by Anne Doughty
She’d seen them sit talking often enough, heard them discuss what to do next, tease each other. Laugh at the mention of some shared memory or old contention she herself couldn’t possibly understand. Day by day, they shared their life, the good times and the bad, each of them appreciating whatever the other one did to make their time together as good as it could be. To love and to cherish, indeed. Just as it said in the prayer book her mother never used.
She turned and looked over her shoulder as they entered a cutting. A road bridge over the line cast a sudden deep shadow. She used the moment to wipe away her tears, so as not to attract her father’s attention.
But he was a long way away. His prayer complete, he had put his trust in the Lord. Feeling free now to think about his father his mind had moved backwards in time. The image of his mother came to him, singing to him as she washed his face before he set off for school. He saw himself trundling an egg on a windy, sunlit hillside, his father and mother watching, cheering him on. There was bag of sweets as a prize, but he couldn’t remember who won, for the sweets had been shared among them. James and Sam, Hannah and Sarah. His brother and sisters.
The long drawn out whistle of the train as they approached Portadown Station caught him unexpectedly. For the time it took for the train to slow down and come to a halt by the platform, he was back in another train on a summer morning, the Methodist excursion to Warrenpoint.
It was James who saved them. Leaning out of the window he’d seen the men divide the train, putting stones under the wheels to stop the separated carriages from running backwards. He hadn’t understood himself what James was saying about the vacuum brake being off, but then he’d said the carriages would run back into the oncoming passenger train and he’d seen the look on his face. His mother had understood immediately. She’d made them jump out and take shelter from the sun under a hawthorn bush.
He remembered how she’d gone back along the line to look for her friend, but her friend was dead. But he and James, and Hannah and Sarah, had walked all the way home to the house opposite Robert Scott’s forge at Salter’s Grange. They had been spared, when all around them friends and neighbours had been killed and injured. He sighed deeply. The will of God was hard to understand. God protect you, James, if you are still with us, and keep your soul if you are not.
They changed trains at Portadown and continued to Banbridge, silence still heavy upon them.
Rosie wondered if dying was easier if you were old. Not the actual process of dying, but getting used to the fact that it was bound to happen. Was it something you could get used to, like not being able to read without spectacles, or having difficulty bending down, or your teeth falling out.
She knew of many people who had died. Neighbours whom she had sometimes seen in the workshop, but more often people who were just names she’d heard. So and so from Kilmore or Kilmacanty, Cloghan or Cornascreeb. Familiar names of local townlands, even if she’d no very clear idea exactly where they were. News would come and then, on Sunday, after Meeting, still wearing his suit, her father would walk to some neighbouring church for a service at two-thirty or three o’clock and come home looking sad and solemn.
But it being John Hamilton of Rathdrum was very different. Not an unknown person in an unknown place, but her own dear grandfather.
Banbridge Station itself was busy and Rosie found herself jostled and struggling as she tried to keep alongside her father against the press of people trying to board the train even before they’d had time to get off.
‘There’s your granda’s motor,’ Sam said, as he stood outside the station scanning the busy street.
For one single moment, she thought everything was all right. There’d been some mistake and Granda was here in his motor to meet them, after all.
She felt a sudden light touch on her arm.
‘Uncle Alex,’ she said, turning to the familiar figure who’d been waiting for them on the platform and missed them in the crowd.
She was completely taken aback by the look on his pale, drawn face. No, there was no mistake.
‘I thought you might be on this one,’ he said flatly, as he turned to Sam, caught his hand and pressed it in both of his. ‘He’s still with us,’ he added, in the same lifeless tone. ‘Or he was an hour ago. I met the last train as well, just in case.’
They said no more as they drove off, for the Friday evening crowd paid no attention to the odd motor and wandered at will, back and forth across the main road.
