Ellie was so exhausted on Tuesday evening, she began to wonder if she’d ever manage to get as far as her attic bedroom. Thanks to the young conductor on the tram, they’d succeeded in reaching the city centre and they’d done all the jobs they’d planned. For Ellie, there’d been little joy in doing them. As she and Ruth matched up ribbon and buttons and discussed yokes and collars, all she could think of were those grey faces, that dark tide of hungry and exhausted people.
There was nothing to comfort them when they returned home. The father of Bobby’s little friend from Moonstone Street was a policeman. As he came off duty, he’d met the two boys coming from school, so he was able to tell them the Lisburn Road had been at a standstill for three hours and reinforcements had been summoned for the following day.
‘I’m warnin’ ye’s both,’ began Aunt Annie, when she’d sent Bobby to do his homework in the dining-room, ‘Say not a word about what ye’s saw and what’s happened today. Ruth knows what her father can be like, but you, Ellie dear, have never seen him when he’s in one of his moods. Pay no attention. Let him have the last word whatever ye do, or there’ll be no standin’ him.’
They heard Uncle John before they saw him. With paper patterns spread out on the sitting-room floor, the largest space they could find for cutting out, they felt the whole house vibrate as he slammed the front door behind him and marched down the narrow hall.
‘Annie. Where are ye, Annie?’ he shouted.
They’d looked at each other, but said nothing. Aunt Annie had been right and the evening that followed was grim. To begin with, Uncle John had sat silent at the dining table staring at his table mat. When his meal arrived, he’d pushed his plate away and had to be encouraged like a child to eat his nice dinner.
‘Sure ye need to keep up your strength, John dear. Don’t we all have to try to do that.’
‘Them buggers,’ he said at last, having eaten a good meal in complete silence. ‘Them buggers. Lying on the tram rails so that honest people couldn’t go about their business. Not a soul in the shop half the day, and those that did, in and out in two minutes, for fear of what was happening. Police here and tenders there and no customers. Sure ye wouldn’t see the days takings in the bottom of the cash box.’
Sitting quietly in a corner by the sitting-room fire after the meal had been cleared away and washed up, Ellie watched the other three and could hardly believe in that same room there’d been nothing but jokes and teasing on Sunday morning, Uncle John enjoying himself, delighted to have a new audience for his oft-told stories.
He insisted they listen to the Northern Ireland News on the wireless. It told them nothing they didn’t know already and that only annoyed him further.
‘It’s these Communists and socialists stirrin’ things up, tellin’ working people they’ve a right to this and a right to that. What about the rest of us? Aye and the worst of it is, they’re gettin’ in on both sides, They’re gettin’ good Protestants to gang up with the Other Side, an’ havin’ them marchin’ together as if they weren’t marchin’ with traitors.’
‘What d’you think should be done, John, to get these people jobs? Isn’t that the problem?’
‘Sure there would be no problem with jobs if that other crowd took themselves off where they belong. Let them go down to the Free State and see what they can get there. Our government is too soft on them. This is a Protestant country for a Protestant people. Your man Basil Brooke was right about that. He said that ninety-nine percent of them are disloyal and he wouldn’t have one of them about the place. We should get rid of the lot of them.’
‘Including wee Bridget?’
Ellie looked up sharply from the sleeve she was pinning on the first of Ruth’s new dresses. Bridget was a saint’s name, a Catholic name. One of the serving girls at Robinson’s was called Bridget and she’d once told her the story of her namesake, a girl who had converted her dying father to Christianity while sitting by his bed weaving crosses out of the rushes on the floor to pass the time.
‘Ach there’s the odd one. You’d hardly know Bridget was one of them. She keeps quiet about it, an’ she’s a great worker. And very popular in the shop. I’ll say that for her.’
‘There’s maybe the odd one of them could do a day’s work,’ suggested Annie.
‘Aye, but not many.’
Ruth and Ellie said no thank you to the offer of cocoa. They were only too glad to be able to make their way upstairs. When they reached the top of the three flights they gave each other a hug, but no word was spoken between them about the troubles of the day or the oppressiveness of the evening as they turned in opposite directions and shut their doors behind them.
Ellie couldn’t sleep. Exhausted as she was, she could find no comfortable position for her aching back. She knew why it was aching, but that didn’t help much. At home she’d have filled the stone jar from the still hot kettle on the back of the stove, but here the thought of the long, cold journey down to the gas stove was too much for her. She turned over and tried again, but the echo of her uncle’s voice wouldn’t go away.
