On a Clear Day (33 page)

He looked so bleak she couldn’t bear to ask him why the colour of the paper was so important.

‘I arrived at prep school on a Thursday,’ he continued, with a rush. ‘My parents were killed that night. I spent Friday in the San. With Matron. She was nice, played tiddlywinks with me. But she wasn’t there on Saturday and Sunday, so I had to go back to school routine, sport and prep and that sort of thing,’ he said flatly. ‘On the Sunday we went to the prep hall after lunch and they handed out these sheets of blue paper, so we could write to our parents. I just sat and looked at the paper. I couldn’t speak. I suppose I was afraid I might cry. Not done you know. I nearly got a detention when the master on duty wanted to know why I wasn’t getting on with it. And then some boy said: ‘Sir, Richardson’s mater and pater were killed in an air-raid in London.’

He turned to her and smiled unexpectedly. ‘Isn’t it silly, after all this time?’

‘No, it isn’t. It was a terrible thing to happen. That master should have been sacked. Or someone should. It was unforgivable if he knew, and if he didn’t, it was unforgivable for no one to have told him,’ she said angrily. ‘And you were only seven.’

Suddenly she remembered the school in Belfast. All those rowdy, unknown children, the young man who waved his arms around and scolded them, the echoing yard full of the noise of traffic and her own tears over which she had no control whatever.

‘I was luckier,’ she said quickly. ‘I had Auntie Polly and Uncle Jimmy. But I ended up bottom of my class at school later that year, because I hadn’t my mother to help me learn my spellings.’

He drew her even closer and she laid her head on his shoulder.

‘I hate to tell you, Andrew, but it’s time you were getting back.’

‘Oh Lord, so it is,’ he said, drawing her to her feet.

‘Why don’t you try writing to me on sheets of exercise book?’ she said as they hurried back down the slope, ‘or wrapping paper?’ she added as she climbed over the chained up gate.

‘Or toilet paper?’ he suggested.

‘Bit thin,’ she said. They both laughed.

There was no one about in the narrow lane, so he took her in his arms again. She drew away reluctantly, suddenly aware of time passing. Kissing Andrew was the easiest thing in the world.

‘I’ll get back next summer, somehow or other, Clare. Don’t go marrying anyone in the meantime, will you?’ he said awkwardly, as they pulled in at the foot of her lane.

‘I’ll be far too busy,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m going to try for a scholarship.’

‘Good,’ he said, looking relieved. ‘You’ll get it. I know you will. We’ll celebrate together when I come,’ he said firmly.

He looked around hastily. There wasn’t a soul anywhere to be seen. He leant over and kissed her.

‘I’ll write to you as soon as I get back,’ he promised, as he pushed off and freewheeled down the hill, one arm raised high in the air, waving to her until he knew he was out of sight.

Andrew was as good as his word. He wrote regularly and at length through the months that followed. She’d draw out brightly coloured paper decorated with smiling faces or stick figures, laugh, and think longingly back to that one happy afternoon on Cannon Hill. At other times, she was just so glad to hear from him she hardly noticed the paper or decorations.

To her surprise, the months seemed to move
at twice the speed she’d expected. With little to look forward to other than the routine of school work and housework, Saturdays at Drumsollen and occasional visits to the Ritz with Jessie, she could hardly believe Christmas was long past and February’s mock exams already on top of her.

She confessed to Andrew that she was afraid she’d never find time for all the work she felt she had to do. Writing back, he did his best to reassure her she’d probably done far more already than she realised. He even tried to warn her of the danger of overdoing it, but only the mock results made much difference. They left her little doubt that all would be well. Only then did she realise how anxious she’d been.

One March evening Robert and Charlie went over to Loughgall. She managed to finish her homework early and sat down and wrote him a long letter.

