Beyond the Green Hills (8 page)

T
he days that followed Edward’s death were the bleakest and longest that Clare had ever known. Clinging to her in the hospital corridor, Helen Moore had begged her to come to Caledon with Andrew. Even if she had remotely wanted to, she could not possibly have refused her heartfelt plea.

After a few hours of exhausted sleep at the flat, they left the city very early. Slanting through the trees, the low sunlight caught the dew on the grass by the roadside. The air was fresh and the road empty of traffic. All the way to Armagh, it was so beautiful she could hardly bear to look at the familiar landscape.

They arrived in Caledon just as the village was beginning to stir. The milkman was turning out of the drive. He waved cheerily to Andrew. Ahead of them the long, low building, with its graceful pillars and elegant, tall windows lay bathed in morning sun. It had never looked so tranquil, so welcoming. The sweep of the garden was a joy. Helen and Barney had worked so hard last autumn reshaping the herbaceous borders, improving the lawns and planting new young trees. Now, the early summer
warmth of these last weeks had rewarded them, setting sweeps of vibrant colour against the fresh green of the well-trimmed lawns.

Barney was on the steps to greet them. Without a word, he hugged them both, took them through the house, sat them down in the kitchen and insisted on cooking them a proper breakfast.

The house felt as empty and desolate as if it were derelict. He’d persuaded Helen to take a sleeping pill as soon as they got back from Belfast. She was still in bed. Ginny was in hospital in Armagh. And Edward was gone, she added to herself. As she tried to eat the bacon and egg Barney put in front of her, all she could think of was his speciality of the house, sausage and chips. Tears trickled down her face and dropped unheeded on her skirt.

‘I don’t think Helen will be able to help us much with the funeral arrangements,’ Barney said quietly, as he poured more coffee for them. ‘We’ll just have to make a start. It can’t be for a few days anyway, because of the post-mortem.’

Clare looked across at Andrew, his face pale with tiredness and stiff with grief. Barney was being so gentle with them, but she realised immediately that the burden of making all the decisions would fall on Andrew. Her experience of country wakes, her own grandfather’s funeral, would hardly be much use in the context of The Lodge.

‘Do you know if Edward has made a will?’

The voice was so flat and featureless, it hardly sounded like Andrew, and it seemed such a strange question to ask. She couldn’t possibly imagine
Edward making a will. What Edward made were games to play, bizarre tests of skill, like driving golf balls up ramps and into buckets. Edward painted ceilings and drove Harry’s car down potholed tracks on picnics. Edward mended things and cooked for them. Made them laugh at his jokes and groan at his awful puns.

Today, he wasn’t going to be late for breakfast. He wouldn’t appear yawning, tousled and apologetic. Edward was dead. Gone away. Not coming back.

Clare stopped herself. Forced herself to concentrate on what Barney was saying. No, Edward hadn’t made a will.

‘It will have to be Grange Church, then,’ Andrew said, looking from one to the other, his coffee untouched. ‘If he hasn’t made a will, the Richardson rule applies. I’ll have to contact the Rector about opening the vault. When do you think the funeral might be?’

Barney pressed his lips together and shook his head.

‘What do you think Helen
might
say?’ Clare asked, remembering how distraught she’d been when Edward’s father had died, a bare six years before.

He shook his head again.

‘I’m afraid it’s going to be up to us, Clare. If we leave it a few days, Ginny should be well enough to go. It might be important for her later.’

Clare nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

When are they going to let her out, Barney?’ asked Andrew.

‘This afternoon. They did say to phone before we
came, just to make sure. She doesn’t know yet about Edward. No one knows except Elsie Clarke. She sat up last night till we got back. She heard the car pass her house and phoned us as soon as she saw the lights go on.’

Andrew covered his face with his hands. There was a long pause. He looked up at last and said bleakly: ‘We’ll need a list of people to be told. A preliminary announcement in the
Belfast
Telegraph
and the
Newsletter
tonight. And the local papers, of course. I’ll have to go into Armagh now and tell Ginny in case any of the nurses hear before they go to work.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Clare asked.

‘No,’ he said abruptly. ‘Barney will need you here when Helen wakes up. You could phone June Wiley for me and ask her to tell Grandmother. See if you can find Edward’s address book. He has three special friends. Can you remember their names?’

