‘And which of these has Madam booked for her birthday dinner this evening?’ John Wiley asked with a large smile, as he and Andrew replaced the tables a little after seven o’clock.
‘I have no idea, John,’ Andrew replied, his sleeves rolled up, his jacket and tie abandoned. ‘All I know is that the controlled riot went well, the mother was delighted, there’s a cheque in the cash box and she says she has some other friends who’d be only too glad of the same arrangement.’
‘It was a great idea,’ John said, as they manoeuvred another table back into position. ‘She’s full of ideas. I don’t know where she gets it from. It wasn’t her grandfather, that’s for sure. God rest his soul, he was the decentest man alive, but he had no imagination,’ he declared, pausing to catch his breath. ‘It was one of the Robinsons asked him to make a field gate,’ he went on. ‘He drew him a wee picture on a scrap of paper and that was what started him on the gates when the work with horses and machinery began to fall away. Great he was at it too, but he’d never have thought of it himself.’
‘I only met him twice,’ Andrew said regretfully, as they worked their way round the room. ‘Clare took me to meet him one evening the summer before she went up to Queens and he reminded me I’d ridden over to the forge on my cousin’s chestnut the previous year. We’d only spoken for a few minutes, but he remembered the chestnut all right. Of course, I’d gone over hoping to see Clare, but she was wasn’t at home, more’s the pity.’
‘Well, she’s at home tonight all right,’ said John beaming, as she appeared, wearing a plain, dark skirt, an open-necked, cream silk blouse and a small scarf pinned at the neck with a gold brooch. ‘You’re lookin’ great, Clare. I heard it was trousers this afternoon.’
‘It was, John, it was. And dusty it was too, down on this carpet. You’d have thought it had never seen a vacuum cleaner. I was rather in need of a bath afterwards!’
‘Well now, the pair of you, enjoy your meal. Unless six cars turn up all at once, I guarantee I’ll not be disturbin’ you,’ he promised, leaving them laughing in the midst of the empty room.
Andrew looked around him critically. ‘Not many dining tonight,’ he announced. ‘I was surprised when I managed to get a booking. Apparently the place has quite a good reputation, but they did say Friday night was often quiet,’ he continued solemnly, as he rolled his shirt sleeves down. ‘Do you want me to put my tie back on?’
She laughed and put her arms round him.
‘No, I’ll take you as you are. That’s one advantage of having our own private restaurant. How about the table by the window? Not much light about, but you can view the site of your lake. Sorry, I mean pond.’
They stood in the bay window looking out across the remnant of home paddock to one of the former Drumsollen fields where their neighbour’s cattle were grazing peacefully. The day had been chill and sodden, the kind of day when wet leaves cling to pavements and the branches of trees are black with moisture. But even as they gazed the flourishing grasses bent gently in a small breeze. The sky brightened and began to clear from the west. Minutes later, flickers of sunlight reflected off the wet roof of the garage and picked up the splashes of colour amongst the swaying seed heads in the wild flower meadow.
‘My goodness, what a lovely surprise,’ Clare said. ‘If we hurry up and fetch supper, we’ll be able to have it in daylight. It looks as if we may even get sunshine.’
June had cooked dinner for them while Clare and Bronagh were providing the birthday entertainment. By the time ten hungry little boys crowded into the kitchen, their eyes wide as they viewed the plates of sandwiches and cakes laid out on the big table, a roast chicken with all the trimmings was safely wrapped in foil and parked in the low oven of the Aga.
‘Eat as much as you want,’ June instructed, as she was leaving, ‘So long as you leave one breast and one leg to go with the ham in the fridge. You might need that for a buffet meal if anyone comes.’
The chicken was splendid, moist and succulent, and they were both very hungry, but they reckoned they would need at least Jessie and Harry, or Mary and John, were they to reduce the leftovers from the large bird to a mere breast and leg. They toasted Robert, the giver of the wine, and they toasted those dear friends whose birthday cards had decorated the mirror of her dressing table for the last week. It was a particularly good bottle of wine, a Puligny-Montrachet, and as Andrew pointed out, when he refilled her glass, there was no one to tell them to save some for tomorrow.