She paused, tapping the end of her fountain pen against her cheek, thinking of the enormous difference between their worlds. A few weeks ago he’d used notepaper from a top London hotel she’d often read about. He said he thought it would make a change from lined A4, so he’d asked his cousin to pinch some for him. She’d been there with his aunt looking the place over to see if she’d like it for her ‘coming out’ dance!

Clare stared at the window on the orchard side of the house. It reflected back her own image in the lamplight as she sat imagining Caroline’s debut. Andrew would go, of course, and dance with all the beautifully dressed girls who had just been presented at court and were also ‘coming out’. He would tell her about it, no doubt. He always told her what he was doing, where he’d been and how much he’d like to have her there. And she knew he meant every word of it. It was very strange, very strange indeed.

Only one thing was missing from his letters. In none of them did he say anything about his own work. When she asked him directly he admitted that he found Law studies boring, but he saw no immediate alternative. He’d do what was necessary, however, and get the relevant piece of paper. It would be his passport to a job in Belfast. He hoped his Grandfather would use his contacts to find him a place to do his articles.

What he said made perfectly good sense to Clare. She couldn’t have spent her favourite month of the year shut up in the boys’ room for these last three years without having grasped that, often, you have to do what you don’t want to do, for the sake of the future.

She sat for a long time looking at what she had written, thinking of him, remembering the comfort of his arms and the touch of his lips. Jessie
always referred to him as ‘yer man, Andrew’ never as ‘your boyfriend’. That was strange too, given how anxious Jessie was to ‘get her fixed up’. Yet she knew it was no accident. Jessie was shrewd, and ‘boyfriend’ was definitely not the right word. She wasn’t sure she wanted ‘a boyfriend’, but she certainly wanted Andrew. She wanted his warm affection and his openness, his way of encouraging her and keeping her spirits up. ‘Boyfriends’ were passing features of the landscape. Andrew was something quite different.

‘How do I see him?’ she asked herself, in the quiet of the empty room, where only the tick of two clocks and the hiss of the Tilley lamp broke the quiet of the evening.

‘No,’ she said firmly, aware of the ambiguity of her question. ‘I really mustn’t think about seeing him at all. It will be ages yet. He can’t possibly come before the middle of August and that’s on the other side of the examinations. And the results. An eternity away.’

The results came out the first week in August and she cycled in to collect them. As she stood staring at the thin strip of paper in the spacious entrance hall of the new school building tears streamed down her face. She’d done even better than she’d dared hope, her average marks far higher than the figure which would give her a County Scholarship.

Hastily, she made her way to the cloakroom, shut herself in one of the lavatories and sat there sobbing till the tears finally stopped.

‘What a way to celebrate,’ she said to herself, as she washed her face in one of the spotless new hand basins and dried it on an immaculate roller towel.

She stepped out into the echoing corridor and walked slowly back to the entrance hall. All was quiet. Light poured down onto the wide, shallow stairs from the tall, staircase window. Through the wired glass doors of the assembly hall she saw the sunshine spill across the polished floor, obliterating the line markings for netball and badminton. Apart from the school secretary in her office upstairs, she hadn’t seen a soul. The handful of other girls who’d done A-level with her were away on holiday. Or had a phone to ring the secretary.

She lingered for a moment longer, so aware that when next she stood in this place, she would be collecting her prizes, one of the very few girls not wearing uniform to walk across the platform. She would be eighteen, a student, her school days over.

Feeling strangely sad and lonely, she collected her bicycle from the back of the building and was just about to ride down the driveway when she saw a tall, blue-clad figure waving to her. It was the school caretaker, the man who had once come looking for Clare Hamilton in her primary school, half her lifetime ago.

‘Hello, Mr Stinson, how are you?’ she asked, stopping beside him as he hurried over from his house to meet her.

‘Gran’. It’s very quiet wi’out all you wee lassies in the holidays.’

‘Less hard work I should think,’ she said, smiling at him.

‘Been up to see Elizabeth?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Good news,’ she said. ‘I’m for Queens.’

