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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: The Hamiltons Series
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
1924. At nearly sixteen, Rosie Hamilton of Liskeyborough, is growing into a lovely young woman. With only another week to go at Miss Wilson's school in Richhill, she is concerned and preoccupied with what her future might hold. Rosie has always had to contend with her mother's fierce and unpredictable temper despite all the efforts of her kind and patient father, Sam. When Rosie has the opportunity to go to Kerry she takes a step into a completely new world and a future that will bring her happiness on the long journey to Kerry.
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A Girl Called Rosie
ANNE DOUGHTY
In Remembrance Mackie Spratt of Woodview and Mullabane County Armagh
Do-it-yourself car builder and storyteller April 1921–April 2007
Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The 1920s have an image of gaiety. Books, films and magazines are full of bright young things tripping around in short skirts, daringly smoking cigarettes in long holders, dancing new dances, driving in fast cars and listening to the wireless or gramophone on sunshine picnics.
I am grateful to my many friends in libraries and archives for producing the alternative view. Whatever personal joys there were, life was not easy for most people. Jobs were scarce, the Depression had arrived and was a standing threat.
In Ireland, newly partitioned, the years of the First World War had been extended by the Anglo-Irish War and then the Civil War within the newly-formed Irish Free State. In both parts of Ireland the economy was in difficulties, emigration was high and bitterness and old feuds were rife.
I have had much help for this novel from friends and family, who have offered me fragments of their own memories, and by complete strangers who have gone to great lengths to provide me with details of road engines, Lagondas and Bentleys, motor and motorcycle racing and rose breeding. If I have failed to use all their material it is simply because they were so very generous.
Some readers may be familiar with Rosie Hamilton’s family from previous novels of mine, but each individual novel stands alone. What Rosie knows about her family is what she is told or finds out. Like most people, there are things she doesn’t know, stories that have been forgotten, people who have moved away.
Finishing this novel in May 2007, I am struck by how very far away Rosie’s world now seems, but also by the fact that the long years of bitterness into which she was born are at last in the process of becoming history.
CHAPTER ONE
Richhill 1924
Even in high summer the interior of the grocer’s shop was always cool. Little sunlight penetrated beyond the windows that looked out over the wide thoroughfare where once linen merchants had come to buy webs of cloth. Now, time and circumstances having changed, the only sign of life was a baker’s cart, its deliveries complete, moving through the empty space, idly observed by a couple of small boys playing marbles in the heavy dust of an unusually dry and warm June.
The boxes and tins that decorated the two small windows on either side of the open door, a couple of advertisements for soap and tea, their colours faded to strange muted shades of red and blue, their curled-up edges yellowed by age, were the only signs that this two-storey dwelling was any different from its neighbours. The adjoining grey terraced houses marched up the hill, their doors also standing wide, their half-curtained windows reflecting the unremitting sunlight.
Henry Loney kept the back door of his shop propped open with a brick. What cool air their might be in the deep shadow of the yard behind flowed down a narrow passageway where sides of bacon hung against the wall in woven nets, boxes of butter piled beneath.
He lifted his eyes from the account he had just added up and ran them across the shapely figure of the slim, dark-haired girl who stood waiting in the small space between the wooden counter and the towers of cardboard boxes stacked against the wall of what had once been his grandmother’s parlour.
‘Ye’ve a brave list the day, Rosie,’ he said, as he stuck his pencil behind his ear, turned away from his account book and gave his attention to the shelves behind him.
Rosie brushed back her dark hair from her perspiring forehead and followed his practised movements with wide dark eyes. Now he’d added up the cost of her mother’s groceries, he’d want to know all the news from the long, low farmhouse at the foot of the winding lane leading down to Richhill Station. She dreaded the weekly inquisitions but they were not to be avoided. Gossip was Henry’s favourite pastime.
‘Yes, there’s a bit extra. Billy’s coming home this afternoon.’
‘Ach, is he now? Yer ma’ll be glad to see him,’ he replied, as he placed packets of tea and sugar on the counter. ‘Ye’ll want to know how he’s doing down there in Enniskillen. Far better pay in the police than what he was doin’ afore.’
She watched as he reached up for more packets and boxes, his bald head tipped back towards her. Henry was her uncle, one of her mother’s brothers, a part of her everyday life, but she’d never liked him, even when she was a little girl and he sometimes gave her chocolate.
She’d liked him even less since the day he’d found her alone in the kitchen at home, slipped his arm round her waist and moved his hand up towards her breast. From that day onwards she’d avoided him when he visited the farm and kept well out of reach in the shop if he came round the counter on the pretext of helping her get a good grip on her well-filled shopping bags.
‘Are ye all well down at the farm?’ he asked, turning back towards her, a polished brass scoop full of porridge oats poised over an open paper bag. He readjusted the scales, weighed out lentils and barley and enquired about her father and mother, her brothers and sisters.
‘Yes, indeed, all just as usual,’ she replied, making an effort not to sound as weary as she felt.
It was the same every Saturday morning. After she’d done the jobs her mother lined up for her, washing the kitchen floor, cleaning the stove, feeding the hens, she was always glad to get out of the house. Even if the weather was bad, she didn’t mind. She enjoyed the walk up the lane. There were always birds in the hedgerows; the buds, or leaves, or blossom, depending on the season; friends or neighbours to wave to as she passed. What she did mind was Henry and his endless questions and having to be sure to say the right thing.
At almost sixteen, Rosie Hamilton had no illusions at all about her mother. Martha had a sharp tongue and was easily annoyed. A chance word, a harmless remark and you’d get an outburst of fury or a clip round the ear. Often, her anger was unpredictable. One minute she was talking about some piece of news picked up from a neighbour and the next she was shouting, berating her in her thin, hard voice for something she had done or not done. It made little difference which it was once she got started.