When Andrew brought the cheeseboard from the sideboard they refilled their glasses yet again.
‘My goodness,’ he said, ‘French cheeses in Armagh?’
‘Oh yes. You can get them all right. Just expensive,’ she said, as she opened the biscuits-for-cheese assortment and set the tin on the table between them.
‘Is there dessert?’ he asked, as he chose crackers. ‘I’m not sure I’ll have room,’ he admitted, as he addressed the Brie.
‘Tarte aux abricots’ she said, eyeing him.
‘Oh well,’ he sighed. ‘A short rest and a couple of circuits of the dining-room will facilitate, if not entirely renew, my appetite. You know it’s one of my favourites.’
‘Even more to the point, June does. But she never let’s on. She just suggests it and I say yes.’
He laughed and thought how happy she looked. And how elegant in her simple blouse and skirt. She always said that Marie-Claude had taught her to dress like a Frenchwoman, but he reckoned she’d been a star pupil. Hard to believe now how she’d looked when he’d found her weeping her heart out this morning.
‘Shall I turn on some of the lamps?’ he asked. ‘Or do you prefer a romantic gloom?’
‘Why do you think a gloom is supposed to be romantic?’ she asked, as he peered at the cheese in the dim light.
‘Well, one answer is that a gloom, as you call it, softens the edges of what you are perceiving,’ he answered soberly. ‘In the absence of clear definition one could, if one were so inclined, create something different from what is actually there,’ he ended, with that deliberate touch of lawyer’s pomposity which always made her laugh.
‘In other words, if you don’t look too closely you can see what you like. And if you don’t listen too carefully you can hear what you like.’
‘And if you have no intention of doing anything other than what you are currently doing, you can save yourself the trouble of even pretending to look or listen. You just do your own thing in dedicated ignorance, as one of my teachers was fond of saying.’
‘There’s a lot of it about, isn’t there? she replied crisply. ‘That’s what Charlie would say.’
‘We’re being very sober tonight given how splendid this wine is,’ Andrew said as he shared the last of the bottle carefully to avoid the lees.
‘I don’t think I could manage frivolity tonight,’ she said easily. ‘And not just because of dear Hector. It’s more a sense that tonight is one of those nights we will remember. A marker, perhaps, so that we will look back and say: Do you remember my twenty-eighth birthday at Drumsollen with June’s chicken and apricot tart and Robert’s delectable white Bordeaux . . .? But perhaps I’m just being imaginative, which is a polite way of saying I’m being fanciful.’
‘No, I don’t think you’re being fanciful,’ he said firmly. ‘I think tonight is a double celebration. It is your birthday, and we are setting out again. We said last week we wouldn’t give up hope when things looked so bad, and already we’ve made a start.’
‘Birthday parties and sandwich lunches,’ she said dubiously.
‘You are sometimes very literal, my dearest. What I meant was that we’ve had some very big disappointments this year. Together and separately. But we haven’t let them overwhelm us. I’ve think I’ve managed a bit of progress too. The only reason I haven’t told you is that, like your children’s party, it’s only come together today. Something’s happened that just might be a start for me as well.’
‘Oh Andrew, that would be a really lovely birthday present,’ she cried. ‘Do you want to tell me this minute, or shall we make coffee, take John a cup and bring ours back here? The walk would do us good,’ she said, laughing happily.
The light had gone by the time they’d taken John coffee and a piece of tart, shared a few friendly words and moved back to the dining-room. It was not a room Clare had ever liked, its decoration over-formal, the heavy, gold-framed portraits sombre and oppressive, except for Archbishop Ussher of Armagh, who stared down grimly enough from his superior position, but looked more cheerful than the rest by virtue of his bright red robes.