Once out of the town Alex put his foot down and sped along the now empty road. He swung up the hill at Ballydown with practised ease. Suddenly, they were passing between the open gates and under the dense shade of the limes. Rosie could hardly believe they’d arrived so soon as they drew up beside the two other vehicles parked facing the hedge of sweetpea that divided the yard from the garden beyond.
‘Ach, there ye’s are, God bless ye.’
Before she’d set foot on the ground, a distraught figure ran from the back door, her skirt and apron flying with the speed of her movement, like a great bird about to rise into the air.
Alex and Sam paused, their faces immobile as Mrs Love clutched at Rosie and enveloped her in a fierce embrace.
‘Ach, you poor chile,’ she said, overcome with emotion. ‘Yer granny said ye might come. Sure Granda was talkin’ about ye this mornin’ before he was took bad.’
She released Rosie, looked at Alex and Sam with red-rimmed eyes and made some small effort to collect herself.
‘How is he?’ Alex asked, the words coming out one by one without the slightest trace of his Canadian accent, which had survived unmodified all these years since his return.
Tears poured down her long, wrinkled face.
‘He can’t speak right, but the pain’s gone. It was somethin’ desperate,’ she went on, wringing her hands together. ‘The doctors is with him now. Maybe they’ll tell us somethin’ better when they come down.’
Rosie had never before seen Mrs Love so utterly distraught. She was one to get upset over even tiny domestic disasters but she’d never been like this before. The poor woman was beside herself.
‘Have ye’s had yer tea?’
The question took them all by surprise. Food was the last thing any of them were thinking about.
The two men shook their heads and Rosie observed the sudden change in the anxious figure.
‘Sure, you’ll need a bite to eat,’ she insisted, as she led the way back into the kitchen.
‘I’ll give you a hand, Mrs Love,’ said Rosie. It would keep her occupied till the doctors had gone. Then she might see her granda. Granny would be with him, for she knew she wouldn’t leave him.
Making sandwiches for anyone who might be able to eat them, Mrs Love became a different person. She talked all the time, as she always did, but this time Rosie paid close attention.
John Hamilton had been to one of the mills in the morning, she began. Although officially retired for some two years now, he’d been pleased when the directors asked him to give them the benefit of his long experience. Since he’d had some trouble with chest pain before his retirement, he no longer did any of the work himself, but after all the years he and Alex had worked together that didn’t present any problems.
‘An’ he had his lunch, just as usual, he an’ your granny, in the conservatory. Though, mind you, I had to pull a couple of the blinds for it was gettin’ that hot. An’ then, after he reads his paper, he goes out to the motor an’ starts up the engine.’
Rosie felt herself grow tense. Standing here in the kitchen, imagining him outside, bending over the engine as she’d seen him do so often, made it so immediate.
‘An’ the engine runs an’ it runs. An’ I wonder to myself what he’s doin’ to need it runnin’ for so long. An’ after a wee while I look out an’ I can’t see him. An’ I know he wouldn’t go away an’ leave an engine runnin’. So I take a wee walk out to see where he is, an’ he’s lyin’ up against the back wheel behind the motor with his eyes
shut an’ his han’ up to his chest.’
Rosie had to stop buttering, because her hand was shaking so much she was afraid she’d drop the knife, but Mrs Love continued quite matter-of-factly.
‘To tell you the truth, Miss Rosie, I thought he was dead. But he opened his eyes when yer granny came an’ she sent me down to Missus Emily Hamilton to get help, for she cou’den lift him.’
‘But Aunt Emily couldn’t come, could she?’
‘Ach no, not the way she is. Sure she’s over her time already. But as good luck would have it, the breadman was there an’ the minute he heard, he came up an’ helped us get yer granda to bed. An’ then he went down to Ballievy an’ got the office to phone for the doctor and get your Uncle Alex back from Lenaderg. Sure, they couden do enough to help when he tole them what had happened. An’ he’s a new breadman too, only a young chap with ginger hair, and looks as if he couldn’t lift a pan loaf. But he was tougher than he looked, good luck to him,’ she added, firmly, as she started slicing the ham, ‘we cou’den a done wi’out him.’
