A Girl Called Rosie (22 page)

Instantly she knew what it was, for she and Bobby had delivered three similar envelopes in the course of the last months.

‘Here you are, Martha. You might like to read that,’ he said politely, as he handed the letter to her.

She threw him a tight, disagreeable look, grabbed the spectacles Rosie handed her without a word of thanks and pulled out the single folded sheet of paper from the open envelope.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she said shortly. ‘Sure where
would you get that amount o’ money an’ you always sayin’ ye have none.’

‘I’ve never said I had
no
money, Martha. Rather that I regretted I had not
enough
money to provide for so large a family. Despite that, what I
had
saved, along with the help of this big job and some small assistance from my boss, was enough to meet the figure the solicitors had agreed with the American Loneys. This house is now ours.’

‘Yours, ye mean. I’m sure you’ve not put
my
name on the deeds.’

‘In the event of my death, the house
is
yours for your lifetime. After that, our children will benefit according to their needs.’

‘What d’ye mean? Who’s goin’ to get the farm when I’m gone?’

‘There will be no farm, Martha. What I’ve bought is the house and outbuildings, the orchard and the small field beyond. The rest of the land will be let in the autumn. The income from that will repay the small loan the company have made me to make up the purchase money.’

‘An’ what about my cows?’

Rosie could hardly believe her ears. Her father had managed to buy their home and all she could think about were the cows.

‘I thought that securing our home for our children would be more important than providing
for the cows. You could keep one in the orchard, could you not?’

‘Sure, what use is one? The milk float isn’t going to collect the milk of one cow. An’ then I’ll have no milk money either. An’ what’s Bobby gonna do? Kick his heels in the barn all day, listenin’ to the wireless?’

Bobby looked up quickly, his face pale. Sammy and Charlie shifted uncomfortably.

‘I have some news for Bobby. Young Jack Withers has done so well on the big job that Mr Lamb is letting him go to our associate company, Irish Road Motors. He’s suggested to me that Bobby might take Jack’s place. That’s if Bobby doesn’t mind being his da’s helper.’

Bobby’s face lit up, relief and pleasure mixed together.

‘That’d be great, Da, I’d like that fine.’

Charlie and Sammy clapped their brother on the back.

‘Good man, Bobby. You’ll be drivin’ engines yet.’

Rosie watched her father carefully and waited for what he would say next. She knew he’d written to the solicitors, gone to see them and had the farm valued, but she was amazed it had all happened so quickly. Then she remembered Emily’s first letter from New York had taken a mere five days to come, so speedy were the new transatlantic liners. She’d
have to get used to the idea America was no longer as far away as it had once seemed.

‘What about Rosie?’

She was quite startled when she realised it was Bobby who spoke. Her mother twisted round in her armchair to stare at him. Bobby ignored her sour look and waited patiently for an answer.

‘Well, there’ll be much less work without animals, as you well know, Bobby. Rosie has worked hard too, especially since Uncle Joe began to fail, but it’s time now she found something that suited her better. We’ll just have to see what opportunities come up. You’ve been lucky, I’ll not deny that, but I don’t see why Rosie here shouldn’t be just as fortunate, even if it takes a wee bit of time.’

Rosie paused and re-read what she’d written. She smiled to herself. She was on the fourth page already. But it didn’t matter how much she wrote, Emily would be glad to have it.

Before she went they’d talked about the fact that Emily hated writing letters. She’d said if she managed two small pages it would be the height of it, but she’d promised faithfully to do her best. What neither of them realised was that Emily could write perfectly well if she had a list of questions to answer.

It had happened by accident. Rosie wanted to know what Macy’s was like, who the girls were with whom she was sharing an apartment and what she wore to work. Emily had written straight back. A big, long letter. At the end of it she admitted the whole problem was thinking up what to write.

She sighed. Even with the all the news she’d had and knowing that Emily was happy, she still missed her desperately. Especially at night, getting ready for bed, for that was when they had always talked things over that they’d rather not have overheard.

She still found it hard to imagine Emily in New York, working in Accounts at Macy’s. It was a
big department store, she’d said, far bigger than anything in Belfast. She’d known its name before she went because the eldest of Great Uncle Sam’s sons had started off there before he went into business on his own. It had been an easy matter for him to arrange an interview for her. In her first letter she said she was earning so much money she couldn’t believe it. Rosie was not surprised. Wages were so pitifully low in Ireland anything reasonable would seem like a fortune.

