The second week of Clare’s stay at the house beyond the forge passed so quickly she could hardly believe it was Saturday when she woke on yet another fine, sunny morning, the one on which Auntie Polly was due to arrive from Belfast.
She lay looking up at the ceiling and listened for the sounds that would tell her it was time to get up. Granda Scott would light the stove, put the kettle to boil and carry the heavy griddle from its place in the cupboard. Then he would call her and she would fry the bread for breakfast and make the tea. That was just one of her jobs now.
All week she had been trying to see what she could do now there wasn’t even Jinny to do any work in the house. She had found plenty she could do. She’d even managed to wash and iron one of Granda’s shirts after she’d found a whole collection of flat irons mixed in with broken tools and old shoes under the corner cupboard in the kitchen.
‘Granda, why are there four irons?’ she asked as she lifted them out and began to blow off some of the dust and cobwebs.
He looked at them and tried to remember the last time he had seen a woman smoothing. Suddenly, a smile lit up his face. Clare thought he looked extraordinarily pleased with himself.
‘Well, ye see, ye have to heat the smoothin’ iron on the stove and then ye pass it over the clothes. But the heat goes away awful quick so you take another iron an’ put the first one back. An’ I mind ye have to give the iron a wipe as you lift it from the stove for fear there’s dirt on the end of it to drop on the clean clothes.’
‘You haven’t got an ironing board, have you, Granda?’
‘No, there’s niver been one o’ those. I seed yer Granny fold up a sheet or an old blanket that had got kinda thin and put it on the table. That’s how she useta do it. Were ye goin’ to give it a try?’
‘I was, but I’ll have to take a sheet off my bed and use that.’
‘There was sheets …’ he said uneasily.
‘That’s all right, Granda, it’ll do my sheet good to be ironed. Clean sheets always feel lovely when they’ve been freshly ironed.’
It had been an awfully slow business. To begin with the top of the stove was so dirty and greasy she had to rub for ages to make a clean bit before she could put the irons to heat. One of the irons must have had a bit of rust on it but she didn’t notice until she’d ironed it on to the shirt. Fortunately it was only on the tail at the back which would never show. And they did cool so quickly. You’d only just got down the front when the wrinkles stopped coming out and you had to go back to the stove for another one. No wonder Mummy always said her favourite wedding present was her electric iron.
She’d had a go at cooking herrings in the oven. That was nearly a disaster for the fire was too low. When she opened the oven at dinner time they were just as they’d been when she put them in. But then Granda came and made up the fire and gave it a good poke and when she looked again the butter was making a little fizzling sound and they agreed they just needed to wait a while longer and keep the potatoes warm on the side of the stove.
On Tuesday, when Granda Scott went into town she’d gone to spend the afternoon at Robinson’s next door. Going there the first time was nearly as bad as visiting Granny Hamilton because there were so many people and she couldn’t get all their names sorted out. Old Mrs Robinson was easy because she just sat by the stove in the farm kitchen and gave orders and young Mrs Robinson was fine because she was had lovely dark hair and eyes, but apart from Jamsey, she couldn’t work out which of the men were Robinsons and which were the hired hands. They all came and washed their hands at the pump and tramped into the big kitchen for their tea laughing and talking together.
Old Mrs Robinson asked her a lot of questions. She looked rather cross with her funny little spectacles and her habit of wrinkling up her forehead if she didn’t understand, but actually she was quite nice and when Clare said she had to go home to get Granda’s tea ready, she told young Mrs Robinson, who was called Margaret, to give her some extra eggs as a present and some scallions from the garden to make champ.
‘Sure the scallions is running wild in the garden, childdear. Wheniver ye want a few, come and take them. Don’t bother to ask anyone, just help yourself. An’ the next time ye come Margaret’ll have a cutting of thon red geranium that ye admired. Yer welcome any afternoon Robert’s in town.’
It was only a little cutting, but when she went back on Thursday Margaret had put it in a proper flower pot she’d found in one of the outhouses. Much nicer than a tin can they’d agreed as they stood in the dairy together washing eggs.
Clare thought it looked quite perky already though Margaret warned her it would take a while to root. Then it would be another while before it produced a flower bud. It might bloom this year if the weather stayed mild till Christmas as it often did, but it might not and then she must bring it indoors and keep it in a cool room so that it didn’t get the frost that would kill it, nor be forced into growth by the warmth which it wouldn’t like either.