Apart from absence and saying as little as possible, Rosie had never found any real defence against her mother’s tirades. There was no surer way of provoking her than to fail to remember exactly what Henry, or any of her mother’s other relatives, had said to her, and what she had said in reply, for the questions and comments of neighbours and friends, and particularly of Rosie’s aunts and uncles, were a matter of great significance to Martha Hamilton.
On her return from any errand to the village, from school, or even from a walk with her friend, Lizzie Mackay, Rosie knew she would be questioned as to who she’d met and what they’d said.
‘Did he ask ye how I was? Did ye tell him I was in Armagh yesterday? Did ye tell him Charlie has bought a motorcycle? What did he say? An’ what did you say to that?’
‘Joe well?’ Henry continued, a small half smile crossing his well-rounded face as he wrapped Sunlight soap in thick brown wrapping paper. ‘Still complainin’?’
Rosie knew better than to agree. Her Uncle Joe, the eldest of the Loney brothers, owned the small farm where her family lived. He had seldom a good word for anyone, least of all herself, and he complained endlessly. If it wasn’t the rain, it was the lack of it. If it wasn’t the poorness of the income from the farm, it was the weakness of the government. If it wasn’t one of his nephews or nieces not doing what he told them, it was his sciatica or his chest.
She had never seen Uncle Joe smile. She sometimes wondered if he had forgotten how to or whether the muscles of his small, wrinkled face had set so firmly in its habitual scowl he could no longer manipulate it, even if some unusual circumstance were to provoke him to make the attempt.
‘He and Bobby are turning the hay in the low meadow,’ she said lightly, knowing she must say something.
‘Ah shure it’s great weather for hay,’ said Henry, his tone implying an intimate knowledge of the maturing process of hay. ‘With this heat there’ll be grand drying. The quality will be exceptional this year.’
Rosie nodded and smiled dutifully as Henry reached over the counter for her empty shopping bags.
There were few subjects on which Henry was not an expert. The fact that he lived over the shop, had never married, seldom left the village and read only the newspapers, which he ordered with the goods for his trade, presented him with not the slightest difficulty in pronouncing on any matter that might arise.
‘And what about yer da? Does he like his new job?’
Henry paused in the process of packing her bags and Rosie eyed the remaining pile of groceries. Were another customer to come into the shop Henry could pack the remainder in a matter of seconds and she would be out into the sunlight in the time it took for him to say ‘Cheerio, Rosie, tell your mother I was askin’ for her’.
But today, no other customer came to her aid. Henry would pack the items one at a time with concentrated attention until he had satisfied himself there was nothing of any significance left to be found out.
‘Yes, he does,’ she agreed, nodding. ‘It’s further to cycle every day, but he says it’ll keep him fit.’
After many years working as an engineer at the local jam factory, her father had been offered a job with the company where he’d had his first job away from home, many years earlier, in the days when he still drove a traction engine. He’d told her about getting it one day when she was sitting in the barn watching him measure up a piece of metal sheeting for a boiler he was about to mend.
He’d come over from Banbridge on the train and walked up from the station on a lovely sunny morning, passing their own house, never thinking he might one day live there. He’d been offered the job right away and went home as pleased as Punch to tell her granny and granda. It had been a bad time for him and they’d been worried about him, because he’d had an accident at the haulage company where he’d been working since he left school. He’d broken his leg and been given his cards. It had nearly knocked the heart out of him, he’d said, his face darkening at the memory, but didn’t we all have bad times and get over them, he’d gone on, nodding to her, encouraging her, for he’d guessed she’d had another dressing down from her mother that day and had come out to the barn to get away from her.
‘It’s a grand firm to work for,’ Henry continued confidently. ‘I have it on good authority that they’re one of the best motor companies in the North of Ireland. Maybe your da’ll buy a motor himself,’ he said, looking at her sideways.
‘That would be nice,’ she said promptly. ‘Then he could bring Ma up for the groceries.’
The moment she spoke and saw the smile broaden on his face she regretted it. She’d meant to say only that it would be nice, a harmless remark he could make nothing off. She couldn’t think what had possessed her to say more. Maybe it was because her back was aching with standing still while he took his time over packing her bag, or maybe she was just tired of having to watch every word she said.
‘Aye, she could act the lady then like yer granny does. Mrs Hamilton from Rathdrum House,’ he said with a little bow. ‘Have ye been over t’ see her at all, or is it only yer da goes ivery week?’
Rosie felt her face flush with anger and couldn’t be sure if it showed in the dimness of the shop. Henry was leaning towards her across the counter, her shopping bags enclosed in his arms so that she couldn’t pick them up without moving closer to his smiling face.
‘Granny is very well, thank you,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m hoping to see her next week when school finishes.’
She stepped over to the door and propped it open with the brick that lay beside it. Then, without looking up at him again, she reached for the shopping bags, pulling them away from his restraining arms.
‘Ma’ll be wondering what’s keeping me,’ she said crisply turning her back on him. ‘I’ll tell her you were asking for her.’
‘Aye, an’ tell her I put in a good word fer ye up at the castle. She told me ye’d no plans for when ye left Miss Wilson’s wee school. But I think they’ll have ye. The Richardsons know I can spot a good worker when I see one.’
He came round the counter and followed her into the street.
She walked away quickly, the heavy bags dragging at her arms, her chest tight with fury. Even though she knew he couldn’t leave the shop to follow her, she moved as fast as she could. Once clear of the village, she was so breathless she had to prop the bags against a gatepost, lean against the bars and wipe tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘So that’s what she’s been planning,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Her and Henry, behind my back.’
