After the unusually hot summer, autumn came more quickly than usual, the trees, parched and already weary of growth, dropped their leaves at the first hint of frost and the slightest gust of wind. November mists arrived as early as October and by December the land was already sunk deeply into winter rest.
For Rosie, the months passed with unbelievable speed. Every week brought new experiences. So absorbed was she by skills to be learnt, people to meet and the whole exotic world of rose breeding opening before her, she began to think she might be forever spared from the dreary burden of repetition. However often she made up an order for blooms, or wrapped the root balls of spiky bushes for despatch, however often she pruned or budded, she marvelled that she never got tired of handling the material she worked with every day.
There were indeed times when she felt the chill of damp earth, days too when the sadness of dying blooms called up a strange longing she couldn’t quite put a name to. But, for the most part, she was happy. Whatever the tensions at home, she could be sure of friendliness at work and often laughter.
Billy McWilliams, the overseer, the man who had given her such a bad time when he’d interviewed her for the job, became a good friend. He also turned out to be the brother-in-law of the young man who’d been her father’s helper on a memorable delivery from Fruitfield to Jacob’s Biscuit Factory in Dublin at the time of the Easter Rising. Having confessed to her how much he hated summer and how much more he hated people who had no feel for his beloved roses, he set about teaching Rosie all he knew and the range and scope of his knowledge was extraordinary.
For a man who could barely read and write and was heartily glad to have someone who would sort his invoices in a fraction of the time it took him to do it himself, he was able to quote the genealogy of a rose all the way back through its ancestors, naming the breeding stock used and the rose-breeders responsible. He talked about roses like Margaret McGredy or Norman Lambert as if they were personal friends and loved speculating as to what might happen if they were cross-bred.
‘You can never tell, Rosie, that’s the joy of it. Cross a red with a white and you’ll not get pink. It’s not like mixin’ paint. Far more interestin’. You might get half a dozen sports an’ maybe only one of them will be robust. You have to learn to throw away. To move on, try somethin’ new. An’ in time, when you’ve made enough bad choices and have a whole lot of poor, wee spindly things about the place, you’ll know a good grower when it’s less than the size o’ your thumb.’
She listened and watched what he did, the thick fingers with the dirty, chipped nails, moving faster than a woman knitting or using a typewriting machine.
In the very short days of December, Mr Sam gave his staff extra time off to compensate for the long hours they worked in summer and to celebrate the prize the nursery had recently been awarded. If Billy McWilliams had won ten thousand pounds in the Irish Sweepstake, he wouldn’t have worn a bigger smile than the day the telephone call came from Mr Sam in London telling him Margaret McGredy had won the National Rose Society Award for a hybrid tea.
Billy was ecstatic. He tramped round the large shed that provided both office and despatch department, muttering to himself. In their tea break he reminded her she’d worn a blouse that very colour the day she’d come about the job. Cycling down the lane that night, her flash-lamp catching the glitter of frost on the road ahead, she remembered the sequence of pictures she’d made, one for each day of the opening and falling of the bloom he’d given her to take home with her. She thought perhaps he’d like to see them, a reminder of a day they joked about like the friends they’d become.
Meantime, she had the opportunity to go to Rathdrum for three whole days. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Going on a Saturday afternoon and having to return on Sunday evening made it seem such a very short time. It felt as if they’d just got started to talk when she had to put her nightdress back in her suitcase and walk down to Emily and Alex’s, so he could run her to the station in Banbridge.
‘Oh Granny, it is lovely to be here. I feel as if we haven’t had a proper talk since I got my job. By the time we got through all the news of how everyone is and what they’re all doing we haven’t any left to put the world to rights, as Da calls it.’
‘Well, we’d better get started right away then, hadn’t we? Let’s hear your news first. I’ve got a lovely tray of sandwiches out in the kitchen and some of the sherry you like best. The first sherry you ever had. Do you remember?’
Rosie nodded happily and drew in a deep breath.
‘Da is well and seems in very good spirits. I think he’s terribly pleased with how well Bobby is doing and Bobby is saving up for a motorbike like Charlie’s. Sammy has fallen in love. Her name is Marjorie and she lives in Portadown, but that’s all he’ll tell us. Billy has finished his training and has his new uniform. I must admit he looks well in it, but he’s very full of himself. Ma thinks he’s just great.’