He’d gone on at great length about loyalty. As he saw it, you were on one side or the other. Whatever your side thought or did, it was right and what the other side did was wrong. The possibility of agreeing with something the opposing side thought was beyond his comprehension.
But how could he be right? Did those people crowding up Dunluce Avenue, desperate to persuade the Board of Guardians to increase their pittance have a side? Did it make any difference to their common cause whether they were Catholic or Protestant?
She wondered what her father would say if she asked him what he thought. She tried to recall once more what Charlie Running had said. It had been clear to her then that he knew a lot more than her father did and he’d been rather sheepish when he’d said: ‘If they’re beat, there’s always the Workhouse.’ But you couldn’t take all those people into a workhouse. It wouldn’t hold them all.
Round and round it all went in her head and then she was in a forest. She thought of George.
‘You have to be loyal to George,’ said the big brown bear.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, wondering if there was any point in trying to run away. Bears, he’d told her, could run very fast. And climb trees.
‘Because he’s a man. You have to be loyal to him and do what he wants, because he’s on the Right Side and you are the Other Side. That’s just the way it is.’
She woke up suddenly, the image of the bear still there, a cramp in her stomach. She’d have to go to the lavatory whether she liked it or not.
Uncle John was in better spirits next morning. Waking at his usual early hour, he had looked out of the bedroom window and seen Crossley tenders and Lancia armoured cars passing in large numbers on the road below.
Before leaving for work he’d told Aunt Annie that clearly the authorities were now doing what he paid good rates and taxes to have them do. It looked as if they were about to ensure his livelihood would not be interfered with for another day.
Although there was much activity outside with police vehicles moving in both directions, traffic was back to normal. Bobby went off to school ready to boast that his sister and cousin had seen the strikers lying on the tramlines, while Aunt Annie made another pot of tea, sat down gratefully by the sitting-room fire and offered to help with the dressmaking.
‘My goodness, haven’t these three days just flown,’ she declared, late that afternoon, when she got up to start preparing the evening meal. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind being on your own, Ellie, when Ruth goes to back to work tomorrow? I’d have loved to stay and keep you company, but with things the way they are, I think I need go to the shop as usual. Your Uncle John’ll not get over yesterday for many a long day.’
Ellie smiled and told her not to worry. There was plenty of sewing still to do and if it was fine she’d go and have a walk in the park. What she didn’t add was that she felt tired, after all that had happened, weary in spirit as in body. She rather badly needed a bit of peace and quiet, and time to herself.
There was no doubt the house was quiet on Thursday morning. Almost too quiet, the rooms empty and dim, the bright sunlight barely penetrating the sitting room windows, shaded by the high privet hedge surrounding the minute square of neglected front garden.
She laid out the day’s sewing. Feeling suddenly chill without the fire, lit especially for her and Ruth the previous day, she went upstairs to put on something warmer. She pushed open her window and looked out longingly to the slopes of the escarpment. Beyond the houses, the marshalling yards, the bog meadows and yet more rows of tiny houses on the other side of the valley, she gazed up at the fields. Some were green with new growth after the harvest, others still yellow with stubble, enfolded by hawthorn hedgerows, the tiny leaves, always slow to show the gold and red of autumn colour, still a rich dark green. The light was bright up there, with nothing between the fields and the sky except craggy outcrops too steep to cultivate, scarred here and there by quarries, the light glinting back off pale, new-cut rock surfaces.
She made up her mind, pulled on her jacket, collected the key of the door and walked quickly along the pavement until there was a gap in the flow of carts and motors large enough for her to cross to the other side of the road. A few minutes later, she was in the park, walking back up the narrow path towards the summer seat where she’d sat with Ruth and Tommy on Sunday.
It was cooler today, the sun less bright, but it was warmer here in the park than in the empty, unheated house. She was suddenly aware that the sight of flowers and the rustle of drifting leaves at her feet had made her smile. Moments later, as she came up the slope, she smiled more broadly as she recognised the pleasant-faced, white-haired, elderly woman who had greeted them on Sunday. She was sitting on the summer seat she’d thought of sitting on herself, feeding an array of small birds with crumbs from a paper bag. She paused on the narrow path as she spotted a robin, bolder than the rest, hop on to the arm of the seat, his eye cocked expectantly. A few minutes later, the crumbs had all vanished. The robin had been given some expected treat and had now flown away.
