On a Clear Day (13 page)

She finished the last little bit of her cone, licked her lips thoroughly and decided she’d go and see if Uncle Harry was in his shop. She got off the wall and went down the next lot of steps by the Mall Church so she could walk under the trees. When she came to the White Walk, one of the two paths that runs across the Mall, she was puzzled to see firemen in uniform rolling up hoses and running back and forth.

She laughed at herself. You could hardly have a fire in the middle of all the grass. Of course, it wasn’t a fire. They were taking down the huge round pond that Mummy had called ‘a static water tank’. It had been there for the war to give the firemen extra water. Where it had been standing there was now a big brown circle in the grass, far
too big for a fairy ring, it was more like a hole in a very large, green carpet.

From the Mall she took the short cut up the back luter that brought her out in Scotch Street almost beside Uncle Harry’s shop. The door was propped open and the minute she walked in, her nose twitched. It always did. As sure as they popped in to say hello to Daddy, she would sneeze and Uncle Harry would say ‘Bless the child’.

A boy behind the counter was rubbing a rusted wheel with wire wool. He looked up but didn’t stop.

‘Is Mr Mitchell in this afternoon?’

‘Aye, he’s out the back mending a puncture. D’ye want him?’

‘Yes, please.’

He propped up the wheel and disappeared through a door entirely covered in coloured pictures of bicycles.

‘Well, look who’s here,’ exclaimed Harry Mitchell as he came back into the shop, wiping his hands on a piece of cotton waste. ‘I wondered who wanted to see
Mister Mitchell.
What happened to yer Uncle Harry?’ he asked, beaming down at her.

‘I wasn’t sure if you’d still be my uncle … now I’m an orphan,’ she explained a little awkwardly.

‘Ach, surely, surely. I’ll always be your uncle. Now tell me what yer doing here. I thought you were in the big city.’

Clare explained about her plans to come and look after Granda Scott if Auntie Polly could be persuaded. She told him some of the difficulties Auntie Polly had mentioned.

‘I can see her point of view,’ said Clare. ‘It would cost Granda a lot to send me to school on the bus and pay for school dinners unless I could take sandwiches. He hasn’t much money, though he works hard. I wondered if I could save up enough for a bicycle. It would be a great help not having bus fares.’

‘How much money have you got?’ Harry Mitchell asked, looking at her seriously.

‘Well, I had one pound, fifteen and sixpence this morning but I lent it to Granda Scott. There was a horrible woman who used to clean every week and she’s been stealing his money for a long time and he didn’t know. She tried to steal my teddy bear that Uncle Jimmy bought me and Granda told her not to come again.’

‘My goodness, that was bad luck on the good man. Did he get the police till her?’

‘No, he just told her not to come back. He says she’s desperate poor and has an old mother who never let’s her alone, shouting and complaining at her all the time.’

Harry Mitchell considered the small figure for some minutes before he spoke again.

‘When will you be ten, Clare?’

‘October the eighth. It was Mummy and Daddy’s wedding anniversary. They said I was their anniversary present.’

‘Well, Clare, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll find a child’s bicycle for you this time. Not a new one, mind, and I’ll do it up for you. And I’ll have it ready for your birthday. And when you grow out of it you can trade it in for a ladies’ size. And the next thing you’ll probably be wantin’ a motorbike,’ he said with a broad grin.

Clare giggled at the idea of a motorbike.

‘But Uncle Harry,’ she protested, ‘one pound fifteen and sixpence isn’t nearly enough for a child’s bicycle. Even a reconditioned one. Daddy said the price of bicycles is something desperate these days.’

‘Ah yes, but there is special discounts for young ladies. There’s only one catch,’ he said, pausing for effect.

‘What’s that?’

‘You have to come and see your Uncle Harry now and again and give him the odd kiss and hug.’

Clare ran round behind the counter and held up her arms to him.

‘You are an awfully nice Uncle Harry,’ she said, as he picked her up so she could kiss him. ‘Just wait till I tell Auntie Polly that I’m going to have a bicycle. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can’t
quite believe it. Do you think you might be a fairy godmother in disguise?’

‘Well, you never know, Clare. It’s something I hadn’t considered,’ he said, laughing to himself, as he put her gently back on the floor again.

‘What time’s the Loughgall bus?’ he asked, looking at his watch.

‘Ten past five.’