‘And Ma herself?’
Rosie smiled wryly.
‘Well, I have to say, Da won the battle outright, but she still tries to put him in the wrong. Every time she sets a jug of milk on the table she says if it hadn’t been for her fighting to keep Daisy we’d have no milk.’
‘What does he say to that?’
‘Guess.’
Rose raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Nothing?’
‘Absolutely right. Sometimes he even manages to behave as if she hadn’t spoken, but quite often now Jack or Dolly will pipe up and say, “But we could get milk from Mrs Loney like the Mackays do.” That makes her very cross. But she is better than she was. She reads a lot and goes to see her friends. She might even be glad she’s not having to spend long hours milking in a freezing cold byre these evenings.’
Rosie stretched out in front of the blazing fire and sniffed appreciatively at the perfume of the well-seasoned logs.
‘What are you burning, Granny?’
‘Apple wood. Isn’t it lovely? Mr Lavery had to take out some dead trees a couple of years ago and John bought it all for me and stacked it at the back of the workshop. Aunt Elizabeth used to burn apple wood years ago when I first came up to Rathdrum to see her and we made quilts together. Though she got hers from over your way. Fruit Hill, I think. She had relatives there.’
‘How is Aunt Elizabeth?’
‘Better. You can’t get rid of arthritis but these new tablets have helped and the wax treatment is a great comfort. She’s able to sew again, but it’s her encouragement that achieves so much for the co-operative, as I keep telling her. Some women, Rosie, think so little of themselves that it’s heartbreaking. Then Elizabeth gets them working, sewing or knitting and they see just what they can do. It’s not just the money they earn, it’s the fact that they can do it.’
‘I understand that better now than I did a year ago. There’s more to earning money than the money itself, though the money’s important enough.’
‘Exactly. Once a woman has money in her purse she can make decisions, whether it’s food for her family or better clothes and then she begins to feel she has some control over her life, however small.’
‘Are you still enjoying it?’
‘The co-operative? Oh yes. The first time I made a pattern for a baby’s dress and showed a very poor young woman how to make a few shillings for herself, I knew I’d found what I needed. Elizabeth says I perked up visibly that very day.’
She paused and looked very thoughtful as if she’d suddenly remembered something very precious.
‘D’you know, Rosie, years and years ago when I was not much older than you, I asked my mother about the loss of my father and how she felt about it. She said she thought of him every time she put food on the table and how pleased he’d be that his children had enough to eat. Then I thought of John. He’d be so pleased I’m doing something I used to be very good at and helping those women, who’re as poor as he and I once were.’
Rosie nodded and watched her grandmother as she took her time placing a new log on the fire, using the long brass tongs so she didn’t have to bend over. It was clear to her that she was a lot happier now than she’d been even a few months ago.
‘Have you heard from Richard P. at all?’ she asked, as she straightened up.
The mention of Richard was only to be expected when they’d been talking about his mother, but to Rosie’s dismay she found herself blushing.
‘I did have a birthday card in July,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I don’t know how he knew my birthday. Unless he asked you,’ she added, recovering herself somewhat.
‘Yes, he did ask me,’ Rose admitted. ‘But I wondered if he might have written.’
Rosie shook her head.
There was a moment’s silence in which Rosie looked into the fire and her grandmother considered what it might be best to say.
‘I thought you and Richard seemed very easy with each other when we went to Corbet Lough. You looked so right together.’
‘Yes, I always feel right with Richard. I like talking to him. He never treats me as if I were years younger.’
‘Yet he’s aware that you’re still only seventeen and he’s twenty-four. Richard has been away, has studied, qualified and begun a career whereas you’re only just setting out. Richard would be very sensitive to the difference.’
‘Whatever do you mean, Granny?’
Rosie looked at her grandmother quite baffled by what she had said.
