Beyond the Green Hills

by Anne Doughty

  Thus reassured, Clare sat back and enjoyed the gentle April morning. While she’d been so totally preoccupied with Jessie, spring had finally reached Ulster. The warmth of the last few days had sprayed the hedgerows with green, the chestnuts were fully dressed and even the oaks, always the slowest to wake from winter, were showing tender leaves on lightly-clothed branches in the pale morning sun.

  Clare felt her spirits rise. It was such joy to be in her own beloved countryside again, driving along familiar roads, looking forward to seeing such a dear old friend as June Wiley. When Harry said he’d drop her at Drumsollen, come back to collect her and the pictures when he’d done his other calls, she was happy to agree. She wouldn’t let him drive her up to the house, but insisted he drop her off by the gates.

  She stood and waved to him as he drove off into Armagh, crossed the empty road and looked down into the stream, the tiny trickle of water in its deep ravine, where she and Jessie once talked secrets. The willows and alders had grown up too much to see their old sitting place, but the steep slope down to the water’s edge was unchanged. The bustling flow of the brown water was as it had always been.

  ‘When we’re old we’ll have a whole team of fellas to lower us down on ropes,’ Jessie had once said.

  Clare sat on the low wall of the bridge, thinking of her, watching the sunlight filter through the new leaves and reflect back from the rippling water. They may have been country children, but their life was not the idyll celebrated in glowing reminiscences. Growing up hadn’t been easy either. Their paths appeared so totally different, yet in the end, they’d both had to face despair and anxiety and learn to accept that none of us manage very well on our own. As Robert Lafarge had once admitted, if we try, we become distant, withdrawn and closed in upon ourselves.

  She sat for a little longer, grateful to be alone, the sun warm on her face, her mind moving between past and present. She let it go where it wished, recalling memories, thoughts, images. The lane to the forge on a summer morning, beaded with dew, the russet of vine leaves on a hillside in France. The sound of cow bells in an alpine meadow. Feeling suddenly such a quiet sense of well being, she stood up and walked across the road to the gates of Drumsollen, standing open and lit up by the bright morning sun.

  25

  Having always cycled or been driven along the sweeping curve that led to Drumsollen, the walk was further than she thought. But the morning was so still, the sunlight so beautiful, that when at last she reached the wide sweep of gravel before the front door, she was reluctant to go inside. She stood looking around her for a long time. She sensed something different about the house. It seemed less forbidding, more welcoming.

  Without pausing to consider, she walked round the back of the house and stepped cautiously down the steep stone steps that led into the basement rooms. She opened the door, caught the smell of fresh paint, saw light reflecting from newly whitened walls. As her high heels echoed on the wooden floor, a door swung open and June Wiley came to meet her, arms outstretched.

  ‘Ach dear, it’s great to see you,’ June said, hugging her tightly. ‘I was listening for Mr Burrow’s car an’ then I heard this wee noise at the back, an’ I thinks to myself, “sure no one else woud’ come to the back but Clarey.” Come an’ sit down, I have the kettle on the boil.’

  They sat at the scrubbed wooden table and talked as they’d so often done before. Clare thought of all the hours they had worked together, the hundreds of cakes June had baked, the sandwiches she herself had made, the two funeral gatherings they’d shared and would never forget.

  ‘Was it a big do for the Missus, June?’

  ‘Ach, no. It was kinda sad really. I think a lot o’ them older ones must’ve died themselves in the last year or two before The Missus went. Mrs Richardson and the husband came – Mrs Moore she is now, I should say – but Virginia wasn’t home. To be honest, there was only a handful. There’s really no one left now but Andrew,’ she said, looking away quickly.

  ‘Harry says he’s well,’ said Clare easily, to reassure her. ‘I’m going to get in touch with him next week. I’ve promised Jessie we’ll meet up and see if we can be friends. She wants us to be godparents to the new baby. We let her down on the first one,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  ‘It was an awful shock,’ June admitted, shaking her head. ‘D’ye think it was the right thing? I suppose I shouldn’t ask ye that.’

