For Many a Long Day

by Anne Doughty

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Freeburn. They were still using that one in the schoolroom up on Church Hill. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still using it at the new school down in Annacramp.’

  ‘Some old techniques do serve us well. It’s a mistake to think that everything new is always better. It’s just as bad to move with the times without giving due thought to the changes as it is to cling to the old ways without review, don’t you think?’

  Ellie was quite taken aback. For a moment she could think of nothing to say, though this wasn’t the first time he’d surprised her by saying something of so personal a nature. In fact, she’d decided he was a much more thoughtful man than people realised. They assumed he only thought about business, but she’d discovered there was this other and quite different side to his nature.

  ‘My father often says that you can’t mend new tools with old metal,’ she began tentatively, ‘He gets quite upset sometimes when he can’t mend things at all, but if they’ve been made by machine they’re designed to be thrown away.’

  He nodded sharply.

  ‘I fear our society is becoming steadily more wasteful and nothing is more wasteful and degrading than unemployment.’

  ‘A hundred thousand,’ she murmured, the figure coming instantly to her lips without her having even considered it.

  He looked at her closely for a moment, then cast his eyes around the room as if he had lost something.

  ‘Changing the subject, Miss Scott, I was just wondering where Miss Hutchinson and her partner were going to exchange their sport’s wear tokens. Not in the city, I think.’

  Ellie smiled, happy to be on firmer and less unhappy ground.

  ‘No, there’s nowhere in Armagh. The tokens are for the Athletic Stores in Belfast. I’m going to have a look at what they’ve got when I have my holiday.’

  ‘You’ll be going to your aunt again?’

  Ellie said that she was. Knowing his keen interest in all aspects of the drapery trade, she told him of her cousin’s new job at Robinson Cleavers. The biggest and most elegant store in Belfast, according to Ruth.’

  ‘Will you go and visit the store during your holiday?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve never been in it before. Usually Ruth and I just window shop, but as Ruth works there now, I think we’ll go in and have a good look round.’

  He nodded and considered this new information.

  ‘I wonder if you can you tell me, Miss Scott, if the RUC Club is the only tennis club in Armagh?’

  The question took her by surprise as she could see no connection to the conversation they’d been having.

  ‘No, Mr Freeburn, it isn’t. There’s The Archery Club as well.’

  ‘Archery?’ he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Ellie laughed.

  ‘I don’t think there is archery any more, but the club was founded quite a long time ago when there was. It’s the Armagh Archery and Lawn Tennis Club.’

  ‘A somewhat lengthy name for everyday use,’ he said smiling. ‘And do they have many members?’

  ‘I think they’re bigger than the RUC.’

  ‘And am I right in thinking some of the schools play tennis?’

  ‘Oh yes, most certainly. Su … Miss Sleator played at the High School and the Royal School have courts. I expect all the grammar schools in the area play tennis.’

  ‘And all of them have to go to Belfast for the relevant clothing?’

  Ellie smiled and nodded, the drift of the conversation now quite clear to her.

  ‘I think, Miss Scott, we could look into this opportunity more closely. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to find out for me what your colleagues would consider appropriate dress, were they to be able to afford such a small luxury. We have the whole of the winter season to make our preparations, but it will be no harm to start immediately, if you have no objections,’ he said, adding his customary little nod of dismissal.

  ‘None at all, Mr Freeburn,’ she replied, standing up. ‘It will be nice to think ahead to whites and playing tennis in the sunshine during the dark winter months,’ she said smiling back at him as she crossed the room and opened the door.

  Thursday was pay-day and even after all this time Ellie and Daisy still felt a sense of excitement and pleasure when Mr Magennis came down stairs in the late afternoon to distribute the familiar little brown envelopes. For Susie, the novelty of having a pay packet completely outweighed the very small amount it contained. The look on her face as she transferred her coins to a very smart handbag made Ellie smile.

  Watching Susie created one of the few times in her life when she felt old. Not old in years, like her mother, or her aunt, but old in experience. Susie was only fourteen, she had so much to learn, while she herself had now turned twenty. However much more there might be for her to learn, at least she’d made a start, she’d been finding out about work and the world she lived in since she’d left school.