‘Well, I don’t know how Richard feels about you, though perhaps I might guess … but there’s something I think you should know. If as thoughtful a man as Richard does care about a young woman, a “young” young woman, that is, like yourself, he may be reluctant to stand in her way. He might decide to be patient and wait till she has more experience of the world before making it in any way clear what he might feel.’
‘Isn’t that what happened with Auntie Sarah and Uncle Hugh that died? Wasn’t she only eighteen?’
‘Yes, you’re quite right. I think Hugh had loved her all her life, though she was only six when they first met.’
She paused a light smile playing about her lips.
Rosie waited. By now she knew the expression well. Granny was seeing scenes from past life that called up memories, she might, or might not, feel she should share with her.
‘John and I never did work out who proposed to whom. It might well have been Sarah, knowing her, but Hugh waited till Sarah had made her own life. He wanted her to have a real choice. He didn’t want her to marry him just because there was nothing else to do, like these young women we read about, the debutantes, marrying from the ballroom.’
‘And you think Richard may be waiting, like Hugh did?’
‘What do you think, Rosie?’
‘I think he’s probably in love with Helen.’
‘Now what makes you think that?’
‘Well, she is so lovely and so lively …’
‘Indeed she is. But so, my dear Rosie, are you.’
‘But …’
‘I think you are fond of Richard, but we’ll just have to see what happens. Two people can change a lot in a year when they both find themselves in quite new circumstances. You’re certainly a very different young woman from the pretty girl John and I took to Kerry a mere eighteen months ago.’
Rosie had barely walked into the section of shed Billy used as an office, when he hailed her, his face grim. He’d drawn himself up to his full height, which was little more than a few inches taller than she was herself. He now sat down soberly on his stool.
‘The boss wants to see you right away. He’s over in the Portadown showroom and he’s expectin’ you.’
For one awful moment, Rosie thought something dreadful had happened. Then she saw the tiny glint in Billy’s eye and knew he was teasing her.
‘So, I’m for the sack, am I? Who’ll make your tea then, Billy? And who’ll sort your invoices when you drop them on the floor?’
His face cracked into a broad grin.
‘He still wants t’ see you.’
‘What about, Billy?’
‘Well, it’s not for me to say, but I showed him them paintin’s you brought in for me before ye went to see Granny. My goodness, he was pleased with them. Delighted. Told me to send you in as soon as you were back, if I could spare you,’ he added, teasing her again.
‘And can you, Billy?’
‘Well, I can try. For the good of the business.’ He winked. ‘Away on wi’ ye. An’ good luck,’ he added laughing.
It was a strange experience to see one’s work in the hands of another person. Brothers and sisters and friends were one thing, but someone like Mr Sam was quite a different matter. Although he was the most approachable of men and she’d never been in the least shy of him, she felt quite overwhelmed to find herself sitting in his small, overcrowded office, her watercolours of Margaret McGredy in his hands, as he stood by the window studying them again in the best of the dim December light.
When she first arrived, he’d told her about the forthcoming Northern Ireland Trade Fair, which was to be held in June in the City Hall in Belfast. Then he’d shown her the brochures and plant guides from previous events, collected by Billy, carefully tied up in bundles with green string, labelled and stacked. Then he said he wanted her to join the small team who would be mounting the display and presenting the company to home and foreign buyers.
Fortunately he hadn’t noticed how utterly amazed she was and had simply gone on to explain he wanted her to design the layout of the stand. What really mattered, he said, was the overall balance of colour. The stand and the roses had to be in perfect harmony, so those responsible for the construction of the stand and the provision of blooms were to do whatever she thought best.
‘Billy will keep you right about which varieties will be ready and you may have to change some of the details at the very last minute, but I want the overall design based on our newest roses. I want you to paint watercolours of all of the roses we use so that we can provide colour postcards for our customers. If I may, I’d like to hold on to these you’ve done already to let the printers see what I have in mind. They remain your copyright, of course, and there will be a fee. Will you leave it to me to work out an appropriate figure? Meantime, as designer to the team your salary will be doubled. What do you say to the general idea?’
‘Yes, please.’
He laughed and shook his head.
‘Good. That’s great. That’s what I like. A woman who knows her own mind.
