Beyond the Green Hills (5 page)

‘So Ronnie says,’ she agreed. ‘He knows more
about what’s going on here than I do. Hardly surprising, is it, when the only newspaper I ever read is
Le Monde
.’

‘What
does
Ronnie think is going on? He’s always very well informed and very sharp.’

‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ she said abruptly.

‘Where I learned my French, they had a saying rather like that,’ he replied. ‘Though not quite as delicate. A rough translation would be, “Whatever the weather, they always pee behind the same tree.”’

She grinned and looked towards the low hills of North Down ahead, still snow-sprinkled in the morning sun.

‘I think we’re going to be lucky. It’s going to be a clear day.’

‘Oh dear, you’ve guessed,’ he said, feigning disappointment. ‘I had thought of a circular route via Downpatrick, but I wasn’t taking any chances with the weather. This may not last.’

But the weather didn’t let them down. The sky simply went on clearing as they turned off the main road and headed south for Scrabo Tower. By the time Andrew parked the Austin at the foot of the hill where once he’d parked Senator Richardson’s well-cared for Rover, the sky was almost clear.

‘Not quite so hot today,’ he said, grinning, as they paused to rest on the steep climb up, their breath swirling round them like clouds of steam.

‘And a lot easier in winter boots,’ Clare replied, recalling the ache in her legs and back from her best high-heeled shoes on that last ascent.

‘Are we getting old or are we out of training?’ he muttered, panting gently as they climbed the last few steps of the tower’s spiral staircase and stepped out on to the parapet.

‘Well, we are nearly five years older,’ she said. ‘And I spend most of my time sitting on my bottom,’ she added, laughing, as she leaned gratefully against the battlements. ‘What about you? Does appearing in court give you much exercise? There are lots of steps outside the Law Courts. Do you run up and down between cases?’

‘No,’ he said gently, as he took her in his arms. ‘I sit and think about you. That’s what keeps me sane.’

They stood in silence, their arms round each other, and looked out over the quiet, sunlit countryside. There was snow on the higher ground. Under the north-facing hedgerows, the frost lay so heavy it too looked like drifted snow. Every small field was outlined by its leafless hedgerow, its bare trees and the long shadows they cast in the low sun. Beyond the fields, the lough lay like a sheet of polished pewter. The air was so still, the smoke from the nearby cottages rose without billow or curl, straight up above each whitewashed gable.

‘The Mournes are even clearer than last time,’ she whispered, not wanting the sound of her voice
to break the spell.

For a moment, Andrew said nothing. Then he spoke, his voice seeming to come from a long way away.

‘I always remember what your Granny Hamilton said about making up your mind on a clear day.’

She moved closer within the circle of his arm, touched that he so often recalled things she’d told him. No matter who it was she might mention, however casually, Andrew placed them, remembered what they’d said or done. Sometimes she felt he knew more about her life in the house beyond the forge than Jessie had ever done.

‘What made you think of that?’ she asked.

‘I want to ask you something, Clare,’ he said quietly. ‘I know we said we wouldn’t worry about an engagement ring, we’d just get married as soon as we could manage it. But I’ve had a lovely surprise. Dear old Auntie Bee hadn’t much money, but she left me fifty pounds. She also left me a ring she’d once given to my mother. I knew my mother had taken her jewellery box with her to London and the box didn’t survive, but that afternoon, she’d left this ring in a jeweller’s in Bond Street to have a stone replaced. So it wasn’t lost with the rest. It’s only got a very small diamond and some garnets and it might not fit. If you don’t like it, we’ve got fifty pounds. We could go back into Belfast right now and choose something different.’

For a moment, Clare was so surprised she couldn’t think what to say.

‘Oh, Andrew,’ she burst out finally. ‘I’d far rather have your mother’s ring than any ring we went and bought, even if we had five hundred pounds. If it doesn’t fit, I know it can be altered. Harry’s always having antique rings done for customers. Have you brought it?’

‘Yes, of course, I have. Here it is,’ he said simply. ‘In
its very own box.’

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a dark red, leather box. He opened it. The ring sparkled in the sunlight between them.

‘Oh dear,’ said Clare, ‘I think I’m going to cry …’

‘Oh, my love, my dear, dear love, why tears?’

‘It’s just … it’s just …’ she sniffed, ‘well, they weren’t as lucky as we are, were they? We haven’t got a war to live with … or be killed by.’

