For Many a Long Day (12 page)

There was rain on Sunday night, but when Ellie went to the window next morning the sky was sparkling and mostly blue, except over the escarpment where a row of huge, grey-bottomed clouds sat louring at her. They looked as if they’d come crowding down from North Antrim and were now elbowing each other sideways to get the best possible view of the city below.

The day was already planned and after a leisurely breakfast the two girls walked to the tram stop.

‘Wouldn’t it be nice just to go into town for a bit of shopping whenever the notion took you?’ said Ruth, as she handed over the pennies for their fares. ‘I could get used to a life of leisure, couldn’t you?’

The tram pulled away with a whine as they settled themselves. Ellie had the window seat so she could look out at the view.

‘Look,’ she said, ‘Uncle John’s putting out more potatoes.’

They both waved and just as they thought he hadn’t seen them, he straightened up, caught sight of them and raised a hand in salute.

‘Does Auntie work in the shop now at all?’ she asked, as they gathered speed, the whine of the tram now rising like the cry of a banshee.

‘Oh yes. She does Thursday and Friday. They’re the busiest days. She says she likes to keep her hand in, but she’s glad it’s not fulltime anymore. She can keep an eye on Bobby and do her church work. She 
has a couple of old ladies she calls on.’

The tram was full and noisier than most, the hiss and whine of their progress and the rattle of the trolleys making conversation difficult. It didn’t really matter as Ellie was soon absorbed in watching the bustle and activity beyond her window as they made their way down through Shaftesbury Square and along Great Victoria Street to the city centre.

It was even busier than she’d thought it would be, motors and horse drawn carts all mixed up together, double lines of them moving in both directions. She wondered how the horses pulling the heavy drays could stand the noise of hooters, the hiss and rattle of trams and the blare of motor horns right beside them.

She rather dreaded getting off the tram. She remembered only too well from previous visits Ruth would be across the street before she’d even stepped off the footpath. She never quite grasped that Ellie needed time to get her bearings. It wasn’t just the noise of traffic and the press of people. Everywhere she looked, there were posters and shop signs. They all seemed to require her attention and she couldn’t take it all in quickly enough.

She’d tried to explain, but Ruth was not good at seeing things from any point of view other than her own, so she’d invented the joke about ‘my wee cousin up from the country’ to cover her puzzlement. It was not an unkind joke and Ellie always laughed
at it herself, but however often she came to Belfast, she still felt as if her head was overflowing.

‘Mind your step there, Miss,’ said the conductor kindly, as the now familiar whine subsided and she looked down cautiously at the crowded pavement.

‘Come on, Ellie, this way,’ said Ruth, taking her arm firmly, and finding space for them to alight. ‘Let’s start with Cleavers, it’s not far away.’

The pavements seemed even more crowded than she’d remembered. On every corner clusters of men in working clothes stood together. Some of them were passing a piece of paper from hand to hand. Others were gathered around one of their number who was reading aloud from a newspaper. As they drew level with the flower sellers outside the City Hall, she saw a news board. ‘Strikers lie on …’ But Ruth hurried her past so quickly, she couldn’t see the rest.

‘Here we are then,’ Ruth said, a distinct note of relief in her voice, as she stopped outside the revolving door. ‘You go first and I’ll push. Just keep on walking …’

Ellie did her best to concentrate. She didn’t like revolving doors. Once before, she’d tried to go the wrong way and hit her head on the glass. But this time there was no difficulty. In a moment, she was inside. walking on thick carpet. It was quiet, a smell of perfume on the air, and the voices spoke in hushed tones, almost like being in church. It was
such a relief after the shouts and whistles of the men in work clothes and the roar of traffic.

‘Good gracious, Miss Magowan, I thought you were on holiday.’

A tall, elegant woman wearing a plain black dress decorated with jet buttons and tiny beads paused and looked them both up and down. Ellie was rather glad Ruth had insisted she wear her best dress, for there was something about the voice and demeanour of this woman that made Ellie think of Miss Walker.