‘What do you know about Legal Aid?’ Andrew asked, when he drew the heavy curtains and sat down again, their table now in a pool of lamplight.
‘Not a thing,’ she admitted honestly, as she poured coffee. ‘Unless you mean Thelma.’
‘Legal Aide. Not bad. Not bad,’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘It is, in fact, a statutory right. People who are poor and haven’t the resources to engage a solicitor, or go to court, now have the right to Legal Aid, paid for by the Government in order to redress their legitimate grievances and obtain justice,’ he said formally. ‘The legislation has only recently been put in place. It has not been made widely known and has certainly not been advertised as it should have been on this side of the Irish Sea.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Just think for a minute. Who are the most deprived people in Ulster, with the highest percentage of unemployment, living in the most overcrowded conditions?’
‘Well, there’s plenty of poverty amongst the Protestant working-class, but there’s a great deal more among Catholics,’ she said, thinking of Bronagh.
‘Correct. You may not remember this, but back in January there was a lot of publicity when a young Protestant woman got a Council house. She was single and there were families of six or seven who’d been on the waiting list for years. Catholic, of course. She got the house, because she happened to be the secretary to one of the ward Councillors.’
‘Yes, I do remember now,’ she nodded. ‘Charlie told me a group in Dungannon were trying to do something about it for the sake of others.’
‘Yes, they have. And they’ve made progress. Someone must have briefed them on Legal Aid. I had three clients today with similar problems and they actually knew about it,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘I advertised earlier this month. More or less the same way as Charles and I have always done. I’d changed the name, of course, but when I rewrote the advertisement I decided to offer free initial consultations for a limited period. It’s a routine way of drumming up new business, or so I hoped. The surprise was, not so much that people came for a free consultation, but when they came, the first thing they asked was whether I would take on Legal Aid work or not?’
‘But why wouldn’t you?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘Because it certainly won’t be as well paid as work covered by scale fees,’ he replied promptly. ‘There’s probably a mass of paperwork as well,’ he added wryly. ‘But it means I can do something useful, even if it doesn’t bring in much money.’
‘Oh Andrew, that is good news. You’ve always said helping someone who’d had a raw deal was the one thing that compensated a bit for not being able to farm.’
‘Yes,’ he said, agreeing vigorously. ‘I can’t imagine you want to spend your life making sandwiches, or running birthday parties, but if there’s some satisfaction on the way, we can give it a go, can’t we? What I was really bothered about was not even being able to get work, boring or otherwise. Like Drumsollen not having enough bookings. But this does gives us both another start, don’t you think?’
‘It does, love. It does indeed. We said we wouldn’t give up, and we won’t, not till we’ve given the New Grand Plan a fair chance.’
‘And there’s more,’ he said, pausing to polish off the remains of his dessert. ‘Like you, I’ve kept the best bit for last. Charles rang me again yesterday. He’s got a stack of appeals against compulsory purchases for the next bit of the motorway. Not his thing at all, especially now he’s in Belfast. All the disputes are in the Lurgan and Portadown area. He’s recommended me to his clients as having expertise in land,’ he explained, raising his eyebrows. ‘His clients insist the land involved is all prime agricultural land, which I very much doubt. It’s more likely they’re stout farmers hoping to make a killing by holding the relevant Government Department to ransom, but there’s quite a lot of work in doing the surveys and submitting the appeals. It will be scale fees and it will mean Wellington boots,’ he said, clearly delighted by the prospect.
It was midnight before they went to bed, having sat with the embers of John’s fire in Headquarters, long after he’d gone home. As Clare admitted, it might be bad for the bank balance, but not having guests in residence did make for a wonderful Friday night and Saturday morning.
‘So what’s on the menu, Boss?’ Andrew asked as they finished breakfast somewhat later than usual.
‘Lots and lots of jobs, I’m afraid,’ she said wearily. ‘But we did have a lovely birthday party, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, it was great,’ he agreed, pushing back his chair. ‘And now it’s probably shopping, defrosting the fridge, clearing out the fire, bringing in logs . . .’