The sandwiches were made and wrapped in a clean, damp cloth. Rosie began washing up the knives and plates they’d used making them and Mrs Love stopped talking long enough to step into the hallway and listen to see if she could find out what was going on.
‘Yer da and Uncle Alex are sat in the sittin’ room. There’s not a word outa them. An’ there’s no sound at all from upstairs,’ she reported, striding noisily across to the kitchen window and staring out at the three motors parked by the sweet pea, her face twisted into an anxious grimace.
One look at her and Rosie decided something would have to be done.
‘Do you think we should make some tea, Mrs Love, to go with the sandwiches?’
After the way in which time had sped up on their journey from Banbridge station, Rosie was now having difficulty with the way it had slowed down again. Despite the audible click the large hand on the kitchen clock made when it moved, it seemed as if it had stopped. It reminded her of her days at primary school and the last half hour of the afternoon. Sometimes it seemed as if three thirty would never come. She had to keep reminding herself that in the end it had. Sooner or later, they’d hear footsteps on the stairs.
But the first thing they heard were voices in the hall.
‘Rosie!’
Placing cups of tea carefully on a tray, she was startled by the soft voice, familiar, yet quite unexpected. She glanced up and found Richard Stewart standing in the doorway gazing at her in surprise.
‘Auntie Rose said she thought you might come,’ he said, moving out of the way when Mrs Love picked up the tray and headed for the sitting room. ‘She’ll be so pleased to see you,’ he added, coming round the kitchen table to stand close to her.
‘I’m so sorry, Rosie,’ he said softly, taking her hand.
She looked up at him, surprised and almost amused to see he was wearing a dark, herring bone tweed suit, the accepted uniform of a country doctor. Despite its heavy formality, he actually looked younger than he had in the shirt and flannels he’d worn coming to meet them at the station just two weeks earlier.
‘Is there no hope, Richard?’ she asked quietly, amazed the way the words seemed to speak themselves.
She saw him press his lips together, pause, then run a finger round under his stiff collar. His face was damp with perspiration.
‘Could we just step outside, Rosie? I’m boiling over in this jacket.’
She nodded, opened the door and led the way across the yard and into the garden itself. A slight evening breeze had begun to stir the tall perennials. She stopped by a seat, hesitated, then sat down.
‘Would you mind?’ he asked, catching his lapels.
‘Of course not,’ she replied. ‘Even in a blouse I was too hot,’ she added as he took his jacket off. ‘Or maybe I’m so hot because I keep forgetting to breathe.’
‘You were very brave to come.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ she protested, shaking her head. ‘I just couldn’t bear not to be here. I may not be much use …’
She looked at him closely and wondered why taking off his jacket made him look so much more vulnerable.
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ she reminded him.
‘I was trying to think of the best way of putting it. No, there isn’t much hope. Sometimes Father and I disagree, but not this time. We both knew Uncle John had angina and it was getting worse. That’s why we persuaded him not to attempt the long drive down to Kerry.’
‘But he drove a lot in Kerry while we were there,’ she said quickly. ‘He so loved driving. One morning when we were deciding what to do, he said he didn’t mind what we did as long as it was a long drive away.’
‘We must both remember that then, mustn’t we?’ he said firmly. ‘They so wanted to go to Kerry and they managed it, and enjoyed every moment of it.’
‘But he’s going to die, isn’t he?’ she insisted, trying to say the words without letting tears come into her eyes.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘What will happen? Will it be like what happened this afternoon?’
‘How do you know about that?’ he asked, suddenly alarmed.
‘Mrs Love. She gave me a detailed picture.’
He looked away hastily, studied a rose bush which had shed a pile of pale petals on the well-trimmed grass path, and then turned back to her.
‘If we’re lucky it shouldn’t be as painful. The heart is already weak. It won’t be able to take much more if there’s another one. Or rather, when there’s another one.’ He paused. ‘Are you really going to stay?’