The thought appalled her. Only once had she been inside the handsome seventeenth-century house that stood behind its wrought-iron gates at the top of the hill. Lizzie Mackay’s aunt was the housekeeper there and she’d smuggled them in one day when the family were away visiting one of the other landed families in the county, the Stronges at Caledon or the Achesons at Markethill.
She’d taken them on tiptoe round the family rooms showing them portraits and silver and well-polished furniture. She’d even shown them the shaped timbers that held up the roof, each one numbered centuries ago by the builder, and pointed out a great stone eagle that sat poised on one of the tall chimneys.
There was a strange smell about the place. Dust and old carpets and metal polish. But it was the back kitchens that had oppressed her most. Dark and gloomy, they had a list of rules and regulations pinned to the wall that Aunt Maisie insisted on reading out to them. Lizzie hadn’t much liked the place either, but it was Rosie who caught her breath and longed to be out in the open air again, away from the dark panelling and the cold stone floors.
‘What am I going to do?’ she exclaimed. ‘What am I going to do?’
She picked up her bags, straightened her shoulders and moved on. If she delayed any longer she was sure to be told off for dilly-dallying. If she couldn’t think of anything different in the next week, she might end up having to go up to the Richardsons after all. She couldn’t stay at home for long, she knew that. Things were bad enough as they were, her mother constantly finding fault with everything she did, but if she had to spend every day at her beck and call she’d never be able to keep her temper.
For the last year, since she’d left the National School, she’d been going to Miss Wilson’s small school on the outskirts of the village. Miss Wilson was white-haired, wore a monocle and was very strict, but she was also kind. She’d suggested that Rosie might train as a teacher or become a nurse, but Rosie knew her mother would never stand for it. There’d been trouble enough over her going to Miss Wilson’s for a year, even though her grandmother had paid the modest fees.
All her mother wanted was for her to get a job, in the office of the jam factory like Emily, or be apprenticed to the dress-maker like young Dolly wanted to be, just as soon as she could leave school. Who did she think she was that she couldn’t do what her sisters did?
‘It’s all very well for yer grandmother, she can well afford it,’ her mother had protested, when Rosie had told her of her grandmother’s offer. ‘An’ while your sittin’ readin’ books, I suppose she expects me to feed an’ clothe ye fer the year,’ she went on furiously.
‘I think we can manage that, Martha,’ her father said coldly. ‘There are five of our family addin’ to your purse forby what I give you. Ye can let me know if ye run short.’
The year was almost finished now, but she was no further on. Another week and there would be no Miss Wilson, no books, no French lessons, no painting or poetry. She would even miss the deportment and embroidery which she’d never enjoyed.
For a long time now she’d been anxious about leaving school but her father had tried to reassure her.
‘Give yourself a bit o’ time, Rosie. Sure there’s no great hurry to make up your mind. There’s plenty to do here over the summer now Emily’s out at work and Margaret spends all her time helping her aunt up at Sandymount. You can give your mother a hand with the house and keep an eye on Dolly and Jack. Things might be clearer in a month or two. Maybe ye need a bit of a rest from school work.’
She crossed over the main road, the sun high in the sky, a short misshapen shadow at her feet, and began the long, slow descent to the valley bottom. She could rely on her father trying to help her, but it was always at a price. If her mother saw her coming out of the barn where he had his workshop and where he and her brothers slept, she’d be accused off slipping out to avoid doing her work, leaving it all for someone else.
Once started on the theme of Rosie’s idleness, and particularly her sitting around reading books when she could be doing something useful, there was no stopping her. Only the appearance of one of her brothers, or a visiting neighbour, would stem the flow and create an immediate change of tone.
‘Ach hello, Mrs Hutchinson. Come in and sit down. Rosie was just goin’ to make us a cup of tea.’
Although she’d walked as quickly as she could, going up to the village and on the return journey, Rosie was only too aware that time was moving on. Henry had been slower than usual and although there was no clock in the shop, she knew the sun was higher and the shadows much shorter than when she’d set out. It was a bad sign too that there was no one about. Not a soul on the lane itself, and no one in the gardens or farmyards she passed. When she picked up the odour of boiled potatoes and fresh-baked bread, she knew it was certainly past one o’clock.
The smell of frying onions drifting over the wooden gate that led to the open door of their nearest neighbours reminded Rosie she was hungry as well as tired, but her thoughts were not on food. Part of her was already anxious about her mother’s reception. Another part was thinking longingly of a large mug of water from the enamel bucket in the wooden press.
The gate into the farmyard was open as it often was during the day. Only when the four cows were brought up for milking did Uncle Joe send Bobby running to close it. She tramped through gratefully, her eyes watering in the bright light, her neck and back aching from the weight of the bags dragging on her narrow shoulders, her gaze on the open door ahead and the thought of the cool dimness beyond.
‘Hello, Rosie. Ma thought you’d got lost.’
A small voice greeted her brightly as she crossed the threshold into the stone-floored kitchen.
‘Hello, Dolly,’ she replied wearily, managing a small smile for the little girl who sat by the stove rubbing a brass candle-stick with a piece of blackened rag.
She lifted up her bags, lowered them gratefully on to the kitchen table, propped them up against each other and began to unpack them quickly.
‘Mrs Hutchinson was here,’ Dolly went on, as she poured Brasso on the matching candlestick with more vigour than skill, her fingers as black as the rag she was using. ‘Ma’s just walking down the road with her. She said she thought you’d got lost.’
Rosie sighed and said nothing. The remark about getting lost was another way of saying she was late. Like many of her mother’s remarks, made to a neighbour, with a little laugh, it sounded like a joke, but it only sounded like a joke. Unless Mrs Hutchinson was still here and her mother had to behave as if it really was, then its true meaning would emerge. Unless some piece of news or gossip, had put her mother in a good mood, that remark about getting lost was simply advance warning that she could expect a telling off.