‘Yes, I can.’

‘I’ll get back as soon as I can,’ he said, standing up and striding out of the kitchen without even a glance at her. She felt it like a sudden chill of rejection and burst into tears. Barney came and put his arms round her. He held her close while she sobbed as if her heart would break.

Edward had been right about Barney. He had indeed disposed of a small fortune through excessive generosity and ill-advised business ventures, but, whatever his failings, he was warm, open-hearted and kind. He let her cry, and only when she struggled to collect herself did he let himself say
quietly, ‘Edward thought the world of you.’

She took the large clean handkerchief he offered her. It was silk and edged with a pattern of racehorses going at full gallop.

‘Edward was the brother I’d always wanted. We only had two bits of two summers together, but I feel he’s been there all my life. Silly, isn’t it?’

‘No, not silly at all, Clare. Some people in your life really matter, however long or short the time you have them. They’re the ones that make you different for having known them.’

She nodded vigorously, wiping her face and blowing her nose.

‘I’m all right now, Barney. Thank you,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘What should we do next? What about the washing up?’

‘Good girl. I think we’ll have Elsie Clarke here shortly. She was in a bad way last night.’

Clare took a deep breath. The hardest part of all would be meeting people like Elsie and Harry who’d known Edward all his life.

Just at that moment, she heard a door close. Footsteps approached. As the clock struck nine, Elsie Clarke came into the kitchen, her usually cheerful face red and swollen with weeping.

Clare went up to her and put her arms round her. She sensed Barney slip away. As she stood holding Elsie, she felt the day had already been going on for ever. But it had only just begun.

‘There’ll have to be refreshments afterwards,’ Andrew said decisively, as they sat round the table
eating the sandwiches Elsie had produced for lunch. ‘Some people are coming a long way. Edward’s Trinity friends may need to stay over. Johnny Keane is coming up from Limerick.’

He looked doubtfully towards Clare.

She took a deep breath. It had all happened before. Only six years ago when Edward’s father had died of a heart attack. She still remembered how angry she’d been when she’d heard The Missus complaining to June Wiley that her daughter-in-law couldn’t cope. They would have to have the overnight guests at Drumsollen. Clare hadn’t known Helen then, she’d just been sad for her, a woman who’d lost her husband, without any warning. Now she knew what a loving but vulnerable person Helen was, it made The Missus’s complaints appear even more unfeeling.

Helen had been so happy the last few years. Barney was an old friend from childhood, long widowed and as lonely as she was. They’d met up again, begun to share their interest in horses, in gardens, in entertaining friends. Slowly, she’d come back to life. She’d even taken out the ‘smock of Monet colours’, and begun to paint again. Now Edward was gone, her world had collapsed around her yet again.

‘I think Elsie and Olive can manage two or three bedrooms here,’ Clare replied, as levelly as she could. ‘But there’s the problem of being so far away from the church when it comes to the refreshments. You probably remember last time.’ She looked at Andrew steadily.

‘Drumsollen?’

‘It might make it easier.’

Barney looked puzzled. Andrew explained that they had used Drumsollen when Teddy’s father died. It was less than two miles from Grange Church, while Caledon was more like ten. And it meant that people wouldn’t have to go through Armagh to find their way back to The Lodge.

‘Sounds very sensible,’ said Barney, ‘but surely old Mrs Richardson won’t want it. She doesn’t seem a very approachable sort of lady.’

‘I think we should at least ask her,’ Andrew replied. ‘Otherwise we’d have to use a hotel in Armagh.’

‘I’m sure that would be even worse for Helen than having it here,’ said Clare firmly. ‘I think we should ask Virginia what she thinks. She and Helen are the two that matter most.’

Andrew nodded briefly.

‘I know Ginny won’t want it here. She asked this morning if his body had to be brought back to The Lodge. She said she couldn’t bear the thought of that. She wants to remember Edward as he was, alive and happy.’

Without another word he went out into the hall and picked up the telephone.

‘June, it’s Andrew.’

Clare heard his voice soften momentarily as he spoke to her. Then he asked for his grandmother and stood waiting. And waiting. At last, she heard him speak. The conversation was brief and to the point.