‘Good morning,’ Ellie said, as she came up the seat, where bright eyes and a smiling face looked up at her. ‘I didn’t want to frighten your birds.’
‘That was kind of you. I do hope you’re going to come and sit down and talk to me. I’m fortunate enough not to be a lonely old woman, but I do miss talking to young people. Even some of my grandchildren are rapidly approaching middle-age,’ she said, laughing easily.
Ellie thought what a lovely face she had. Though deeply lined as one would expect with someone in their seventies, or even eighties, the lines were not harsh. There seemed to be a hint of laughter in the very face itself.
She sat down willingly.
‘I saw the robin come to your hand. My father has a wren that sits on the anvil, or even on his hammer, but it won’t come to his hand,’ she said smiling. ‘He says only a robin will do that.’
‘So you don’t live in Belfast, do you?’
‘No, I’m the wee cousin up from the country,’ she said, mimicking Tommy and laughing.
‘We’ll you certainly don’t look like a country cousin,’ the older woman replied, laughing heartily herself, as she ran an eye over Ellie’s pretty dress.
As their laughter faded, Ellie saw her look away for a moment as if some sad or sudden thought had crossed her mind.
‘And where in the country is home? she asked, the smile returning as she spoke.
‘Near Armagh, a little place called Salter’s Grange.’
‘Is your father the blacksmith there?’
Ellie nodded.
‘Then your grandfather was Thomas Scott and your father is Robert.’
‘Goodness,’ said Ellie, quite taken aback, ‘how on earth do you know that?’
‘Because, my dear, my beloved John, who died six years ago this August, served his apprenticeship with Thomas and worked with him for many a long day,’ she said quietly, wiping a tear unselfconsciously from each eye. ‘And I once made a home in the old house opposite the forge, which I expect is a ruin by now.’
‘Then you must be Mrs Hamilton,’ said Ellie quickly. ‘I’ve heard my father talk about you and your living opposite the forge. He said you used to sing when you were doing your work.’
‘My goodness, what memories you bring …’
Ellie watched her face change as she caught a hand to her mouth, almost as if she were afraid she might be overwhelmed by them.
‘You promise you won’t let me bore you,’ she said suddenly. ‘Old people can be so tedious,’ she went on, ‘telling the same old stories.’
‘But it’s not just old people that tell the same old stories,’ Ellie protested. ‘I’ve heard people not all that old tell the same old stories, but they’re always stories you’ve never asked to hear.’
‘Yes, you are quite right. It’s not the stories that are wrong, it’s the people themselves. The stories are what they want to believe. They don’t always have much to do with how things really were.’
Ellie nodded, thinking of listening to Uncle John’s tirade the evening before.
‘Now do tell me your name, please. You must be Robert’s youngest daughter, but I haven’t seen him since John’s funeral. He and your mother both came to Rathdrum that day.’
‘That’s near Banbridge, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, looking pleased.
‘I’m Ellie.’
‘Of course. Your mother was Ellen. I’ve only met her once and it was very briefly,’ she said, a slight frown shadowing her face. ‘And I’m Rose Hamilton. Please, please, call me Rose. I know it’s not usually done, but I’ve no one to call me Rose anymore,’ she said sadly.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because Ellie, although I am so very fortunate and have sons and daughters and grandchildren … and great-grandchildren,’ she added, with a little laugh, ‘I’m Ma … or Mother, when they’re being polite,’ she added, now laughing aloud, ‘or Granny or Grandma or even Grandmother, depending on which family it is and what they’ve been taught, but I no longer have my dear friends, Anne and Mary and Peggy and Selina and Elizabeth … and … others. So there’s no one left to call me Rose now,’ she ended wistfully.
‘Rose is a lovely name. I think you grew roses once at Salter’s Grange. I have a little garden in the ruins of the old house and there’s a pink rose I found there run wild.’
‘A rambler, with masses of tiny blooms and wicked little thorns?’
‘Yes,’ said Ellie, her eyes lighting up with pleasure. ‘Could it possibly be what you planted?’
‘I honestly don’t know. Perhaps it’s a great-great-grandchild. I’m not sure how long a rambler like that can go on propagating itself if it’s left to get on with it all on its own. But I have a grand-daughter called Rosie, who might know. She worked for McGredy’s in Portadown. She still gardens though she’d married now with three little ones. I’ll ask her when James next takes me to see her in Dromore.’