Halfway through the second bag and before she had dared pause for a drink of water, Rosie heard her mother’s step in the yard. Moments later the light from the door was blocked by her small, square figure.
‘Ach, so ye did come home after all. We thought you’d lost your way,’ she began, as she came to the table, an unpleasant smile on her face.
Rosie was not at all surprised when she turned away towards Dolly.
‘Aren’t those just lovely, pet,’ she enthused, as she picked up the candle sticks and placed them back on either side of the mantelpiece. ‘Haven’t you done a great job. Good girl yerself. Now away over to the barn and clean up your hands in the wash house. And then go and have a wee look and see if you can find where the white hen’s nest is. She’s laying away again. Have a good look an’ I’ll call you to yer dinner when it’s ready.’
Rosie saw the smile on her mother’s face disappear like snow off a ditch the moment her young sister was out of the house. She went on unpacking from the bottom of the second bag, a tight knot of apprehension gathering in her stomach.
‘What kep’ ye?’ Martha began, her lips snapping shut after her utterance.
‘There was a lot to get today. Uncle Henry said I’d a brave list,’ Rosie replied mildly.
‘Ye cou’d ha’ bought the whole shop in the time ye’ve been away,’ her mother replied, tossing her head.
Although her mother had grown increasingly stouter over the years, for some reason Rosie could not fathom, her face had not changed. It was still as she remembered it from her childhood, sharp and almost unwrinkled, the eyes small and bright, the nose pointed, her sparse hair drawn back into a meagre bun, pinned at the nape of her neck.
‘Maybe ye were seein’ yer man,’ Martha said with a sneer.
Rosie folded up the empty bags and stared at her, a look of amazement on her face.
‘Don’t you try to fool me, Miss Rosie,’ her mother said sharply, her tone heavy with sarcasm. ‘Aggie Hutchinson saw you the other night. And right embarrassed she was to hafta tell me what any chile of mine was up to. Ye should be ashamed of yerself,’ she went on, poking her chin forward and flushing red with the fury of her words.
‘What are you talking about, Ma. What night?’
‘Last Wednesday night, as you very well know,’ she replied, nodding her head for extra emphasis on every word. ‘Choir practise was what you tole me. A pack o’ lies. That wee huzzey, Lizzie Mackay, an’ you, comin’ down the lane with a couple of boys. Kissin’ and huggin’. Lettin’ yourselves down a bagful. Paddy Doyle, indeed. Not even one of yer own sort,’ she spat out viciously.
Rosie felt the blood drain from her face as she recalled what had actually happened in the lane. A group of boys had rushed out from behind a hedge, mostly the young Doyles who had recently come to live nearby, shouting and egging each other on. Paddy had grabbed her, managed to kiss her awkwardly on the cheek and run away laughing. Lizzie didn’t even know the name of the red-headed lad who was more successful and kissed her on the lips before disappearing with his friends.
‘It was nothing, Ma. Just a couple of boys catching hold of us for a dare.’
‘Well, that’s not the way I heard of it,’ her mother snapped back. ‘Are you tryin’ to tell me that Mrs Hutchinson is stupid? That she hasn’t eyes in her head?’
Rosie looked away, the anger on her mother’s face too much to bear. Mrs Hutchinson might or might not be stupid, but she was well-known as a gossip. The more unpleasant the gossip, the better she enjoyed it.
She knew she couldn’t say that but before she had considered carefully enough what she could say, she heard herself reply.
‘Perhaps, Ma, if Mrs Hutchinson had watched a bit longer, she’d have seen the boys running away into Mackay’s field.’
Martha came round the table, where Rosie had abandoned her efforts to sort out the groceries, and advanced upon her.
‘How dare you! How dare you! You’re as bad a wee huzzey as Lizzie Mackay. I’ll not hear you say a word against your elders and betters.’
Rosie saw her draw back her hand to hit her, moved backwards to avoid the blow to her face and tripped on the uneven worn stone of the floor. As she felt herself falling, she grabbed wildly at the back of a chair standing against the wall that gave on to the farmyard, but she couldn’t stop herself. She hit the upper part of the open door, her head banging against its solid shape, her cheek scraping past the latch of the half door below as she crumpled on the doorstep.
Dazed and confused, she lay where she had fallen, her eyes closed against the blinding light.
‘Get up outa that.’
She felt the shadow of her mother come between her and the light and waited for her to go on. The fall had jerked tears to her eyes and she put up a hand to wipe them away. She felt blood on her cheek, warm and sticky.
‘What’s happened to Rosie?’
From a little way away, she heard her father’s voice, calm and steady as it always was. A moment later, she picked up the smell of lubricating oil as he put his arm around her and drew her to her feet, her face buried in his working dungarees.
‘Did you lift your hand to her?’
‘Not at all. She tripped over herself on that bad bit of floor,’ replied Martha quickly. ‘Sure she’s never lookin’ where she’s goin’ her head’s that full o’ books and stories.’
‘We’ll see about that later,’ he said shortly. ‘Send Dolly over with some tea and plenty of sugar in it.’
He picked Rosie up in his arms as if she were a child and carried her over to the barn.
CHAPTER TWO
Sam Hamilton placed his empty plate quietly on the table beside him and looked down again at the slight figure of his daughter. She lay asleep on one of the four single beds placed in each of the corners of the large, low-roofed room that ran the full width of the barn above his workshop and the washroom he’d fitted out for his family when they’d first come to live at the farm with Uncle Joe, his wife’s eldest brother.
