A Girl Called Rosie (18 page)

‘Ach, indeed yer right. You never spoke a truer word,’ Maisie agreed, as she pinned up the last garment and prepared to hoist the whole load on the clothes pole.

Rosie made up her mind she’d been patient long enough and given Maisie no obvious cause for complaint.

‘I must get on, Mrs Jackson,’ she said with a smile she certainly didn’t feel. ‘This is only the first lot, there’s quite a bit more steeping in the wash-house and I’m sure Ma’s expecting you.’

‘Aye indeed she is, for she’s not just herself at the moment. She’s very concerned about your Uncle Joe, him not being well and your Da inta the bargain, with this business at his work and all the responsibility fallin’ on him. I’m sure he’s told
you all about it,’ she added, as they walked back through the orchard and into the farmyard.

Rosie nodded and said nothing, though a stab of anxiety came upon her at the mention of her father. Whatever was going on at work and whether it was good news or bad, he would tell her in his own good time. The last person she wanted to hear such news from was Maisie Jackson.

She turned aside at the wash-house door with a cheery goodbye she certainly didn’t mean and stepped over to the window to watch Maisie walk on across the yard.

‘Thon Maisie has a desperit roving eye,’ Emily had said, one day when they’d been at home and she’d arrived to visit.

At the time, she’d protested, saying she couldn’t imagine anyone more unlikely to have any success with a roving eye, Maisie’s unfortunate looks being exceeded only by her unfortunate manner. What Emily had really meant, however, was perfectly demonstrated as Maisie crossed the yard.

Backwards and forwards her eyes moved as she looked everything up and down. She studied the surface of the yard, the paintwork round the windows, the floor brush left outside to dry, the summer flowers in half barrels on either side of the door. Nothing escaped her eagle eye.

With a sudden pang of anxiety Rosie wondered
if Maisie had seen something in her own looks she might not be aware of herself, something she’d much rather not have reported to her mother in Maisie’s terms. Her clothes could hardly attract attention as they were only her ordinary everyday working things. Her hair was no different from usual, simply pulled back and tied, not even with a new piece of ribbon that could be noticed and commented upon.

Still, she knew well enough we can’t always see ourselves. Sometimes in the months before her accident, she’d replied to her mother as coolly and as reasonably as she could and yet her mother had flown into a rage, shouted at her and roundly abused her for ‘being sarcastic’.

She wondered if her mother used phrases she’d heard without knowing exactly what they meant, so ‘sarcastic’ appeared to mean no more than that she was being rude, or cheeky, or guilty of ‘answering back’.

It was hard to tell what her mother could possibly have seen that created this anger. The words themselves, the tone and the manner of their using, were the only clue she had, but no dictionary would help her towards understanding what she really meant.

She pounded the saturated dungarees vigorously and rubbed the bits stained with grease or motor oil or grass with slivers of Sunlight soap. Hot water
would help, but she was reluctant to go over to the house to boil kettles with Maisie in residence by the stove. She rinsed and mangled three more pairs, one each for Charlie, Sammy and Bobby. They made the clothes basket so heavy to lift, she decided to go back down to the line with them before she added anything more.

The sun was high and dazzled her eyes as she lowered the clothes pole. The wet dungarees blew against her face and caught at her hair as she reached up with the first pair and held them one-handed to put in the first pegs. She stepped aside and wiped her cheek with the back of her wrist and reached up again with the next pair. From somewhere nearby a blackbird sang, indifferent to the flap of the long line of clothes or the rattle of a passing train.

She hung up the third pair, lifted the clothesline on the pole, saw the breeze catch them and inflate them so that they looked like three headless figures. As she lowered the clothes pole back into its socket, they showered her with drops of water. She moved back quickly, laughing at herself for not jumping back quickly enough. She wiped her face again on her arm, a handful of pegs still in her hand, her eyes half-closed against the bright light.

‘It could be worse,’ she whispered to herself. ‘It could be worse.’

This was not how she wanted to spend her life,
but here and now, at this time, it was a beginning. She thought of her grandfather and the story he liked to tell about ‘the fortieth horseshoe’. Day after day in the forge, doing the same things, you had to look for the good things, the wee things, the happy things to set against the boredom of the endless repetition. He said you could always find something, but you had to look.

She thought of two girls, both called Bridget, one in Kerry and one in Banbridge, each in a skimpy black dress with a little white apron. She had a lot more to make her happy than either of them. Running the house, cooking and cleaning and keeping an eye on the two youngest was hard work, but if her mother continued to ignore her, left her the freedom to get on with her work in her own way, she could cope.