She was about to say ‘For a start,’ when the strident ring of the phone blocked out all other sound and reminded her painfully of the previous morning.
‘Andrew, would you take it, please,’ she said loudly. ‘It might just be Russell ringing back.’
‘Drumsollen Guest House, Andrew speaking. Can I help you?’
Clare listened, but couldn’t gather much from Andrew’s nods and minimal responses. By the time he put the phone down, all she had established was that it was indeed Russell. He had opened Hector’s will as Hector himself had long ago instructed. Beyond that, all Andrew had actually said was to assure him he would be only too glad to help, should either he or Mrs Watkins have any legal difficulty whatever with the provisions Lord Rothwell had made for them.
‘Poor chap,’ he said, putting down the phone. ‘But he is steadier this morning. He’s been with him fifty years! Do you want to know now, or later?’
‘Now, please. I’m thoroughly curious. It was a long call and you said almost nothing.’
‘All part of the job,’ he said, his face immobile, his tone preoccupied. He took a shopping list pad from the drawer in the kitchen table. ‘I’ll need to make some notes as we go, in case I forget anything.’
Clare listened in silence as Andrew explained that at Hector’s request, there was to be no funeral. He had long ago made arrangements with the gravedigger at the local church. He’d provided him with a map of where the grave’s location was to be and details of the whereabouts of his coffin, stored in one of the outbuildings. He’d left some letters for various friends and the few remaining members of his family he had not managed to outlive. The new Lord Rothwell would be arriving shortly from Australia. Mrs Watkins would remain, if required, but Russell would not.
‘There’s only one Lord Rothwell in Russell’s life,’ said Clare sadly, as Andrew paused and scribbled on the narrow pad. ‘He could never call anyone else Lord Rothwell.’
‘It looks like the executors have everything in hand already,’ he went on. ‘They’ve told Russell to expect one of their staff from London on Monday to provide information for Probate. I’ll do the decent thing and offer to help if he runs into difficulties. There was that complicated business years ago, when I went down and sorted out boundaries,’ he went on abstractedly. ‘So I do know a fair amount about the estate.’
He broke off, looking anxious. ‘I’ve forgotten something . . . Oh yes,’ he said, relief obvious in his voice. ‘There’s a small parcel addressed to you. He gave it to Russell to post on Thursday evening, but Russell hasn’t managed to get to the Post Office. It needed to be registered, so he’s sending it on Monday. That’s about it. My synopsis.’
She nodded and decided to ask the question that had been shaping in her mind. ‘Do you know where Hector is to be buried?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he said, nodding briefly. ‘In fact it’s the spot where he died. On the bank below the willow, overlooking the lake.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, overcome with sadness and unable for the moment to say anything else. ‘Do you remember his friend Galbraith?’ she asked after a pause.
Andrew shook his head and looked puzzled.
She took a deep breath and began calmly enough. ‘He asked to be buried overlooking the lake in Kenya where he and Hector watched flamingos together, after the Boer War.’ She stopped, swallowed the lump in her throat and managed to continue quite steadily. ‘They must have been such good friends for Hector to do exactly the same thing all these years later,’ she added, not bothering to conceal the tears she wiped away with the back of her hand.
The weekend jobs proceeded steadily despite miserable drizzle and the dim light in the basement kitchen. While Andrew did a big shop at the Cash and Carry in Portadown, she washed up their supper dishes and worked her way down the routine chores. By the time he arrived back with multiple packs of cornflakes, washing powder and teabags, she was ironing his shirts and her blouses.
‘I think we should have a holiday,’ he said firmly, looking over his shoulder, as he put away reserve supplies on the highest shelves.
‘You mean instead of Fermanagh?’
‘Yes, I do. It’s all set up with June and John and Bronagh, so why don’t we make use of it? It’s a year since we were last away and it’s still a long time to next July,’ he said, opening one corner of the giant pack of teabags and refilling the tea caddy.