She took up her pen again, found the ink had dried on the nib and had to get out of bed to clean it on an old handkerchief. At least sitting up in bed these nights presented no difficulty. Even in her oldest and thinnest of nightdresses, she was still too warm.

She added love and kisses, wiped her pen, screwed the top firmly on the ink bottle, parked it on top of the closely written sheets and slid down under the bedclothes.

She was asleep in moments and slept blissfully all through the night. She woke up in the morning thinking of roses.

By the time Rosie had hung out the washing next morning, she’d made up her mind what she was going to do. She’d gone through the week’s newspapers, found the advertisement for the job at McGredy’s and read it again. Naturally, it asked for the usual: Smart boy. Application in own handwriting.

Pedalling along the Portadown Road on Emily’s bicycle, the fullness of the better of her two dark skirts hooked carefully out of the way of the spokes, she told herself there could be no harm in trying. The worst that could happen was someone asking her if she was unable to read.

Finding the new rose field was certainly not difficult. Turning a corner on the main road, the sudden sweep of vibrant colour amid the green fields and tawny shapes of cut hayfields was quite startling in its brilliance. A small notice mounted on a white post pointed along a lane which skirted the lower borders of the rose field’s sloping site. It said simply:
McGredy’s
.

A short distance along the lane, she found an open five-barred gate and a rough track leading to a large wooden shed, its doors and windows wide open in the heat of the afternoon. Apart from the high-pitched hum of insects fumbling in the opening blooms, there was no sign of activity in any part of the field. She wheeled her bicycle up the dusty rutted track and parked it carefully to one side of the open door.

‘Yes?’

A small, wiry-looking man in blue dungarees sorting papers at a high desk under the window slid down from his stool and regarded her irritably.

‘I’ve come about the job.’

She smiled and tried to sound as if his reply were perfectly unexceptionable, though the signs were distinctly discouraging.

‘It’s not an office job, you know,’ he shot out, as he looked her up and down.

She wondered if it had been a mistake to put her hair up. It always made her look older and smarter. Or perhaps it was her better skirt with her favourite red blouse with its hint of orange that appeared to annoy him so much.

She assured him she hadn’t been expecting an office job. That she’d prefer to work with plants.

‘Have you ever pruned a rose?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Bush or rambler?’

‘Both.’

‘Autumn or spring?’ he snapped.

‘Both.’

He turned away and looked into the distance as if he were thoroughly disgusted with her answers. ‘And which was most successful?’

‘Neither, to be honest. If you pruned in the autumn to avoid wind shake you could be sure there’d be a quiet winter. On the other hand, if you left them to the spring and the season was early there was all that wasted growth.’

He put his hand to his belt and pulled out a pair of secateurs, rather like the good cowboy in a comic drawing on the baddie. He dropped them noisily on the desk.

‘Bring me in a long stemmed rose, about nine inches, that’ll bloom tomorrow.’

‘Colour?’

‘Same as your blouse,’ he snapped, turning back to his papers.

She took up the secateurs and stepped gratefully out of the wooden shed which had grown unbearably hot. A slight breeze just stirred the blooms, wafting the most intoxicating perfume on the air.

‘Oh well, it’s worth it for this,’ she announced to the nodding heads.

She walked across the field below the shed
moving steadily from whites to yellows, fondant orange to cream, shades of pink to dark toned reds, strong flame reds and orange reds. Once or twice she recognised an old friend from Granny’s garden, but there were no climbers here and none of the old-fashioned florabunda roses she’d brought from her home at Salter’s Grange all those years ago.

Thinking of Granny encouraged her. She’d love this field, the colour, the smell. Only the regular rows would displease her, but that couldn’t be helped if you were growing roses for a living. Granny’s roses were her pleasure and a part of her history. There wasn’t a rose in her garden that hadn’t a story behind it. Whenever Rosie had helped her with her pruning, she’d told her where each plant had come from, when it had been bought and often what the buying had celebrated.

She paused, having found just the colour she needed, a wonderful orange red she’d never seen before. She touched the petals gently, as delighted by the rich colour as she’d been when she and Granny had found the fabric for her blouse. Margaret McGredy, it said, on the large painted post that marked each row. How lovely to have a rose named after you, something that would give pleasure to everyone who laid eyes on it. A celebration or a memorial perhaps for the wife, or mother of the rose grower himself. Like having a book dedicated to you.