The high sun of early afternoon made two bright patches on the bare boards by the tiny windows overlooking the yard, but the rest of the sparsely-furnished space was cool, quiet and shadowy. Neither the random bellowing of cattle distressed by the heat, nor the whistle and hiss of the engines that steamed past on the railway line nearby penetrated the thick walls. As he sat watching the sleeping girl, his broad shoulders angled towards her, his large, square face immobile, the only noise he could hear was the regular click of the alarm clock that sat beside his empty plate.
Her dark hair had fallen across her face, but he could already see the outline of the bruise on her forehead. The scrape from the door latch wasn’t deep but it had bled a lot. He’d sat her down in the wash house, cleaned it and dabbed it with iodine from his first-aid kit. Painful, but reliable. He’d used it himself many a time and never suffered infection in a cut or a wound. She’d not said a word of complaint as he painted it on, though he knew well how much it stung.
The bruise would come and go, the cut would heal. She’d be none the worse. He sighed and looked around the room as if it would answer the questions shaping in his mind.
She’ll be all right, he said to himself, as he saw a hint of colour come back to her pale face.
Although she’d been confused for a while after he’d brought her over to the barn, he could see she’d taken no great harm. He thanked God it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared when he cycled into the yard and heard her cry and the bang of her head on the door.
The tea had helped. She’d drunk the whole mug his youngest daughter had brought over in the short time it took the child to pass on her mother’s messages. There’d be no dinner till evening when Billy was home. Did he want his bread and cheese on a plate where he was?
He had a fair idea of what had happened, but as soon as she’d drained every last drop of the tea, he’d tried to get her to tell him herself.
‘Tell the truth and shame the Devil,’ he said encouragingly.
It was always so difficult with children. One moment you were trying to teach them not to carry tales and the next you needed to know exactly what had happened so you could do something to protect them. It was not the first time Martha had struck Rosie, though he had spoken to her sternly about it.
He shook his head sadly. But why was it always Rosie? She was such a willing girl, a hard worker who never complained when her mother gave her the jobs she didn’t want to do herself. Martha had never laid a finger on any of the boys. She might have smacked Emily or Margaret when they were very small and being naughty, but she certainly never raised a hand to them once they were older. As for Dolly, the youngest, the child born after he’d left Martha’s bed for good, she spoilt her outrageously, petting her and favouring her in a way she’d never done with any of the others.
There was no making sense of it. But then, he’d known for a long time there was no making sense of Martha. He’d accepted years ago that she didn’t love him. As the years passed, he’d finally come to the conclusion that she never had loved him, even when she was happy to have him in her bed. Martha was a law unto her self. The best he could do was to avoid angering her, to make sure she had enough money to care for the children properly, and to take pleasure in seeing them grow and thrive.
Nine children, five boys and four girls. A fine, long family, as they would say around Banbridge where he’d spent most of his own childhood in a well-built farmhouse that looked out over the rich Bann Valley to the Mourne Mountains beyond. He wasn’t sure if they had the same expression here in County Armagh, but then, apart from the men he worked with at Pearson’s Haulage Company and the other Quakers he saw on a Sunday at the Friends’ Meeting House in Richhill, he didn’t have much time or opportunity for conversation.
There was certainly no conversation with Martha. Mostly she ignored him, or sent him messages via the two youngest, Dolly and Jack. When he went over to the house, she set his food in front of him without a word. If something in the day had happened to please her, she’d talk excitedly while he was having his meal without once looking at him. Then she’d stop suddenly and before he’d had time to make any comment, she’d complain that he never listened to a word she said, that he was interested in no one but himself and his work.
Rosie stirred restlessly, her sleep troubled. He leant towards her, saw beads of perspiration break on her forehead and noted the darkening skin of the rising bruise.
What Martha said wasn’t true. He loved all his children and was happy to see them in his workshop. He could speak freely there and listen to their stories for Martha never came over to the workshop where he spent most of his time repairing tools and machinery when he was not doing his everyday job at Pearson’s. Maybe she so seldom saw him talking to the children, it did seem to her as if he wasn’t interested, but then he remembered how angry she was when Rosie used to come and sit hour after hour in the barn watching whatever he was doing. He sighed. Nothing he’d ever done was right for Martha and it wasn’t likely to change now.
He got slowly to his feet and moved cautiously across the bare wooden floor, avoiding a couple of boards that always squeaked. Downstairs in the workshop, he collected a piece of clean, spoilt cloth, folded it into a pad and stepped into the washroom. The cold water gushing from the tank on the roof splashed his blue dungarees as he soaked the fabric and pressed the pad between his large hands.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, he thought of his own mother, Rose, standing over the sink in the small, chilly dairy of their house at Ballydown, her hands red and chapped as she struggled with his and his father’s work clothes. Often stained with oil or grease, or the plaster from a wall where his father had squeezed into some awkward corner to repair a loom or a weaving frame, she would work away with a beetle or a washboard, a drip at the end of her nose, the steam from the hot water condensing on her cold face, singing.
When he was small she would sing nursery rhymes to him and his little sister, Sarah, as they played in the big kitchen, the door open so she could keep an eye on them. When they were older, at school, or at work, they would come in upon her unexpectedly and find her still singing, but those songs were different, quiet and sad, and she sang as if no one was meant to hear.
Years later, Sarah had explained why he could never make out what the songs were about.
‘It was Irish, Sam. That’s why you couldn’t understand it. Did you think it was your ears?’ she asked, laughing at him, teasing him as she always did, till he’d smiled and admitted that indeed the harder he listened the less he could make of it.
Rosie had turned on her right side while he’d been gone, making it easier to lay the pad gently on the bruise. As the cool fabric touched her damp skin, he was surprised to see her smile.