She collected herself and took the delicate ring from where it nestled against the red silk lining. The garnets flashed as the sun caught them and she slipped the ring on her finger. She held out her hand to him.

‘Perfect fit,’ he whispered.

He put his lips to the ring. ‘You’re sure it’s what you want?’

‘As sure as I am that I want you.’

She slipped the empty box into her pocket, reached up, put her arms round his neck and kissed him.

‘M
akes a change from fish and chips, Andrew,’ said Jessie, grinning broadly, as he tucked in to the beef casserole.

‘Mmm,’ he agreed, his mouth full.

‘It’s lovely, Jessie,’ said Clare. ‘I can tell you it doesn’t taste like this in the Students’ Union.’

‘And they don’t serve Côte du Rhône with it either,’ added Andrew, as Harry filled up his glass.

Amid the laughter, Clare glanced around the table. Until Jessie had started to serve, the room had still smelt of paint. This was the first evening they’d had a table and proper chairs to sit on, but it felt as if they’d been dining in this room together for years. Her eyes suddenly misted. Sometimes real happiness was almost too much to bear.

‘Ah don’t know what we’d ’ave done wi’out ye last weekend. Ye were great, the both of youse. Weren’t they, Harry?’

‘Just great,’ he agreed. Looking from one to the other, he lifted his wine glass. ‘Here’s to you, Clare and Andrew, the best movers and unpackers in Belfast. If you’re ever out of a job, let me know.’

Laughter spilled out again. Set in the deep bay window of the only habitable downstairs room, the
gleaming surface of a restored eighteenth-century table reflected back the flickering images of the candlesticks, the glass and china they’d unpacked the previous weekend, wedding presents stored away for more than a year in Harry’s parents’ home. Now, Harry himself, tall, dark-haired and distinctly good-looking, stood, wine bottle in hand, beaming down on the friends who’d come to share the first celebration meal Jessie had cooked in their new home.

‘Come on, eat up, there’s plenty more.’

Jessie waved a hand at the dish of crisp roast potatoes, the fresh vegetables and the Yorkshire puddings, which had turned out lopsided but tasted so good.

‘What about yourself?’ said Harry slyly. ‘Should you not be eating for two?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she said, giggling, as she dished out second helpings.

Clare exchanged glances with Andrew. Harry had been ecstatic when Jessie told him she was pregnant, but Jessie herself hadn’t yet got used to the idea. She’d confessed she wasn’t entirely enthusiastic.

‘Ah don’t fancy lookin’ like a watermelon,’ she’d confided to Clare, over a mug of tea in the stock room. ‘I’ll maybe have to give up work if I get too big. There’s not much room behind thon counter. An’ shure Harry’s always buyin’ in more stuff. Ah don’t know how we fit in the half of it.’

Tonight, Clare could only think how lovely she looked. How easily she’d stepped into the new life Harry had given her, a country girl like herself.
She’d always had good skin and soft, wavy brown hair, but tonight there was a radiance about her she’d never seen before.

‘And here’s to you two,’ said Andrew, raising his glass. ‘Or should I say three? “May all your troubles be little ones”, as the saying is.’

Clare lifted her glass and toasted them, intensely aware of their bright, happy faces glowing with reflected light and the effects of food and wine. Her eyes moved round the table. Like a magic circle. So full of love and laughter. Suddenly, she had an image of another circle, a scrubbed wooden table, Ginny and Edward in the kitchen at Caledon, sharing out the sausage and chips Edward had cooked for them after a day by Lough Neagh, and a long summer evening amid the little green hills nearby. Within one of these magic circles, no harm could ever reach her. Exposed to the light and the laughter, the anxieties that crept up on her when she was alone would just dissolve.

‘Have you got a date yet, Jessie?’ Clare asked, as she put down her empty glass.

‘I’ll tell you mine when you tell me yours,’ said Jessie crisply.

Clare laughed and shook her head.

‘There’s no use keeping on at me, Jessie. We can’t get married till Andrew knows when he can have his holiday. And he can’t have his holiday till the partners say so. And the partners are not exactly being helpful, are they, love?’ she added, turning to him, as Harry began to collect up the empty plates.

‘Well, for goodness’ sake, hurry up,’ replied Jessie
impatiently. ‘Or I’ll have nothing to wear. If I go on at this rate, I’ll have to hire a tent.’

