  ‘My mother was always the one that wrote the letters an’ she says to me “Robert, are ye for off. We’ll not stan’ in yer way. Will I send word to William that you’d like your ticket?” An’ I says to her, “I’ll tell ye the night, Mam.”’

  He paused again and made hungry inroads into his champ, mixing the melted butter with the well-mashed potatoes and chopped scallions. Clare waited, watching the flickers of memory touch his eyes and lips with the faintest of smiles.

  ‘I went back down to the forge, for I was my father’s helper in them days, an’ as I was goin’ in the door I sees this white mare comin’ up the loanen with a neighbourin’ man. So I went to meet him an’ give him the time o’ day. An’ as I was standin’ there the mare nuzzled up to me and blew down me neck. They do that sometimes if they like ye. An’ I thought to meself. “What woud ye be doin’ behind some counter in some shop in Canada, Robert? Sure ye’d be far better makin’ shoes for a mare.”’

  He finished his buttermilk in a long swallow and laughed a short, hard laugh. ‘Did ye iver hear anythin’ so daft in your life?’

  He pushed back his chair and began to undo his bootlaces. As he tramped across the kitchen in his stocking feet, Clare turned from the table and answered him.

  ‘I don’t think you were daft at all,’ she said firmly. ‘And where would I be if you were in Canada?’

  He stopped on his step, turned and laughed again.

  ‘Aye, well …’ he said, looking pleased, as he headed for his lie-down leaving Clare to her thoughts and her plans for going to see Ronnie.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As she stepped down from the worn and shabby carriage of the Armagh train two days later, Clare decided that the Great Northern Station hadn’t changed much in six years. She walked briskly along a platform as noisy, crowded and dirty as the one she remembered from the evening of her arrival with Auntie Polly.

  The brilliant sunlight that had drawn out the rich greens in the passing countryside and cast lengthening shadows from the higher points of steeple, farmhouse and barn all the way from Armagh, now struck the worn brickwork and the soot-covered pillars and accentuated the shabbiness of the high-arched train-shed with its handsome wrought-iron work and leafy decorations.

  She strode along, aware of the crisp rustle of Auntie Polly’s dress. Already far ahead of the other occupants of her carriage, she remembered the struggle she’d had to keep up with Auntie Polly’s hasty trot, the way suitcases and porter’s trolleys loomed up in front of her, major obstacles to be negotiated.

  The thought of the child she had been cast a shadow over the excitement that had grown steadily as the miles passed and the time of her arrival drew closer. Even after all these years, thinking of Ronnie still brought back the awful memory of her weeks in Belfast after her parents died and how desperately unhappy she had been.

  Suddenly, she felt overwhelmingly grateful
for the life she now had. However hard it might be, however dull and boring, at least she was free to try to make things better. She did have choice in her life and choice was something the unhappy child she’d been could never have had. Children might have good luck or bad luck, but they had never had choice. She had just been very lucky.

  She spotted Ronnie almost as soon as she set foot on the platform. Standing beyond the barrier, his hands in his pockets, his dark eyes appraising the people who streamed by, his face seemed thinner than she had remembered, his hair thicker and darker, his eyes more strikingly brown.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, coming up beside him as he craned his neck to scrutinise the last few passengers now making their way down the platform.

  He stared at her in amazement, put an arm round her and kissed her cheek.

  ‘You’ve grown,’ he said accusingly.

  ‘Well, what did you expect? A wee cousin with a teddy-bear?’

  He grinned broadly and looked her up and down.

  ‘On balance, I think I rather fancy this one,’ he said, as he took Jessie’s new weekend case from her hand and propelled her towards Great Victoria Street. ‘Come on, or we’ll be late for our tea.

  ‘Mrs McGregor has taken a fancy to you,’ he began, as they queued at the bus stop. ‘She said you sounded “vairry pleasant” on the phone.’ He raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘How do you do it, Clare? My father always said you could charm ducks off water.’

  Clare blushed. She blushed even more as Ronnie took her hand and led her upstairs and she saw the bus conductor eyeing them. He winked at Ronnie and said something she just couldn’t catch. She wondered if he thought she was Ronnie’s girlfriend.

  ‘Shaftesbury Square, Clare. Do you remember? We passed through it on our way up and down to Smithfield to find books.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she replied doubtfully, as she looked down at the crowded pavements. ‘I remember Ormeau Park and the bridge over the river and the smell of the Gasworks,’ she added more confidently.

  ‘That hasn’t changed. Still stinks.’ His voice changed and a bitter edge crept into it. ‘The immediate environment has the highest incidence of bronchitis and chest complaints in the British Isles. And bronchitis is one of the areas of research that can’t get funding. It’s too unglamorous.’

  She turned to look at him, startled by his tone, but before she could say anything he grabbed her hand again, pulled her to her feet and hurried them back downstairs.

  ‘What about this?’ he asked, waving his hand at an extensive red-brick building set beyond impressively smooth lawns and a flourishing line of trees.

  ‘No, I don’t remember it,’ she said, as she stepped back on to the pavement, ‘but I know it’s Queen’s University. When you asked me to your graduation you sent me a postcard. I have it stuck in my mirror, so I see it every morning.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. My Alma Mater as they say. Yours too, I expect. Unless you head for Oxford or Cambridge.’

  ‘Oh Ronnie, don’t be silly. How could I ever go there?’

  ‘Perfectly well, if you get a scholarship,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘But you mightn’t want to be so far away from Granda,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly go to England,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m not sure I could even manage Belfast unless I travel every day,’ she went on, surprised that she had even thought of the possibility in the first place.

  ‘No, you can’t travel every day. You’d miss too much. You have to be here. As near as possible. That’s why I’m so pleased you’ve charmed Mrs McGregor. Now what do you think of the outward appearance of this dwelling?’ he asked, stopping under a lime tree opposite the garden gate of one of the tall terrace houses on Elmwood Avenue.

