Alex had to be up even earlier next morning to get to work before the day shift arrived. If they arrived.
At least he could rely on Robert Anderson in the engine house at Millbrook, but he would need to visit all four mills in the course of the morning and see that shut-down procedures and safety measures were carried out correctly.
It was the loveliest of mornings and already, at this early hour, as they finished breakfast it promised to be a fine, warm, day.
‘So, when will you get back, love?’
‘Late morning, certainly by noon.’
There was a small silence as each was aware what the next question would be.
Emily poured more tea for both of them.
‘There’s going to be a Victory Parade this afternoon and bands in the park. I think we should go, don’t you?’ she said matter-of-factly.
There was no need whatever to refer to the reasons why they might not go. Many families would be faced with the same decision this morning. Some would decide they could not celebrate when they had suffered such loss, others that life must go on, that today marked a new beginning of some kind and they must make the effort.
He nodded briefly and smiled.
‘Leave out my red shirt and the blue tie …’
She laughed and shook her head, thinking of some of the outfits in preparation that Mary Cook had told her about.
‘I’ll see what I can find. It’ll just be nice to see you out of dungarees!’
The afternoon got steadily warmer and the bandsmen leading the parade all had red faces as they tramped down the main street thronged with gaily-dressed people and children waving flags. There was a fancy-dress parade, a smart turn out by the British Legion, the Boys Brigade ear-splittingly enthusiastic on their cornets.
It seemed to Emily that every organisation she’d ever heard off was included in the Victory Parade. Daisy Cook waved vigorously as the Brownies marched past, one little girl swinging her arms, military style, as her grandfather had taught her. Jimmy Cook was in the Cubs and managed to preserve an appearance of dignity, having made quite sure they’d seen him.
Emily was glad they’d gone. She’d had her bad moments, but that was no more than she had expected. Cathy had been a Brownie and a Guide and so had Lizzie. Poor dear Lizzie, who was clearly so successful, but perhaps not exactly happy. She hoped that, wherever she was this afternoon, she had friends with whom she could celebrate. She might come home one day, or she might not.
It was so long since Emily and Alex had been anywhere together other than the local cinema, that neither of them was prepared for the number of people who came to shake their hands and say what a great day it was. Many people from all the mills had chosen to come to Banbridge to celebrate, among them Robert Anderson and his family, Daisy Elliot and her Billy, and dear Jimmy Elliot, her nephew, who wore a big grin as he looked down at her, his ‘medal’ firmly pinned to his clean white shirt.
But to her surprise there were many others as well, friends she’d made in the Women’s Institute and the Red Cross. People who’d helped when she was running the picnics for Chris’s lads. Even customers from the W.I. market, women who had come each week to buy vegetables in the Church Hall and add to the fund waiting in the Ulster Bank for Jane and Johann.
After the parade, they went into the park. Solitude had always seemed to Emily an inappropriate name for a public park and today it was more laughable than usual. Boys perched precariously on railings and walls, because every corner was packed with people, willing to stand if they could find no room to sit on benches or on the grass.
The brass band had been rehearsing for months and revelled in their big day. They were good, a liveliness in their playing that went far beyond mere competence. They’d have set the whole place dancing had there been room to move. As it was, the crowd clapped and cheered and urged them on till it was the turn of a silver band and then the Salvation Army.
They were still playing as Emily and Alex squeezed their way out of the park and walked back down the empty main street under the bunting that had been draped from every lamppost and the flags hung from every window.
Carried on the still air, the sound followed them out of town as they walked together under the trees to Ballievy, where they’d left the car, the only one in the mill car park. The mill itself stood silent, the sunlight glancing from the rows of tall windows.
They drove home, made tea and took it out into the garden.
‘Are you glad we went?’ Emily asked quietly, as they sat on their summer seat looking at the rise and fall of midges in the deep shade under the trees and the fumblings of bees in the opening blooms nearer at hand.
‘Yes, I am. You were right to take us,’ he replied. ‘I’d never realised just how many people we knew and how many friends we’ve made over the years. Even more, these last years, war or no war. That really was a surprise.’
‘Yes, it surprised me too,’ she agreed. ‘I suppose we had to work so hard at the big things, we didn’t always notice the things that came to help us. People did pull together. I can never remember asking anyone to do anything that they didn’t do willingly.’
Alex smiled.