  To Ellie’s great surprise she found her pay had been increased with effect from September 1st. There was no explanation of any kind, but she noticed that beside her name, a firm, familiar hand, had written Senior Assistant in large letters. Even more surprising, Mr Magennis had handed her a second envelope labelled for the attention of Miss Scott. Opening it discreetly at the back of the shop while Daisy and Susie were both busy with customers, Ellie found it contained a ten shilling note and a small slip of paper saying: To celebrate your and Miss Hutchinson’s achievement.

  ‘Well, wou’d ye believe it? I’d never thought Old … Mr Freeburn had it in him,’ said Daisy, suddenly remembering that Old Freeburn was Susie’s uncle, more-or-less.

  ‘It’s a very nice gesture,’ said Ellie honestly. ‘What shall we do with it? Would you like us to split it between us, or could we take Susie out for an ice-cream after work.’

  ‘Oh lovely, lovely,’ said Susie instantly. ‘But it’s really for you and Daisy,’ she said, having second and more considerate thoughts rather more quickly than usual.

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ said Daisy. ‘But what about the boys?

  ‘That’ll stretch to five of those posh ice-creams.’

  ‘Six,’ said Ellie. ‘We mustn’t leave out Joe.’

  ‘Or we could all go to the pictures and have a bag of sweets,’ said Daisy thoughtfully.

  ‘Or we could have chips for tea and go downstairs?’ suggested Ellie.

  ‘No, that comes to thirteen and sixpence,’ said Daisy briskly. ‘We can’t sit downstairs for a celebration night out.’

  The bell over the shop entrance rang three times in quick succession and suddenly everyone was busy again. Ellie put all thought of celebration out of mind until the day ended and they were back upstairs in the staff-room.

  ‘Right, fork out!’ Daisy said, bringing the two jam pots from the cupboard.

  Susie giggled and watched first Ellie, then Daisy, count out their shillings and sixpences and drop them in. Susie already had a tennis racquet and were she seventeen, all she’d need to do to join the Tennis Club was ask her father or her mother for the money.

  ‘Daisy, how much of this is sub money?’ asked Ellie lifting up her jar.

  ‘Five shillings, five weeks.’

  ‘And I don’t need sub money now. Only racquet money. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Aye, we could reduce your weekly rate for the racquet.’

  ‘No, Daisy. No need,’ she replied, spilling out the coins on the table below the window and picking up four shillings and two sixpences.’

  ‘Ahhhh … I see what your at,’ said Daisy beaming as Ellie put the rest of the money back in the jar. ‘Fifteen shillings means we can have tea and sit on the balcony.’

  ‘What about it then?’ Ellie asked, turning to them both.

  ‘Lovely, Ellie. Yes, please. When?’

  ‘Saturday night?’

  Susie nodded vigorously

  ‘I’m goin’ to the pictures m’self that night, Frank Armstrong asked me to go,’ Daisy said, blushing furiously. ‘But sure he’s only
doin’ it to be polite.’

  ‘Then we can go one night next week,’ Ellie said, trying not to smile, ‘providing it suits the others,’ she added and looked away quickly to avoid catching the twinkle in Susie’s eye.

  ‘Ach come away on in chiledear. Come in. Isn’t it great to see you? You’re well on time, just what ye said in your letter. Isn’t it handy that the driver stops for you outside the door instead of you havin’ to go inta town and out again. Here let young Bobby take your case.’

  Ellie hugged her aunt awkwardly in the narrow hallway as twelve year old Bobby pulled her case from her hand.

  ‘Bobby, don’t take it up,’ she called after him, as she disentangled herself from her aunt’s embrace and saw him heading for the equally narrow stairs. ‘Take it into the kitchen, will you please?’