‘That’s nice,’ she said, her eyes flicking open. ‘I think I heard you going down, but I was busy dreaming,’ she went on, her smile broadening. ‘But it’s gone, can’t remember a thing about it.’
‘That’s the way with dreams,’ he said soberly. ‘The bad ones wake you up and the nice ones run away. That’s what your Aunt Sarah always used to say. She was a great one for dreams,’ he added, encouraged by the steady tone of her voice. ‘She used to keep us all sitting at the breakfast table while she told us every wee detail of some dream or other she’d had. We’d all ’ave been late for school if your granny hadn’t put in a word or two.’
Rosie sat up, caught the damp pad as it slipped, turned it over and pressed it back over the bruise.
‘Didn’t she ever scold you?’ she asked, a frown wrinkling her brow.
‘Ach, I’m shure she did,’ he replied, a small smile touching his lips. ‘Shure we were naughty too. But I never mind going to bed without a hug and a kiss. She always taught us never to hold a grudge or be upset with each other, even for a day.’
‘“Life is too short for hurting one another. If you can’t love someone, then at least let them be”,’ Rosie repeated quietly.
‘Aye, that was another of her sayings.’
He looked at her closely, wondering what else she’d picked up from his mother.
Each summer, two at a time, from the beginning of the school holidays, she had invited all the children to the farm-house, halfway up Rathdrum Hill, his old home in Ballydown. Billy and Charlie had slept in the bedroom where he and his brother James once slept, followed a week later by Sammy and Bobby.
He paused. Dear James, the older brother he’d followed around so devotedly throughout his childhood. Clever James, so ambitious he’d rejected his parents and himself for being foolish and backward, unaware of political and economic realities, indifferent to all the things James himself thought so important. James had spoken so bitterly to the parents that loved him, said untrue and unkind things to Hannah and Sarah, then turned his back on all of them, walked out of their home at Ballydown and out of their lives.
Sam shut his eyes momentarily and repeated to himself the blessing he always said for James: God protect you, James, if you are still with us, and keep your soul if you are not.
What had happened to his brother was a mystery. Were he still in Ireland, someone surely would have come across him, or at least read his name in the paper, but there’d been no word of him for long years now. Perhaps he had simply shaken the dust off his feet, like his own uncles who’d left the family home in Annacramp, gone to America, hadn’t written and never returned.
He began to smile again when he thought of Emily and Rosie and how much they loved going to stay with their granny. Being younger, only a few of their visits were to the farm-house. For them, visiting Granny and Granda meant going on up to the top of the hill, to the lovely old house where they had a garden to play in, books and photograph albums to explore, and a bathroom. He could still remember the excitement when the two girls came home after their first visit and told him how they floated in the long, deep bath, something they’d never met before.
Only the two youngest girls, Margaret and Dolly and his young son Jack had never visited their grandmother. Though they had all been invited as warmly as Emily and Rosie, Margaret always refused to go, insisting that her aunt couldn’t manage without her. From the time she’d been old enough to visit away from home, she’d taken herself off to her Aunt Maggie’s house just up the road at Sandymount. Now she lived there permanently and her aunt, who had no children, always backed up her refusal.
Dolly never wanted to leave her mother and for some reason, best known to herself, Martha absolutely refused to let young Jack go to Rathdrum House either with one of his sisters or on his own. There had been arguments about it, but when he saw how distressed the little boy had become, he’d dropped the subject, knowing his mother would understand.
There was colour in Rosie’s cheeks now. She’d thrown her dark hair back from her face and was wiping face and hands briskly with the pad he’d brought for her bruise.
‘Did yer mother lift her hand to you?’ he said calmly, without looking at her.
Rosie’s smile vanished, she dropped her eyes and twisted the damp cloth in her hands. ‘Did she?’ he persisted.
She moved her head in an almost imperceptible nod. ‘I’ll give it thought,’ he said quietly. ‘It will never happen again.’
Although Rosie protested and said her mother would need her help with preparations for the special dinner she always made when Billy came home, Sam insisted she stay where she was and have another wee sleep. This Saturday, Emily had the half day from her job at Fruitfield Jam Factory. She could do whatever was needed, he said, as he got to his feet and went back down to his workshop.
There, he stood undecided, his eye running over the jobs lined up on the workbench, his mind still resting on his daughter, the image of her small, pale face as she lay on his bed, the lightness of her slim body in his arms as he carried her over from the house.
Rosie fell asleep almost immediately and woke surprised to find it was so late in the afternoon. She sat up hurriedly, ready to swing her legs out of bed, push her feet into her shoes and go back over to the house, but the moment she moved her head throbbed with pain and set up an oscillating beat, like the one a motor makes when the engine is ticking over. She lowered herself cautiously on to the bed again and was grateful to feel the throbbing slowly die down. A little later, she discovered the pain went away so long as she kept quite still.
High above her head in the pitched roof the motes danced in a broad beam of sunlight that fell through the one small skylight window. She followed its slanting path to the floor where it lit up a rag rug, its colours still bright, though she and Emily had made it from the carefully folded pieces from dresses and skirts out of Granny’s box, some of them years old, a few even going all the way back to the days when Auntie Hannah and Auntie Sarah were still at home.
On one of the few wet days in their visit the previous summer, their grandmother had sat in the conservatory at Rathdrum and showed them how to stitch the hemmed pieces on to the hessian backing. They knew already that visit would be their last holiday together for Emily was about to start work at the jam factory and Rosie begin her year at Miss Taylor’s small school in Richhill.
She closed her eyes and walked round her grandmother’s garden. The details of the paths and flowerbeds were so clear in her mind, for a moment, she imagined she could smell the perfume of the old roses after the rain, but the moment passed even more quickly than a pleasant dream when she caught the tone of a sharp little voice down in the workshop below.