‘Yes, Mrs Patterson, I am indeed, but I wanted to show Miss Scott where I worked,’ said Ruth, with what Ellie thought was a small curtsy and certainly a much clearer articulation of each word than she normally used.

‘Miss Scott, how do you do. I take it you are not from the city?’ she said, with a very brief smile.

‘No, Mrs Patterson. I come from Armagh.’

‘Indeed. We do a certain amount of business in Armagh. Perhaps you know Freeburns.’

Ellie smiled broadly.

‘I’m Senior Assistant at Freeburns.’

‘Well, now, you’ll know Miss Walker, a distant cousin of mine,’ she said, with a less formal smile. ‘A very shrewd buyer, I must say, always aware of all the very latest changes in fashion. You’re very fortunate to have someone so up to the minute. I’m sure Freeburns is most successful.’

Ellie assured her that they were and it was and after confirming that Ruth would be returning to work on Thursday morning, they parted.

‘Do make sure you show Miss Scott
all
our latest ranges, Miss Magowan,’ said Mrs Patterson, as they turned away. ‘It will make it easier for her when she returns to Armagh and finds the items amongst those that Miss Walker is currently ordering.’

Ellie smiled to herself as they walked on. She wondered how Mrs Patterson would react if she were told the list from which her distant cousin had ordered was the list Mr Freeman’s senior assistant had compiled at his request.

As they penetrated deeper into the store, however, she soon forgot what she was thinking about Mrs Patterson’s cousin so full of interest were all the departments, particularly fabric and household linen. The bales of cloth and displays of curtains and nets were comfortably familiar and the quiet was so reassuring after the clamour outside.

‘The pattern books and patterns are upstairs,’ Ruth said, as they began to tire. ‘It’ll take a while to go through them all. If we do manage that we could go and recover over a cup of tea at the Milk Bar.’

She led them through another department, turned the corner, and there before them was the staircase leading to the upper floor. It was carved from white marble with wide, wide steps and very shallow treads, thickly carpeted in red. It rose
from the lower floor and then divided, the steps continuing to both left and right. Ellie was quite overwhelmed. She had never seen anything like it in her life. Surely even in Buckingham Palace there was nothing as splendid as this.

‘Come on, Ellie. I said it’s upstairs. Are you tired?’

‘No, no, not tired. I was just looking at the way the staircase curves,’ she said quickly, glancing round as Ruth urged her on up the gentle stairs.

No, she wasn’t tired, she was preoccupied. She was thinking about poor people with not enough to eat and all this unbelievable luxury everywhere around her.

Monday’s shopping trip was a great success. Ruth had bought four dress lengths and three paper patterns, Ellie, two dress lengths and two paper patterns, one of them for Daisy. On Tuesday, they would study the ready-mades in the other big stores, acquire zips, buttons and trimming materials and visit the sportswear shops on Ellie’s behalf. That would leave Wednesday for cutting out and pinning.

Ellie was not exactly looking forward to another visit to the city centre, but she was hoping she would find it easier. As she settled down in the window seat once more, ready for the whine and the shudder as it set off, she certainly felt steadier. She didn’t even fumble with the pennies for their fares, it being her turn to pay today.

The morning was fine, though not as sunny as the previous day. There was no sign of Uncle John as they passed the shop. They were a little earlier than they’d been the previous morning, so they had to stop at the entrance to the bakery to let the horse drawn carts come out in front of them. Some turned off into the nearby streets and avenues, but two remained ahead of them, till suddenly they stopped, bringing the tram to a halt behind them.

It was difficult to see what the hold-up was. All around them the other passengers offered their explanations, though none of them were able to see anything more than Ellie or Ruth.

‘There’s an accident. It’s all blocked till the polis come.’

‘Someone’s shed a load. Them bakery carts can’t get roun’.’