  ‘It’s powerful heavy, Ellie. Is it all dresses?’ he asked, hauling it round the awkward corner where the staircase rose sharply just outside the kitchen door.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said, pretending to be cross. ‘It’s Bramleys and butter from Robinson’s and maybe the odd sweetie,’ she called to him, as he humped the heavy case across the cold, tiled floor. ‘And there are some eggs from Ma,’ she said to her aunt as they followed him ‘But I thought they’d be safer in my shoulder bag,’ she added, slipping it off gingerly and laying it on the bare boards of the well-scrubbed table.

  ‘Ye never come empty-handed, do you, Ellie?’

  ‘The Bramleys are only windfalls, but some of them are perfect. I think they just dropped with their own weight. It’s a great crop this year.’

  ‘Apple-tart, Ma?’

  ‘Aye, we might just manage that,’ Annie Magowan said cheerfully as Ellie opened the suitcase on the floor, picked out the Bramleys one by one, found the well-wrapped pound of butter and handed over a bag of toffees.

  ‘Thanks, Ellie. Those are great. My favourites. Can I take the case up to the attic now?

  ‘Aye, away on,’ Annie said abstractedly, a large, perfectly formed apple held to her nose. ‘They’re never the same from the shops, though I buy them sometimes,’ she said breathing in the fresh, autumn smell. ‘I can niver get used to payin’ money for what was always given free. Sure we had the run of all Robinson’s orchards to take whatever we wanted, even if it hadn’t fallen on the ground,’ she said with a little laugh as she put the apple down and turned to fill the kettle at the sink.

  ‘Sit down an’ rest yerself while I make us a drop of tea. Yer Uncle John’s listening to a programme on the wireless. He’s stopped drinkin’ tea in the evenin’. Cocoa is the great thing now. But it’s too early for that yet.’

  Ellie smiled to herself and watched her aunt light the gas. A thin, almost emaciated woman, she had the same narrow face as her brother Robert, but unlike his tanned and worn skin, hers was pale, creased and parchment-like.

  Five years older than her father, Aunt Annie had married at the first possible opportunity, though by that time her own mother, Mary-Anne, was already dead and her step-mother, Selina was trying to create a more kindly home for her three step-children.

  Selina came too late. The harm was done, was what Annie had once told Ellie. The house by the forge had nothing but unhappy memories for all three of Mary-Anne’s children. Annie had married a farmer from Ballyards, Thomas had gone to Canada and never came back, and her father, the youngest of the three, always swore he couldn’t remember his mother at all.

  Annie’s had been a reasonably happy marriage though not exactly a love match. John Magowan had something of the hypochondriac about him. He disliked the countryside and had never wanted to be a farmer, so Annie encouraged him to move to the city. He’d got a job as a milkman, looked about him and ended up using the money from the sale of the farm to buy a run-down corner shop on the Woodstock Road. They’d lived over the shop, stayed open from early morning till late at night, until three children and their savings made it necessary and possible to make a move. By dint of letting out the best room to a lodger, they were able to afford the rent of both a tall, terrace house on the Lisburn Road as well as a less run-down grocer’s shop a couple of minutes walk away. Now that Ruth and her younger brother Tommy were both out at work, the lodger was no longer needed and Annie had more time to accommodate John’s regular requests for changes in his diet, along with the newest in tonics and vitamins.

  ‘Ye must be tired, an’ you at your work this mornin’,’ said Annie, as she poured their tea. ‘Ruth said she wouldn’t be late, but this fella asked her to go to a dance.’

  ‘The one she told me about? Norman?’

  ‘Ach no, this is another one. You know Ruth,’ her aunt said, shaking her head and passing over the milk jug. ‘What about this man of yours? Any word of him sending your ticket yet?’

  Ellie shook her head and drank her tea thirstily.

  ‘He says the money’s good, but he’s had a lot of expense. I don’t think he’s been able to save much at all yet.’

  ‘Ach sure they all think America is made of money. But it’s the same everywhere. There’s some just puts their hands out and money drops into it and others could work till the cows come home and hardly buy enough to keep themselves fed. D’you fancy goin’ to Canada?’

  ‘I don’t know, Auntie. I really don’t know. I think of Polly and I’d love to be near her. And of course I want to marry George,’ she added quickly. ‘If his uncle produces a better job as he says he will, then Canada it has to be.’

