A Girl Called Rosie (23 page)

‘How
do
you
do
, Mrs Braithwaite,’ he said, in his most ingratiating tones. ‘I’ve heard so much about the big load from Rosie and my sister Martha. My goodness, what adventures there have been,’ he went on, throwing out his hands and oozing charm.

It was Uncle Henry at his memorable worst. She watched him deploy what he considered his most irresistible manner to cover his minute observation of Mrs Braithwaite herself.

He made a number of comments about the weather, the prettiness of the garden, his journey to
Portadown to collect provisions and the unreliability of the young man he had left in charge of his shop, before he finally decided he’d no excuse to remain longer, by which time, no doubt, he’d stored away as much as there was to be gained from the happy chance of his encounter.

He disappeared down the hill in a cloud of unpleasant exhaust fumes.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Braithwaite, Uncle Henry is the most dreadful gossip in all of Richhill.’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Not a nice man at all, even if he is a relative of yours. He has a way of looking at a woman that is not appropriate.’

Rosie nodded, grateful to find her friend’s warm and lively manner was not simply her habitual way of dealing with everyone.

‘I make sure I’m never left alone with him.’

‘A bachelor?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded crisply and then smiled.

‘He has a very good opinion of himself, Rosie, but it doesn’t take much to see through him. Don’t worry about him gossiping. I’ve known worse than him and I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, if you understand me.’

Rosie did understand. It wasn’t just the letting slip of her father’s name, or the fact that she’d been to visit him, it was her warmth towards herself, the
uncomplicated easiness of their talk. Surprised at herself, she concluded that this woman loved her father and she’d be very surprised if her father didn’t love her.

‘Mrs Braithwaite, I would like to come and see you sometimes …’

‘Rosie dear, please don’t call me Mrs Braithwaite. Call me Mary. Unless your Uncle Henry’s around. We’ll both know exactly what we’re thinking if you call me Mrs Braithwaite then.’

‘I’ve so enjoyed our talk … Mary. Goodness knows what time it is. I’m not sure there’ll be any supper tonight until I get home and make it, but there’ll have to be some changes before I start work next Monday.’

‘Good luck, Rosie. Can I tell your Da the good news if I happen to get over before you do?’

Rosie nodded as she wheeled her bicycle to the side of the road and hitched up her skirt.

‘He’ll be glad to see you, Mary,’ she said, smiling at her new friend, as she pushed off across the empty road to cycle the two miles home. ‘He really will.’

When she arrived back at the farm a little after five, the kitchen was empty and the stove almost out. Hastily, she did her best to revive it. No doubt the cows did need milking, but couldn’t her mother give a little thought to the family and at least keep up enough fire for cooking supper, even though she
had no intention of doing it herself. She knew Jack and Dolly needed their meal and Charlie would come in ravenous after a long day having had only his sandwich for lunch.

She’d just persuaded the fire not to go out and was putting small pieces of coal on top of the crackling sticks when she heard a step behind her.

‘Hallo, Charlie,’ she said without looking up.

When there was no reply she turned round. Her mother was standing staring at her, her hands on her hips.

‘So, ye did come back after all?’

Rosie’s heart sank as she registered the familiar phrase.

‘The Mackay’s must be well sick of you up there every day, running after Lizzie. Has she no work to do either?’

‘I wasn’t up at Lizzie’s,’ she replied doing her best to remain calm. ‘What would you like me to cook for supper?’

‘Suit yerself.’

Rosie collected a bowl full of potatoes from the sack in the corner of the room, put on her apron, poured water from the bucket into the tin basin and proceeded to wash them.

‘I suppose it was yer idea to get yer father to sell my cows.’

‘The idea never occurred to me. If Da had to raise
a lot of money then the cows wouldn’t make much.’

‘Hello, Ma. Hello, Rosie.’

Charlie appeared in the doorway and cast a glance round the kitchen. With no sign of a tablecloth and not even a pot on the stove, he knew supper was some time away.

‘Can I give you a hand to drive the cows up into the orchard, Ma, seeing Bobby’s not here?’

She looked at him as if he had suddenly lost hold of his senses.

‘Sure what would I want them in the orchard for?’

‘Tomorrow’s the last day of the month, Ma. The lease runs from July the first, that’s Wednesday. It’ll be Mr Lamb’s land then.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ she said angrily. ‘I wasn’t consulted about my cows, nor the land they graze on. Your father needn’t think he can sell them over my head. I won’t have it. I’m goin’ to see my brother Henry an’ ask his advice. Ye can help yer sister make the supper if yer so keen to be useful.’