He shouted to the boy out in the yard that he’d be back in twenty minutes and came round from behind the counter.

‘We’ll away down to the bus and I can make myself known to your Granda. I’ve often heard tell of him but we’ve never met. Is he a nice Granda?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Clare, ‘though he has no hands. He really needs someone to look after him.’

Harry Mitchell was quite happy to listen, and listen he did, all the way back to where the Loughgall bus sat under the trees slowly filling up with Saturday shoppers ready to go home for their tea.

Breakfast was later than usual on Sunday morning and it was not long afterwards that Clare discovered Granda Scott didn’t like Sundays. To begin with she noticed he said even less than usual. He sat in his chair and shuffled through the previous day’s newspaper which he had already read. As the morning wore on and he had no fire to light in the forge and no Jamsey to greet, he became increasingly fidgety.

Clare was sitting at the table below the orchard window and had just completed her painting of the Canadian prairies when she heard him sigh. She pushed the painting away, stirred the dirty water in the jam jar with her brush and wondered what she could paint next.

‘Sunday’s a long old day,’ he said, as he sat back in his chair after making up the stove.

That settled it. Granda Scott was at a loose end. This was a regular state of affairs with William, who was forever at a loose end, but there were so many games you could play with William it was only a matter of deciding which one. But you couldn’t offer to play ‘Snap’ with Granda Scott. She couldn’t suggest taking the dog for a walk
when poor old Blackie had been dead for months and hadn’t been able to walk very much anyway. And she couldn’t suggest feeding the hens, because they too had disappeared, though she hadn’t yet found out what had happened to them. For the moment she couldn’t think of anything she might suggest.

She began to wonder what Granny Hamilton did with William when he came looking for someone to play with. All their card and board games had gone and she had a feeling that Quakers didn’t approve of playing cards, so they couldn’t even play ‘Snap’ with those. She couldn’t imagine Granda Hamilton playing football with William, and Uncle Jack and the other uncles and aunts who still lived at home all had their jobs to do on the farm. On Sundays when they weren’t at work they often went off to visit their married sisters and brothers. The trouble was if you didn’t do something quite quickly about William when he was at a loose end he would cry and work himself up into a real temper.

While she was still thinking about William, she saw her grandfather scuffle around among his boots and shoes under the side table where the radio sat. She saw him pull on a very old pair and watched as he limped across the floor, stepped out into the sun-filled hallway, pick up a spade from
behind the front door and disappear across the front of the house.

She knew perfectly well he wasn’t going to dig the garden. Apart from the overgrown flowerbed along the front of the house and the huge tangle of rose that had run wild over by the old ruin, there wasn’t a garden any more. If he had a spade in his hand then he must be going to clear out the privy in the orchard. Perhaps that was why he didn’t like Sundays. It wasn’t a very nice job to have to do.

Just then she remembered Jinny and the chamber pot. She had seen her throw the contents into the ash pit instead of taking it to the privy as she should have done and then she’d dunked the empty pot up and down in the rainwater barrel. Tonight, before dark, they would both have to fill their wash jugs from that water barrel.

‘Oh dear,’ she said aloud, as she slid down from her chair and went to the door. He had been so very cross yesterday about Jinny that she really didn’t want to mention her name again and bring it all back. And it might sound like telling tales as well. But something would have to be said. Auntie Polly had been so precise about the rainwater barrel.

She tidied up her paint box and washed and dried her brush. Perhaps it could just emerge in conversation.

‘Granda, what would we have to do if
something nasty fell in the rainwater barrel?’ she asked, as he came back into the house.

‘What like?’

‘Like a dead bird. Perhaps one that was just flying past and fell in. Or a mouse,’ she added, thinking that perhaps a bird wasn’t very likely to be flying over a water barrel that stood so close to the house.

‘Ye’d lift it out an’ throw it in the bushes.’

‘Or perhaps some nasty mud fell off the roof in a storm,’ she went on, hopefully. ‘You couldn’t just lift that out, could you?’

‘No, but it would settle to the bottom, it wouldn’t do any harm.’

She frowned and tried again.

‘What would you do if someone just accidentally forgot and put their chamber pot in to rinse it?’

He laughed shortly.

‘Sure ye’d have to drain the whole thing out and hope that it might rain again soon to spare Jamsey bringing two buckets instead of one.’