‘Never worry, Jessie. You’d look good in anything,’ said Andrew reassuringly. ‘Now come on, tell us when Junior is due.’

‘October. So they say. But I can’t for the life o’ me see how they figure it out …’

Jessie went on talking as she cut deftly into a crisp circle of meringue filled with tinned fruit and topped with whipped cream. As well as her talent for watercolour and the eye-catching displays she produced in the gallery, Jessie was proving to be a good cook. Like her skill with a pencil, or brush, cooking just seemed to have come to her without any effort at all the moment she had her own cooker. Clare wondered if it would be the same with motherhood.

It seemed strange to think of her bringing up her children in this lovely house full of the fine old furniture and pictures that Harry had stored away for the rooms still to be decorated. They would play in the garden that ran down to the thick shrubbery and the steep retaining wall, beyond which the buses and cars moved in and out of the city. They would go to school in the city itself, a far cry from the lanes where she and Jessie had cycled on summer evenings, the quiet road they’d travelled together going into and out of Armagh, year after year, to school, church, doing the shopping, fetching the papers.

‘Well then, what d’ye say?’

She’d heard Jessie’s question all right, but it took
her so much by surprise, she didn’t know what to say. It was Andrew who spoke first.

‘I should be extremely honoured, Mrs Burrows, to be the godfather of your child,’ he said, without the slightest hesitation.

The tone was light, and the little bow he made to her was very Andrew, but the look on his face said much more than his words. Perhaps he felt something of the security and well-being she felt herself. Two couples bound by all they’d shared of each other’s lives.

Clare felt his eyes upon her, waiting, as she looked from Jessie to Harry and then back again to Jessie.

‘Well, I might not be much good on the God bit,’ she said apologetically.

‘Ach, never worry about that, Clare. Shure they can make up their own minds about that sort of thing. But wou’d ye stan’ by them? Him or her, or whatever?’

Clare nodded quickly, her eyes filling with tears so unexpectedly she couldn’t disguise them.

‘That’s just great, Clare,’ said Harry warmly, jumping to his feet and pouring white wine into fresh glasses. ‘And one of these days we hope we can do the same for you. Shall we drink to that? The Burrows and the Richardsons. May their dynasties reign for ever!’

Spring sunshine cast long shadows on the pavements below, as Clare drew back her curtains and gazed down into Linenhall Street. Now that term had ended, she’d moved into the empty flat
above the gallery. Sadly, she’d made the move by herself. Andrew had been despatched by the partners for three days of executor work on one of the big estates in Fermanagh. It would be Friday night before he could come and join her.

Each day, she began work on her own, for Jessie had begun to have morning sickness and the effort of getting into the city centre for nine o’clock was more than she could manage. Dressed in her smartest clothes, Clare unlocked the silent rooms, dusted the gold frames, the porcelain figurines and the antique furniture. As she polished the plate glass showcases, she’d make herself familiar with each piece of antique jewellery, and all the small, beautiful objects in silver, china and glass, too fragile, or too valuable, to be put on open view, and hope that no one would ring with a complicated query before Jessie and Harry arrived.

She loved the gallery’s large, airy spaces, the tall windows and carefully concealed lighting. She enjoyed observing the customers as they looked round, answering their questions, dealing with the details of their purchases, a wonderful change from the unbroken solitude of her room. Sometimes, she enjoyed her days so much, she imagined herself doing a job like this permanently. Something that would let her out into the real world.

At the end of the day, she was usually the last to leave. Suddenly, Harry would notice that Jessie looked pale and tired. He’d ask Clare if she’d mind locking up. It never ceased to amaze her
how quickly the relaxed and leisurely Harry could move,
once she’d said she didn’t mind at all.

Tired herself by then, she’d put the day’s takings in the safe, check that the showcases were locked and make her way round the empty rooms doing whatever had had to wait till the customers were gone. As the rest of the building grew silent, she’d run a dust mop over the stained and polished floors and think of Andrew. Back upstairs in the flat, she’d listen for the sound of his feet running up the bare staircase. He’d throw open the door, breathless, loaded briefcase in one hand, something for supper in a paper bag in the other. She seldom saw him before seven, but it didn’t trouble her. He didn’t have to go back to his digs. There was a whole night ahead of them and breakfast together in the morning.

