by Anne Doughty
There was no doubt Brendan was a talker, but if he was, everything he said was interesting, whether he was commenting sharply on the political situation in the North or in the South and the tensions between their respective populations, or simply recalling stories from family history. Emily could see from his detailed accounts that he missed nothing in his observation of people. She also felt she’d learnt a great deal more from him about what they called The Emergency in the South than she’d gained from her perusal of all the newspapers she could lay hands on here in the North.
Now the house was silent again, as it was so often these days. Alex had taken Brendan to the garage on his own way to work, Johnny had come in, eaten his breakfast and gone to bed, exhausted from his night’s work, fire-watching at a local factory. Apart from the tick of the kitchen clock, the only sound she could hear was the song of a blackbird, perched on the roof of the workshop across the yard where he sang every morning regardless of weather or the affairs of men.
A pleasant-faced woman, now almost fifty, her dark curly hair already streaked with grey, Emily had worked hard all her life. Physically strong and always active, she had kept her figure and still dressed as well as she could. There was enough to depress everybody these days without her going round looking colourless and unkempt.
She had, ‘hands for anything’ as the Ulster saying has it. She was never without an item of knitting, for Alex, or Johnny, or her Red Cross collection. There was usually sewing as well, a dress or a blouse for one of the girls, the pinned pattern, or the work in progress, laid out in pieces on the bed in one of the now silent bedrooms.
But beyond her family, her beloved garden and her considerable domestic skills, Emily’s great passion was reading. Though Alex scolded her for not sitting down until her back actually ached, she did spend time every day with her library book. No print of any kind that entered the house escaped her eye, be it newspaper, magazine or church newsletter. In the days when her four children were at Banbridge Academy Emily would be been found reading not only the set books for English Literature but all their text books as well.
Given this passion, it was hardly surprising that a friendship should have developed between Emily and Brendan Doherty. It had begun on the lovely summer Sunday of Rose Hamilton’s eightieth birthday party. Arriving early and walking round the garden of James Hamilton’s house in Belfast, while Alex gave a hand with some extra seating, she’d found Brendan sitting in a quiet corner reading while waiting for the other guests to arrive. They had talked about books and bookselling, taken to each other immediately and made a point of finding each other again after lunch to sit in a corner of the huge marquee erected over the back garden and continue their conversation.
She had met Brendan briefly on previous occasions when he’d visited his Aunt Rose at Rathdrum, but she’d never talked to him at any length and certainly not about books. To tell the truth, she’d been rather shy of him. Not only was he rather handsome, but she knew quite a bit about his history from Rose. She wasn’t sure what you could say to a young man who’d been a rebel, had fought against the British Army and spent years in English jails mixing with other rebels even better known than himself.
Rose had always been fond of the young man, the youngest son of her eldest sister Mary, who’d found a job with the Stewart family of Ards when the McGinley family had been evicted from their home in Donegal back in the 1860s. She’d married a local man and raised a large family on the outskirts of Creeslough where he had a flourishing drapery business, while her little sister Rose had been taken to Kerry with baby Sam when their father died and her mother found work there as a housekeeper with the Molyneux’s of Currane Lodge.
Emily still missed Rose. For the years of Emily’s girlhood, Mrs Hamilton, as she then called her, had been their neighbour and her friend. She’d seen her nearly every day, taking up eggs or milk, or making tea when she came down to visit the Jacksons at the bottom of the hill. Rose had always been good to her, lent her books and knitting patterns and was always willing to listen to her troubles. When she and Alex married, it was Rose who suggested they should move into her house at Ballydown now that she and John were going to live at Rathdrum.
No mother could have been kinder than Rose when she was first expecting and full of anxiety, nor when the babies were growing up and she worried continually as to whether she was doing the right thing by them. Rose had been with her when all the girls were born. She could hardly bear to think of the day Rose had not been there, the day young Johnny finally appeared after the longest and hardest labour she had ever had. That was the day Rose’s beloved John had died, only a few hours after Alex had gone up the hill to tell him the longed-for boy had arrived at Ballydown and that his name would be John.
Emily wiped away her tears with a soapy hand and told herself not to be silly. It was all a very long time ago. Eighteen years ago, come August. She could not possibly forget the day, or the date, or the year, not only because it was her son’s birthday, but because this year in August he’d be eighteen, old enough to do what he so wanted to do and join the Air Force, like his sister Elizabeth. Then she would be like mothers everywhere, living with the fear of his loss as every day went by.
As if to escape from her anxious thoughts, she pounded the dungarees more vigorously, drained off the dirty water and began rinsing them. When she splashed herself thoroughly with the ice cold water from the tank on the roof, she knew she just wasn’t paying proper attention to the task in hand, so she collected herself, dumped the wet, brown mass into a bucket and tramped out to the already laden clothesline.
She wondered why it was she was never as anxious about the girls as she was about Johnny. It was not that she loved them any the less, but they always seemed better able to take care of themselves than their brother. There was a casualness about him, an indifference to circumstances quite different from either of the two older girls, who had always been much more practical. More like herself perhaps. At present, however, the main reason she didn’t worry about them was that all three of them were fairly well out of harm’s way, for the moment at least.