‘Is James your son, the gentleman you were walking with on Sunday?’
‘Yes, he is. He’s my eldest. Rather an important gentleman now, so I’m told, though he’s very modest about it himself. He’s in one of the Government Departments. Economic Development, I think it’s called. He’s been very busy moving his office from the City Hall to the new building up at Stormont. But he’s very good to me, drives me around to visit my family and takes me to the Mournes when I pine for the mountains. You can see the hills from this seat when the leaves fall, but I was born in Donegal and was brought up in Kerry, so these Antrim Hills aren’t quite what I call mountains. Though I am very fortunate to have them and this park.’
‘You can almost forget about the city when you’re sitting here, can’t you,’ Ellie said, looking towards the hills, still hidden by the summer’s growth, a quiet longing in her eyes.
‘Don’t you like the city, Ellie?’
‘I don’t know. I’m always glad to come and see Auntie and my cousins, but I don’t think I’d like to live here. My bedroom is at the top of the house and I can see fields from my window. I think I was missing them this morning. And the little, humpy green hills of Armagh. I’m even missing the ride in and out to work in the town and getting wet as often as not,’ she ended laughing.
‘Where do you work?’
‘Freeburns. It’s a drapery business. It used to be quite small, but my boss is very go ahead.’
‘Yes, I think I can remember it. Just round the corner from the marketplace. It almost looks down Thomas Street. Mrs Freeburn used to sew mourning dress. She had a notice in the window … that was a long time ago …’
‘Were you remembering something very sad? Ellie asked, as the silence grew longer.
‘Yes, I’m afraid I was,’ she replied, nodding rather sadly. ‘One of my oft-told stories. About escaping with my children from a rail disaster, thanks to my sons James and Sam. But it’s much too sad a story for such a lovely morning.’
She paused and turned to look at Ellie directly. ‘Would it be very rude of me to ask if you have someone you hope to marry?’
‘No, not rude at all,’ said Ellie promptly.
She wondered what to say, or where to start. She couldn’t remember ever having talked to an older woman as lively or as interesting as Rose Hamilton. She found herself wishing they really could be friends, then she could ask to hear her stories. What was it like when she was young? How had she met her husband? And how did she know he was the person she wanted to marry?
She’d love to know about her children, daughters or sons, who they had married, what they’d done and where they all were. It seemed to her that if she were able to listen to Rose talking about her life, she would learn all the things that her mother had neither the patience, nor the wisdom, nor the interest to teach her.
Neither of them was aware of time passing as Ellie spoke of George and their plans, of her sisters and what she knew of Canada, until a tall figure stopped in front of them, tipped his hat courteously and said with a slight smile: ‘Mother, I was told that you had gone missing without leave.’
‘Goodness, James, it can’t be lunch-time already?’
‘I am reliably informed that it is.’
Rose and Ellie both laughed.
‘James, this delightful companion of mine is Ellie Scott, Robert Scott’s daughter. She’s visiting Annie Magowan, Annie Scott-that-was down on the Lisburn Road. Can you believe it?’
‘To my discredit, I seem to remember pulling that same lady’s hair in the schoolroom beside Grange Church. And you say she lives locally?’
‘Not only that, Mrs Wilson’s been buying our vegetables at Mr Magowan’s shop for years and we didn’t know he was Johnny Magowan from Ballyards.’
‘It is just possible that keeping the shop’s previous name may have confused us.’
Ellie decided that James Hamilton was a nice man. He seemed to be laughing at himself very slightly all the time. His way of speaking was very friendly, even if it sounded a little bit formal to her and his accent was rather posh.
‘My dear, I can’t ask you to lunch, Mrs Wilson would scold me if she thought she wasn’t fully prepared, but please, will you come and see me again? Can you spare the time? What about lunch tomorrow?’
‘Not tomorrow, mother dear. Previous engagement.’
‘Oh what a nuisance,’ she said crossly. ‘When do you go, Ellie?’
‘Saturday morning. Quite early, I’m afraid.’
‘Friday then. Can you possibly come Friday? Come to me here when you can and we’ll have lunch and if you have to run away afterwards I’ll understand.’
‘I’d love to come,’ said Ellie, as Rose began to get awkwardly to her feet.
She found it difficult to watch her struggle and wondered why James merely stood by, holding her stick till she was firmly on her feet.