Then two strange things happened. First of all, the two bakery carts turned round and came back towards them. Ellie noticed that both horses were shaking their bridles as horses always do whenever they’re anxious or distressed. All at once, they became aware of a roar, a growing vibration like the grumble of approaching thunder. From behind them they heard the throb of motor engines and saw they were being overtaken on the wrong side of the road by Crossley tenders.

More and more vehicles in front turned off left into the side streets. There were no longer any vehicles at all approaching on the other side of the
road. The tram driver didn’t have the option of turning off the tramway, he stayed where he was, to be greeted by an outburst of motor horns from behind. He moved forward as slowly as possible but then the tram stopped again.

At last they could see what the trouble was. The road in front of them was entirely full of people, almost all men, though here and there they saw a grim-faced woman. All poorly clad, many of them barefoot. Amidst the huge, dark mass, the Crossley tenders were slowly forcing a path.

‘They’re marchin’ on the Workhouse,’ said an elderly woman, peering out. ‘They said they would if they got no offer. An’ they’ve been offered nothin’, God love them.’

‘That’s the Workhouse away over there,’ said Ruth, her voice unusually quiet as she waved a hand beyond Ellie’s window. ‘Dunluce Avenue, that’s where they’re heading. Goodness knows how long we’ll be stuck here,’ she added, looking out at the tide of dark figures spreading down the Lisburn Road as far as the eye could see.

Ellie watched, tears springing unbidden to her eyes. Some women had small babies wrapped against them in shawls or strips of cloth. Men waved their fists, shouted slogans, encouraging each other. But it was the faces that affected her most. The pale, grey faces of people who are hungry and exhausted and driven to the limits of endurance.

Then there was a crash. Splinters of glass fell around them. A woman in the seat in front of them screamed, a trickle of blood on her face. Without thinking, Ellie brushed the splinters from her skirt and got one stuck in her finger. She pulled it out surreptitiously, not wanting Ruth to see. It was bleeding, so she slipped it into her pocket and pressed it against her handkerchief.

‘They ought to be shot, the whole lot of them. Tryin’ to kill us. Why don’t the police get in there and see to them,’ demanded a portly man carrying a rolled umbrella.

‘What are we going to do, Ellie? There must be thousands of them. We’ll be here all day.’ Ruth’s tone was sharp enough, but Ellie caught the note of anxiety beneath the irritation.

Three more pieces of brick were thrown. The driver’s window was broken and two windows on the other side of the tram. Quite suddenly, it began to grow quieter. The last of the long, long procession turned into Dunluce Avenue on their way to make their protest outside the Workhouse.

Ruth breathed a sigh of relief, sat back as the tram started up, but it stopped again almost immediately.

‘They’re lying on the tramlines. We’ll get no further till the police clear them off,’ said the conductor, walking back from the front of the vehicle. He paused by their seat and looked at them both.

‘I think you young ladies wou’d be wise to slip out and go down that road over there,’ he said, pointing to a tree-lined avenue on their right. ‘It’ll take you out at the bottom of the Malone Road near opposite the University. There’ll maybe be trams runnin’ all right over that side. We might sit here all day, till they get word from the Guardians one way or other.’

He had hardly finished speaking before Ruth was on her feet. Ellie had just time to say ‘Thank you’ before she saw her cousin hop briskly down from the tram, stride across the empty road and turn and wait for her on the other side.

Ellie was so exhausted on Tuesday evening, she began to wonder if she’d ever manage to get as far as her attic bedroom. Thanks to the young conductor on the tram, they’d succeeded in reaching the city centre and they’d done all the jobs they’d planned. For Ellie, there’d been little joy in doing them. As she and Ruth matched up ribbon and buttons and discussed yokes and collars, all she could think of were those grey faces, that dark tide of hungry and exhausted people.

There was nothing to comfort them when they returned home. The father of Bobby’s little friend from Moonstone Street was a policeman. As he came off duty, he’d met the two boys coming from school, so he was able to tell them the Lisburn Road had been at a standstill for three hours and reinforcements had been summoned for the following day.