She turned on her heel and marched out, every line of her body rigid with fury. Rosie looked after her, then across at her brother.

‘What
are
we going to do, Charlie? Da’s done his best. He said she could keep one cow in the orchard if she wanted to, but the land
had
to go. She knows that.’

‘Aye, but she’ll not admit it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘We’ll have to leave it to Da. Don’t worry, Rosie. He’ll be back soon an’ he’ll have an answer.’

She knew he meant to comfort her, but she was far too worried to be comforted. Faced with her mother’s behaviour the wonderful sense of delight she’d shared with Mary Braithwaite simply evaporated. It was as if her father had said not a word about the land having to go nor about herself and Bobby being free to find jobs for themselves.

In her present mood, she felt there was no point telling her about her job at McGredy’s. At best, she’d ignore her and then accuse her of never having told her. At worst, she’d fly off at her. Rosie felt she couldn’t sustain yet one more outburst of violent temper.

At the same time, the matter of the cows was becoming more serious. If the animals were not moved, her father would be in breach of the lease. Mr Lamb would certainly not make difficulties while her father was still away, but if Martha went on tending them without Bobby to help, who was going to run the house and put food on the table after next Monday? For the moment, the only thing she could do was carry on as best she could. It wasn’t something she could discuss with Miss Wilson and sadly, just when she most needed her, Lizzie had gone with her mother for a week’s holiday in Newcastle.

The only good moments in the very unpleasant week that followed she spent in the barn painting a sequence of pictures to record, day by day, the unfurling of her precious rosebud. Margaret McGredy took two days to open fully, putting out a mass of orange-red petals whose richness and texture delighted her. On the fourth day, stepping into the barn after her visit to Miss Wilson, she found a heap of soft petals lying on the workbench. They were just beginning to shrivel in the continuing heat, their fragrance scenting the warm air.

Tomorrow, she’d be going over to Rathdrum for the last of her two-night visits. Once a working girl, she’d only be able to go when she had a half day on Saturday, just like Sammy coming home from Armagh. She could wait no longer. She’d got to tell her mother tonight that she’d be at work from Monday morning, leaving with her father, Charlie and Bobby somewhere after seven.

She managed to get out her story uninterrupted, despite the sour look on her mother’s face.

‘Oh, that’s news indeed. Well, at least you’ll be able to pay somethin’ towards your keep. You’ll find it a queer change not being able to run around with your cronies and go visitin’ up in Richhill.’

‘Yes, it will be a change, Ma. I’ll not be here to do the washing and cleaning and cooking.’

‘Sure ye can cook when ye get home. Doesn’t many a girl do that? Ye know I’ve the milking to do. I haven’t time for that.’

‘And what about the washing and cleaning?’

‘What about it? Can’t ye do the washing Sunday instead of Monday. I have to work seven days a week. Who do you think you are to come home and be waited on?’

‘What about Emily? You didn’t expect her to do housework in the evenings?’

‘Emily paid her way from the day she left school. You’ve never earned a penny. Just remember what you cost me when you were runnin’ up to Miss Wilson, readin’ poetry and paintin’ wee pictures. Maybe ye fancy gettin’ a man wi’ money like your aunts did. Well, let me tell you, I’m not such a fool as you think. An’ while you’re in this house, you’ll work for your keep.’

‘As well as paying for it, Ma?’

‘An’ why shoulden you? You’ve lived off my back an’ outa my purse since you left school …’

‘Out of whose purse, Martha?’

Rosie could hardly believe her eyes. Her father and Bobby stood in the doorway, blocking the light, before they came into the room and sat down. Martha had been shouting so loudly she’d had been totally oblivious to the usual sounds in the yard.

‘Out of whose purse, Martha?’

He repeated his question quietly and without emphasis.

‘Out of my purse,’ she shot back at him, her tone only barely modified.

‘Judging by what you said on Sunday, Martha, about leasing some land for your cows, it would seem that your purse has been fuller than the needs of our family. You’ve saved quite a bit from what I give you and from what you’ve taken from our children. Even from Bobby and now Rosie, were I to permit it.’

‘And why shouldn’t they pay for their keep?’

‘Because, Martha, I have always provided for their keep, as your savings demonstrate. Our children have been very generous with you, paying you out of the little they earn, or, working without any payment and very little thanks.’

Martha opened her mouth to interrupt, her face screwed up with fury, but Rosie saw her father lift his hand.

‘I haven’t finished, Martha. I have something to say to you and you will oblige me by listening. It is then for you to decide what you want to do.’

Rosie decided her legs might give way if she didn’t sit down. She pulled out a chair and placed herself beside Bobby.

