On a Clear Day (8 page)

When she ran out of library books and had to wait till someone could take her down on the bus to get some more, she read whatever she could lay her hands on. Uncle Jimmy’s few books were all about biplanes and monoplanes and had been written before the war. Clare marvelled at the pictures of the flimsy craft that had first flown across the Atlantic, so different from the deep-bellied Sunderlands Uncle Jimmy had worked on at Shorts and the famous Flying Fortresses he so admired.

She finished Uncle Jimmy’s handful of books and started on Eddie’s copies of
Picturegoer
. She was amazed to find that film-stars kept getting married and divorced. Some of them had had as many as seven husbands. The idea struck her as very confusing. She wondered how they managed when they all lived in the same place in Hollywood, starred in the same pictures and appeared to go to the same parties.

But Eddie’s magazines came in handy when Ronnie took her to see
The Wizard of Oz
on his Saturday afternoon off. She thought Judy Garland was so marvellous that she looked up the address of her fan club in England and wrote her a letter asking nicely if she could have a signed photograph. She sent it off with a stamped addressed envelope and watched every post for it to arrive. She was so disappointed when it never came. She felt particularly upset as it had needed two tuppenny-halfpenny stamps which Ronnie had bought for her.

When there was nothing else to be found, Clare read the women’s magazines that one or two of the nicer of the customers brought for Auntie Polly. Some of the stories were quite interesting and she liked the descriptions of rocky coastlines and heather-covered slopes and dimpled fields with streams babbling along. The stories always seemed to happen in quaint little villages by the sea, or overlooking the lough, or in a hollow in the hills where the heroine had grown up. Now she was famous but unhappy, or rich but unhappy and had come back to be by herself. Usually she fell in love with her childhood sweetheart who was a farmer, or a postman, or a struggling artist, but whatever he was, it always ended happily. Clare did wonder why so many of these pretty, young women hadn’t found a boyfriend in the city where they lived, as
there were bound to be far more young men there than in their own village, where there only ever appeared to be the one.

Ronnie teased her one evening when he arrived back from work and found her sitting at his table reading his Mum’s magazines.

‘How about this, Clare,’ he began, opening the newspaper he had brought home with him and turning to the Beauty for You page. ‘Doris Gibb says that “despite the shortages of beauty products in the shops you can still look your best by using simple remedies and a little ingenuity. Eggs are a wonderful asset in the beauty battle.” Do you hear that, Clare? Pin your ears back. “For a reviving and stimulating face pack take the whites of two eggs, whisk briskly and cover the face lightly avoiding the eyes. Leave in place for thirty minutes.”’

Ronnie raised his face from the newspaper, fluttered his long, dark eyelashes at her and collapsed into helpless laughter.

‘How about it, Clare? Shall I whisk for you?’

‘I’d rather have my egg boiled. With toast,’ Clare replied with a perfectly straight face.

‘Yes, I thought you might. You’re distinctly weak on vanity. Shall we have a jawbreaker from V tonight? How about vainglorious, verisimilitude, versification? Take your pick, as the gaffer said to the navvy.’

‘What’s a gaffer?’

But before Ronnie could reply, the phone rang loudly, but not loudly enough to be heard over ITMA which he knew his Mum and Dad were listening to in the living room.

‘Hang on a minute, Clare. I’d better answer that,’ he said, crossing the room in two of his long strides.

It might only be a customer, some of them did ring in the evening which annoyed Auntie Polly, but something told Clare that it wasn’t. It was a strange feeling she got sometimes, as if she knew something important was going to happen next, except that she didn’t know what it would be.

She leant over the banisters and saw that Ronnie was listening hard, his body very still, quite unlike the way he usually stood when he was answering the phone. She’d watched him often, seen him move from one foot to the other, scratch his back with his free hand or make faces at himself in the mirror that hung above the telephone table.

‘Yes, yes. I’ll get her right away.’

Clare waited and listened as Auntie Polly emerged from the living room.

‘It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going.’

Clare recognised the familiar complaining tone of Mona Lot. Daddy so enjoyed Mona Lot and he could imitate her perfectly. Every Saturday at lunchtime he would listen to the repeat of his favourite programme even if he’d heard it at its
usual time. ‘Some of the jokes are so quick, you can’t catch them the first time,’ he would say.

