by Anne Doughty
John took from the deep pocket of his coat an old tin box. Inside, half a dozen small sprays of fuchsia with the pendant blooms of Clare’s Delight were carefully packed in damp moss. She had burst into tears and clutched John as if she would never let him go.
‘Ach, there now, Clarey,’ he said, putting his arms round her, ‘Sure Robert was a good age. You’d not want to ’ave seen him poorly, now wou’d you?’
She shook her head vigorously and mopped up her tears as quickly as she could. What had made her cry this time was the thought of the Senator, a man she had come to know and like, an exact contemporary of Robert himself, going to his greenhouse and cutting his precious blooms, surely the last blooms of the season, to send to her, because Andrew had asked him if he could spare them.
The fire was dropping low and the room growing chill. Remembering that Jessie would be arriving soon, she stirred herself, made up the stove and lit the lamp. The soft, yellowy light grew as she turned up the wick and the familiar gentle hiss broke the silence of the room. How many times had she watched Robert light the lamp? Now, she would have to go on lighting it until the electric came. According to the newspaper, it wouldn’t be long now.
She shook her head and paused, staring up at the soot-blackened boards of the ceiling where tiny flecks of distemper had fallen off, leaving white marks on the dark surfaces. She stood, a large, empty teapot in her hands and knew, suddenly and quite clearly, that she would never look up at the blackened ceiling and see a light bulb hanging there. For a moment, she was completely taken aback.
‘And why should I?’ she said aloud, recovering herself.
She could imagine how unforgiving the electric light would be, illuminating all the dark corners. It would cast harsh shadows and show up the sad shabbiness of this well-loved room. Yes, of course, ‘the electric’ made life easier. Granny and Granda Hamilton and their immediate neighbours had all had it put in this year. They all said how much work it saved and how much less cleaning there was. But no one ever spoke of what had been lost when it came.
‘Hello, Clare, how’re ye doin?’
‘Oh, Jessie, how good to see you,’ she said, as her friend walked in, the fur collar of her coat beaded with tiny specks of rain. ‘You shouldn’t have come down for me, you know. I’d have come up later and you could’ve had longer with Harry.’
‘Ach, not atall. He’ll be late enough by the time he gets back to Belfast,’ she said dismissively, her back to Clare as she slipped off her coat and parked it over a chair. ‘Did ye get yer aunties off all right?’
Clare grinned.
‘Sarah told me to make sure I read my Bible every day.’
As Jessie raised her hands in a familiar gesture of despair, Clare caught the glint of diamonds.
‘Come on, Jessie, let’s see it. You kept your gloves on this afternoon,’ she said cheerfully.
She saw Jessie’s face crumple. She seemed so awkward and uncomfortable and not like her usual self at all. She’d been pale when she’d arrived, but Clare thought it was just the cold of the night air. Now she was beginning to think something was wrong.
‘I’d have called the party off, Clare, if it hadn’t been for the message ye left me on Friday,’ she said, uneasily.
‘Of course you would, I know that,’ Clare said reassuringly. ‘Do you really think Robert would have been very pleased if I’d let you? “Ach, a lot o’ nonsense. Shure life goes on. Isn’t it grate news about Jessie.” That’s what he’d have said, Jessie, isn’t it?’
Jessie nodded. Robert had no time for sentimentality. But she was still ill at ease as she held out her hand for Clare’s benefit. The tiny circle of diamonds winked again.
‘Oh it’s lovely, Jessie,’ said Clare warmly. ‘Is that a sapphire in the middle?’
‘Yes. Harry said it was to match my eyes,’ she said flatly. ‘He’s always saying daft things like that.’
‘It’s not daft. You have lovely blue eyes and you look gorgeous in that coat. You really can wear posh clothes,’ Clare said enthusiastically.
To her great surprise, she saw tears wink in the corner of Jessie’s eyes and her lips begin to tremble.
‘Oh Jessie, love, what’s wrong? What is it? Have I said something?’
For one awful moment Clare wondered if Jessie might be pregnant. Something awful must have happened to upset her so. She hadn’t seen her cry like this since the night she’d found her in the barn after her father shot himself.
