by Anne Doughty
‘I know it was a dreadful shock for you, love, but just think how hard it was on Charles. You’ve worked together for all this time and never an upset between you. Oh yes, I know you’ve had disagreements, but so have we. What’s important is that there’s never been any bad feeling between you any more than there’s been between us. Perhaps Charles is not as happy about this move as he pretends to be.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Andrew replied. ‘I think he was upset yesterday when he told me. He boomed a bit, like he does in court when he’s on a sticky wicket, but I was in such a bad way myself I wasn’t thinking about him. Mea culpa.’
She held out her hand for his picnic mug and the empty tin. ‘Love, we mustn’t forget June. You told John you’d run her home and I promised we’d not be late.’
‘So did I,’ he said jumping up and pulling out his car keys. ‘Have you home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ he added, as she dropped the empty mugs and tins on the back seat.
‘Make that three, would you. I think I’m feeling a little fragile,’ she said, as she leaned back in her seat and fluttered her eyelids. ‘Rather a lot has happened this morning.’
He laughed and manoeuvred in front of the museum with meticulous care.
With the exception of one phone call just before they’d arrived back, June said she’d had a quiet morning. She said she’d done everything she wanted to do and had left them a casserole for Sunday.
They never asked June to cook for them, though sometimes Clare did add their name to the list of buffet meals being prepared, but June had a mind of her own and if she did make a casserole for them they knew better than to protest.
‘Who called, June?’ Clare asked, after she’d thanked her for Sunday lunch and Andrew had picked up her basket.
‘Yer man Charles,’ she replied, turning towards him, as she took off her apron. ‘Yer Boss at work,’ she went on, waving her hand in the air. ‘He said he’d pop in this afternoon. He has to take his wife to see her mother in Loughgall. I think he’ll be glad of the excuse if the mother’s the woman I’ve heard tell of,’ she added, as she hung her apron on its hook. ‘He chose a good day to come for I’ve baked for the week. There’s three different kinds of cake,’ she announced with satisfaction.
The moment they’d gone, Clare sat down gratefully at the kitchen table. It would take only ten minutes or so for the round trip to Wileys at Ballyards, but it was just what she needed. Charles taking the first opportunity to come after Andrew’s call this morning could only be good news and she needed time to think before he arrived back.
By the time July made a spectacular end with a rainstorm that blew the door off the garden shed and left the tarmac covered with sheets of water, many things had changed.
From the point of view of running Drumsollen as a guest house, the month had been a disaster. They had not even covered their costs. The intermittent wet weather was certainly a cause for the fall in bookings, but it was hard to avoid adding on the effects of the regular outbursts of sectarian violence in Belfast which hit the headlines, day after day, and were extensively covered even by foreign television channels.
Riots and reprisals in what were now known as sensitive areas were sparked off by demonstrations both before the Orange processions on the Twelfth of July and on the day itself. With the same predictability that high humidity leads to torrential rain, all the regular marches brought trouble in their wake. While Ulster people themselves knew how local such violence might be, you could not expect guests, either old or new, to know that Drumsollen was quite untroubled by any such disturbances.
At the end of the month, Clare was forced to move money from Andrew’s account, the one in which they had saved towards their Grand Plan, to prop up the Trading Account. Without that withdrawal, she could not have paid the wages or the normal monthly bills. What made making the withdrawal even harder was the knowledge that his July salary would be the last predictable figure she could count on in this account.
It would take the year ahead to give any clue as to how successful Andrew’s new venture might be. For the moment, she had to admit there were modest grounds for hope. It began when she caught sight of Charles’s elegant new car parking in the front of the house on Saturday afternoon. When the tall, well-rounded figure disappeared into the boot of the car and emerged with a large and splendid bouquet of flowers, she felt sure she was right. Whatever his wife might want, Charles had no intention of losing Andrew’s friendship or the easy relationship he had always enjoyed with them both.