There was a burst of laughter from the audience, cut short as Uncle Jimmy managed to pull himself to his feet and turn the knob on the wireless.

‘Is that you, Bob? And you’re in Armagh?’

If it was Uncle Bob then it was bad news, for Uncle Bob and his wife seldom visited either Polly and Jimmy or his old home at Salter’s Grange. Mummy said Bob was the best at all but his wife was a social climber. She hadn’t much time for Bob’s family but Bob was good to his parents in his own way. A phone call could mean only one thing and it was only moments before Clare heard what she had been half expecting from the moment the phone rang.

‘What did the doctor say? Daddy always lets me know when the chest starts up. He hadn’t sent me any word.’

Ronnie had slipped back upstairs and now sat down beside her on the top step. He put his arm round her.

‘Poor old Granny,’ he whispered. ‘Looks like her ticker packed up.’

They listened together as Polly asked about the details of the funeral. Clare wondered if she should be crying, but she didn’t feel at all like crying. Perhaps, after all, she hadn’t much liked her Granny Scott. Not that she knew her very well.
Whenever they went to see her she never talked to her, she always spent the time complaining to Mummy about her legs and her chest and someone called Jinny who was nothing but a sluter but who could close her hand on her money as quick as the next one.

Auntie Polly wasn’t crying either as she put the phone down and when Uncle Jimmy came and put his arm round her she just said ‘Up early tomorrow Jimmy dear. I’ll have to go up and give Bob a hand before the funeral. Do you think one of your shirts would fit my father? He might not have a clean one to his name.’

Clare missed her aunt badly while she was away in Armagh at Granny’s funeral, but she missed her even more when she arrived back tired and anxious and shut herself up in her room every day with the wedding dresses not yet finished and the bridesmaid’s dresses not even begun. Even at mealtimes, when she came down and cooked for the family, she was silent and unapproachable, not her normal self at all.

Clare waited and watched. Whatever was upsetting Auntie Polly would make it more difficult for her to talk about her plan. She would have to be good and wait till Auntie Polly felt better. Perhaps it was just the wretched wedding dresses. She’d be very glad herself to see them gone.

She found the days passed very slowly. Nothing
interesting ever happened, unless you could count customers arriving at the door, or phoning to see when they could come. Now that she answered the door and the phone some of the customers knew her name. Auntie Polly said that was something at least. While they were busy being nice to Clare they forgot to be as awkward as possible with her.

One evening, something unusual did happen. Uncle Jimmy arrived back from helping his neighbour much later than usual. Clare knew her aunt was cross from the way she walked and the way her mouth looked smaller, but Auntie Polly said nothing and when Uncle Jimmy handed Clare a paper bag she watched carefully.

‘I came across that on me way home. D’ye think it woud be any use to ye?’ he said in a most off-hand manner.

Even Eddie looked up from his ham salad to see what was going on.

‘Uncle Jimmy!’ Clare exclaimed, as she opened the bag and drew out a teddy bear, a brand-new teddybear with bright, shiny eyes and golden brown fur.

She went and put her arms round him, meaning to give him a kiss and say a proper thank you. She promptly burst into tears. She cried as if her heart would break and was still crying until Ronnie said; ‘Clare, if you don’t stop crying, that poor bear will get mildew on his fur. Bears don’t like water.’

Then she laughed and said she was sorry she was being silly. Auntie Polly told her she wasn’t to mind one bit, that she’d been such a good girl and such a help with the phone and the door, but she did wonder where Uncle Jimmy had found such a lovely bear and him so new too.

But Jimmy just smiled and said nothing.

Things seemed easier after Edward James Bear came to stay. He would sit on the sofa all through the morning and listen to love stories from
The People’s Friend
, the latest scandals in Hollywood, or advice on how to maintain your bicycle in peak condition. He was always good company and managed to look interested in whatever she read to him, as she waited, day after day, till the wretched wedding dresses were finally fitted, twitched and tweaked and pinned into place on the two large sisters who had planned a double wedding with the rest of their sisters as bridesmaids.