‘Where shall we go?’ she asked flatly, her back now aching with a familiar pain.
‘Why not Ballintoy? You know we only have to ask,’ he said persuasively.
That was certainly true. Since Harry had bought the apartment in the new development overlooking the bay, they’d had a standing invitation to go whenever they could. All they’d managed so far was an overnight visit, just to please Harry and see the place.
Clare had loved the view from the tiny balcony, but disliked the apartment itself. It was very comfortable and convenient, the furniture and fittings an integral part of the design, but she much preferred the old fisherman’s cottage Jessie and Harry had once had. Now derelict on the shore, they’d had their first ever holiday there, the happiest of weeks, despite a complete lack of facilities, the only running water the stream that ran past the cottage and down to the beach.
‘Not perhaps a good idea if it’s going on raining like this,’ she said, without enthusiasm.
‘But it would be a change. We wouldn’t have to do everything separately all the time,’ he said, a distinct hint of weariness in his tone.
‘You’re quite right,’ she said, making an effort to respond. ‘It would be lovely to do things together for a change. If you made us a mug of tea, I could finish this last shirt and then I promise I’ll try to be more constructive,’ she said, as she sprayed water generously on the dry fabric. ‘I absolutely hate this weather,’ she confessed, with rather more feeling than she normally admitted.
‘Well then, did we make the right choice about our holiday?’ Andrew asked, as they set off from Drumsollen on the last day of October, a fine dry afternoon with golden leaves flying down from the chestnuts opposite their own gates.
‘Yes, we did,’ she said smiling. ‘I’m sorry I was so cross about the apartment, but we’ve had a good week at home, haven’t we? Even the two days it poured,’ she said, laughing. ‘It’s years since I’ve read a book in two days.’
‘I thought my plan for market research on lunches rather inspired,’ he said lightly, as they turned left and headed for Belfast via their own back route to Portadown. ‘Great excuse, wasn’t it? As if we needed one.’
‘Wasn’t it strange going to Drumsill again after so long and seeing all the refurbishing they’ve done? I think I liked it better when we went years ago and they still had those pikes hung up in the reception area. But the food was very good, wasn’t it?’
‘Somewhat too generous for what we’d planned that afternoon,’ he said with a smile. ‘But we did manage after our siesta. One pond, complete with selected aquatic plants. By the way, do you know how to look after them?’ he asked, as the thought suddenly struck him. ‘I’ve never met an aquatic plant before.’
‘Nor have I, but the nursery had a rotating stand with books about everything you can think of. I bought the one on water plants,’ she said helpfully. ‘I nearly bought one on fuchsias as well.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I was being good,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t got any fuchsias and it might only encourage me to buy some when I know the Comforts Fund is extinct.’
‘Never mind. One of these days, I’ll acquire a long-running court case with lots of briefs and mileage expenses. I’ll buy you a whole tray of fuchsias.’
‘Thank you, my love. It’s the thought that counts,’ she said quietly. ‘I often wonder if people who have lots of money get as much fun out of spending it as we do whenever we manage to afford something we really want. Like our pond.’
‘Were you thinking of Harry and Jessie?’ he asked cautiously, as they cleared the Saturday shoppers in Portadown and headed for Lurgan.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ she said reluctantly. ‘It’s so long since we’ve seen them together, I feel uneasy. I know Harry is doing very well with the Gallery. Bless him, he never makes any secret about it, but Jessie always seems so discontent on the phone. When I ask about Fiona and James she just says, Fine, fine, and tells me nothing. After all, James is our godson,’ she went on anxiously. ‘I know we agreed to forget about the God bit, but we did make all the other promises about being there if he ever needed us. As it is, we hardly know him.’
‘She used to be such a lively person, so full of fun,’ Andrew responded, without taking his eyes off the road. ‘Do you remember when she taught herself to cook and practised on us? I thought it was absolute heaven after the food in my digs.’