Charles had indeed come bearing gifts. The sum he named for the rent of the house in Hartford Place was as low as it could be without being too obvious. He had planned to have the place decorated before letting it, so he insisted they should instruct the decorators themselves and send him the bills. He had no objections at all to sub-letting the upstairs as a flat and almost apologized for wanting to leave the current furnishings where they were for them to dispose of as fitted their needs.
‘He’s been more than generous, Clare. I’m really a bit ashamed of myself,’ Andrew said, after Charles had suddenly looked at his watch, remembered what time he was to pick up Helen and disappeared with the hastiest of goodbyes.
‘I think perhaps you were so upset yesterday, you didn’t give him a chance to offer any alternatives,’ Clare said tentatively.
‘I as good as walked out and just managed not to slam the door behind me. I shall apologize on Monday when I see him on my own. It was Charles who saved my skin when Edward died and I inherited all the family debts. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have ended up in jail. I just didn’t know where to turn.’
He stopped abruptly, his face suddenly pale and taut as the memories came flooding back.
‘And I had walked out on you too,’ she said bleakly. ‘Yes, I know, we’ve talked about it,’ she added hastily, as she saw him about to protest. ‘In the end it was for the best, I know, but it will always make me sad, thinking of you coping on your own.’
‘I’m not very good at that.’
‘Neither am I, my dear love,’ she replied firmly. ‘You still confuse practical skills with overall coping. I’m good at other people’s problems, I admit, but you’ve seen me lose hold of myself, just the way you do. Remember what happened after Edward died and all our plans fell apart and I thought everyone else came first. I didn’t cope at all, did I?’
‘I suppose you’re right, but I confess I’ve never seen it that way.’
‘And how often do I say the same thing to you?’
‘Well, yes. Sometimes I do have the odd idea.’
‘Very odd,’ she agreed, teasing him. She laughed as she began to clear up the tea things. ‘Aren’t you pleased with your present from Helen?’
‘Helen!’
‘My beloved Andrew, who do you think gave the thumbs down to that lovely old desk of Charles’s and the entire contents of the two offices? My dear, how could you possibly take this old furniture to Linen Hall Street?’ she asked, mimicking Helen’s over-refined accent. ‘What do you think she’ll choose for the new one, Louis Quinze or traditional Harrods’ mahogany?’
‘I hope it works out for Charles,’ Andrew said fervently. ‘He’s very good at the job, but he’s straight. No pulling strings just because a client’s got money or a title. No brown envelopes for Charles. But Helen has no such inhibitions. She’ll have Charles meeting the right people, however wrong they might be for Charles. I think I’d rather be poor and honest myself, but it’s a bit hard on you,’ he ended, putting his arm round her shoulders.
‘I agree with the honest, but we might not have to go on being very poor. We’ve got a bit of time yet,’ she said encouragingly. ‘What’s a brown envelope, Andrew? Is it what I think it is?’
‘Probably,’ he nodded. ‘In the kind of plain English those using them would go a long way to avoid, it’s a bribe. Often reciprocal. You know the phrase: You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’ He paused and went on dryly, ‘
I suppose brown envelopes are less conspicuous than white. You can slip them into the hand on Lodge night, or at a Council Meeting. It’s more generally known as greasing the palm.’
‘That is certainly not Charles,’ she said, standing up with the loaded tray. ‘Any more than it ever would be you.’
August was very quiet in Andrew’s new practice, just as they both expected. They’d promised they wouldn’t be upset if there were no cheques to bank at the end of the month, provided the decorators had been supervised properly and the new flat was furnished and equipped. Even if they were not doing the decorating themselves there was a great deal else be done. Moving Andrew’s files and papers to Charles’s room and reorganizing Thelma’s meant a lot of legwork up and down stairs, most of which Andrew did, but furnishing the new flat meant acquiring carpets, furniture and basic equipment. That was Clare’s department.