  ‘D’ye think Polly’s happy out there?’

  Ellie thought about it as her aunt offered her more tea. She’d never been quite able to make up her mind how Polly felt.

  ‘Polly’s always been good at making the best of anything. Even when she was a wee girl. I know she loves Jimmy, but it’s been hard on her since he lost that good job in Toronto and they had to move,’ she said sadly. ‘I think she’s too easy on the wee boys and they give her a bad time, which doesn’t help. Sometimes I know she’s tired out. But I can’t make up my mind whether she’s happy or not. I just know I miss her,’ she added abruptly.

  ‘You and her were always close. I still wonder was I right at all to let her bring Jimmy here for his tea that week she was up and she’d only just met him. The next thing we knew they were getting married because he’d had the offer of a job out there better than he’d ever get here and he didn’t want to go without her. She took a big chance there, didn’t she?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Ye meet a man at a dance and ye get on well together and the next thing it’s down the aisle. Sure how can you know the half of it, just walkin’ out and goin’ to this dance or that picture? I walked round every inch of Salter’s Grange with John, but I’d had no idea about him at all till we started workin’ together in the shop. An’ I’ll say this for him, he always worked hard, but if I’d fallen on the floor in a dead faint, he’d never have said: ‘Are you tired?’ Yet he’d go out and spend a shilling on a bunch of flowers for me,’ she ended, with a wry laugh.

  Ellie yawned and apologised.

  ‘For goodness sake ye must be tired out. Why don’t you go on up to bed? Ye’ll see yer Uncle John and Ruth in the morning. And Tommy’s coming home for the day. Either he wants to see you or he’s bringin’ me his washin’,’ she said laughing. ‘I’ll not come up with you if you don’t mind. One flight up to the lavatory is one thing, but the other two I’ll leave to you and Ruth.’

  Tired as she was, Ellie felt better when she sat on the edge of the narrow single bed, took off her shoes and unbuttoned her dress. She took out her nightdress, but made no move to put it on. Instead, she switched off the electric light, went to the window and looked out across the roofs of the houses below, towards the Bog Meadows and the slopes of the mountains beyond.

  There were lights in all the little houses along Moonstone Street. In uncurtained kitchens women were making the last tea of the day. Behind pulled blinds or drawn curtains shadowy figures moved, bedspreads were being turned back, Sund
ay clothes laid out for the morning.

  It was so strange to look out over row upon row of houses. All these people living side by side, unknown to her and as surely to each other. She raised her eyes again into the moonless night, seeking out the tiny sparks of light where small farms lay on the gentler slopes that ran up to the steep edge of the great escarpment towering over the city.

  White Mountain, Black Mountain and Divis. Until she had come to Belfast, she’d never seen a mountain before. Tonight, it was the dark of the moon and she’d have to wait for morning to see that sharp edge she remembered so well between one visit and the next.

  Such an excitement it had been when she’d first come with Polly. She discovered the city was never quiet. Even if she woke in the night, disturbed by some particularly sharp sound from the broad, metal acres of the railway sidings beyond Moonstone Street, she could still hear a quiet roar as if all the houses were breathing in their sleep. There were always lights on too all through the night.

  Away to her right, she could see the regular rows of bright patches marking the wards of the Royal Victoria Hospital, a huge building where once as a little girl they had gone to visit Uncle John, tramping through a maze of corridors that left her exhausted and confused.

  Would it be like this in Canada? Looking out from a top window over some unknown city that never slept? Would it feel as strange and different standing there with George as once this city had felt when she’d first come to it from the little green hills with the sodden meadows between, the twisty lanes and the apple-orchards and everything around her known and familiar?

  You got used to it, was what Polly had said. Yes, of course. She’d got used to working in the shop, become familiar with the till and counting out change and cutting fabric and knowing not to be upset with customers who were rude. That was just part of growing up and learning to do one’s work. But something told her going to Canada would be different, very different. Somehow she couldn’t see what the difference was. Yet she was sure there was a difference between the new experiences that had flowed into her life during her first twenty years and this new experience that lay ahead of her, in Canada, with George.