Clare was quite surprised that geraniums were so particular. When Mummy and Daddy visited Granny Hamilton, or some of their own friends who had gardens, they used to bring back bits and pieces of plants in a paper bag and just push them into the soil in the flowerbed Daddy had made with concrete blocks all down one side of the back yard. Everything grew and bloomed all over the place, especially some pretty blue stuff that trailed down and covered the concrete blocks so that they didn’t show at all. She wished she could remember its name but it had gone right out of her head.
There always seemed to be flowers in the back yard, even in winter. Indeed, when she thought about it she remembered Mummy saying that she’d like a garden that would give her a posy in every season of the year and last Christmas Eve she had a tiny, wee vase of flowers on the table for Christmas Day.
‘Look, Sam, we’ve managed it. Winter jasmine and a few rose buds. I think they may open yet in the warm. Not many people have garden flowers for Christmas like we have.’
She still cried sometimes when she thought of Mummy and Daddy but then she reminded herself that they were together and she was sure Heaven would have lots of flowers. That helped too.
She slid out of bed and began to wash. They’d been so lucky with the weather on Sunday. It had stayed fine all afternoon while they were at Liskeyborough but then after she went to bed, she’d heard the rain drumming on the roof. Granny Hamilton had said it would rain and it certainly did. It must have rained all night, for next morning there was a huge puddle right outside the front door. She was just coming out of her room when Granda opened the front door and a blackbird who was having a bath just looked up at him and then went on with his bath.
‘Ach that one’s been here for years now,’ he explained when she asked why he didn’t fly away. ‘I call him George. He coud next thing to talk to you, that bird. He’ll be back in the kitchen lookin’ for crumbs when he gets useta you. Niver throw the crumbs to him, that frights him, just drop them at yer feet an’ he’ll come right up to you an’ eat them up. Ye won’t have to sweep up after the same fella.’
The rainwater barrel was overflowing and the water was so clear you could see right to the bottom. And the earth in the newly-weeded flowerbed looked dark and inviting. When she was putting away the breakfast dishes, she saw Granda Scott turn aside on his way to the forge and stand looking at it. She was sure he looked pleased as he limped on down the damp path where the pear tree still dripped bright drops after the night’s downpour.
The secret of not burning the bread was making sure it hadn’t curled up in the first place. And that meant seeing the lid was on the bread bin which Granda usually forgot. Then you had to make sure the fat was spread all over the pan and wasn’t just sitting in patches. It was so dark over the stove it was always hard to see the melted fat unless you tipped the griddle and made sure it was shiny all over.
Mummy had a flat thing called an egg slice for turning over bread in the pan but Granda hadn’t got one. There were no cooking tools left so she decided she would just have to pretend. She found a big spoon and picked out the largest of the surviving dinner knives and, between squashing and flipping, she managed to get each piece properly coated in fat before it had time to burn.
‘Yer a dab hand at that. Ye’ll make someone a powerful wife,’ he said, watching her later that morning.
She giggled. She couldn’t possibly marry anyone even if she wanted to because she’d have Granda to look after when he got old.
She’d finished washing her own vest, knickers and socks and had just hung them on the elderberry bush when she heard Jack’s car. She ran down to the forge to greet them.
It was only when she saw Auntie Polly that it came back to her that the fortnight had been a trial, to see if it would work. She had no doubts at all in her mind that she wanted to stay, but what would she do if Auntie Polly said she couldn’t, or if Granda got all anxious and uneasy and was too afraid to think that they could manage somehow.
She was so upset that for a moment she just stood and watched Polly and Jack getting out of the car and didn’t say a word.
There were kisses and hello’s and Jack told Granda Scott that the mare was as right as rain again and the father was very grateful to him. Polly wanted to know what Jack was talking about and Clare told her all about their Sunday visit as they walked up to the house.
‘Somebody’s been gardening,’ said Polly as she came up to the front door.
‘Aye, we pulled out a weed or two last Sunday. I think maybe we can find a few more about the place if we chanced to look,’ said Granda, laughing wryly.
‘I have stuff in the back of the car for Clare, a few wee shrubs and some bits of perennials m’ mother split up for her. Will I away an’ get them?’ asked Jack, as they stood looking at the empty flowerbed.