She began by going through all the cupboards and drawers at Drumsollen to see what duplicates they might have that could be spared. Then she deployed the skills she’d acquired in locating and bargaining for items when they’d first set up the guest house. Charles had left Andrew a pile of non-urgent briefs to finish, but he declared that getting the place going properly before the Law Term began was much more important than being tidy-minded over briefs. He set them aside and turned his attention instead to fitting cupboards and curtain rails.
The Wileys were on holiday, so they had to take it in turns to work in Russell Street because they couldn’t leave Drumsollen unattended, even when there were no guests in residence. When the Wileys returned, however, and gave them back their Friday night off, they spent it at the flat. Sitting having a tea break in the tiny, freshly-painted kitchen, having vacuumed the new carpets or polished the old bookcases, they admitted to each other that the thought of having a home of their own, however small, a place they didn’t have to share with anyone else, was suddenly very appealing. It reminded them of how happy they’d been living together for the first time in Harry and Jessie’s flat over the Gallery.
By the end of August, the flat was ready. There was a real twinge of sadness as they walked round for the last time, everything fresh and bright, before the advertisement went into both the Armagh Gazette and Guardian. They were inundated by replies. It seemed that Armagh was still so short of housing that young couples were forced to live with in-laws. Anne and Adrian, one of several young Catholic couples who contacted them, both teachers at local primary schools, had been engaged for two years. As they put it so honestly when they viewed the flat one Friday evening, having to live with either family would probably have split them up.
There were indeed no cheques to bank at the end of August, but the rent of the flat, paid monthly in advance, did cover Thelma’s salary and, to their great delight, Anne and Adrian asked them to come to their wedding party. ‘The one with our friends, as opposed to the reception after our marriage,’ as Anne explained emphatically.
‘Ach sure I’ve missed you these last weeks, Clare,’ Charlie Running said when she arrived on his doorstep on the first Wednesday in September. ‘I know you’ve been desperate busy, and I suppose you couldn’t leave wee Bronagh to mind the shop, as the saying is, when June was on her holidays. I hear you’ve got Andrew all organized and the wee flat let.’
Clare followed Charlie into his front room and sat down in the space he’d made ready for her. She’d missed Charlie too. It was one thing writing letters to Robert and Louise and Marie-Claude in France, and phoning Jessie and Uncle Jack, and Mary and John in Norfolk, and a few other friends from schooldays, but Charlie was something quite different. He was not only a mine of information and a wise counsellor but also her only remaining link with Grandfather Scott and her life at the forge house.
‘Now, Charlie, I did send you a wee note about Andrew’s move, but how did you find out about the flat? It was only let last Friday,’ she said, laughing.
‘Ach well, I got regular bulletins about the whole process, the decorating and the way the two of you rearranged the place and made it look so homely. My nephew Ronnie was one of the decorators,’ he admitted, grinning. ‘He fancied the place himself, but decided it was a bit too near the Police Barracks. He has a wee habit of drinking one too many and jobs aren’t that easy to find these days, are they?’
‘I thought the O’Neill government had been doing quite well on job creation,’ she said, surprised. ‘I keep reading about new factories.’
‘Oh yes, Clare, so you would,’ he acknowledged. ‘There’s some good developments, sure enough, specially these synthetic fibres, Enkalon and what have you, but nobody is writing articles about the losses in the old textile industries, cotton and linen and hemstitching and suchlike. If you actually do the sums, as some of us are inclined to do, there’s no net gain. Even more to the point the jobs aren’t evenly spread through the Province. When have you read anything about new factories west of the Bann?’
Clare couldn’t think of anything, but she assumed that was her fault. Sometimes there just weren’t enough hours in the day to get as far as reading the newspapers. They’d given their fourteen inch television to the Wileys when they found they never had time to watch it. She might well have missed a report of something major.
