Beyond the Green Hills (7 page)

‘It’s all right, my love. It’s all right,’ she said, kissing his cheek and taking his icy cold hands in hers. ‘If you hate the job, you must give it up and do something else. Or, give the job another try, far away from “the dead hand of Ulster”, as Ronnie calls it. You don’t have to stick it out because there’s no alternative.’

‘No stiff upper lip?’ he said, a small, bleak smile touching the corner of his mouth.

‘Definitely not. You can’t kiss properly if your upper lip is as stiff as a board,’ she said tenderly, stroking the back of his head. ‘Now come on, Andrew, tell me what you’d really like. Pretend you’re really rich and you can do whatever you like. What would you choose?’

To her surprise, he pointed across the valley. A small blue tractor was moving steadily up the slope of a field, turning the green sward into rich,
chestnut-brown furrows. At the top of the field it paused, and with a deft, practised movement the driver brought the plough round in line to begin the next, dead straight furrow. As it came back down again, the rich brown earth curled away from the coulter like the bow wave of a trim, swift vessel.

‘That’s what I’d do. I’d farm. Dairy cattle in particular,’ he said, with an assurance totally out of keeping with his normally diffident approach to practical matters.

‘You know about dairy cattle?’ she asked, wondering if there could possibly be some part of his life she’d missed out on.

‘No,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘I don’t. But I’d learn.’

She sat silent, amazed at his confidence. The implications began to break in on her. Questions poured into her mind, but she held back. The change in his appearance, his whole manner, told her all she needed to know for the moment. Suddenly an image came back into her mind. A wet afternoon during her first visit to Caledon, four years ago now. They were playing Monopoly and talking. While Ginny stacked up more and more money, she’d asked each of the three what they’d do if they were rich. Andrew had made them laugh. ‘I’d buy cows.’ It was his unexpected promptness that amused them, not just the cows. It seemed so unlikely a wish for a man about to spend the next three years articled to a firm of solicitors in Winchester.

‘Where would you farm, Andrew?’ she asked as steadily as she could.

‘Anywhere I could afford to buy land.’

‘Canada?’ she said, before she had even considered it.

He paused, looked out again at the opposite hillside, where the elderly blue tractor was now making its steady way back up to the top of the field. A smile played over his features.

‘Mm. Why not? Why not Canada?’

He paused once more and the smile faded as quickly as the light goes when a cloud crosses the sun. When he spoke again his voice was dull and heavy.

‘Canada. Or Australia. Anywhere. If it’s dreams we’re dreaming, what does it matter? It’s not real. Dreams never are, are they?’ he said bitterly.

‘If I hadn’t asked you what you’d do if you were rich, would you have told me you wanted to farm?’ she asked coolly.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Well then, we’re that much further on. If you want to farm, I need a job to keep us fed until the farm can support us, so I can’t be a million miles from a town with a school,’ she began. ‘Would you have to buy land or can it be rented?’

‘Depends where. In Canada and Australia it’s still easy to get started, or I think it is. I’ve a cousin in Saskatchewan who went off with nothing about twenty years ago. They’ve got two hundred head now.’

‘Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta,’ she murmured, a sudden memory filling her mind. Ox-eyed daisies and an old reaping machine outside the forge,
herself in the high seat, driving her horses across the prairie.

‘If we went to Canada, Ronnie would help us. He seems to know everything that’s going on. When I wrote and told him we were engaged he wrote back and asked where we were going, once we were married. He simply assumed we weren’t going to stay here.’

‘I couldn’t ask you to take the risk, Clare,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It could be pretty rough for you. To begin with at least.’

‘I’m not exactly made of Dresden china,’ she retorted. ‘Besides, a teaching post in Belfast isn’t exactly an exciting prospect. To be honest, I hadn’t thought of what I would do, except be with you.’

‘Nor had I,’ he confessed sheepishly. ‘I just reckoned, after all these years, I was stuck with law, whether I liked it or not.’

‘Well, let’s not get stuck with anything. Let’s see what we can think up.’

He gave her his hand, drew her to her feet and kissed her tenderly.

‘What would I do without you, my love? What would I do without you?’

They stood in the shadow of the great stone pillar and studied every detail of the fields and orchards that covered the little humpy hills all around them. The old cottages, long and low, white painted, were tucked into their hollows on the south-facing slopes, sheltered from the north and west by plantings of trees. There was the odd new farm building, and a few two-storey houses, edging the
little lanes that turned and twisted, dipped into valleys and climbed over their smooth, well-rounded shapes.