‘Yes. Unless Granny needs my bed for someone else. Auntie Sarah or Auntie Hannah, if they can come.’
He nodded briskly and reached for his jacket.
‘I’m staying here tonight. After that, Father and I will take it in turns. Mother will come tomorrow. I’m glad you’ll be here … for your granny’s sake.’
He stood up, took her hand and led her back into the house.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On the day of John’s collapse, July’s oppressive warmth and heavy cloud had been left behind and August began, a month which Rosie had always liked for its maturing colours and more varied weather. For once in her life, she didn’t even notice the change. It was true no one turned over the page on the kitchen calendar to reveal a new Irish landscape, but everyone’s concern for John’s wellbeing, along with the disappearance of the regular activities that usually marked the passing days, was more than enough to account for it.
On Saturday, Alex took Rosie to do Friday’s shopping. On Sunday, no one went to church. Mrs Love thought it not proper to do the weekly wash on Monday and Elizabeth Stewart’s regular Tuesday visit was postponed, because Elizabeth herself had sat with Rose and John through most of Sunday and Monday and needed a day at home in Dromore.
At first, Rosie found the days at Rathdrum strangely extended. Sitting with her grandmother on Saturday evening, while John slept peacefully, she felt she’d been there by his bedside for so long, the bustle and noise of shopping in Banbridge that morning was so far away it felt like something she’d done on an earlier visit. But as a second, and then a third day passed, with no visible change in John’s condition, time seemed to speed up again.
The news of John’s illness had spread quickly. Even before the minister of Holy Trinity and the local priest had both said prayers for his recovery on Sunday morning, visitors had called to make enquiries or leave gifts. On Monday, the manager of Ballievy arrived seeking the latest news even before Rosie had begun her breakfast. He told her the other mills had asked him to keep them closely informed, so he would send messengers up at regular intervals to see if there was any improvement, or if there was anything the household might need. He himself would see to the dispatch of any telephone messages or telegrams they needed to send.
After that, visitors arrived throughout the day and into the early evening. Some came in by the back door, like Alex and her father,
or Elizabeth and her doctor husband and son, greeted her and went straight upstairs. Others knocked at the front door, people of all kinds and conditions, from directors to delivery men, and had to be brought into the sitting room while she ran upstairs to ask what her grandmother would like her to do.
There were so many who wanted no more than to shake hands with Rose at the bedroom door. They would look at the sleeping figure, call blessings upon him or cross themselves. Of their wishes for his speedy recovery there could be no doubt at all.
Almost always, Rose said that the various callers might come up to see him and for each one she had a smile and a gentle word.
‘Yes, he’d had a peaceful night. No, he was no better. Yes, we must hope for the best.’
Rosie heard the words so often, she almost began to believe that there was indeed a best to hope for. That if they all went on living this strange life of quiet vigil upstairs and continuous activity downstairs, then some miracle would bring John back from the faraway place where he slept so devotedly.
On Tuesday evening, as Rosie was preparing a supper tray for her grandmother, she heard a motor stop over by the sweet pea hedge. Last night it had been Dr Richard Stewart himself. Tonight it was Dr Richard P. as his mother called him. He came through the kitchen door, looked around warily for Mrs Love and dropped into a chair when he saw and heard no sign of her.
‘How’s Uncle John?’
‘No different from when you left on Monday morning,’ she said, observing him closely, to see if his expression would tell her anything.
But he gave no sign apart from a small smile when he looked up at her.
‘Is that good or bad, Richard?’ she asked.
‘Neither. We can only guess what’s going on. The heart can’t repair itself,’ he said sadly. ‘Too well we know that, but in a state of rest, the deterioration might be slow. We’ll be able to tell better when he recovers consciousness.’ He paused and looked down at the floor. ‘That is, if he does recover consciousness.’
‘You mean he might not?’