‘Ach, it’s nothin’ you said. It’s just everythin’,’ she sobbed. ‘I have Harry, an’ we’re engaged an’ everythin’ in the garden’s rosy an’ you’ve lost Robert an’ Andrew is away over in England an’ …’
Jessie voice failed her and she broke down into floods of tears.
‘And what, Jessie?’ Clare repeated. Whatever Jessie wasn’t telling her was going to be very bad news indeed. Suddenly, she felt sick with tension and she couldn’t bear to wait a moment longer.
Jessie struggled with a minute scrap of lace and muttered incoherently.
‘Please, Jessie,’ Clare pleaded. ‘Just tell me. Tell me now.’
But Jessie was so distraught it took some time before she was able to say anything coherent. When finally Clare grasped what Jessie was saying she felt the blood run from her cheeks and her hands go stone cold.
On the way home from Robert’s funeral, Mrs Rowentree had stopped to give a lift to a local girl who’d gone to the same secretarial college in Belfast as Jessie. Maisie Armstrong had got a job in a solicitor’s office in Armagh and had come back to live at home. She’d asked Mrs Rowentree how Jessie was and if she and Clare were sharing a flat in Belfast. Mrs Rowentree said no, they weren’t, and wondered what had put that idea into the girl’s head. When she enquired further Maisie grew so embarrassed and awkward Mrs Rowentree had pressed her to explain. Finally, she’d blurted out she thought Clare must be going to live permanently in Belfast now because on Friday she’d had to type up all the papers for terminating the tenancy.
Clare sat stunned, unable to grasp how something so awful could happen so quickly and just when it was least expected. It had never occurred to her she might lose her home. Despite all the encouraging things Jessie went on to say she knew suddenly and quite clearly that nothing was going to change matters. Jessie was quite right to be upset. For the second time in ten years she knew she was not only bereft, she would be homeless as well. She wept silently while Jessie made tea.
‘Maybe she’s talkin’ through her hat,’ said Jessie, desperately, as she poured for them. ‘I shouldn’t a’ mentioned it till at least we were sure, till we had these damn papers,’ she went on, totally distraught at Clare’s distress. ‘Surely he can’t do that,’ she declared, ‘just put you out when the rent’s paid regular and the Scotts have been here since pussy was a kitten.’
‘I think he can probably do what he likes,’ Clare replied flatly. ‘He doubled the rent the minute he got his hands on old Albert’s land.’
‘Did he?’
Clare nodded wearily.
‘That’s why I got the job at Drumsollen,’ she explained. ‘We couldn’t have paid the new rent if I hadn’t.’
‘You never told me that,’ Jessie said, accusingly.
‘Some secrets are not very exciting. I’ve always told you all my nice secrets?’
‘Clare, is there any whiskey left?’
‘There might be,’ she replied vaguely, nodding at the glass-fronted cupboard.
Jessie put down her teacup, threw open the glass doors and inspected the remnants in the surviving bottles.
Clare sat quite still, looking up at the blackened ceiling. Some part of her had known. Whenever she lost one thing, she lost everything. Well, not quite everything. She had some friends and she had a room of her own. But the thought of never coming home, of there being nowhere to go on a Friday evening, no place beyond where she lived and worked through the week …
‘Here, drink that,’ said Jessie, taking away her teacup.
She handed her a glass of whiskey to which she’d added a generous splash of spring water.
Clare drank obediently and sat silently looking into the fire. She didn’t even notice Jessie refill her glass.
‘Jessie, dear, I know I said I’d come home with you tonight and we’d spend tomorrow together. Please don’t be annoyed with me, but I have to stay here tonight.’
‘Aye. I thought you might. Will I stay with you?’
Clare shook her head.
‘And have your mother worry herself silly?’ she said patiently, as she wiped her damp face.
As time passed and they sat talking together, she began to feel that perhaps things weren’t so bad after all. She was tired and rather thirsty, but the heat of the fire was so comforting and Jessie seemed to be in better spirits now.
‘Don’t worry, it might never happen,’ she said reassuringly, as she got up and went outside for a pee.