She moved along the row looking for what she wanted. With the heat and the dryness the roses had bloomed early, showers of petals already lying on the dry earth shrivelled in the heat. Some of the best buds were on shorter stems and many glorious blooms were already past their best. She spread out the fingers of her left hand. From the tip of her thumb to the tip of her first finger was exactly five inches.

‘Rule of thumb,’ her father had said to each of them, when he’d measured their spans. ‘Useful when you’ve nothing better.’

At last, she found the bloom she wanted and measured its length. Ten inches. One finger joint’s length above where it sprang from the main stem of the bush, she cut it crisply and stood gazing at it in her hand, the outer petals just beginning to unfurl, the centre still tight rolled.

She walked back to the shed, and handed it to him silently. She watched him run his eyes along its length and inspected the diagonal cut she had made taking it from the bush. To her surprise, he’d provided a jam pot full of water on his desk. He placed the rose in it and screwed up his face.

‘Ever budded?’

‘No, not yet.’

He pushed past her and headed for the top corner of the field, the one area that lay in the heavy shadow
of trees. Here, there were rows of spiky-looking briars, most of them tagged with what looked like tiny pieces of paper.

He dropped down on one knee, took a small box from his pocket, chose a long runner from the nearest plant, cut a notch and inserted a small fragment of green. With a deft movement, almost too fast for her to follow, he bound the join with a small strip of white fabric just like all the others.

She thought of Hugh and gave thanks for Lizzie’s account of his disaster. The secret was to get the living bud into the notch in such a way that it would bond. The tiny bandage was to hold it in place until it did.

He left the knife and the little box on the ground and stood up, signalling to her brusquely to do what he’d just done.

The box was filled with wet paper. There were three more buds. She dropped to her knees, sat back on her heels, examined the bud he’d inserted and picked up another of the long trailers. She looked carefully at the position on the briar he’d chosen, then made her own cut. She pushed in the first bud as quickly as she could before it dried out in the hot sun, but it seemed to wobble a little when she wrapped it in its bandage. The second was better. The third cut she made deeper still and that bud was quite steady when she bound it.

‘Let’s see yer hands.’

She stood up and held out her hands obediently, wondering what further strange tests he might devise for her.

‘Not a mark,’ he declared, as if he could not quite believe it. ‘But look at yer skirt.’

‘Its only dry soil,’ she responded. ‘It’ll brush.’

‘Ye don’t scrub many floors or carry many buckets with those hands.’

‘Depends what you call many,’ she came back at him. ‘It’s eight buckets a day in this weather. The floor’s only twice a week now, but it’s four or five in bad weather.’

He shook his head.

‘Women are no good at budding. They bend over and give themselves bad backs.’

He stared at her with a peculiar look she couldn’t read. Either he was making a deliberately provocative statement, in which case she would have to disagree, or it was the next step in her trial.

She was just about to speak when he turned his back on her and waved at a young man wearing dusty trousers and an open-necked shirt. He’d just entered the field and was already striding towards them. To her amazement, when the newcomer stopped beside them her taskmaster greeted him with a broad smile.

‘Them three,’ he said, as the younger man bent down and examined her work.

‘Good,’ the man said promptly. ‘Very good. Is this the smart boy, Billy?’ he asked, laughing as he stood up again and offered her his hand.

‘I’m Sam McGredy,’ he announced. ‘Pleased to meet you. And you are?’

‘Rose Hamilton,’ she replied politely. ‘But everyone calls me Rosie.’

He eyed Billy who was now scratching his head and grinning to himself.

‘I suppose Billy here has been giving you a bad time,’ he said, laughing again as he released her hand.

‘That’s all very well, Mr Sam. But if you’d had as many damn fools in here as I’ve had in the last week, you’d be pretty fed up yourself. Sure, there was a lad here on Friday last who lost the bud before ever he got it anywhere near the briar. An’ I thought I was gonna hafta bandage him up, he had that many scratches. Forby the one that was colour blind and the one that didn’t know what an inch was.’

‘And Rosie here has passed muster?’

‘Aye. She has an eye in her head, an’ great hands,’ he declared with ungrudging admiration.