‘You have a choice to make. You can sell the cattle, add the money to your savings and take over
the proper running of this house. Alternatively, you can rent land, hire a man to help you and keep your milk money for your own use as you’ve done since Uncle Joe died. In that case, I will ask our neighbours to find our family a pleasant, cheerful woman as a housekeeper. I shall have to deduct her wages from what you normally get for your purse. The money for groceries you will receive as usual.’ He stood up.

‘I hope I’ve made myself plain, Martha. We did agree some eleven years ago that we had a family to raise. That you would do your work and I would do mine. I told you then that if we couldn’t agree, I would have to make other arrangements for the wellbeing of our sons and daughters. That decision still holds good.’

He stood up and glanced across at Bobby who was as distressed as she was herself by their mother’s hostile expression.

‘Bobby and I will go and bring the cattle into the orchard. That will give you time to make up your mind what you want to do.’

He paused and then continued.

‘As for expecting Rosie to cook and clean after a day’s work at her new job, I think you owe her an apology.’

He turned and went out into the yard without another word, gratefully followed by Bobby. A
moment later, her mother stumped out after them and left Rosie to herself.

She had a headache and felt slightly sick as she pulled out the casserole to stir it, add a little seasoning and get the vegetables going.

Suddenly she had an image of herself on the loveliest of August mornings, the day after Granda’s funeral, spinning along the road from Banbridge and hearing her Auntie Sarah saying how her da would act when the right moment for action arrived. She’d also said that when he made up his mind he would be absolutely clear about what had to happen and he would be unshifting in his resolve.

After the unusually hot summer, autumn came more quickly than usual, the trees, parched and already weary of growth, dropped their leaves at the first hint of frost and the slightest gust of wind. November mists arrived as early as October and by December the land was already sunk deeply into winter rest.

For Rosie, the months passed with unbelievable speed. Every week brought new experiences. So absorbed was she by skills to be learnt, people to meet and the whole exotic world of rose breeding opening before her, she began to think she might be forever spared from the dreary burden of repetition. However often she made up an order for blooms, or wrapped the root balls of spiky bushes for despatch, however often she pruned or budded, she marvelled that she never got tired of handling the material she worked with every day.

There were indeed times when she felt the chill of damp earth, days too when the sadness of dying
blooms called up a strange longing she couldn’t quite put a name to. But, for the most part, she was happy. Whatever the tensions at home, she could be sure of friendliness at work and often laughter.

Billy McWilliams, the overseer, the man who had given her such a bad time when he’d interviewed her for the job, became a good friend. He also turned out to be the brother-in-law of the young man who’d been her father’s helper on a memorable delivery from Fruitfield to Jacob’s Biscuit Factory in Dublin at the time of the Easter Rising. Having confessed to her how much he hated summer and how much more he hated people who had no feel for his beloved roses, he set about teaching Rosie all he knew and the range and scope of his knowledge was extraordinary.

For a man who could barely read and write and was heartily glad to have someone who would sort his invoices in a fraction of the time it took him to do it himself, he was able to quote the genealogy of a rose all the way back through its ancestors, naming the breeding stock used and the rose-breeders responsible. He talked about roses like Margaret McGredy or Norman Lambert as if they were personal friends and loved speculating as to what might happen if they were cross-bred.

‘You can never tell, Rosie, that’s the joy of it. Cross a red with a white and you’ll not get pink.
It’s not like mixin’ paint. Far more interestin’. You might get half a dozen sports an’ maybe only one of them will be robust. You have to learn to throw away. To move on, try somethin’ new. An’ in time, when you’ve made enough bad choices and have a whole lot of poor, wee spindly things about the place, you’ll know a good grower when it’s less than the size o’ your thumb.’

She listened and watched what he did, the thick fingers with the dirty, chipped nails, moving faster than a woman knitting or using a typewriting machine.

In the very short days of December, Mr Sam gave his staff extra time off to compensate for the long hours they worked in summer and to celebrate the prize the nursery had recently been awarded. If Billy McWilliams had won ten thousand pounds in the Irish Sweepstake, he wouldn’t have worn a bigger smile than the day the telephone call came from Mr Sam in London telling him Margaret McGredy had won the National Rose Society Award for a hybrid tea.

Billy was ecstatic. He tramped round the large shed that provided both office and despatch department, muttering to himself. In their tea break he reminded her she’d worn a blouse that very colour the day she’d come about the job. Cycling down the lane that night, her flash-lamp catching the glitter
of frost on the road ahead, she remembered the sequence of pictures she’d made, one for each day of the opening and falling of the bloom he’d given her to take home with her. She thought perhaps he’d like to see them, a reminder of a day they joked about like the friends they’d become.