‘Absolutely nothing, Clare,’ he said flatly, before she had time to reply. ‘All the new development is east of the Bann. Antrim, Down and Armagh. A very one-sided picture you might say. However, I will not ride off on my hobby-horse or even mention the word discrimination until I’ve heard all your news,’ he said, collecting himself. ‘Now what about you and Andrew and the Grand Plan. Is this setting up on his own in Russell Street part of it? And what sort of a summer did you have at Drumsollen? Did the riots affect you, never mind the weather?’ he prompted, settling himself comfortably in his battered armchair.
‘Well, I can’t say it was a good summer for Drumsollen,’ she began honestly, ‘but I can’t judge whether it’s a trend or what the business analysts call “a local blip”. Bookings were well down, especially in July, and some regulars wrote and told me they were going to Spain or Italy.’
‘Aye, I think that’s the coming thing,’ he said, nodding sharply. ‘I’ve a wee niece works in a travel agents in Belfast. She says they were powerful busy with people wanting to get away for The Twelfth. I’m beginning to think there’s people here wanting to see a bit of the world. We’ve been very turned in on ourselves here in Ulster, and then there’s the small problem of those who would have us back in the Dark Ages if they could get away with it. Wee Jeannie told me that the guy from the Tourist Board who comes in to see them and check out their figures said some hotels and guest houses were closing for The Twelfth fortnight, for it wasn’t worth their while staying open.’
‘It certainly wasn’t worth our while,’ she admitted. ‘But you can’t know till afterwards, can you? Sometimes I wonder whether choosing what to do by sticking a pin in a list might equal all the thought, talk and discussion Andrew and I put in.’
‘That’s the sad thing about life,’ Charlie agreed. ‘You can’t gain experience if you don’t risk making mistakes, but if you make too many mistakes then you’ve not the wherewithal to capitalize on the experience you’ve gained. But don’t forget you and Andrew have a gift many business people don’t have.’
‘What’s that, Charlie?’
‘You have hopes and dreams to be sure, but just as important, you have no illusions,’ he said quietly. ‘If something doesn’t work out neither of you will go pretending that it is working out, nor that it only wants more money putting in to make it work, or more demand, or an upturn in the economy. I worked for years with companies who were within a week’s wages from trading while insolvent, but would they listen? You only need one man or one woman in a position of power to put a company at risk. They cling on to what they want to see happening as if that would make it happen. You wouldn’t do that, now would you?’
‘No, Charlie, we wouldn’t. We know what we’d like to happen,
but it’s touch and go at the moment. Andrew going it alone was making the best of a bad situation. It’s only because Charles has moved to Belfast. We’ve no idea how he’ll do on his own. He’s as dependent on customers as Drumsollen is.’
‘Has he bought any land yet?’
‘No, not yet. He says there’s no point having land till he can stock it and engage the help he needs. It would only be sitting idle. Better to let the money earn what interest it can.’
‘Aye, I see his point. Though I suppose if you had extra money available to invest, buying up the bits of land would be a good way of starting. Have you them mapped out?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said smiling. ‘All the fields he knew as a little boy, before the war came and the Richardson’s money ran out and they had to sell off to the local farmers.’
‘And he’ll be hoping to buy it back, will he?’ he asked, nodding to himself as he lit a cigarette.
The way he blew out smoke and avoided her eye told her that something was wrong. Charlie, normally the most open and direct of men, was hiding something and he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
‘What are you not telling me, Charlie?’
He blew a smoke ring up to the tobacco-stained ceiling and sighed.
‘You know that field that runs alongside your drive from the house down to the Loughgall Road?’
‘Yes, of course. That’s one of the fields used to belong to the house.’
‘It was sold by Private Treaty last month to a man from Portadown. Do you know how much he gave for it?’
He named the figure and she gasped.
‘But it’s only fit for grazing, Charlie. Andrew says it’s never been improved. It’s certainly not best arable.’
‘But it has frontage on the main road, Clare, like most of the Drumsollen land. And isn’t there a shortage of houses around these parts? It doesn’t matter to yer man if it’s grazing or arable. Yer man’s a builder.’