‘Ma says, is our Rosie going to lie aroun’ all afternoon an’ leave us to do all the work?’
Her father’s voice was soft but firm.
‘Rosie hurt herself, Dolly. She’s not feeling well. Do you not remember when you fell and cut both your knees? You sat by the fire for a long time. Is Emily not home yet?’
‘Aye, she came a while ago, but Ma sent her a message to Loneys.’
‘Well, tell your mother that if Emily is delayed at Loneys and she needs help, I’ll come over myself as soon as I’ve finished fitting this blade.’
Rosie smiled in spite of herself. Now ten years old, Dolly had grown so like her mother she’d picked up her mannerisms and her sharp way of speaking. Her father’s offer would have brought a sour look to her face for she knew it was not the answer her mother wanted.
When he made an offer to help in the house, she could never be quite sure whether or not he did it deliberately, for he knew as well as she did the last thing her mother ever wanted was to have him in her kitchen.
She eased herself up in the bed and leant back against the headboard. The throbbing didn’t start up immediately, but suddenly she felt so weary all she wanted to do was go to sleep. She smiled wryly and admitted to herself how much she was dreading stepping in to the kitchen and facing the comments which would inevitably come her way. At this moment, she had not the remotest idea how she could bring herself to go, but she knew it would have to be done.
As she bent over gingerly to lace up her shoes, she heard a different voice below, a hasty word to her father and a flurry of skirts on the wooden stair.
‘Ach, Rosie dear, what happened at all? You look ghastly.’
Her sister Emily dropped down on the edge of the bed beside her so awkwardly that the springs protested and she nearly knocked Rosie sideways.
‘Thanks very much,’ Rosie replied, managing a smile.
Over a year older, tall and skinny, with the same pointed features as her mother, Emily resembled her in no other way. She put her arm round Rosie and hugged her, then pushed her sister’s hair back and scrutinised the bruise and the cut outlined with iodine. She screwed up her face in concentration.
‘Ma said you fell against the door,’ she said, her voice heavy with disbelief. ‘Well, if you did, you hit it the queer dunt. That wou’d be more like somethin’ I’d do. It’s not like you at all.’
To her great surprise, Rosie found tears had begun to trickle down her face. She didn’t know why she was crying, but the more she tried to stop the faster the tears flowed.
‘Ach, dear a dear. Is it very sore?’ Emily asked, her face screwed up with anxiety.
Rosie shook her head and poked about in her pockets for a handkerchief.
‘Here y’ar, here’s mine,’ said Emily quickly, pulling out a crumpled square and putting it in her hand. ‘Now, c’mon on. Tell me what happened for I don’t believe a word of what I’ve bin told.’
It was only then Rosie realised it was Emily herself had brought the tears, the big sister who had always stood up for her, who’d listened to her even when she knew she hadn’t much idea what she was talking about. Emily and Sammy, her older brother, were her best friends. They had been her playmates, her companions on the walk to Richhill School, the two people she could rely on day by day. While she had them she felt safe, even when her mother was in one of her rages, but now Sammy was working in Armagh and only came home when he had a half day on Saturdays or a Sunday off. Emily was putting away every penny not demanded by their mother. As soon as she had enough money saved she would buy her ticket to America.
Rosie cried in Emily’s arms until the tears finally stopped. Then she told her what had happened.
‘Ach dear, what are we goin’ to do?’ Emily said with a great sigh. ‘It’s not fair that you get the worst of it. She’s never as bad with me. But then she knows I’m goin’ as soon as I can,’ she added, wiping Rosie’s damp face with the sleeve of her second-best blouse. ‘Did you see anything in the paper last night?’
Rosie nodded.
‘Six jobs for “smart boys”,’ she said briskly. ‘Two in Armagh, two in Richhill, one in Portadown and one in Loughgall.’
‘No smart girls?’
Rosie laughed.
It was the earnest look on Emily’s face that cheered her. It was so characteristic of her. Emily’s greatest gift was figures. From the day she’d been asked to count wooden beads she’d changed her mind about not liking school. Numbers made her happy. She recited the multiplication table for pleasure. Counted the money in her mother’s purse. Measured and recorded the milk given by each of the four cows. Laid out the nails and screws from the workshop in multiples. Words were a different matter. Emily often had no idea what to say.
When Rosie laughed, Emily beamed with relief. She couldn’t bear to see her sister all upset and worried. There were so few jobs around and that made it all the harder. Billy had had to work on the farm until he was old enough to join the police and she’d been at home for over a year before one of the clerks at Fruitfield left to get married. There were so many in for that job she probably wouldn’t have had much chance if her father hadn’t worked there for years and all the bosses knew him.
Poor old Bobby was just the same. He’d left school the previous year and couldn’t find a job of any sort. He wanted to be a mechanic, but he was still having to put up with Uncle Joe on the farm for a few shillings a week. Rosie was smart, far cleverer than any of them, but that wasn’t much help if all the jobs going were for boys.
‘Rosie,’ Emily said suddenly. ‘I’ve thought of something.’
‘What, Emily? What have you thought of?’
‘Something I read in The People’s Friend. There was this story about this girl who goes to America and marries a rich man and the first thing she does is send a ticket to her sister,’ she said quickly. ‘I could do that. Not find the rich man. Not with my face,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I could save up again and send you a ticket. And it woudn’t take near so long as it’s taken me this time. It’ll take me sixty-five weeks at two shillings a week here and I’ve lost over three weeks with expenses at work I hadn’t reckoned on, but wages are higher there and I could save maybe a dollar a week for thirty weeks or two dollars for fifteen weeks or even three dollars for ten …’
She broke off.