‘Oh, yes please, Uncle Jack, I’ll come and help you,’ said Clare as they set off back to the car.
They brought the carefully wrapped bundles and packets and put them in the shade and then went into the house where Polly was making a cup of tea.
‘You’ve been a busy girl, I hear,’ she said, as Clare came back into the room with the sweet milk she’d fetched from the sitting room.
‘Aye, she’s wrought hard,’ agreed Granda.
‘Well, I’ve got great news for you all,’ said Polly as she poured for them. ‘Jack here phoned me up last Monday and told me about Jinny and the very next day I’d a call from Bob asking me if there was anythin’ wrong at home.’
She paused, put down her own cup of tea and scuffled in her handbag.
‘So, I told him the whole story and look what he sent you, registered post,’ she went on waving a bright envelope at them. ‘He says I’m to buy anythin’ you need immediately an’ I’m to make him a list of anythin’ else for the winter.’
She took out four five pound notes from the envelope and held them up. Clare had never seen a five pound note before and even Granda Scott looked amazed.
‘Ach, sure he shoulden a done that. It’s far too good,’ he said awkwardly.
‘It’s good enough, Daddy, I agree, but don’t forget Bob is a bank manager now and he’s just been promoted. It took a brave few horseshoes to keep the backside in his trousers.’
Everybody laughed and Clare put out her hand for a note.
‘Why’s it got a piece of silver paper down one side?’ she asked, as she studied the flimsy paper with its delicate scrollwork and engraving of the King.
‘That’s to make sure it’s proper,’ explained Jack. ‘It’s very hard to forge a note if it has a wee stripe like that down it.’
‘Well, it looks as if we need to go shoppin’,’ said Polly as she emptied her cup. ‘Will ye come to Armagh with us, Daddy, or will ye let us do the stuff for the house and you to do yer usual this afternoon?’
‘Ach, sure I’m no use on linen an’ suchlike. Tear away. I’ll come on the bus and sure maybe ye’ll still be there.’
‘Very likely, indeed,’ said Polly cheerfully, as she produced another less exciting-looking envelope. ‘This is for Clare, from her Auntie Florence in London. “A pair of shoes and a winter coat or whatever she most needs”, she says, and she sends you both her love. Isn’t that nice?’
Clare couldn’t quite believe it. It looked as if, suddenly, not just one, but two fairy godmothers had appeared. But it struck her then that it was awfully funny that people never talked about fairy godfathers. After all, Uncle Bob was a man. And so was Uncle Jack and he had brought her all those exciting-looking things to plant in the flowerbed.
‘I’ll see yez later, then,’ said Granda Scott, as Polly collected them up and got them moving. ‘Don’t buy up all Armagh,’ he laughed as he saw them to the car.
Clare guessed that after all the excitement he might have half an hour on the bed before he went back to the forge.
Shopping was hard work and Clare wasn’t much interested in blankets and sheets, but it was nice to be in Armagh again and go into shops that she used to go into with Mummy. Some of the people behind the counters remembered her and she made Auntie Polly promise faithfully they would go down Scotch Street and say hello to Uncle Harry and ask how her bicycle was coming on.
Buying a winter coat in John M. Wilson’s looked as if it was going to be very easy. The first one she put on fitted perfectly and was such a pretty dark blue that she didn’t want to take it off again.
‘Only one problem, sweetheart,’ said Auntie Polly. ‘I may not have enough clothing coupons. I tried to get extra ones for you but they haven’t come through yet. I’ve filled in at least three forms explainin’ what happened your clothes and why you have to have new ones. But there’s such a lot of red tape these days.’
‘You mean I can’t have it, even with Auntie Florence’s money?’
Clare’s eyes filled with tears and she felt quite ashamed of herself.
‘Excuse me,’ said the assistant, who’d been pretending not to hear, ‘but are you Miss Scott of the Grange?’
Auntie Polly laughed and admitted that she was, but not for a brave while now. And the assistant nodded and said she thought she recognised her and forby she knew very few people called Polly.
‘Do you remember Florrie Patterson?’ she went on, a broad smile on her face.
‘Of course, I do,’ said Polly. ‘Florrie and I served our time together in Thomas Street. How is she? Is she well?’