‘I’m warnin’ ye’s both,’ began Aunt Annie, when she’d sent Bobby to do his homework in the
dining-room, ‘Say not a word about what ye’s saw and what’s happened today. Ruth knows what her father can be like, but you, Ellie dear, have never seen him when he’s in one of his moods. Pay no attention. Let him have the last word whatever ye do, or there’ll be no standin’ him.’

They heard Uncle John before they saw him. With paper patterns spread out on the sitting-room floor, the largest space they could find for cutting out, they felt the whole house vibrate as he slammed the front door behind him and marched down the narrow hall.

‘Annie. Where are ye, Annie?’ he shouted.

They’d looked at each other, but said nothing. Aunt Annie had been right and the evening that followed was grim. To begin with, Uncle John had sat silent at the dining table staring at his table mat. When his meal arrived, he’d pushed his plate away and had to be encouraged like a child to eat his nice dinner.

‘Sure ye need to keep up your strength, John dear. Don’t we all have to try to do that.’

‘Them buggers,’ he said at last, having eaten a good meal in complete silence. ‘Them buggers. Lying on the tram rails so that honest people couldn’t go about their business. Not a soul in the shop half the day, and those that did, in and out in two minutes, for fear of what was happening. Police here and tenders there and no customers. Sure ye wouldn’t
see the days takings in the bottom of the cash box.’

Sitting quietly in a corner by the sitting-room fire after the meal had been cleared away and washed up, Ellie watched the other three and could hardly believe in that same room there’d been nothing but jokes and teasing on Sunday morning, Uncle John enjoying himself, delighted to have a new audience for his oft-told stories.

He insisted they listen to the Northern Ireland News on the wireless. It told them nothing they didn’t know already and that only annoyed him further.

‘It’s these Communists and socialists stirrin’ things up, tellin’ working people they’ve a right to this and a right to that. What about the rest of us? Aye and the worst of it is, they’re gettin’ in on both sides, They’re gettin’ good Protestants to gang up with the Other Side, an’ havin’ them marchin’ together as if they weren’t marchin’ with traitors.’

‘What d’you think should be done, John, to get these people jobs? Isn’t that the problem?’

‘Sure there would be no problem with jobs if that other crowd took themselves off where they belong. Let them go down to the Free State and see what they can get there. Our government is too soft on them. This is a Protestant country for a Protestant people. Your man Basil Brooke was right about that. He said that ninety-nine percent of them are disloyal and he wouldn’t have one of them about the
place. We should get rid of the lot of them.’

‘Including wee Bridget?’

Ellie looked up sharply from the sleeve she was pinning on the first of Ruth’s new dresses. Bridget was a saint’s name, a Catholic name. One of the serving girls at Robinson’s was called Bridget and she’d once told her the story of her namesake, a girl who had converted her dying father to Christianity while sitting by his bed weaving crosses out of the rushes on the floor to pass the time.

‘Ach there’s the odd one. You’d hardly know Bridget was one of them. She keeps quiet about it, an’ she’s a great worker. And very popular in the shop. I’ll say that for her.’

‘There’s maybe the odd one of them
could
do a day’s work,’ suggested Annie.

‘Aye, but not many.’

Ruth and Ellie said
no thank you
to the offer of cocoa. They were only too glad to be able to make their way upstairs. When they reached the top of the three flights they gave each other a hug, but no word was spoken between them about the troubles of the day or the oppressiveness of the evening as they turned in opposite directions and shut their doors behind them.

Ellie couldn’t sleep. Exhausted as she was, she could find no comfortable position for her aching back. She knew why it was aching, but that didn’t help
much. At home she’d have filled the stone jar from the still hot kettle on the back of the stove, but here the thought of the long, cold journey down to the gas stove was too much for her. She turned over and tried again, but the echo of her uncle’s voice wouldn’t go away.

He’d gone on at great length about loyalty. As he saw it, you were on one side or the other. Whatever your side thought or did, it was right and what the other side did was wrong. The possibility of agreeing with something the opposing side thought was beyond his comprehension.