‘Now let me fill you in on the time scale of the whole operation. The snow might be falling down next week, but what we’ll be looking at is June the fourteenth. That’s the second Monday in June and the trade fair runs for six days. We start in February with publicity and invitations and I’ll need a lot of your work as early as that …’
It was the middle of January before Rosie quite caught up with what her new job would entail. Initially, the main difference was that she now spent half her working week painting. Sometimes she stayed at home for a whole day, so that she could use her own workbench in the barn. At other times, it was more convenient to work in a small room at the back of the Portadown showroom where blooms from the greenhouses could be brought fresh to her each morning. It was entirely up to her to decide what suited her work best.
When she set out in the New Year she was anxious lest she wouldn’t be able to turn out watercolours as good as those of Margaret McGredy, for she’d always thought that those were the best she’d ever done. But soon she discovered she need not have been anxious. The more she worked, the easier it seemed to be and she was enjoying painting even more than before.
She had to keep reminding herself she could now afford to buy all the tubes of paint she needed. Instead of managing with just a few brushes, she could add to her range, acquiring larger brushes for background washes and a number of very fine ones, one in particular so minute it made shading much easier. And then, as if that were not pleasure enough, she had a polite request from Mr Sam’s secretary for a note of the cost of her art materials. Whatever she spent, the secretary explained, she’d be reimbursed at the end of each month.
‘And now ladies and gentlemen we approach the main staircase that leads to the circular gallery from which you will be able to examine the classical paintings more closely and also to look down upon the impressive entrance hall …’
The voice of the guide echoed through the high-domed space as they followed him up the shallow carpeted treads of the staircase. It was late March and bitterly cold. The first daffodils had just managed to make an appearance in the half barrels outside the front door at home, but a stiff breeze blew dust whirling round the farmyard and the trees showed not a sign of leafing.
Here in Belfast, in the huge interior of the City Hall, there was no wind, but the chill of acres of marble seemed to intensify the cold, so that it penetrated even her heavy winter coat. Rosie was grateful now for the welcome warmth of the silk scarf she’d set inside the collar, although all that was in her mind when she dressed was the patterning of its delicate colours.
Other members of the large group of owners and exhibitors looked even more pinched and chilly than she did, their eyes focused on the tall pillars, the echoing spaces, the fall of light. She tried to concentrate on what the guide was saying but gave up after a short while. An account of the classical paintings, the sources of the marble, the time taken to build this impressive edifice, its cost, or even an outline of its recent function as the seat of parliament for the recently established state was not actually going to help her very much when it came to displaying the very best that McGredy’s could produce. What mattered was her getting a feel for the actual place where the McGredy stand was to be located.
They tramped the circuit of the marble gallery in one direction, returned to their starting point and then set off in the opposite direction. Not an entirely helpful itinerary, she thought, remembering the sketch plan she’d been provided with. As far as she was concerned everything would happen on the ground floor. The area designated for McGredy’s was clearly marked and it wasn’t even visible from the circular gallery.
‘We are now approaching the Banqueting Hall …’ The voice boomed on relentlessly.
‘Not much point, is there, if we’re not being given a banquet,’ her colleague, Brian Singleton, whispered in her ear.
Rosie nodded and smiled encouragingly at the smartly dressed young man who had long since put away the notebook he was rarely seen without.
‘Can’t go on much longer.’
She was beginning to wonder if she had misread the itinerary they’d been given. She’d been quite certain that somewhere it had said ‘Tea’.
Fifteen minutes later, the Banqueting Hall having proved to be as impressive, bleak and empty as the entrance hall below, they were shepherded into a smaller room where tall, metal urns hissed out clouds of steam into the cold air and created the smell of warmth if nothing of the feeling.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Mayor and Corporation I welcome you to the City Hall …’
‘Oh, not more talk …’
Brian was beginning to sound quite desperate.
‘… the minister for Trade and Industry, the Secretary for Industrial Development, the Prime Minister’s secretary and members of the City Council, all of whom will be moving among you and be able to answer any questions you may have.’
‘Here you are, Rosie. Nice cup of tea. Let’s bag one of those little tables. Billy and Trevor must have got separated. Mr Sam is talking to one of the ministers.’