They lapsed into silence, Andrew preoccupied with the heavy traffic on the narrow main road as they approached Lisburn and followed the new signs for the motorway.
‘My goodness, that went quickly, didn’t it?’ Clare exclaimed as they came off the eight mile stretch. ‘Wouldn’t it make a difference if it went all the way to Portadown or Dungannon?’
‘Probably it would halve the journey time,’ he said as they rejoined the traffic on the Lisburn Road.
Clare found herself growing silent as they drove slowly across to the Malone Road, preoccupied by an unease she could not identify. It became worse when they drove up the perfectly smooth drive between immaculate lawns. The former bumpy and holey approach and the whole parking area in front of the house had been tarmacked, probably after the work on the new extension: a double garage, workroom and store room at ground level and an extra bedroom and children’s playroom on the first floor. It did all look rather different from the handsome but run-down old house where they’d helped paint a few rooms so Jessie and Harry could move in and work on the rest.
‘Hallo, Clare. Hallo, Andrew. Great to see you.’ Harry strode out to meet them, hugged them both. ‘You made good time, given the traffic on a Saturday. Come on in. Jessie has the kettle on for a cup of tea. We’re in here with a good fire. Hasn’t the weather been awful? Did you manage to get your pond dug, or were you rained off?’
Clare looked around cautiously as Harry and Andrew began to talk. It was a whole two years now since they’d visited. There had been changes indoors as well as outside. New carpet everywhere, rather deeper and more springy than the new carpets she remembered when she visited from France. There were some lovely paintings and drawings on the walls and some new pieces of sculpture placed on small plinths. Hardly surprising, given Harry’s eye for something special.
She sat down on one of the two long sofas facing each other across the hearth and found herself looking at a collection of family photos. Jessie and Harry on their wedding day. Jessie and baby Fiona. Studio portraits of Fiona and James. Harry with the children. The children with Harry’s parents. Of Jessie’s mother there was nothing at all, and nothing more of Jessie since Fiona was a baby, six years ago.
‘I’m sure there’s something I can do to help,’ she said, standing up and heading for the kitchen.
‘Hallo, Jessie. Can I give you a hand?’ she asked, as she opened the door and saw her old friend filling the kettle at the sink.
The figure who turned to face her was certainly Jessie, but it was neither the girl nor the woman she had once known. The dancing brown eyes, once so full of mischief and mirth, and the long, wavy hair, had both lost their liveliness. Under its carefully applied make-up, the face was drawn and immobile. She’d put on weight. The attractive Jaeger outfit that strained across breast and thighs was certainly two sizes larger than the outfit she’d worn for their wedding.
‘You’re looking very smart,’ said Clare, doing her best to absorb the shock without being totally dishonest.
‘Smart? With wee’ ans? Are ye jokin’?’ she replied abruptly, making no move towards her. ‘What d’ye think of the new sitting room?’
‘Very elegant. Did you put the two rooms together?’
‘Aye. He’s never happy but when he’s knocking down and building up or out. Did ye see the extension?’
‘Yes. It must make a lovely playroom for the children. Are they up there now?’
‘Ach no. Harry’s mother has them. Sure, there’s no peace with wee’ans when we want to hear all yer news. We don’t see you that often,’ she added, more than a hint of accusation in her tone.
‘We don’t get much time off, Jessie. One of us has to be there all the time, unless we close, which is bad for business. We’d hoped it would be easier by now and we might have a manager, but it’s not. Things don’t always go the way you hope they will,’ she added, wondering whether Jessie was even listening to her.
‘You can say that again,’ Jessie replied sharply, pressing her lips together in a tight line.
‘Jessie, what is wrong? You’re not like yourself at all. Have I done something to upset you? Or are you not feeling well? What is it? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’
Jessie turned away, ignoring the warmed teapot into which she had just dropped teabags. She looked as if she was trying to see something moving at the bottom of the garden. Then, in a flat voice Clare would never forget, she half turned towards her and said: ‘Harry’s got another woman.’