  Clare ran her eye along the row of red-brick dwellings with their tiny walled-in square of shrubs and flowers. The fluttering leaves of the mature trees cast dappled shadows on the brickwork and stroked the projecting roofing and sills of the first floor bay windows. Despite all the comings and goings of this late afternoon hour, the avenue seemed to have an air of quiet about it, as if nothing could disturb the solidity of either these long-established buildings or their accompanying trees.

  The house Ronnie was regarding with such concentration had roses trailing along the garden wall and a clematis by the front door. It had been newly painted. The window frames, a startling white, stood out in contrast to those of its neighbours, which might once have been green or brown but were now indistinguishably peeling and dingy. The front door, a dense, shiny black, looked as if it had been polished as thoroughly as the brass knocker and letterbox which decorated its solid shape.

  ‘Very smart, indeed,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Is this the house where you live?’

  ‘Yes, this is where I reside, as journalists are wont to say. This is my domicile, my fixed abode, my pied-à-terre. Until Saturday, that is. I painted it myself. Two weeks freedom from rent and a fortnight’s evening meals. What I lost in sweat up the ladder I put back at six o’clock tea. Wait till you try Mrs McG’s scones and cake,’ he laughed, as he pushed open the tiny gate and took out his doorkey.

  Clare decided that Ronnie had been very fortunate indeed to find Mrs McGregor and not just because of her cooking. In person, she was exactly as Clare had pictured her after their brief conversation on the phone, warm, friendly and direct, one of those sensible and kind-hearted women who take a real pleasure in caring for others. Over tea, it emerged that her husband was a merchant seaman who was away for months at a time on the South America run. Mrs McGregor used her time and energy to visit the elderly housebound people who still lived in the avenue and ensure that the six students who occupied her upstairs rooms were as well fed as rationing and the vagaries of her ancient gas cooker would permit.

  ‘But how do you manage to get the sugar and butter, Mrs McGregor?’ Clare asked, after she and Ronnie had done justice to both the scones and the cake.

  ‘Well, ye see, I do a bit of a Robin Hood,’ she replied, with a wink as she poured more tea for them. ‘These old folk o’ mine, poor dears, they canna’ eat a lot. I take them wee bits an’ pieces of home baking an’ then whin they offer me their points, I say thank you and use them to feed up my hungry wee students.’

  After their meal, Ronnie took Clare up to his bed sitter.

  ‘My goodness, isn’t this posh?’ she gasped as he opened the door.

  She stepped into the spacious first floor room and ran her eye round the decorative mouldings on the ceiling, the worn but still handsome furniture, the framed prints and pictures which filled the wallspace not already occupied by bookcases.

  Beyond the bay window with its faded velvet curtains, the heavily leafed trees broke up the sunlight so that it flickered and fell in dappled patterns on the scarred leather surface of a large desk. The desk was piled high with books and papers. There were books everywhere. Some carefully arranged on bookshelves, others neatly stacked in small piles on the floor. A small group had been packed already for a pile of boxes stood in a dim corner, tied with string and labelled. ‘Store, Ronnie McGillvray – July 1952 until further notice!’

  She moved between a well-polished table and a huge sofa to stand by the handsome marble fireplace and finger some of the smallest books in the room. Propped between heavy wooden bookends on the chill, white surface of the mantelpiece, the slender volumes had gold lettering on faded leather covers. As she twisted her head to read the titles she suddenly found herself thinking of Saturday, of the Liverpool boat standing by the quay below the Queen’s bridge, its gangways still in place, just like the travel advertisements in the window of the Guardian office in Armagh.

  ‘Goodness, Ronnie, what are you going to do with all your books? These are so lovely. But you can’t take them all, can you?’

  ‘That depends on you,’ he said firmly.

  ‘On me?’

  ‘Yes, you. The one and only, original Clare Hamilton.’

  She giggled.
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  ‘You wouldn’t have a sixpence by any chance?’ he asked, after a search of his pockets had proved unsuccessful. ‘It can be a bit chilly in here even on summer evenings.’

  She found one in her purse and watched him while he fed it into the gas meter. She studied him carefully while he turned knobs and struck a match. In so many ways he was still the cousin to whom she had been so devoted as a little girl. He still teased her and made her laugh. But he had changed in some way she couldn’t quite define. There was a tension and a sharpness about his face. There was something different, too, in the way he moved and the way he sometimes spoke, almost as if he were quoting from a text book or a political manifesto.

  When he put the match to the fire it hissed and plopped in protest, but after a moment or two it settled down to a comfortable roar. As Clare studied the broken, cream-coloured honeycomb of the gas fire, the flames changed slowly from blue to orange. Soon the roar subsided to a gentle, soothing murmur.

  When they settled in the two ancient armchairs in the now shadowy room, Ronnie began to talk about his books and about his time at university. He said a little about his hopes for the future and went on to talk about the two days that remained before he returned her to the Armagh train and departed himself in the opposite direction to begin the longest journey he had ever made.

  Yes, he agreed, there did seem a lot to do, but he had made some contingency plans. Mrs McGregor had been most helpful. She’d said he could store his books in a small box room at the top of the house for as long as he liked. It would be a shame to have to sell them, especially if his little cousin could use them.

  Clare was just about to ask which of his cousins he meant, for all the McGillvray’s were tall, when she realised he was thinking of her. She opened her mouth to protest.

  ‘Now Clare,’ he interrupted, ‘as your only relative with intellectual pretensions on this side of the Atlantic, I think I ought to make clear what you ought to do about your future. Just in case you hadn’t thought of it for yourself, that is,’ he began, as he stretched his long legs out comfortably over the fender.