‘She is, aye. She’s gran’. She’s my aunt an’ she useta talk about you an’ some of the jokes you had down in Thomas Street. She works up the stairs here. She’s our alteration hand. Now if you have a word wi’ her about the coupons, an’ she has a word wi’ the boss, I wouldn’t think ye’d have much bother wi’ the wee coat.’
So they left Jack in the men’s department to buy some socks for Granda Scott and trooped up the narrow wooden stairs to where Florrie was working away on her sewing machine.
‘D’ye mind Her Ladyship we worked for?’ asked Polly.
‘Could ye iver ferget her?’ replied Florrie. ‘An’ d’ye mind the way her voice useta change on the way from the front of the shop to the workroom. She could curse and swear at us somethin’ ferocious but if you heerd her in the shop or the fittin’ room you’d think she was Lady Muck.’
Clare thought Florrie was great fun and she’d have sat listening to them talk all day if Polly hadn’t remembered how much they still had to do on their list.
‘We must go, Florrie. We’ve left Clare’s uncle in menswear and he’ll think we’ve fell and forgot. We’re away to Leyburns for shoes now. I’ll think of you as I pass the shop. I’m sure she haunts it still.’
‘Aye. I could imagine that rightly. An’ never worry, Polly, about them coupons. I’ve got more than I need. I’ll see to it for the wee lassie.’
She turned to Clare who was already clutching her coat in the parcel the assistant had wrapped up for her. ‘Health to wear, Clare, strength to tear, Clare, and money to buy more, Clare.’ She took a shiny sixpence from the drawer of her sewing machine and gave it to her. ‘Put that in your pocket the first time you wear yer coat and say three times: “May my pocket never be empty”.’
‘May my pocket never be empty,’ said Clare solemnly.
‘That’s right,’ said Florrie. ‘Don’t ferget.’
They said their goodbyes, collected up Jack and made their way up into the marketplace. The day was getting very warm and the pavements were crowded. On the steps in front of the Technical School, a nurseryman had laid out his wares, shrubs wrapped in sacking and flowers blooming in pots. Clare wanted to go and look but Auntie Polly said they’d have to go to Whitsitts first. There wasn’t a decent saucepan you could make a drop of soup in and even the old saucepan for boiling eggs looked as if it was ready for the dump.
‘Could we buy an egg slice, please?’
‘Why d’you want an egg slice, Clare?’
‘Well, it would be easier to turn over the bread at breakfast. Mummy used to have one and I remembered it. It’s quite difficult with a spoon and knife though I can manage it now.’
Clare noticed that Auntie Polly looked very thoughtful as she walked up and down the display stands trying to find an egg slice. Perhaps egg slices were too expensive.
‘And it would be nice to have a sharp knife for the scallions. The dinner knives are all very blunt,’ she added, as Polly found what she was looking for.
By the time they had tried on shoes and found a pair of lace-ups for everyday they were all hungry. Jack said he knew a good place for dinner down in the old horse market and they set off down Scotch Street carrying all their parcels.
It seemed to be further away than it usually was and Clare was so glad to get there. She sat herself down on the wooden bench and let Auntie Polly stack all their shopping in the corner. The smell of roast meat and cooking potatoes made her feel very hungry indeed.
‘Are you still not drinking milk, Clare?’ asked Polly, as Jack prepared to order their meal.
Clare smiled sheepishly and shook her head.
‘Not even the Robinson’s nice fresh milk?’ she persisted.
Clare shook her head again and then leaning towards her, whispered to her that she needed the lavatory quite quickly.
‘Just over there. Through that door and up the stairs,’ said Polly, who knew the place from long ago.
She turned to Jack, about to say something about how nice it was to come to a place after such a long time and find it had hardly changed at all.
‘Does Clare not drink milk?’ he asked, before she’d had time to open her mouth.
‘No,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’ve tried my best but it’s no use. Ellie never forced her, so neither have I.’
Jack looked so very upset that Polly was quite amazed. He had been in such good spirits all morning but now he seemed quite distraught. She’d got so used to his relaxed, easy-going personality that for a moment she was completely taken aback.
‘Jack dear, what’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice full of concern. ‘Are ye worried about wee Clare stayin’ with her Granda and not gettin’ the right food? D’ye think I should take her back with me after all? What is it atall, Jack? You look as if ye’d lost all belongin’ to ye.’
For a moment, Polly thought Jack might be going to burst into tears, but then she saw him make an effort to collect himself.