The blue tractor finished its work. The driver unhitched the plough and drove off down the lane below them. Gleaming in the sunlight, the newly ploughed field was left to the gulls, which hunted up and down the straight, newly turned furrows.

‘You love this place, Clare, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said firmly. ‘I’d be heartbroken if I thought I’d never stand here again.’

She paused, remembering a summer Sunday long ago when she’d climbed up to the obelisk for the first time. Uncle Jack had been there and various aunts and uncles she couldn’t quite sort out. She was nine years old. She’d looked all around her and made up her mind that she was going to stay with Granda Scott, even if Auntie Polly wanted to take her with them to Canada.

‘I think I do belong here, Andrew, like you do. But I’d be sad all my life if I never saw anything of the world out there, beyond the green hills.’

‘L
adies and gentlemen, you have five minutes left. May I remind you to ensure that you have numbered all loose sheets and that they are enclosed within the folder provided …’

Clare didn’t listen to the remainder of the announcement. She knew it by heart. She went on reading the last of the four essays she’d written in the preceding three hours, added missed-out commas, sharpened a wobbly acute or grave accent, clarified the odd word where sheer speed had run the letters together. As the gowned figure began to collect scripts at the back of the room, she checked her loose sheets, sealed the pink flap of her folder and had her paper ready to hand over while the invigilator was still three desks away. Five minutes later, the examination hall broke into uproar as the tensions of the afternoon exploded in an outburst of scraping chairs, squeals of laughter, and hurrying feet.

‘Fancy a coffee, Clare?’ said Keith Harvey, classmate and friend, as she turned round and grinned at him.

By virtue of his surname, Keith had sat behind her in every class test and exam they’d done in the four
years of the Honours French course. Long ago, they’d made a pact never to discuss a paper afterwards, just get away as quickly as possible before anyone could waylay them.

‘Love one, Keith, but Andrew’s probably waiting for me. He’s not in court today,’ she said, as she zipped her pencil case and caught up her cardigan from the back of her chair.

‘Are you coming to the party tonight?’

‘No, not tonight. We’re heading for the hills. I told him the other day I felt like a troglodyte, only coming out of my small cave to scuttle across the road to a large one.’

‘Well, it’s all over now,’ Keith said, laughing, as they worked their way slowly towards the crowded foyer of the Whitla Hall. ‘Really over, Clare,’ he went on, as they caught the first glimpse of sunlit lawns and the red brick front of the main building beyond. ‘So when shall we two meet again?’

‘Graduation Day, if not before,’ she shouted, over the rising crescendo of sound. ‘I’ll be working at the gallery till we get the wedding organised and our passages booked. We’ve got our passports but that’s about all we’ve managed.’

‘Not surprised,’ he said. ‘God, it’s been a sweat, hasn’t it? I’ll pop into the gallery and see you next week. I want to give you my sister’s address in Toronto. She says she’d love to see you. She’s a real fan of your cousin Ronnie. Apparently he signs himself “Ron” in Canada.’

‘Ron McGillvray. Sounds right for a columnist, doesn’t it? I’ll remember that. See you sometime
next week then, Keith. Enjoy the party,’ she said happily, as they emerged from the crowd milling around on the steps and he headed off towards the bicycle sheds.

She looked for Andrew, but saw no sign of him. All around her, couples were greeting each other, going off hand in hand or with arms twined round each other. For those taking languages, this was the very last paper. Parties and celebrations had been planned for weeks now. They’d be welcome at several of them, she knew, but what she really wanted was to get away. They were going to drive up into the Craigantlet Hills, walk among the hayfields, look out over the lough and watch the lights come on in the city below. Just the two of them. To make up for all the lovely summer evenings they’d had to miss.

Clare sat down on the low wall opposite the examination hall and watched the remaining clusters of people finish their post-mortems, say their goodbyes and head off in different directions. She looked all around her. No sign of a dark-suited figure with fair hair anywhere.

Of course, she told herself, one of the senior partners could have descended on Andrew just as he was leaving. It happened often, but seldom on Fridays. Unless they’d been in court, the partners tended to begin their weekend after lunch, leaving Andrew and his colleague in sole possession of the elegant chambers.

She tried to imagine Andrew bending over his desk amid the boxes and bundles of documents. She
wondered if he ever noticed the portraits of former partners and prime ministers looking down at him so solemnly, the etchings of nineteenth-century Belfast and the paintings of the SS
Titanic
leaving the lough on her sea trials.