  ‘Ask away, June. Haven’t you known us both since we were children? But I’m not sure I can answer you. I think it had to be, but it was a pity it happened as it did.’

  ‘Ye were that fond of each other, it was plain to see. Sure, when ye’s come here to arrange for Uncle Edward’s funeral, he coud hardly bear to let ye out of his sight. He couden a done it at all, if ye haden been there at his back.’

  Clare nodded, but said nothing. She’d often thought about Andrew’s vulnerability, his difficulty with thinking problems out and making up his mind when things were complicated. ‘You think about everything, all the time,’ he had once said to her. ‘Sometimes I don’t, when I should.’

  ‘When did the kitchen get painted, June? Ginny thought the house was being sold.’

  ‘Oh yes, it’ll have to go all right, but Andrew’s been working on it at weekends for a long time now. Since he got the job in Armagh. If he didn’t have things to see to at Caledon, he’d be here, working away. Did ye see the front steps and the porch? Dangerous with all that green on them, he said, so he got stuff and cleaned it. Made a great job of it. Sometimes John gives him a hand, though of course he works for Robinson’s now.’

  Clare was just about to enquire about John and the three Wiley girls when they heard tyres crunch on the gravel. June looked up, saw it was only just after twelve.

  ‘That’s never Mr Burrows back so soon,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘An’ I haven’t even started to make a bite of lunch yet.’

  They heard the front door open and shut with its usual heavy thud and felt the old ceilings of the kitchen vibrate slightly as footsteps strode across the hall and into the big drawing room.

  ‘Ach, it’s him all right. He’s away in to look at the pictures. Woud ye go an’ tell him I was gossipin’ so much I haven’t even a sandwich ready yet. Away an’ give him a hand to pack them,’ she said, as she took a sliced loaf from the bin and opened the door of the fridge.

  Clare went upstairs and paused for a moment in the big hall. There were pale spaces on the wall left by the pictures that had already gone, but the chandelier she’d always loved still hung in its usual place, sparkling in the sunlight which filtered through the fanlight over the door and tinkling slightly from the passage of air as the door opened and closed.

  She heard the sound of movement from the drawing room and went towards the open door. A figure stood with his back to her, looking up at a portrait hung over the fireplace. As she stepped into the room, he turned and spoke her name, his voice tight with surprise.

  ‘Hello, Andrew,’ she managed to reply, coolly and steadily, amazed at how easily the words came out after all. ‘I was planning to give you a ring next week. Harry thought you were in court today, so I came to see June.’

  She watched as his look of pure amazement turned to recognition, then to uneasy pleasure.

  ‘Are you home on holiday?’

  ‘No. I was planning a holiday in the summer, but Jessie’s been very poorly. Harry asked me to come,’ she explained. ‘She’s much better now.’

  She walked across to an armchair by the fireplace and sat down. The last time she’d sat in this room, she had been perched on that terribly low chair beside The Missus, holding court at Uncle Edward’s funeral.

  Andrew leaned against the mantelpiece. For a moment, they regarded each other silently. Andrew smiled a slight half smile.

  ‘To meet here, of all places,’ he said, shaking his head.

  ‘Where better?’ she replied quietly. ‘Though I certainly didn’t plan it,’ she added more vigorously. ‘Harry said you were
never here during the week.’

  ‘Harry’s quite right,’ he said, grinning. ‘I should’ve been in Belfast today, but the plaintiff decided to settle out of court. I only heard when I went in to pick up the post. Then I got a message at five to twelve to be here at twelve for Mr Burrows,’ he said, opening his hands in a gesture that reminded her of the Gallic shrug he could mimic so beautifully.

  ‘I can think of one prime suspect,’ she said, as he came and sat down in the chair opposite, the only other armchair in the large, sunlit room that was not draped in dust covers.