Suddenly she remembered the afternoon in the strawberry field the day the news came of her grandfather’s sudden collapse, those happy hours when she’d picked fruit and sat on the dry earth looking at leaves and flowers and the view out over the valley beyond. She’d been so content. So unwilling to move or even to speak. There could be times like that in the long days ahead, hours when she could sit in the orchard after the work was done, walk up the lane to see Lizzie, or slip into the barn with a book or her paintbox.

It was up to her to make the best of what she had out of the freedom she could create inside her head, the small pleasures she could contrive, reading and writing letters, or enjoying the company of Emily and Sammy and her father.

Beyond the orchard and the farmyard, beyond the lane that led up to the village and the shops in Richhill, there was a larger world. Twice she had stepped into that world, once in joy when she went to Kerry and once in sadness when she’d shared the loss of her dear Granda. But having once ventured into the world, she now knew there were possibilities out there she might never have been able to imagine had she not done so.

She picked up her basket and made her way slowly back along the path to the gate into the farmyard. For the moment, this was where she had to be, but it would not always be so. She had no idea what might lie ahead of her, but whenever things got really difficult she would have to remind herself that there
was
a different world out there. That some day her life might change as sharply as it had changed twice in the last two months. And when the moment came, as Aunt Sarah had said, she had to seize it and move on.

Autumn lingered that year of 1924. Even in late October, when frost dusted the long grass in the early morning, the afternoons were still often warm and sunny. Rosie made good use of them, taking her sketchbook out into the orchard or up the lane. Sometimes she walked as far as Cannon Hill and climbed the steep slope to the obelisk, a point from which she could look out over the familiar countryside to the mountains beyond Lough Neagh and the pale, misty shadows even further away which were sometimes cloud and sometimes the mountains of Donegal.

She had set herself the task of sketching or painting all the familiar hedgerow plants and flowers she could find and she was amazed at how many there were she’d never noticed before. One of her favourite places for sketching was the old Quaker graveyard at Money, a name which had nothing to do with shillings and florins. It was simply a corruption of the Irish name, Muney, according to
Miss Wilson, which meant a bog. True enough, only a little distance from the graveyard, where many of her mother’s relatives lay buried, there was indeed a stretch of sodden ground with plants she had never seen before and had not yet been able to identify.

She had no difficulty whatever about going out every afternoon. Sometimes she’d barely finished clearing away the midday meal before some of her mother’s cronies arrived. Had she not already announced she was going out, her mother would immediately come up with a good excuse to ensure her absence. Having observed her mother’s strategies for a few days, Rosie quickly found ways to make it easy for her.

She and Lizzie went for long walks and shared the story of her growing love for Hugh, a young man whom Rosie could not help but like despite his marked lack of competence in everything he tried to do. Of her own relationship with Patrick Walsh she said little, partly because Lizzie’s delight in her own affair appeared to take up almost all their conversation, but also because Rosie herself found it difficult to decide what would be of the slightest interest to Lizzie or indeed exactly what part Patrick
was
playing in her life.

Nevertheless, it was a great comfort to have his letters. True, they were somewhat erratic in their frequency but they were always lengthy
when they did come. Together with those from her grandmother, her Aunt Sarah and Bridget O’Shea in Kerry, they gave her something to look forward to.

Rising now in darkness as the November days grew ever shorter, the water on the washstand yet more icy, the lino beyond the bedside rug like marble under bare feet, she encouraged herself each morning by the thought of what the post might bring, rather than on the endlessly repeating chores, the floor which had to be washed more often once the yard became wet and the orchard and fields muddy, the extra bowls of eggs to clean now that the year’s chickens were mature enough to lay, and the rips and tears in working clothes as hedges were cut down and ditches cleared before the winter.

She’d tried hard to remember the wisdom of ‘the fortieth horseshoe’ and do all those things Aunt Sarah had encouraged her to do when life grows oppressively dull, or difficult. For all her efforts, however, in those first months at home, nothing seemed to give her the pleasure she might have expected from it.

On a lovely afternoon, she would find some new plant, or have an unexpected success with a sketch or watercolour, yet find it brought no joy. Bound up in her own happiness though she was, even Lizzie commented on how flat she seemed, how often she missed jokes, or didn’t laugh at her lively account of Hugh’s latest misfortune.