‘Not for much longer now, love,’ she said softly.

The three elderly partners had been very hard to work with. So arrogantly self-confident, so sure of their own judgement, alternative views were not required. However hard Andrew worked, only doing what they wanted done in the way they wanted it done was acceptable. Worse, what they wanted paid little attention to the ethics involved in a case. What they did was no doubt legal, but seldom what Andrew would judge right.

‘I’ll be a good boy. Not say a word. Not tell them what I think. Just keep my nose clean and work for a good reference,’ he’d said, as they sat one evening, large scale maps of Southwest Saskatchewan spread out before them. Even if they were leaving Ulster, a good reference would still be very useful. Clare was grateful she already had hers, a letter from Henri Lavalle that made her blush every time she read it.

‘Canada,’ she said, quite firmly, looking around her once again.

Though crowds of people streamed past on the nearby pavements and there was a long queue at the bus stop, there was no one left on this side of the entrance gates to hear anything she said.

Over the last weeks, the thought of Canada had kept her going. Whenever washing and ironing simply had to be done, or when she tidied her
room, her mind would fly off. Beyond broad expanses of wheatfield, she saw mountains rising into clear air, great white clouds piled up in a blue sky. She felt so heartened by the unlimited possibilities of moving freely in so vast an expanse of space, over the mountains themselves, or across the great plains that rolled towards their feet. All that empty country, and with it the chance to do new things. To live a real life in the real world.

When she and Andrew were together, they talked of nothing else. They perused the catalogue in the Library, took out whatever they could lay their hands on: geographical monographs, historical writings, exploration. They’d had great encouragement from Ronnie himself and also from Andrew’s much older cousin, Crossley.

Crossley had thrown up his London bank job in the thirties and settled in a little-known part of Saskatchewan, the Palliser Triangle. He’d read about it by pure chance when he picked up a book in a junk shop, a survey of Southern Saskatchewan by an Irish army officer, Sir John Palliser. He’d been sent out by the British in 1857 to size up its potential for agriculture.

Palliser had had his reservations about the suitability of the area, but Crossley decided to go and see for himself nevertheless. What he’d found was a remarkable country, harsh but very beautiful, sparsely peopled, demanding to be farmed. He’d been willing to work hard and he’d done well. In his long, warm letter to Andrew, he said things were very little changed since he himself had come out.
With the same hard work, Andrew would do as well. He’d be very pleased indeed to help him get started.

‘A quarter to six,’ she said, with a sigh. A pity Andrew should get held up today of all days.

She tried to visualise what a school might look like in the Palliser Triangle, with a population so spread out. Crossley said the ranches varied in size, but even the smaller were hundreds of acres and the larger extended to thousands.

Within a few months, she’d set out on the longest journey she’d ever made in her life. Sometimes she felt quite nervous, but the moment she thought of the two of them together, her anxieties vanished. Together, they’d share the problems and laugh over the difficulties. They would get through. Beyond everything else, they would have choice. No one would be telling them what to do and how to do it. No one standing over them expecting them to do it their way, without question.

She looked at her watch. She’d give him another five minutes. When he still didn’t appear by six o’clock, she walked quickly back to Elmwood Avenue. The phone was ringing as she went into the house. She paused anxiously in the hall and then relaxed. Mrs McGregor’s voice sailed through the house.

‘Jean dear, it’s your maither.’

She went to her room, put her things away, looked out of the window. She felt so restless she began pacing up and down, indifferent to the squeaks and protests of the floorboards. A couple of minutes later
there was a knock on her door. She ran to open it. Mrs McGregor was standing there, a piece of paper in her hand.

‘Clare dear, I’m sorry, I didnae hear ye come in,’ she said apologetically, passing over the old envelope on which a number was written. ‘I was just sittin’ doun to a cup o’ tea when I heard your foot upstairs. Andrew phoned. It must a been a call box. It was terr-able noisy. I cou’d hardly hear him. Ah cou’den make out what he was sayin’ so he asked me to get you to ring this number. He was awful upset he couldnae meet ye. I think he hopes he might see ye later.’

Clare looked at the number, then at Mrs McGregor. She was puzzled. ‘I don’t recognise it at all, but I’ll ring right away.’