He turned on his step as if he was about to go down to his room and then changed his mind.

‘Ye didn’t ferget, did ye?’ he asked sharply.

‘Oh no, I didn’t …’

‘Are ye trying to tell me that that … wuman put my chamber pot in the rainwater?’

‘I’m afraid so. I didn’t want to tell stories, but Auntie Polly was most strict about it. She said
people could get ill if water wasn’t looked to.’

‘Aye, an’ she’s right there.’

Without another word he went to the press and lifted out the rainwater bucket. He limped across the front of the house and, by the time Clare had caught up with him, he had started to bale out the water. Bucket after bucket he poured round the roots of the climbing rose and the trees and shrubs that lined the path to the forge until, the barrel half-empty, he was able to tip it over and drain out the rest of the water and the muddy remains at the bottom.

Clare watched and saw the beads of perspiration break on his brow. It looked like very hard work.

‘Would you like a mug of tea, Granda?’

‘Can ye make tea?’ he asked, looking surprised.

‘Oh yes, I can do quite a lot of things but I didn’t want to be a nuisance. You might rather do things the way you’re used to.’

‘Never worry about that. I know I’m no hand in the house. Tear away. A mug of tea would go down well. And put more water to boil while yer in the house, we may scald out the barrel while we’re about it.’

The path to the orchard was very wet after they’d finished the job of scalding, so Clare fetched the yard brush and he swept the water aside into the long grass and the nettles. While he was clearing the path Clare pulled out a large weed from the
flowerbed. With all the water he had poured onto the dry soil it came away quite easily.

‘Look, Granda, it just popped out,’ she said, waving a huge head of groundsel towards him. ‘Do you think we could get them all out?’

‘Aye.’

By the time all the weeds were gone the soil in the flowerbed showed up soft and dark. It looked very tidy but empty.

‘Do you like flowers, Granda?’

‘Aye.’

‘We could plant flowers, there’s plenty of room now the weeds have gone.’

‘Where wou’d we get them?’

‘You just ask your friends for cuttings. That’s what Daddy did and he had our whole back yard full of lovely things. Do you mind?’

‘Aye, I mind. Yer mammy was mad about flowers,’ he said, walking off abruptly to wipe the mud from the spade and the brush on the long dewy grass of the common.

Clare smiled to herself. Last Sunday, Auntie Polly had scolded her for saying ‘I mind’, but she knew she wouldn’t be cross as long as she didn’t say it at school. Mummy had explained a long time ago that there were things you could do at home, like licking the baking spoon, that you must never do anywhere else. It was all a matter of remembering when you could say things like ‘I
mind’ and which people you could say it to.

By the time they had walked up the orchard and filled their wash jugs from the well, it was time to put the potatoes on and fry up the chops that Granda Scott had brought from Armagh.

‘Can ye fry a chop?’ he asked, as he brought them from the glass fronted cupboard in the sitting room, the coolest place in the house.

‘Oh, yes. Ronnie showed me how. I can do a whole mixed grill if ever we’re in the money.’

He laughed to himself and then became anxious again.

‘Ye won’t burn yerself?’

‘No, I’ll be very careful,’ she reassured him as he pulled back the rings on the stove and swung the heavy griddle onto the fire.

The chops were tender and sweet and there was some gravy to pour over their mashed potato.

‘Yer a great wee cook,’ he said as he finished his meal with a draught of buttermilk and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

She giggled and felt pleased as he tramped off to his room for half an hour on the bed and left her to clear the table.

Clare was sitting on the settle by the stove reading his abandoned newspaper when she heard the throb of a car engine. It was seldom enough a car passed on the road below the forge, but this one sounded as if it was much nearer. Before
she had even put down the newspaper she heard it stop. Just as she opened the kitchen door she caught sight of Uncle Jack striding up the path.

‘Shhh,’ she said as he reached the door and bent down to give her a kiss. ‘Granda’s having half an hour on the bed … come on in,’ she whispered.

‘How are ye, Clare, are ye rightly?’ he asked quietly as he sat down opposite her.

‘Oh yes, I’m very well and so is Edward James Bear, though we’ve had our adventures,’ she said equally quietly.

‘Oh have you now? What’s been happening?’

Clare told him all about Jinny and showed him her scratch and explained how his handbag had got them out of a pickle. She was just telling him about Uncle Harry and her new bicycle when Granda Scott appeared looking sleepy and rather startled.