It was then that events took another unexpected turn. One morning a letter from Canada dropped through the letterbox and lay, a bright blue rectangle decorated with lots of pretty stamps on the worn bit of the red hall carpet just by the front door. Auntie Polly scooped it up, carried it off to her workroom and said not a word about it. Clare was surprised, for Polly loved getting news from family or friends and always talked about it excitedly at the first possible opportunity.

It was three days later, on another sodden August day, when Polly pushed open the sitting room door and sat down on the sofa beside Edward James Bear. She looked down at Clare, leaning on her elbows on the hearth rug, reading.

‘Do you still miss the field you and William used to play in, Clare? And all the walks Mummy used to take you on?’

Clare nodded silently. Sometimes when she thought about William and wondered how he was getting on with Granny and Granda Hamilton – she thought she wouldn’t even mind having to look after him if only she could go back home.

‘Uncle Jimmy says he thinks you’d be happier somewhere with gardens and trees. D’ye think is he right?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Clare enthusiastically.

She could hardly believe it. Uncle Jimmy must have persuaded Auntie Polly that going to live with Granda Scott was the right thing for her after all. She’d talked to Uncle Jimmy about it several times but he hadn’t actually said anything either way. And, of course, she’d said nothing at all to Auntie Polly herself. She was still waiting till the dresses were gone.

‘D’ye mind when I told you about Canada and the snow and the sleigh rides?’ Polly went on.

‘And the jingle bells,’ Clare added.

‘Yes, of course,’ Polly agreed. ‘But ye know
Canada is lovely is springtime too and the summers are lovely and warm. The sky’s blue and people go to the shore and out in boats and sunbathe in the parks. Not like grey old Belfast,’ she went on, nodding out through the steamed up windows at the rain-sodden houses across the road.

Clare had a funny feeling, funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha, that Auntie Polly was going to say something and she wasn’t going to like it.

‘Clare, Uncle Jimmy has the offer of a job back in Toronto. It’s a nice job with no standin’ and no heavy work. An old friend of his has made a lot of money an’ he needs someone to supervise some of his property, someone he can trust to keep an eye on things. There’d be a nice little apartment and you’d have your own room with a view out over the park. I think you’d like it.’

‘But what about Davy and Eddie and Ronnie?’ she cried, so shocked at the whole idea that she hadn’t registered her own place in the scheme of things.

‘Sure Davy’s getting married. He’s found a furnished flat and Eddie’s goin’ to live with them till they save up the deposit for a house. Ronnie wants to stay here and go to Queen’s and they’ll find him a place in one of these student houses. If things go well he’ll be able to come out and see us in a year or two, in the summer holidays. You’d like that wouldn’t you?’ she said encouragingly.

‘I always like seeing Ronnie,’ she agreed. ‘He’s my favouritest cousin and I have an awful lot of cousins, even if some of them I’ve never even seen.’

‘So you’d come with us,’ said Polly gratefully, as she settled back on the settee.

Clare shook her head.

‘No?’ said Polly, sitting upright again.

‘No,’ repeated Clare calmly. ‘No, I can’t come with you. Someone has to look after Granda Scott now that Granny’s dead. Men aren’t very good on their own, Mummy says. So I’ll look after him and you can take care of Uncle Jimmy,’ she went on, her voice wavering slightly. ‘Do you think you could come home sometimes and see us? I shall miss you very much. Both of you.’

Polly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The whole idea was ridiculous, of course, but the way the child’s mind worked never ceased to amaze her. This was the last thing she had expected.

‘You were quite right about the orphanage, Auntie Polly. You do need people who know all about you. Granda Scott knows such a lot about Mummy and Daddy. Maybe he’ll tell me stories like Aunt Annie did. D’you think he will?’ she enquired earnestly.

It was fortunate for Polly that the doorbell chimed at that moment for she had not the remotest idea what to say. Even when she had sewed for
several hours in the quiet of her room and turned it over and over in her mind she was no further on. The only thing she was clear about was that she and Jimmy had to go back to Canada. There was no life for him here with jobs short and him with no qualifications for a desk job. Managing Don’s property was a great opportunity. Even were the pay not as generous as it was, there was the question of self-respect. Jimmy wasn’t an idler, but when he got depressed he had no heart for anything.