  She looked at him, taking in the familiar features, his way of stretching out in a chair, of putting his hand round to the back of his neck, of leaning his shoulders against the worn leather. She felt waves of relief flow over her. If it was Jessie who’d brought them together, perhaps she’d got it right after all. Here at Drumsollen, the place that had shaped so much of Andrew’s life and so much of their relationship, they had to resolve what had begun at its very gates, in one way or another.

  ‘How’s life treating you, Andrew? Is the job going any better?’ she asked, meeting his gaze.

  The face seemed a little thinner, but the blue eyes had lost none of their candour. His hair was the same thick, wavy and undisciplined mass.

  ‘It goes. It’s not what I want, but it pays the rent and sometimes I can help someone who’s had a raw deal,’ he replied. ‘I don’t expect too much so I’m not disappointed.’

  ‘And the farming?’

  ‘Fairly unlikely at the moment. Perhaps one day. It’s not a fantasy, but making it a reality is probably more than I can manage. I’m not good with money, though I seem to be more practical than I thought I was,’ he said, matter-of-factly.

  ‘You’ve certainly done a wonderful job on the kitchen,’ she agreed.

  After the first easy words between them, she was now aware of a growing tension. She had not the slightest idea how she might resolve it.

  ‘And you, Clare? I hear great things from Ginny. I knew you’d be successful whatever you did. Are you having a wonderful time?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ she said, surprised herself at the flatness of her tone. ‘I think I sometimes get homesick,’ she said honestly, ‘though I’m not entirely sure what that means.’

  ‘Longing,’ he said, promptly. ‘Nameless longing. At least that’s how I see it now. I’ve come to realise I’ve been homesick for Drumsollen most of my life. Now it’s mine, for however brief a time, I still feel the longing,’ he admitted wryly. ‘At least I know Drumsollen stands for a part of what I want. And knowing makes it easier to bear. It came as a surprise to me,’ he said, looking at her very directly. ‘Knowing what you want when you can’t have it is easier to bear than just not knowing what you want. At least it stops you reaching out for things you think might help, but won’t. Like Canada.’

  ‘Why was Canada wrong for you, Andrew?’

  ‘Because I hoped I’d be able to escape all my confusions and make up my mind about things. But when Uncle Edward died and everything was such an enormous effort for me, I was afraid I’d never be able to make the right decisions. I thought I’d only let you down. That’s why I let you go,’ he said, sadly. ‘Was I right?’

  ‘You were right to let me go,’ she said, smiling bleakly, ‘but not because you couldn’t make decisions. If two people work together, decisions can always be made,’ she said softly. ‘But I had things I needed to find out about me and I didn’t know that till I went. You’d been around, seen things, done things. I hadn’t. I’d felt so limited, so enclosed. I thought I could do it the easy way too: go off to Canada with you and have all the new experiences I needed with the comfort of having you around at the same time. But it wasn’t that simple. I found out I had to do it on my own. Perhaps you had to, as well?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘I thought if I worked hard, it would all come right, but it’s not like that. No amount of work will solve a problem if you’ve got the wrong problem,’ he said wryly. ‘There was more out against us than we could have guessed.’

  He paused, looked around the room as if it would help him to know what to say next.

  ‘But better things ahead, yes?’ he went on, his tone and manner giving away the fact that he was making a tremendous effort to be positive.

  So there is someone, Clare thought, as she saw him move uneasily in the large, straight-backed wing chair the Missus had always claimed as her own. She felt suddenly overcome with sadness. In the short time they’d sat together, it was perfectly clear they could be very good friends. Whatever bitterness he’d felt at their parting had quite gone. He’d made the best of a sorry situation. Like herself, he’d worked his way through to a better understanding of what had happened between them. Jessie would have her wish. They would be friends. But no more than friends.

  ‘When are you getting married, Clare?’

  ‘Married?’ she repeated, utterly amazed ‘Me? Who told you I was getting married?’

  ‘Well, Ginny did say there was someone in London waiting to take you out to dinner in some frightfully posh place,’ he confessed uneasily. ‘She said he sent in a note to tell you when the car would collect you.’