But how could he be right? Did those people crowding up Dunluce Avenue, desperate to persuade the Board of Guardians to increase their pittance have a side? Did it make any difference to their common cause whether they were Catholic or Protestant?

She wondered what her father would say if she asked him what he thought. She tried to recall once more what Charlie Running had said. It had been clear to her then that he knew a lot more than her father did and he’d been rather sheepish when he’d said: ‘If they’re beat, there’s always the Workhouse.’ But you couldn’t take all those people into a workhouse. It wouldn’t hold them all.

Round and round it all went in her head and then she was in a forest. She thought of George.

‘You have to be loyal to George,’ said the big brown bear.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, wondering if there was any point in trying to run away. Bears, he’d told her, could run very fast. And climb trees.

‘Because he’s a man. You have to be loyal to him and do what he wants, because he’s on the Right Side and you are the Other Side. That’s just the way it is.’

She woke up suddenly, the image of the bear still there, a cramp in her stomach. She’d have to go to the lavatory whether she liked it or not.

Uncle John was in better spirits next morning. Waking at his usual early hour, he had looked out of the bedroom window and seen Crossley tenders and Lancia armoured cars passing in large numbers on the road below.

Before leaving for work he’d told Aunt Annie that clearly the authorities were now doing what he paid good rates and taxes to have them do. It looked as if they were about to ensure his livelihood would not be interfered with for another day.

Although there was much activity outside with police vehicles moving in both directions, traffic was back to normal. Bobby went off to school ready to boast that his sister and cousin had seen the strikers lying on the tramlines, while Aunt Annie made another pot of tea, sat down gratefully by the sitting-room fire and offered to help with the dressmaking.

‘My goodness, haven’t these three days just
flown,’ she declared, late that afternoon, when she got up to start preparing the evening meal. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind being on your own, Ellie, when Ruth goes to back to work tomorrow? I’d have loved to stay and keep you company, but with things the way they are, I think I need go to the shop as usual. Your Uncle John’ll not get over yesterday for many a long day.’

Ellie smiled and told her not to worry. There was plenty of sewing still to do and if it was fine she’d go and have a walk in the park. What she didn’t add was that she felt tired, after all that had happened, weary in spirit as in body. She rather badly needed a bit of peace and quiet, and time to herself.

There was no doubt the house was quiet on Thursday morning. Almost too quiet, the rooms empty and dim, the bright sunlight barely penetrating the sitting room windows, shaded by the high privet hedge surrounding the minute square of neglected front garden.

She laid out the day’s sewing. Feeling suddenly chill without the fire, lit especially for her and Ruth the previous day, she went upstairs to put on something warmer. She pushed open her window and looked out longingly to the slopes of the escarpment. Beyond the houses, the marshalling yards, the bog meadows and yet more rows of tiny houses on the other side of the valley, she gazed up at the fields. Some were green with new growth
after the harvest, others still yellow with stubble, enfolded by hawthorn hedgerows, the tiny leaves, always slow to show the gold and red of autumn colour, still a rich dark green. The light was bright up there, with nothing between the fields and the sky except craggy outcrops too steep to cultivate, scarred here and there by quarries, the light glinting back off pale, new-cut rock surfaces.

She made up her mind, pulled on her jacket, collected the key of the door and walked quickly along the pavement until there was a gap in the flow of carts and motors large enough for her to cross to the other side of the road. A few minutes later, she was in the park, walking back up the narrow path towards the summer seat where she’d sat with Ruth and Tommy on Sunday.

It was cooler today, the sun less bright, but it was warmer here in the park than in the empty, unheated house. She was suddenly aware that the sight of flowers and the rustle of drifting leaves at her feet had made her smile. Moments later, as she came up the slope, she smiled more broadly as she recognised the pleasant-faced, white-haired, elderly woman who had greeted them on Sunday. She was sitting on the summer seat she’d thought of sitting on herself, feeding an array of small birds with crumbs from a paper bag. She paused on the narrow path as she spotted a robin, bolder than the rest, hop on to the arm of the seat, his eye cocked expectantly. A
few minutes later, the crumbs had all vanished. The robin had been given some expected treat and had now flown away.