‘There, I’m perfectly all right, you see,’ she said, smiling up at James. ‘Pleased as I am to see you, I would have come home by myself had I not been having such a happy morning.’
‘Perhaps mother, Ellie, if I may also call you so,’ he began, with a little bow toward her, ‘might need to know the number of our house. Then your meeting may not be prevented if it has the bad taste to rain on Friday.’
Rose stopped, looked from one to the other, and laughed.
‘Yes, we know. Old ladies are forgetful. But why not, when I have far more important things to think about! Thank you Ellie, my dear, for a lovely morning. I shall look forward to Friday. Give my regards to your Aunt Annie, if she remembers me. Goodbye.’
‘Now have you got everythin’, love? Your ticket, your handbag and the carrier with the material, forby your wee case?’
Ellie smiled as Aunt Annie went through the routine she’d heard her use every morning with Uncle John and Ruth and Bobby too on schooldays. Perhaps because her own mother had never bothered to make such an effort, she found it very endearing.
‘It’s a pity you hafta go in to come back out again, but then I suppose it’s only because you know the Armagh drivers that they’ll drop you off here. Time ye were away now and don’t be long till yer back, as the saying is. Tell your Ma and Da I was askin’ for them.’
Annie came to the door with her, gave her a big hug and watched as she walked down the short garden path and disappeared behind the overgrown privet hedge. Minutes later, beyond her neighbour’s more ordered garden, she saw the small figure reappear, her case in one hand, her purchases in the other, her bag over her shoulder. Just as she reached the stop, Annie heard a tram approaching. She closed the door, well pleased her favourite niece had got off to a good start on her journey home.
Ellie could hardly believe how quickly the week had passed and how very varied it had been. As they ran without any hold up past the bakery, past the junction with the avenue leading to the Workhouse and on towards the city centre bus station, she began to wonder what she would say when asked about her ‘holiday’. People always asked about holidays when you came back.
It would have to be different things for different people of that she was sure. Daisy and Susie would want to know what she’d bought, which of the new styles had most prominence in the windows of Donegal Place and Royal Avenue and what she and Ruth had done together. Mr Freeburn would want a full report on leisure and sports clothing as displayed in the city centre. She might tell him she met Mrs Patterson in Robinson and Cleavers, but she would most certainly not mention her relationship with Miss Walker or what she’d said about Freeburns having such a shrewd buyer.
She peered out of the window and saw the news she’d expected to see on the news boards. Further Rioting, said one. RUC baton charge, said another. There was no doubt what Charlie Running would want to hear about. She had a lot of questions to ask him too, though not quite as many as she would have had if James Hamilton had not appeared for lunch the previous day.
He’d been to a meeting with the Mayor in the City Hall which had ended earlier than he’d expected and Rose had wanted to know what was going to happen. How did the Guardians hope to stop the rioting without making concessions? What point was there in delay when all the time distress was increasing and property being destroyed.
Ellie was quite surprised at Rose’s questions, but it was clear she knew a good deal more about strikes and stoppages than she would have guessed. She referred to other labour troubles and asked why the government was still in recess. At one point she asked quite sharply why it had met in September merely to extend the recess to November when there was a full scale crisis on their doorstep.
James was very proper and said nothing that was still confidential, but Rose made very shrewd guesses. When she said that they thought if they weren’t in session they couldn’t be blamed for what was happening James had to admit that ‘she wasn’t far wrong’. But after that, it was Rose herself who changed the subject and asked Ellie about her cousins.
The Armagh bus was not very full and the conductor put all her luggage safely up on the racks out of her way. At least this time she didn’t have to worry about breaking the eggs.
Once out of the city, the journey went very well. She sat back and watched the line of the hills slip away behind them as they approached Lisburn. Gratefully, she ran her eyes over the trees lining the route. Even a week further on they were showing much more positive signs of autumn. In the main street of Moira, the four large trees that lined the road had spread inches of shrivelled leaves over the footpaths. Men with twig brooms were sweeping vigorously. Heaps of leaves, like small haystacks were awaiting collection by a horse and cart, a big heavy horse with broad shoulders and gentle eyes. Just like the ones that came to the forge from the surrounding farms.
She thought of Robinson’s next door and then of George. There’d been no letter in the week before she came away, so there should be a letter waiting. Yes, she was glad to be going home, whatever she might find there.