Meantime, she had the opportunity to go to Rathdrum for three whole days. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Going on a Saturday afternoon and having to return on Sunday evening made it seem such a very short time. It felt as if they’d just got started to talk when she had to put her nightdress back in her suitcase and walk down to Emily and Alex’s, so he could run her to the station in Banbridge.

‘Oh Granny, it is lovely to be here. I feel as if we haven’t had a proper talk since I got my job. By the time we got through all the news of how everyone is and what they’re all doing we haven’t any left to put the world to rights, as Da calls it.’

‘Well, we’d better get started right away then, hadn’t we? Let’s hear your news first. I’ve got a lovely tray of sandwiches out in the kitchen and some of the sherry you like best. The first sherry you ever had. Do you remember?’

Rosie nodded happily and drew in a deep breath.

‘Da is well and seems in very good spirits. I
think he’s terribly pleased with how well Bobby is doing and Bobby is saving up for a motorbike like Charlie’s. Sammy has fallen in love. Her name is Marjorie and she lives in Portadown, but that’s all he’ll tell us. Billy has finished his training and has his new uniform. I must admit he looks well in it, but he’s very full of himself. Ma thinks he’s just great.’

‘And Ma herself?’

Rosie smiled wryly.

‘Well, I have to say, Da won the battle outright, but she still tries to put him in the wrong. Every time she sets a jug of milk on the table she says if it hadn’t been for her fighting to keep Daisy we’d have no milk.’

‘What does he say to that?’

‘Guess.’

Rose raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Nothing?’

‘Absolutely right. Sometimes he even manages to behave as if she hadn’t spoken, but quite often now Jack or Dolly will pipe up and say, “But we could get milk from Mrs Loney like the Mackays do.” That makes her very cross. But she
is
better than she was. She reads a lot and goes to see her friends. She might even be glad she’s not having to spend long hours milking in a freezing cold byre these evenings.’

Rosie stretched out in front of the blazing fire and sniffed appreciatively at the perfume of the well-seasoned logs.

‘What are you burning, Granny?’

‘Apple wood. Isn’t it lovely? Mr Lavery had to take out some dead trees a couple of years ago and John bought it all for me and stacked it at the back of the workshop. Aunt Elizabeth used to burn apple wood years ago when I first came up to Rathdrum to see her and we made quilts together. Though she got hers from over your way. Fruit Hill, I think. She had relatives there.’

‘How is Aunt Elizabeth?’

‘Better. You can’t get rid of arthritis but these new tablets have helped and the wax treatment is a great comfort. She’s able to sew again, but it’s her encouragement that achieves so much for the co-operative, as I keep telling her. Some women, Rosie, think so little of themselves that it’s heartbreaking. Then Elizabeth gets them working, sewing or knitting and they see just what they
can
do. It’s not just the money they earn, it’s the fact that they can do it.’

‘I understand that better now than I did a year ago. There’s more to earning money than the money itself, though the money’s important enough.’

‘Exactly. Once a woman has money in her purse she can make decisions, whether it’s food for her family or better clothes and then she begins to feel she has some control over her life, however small.’

‘Are you still enjoying it?’

‘The co-operative? Oh yes. The first time I made a pattern for a baby’s dress and showed a very poor young woman how to make a few shillings for herself, I knew I’d found what I needed. Elizabeth says I perked up visibly that very day.’

She paused and looked very thoughtful as if she’d suddenly remembered something very precious.

‘D’you know, Rosie, years and years ago when I was not much older than you, I asked my mother about the loss of my father and how she felt about it. She said she thought of him every time she put food on the table and how pleased he’d be that his children had enough to eat. Then I thought of John. He’d be so pleased I’m doing something I used to be very good at and helping those women, who’re as poor as he and I once were.’

Rosie nodded and watched her grandmother as she took her time placing a new log on the fire, using the long brass tongs so she didn’t have to bend over. It was clear to her that she was a lot happier now than she’d been even a few months ago.

‘Have you heard from Richard P. at all?’ she asked, as she straightened up.

The mention of Richard was only to be expected when they’d been talking about his mother, but to Rosie’s dismay she found herself blushing.

‘I did have a birthday card in July,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I don’t know how he knew my birthday.
Unless he asked you,’ she added, recovering herself somewhat.

‘Yes, he did ask me,’ Rose admitted. ‘But I wondered if he might have written.’

Rosie shook her head.

There was a moment’s silence in which Rosie looked into the fire and her grandmother considered what it might be best to say.