Standing by the stove waiting for the kettle to boil one morning early in December, the breakfast dishes stacked beside the tin basin on the kitchen table, she looked up at the calendar and smiled to herself. Today was Thursday, her favourite day of the week, the day of her regular visit to her former teacher, now her friend. Even though the days were short and there was less and less daylight for walking or sketching she realised how much better she now felt. She was sure it was thanks to Miss Wilson.

Aunt Sarah had been quite right about going to see her, but she’d delayed for rather a long time, although she’d always liked the older woman. It was October before she finally got round to it and when the time came she’d actually been rather nervous.

She’d dressed very carefully in ‘granny’s dress’, the one made of soft, blue fabric with its pattern of tiny dark and light blue squares. She’d brushed her hair thoroughly, polished her shoes and made sure she had a clean handkerchief tucked up her sleeve.

The moment Miss Wilson opened the door, she knew she’d been silly to be anxious, for her greeting was so warm and direct.

‘My dear Rose, how delightful to see you. I did appreciate your note. I’m afraid not all my former pupils deploy the courtesies which they embraced while they were under my tutelage. Please, do come in. Mother is with me in the sitting room but I fear
she can take little part in conversation. Nevertheless, she must not be excluded. I’m sure you understand.’

She led the way past the large front rooms that served as schoolrooms and opened the door to a dim and crowded sitting room lit only by one small window overlooking the garden.

Rosie had never seen old Mrs Wilson before. The sight of the small, squat figure filling the armchair by the window distressed her. Like an illustration from an old book, or a painting symbolising age, she was dressed entirely in black except for a startlingly white mob cap. From the way her eyes moved it was clear she was almost blind. From the nature of Miss Wilson’s introduction, it appeared she was also very deaf.

‘Now do sit down, my dear. I want to hear what’s been happening to you. I was so very sad you couldn’t be here for our
conversazione
and our leaving celebrations. I’m sure Elizabeth will have told you all about them.’

Rosie nodded and smiled, grateful she’d remembered in time there was actually one person in the world who called Lizzie by her baptismal name.

‘Now, how is your grandmother, Rose? Have you been to visit her since her bereavement?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘I’m afraid Granny has been quite ill. Auntie Hannah thinks it’s shock
and exhaustion after all those nights she sat up with Granda, but Auntie Sarah says it might just be bad luck. She was perfectly well when she went to London to stay with her, but by the time she’d moved on to Auntie Hannah in Gloucestershire she’d developed some sort of chest infection. She was really very poorly for several weeks. But she’s much better now,’ she added quickly, seeing the look of concern on Miss Wilson’s face.

‘Loss breeds loss, Rose. It is a sad thing to say, but true. When we lose someone we love, we often lose other things as well. Our courage, our hope, our health. I’m afraid I’ve known too many individuals who have become ill after a major loss. How have you been feeling yourself?’

Rose hesitated. She’d not been at all ill herself but she remembered Lizzie had asked her more than once if she was all right.

‘I’m not sure how to answer your question,’ she began, aware of the clear blue eyes that focused closely upon her.

‘I thought I would feel very sad, but I didn’t. I could see that Granda’s going was not nearly as bad as what might have happened. One of his doctors told me what it could have been like. But since I’ve come home, I’ve felt very dull and flat, even when I’m doing things I like to do, sketching, or painting, or writing letters. I can’t quite explain the feeling …’

Miss Wilson was sitting upright in her chair just as she’d taught her girls to sit, back straight, feet placed neatly together, hands folded, her attention alert but relaxed. Poor Lizzie had never managed to sit in the approved manner for more than five minutes. She herself had done better, finding that practice did help. The thought that Lizzie might practise sitting still made her smile to herself, but she didn’t let it distract her from what she was trying to say.

Miss Wilson waited patiently to see if Rosie had anything to add, but in the end, Rosie admitted to herself that she found it impossible to say more about how she felt.

She looked hopefully towards the familiar figure in her rather faded, brown, everyday dress. She’d worn the same dress all through the year Rosie had been her pupil, but then, as now, she’d decorated it each week with a freshly laundered collar embroidered with small, pale flowers and pinned with a little brooch.

‘I had a dear friend once,’ the older woman began when Rosie remained silent, ‘who lost her father when she was in her thirties. He’d been so ill, it
was
a merciful relief when he died, but for months and months afterwards she felt all the joy had gone out of her life. She was older than I was and fortunately she had a wise friend who said something to her
which I have never forgotten. She said, “Grief is not sharp and pointed, it’s grey and flat, like a fog, and because you can’t see it, you don’t know why life seems so dreary”.’

Rosie nodded enthusiastically.