‘Awa doun an’ use my phone, Clare,’ she said promptly, as Clare picked up her purse. ‘Jean’ll be on the hall one God knows how long once her maither gets started,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘If there’s anythin’ awry ye’ll not get cut off so easy. Away on, ye know I’m slow on the stairs.’

Clare flew downstairs and into Mrs McGregor’s small, crowded sitting room at the front of the house. Her hands shook as she dialled the unfamiliar number.

‘Hello.’

The voice that answered was sharp, female, but otherwise unknown.

‘My name’s Clare Hamilton, my fiancé, Andrew Richardson, asked me to ring this number. Who’s speaking please?’

There was a moment of complete silence at the other end of the line.

‘Ach, Clare, it’s me, Elsie Clarke. Did Andrew not tell you what’s happened?’

Clare heard the voice falter and break. Elsie, the dear lady who had once been Ginny and Edward’s nanny, now the housekeeper at The Lodge, was in tears. Clare waited for the blow to fall.

‘There’s been an accident,’ Elsie went on, managing now to sound quite calm. ‘One o’ them damn lorries from the quarry. They shoulden be allowed on these wee lanes. Sure there’s no room at all an’ the speed them boyos drive at. Virginia’s face is all cut an’ she’s broken her arm. She’s in the Infirmary in Armagh. But Edward is hurted bad. Real bad, they say. They took him in an ambulance to Belfast. That’s where Andrew’ll be now, I’m thinkin’. I phoned him at his work about an hour ago.’

She ended abruptly, as she burst into tears again.

‘Do you know which hospital, Elsie?’

‘Royal Victoria,’ she mumbled, through her tears.

‘Elsie, I’m so very sorry. All I can do is go up there. I promise I’ll ring you as soon as I can. Where’s Mrs Richardson? Mrs Moore, I mean.’

‘Sure we don’t know. Didn’t they go down to Dublin, the two of them, to see about a mare that Virginia wants to buy and we can’t get hold of them. The police has the number of their car. The poor things don’t even know yet.’

For Clare that was the last straw. The thought of Helen and Barney coming back to find Edward in hospital when he’d only just arrived home for the
summer was too much for her. She said a hasty goodbye to Elsie, broke down and sobbed in the empty room.

Unlike Virginia, who was severely lacerated about the face and arms, Edward was quite unmarked. He lay, pale and still, tubes and drips attached to his bare arms in a small alcove of the Intensive Care Unit. Beyond the window, the evening sunshine poured down over the city, warm enough for women to bring chairs to the doorways and sun themselves in the street below. She and Andrew sat in silence, one on either side of the bed, each holding one of Edward’s hands.

The doctor had shaken his head. No, they were not sure of the extent of his internal injuries. There was no question of operating unless his condition stabilised. They were doing all they could. Had the parents been sent for?

In the stillness of the small room, Clare’s mind filled with images of the long summer days she had spent at The Lodge. The first summer, Edward began by being so shy with her. But gradually he’d relaxed. He’d ended up making her laugh so with his stream of one-liners.

Last summer, there’d been no shyness at all. He’d greeted her as an old friend. They’d talked together a great deal and become very close. Often, they’d leave the tennis court to Andrew and Ginny and sit in the shade, talking about Irish history. Edward was excited about doing his own research. Already he’d found his way into the Trinity College archives and
was comparing the common view of events found in most history books with the evidence of the reports he’d found, all properly catalogued, but clearly seldom consulted. It seemed to him as if the story most people knew was more important to them than knowing what had actually happened. What he’d really like to do was retell the story making proper use of the facts, however much it upset people.

She’d been so touched by his relationship with Ginny, so teasing on the surface, so deeply affectionate. She’d admitted to Andrew how much she envied Virginia her Edward, so different from her own sullen, unwelcoming brother.

Looking down at the still, pale face, she couldn’t imagine how she could bear to lose the liveliness, the animation, the sudden laughter of this young man from whom she had learnt so much in such a little time.

A nurse put her head round the screen and whispered in Clare’s ear: ‘Mr and Mrs Moore have arrived.’

‘Helen and Barney,’ Clare mouthed to Andrew, as she released Edward’s limp hand and got up.

Out in the corridor, Helen put her arms round Clare and clung to her, weeping, while Andrew and Barney stood awkwardly by, waiting till she could collect herself enough to go in and look at her son, pale and motionless on the high white bed.

Edward never regained consciousness. Later, the doctor said the impact of the crash had ruptured his spleen. He died in the early hours of the morning.