‘Isn’t that an idea?’ she asked quickly, not sure what to make of the look on Rosie’s face.
‘That’s a great idea, Emily,’ Rosie replied, giving her a hug. ‘That’s awfully good of you.’
Rosie hadn’t the heart to tell her sister that if she went and she herself had to stay at home, waiting to find work, then she would feel so lonely and vulnerable that even a week would seem more than she could bear.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Shure the Govermint is far too soft on them’ems. They oughta be put out. Why aren’t they sent down to their own Free State, as they call it? Shure what do we want with them up here, a lot o’ Fenians and troublemakers.’
Rosie’s heart sank and she felt her hands go moist as they always did when she was anxious. She didn’t even need to glance across the kitchen to where Uncle Joe sat in his usual place to the right of the stove to see the twist of his lined and wrinkled face and the bright, malicious flicker in his eyes as he stared up at Billy, the eldest and tallest of her five brothers, who stood with one arm casually stretched along the mantelpiece, a small smile on his face as he looked down at the old man.
The meal had hardly been finished when Uncle Joe got launched. The sound of his voice was often enough to make Rosie feel queasy but she’d managed perfectly well so long as he held forth about the farm, the hard work he and Bobby had put in on the low meadow in the desperate heat with not a soul lifting a hand to help them. She’d even smiled to herself at one point as her uncle went on to complain that the new-cut grass was lying moist on the ground with not the ha’pence worth of a breeze to dry it. So much for Uncle Henry and his confidence about what a good year it would be for the hay.
How the conversation had moved from the hay to the subject of their few Roman Catholic neighbours and Joe’s uncompromising attitude towards them she had no idea.
It might simply be the way Billy was standing in front of the stove, his large frame dominating the still-seated figures of his family. It didn’t take much to irritate Uncle Joe and that might have been enough to do it.
‘Well now, I think you’re too hard on the Government,’ said Billy, whose tone had grown more assured since he’d been away from home. ‘If you wou’d read the provisions of the Special Powers Act, I think you’d take heart.
‘An’ I can tell you, in confidence, of course,’ he went on, lowering his voice significantly, ‘that there’s more to come. But we in the police are not supposed to talk about it,’ he added pompously.
Outside, the long June evening was fading to a warm, pale dusk, the smell of cut grass on the evening air, but indoors, even with the door propped open, it was so dim Emily had just been instructed to light the lamp. In its glow, Rosie watched the faces of her brothers and sisters. Moist with sweat, they gleamed in its light. Though she was sitting at the end of the table furthest from the lamp, she could feel the heat vibrating above the hot mantle. The faces at the other end of the table began to waver in and out of focus. The smell of the rising fumes from the paraffin was beginning to make her feel sick again.
When the meal was served up, the very sight of food had almost been too much. The plate set in front of her was piled high with mashed potato well-moistened with thick, brown gravy. While her mother’s back was still turned to the stove, she moved the roast meat from underneath on to Sammy’s plate. Later, when her mother’s entire attention was devoted to Billy’s second helping she managed to pass over the vegetables she’d only been pretending to eat.
Sammy asked no questions. He always had a good appetite and it wasn’t the first time he’d helped her avoid her mother’s sharp comments when she wasn’t feeling well, but she noticed he and Emily kept looking at her whenever they could do it without their mother catching them at it. It occurred to her that she probably still looked ghastly. Even Billy had given her the odd sideways look when he arrived home.
When Emily got up to light the lamp she’d bent down and whispered that maybe she should go and lie down, but although it would get her out of the kitchen, it wasn’t going to help very much with Billy and Charlie now hard at it with Uncle Joe. You could probably hear the three of them down at Richhill Station, never mind in the wee room she shared with Emily on the other side of the fireplace wall.
As the kitchen became hotter Rosie wondered if she could possibly manage to go outside. Sandwiched in between Sammy and Emily, it would be difficult to get out without attracting attention. Her mother had ignored her all afternoon, but now, from time to time when she wasn’t looking up at Billy and smiling, she cast her a sour look. The other problem was standing up. She was soon going to have to go to the privy at the far end of the yard. The thought of being outside and in the cool air was very appealing but she felt so shaky she wasn’t entirely sure she could make it.
Billy was talking now about the provision for whipping in the 1922 Act, and Charlie, who had recently joined the B Specials, the new part-time police force, was paying close attention.
‘An’ ye mean that male offenders can be whipped in private as well as whatever punishment the courts give them?’ he asked thoughtfully.
‘That’s a fact. The police’ll not be as soft as some here might think,’ Billy replied sharply, glancing down at Uncle Joe who was filling his pipe. ‘An’ you’ll find, Charlie, that when the new act goes through next year, you can be sure the provisions will extend to all the forces of the law. B Specials included. It’s only a matter of time.’
The stove had been allowed to burn out after the meal was served, but the low-ceilinged room continued to grow warmer. Not a breath of air moved between the open door and the single small window set in the thickness of the back wall of the house. Dolly had been sent to bed and her father had left quietly when Joe began to hold forth about the hay, but the room was still uncomfortably crowded, bedroom chairs having been brought in to the kitchen to provide enough seating round the big table.
‘Sure maybe, Charlie, you’ll go for the police yerself when you’re the age, like Billy here,’ Martha began. ‘Hasn’t he had a great time to himself down in Enniskillen? Good pay. An’ the uniform looks powerful well on him. It wou’d suit you too.’
Rosie heard her mother’s voice echo as if it was reaching her from a long way away. She glanced towards her where she sat opposite Uncle Joe. He was puffing crossly at his pipe and poking the stem of it with the end of a spent match.