At first, they were very happy. Andrew had found the work in Fermanagh interesting. He’d made time to go and see an elderly cousin of his grandfather who he hadn’t visited since his teens. Being made welcome in Uncle Hector’s rambling old house by the lake shore reminded him of happy summer holidays with his parents before the war; before the blitz had killed them and broken his links with Drumsollen. He’d loved the lakes, he said. Especially when one of his three aunts had trusted him with the tiller lines while she rowed them out to a small, uninhabited island in the midst of the tranquil waters. Uncle Hector had been delighted to see him, wanted him to bring Clare down to Inishbane as soon as her exams were over. Love to have some young people about the place, he’d said.

That first Saturday, Clare worked all day in the gallery. Andrew did the shopping and had a meal ready in the evening. On Sunday, they cooked bacon and egg long after the church bells had stopped pealing. They were just so excited to be together in their own place, with time to talk, to make love, they didn’t even manage to go for the walk they’d planned.

Monday morning was difficult. They fell over each other, because neither of them had noticed the bedroom was so small they couldn’t possibly get dressed at the same time. Fitting in breakfast before leaving at eight-thirty turned out to be a real challenge. There was no longer a fridge, so the milk bottle stood in a bucket of water. Wherever they put it, it managed to trip them up. The teapot too had gone to the new house, so Clare had to make tea in an old kettle. The cornflakes almost defeated them. Jessie had left cups, saucers and plates, but she had forgotten about bowls. They ended up taking it in turns to eat them from the sugar bowl.

Half way through their first whole week together, Andrew arrived home later than usual. He looked worn and tired and carried a box of papers as well as his heavy briefcase. The senior partner had named him as his junior for a dispute involving the Fermanagh estate where he’d just completed the executor work.

Although she asked all sorts of questions, Andrew seemed reluctant to talk about the case or what it would involve, though it was clear, it would be a lengthy affair, probably tedious. As the days passed,
Andrew became more and more withdrawn. Something more than mere tedium had to be involved.

‘Now don’t jump to confusions, Clare,’ she said to herself one evening, as she moved quietly around the empty
rooms of the gallery. ‘Maybe he’s just tired out. Think how exhausted you were by the end of term. It’s still his first job. It’s with a new firm. And he’s told you Belfast does things differently from Winchester. It’ll take him far longer to adjust than if he’d done his articles here.’

But she wasn’t convinced. And the days that followed did nothing to reassure her. Andrew spent more and more time in court and in the Law Library. When he did get back to the flat, he was weighed down with papers for the following day. She had never known him so silent or so humourless. When they finally reached the comfort of their bed, he made love to her with a kind of desperation, then promptly fell fast asleep.

She was sure there was nothing to be done till the case ended. It dragged on and on, as he had warned her it might, until the very last Friday of her holiday, leaving them only the Sunday to spend together before she went back to Elmwood Avenue to begin the last hard pull up the slope to Finals.

When Andrew came back that evening, as tired and dispirited as usual, even though the judgement had been given and the case really was ended, she had a quiet smile on her face. As she put the kettle on to make coffee, she turned and said: ‘Come on, my love, it’s over at last. Let’s celebrate. Let’s have a
day out tomorrow.’

‘But it’s Saturday. You’re working, aren’t you?’

‘Oh no, I’m not. I’ve got time off for good behaviour. I told Harry we’d not had a single day out for a month and he said he’d do Saturday himself. Jessie’s mother’s coming up for the weekend. He said it’d give them a chance to talk, with him out of the way.’

‘Good old Harry,’ said Andrew, wearily. ‘We’re very lucky to have such good friends.’

Clare waited hopefully for him to say something more, but he stayed silent, even after she’d made the coffee and they’d carried it into the sitting room.

‘I have a little present for Granny Hamilton’s birthday,’ she began at last, as lightly as she could. ‘I’d like to drop it off at Liskeyborough. We could have lunch in Armagh. I think I’ve found somewhere nice to take you. My treat. We can do the poisson and pommes frites on the way home, so we don’t have to go shopping tomorrow morning. How about it?’

He finished his coffee, took her empty cup away and put his arms round her.

‘Clare, I’m sorry. I’m
so
sorry. I know I’ve been rotten company for the last couple of weeks. I don’t know how you put up with me,’ he said, grinning weakly.

‘Simple,’ she said. ‘I have a lover in while I’m waiting for you to come home from work.’

For a moment, he looked quite startled. Then he laughed. It was the first time he’d laughed since the wretched Fermanagh case had begun. She held him
tight and kissed him.