Catherine, the eldest, had trained as a teacher, gone on a course in Manchester to learn more about children with writing difficulties and had met a young research chemist at a dance. She’d returned home, gone on teaching at a local primary school and they’d written to each other, enough pages to fill a book, in the following year. Being quite sure by then that war was coming, they’d decided to marry regardless.
Brian Heald had expected to be called up, but to his surprise when he applied himself, he was told he was to be reserved because of his qualifications as a chemist. He’d been sent to a laboratory recently relocated in the countryside south of Manchester. Catherine had found a job in a village school and a half-derelict farm cottage for them to live in.
Elizabeth was nearly two years younger than Catherine and probably even brighter. But Lizzie, as almost everyone called her, had no wish to train as nurse or teacher, the only two options her teachers appeared able and willing to approve. She wanted to travel, to see faraway places and meet new people. The recruiting poster for the WRAF could have been designed especially for her, even down to the blue eyes that looked so well with the uniform. She made up her mind to join. She’d applied, was accepted, and then tried to get a job with the Meteorological Service in Bedfordshire. With very good school results, particularly in geography, she might well have got what she wanted had it not been for a sudden prior need in Belfast.
To Emily’s enormous relief, after a period of concentrated training, she was posted as a plotter to the Senate Chamber at Stormont, an impressive marble clad chamber which had been handed over to the War Ministry for use as an operational centre for the duration.
Not only was the formerly large and conspicuous Stormont building well camouflaged, but as more than one person had put it, there was no need for Hitler to bomb it, for no one would ever notice the difference.
It was a bitt
er comment on an unpopular and inactive government, but it cheered Emily to know that her daughter’s work kept her well away from any of the obvious enemy targets and that the girls’ billets were right out on the edge of the city. There was also the wonderful bonus that occasionally, without any warning, Lizzie herself would appear at the back door, yawning from lack of sleep, grinning from ear to ear and saying, ‘Hello, Ma, I’m home. Thirty-six hours. Can you stand it?’
Which left Jane.
Emily had never understood why Alex had wanted to call their third daughter, Jane. With both the other babies he’d discussed names with her and they had no difficulty coming to a decision together. Catherine was named for Emily’s own, long-dead mother, Elizabeth for the aunt who had given her a home when her mother died. Any boy they ever had was going to be called John. But Emily could see neither rhyme nor reason behind Alex’s wanting to call their third girl, Jane.
‘They’ll call her Plain Jane at school, Alex,’ she had argued, when it was time to make the final decision.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Jane it has to be. Besides that child will never be plain in any way.’
She had to admit he’d most likely be proved right, for little Jane had been a particularly lovely baby, full of smiles and blessed with great blue eyes that captivated everyone who saw her. Apart from being the prettiest of his daughters, Jane was the sweetest in nature. Soft-hearted to a fault, generous of spirit and possessed of a formidable patience, she seemed to sail through life oblivious to its dark side, protected by an unfailing sense of hope and possibility.
If ever Alex was downcast, overburdened by the job, or the endless labour problems that had dogged the industry between the wars, then it was Jane who was able to cheer him. It had taken Emily a long time to realize that having a son had been Alex’s passionate desire, but it was his youngest daughter who understood him in a way that Johnny never would or could.
It was no surprise to anyone when Jane announced she wanted to be a nurse. She’d been looking after other children since she was old enough to go to school. She’d learnt to apply sticking plaster effectively long before her elder sisters. Nor was it simply cut fingers and grazed knees that Jane would wash and dress. Whatever hurt or damaged creature she laid eyes on, found in the garden or by the roadside, she couldn’t rest till it had been cared for. Emily remembered well the times when she was afraid to move in her own kitchen, so cluttered was it with cardboard boxes holding small creatures parked in different places.
The Royal Victoria Hospital might not have been as safe as the Senate Chamber up at Stormont, but it was a hospital, and in the early days of the war it still seemed to Emily that it would not be bombed. At least the authorities had made provision for the protection of its staff when off duty.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, the April sun emerged from behind a cloud, throwing shadows on the grass path. It’s sudden warmth caressed Emily across the shoulders which ached as always after the morning’s washing. She stood for a few moments enjoying the comfort it brought.
‘I’ll just take another five minutes outside,’ she said aloud, as she moved away from the vegetable garden where her clothesline was now full, the dungarees dripping vigorously.
She moved back towards the house and turned into the flower garden. Drifts of daffodils and crocuses splashed colour against a background of shrubs and trees and enlivened the still-bare earth of flowerbeds where perennials were just beginning to throw out rosettes of new growth.
She walked quickly to the end of the path to the one remaining space between the sheltering trees from where she could see the mountains. This had once been Rose’s favourite place, the place Emily was sure to find her if she came to see her and found the kitchen empty.
As great spotlights of sunshine fell on the high, sombre peaks and spilt downwards to light up the patchwork of small fields and the occasional white-painted cottage on the lower slopes below, she saw why Rose loved this prospect so much, but for herself, the familiar prospect brought a kind of sadness. What Emily longed for was the sea. The Mountains of Mourne did indeed sweep down to the sea, as the song had it, but that vast, blue expanse which brought her both joy and longing, filled as it was with memories of childhood in one Coastguard Station after another, was beyond the mountains, completely hidden from this perspective.