‘Polly, I didn’t know about the milk till this minit,’ he began. ‘That’s why the wee lassie’s still alive and not pushing up the daisies with Ellie and Sam. They’ve only found out in the last week or so. It was the milk that brought the typhoid. This woman from Donegal came to Armagh to stay with relatives. She didn’t know she was a carrier an’ she was helpin’ them with their milk round for that was their livelihood. They had a horse and cart that took the churn and delivered every morning. All the people that got the typhoid was on that one milk round and there was sixty or more people died as well as Ellie and Sam. It’s been kinda hushed up, but I heard from the gardener up at the hospital that there was that many ill, they had to send ambulances full to Belfast and even to Dublin. We might well have lost the wee one as well,’ he said abruptly, as he got up and went to fetch them lemonade from the bar.
Clare was so tired when they finally got back from Armagh that she said she would take half an hour on the bed. She was still fast asleep at teatime but when Auntie Polly woke her she was fine again. She helped to make the potato salad to go with the cooked ham and tomatoes from Armagh and then, when they had tidied up and put the tea things away, they found proper places for the new blankets and sheets and hung her new coat on a hanger on the back of the door with an old shirt over it to keep the dust off.
It was a lovely summer evening and Auntie Polly wanted to pay a short visit to the Robinsons. It was getting late, but she said Clare could come too for they wouldn’t stay very long. They walked down the lane and across the top of the orchard and Clare told Polly all about her two visits to the Robinson’s, how much she had liked them but how confused she’d been. Could Auntie Polly help her to sort out which were Robinsons and which weren’t.
The family were very pleased to see Polly and they asked her how she thought her father was. Clare heard old Mrs Robinson say that they’d all been concerned about him after Ellie died, even before he’d lost his wife, but he seemed to them to be well improved recently.
They’d heard about Jinny from John Wiley’s wife who was the sister of one of their helpers and they all agreed it was no bad thing she was not coming back. If Robert needed some help in the house there were girls and women a-plenty who’d be glad to help out and who could be trusted.
Margaret told Polly that Clare was a great hand at washing eggs and they were thinking of offering her a job. Everybody laughed at that, but Clare thought it was a good idea. She’d been thinking about how she might earn some money like she had in Belfast in case they might have another emergency.
Auntie Polly still hadn’t said whether she could stay or not and Clare tried to pluck up courage to ask as they left the farm kitchen and stepped out into the cobbled yard where the white washed farm buildings gleamed in the fading light. They turned out of the farmyard between high white pillars and crossed the gravel at the front of the house where the big monkey puzzle tree stood in the middle of the small, enclosed lawn. It threw long shadows on the path that led up to the front door that no one ever used.
But Clare couldn’t think what to say. Polly had fallen silent and everything was so still all around them it almost seemed wrong to say anything and spoil the peacefulness of the evening. All she could hear was the distant lowing of cattle down by the stream and the scuffle of birds beginning to roost for the night in the nearby trees and hedgerows.
They tramped silently past the horse trough and the cart shed and the potato house and the big hay shed already filling up with bales of straw from the harvest. It was as they were about to walk on across the top of the orchard to the forge that Clare suddenly noticed in the fading light that someone had taken a scythe to the nettles on the short cut.
Where before there had been a narrow track, passable only to people wearing trousers and boots, there was now a broad swathe of dying vegetation just waiting to be raked away. Moments later they walked through the front door which still stood open to the cool of the evening.
‘Did you scythe the nettles, Daddy?’ asked Polly as he heard their footsteps and looked up.
He was leaning over the table, lighting the lamp, the soft glow from the newly trimmed wick showing up his face in the now dark kitchen.
‘What nettles?’ he asked absently, as he warmed the mantle and then put back the globe.
‘On the shortcut?’
He thought for a moment and then nodded at them.
‘Ach no, I’m no han’ with a scythe. That was Jamsey. After ye went off to town this mornin’ he came and did it and when I spoke to him he said it should have been done long ago for they’d sting the legs off wee Clarey.’
‘Wasn’t that kind of him,’ said Polly, as she turned towards Clare, a thoughtful look on her face. ‘I think Jamsey must be hopin’ you’ll stay,’ she added casually.
‘Aye,’ said Granda Scott more forcefully than usual. ‘An’ he’s not the only one. Sure what woud I do now without her?’