‘That may not be so much to do with the war as to do with Emily.’
‘I try, Alex, I try,’ she said, suddenly sad. ‘I see so much need all around me, not just people being poor, or ill, or over-worked. I see people losing heart, feeling that life is too much for them. I feel that way myself sometimes,’ she went on honestly, ‘but then I have you and our family and our friends. I have so much.’
‘But you share, Emily. You give and it comes back to you. I watch you and learn.’
‘Oh Alex, what a lovely compliment,’ she said beaming. ‘I’ll not forget that one.’
They sat in the garden for a long time, talking quietly about all that had happened to them in the last long years, speaking of their family, of their hopes for Jane and Johann, for Johnny and Lizzie. They spoke of their new family, Alex’s sister, Jane and her husband, her three sons, but especially of Hank. They remembered good friends like Brendan and Sam, whom they’d not seen for a long time and Emily’s sister, Catherine, more a part of their life now, though they hadn’t seen her since before the war.
As the shadows lengthened and the temperature began to drop sharply, they moved back into the house, had supper and put a match to the sitting-room fire, grateful for the continuing supply of logs and Michael Cook’s source of turf which Emily so loved.
‘What would we have done without this fire, Alex?’ she said, as she brought in coffee, the last spoonfuls from the last packet from the box her boyfriends had left her, just over a year ago.
‘It’s been a great comfort,’ he agreed, as the kindling crackled and flames rose and the turf began to smoke gently, sending its aroma out into the room.
‘There’s something I have to tell you, Alex,’ she began, with a little smile. ‘It’s good news, so don’t worry, but it didn’t seem right to bother you these last few days when you’ve had such a lot on your mind and Mr Churchill wasn’t being very helpful.’
She poured their coffee and put his cup on the low table beside him.
‘I’ve had another letter from your Mrs Campbell, or rather from Jeannie,’ she went on. ‘But one’s as bad as the other as far as handwriting goes. You can try to read it for yourself, or I’ll tell you what it says,’ she offered.
Alex looked across at her. If she said it was good news, then it was, but he wondered why he felt so apprehensive about what she might be about to say.
Mrs Campbell was the only person who could possibly know anything about him he had not found out already. She had been the means of clarifying his relationship with Jane and that had been a gift to them both. But what now?
‘Just you tell me, Emily,’ he said abruptly, as he reached for his coffee cup.
‘Well, it’s a bit of a story,’ she began. ‘Mrs Campbell wasn’t well back in February, as you know, and she had to go into hospital. She was rather poorly for a time and when Jeannie went to see her she was a bit delirious. She was wandering and talking about people from long ago. There was a woman called Annie. Annie Gamp.
‘When she got home, Jeannie asked her about this woman and was told off. Mrs Campbell was quite cross and said she was imagining things. She’d never known any woman called that. And that was that,’ she said, pausing to drink her coffee.
‘Then last week, they were sitting having a cup of tea when Mrs Campbell suddenly says: ‘Ach, I’ve remembered. It wasn’t Annie Gamp. I knew I’d never heard tell of a woman called Annie Gamp. Alex’s father, Lofty had a brother, Tom, a blacksmith, somewhere in Ireland and it was a place called Annie Cramp.’
Alex’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her wide-eyed.
‘Annacramp,’ he whispered, his mouth suddenly dry.
She nodded and watched his face change, anxiety and amazement moving away until finally he smiled.
‘So I really did remember Annacramp. And I am a Hamilton.’
‘Yes, love. Are you pleased?’
‘Not yet, but I will be,’ he said crisply. ‘It’s who I am now that matters, I know that, but suddenly it’s like a weight off my mind. I know now I was right in what I had remembered, just as Jane was when she said she had a brother.’
She watched him as he stared into the fire his mind moving she knew not where.
‘Emily, shall we go over to Liskeyborough tomorrow and tell Sam?’ he said suddenly. ‘Mr Churchill did us a favour. The Directors said we might as well have a second day while we were about it after all that waiting.’
‘But what about petrol?’ she asked automatically.
‘Gallon can in the workshop,’ he replied with a straight face.
‘Oh Alex, what a lovely, lovely idea,’ she said, delighted by the prospect. ‘How long is it since we drove anywhere beyond Banbridge together? And I’d love to see Sam’s face when you tell him you’re a Hamilton from Annacramp.’