‘Thank you. I’ll do as you ask. With Mrs Wiley’s help, I’m sure we can manage so that we don’t disturb you at all.’

Three days later, on a sultry, overcast afternoon, Clare walked up the stone steps of Drumsollen, hand in hand with Virginia, who just couldn’t stop crying. As she stepped into the familiar hall and coaxed her towards the dining room, where Elsie Clark and June Wiley were already serving tea, Clare was sharply aware that she had passed through the elegant front door for the first time as a member of the Richardson family. It was a strange feeling that brought no joy. Would anything ever bring her joy again, she wondered.

‘Come on, Ginny dear, drink up,’ she said, as encouragingly as she could manage. Clare took Ginny’s saturated hanky, tucked it into her sling and put a china mug into her good hand. ‘Only another hour, love,’ she whispered. ‘Then we can cry all we want to. Please, please stop or you’ll start me off again.’

Ginny looked down at her and smiled weakly, the stitched wounds on her forehead and cheeks livid against the pallor of her skin. Clare had forced herself to look and look again at Ginny’s face, until she could manage it without flinching at the cruel lines, seamed with black stitches, but when she was alone with Barney she wept again. ‘Every time Ginny looks in a mirror she’ll think of Edward.’

‘Miss Hamilton.’

Clare turned away from the tea table to see an
elderly man in mourning dress inclining his head towards her. His face was mottled, the loose skin flaked and dry, his nose red and bulbous. From beneath huge unkempt eyebrows, his watery eyes stared at her.

‘I think I
do
remember you from poor Edward’s funeral,’ he said jovially. ‘You brought me a second cup of tea. And now, I understand I must
congratulate
you.’

He made a gesture of bright surprise, as if to say, ‘How jolly. What a jape.’

Clare took an instant dislike to him. Beneath his apparently charming manner, he was looking her up and down as if she were a filly in the show ring. He’d made no attempt at all to greet Ginny, who was standing right beside her.

‘Mrs Richardson is an old friend of mine, a very “old” friend,’ he went on, nodding his head in amusement at his own joke. ‘She’s in the drawing room and wants to speak to you, so I’d better let you run along, hadn’t I?’

Without a word, Clare turned her back on him and made for the door, her face flushed with anger. She paused in the empty hall and took several deep breaths. ‘I’d better let you run along,’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘No, Clare, don’t get angry. Today is not a day to feel, just a day to be survived.’

At the entrance to the drawing room, she caught a glimpse of Andrew, talking to three young men she recognised immediately as Edward’s closest friends from Trinity. Dark-suited and stiffly formal, only the youthful outlines of their faces marked them out
from the collection of their seniors who appeared not to have changed at all in the six years since they last stood here, after Uncle Edward’s funeral, enjoying June Wiley’s home baking and Clare’s own carefully cut sandwiches.

‘Thank God we’re going to Canada,’ she murmured, as she stood in the doorway, wondering where she would find the strength to cross it. The dark figures rocked on their heels and boomed at each other. Suddenly, a gap opened in the press of bodies. Beyond, she saw the wispy, snow-white hair of the Missus, barely visible above the black leather of her wheelchair. She took a deep breath, straightened her back, and stepped into the room.

‘Ah, there you are, Clare. Do sit down here, I can’t possibly hear you if you stand.’

Clare recognised the chair from her last visit and lowered herself cautiously, only too aware of the damage her high heels would do to her nylons if she didn’t concentrate.

‘You look very well,’ she said approvingly.

‘Thank you.’ Clare almost managed to smile. Of course the Missus would think she looked very well. Dressed in Ginny’s beautifully cut black suit, tailored for her when she was at finishing school, how could she fail to look like one of them.

‘You can’t possibly go into Armagh and buy a suit, Clare,’ Ginny had protested, when she’d said she’d have to go shopping for something suitable. ‘It’ll cost you pounds. You can wear mine. It really doesn’t matter what I
wear under all this bandaging. I certainly can’t get into a jacket.’

Ginny insisted Clare try on the suit. They’d even
managed to laugh at the length of the skirt on Clare’s shorter figure.

‘You look like Mother Hubbard. But apart from that, it fits beautifully. Stay there and I’ll get Elsie to pin it up for you. Edward would be furious if I let you spend money on a boring old black suit.’