‘I thought you and Richard seemed very easy with each other when we went to Corbet Lough. You looked so right together.’

‘Yes, I always feel right with Richard. I like talking to him. He never treats me as if I were years younger.’

‘Yet he’s aware that you’re still only seventeen and he’s twenty-four. Richard has been away, has studied, qualified and begun a career whereas you’re only just setting out. Richard would be very sensitive to the difference.’

‘Whatever do you mean, Granny?’

Rosie looked at her grandmother quite baffled by what she had said.

‘Well, I don’t know how Richard feels about you, though perhaps I might guess … but there’s something I think you should know. If as thoughtful a man as Richard
does
care about a young woman, a “young” young woman, that is, like yourself, he may be reluctant to stand in her way. He might
decide to be patient and wait till she has more experience of the world before making it in any way clear what he might feel.’

‘Isn’t that what happened with Auntie Sarah and Uncle Hugh that died? Wasn’t she only eighteen?’

‘Yes, you’re quite right. I think Hugh had loved her all her life, though she was only six when they first met.’

She paused a light smile playing about her lips.

Rosie waited. By now she knew the expression well. Granny was seeing scenes from past life that called up memories, she might, or might not, feel she should share with her.

‘John and I never did work out who proposed to whom. It might well have been Sarah, knowing her, but Hugh waited till Sarah had made her own life. He wanted her to have a real choice. He didn’t want her to marry him just because there was nothing else to do, like these young women we read about, the debutantes, marrying from the ballroom.’

‘And you think Richard may be waiting, like Hugh did?’

‘What do you think, Rosie?’

‘I think he’s probably in love with Helen.’

‘Now what makes you think that?’

‘Well, she
is
so lovely and so lively …’

‘Indeed she is. But so, my dear Rosie, are you.’

‘But …’

‘I think you
are
fond of Richard, but we’ll just have to see what happens. Two people can change a lot in a year when they both find themselves in quite new circumstances. You’re certainly a very different young woman from the pretty girl John and I took to Kerry a mere eighteen months ago.’

Rosie had barely walked into the section of shed Billy used as an office, when he hailed her, his face grim. He’d drawn himself up to his full height, which was little more than a few inches taller than she was herself. He now sat down soberly on his stool.

‘The boss wants to see you right away. He’s over in the Portadown showroom and he’s expectin’ you.’

For one awful moment, Rosie thought something dreadful had happened. Then she saw the tiny glint in Billy’s eye and knew he was teasing her.

‘So, I’m for the sack, am I? Who’ll make your tea then, Billy? And who’ll sort your invoices when you drop them on the floor?’

His face cracked into a broad grin.

‘He still wants t’ see you.’

‘What about, Billy?’

‘Well, it’s not for me to say, but I showed him them paintin’s you brought in for me before ye went to see Granny. My goodness, he was pleased with them. Delighted. Told me to send you in as soon
as you were back,
if
I could spare you,’ he added, teasing her again.

‘And can you, Billy?’

‘Well, I can try. For the good of the business.’ He winked. ‘Away on wi’ ye. An’ good luck,’ he added laughing.

It was a strange experience to see one’s work in the hands of another person. Brothers and sisters and friends were one thing, but someone like Mr Sam was quite a different matter. Although he was the most approachable of men and she’d never been in the least shy of him, she felt quite overwhelmed to find herself sitting in his small, overcrowded office, her watercolours of Margaret McGredy in his hands, as he stood by the window studying them again in the best of the dim December light.

When she first arrived, he’d told her about the forthcoming Northern Ireland Trade Fair, which was to be held in June in the City Hall in Belfast. Then he’d shown her the brochures and plant guides from previous events, collected by Billy, carefully tied up in bundles with green string, labelled and stacked. Then he said he wanted her to join the small team who would be mounting the display and presenting the company to home and foreign buyers.

Fortunately he hadn’t noticed how utterly amazed she was and had simply gone on to explain
he wanted her to design the layout of the stand. What really mattered, he said, was the overall balance of colour. The stand and the roses had to be in perfect harmony, so those responsible for the construction of the stand and the provision of blooms were to do whatever she thought best.

‘Billy will keep you right about which varieties will be ready and you may have to change some of the details at the very last minute, but I want the overall design based on our newest roses. I want you to paint watercolours of
all
of the roses we use so that we can provide colour postcards for our customers. If I may, I’d like to hold on to these you’ve done already to let the printers see what I have in mind. They remain your copyright, of course, and there will be a fee. Will you leave it to me to work out an appropriate figure? Meantime, as designer to the team your salary will be doubled. What do you say to the general idea?’