An hour later, Jessie left her to cycle back to Tullyyard. Before she went, she insisted Clare get ready for bed and put out the Tilley lamp in the kitchen. She lit a candle for her and made her promise to lock the door and put out the candle the moment she’d gone.
Once outside, Jessie stood in the darkness, listening intently. She heard Clare put the bar on the front door. Then she watched for the tiny wavering light to appear as Clare went into her room and set it down on the washstand by her bed.
‘Whoof,’ went Clare, after she’d drawn back the bedclothes.
The flame flickered and recovered.
‘Whoof,’ she went, as she tried again.
Outside the bedroom window, Jessie watched and waited. First a giggle, then another whoof and finally the creak of ancient bedsprings. Jessie said a silent thank you. As long as she’d managed to blow the candle out and bar the door she’d be all right. She’d sleep. Jessie had no doubt she’d sleep. After four glasses of Bushmills, she’d never known anyone not.
The papers came next morning, a huge fat packet of them. Clare carried the big envelope back into the house with a handful of other letters and cards, her legs shaking, her heart beating faster, as she sat down at the table and tore it open. She scanned the covering letter hastily. It confirmed all her fears. Their client, Mr Hutchinson, wished to convey his sincere condolences to Miss Hamilton on the death of her grandfather, a much-respected member of the community. Further he wished to assure her he had no intention of insisting on her vacating the property at the customary week’s notice. Now that she was resident in Belfast, he appreciated she would need at least two weeks to make the necessary arrangements for handing it over. In consideration of her position, no rent would be charged for this two week period, but her attention was drawn to the inventory enclosed and the necessity of leaving the property in a clean condition, ready for immediate occupation by his farm manager, Mr Hanson and his wife and family. He wished her every success with her future career.
With shaking fingers, she unfolded the sheets of an old, handwritten document enclosed with various typewritten sheets. It was a copy of the original lease. She couldn’t quite focus on the long sentences, but here and there the words jumped up at her. ‘Made this eight day of October, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirty between, (undecipherable), and Robert Thomas Scott, formerly of Drumsollen, one house and forge with (blank) … and three perches of land and rights of commonage as shown.
She burst into tears. One hundred and twenty four years exactly before the day she was born, her great-great grandfather had signed his name on both the lease and on this copy made by the same hand. It was there, perfectly clear to see, at the bottom of the beautifully written document.
‘Ah, Clarey dear, I’m sorry. Is it from the solicitors?’
She looked up and saw Charlie peering round the door.
‘Come and look, Charlie,’ she sniffed, knowing he’d have heard what Maisie had told Mrs Rowentree.
‘The bugger,’ he exclaimed, as he took up the letter and scanned it quickly.
‘There’s nothing I can do, is there, Charlie? He knows I can’t fight back. Even if I could afford a solicitor, he’s probably sure he’s in the right.’
Charlie nodded his head sadly.
‘He’s been clever forby. He’s waived the rent. He’s behaved as if he’s being reasonable. An’ he’s puttin’ in a family,’ he said, his lips tightening.
‘What’s clever about that?’ asked Clare, looking puzzled.
‘Ach, Clare, there’ll be desperate bad feelin’ at what he’s doin’ and he knows it, but he’ll be able to say, “What does a wee lassie want wi’ a house an’ her away in Belfast. Aren’t there families cryin’ out wi’ the shortage?” Oh, the same man has no flies on him, he’s up to every trick in the book. You can be sure he knows his ground.’
‘And there really is nothing I can do?’ she said, sadly.
He shook his head and pressed his lips together tightly.
‘When I heerd about it last night I away in to Armagh and knocked up young Emerson of Munro and Anderson,’ he began. ‘I used to have a lot of business with him when I was on the Council. He said there’s dozens of these old leases still around with a week’s notice either way. Even if they seem way out of date to us, they are still perfectly legal. I’m afraid, Clare, till such time as you’re so well off you can buy out yer man an’ keep the wee place for yer holidays, you’ll have to put up with it.’
To her own surprise, she smiled.