‘Ach, good girl yerself. I said to the wife this mornin’ ye’d be in till see how ye did. Ah, she’ll be that pleased when I tell her. Congratulations. Ye’ve done well. Lass time I saw yer Granda in town he was full of it. Is he well?’

‘Yes, he’s in great form. He loves the warm weather.’

‘Aye, we don’t get a lot of it, but it’s been nice so far this summer. Tell him I was askin’ for him. I’ll look out fer ye on Speech Day,’ he said, raising a hand, as she set off down the avenue between the newly-planted rose beds.

‘Did ye get it, Clare. Did ye get it?’

As she got off her bicycle at the foot of the lane, the eldest of the Robinson children bore down on her.

‘Yes, Charlie, I did.’

Without another word, the little boy turned and raced back up the lane.

‘She got it,’ he shouted, without pausing, as he
passed the door of the forge and flew round its far gable on the well-tramped grass path to the farm.

The hammering stopped. Before she’d parked her bicycle against the wall, Charlie Running had rushed out and grabbed her hand.

‘Congratulations, Clare, this is just great.’

‘Thanks, Charlie,’ she said, as she looked up and saw Robert, his hammer still in his hand.

‘Diden I tell ye ye’d get it?’ he said, quietly. ‘Yer mother an’ father woud be proud o’ you. An’ so am I,’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘Come on, Charlie, come up t’ the house. As you woud say, we’ve no champagne so we may make do wi’ a drop o’ tea.’

He turned quickly, letting the hammer drop on the bench by the door, before he limped off. She was sure there were tears in his eyes.

But a moment later, they were all smiling again. As they reached the front door, a small figure shot up the shortcut from the farm, a plate gripped firmly in his two hands.

‘Here y’ar,’ he said, thrusting the plate with its freshly-iced cake into Clare’s hands. ‘Ma says “Well done, ye deserve it.” Coud I have a wee piece o’ cake too?’

The weeks that followed Clare’s good news were among the happiest she’d ever spent. The weather stayed dry and warm, Robert was in excellent
spirits, and the postman brought nothing but gifts and congratulations. Auntie Polly sent a dress, a skirt and some warm slacks to help Clare get ready for going up to Belfast. Ronnie wrote a long enthusiastic letter, hinting he might manage a visit the following year. As well as his full-time job on a Toronto newspaper he now wrote a regular column in a newspaper for Ulster-Scots exiles. He’d used her accounts of the forge and the events in the community, as the basis of some of his weekly articles. ‘Much better paid than the beauty hints,’ he explained, knowing that otherwise she’d protest at the number of dollars he’d enclosed.

Even Sarah and Sadie wrote in reply to her letters. Sarah said that the Lord had looked kindly upon her and she must not stop going to church now she was a student. Sadie said there was nothing like a good education to help a girl get on in the world.

But the letter that brought greatest joy was from Andrew. As he’d expected, he’d be spending a few days at Drumsollen at the end of August. His good news was that Aunt Helen had invited him to Caledon and she’d said she’d be happy for Clare to come and stay. If that wasn’t possible, she hoped she’d come over every day. She knew Ginny and Edward were looking forward to seeing her, as she was herself.

Clare was touched by the warmth of the
invitation and overjoyed at the prospect of spending so much time with Andrew. She didn’t feel she could leave Robert to go and stay at Caledon but Andrew assured her they’d collect her every day and stop in Armagh for any shopping she had to do.

Each morning, he arrived promptly at the forge with Edward, or Virginia, or both of them. Sometimes he drove Aunt Helen’s small car, other times Virginia used the ancient Landrover she’d bought to help with her job at the riding school where she started as a trainer in a few weeks’ time. When all else failed, it was Edward who acted as chauffeur. Then they had to squash into the ancient, blue van he’d borrowed from the handyman who worked full-time on the elegant but crumbling gentleman’s residence that was their home.