‘Good morning,’ Ellie said, as she came up the seat, where bright eyes and a smiling face looked up at her. ‘I didn’t want to frighten your birds.’

‘That was kind of you. I do hope you’re going to come and sit down and talk to me. I’m fortunate enough not to be a lonely old woman, but I do miss talking to young people. Even some of my grandchildren are rapidly approaching middle-age,’ she said, laughing easily.

Ellie thought what a lovely face she had. Though deeply lined as one would expect with someone in their seventies, or even eighties, the lines were not harsh. There seemed to be a hint of laughter in the very face itself.

She sat down willingly.

‘I saw the robin come to your hand. My father has a wren that sits on the anvil, or even on his hammer, but it won’t come to his hand,’ she said smiling. ‘He says only a robin will do that.’

‘So
you
don’t live in Belfast, do you?’

‘No, I’m
the wee cousin up from the country
,’ she said, mimicking Tommy and laughing.

‘We’ll you certainly don’t
look
like a country cousin,’ the older woman replied, laughing heartily herself, as she ran an eye over Ellie’s pretty dress.

As their laughter faded, Ellie saw her look away
for a moment as if some sad or sudden thought had crossed her mind.

‘And where in the country
is
home? she asked, the smile returning as she spoke.

‘Near Armagh, a little place called Salter’s Grange.’

‘Is your father the blacksmith there?’

Ellie nodded.

‘Then your grandfather was Thomas Scott and your father is Robert.’

‘Goodness,’ said Ellie, quite taken aback, ‘how on earth do you know that?’

‘Because, my dear, my beloved John, who died six years ago this August, served his apprenticeship with Thomas and worked with him for many a long day,’ she said quietly, wiping a tear unselfconsciously from each eye. ‘And I once made a home in the old house opposite the forge, which I expect is a ruin by now.’

‘Then
you
must be Mrs Hamilton,’ said Ellie quickly. ‘I’ve heard my father talk about you and your living opposite the forge. He said you used to sing when you were doing your work.’

‘My goodness, what memories you bring …’

Ellie watched her face change as she caught a hand to her mouth, almost as if she were afraid she might be overwhelmed by them.

‘You promise you won’t let me bore you,’ she said suddenly. ‘Old people can be so tedious,’ she
went on, ‘telling the same old stories.’

‘But it’s not just old people that tell the same old stories,’ Ellie protested. ‘I’ve heard people not all that old tell the same old stories, but they’re always stories you’ve never
asked
to hear.’

‘Yes, you are quite right. It’s not the stories that are wrong, it’s the people themselves. The stories are what they want to believe. They don’t always have much to do with how things really were.’

Ellie nodded, thinking of listening to Uncle John’s tirade the evening before.

‘Now
do
tell me your name, please. You must be Robert’s youngest daughter, but I haven’t seen him since John’s funeral. He and your mother both came to Rathdrum that day.’

‘That’s near Banbridge, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, looking pleased.

‘I’m Ellie.’

‘Of course. Your mother was Ellen. I’ve only met her once and it was very briefly,’ she said, a slight frown shadowing her face. ‘And I’m Rose Hamilton.
Please
, please, call me Rose. I know it’s not usually done, but I’ve no one to call me Rose anymore,’ she said sadly.

‘Why is that?’

‘Because Ellie, although I am so very fortunate and have sons and daughters and grandchildren … and great-grandchildren,’ she added, with a little laugh, ‘I’m Ma … or Mother, when they’re being polite,’ she
added, now laughing aloud, ‘or Granny or Grandma or even Grandmother, depending on which family it is and what they’ve been taught, but I no longer have my dear friends, Anne and Mary and Peggy and Selina and Elizabeth … and … others. So there’s no one left to call me Rose now,’ she ended wistfully.