She stood for much longer than five minutes, her eye travelling over the fields nearer at hand, following the traffic passing on the main road some distance away, her mind moving back and forth from the sights and sounds of childhood, the roar of the Atlantic from Malin Head to Galway Bay, the dark green water flecked with white when the light returned after a storm to the pleasure of the evening just gone. She thought again of the firelight and the conversation, the upsurge of joy and relief after Alex’s phone call, the good news that had spared the people of Belfast from one more night of death and devastation.
After the call they’d spoken of so many things, moving from one topic to another so easily and so happily she simply couldn’t remember how they’d come to talk about orphans in general and Alex in particular. She’d been surprised at how open Alex had been, she’d even heard him say the odd thing she’d not heard him put into words before.
However great a talker Brendan was, he was also a good listener. His questions, though gently put, were very acute.
‘Would it make a difference to you if you knew who your father was?’
‘Yes, I think it would, though I don’t know why.’
‘And what if you weren’t a Hamilton at all? Would you cut them all off and turn your back on them?’
‘No,’ said Alex, laughing. ‘Even if they are not my family, they have become my family,’ he said confidently.
‘Tell me, Alex, were you beaten?’
‘Oh yes. Regularly,’ he replied. ‘It was standard procedure if you didn’t understand what you were told to do.’
Brendan swore and shook his head.
‘Is it curiosity, Alex?’
‘No, Brendan, it isn’t. I almost wish it was and then I could tell myself not to be silly and forget all about it. It’s something else, but I don’t know what.’
‘Have you done anything yourself about finding out?’ Brendan asked finally as the fire burnt low and they all knew it was time to go to bed.
‘I didn’t think there was anything one could do after all these years,’ said Alex honestly. ‘I started work in 1898 and I know the rule was that children had to be at least nine years old before they did, but I had no birth certificate, so we can’t even be sure of when I was born. And the first orphanage I went to sent me somewhere else. I can’t remember the name of the place, except it must have been Canada and not the U.S., because they spoke French.’
‘And you didn’t?’
‘No, not a word.’
Brendan shook his head.
‘So you were sent to work in a place where you didn’t even know the language. It’s a hard world my masters …’
He broke off and ran his fingers through his thick black hair and Emily noticed that, it was now well seeded with grey like her own.
‘Did you have to pray to the Virgin, Alex?’
‘No …’
‘But you did have to pray?’
‘Oh yes, morning and night.’
‘Well, that’s a start. It must have been Prod and not Catholic,’ he said cheerfully. ‘And if you came out from England, then the agency is more likely to be Anglican than Presbyterian. Some of these Children’s Societies keep meticulous records. I’ve come across stuff of that sort sometimes when I’ve cleared a whole library and there are boxes of papers included. Amazing things you find in box files. Old parchment deeds. Copies of wills. Just occasionally, a pamphlet will turn up that would keep me in food for a month,’ he said, raising his bushy eyebrows at them. ‘I’ll have a think, Alex, and see if anything comes to me. I might be able to help. It’ll make up for coming unannounced and empty-handed,’ he said with a wry grin.
&nbs
p; She’d protested again at the idea of his coming empty-handed when he’d entertained them for a whole evening. Then she’d offered him cocoa, though she’d been more than a bit uneasy as to how much she’d find at the bottom of the tin. At least she knew they had plenty of milk. Cook’s had doubled their herd of cows and the creamery had been enlarged. Thank goodness, milk was one thing you really could be sure of getting these days.
‘Nice drop of cocoa, Emily. Don’t know when I last had any,’ Brendan said, as he clutched his mug comfortably in both hands. ‘Which reminds me, of course, of the legendary Hamilton hospitality.’
‘I was going to ask you about that, Brendan,’ said Alex quickly. ‘You mentioned it earlier and it sounds like a story I haven’t heard.’
‘I’m amazed, Alex. I’m sure I’ve told it to everyone I know and a brave few people I’ve drunk with back in the happy days of drinking,’ he said, laughing.
‘Well, this was the way of it,’ he began settling comfortably. ‘I was on a rooftop in Dawson Street in Dublin back in 1916. Down below the British Army had arrived and the city was burning. I’d been up there a couple of days doing good work for the cause, but I hadn’t eaten for quite some time. And I’d run out of water, which is actually far more important for survival. Things were fairly quiet, if you discount the thud of artillery and the roar of flames, so I decided to visit my cousin Sarah. I knew where she was staying, because I’d actually caught a glimpse of her with Helen and Hugh in a nearby park some days earlier when we were redeploying.
‘Needless to say, I was not in a position to knock on her front door,’ he said lightly. ‘I should have said she was staying with Lily Molyneux. She was the daughter of the Kerry family Rose and Sam once worked for. So I figured out which skylight it was and ‘dropped in’ as they say. And there a couple of yards away, in among all the junk in the attic, is Sarah.