‘I used to dream what I’d do if I had a lot of money,’ she began. ‘I’d have the whole place painted inside and out, a new floor in the sitting room where there’s a bit of dry rot, new windows at the back, the same style and shape, of course, but a bit bigger to give more light …’
She broke off as she saw the desolate look on Charlie’s face.
‘Ach, ye remind me of Kate. She was the one for makin’ things nice, but like you, she loved the old bits and pieces, the brass lamps and the china dogs and the baskets made of glass with that pink twisted edging round them, that ye put yer cake in fer Sunday tea.’
He paused, shuffling the papers of the inventory through his large, worn fingers.
‘Well, they’re together now, Kate and Robert. An’ maybe that’s the way it should’ve been, but Kate said I’d niver be any good by myself. If I hadn’t her to keep me straight I’d have got myself shot or finished up on the end of a rope. That’s what she used to say.’
‘But what on earth did she mean?’
‘Ach, the Scotts an’ the Runnings were a rebelly lot,’ he said, smiling. ‘Sure yer man Thomas there made pikes for the United Irishmen,’ he said, running his finger under Robert Thomas’s name on the lease. ‘An’ his landlord, Sir Arthur Richardson, put a pile o’ money inta the cause, though he kept his name out of it an’ no one split on him when it all failed. Some of us has kept up hope. There’s been men to follow Tone and Emmett. Myself one of them.’
‘But not Granda, surely?’
‘No, not Robert, more’s the pity, for a more reliable man you’d never find. I reasoned long and hard with him, but he said he could never bring himself to kill a man no matter what the cause might be. But he did say he’d never turn his back on a friend in trouble, whatever he’d done, an’ I’d cause enough to be grateful for that.’
Charlie laid out the papers on the table as if he were dealing a hand of cards, his eyes moving restlessly across the lines of text.
‘He an’ Kate took an awful risk when I’d made a couple o’ bad mistakes an’ was informed on. The pair of them saved my life. That’s when I met Kate first an’ fell for her. Aye, an’ she for me, tho’ she fought it hard, for she loved Robert right enough. She said there was different kinds of love and a man wouldn’t understan’. I don’t know. Was she right?’
Clare didn’t know either. She was just so aware Charlie had now lost them both. She wasn’t the only one who was bereft.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘Mine yerself, Dan. Drop yer side
a bit. Watch the jamb.’
The house clearance men took all the good furniture from Robert’s room, the corner cupboard and the best chairs from the sitting room and the mahogany table from the kitchen. They’d risked the odd nail and bit of sharp metal and driven their van right up to the house. Parked outside the kitchen window, it blocked out what light there was on the dim and misty afternoon.
Clare and Jack stood leaning against the table by the window, unable to get on while the bulky furniture was being manoeuvred through the low doorways. The boss man tramped back into the kitchen.
‘That’s it, miss. I’ll be in touch with Mr Scott when we hear from the sale room.’
Clare cast her eyes hurriedly round the kitchen and peered into the sitting room beyond.
‘But what about the rest?’ she asked, anxiously.
It was getting late in the day for them to come back and collect a second load but she couldn’t begin to clear up until all the furniture was gone. She dreaded to think how much would need doing.
‘Ah no, miss. The rest’s not worth our liftin’. It’s only fit for a bonfire,’ he said, shortly. ‘Except maybe that oul’ chair,’ he added, casting a practised eye over Robert’s well-worn wooden armchair.
He strode across the kitchen, tipped the battered cushion onto the floor and turned it over one-handed, shaking it vigorously. The legs were steady as a rock.
‘I’ll take this ’un outa yer way,’ he said, tucking it under his arm.
‘No, thank you,’ said Clare, with a firmness that surprised her. ‘I’m keeping that chair.’
‘Oh aye,’ he said, indifferently, as he put it down. ‘Well then, we’ll be off. Good day t’ ye.’
He turned on his heel without a backward glance and left. They heard the van start. The exhaust smoke poured through the open door as it shunted back and forth, turning itself round in the confined space before the cottage, so as not to have to back all the way down to the road. Uncle Jack put his arm round her.