  Clare laughed and breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘That was my boss, Andrew. I’m his interpreter. Mostly, I never leave his side, but he’d given me the afternoon off to spend with Ginny. We had a big business dinner in the evening.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She had never before heard a single syllable in any language convey such a wealth of meaning.

  ‘So you’re not engaged to anyone?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  The last few minutes had told her everything she needed to know about her own feelings, but this time there must be no misunderstandings.

  ‘What about you, Andrew?’

  ‘Me? Marrying someone, you mean?’

  ‘Don’t sound so outraged,’ she said, unable to stop herself laughing. ‘If I might have been about to marry someone, why shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. For one strange and disturbing moment, like a reminder of all the sad and lonely times she’d had since first she’d read Ginny’s letter and thought of Andrew ‘sad and hurt’, she wondered if she really did want the answer she knew he was going to make.

  ‘Yes, Andrew,’ she said firmly, ‘I do want to know.’

  ‘I’ve never loved anyone but you, Clare. I’ve not much to offer, but I’d do my best not to make a mess of things, if you’d try to keep me straight. If that’s any good to you, then I’m your man.’

  Sunlight spilled into the small bedroom at the top of the house as it moved westwards across the weathered stone façade of Drumsollen. It made bright patches on the worn carpet, illuminated the titles on a pile of boys’ annuals stacked on the floor, and spilled over a battered armchair draped with discarded underwear and two business suits, one moss green, one grey. Beneath a shiny pink eiderdown, one of two sleeping figures stirred.

  ‘Clare, are you awake?’

  ‘No, I’m fast asleep. I’m having a lovely dream.’

  He leaned over and kissed her. When she still didn’t open her eyes, he protested. ‘You’re supposed to wake up when your Prince fights his way through the briar hedge and kisses you.’

  She giggled and opened her eyes.

  ‘Have you fought your way through briar hedges, then?’

  ‘Yes, I think you could say I have. Very dense they were, too. I thought you might like to see what I’d been up to on the property of which you are presently mistress, if only for a little while.’

  She rolled over and propped herself on one elbow.

  ‘Andrew, why do you want to sell Drumsollen?’

  He laughed shortly.

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d prefer a nice three-bed semi.’

  She looked at him severely, then relented and kissed him.

  ‘Come on, tell me proper
ly. I tried to find out from Ginny, but she’s not exactly the most accurate informant, especially not when she’s in love.’

  He smiled and stroked her shoulder.

  ‘I don’t have much choice, Clare. In fact, when I tell you how bad things are, you may not want to accept my offer for your hand,’ he said, trying to be light. ‘Until The Lodge is sold, I’m up to my ears in debt. Unless I can hang on long enough and get the necessary work done, it’s not going to fetch enough to clear the mortgages on top of the death duties. My partner in Armagh has been a real friend. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have let it go for what I could get and landed myself in real trouble. I just can’t keep up the work on The Lodge and cope with this place as well.’

  ‘Is there a mortgage on Drumsollen?’

  ‘No, I tried to raise one for Ginny, but they wouldn’t have it, given my erratic income. It was Ginny who lent Teddy the money for the roof here when it had to be done, so she’d no money of her own when she most needed it,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Apart from the said roof, there are other bits of Drumsollen ready to fall down and I’ve got nothing to prop them up with, except a pile of bills for The Lodge.’

  ‘Sounds like you need some short-term capital input and a longer term loan,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Shouldn’t be difficult, given the available collateral and the general economic upswing.’

  He looked at her blankly, not sure he knew what she was talking about.

  ‘But, Clare, no bank here would touch me with a barge pole,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m certain of that. I’ve tried.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of you,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of me. And it would be a French bank, probably the one where I have my investments.’

  ‘Investments? Clare, you’re joking. You have to be joking.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Andrew laughed, and then looked at her seriously.

  ‘No, my love, I can see that you’re not. And it doesn’t really surprise me. Do you remember Jessie once telling you that if you ever worked for a bank you’d make their fortune?’