‘That is
so
exactly right,’ she declared, taking a deep breath. ‘Because I wasn’t crying, or feeling desperate, I thought I was somehow my normal self, though Elizabeth did keep asking me if I felt all right. But what you’ve just said is so true. I couldn’t see anything was wrong, so I didn’t think anything was.’

Rosie had once found Miss Wilson rather formidable, but now, sitting in the small, overcrowded sitting room, the old woman asleep in her chair, she saw a different person, a rather sad, but very kind person who would certainly answer her questions and give her the advice she was sure to need, just like Aunt Sarah had suggested.

She had no idea why Miss Wilson had never married, but she suddenly realised that she couldn’t have had a very easy life, working to support herself and her mother and caring for her as she herself reached her seventies. Remembering things she’d said in the last year, little stories she’d told to illustrate points she was making in class, it seemed that friends she’d once had were no more. Either dead or now removed far beyond regular contact.

‘I was wondering, Rose, whether you might do me a small service.’

‘I most certainly will if I can,’ Rosie replied promptly.

‘I’ve been finding it very difficult to go and collect my library books. It’s only a short distance to my kind neighbour’s house, but she has some difficulty with walking and I feel I cannot leave Mother unattended. Were you to come and visit me one afternoon a week, you could collect the books Mrs Rountree’s daughter brings from the library in Armagh while you were here and we might, if you wish, share our literary explorations together.’

Reflecting on her first visit to Miss Wilson, Rosie was still putting plates back on the dresser when she remembered she’d be collecting a new
Flora of Ireland
for them, this week. It had been on request for some time now. Finally, it had become available. With its help, they hoped to identify not only the plants she’d found in Money bog, but also the pressed flowers she’d brought back from Kerry, now mounted on sheets of drawing paper.

Turning away from the dresser, Rosie caught sight of her mother hurrying towards the house.

‘Ye may come an’ give me a han’,’ she said abruptly, as she arrived breathless at the door. ‘Bobby’s away t’ Portadown an’ Joe’s slipped on the squit the cows left. Not lookin’ where he was goin’
as usual. He’s filthy an’ he says his leg’s broke.’

Rosie followed her quickly as she turned back towards the byre. Obviously in pain and equally obviously in a temper, Uncle Joe sat on the splattered surface of the yard.

‘It’s broke. Ah know it’s broke. Ye may get the doctor.’

It was not the smell of fresh cow dung that made Rosie feel ill as she put her arm round him, it was the stale odour of tobacco and sour sweat from his unwashed body. The stubble on his chin scraped against her cheek as they lifted him to his feet.

‘Sure ye know I can’t walk,’ he said, glaring from one to the other, while he stood on one leg, their arms still supporting him.

Rosie had been concerned they might have difficulty lifting him, for her mother had never had much strength in her arms and always complained she couldn’t carry buckets of water if they were full, but Uncle Joe had been far lighter than she’d expected. Even so, they couldn’t possibly carry him all the way up the yard and over to the house.

‘If we support you, Uncle Joe, you could hop on your good leg,’ Rosie suggested.

He twisted his face towards her and scowled, his tobacco-stained teeth only inches from her face.

‘Or we can set you down again and bring you a
chair till the doctor comes,’ she added, glancing up at the sky.

‘Aw, that’s a great idea, isn’t it? What d’ye think of that, Martha? Leave me out here an’ the rain about to pour down.’

‘Well, it would wash the shit off ye,’ her mother threw back, so promptly that Rosie had the greatest difficulty in keeping her face straight.

When he finally agreed to hop, he’d leant on them so heavily they’d ended up half carrying him.

‘Ye may go up to Woodview an’ phone for the doctor,’ Martha said, as they deposited him thankfully in his chair by the stove.

‘I could go up to Lizzie’s. It would be quicker.’

‘Have Mackay’s got the phone?’

Rosie wondered yet again how her mother could express such a wealth of meaning in one brief phrase. She managed to make acquiring a telephone sound as if it were a deliberately disloyal challenge to the normal and proper way of conducting life.

‘It’s for Mr Mackay’s business,’ she explained.

‘Take my purse and pay for it then. We don’t want to be under an obligation to the Mackays. We’re just as good as they are, phone or no phone.’

Uncle Joe was quite right about his leg. It
was
broken.

The doctor was a man in his fifties. His hair had receded creating a long, gleaming forehead that
looked as if he might have polished it each morning at the same time as he shone up his spectacles and his gold watch. Rosie heard him mutter to himself about a ‘greenstick fracture’, but she judged he was not the kind of doctor who would welcome questions or be very forthcoming with his explanations.