Rosie could hardly believe her good fortune. Not only had she survived Billy’s obstacle course, but because of the happy chance of Mr Sam himself appearing unexpectedly, she’d been offered the job
on the spot. She’d accepted immediately and said she’d be happy to begin the following Monday. Although it would be temporary for three months and the wages were somewhat less than Emily’s when she’d first started at Fruitfield two years ago, she cycled back towards Richhill feeling as if she’d just been left a very large legacy.

She thought of all the people who would be delighted by her good news. She could ride over to Milford tomorrow and tell Da and Bobby, Miss Wilson on Thursday and Granny at the weekend.

A woman should always look after her hands
, Miss Wilson had impressed on all her charges.

She’d taught all her girls that they could still have the hands of a lady however hard they worked physically, so long as they took a little care. It wasn’t a question of vanity, she insisted. If you were caring for a child, or a sick person, or if you wanted to do fine embroidery, it made such a difference. But knowing the actual vanity of some of her girls, she’d added, ‘and if you want to wear silk stockings’. Rosie smiled to herself, knowing how pleased her friend would be when she heard that Billy thought she’d never carried a bucket or scrubbed a floor.

Her grandmother had agreed thoroughly with Miss Wilson’s advice about hand care.

‘Oh yes, Rosie, dear, she’s quite right. When times were very hard and I was sewing babies’ dresses, I
couldn’t buy creams at the chemists, but there was always goose grease and oatmeal. They didn’t smell very nice, but they did the job. A far cry from these pretty bottles Hannah sends me, aren’t they?’

Thinking of Granny and the pretty bottles which now found their way to her own bedroom, Rosie almost missed seeing a small, compact figure with a watering can waving to her from the roadside.

‘Mrs Braithwaite,’ she called, slowing down and cycling across the empty road. ‘I’m sorry, I was miles away.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she replied, laughing merrily. ‘Who’s the lucky man?’

Rosie laughed too and shook her head as she parked her bicycle carefully against the new wall and stood beside it. ‘I’ve just got my first job.’

‘Oh Rosie, how marvellous. Oh, your da will be pleased,’ she said, dropping her empty watering can and hugging her. ‘I know he’s been concerned about you and Bobby. Well, about all of you, of course, but particularly you and Bobby.’

‘I’ve got more good news for you.’

‘What?’

‘Bobby’s going to be Da’s helper. Jack’s had a promotion.’

‘Ohhh.’

Mary Braithwaite clasped her hands together, her dark brown eyes sparkling, her mouth open.

‘Isn’t that just lovely news? I was feeling a little bit sad today. It’s my husband’s anniversary, you see. I know one mustn’t look back, but
this
is a real gift.
Both
of you. Sam will be
so
delighted. I might even cycle over to Milford and congratulate Bobby and Jack. I haven’t been just recently. It does seem to be going so well now, doesn’t it?’

They sat down together on the wall and talked as if they’d been friends for a long time, the conversation moving from the big load to the plants now occupying the niches left for them in the garden wall, to the colour of Rosie’s blouse and the tasks she’d been set by Billy at the rose field.

Rosie went to her bicycle basket and took out the single bloom of Margaret McGredy Billy had presented to her when she was leaving. He’d wrapped it carefully in wet cloth and laid it gently across the width of the woven carrier. The older woman examined it carefully and held it against the sleeve of her blouse, agreeing it was an extraordinarily good match.

Still talking, long after Rosie had said she didn’t have time for a cup of tea, they admitted they could have had a cup of tea three times over.

‘You’ll be passing every day on your way home from work now. Come in for a chat if you feel like it. I’m seldom far away. And I’d love to see you.’

If it hadn’t been for Mary remembering to ask
how Emily was settling in, Rosie would have been pedalling up the slope of the hill well before they heard the sound of the oncoming motor, but once they heard it, it made sense to wait and let it pass by. It came over the brow of the hill, slowed as it came towards them and stopped.

It was Uncle Henry. Rosie’s heart sank as he got out of his recently-acquired model T Ford and came towards them, beaming graciously.

‘Hallo, Rosie. Has the bike packed up?’

‘Mrs Braithwaite, this is Uncle Henry who lives in Richhill,’ she began, wishing that she could dissolve into thin air. ‘Uncle Henry, this is Mrs Braithwaite, who was so kind to all the people on the big load, when it got stuck over there,’ she continued, waving a hand towards the hollow beyond the bonnet of the car.