‘Hello, Jack, is it yerself? Ye’ve caught me in my dishabels,’ he said awkwardly, as he stepped barefoot into the kitchen and held out his hand.

‘Never worry, man, sure if we can’t do what we like in our own place, what use is it atall?’ he said easily. ‘I came over to see if you an’ Clare would come over for a bit of tea. There’s wee ones up from Stonebridge for her and William to play with.’

‘Ach no, Jack, thank you all the same. I’m not dressed,’ he said uneasily. ‘But take wee Clarey
and welcome, she’ll be glad to see her brother.’

‘Sure there’s no dressin’ to go to Liskeyborough. Weren’t two of m’ brothers in overalls takin’ their motor bikes apart when I left, an’ m’ father only in a suit long enough to go to meetin’. He’ll be in his old boots walkin’ the land by the time we get there,’ he said encouragingly.

Granda Scott smiled and jerked his head upwards.

‘Well,’ he began, ‘could ye wait till I put on a collar?’

‘I’ll wait all day so long as ye come. The father had a mind to ask you about the mare an’ I’ll not be popular if I come back wi’out you.’

While Granda Scott struggled with the clean collar he felt necessary for his first visit to the Hamilton’s farm, Clare collected her grandmother’s shopping bag from the bedroom.

‘Might ye not need that again, Clare?’ Jack asked quietly.

‘What for?’

Jack looked at the small, bright face and thought of what Polly had said to him about her staying with her grandfather. He could see it was hardly the place for a child, but she seemed remarkably settled and not troubled at all by the awkwardness of the old man.

He just nodded.

‘Maybe you should pop in your socks and dress
for Granny to look at. We might need some Thawpit to get the black marks out. She knows about these things more than I do,’ he said laughing.

Clare was absolutely amazed by the drive to Liskeyborough. To begin with she thought Jack was going the wrong way. Always when Mummy and Daddy had taken her to Liskeyborough they had gone on the Portadown bus or walked out the Portadown Road, hoping someone would give them a lift before her legs gave out. But Uncle Jack turned left towards Loughgall, and not towards Armagh, which was where the Portadown Road began. At the foot of the hill he turned right, drove along past Grange School, through Ballybrannan, under a railway bridge, round the foot of a high hill and in no time at all, there they were, driving into the familiar wide farmyard from quite the opposite direction to the one they usually came. What Clare found even more extraordinary was that the distance was so short.

She was still asking Jack questions and trying to understand how her grandparents had seemed to live so far apart when really they lived so very close to each other, when the Hamiltons all stopped what they were doing and came out or over to greet them.

As well as Granda and Granny, there were two uncles whom she did remember, Billy and Charley.
They were the ones with dungarees and oil on their hands. There was another one whom she’d never seen before who worked in some remote place called Larne. His name was Bobbie and he had a rather plump wife called Mary who kept saying that everything was ‘ni-ice’ in a most peculiar way. They didn’t seem to have any children, but there was another of Daddy’s sisters who had come from Stonebridge with three boys, the youngest about the same size as William. Her name was Molly and she was rather soft and smiley, but Clare never managed to sort out the names of her boys because they never kept still long enough for her to attach the right name to the right boy.

‘Come and say hello to your sister, William,’ called Granny Hamilton after she had given Clare a hug and a kiss.

Clare watched as Granny called down the farmyard to where William and his cousins stood eyeing each other. But William didn’t hear or didn’t choose to hear. Granny Hamilton seemed concerned and called again, but still William didn’t respond. Clare knew he wouldn’t. If he had someone else to play with he never bothered with her.

‘Don’t worry, Granny, William’s always like that. Mummy told me to pay no attention, it’s just the way he is,’ she said reassuringly, as they went into the house together, leaving Granda Hamilton
heading over to the stable with Granda Scott limping cheerfully beside him.

‘I’ve brought your bag back, Granny. Thank you for lending it to me, it was very useful.’

‘What’ll ye do when ye go back to Belfast? Has Polly bought ye a suitcase?’

‘I’m not going back, Granny. Granda Scott has no one to look after him. I know I’m not very big and I can’t lift heavy things, but I can do quite a lot of jobs. He let me cook the chops today, so they weren’t burnt.’

‘Are they usually burnt?’