The tea was hot, the scones and cake homemade. Gradually, given a large party and the relatively small room, a little warmth was generated and Rosie and her three colleagues began to feel warm again.
‘I need to go downstairs again,’ she announced, ‘but don’t let me spoil your tea. I’ll be back shortly.’
‘Don’t get lost,’ said Billy, winking at her.
She smiled across at him, the sight of him in a suit and a stiff collar still something she couldn’t quite get used to.
‘Are you sure you don’t want one of us to come?’
‘No, I’ll be fine, thanks.’
The buzz of noise receded almost immediately as she stepped out into the circular balcony where one or two small groups of people had come to have more private conversations.
As she descended, she was the only person on the wide, shallow staircase leading down to the entrance hall.
A bit like Cinderella, she thought to herself, as she paused for a moment to look up at the immensity of space above her, the inside of the great green dome she’d only ever seen on picture postcards.
She continued to walk downstairs very slowly, trying to visualise the place filled with stands and crowds of people. She stopped a moment and took the ground plan of the layout from her pocket, so absorbed she didn’t notice a tall, dark-coated figure glance over the balcony, walk slowly down the staircase behind her and wait patiently till she’d finished. ‘Can I be of any assistance?’
He held out his hand and said something so quickly the only bit she caught was ‘Trade and Industry’.
‘Thank you. I’m just trying to imagine what it will be like in June.’
‘Warmer, I should think.’
Rosie laughed.
‘Not too warm, please. Roses don’t much like heat, not when cut at any rate.’
‘McGredy’s, I presume.’
She nodded and decided from the handsome cut of his heavy winter coat and his practised manner that he must be one of the important people who’d been announced upstairs before tea. She’d a feeling she’d seen him somewhere before, but couldn’t think where it might have been. He was quite tall and slim, rather broad in the shoulders, with reddish hair beginning to recede. Alone among the pale, winter faces, he looked tanned and very fit as if he’d spent a long time abroad.
‘Do you live in the Portadown area?
‘Richhill, actually. Down by Richhill Station. Do you know Richhill?’
He smiled and bowed his head slightly.
‘My job is to know everything,’ he said pleasantly.
He ran through a list of local Richhill firms. She was surprised and impressed it included businesses as small as that of Lizzie’s father.
‘My father worked at Fruitfield,’ she offered. ‘But he’s now with Pearson’s Haulage. My younger brother’s there too. And Charlie’s with Irish Road Motors.’
‘And your father is …?’
‘Sam Hamilton.’
‘And you are?’
‘Rose.’
As she told him her name, the one all her friends and colleagues at McGredy’s used, her mind filled with a totally unexpected image, the young man with creamy skin and red hair who had kissed her in an empty room in Kerry when she was barely sixteen.
What a long, long time ago it seemed. Wherever he was, she hoped Patrick Walsh was safe and well. Not entirely adjusted to the real world, she decided, looking back, remembering the girl she was then and his letters, full of literary references, artistic flourishes and phrases in Irish.
‘You’ll be a rose when you’ve grown up just a little bit more.’
She smiled to herself. It looked as if he’d got that right after all.
‘Rose,’ her companion repeated. ‘How very appropriate.’
He turned away and glanced up the wide staircase as if he were expecting someone to come and join him.
‘When you come up in June, will you be staying in town or travelling home each evening?’
‘Oh, I shall stay. We have to be here very early in the morning. I have a friend in digs I can stay with for the week.’
‘I suspect you’re going to be very busy in the next two months. If you have any difficulties with arrangements for the stand I may be able to help. I have an office here.’
He reached into an inside pocket, took out a notecase and handed her his card.
‘J. Slater Hamilton,’ she read. ‘Hamilton,’ she repeated, beaming at him. ‘As my grandfather always used to say: “A good Ulster name and there’s a lot of us about”.’
‘Used to say?’
‘He died a year and a half ago.’
‘Sad for you. And for your grandmother. Is she still alive?’
‘Oh yes, very much so.’
He held out his hand.
‘It’s been nice meeting you, Miss Hamilton. Let me know if I can be of service.’
With which, he turned away and strode up the shallow stairs two at a time.