Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse. Anne Doughty
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in the wide space, but no sign of anyone about.
‘I think perhaps you should go in on your own, Clare. I’m here if you want me,’ Andrew said, as he switched off.
She nodded, not sure what she would find when she stepped into the big kitchen where her grandmother habitually sat by the fire complaining about her legs and commenting sharply on everything that came under her gaze. She didn’t even know where her grandfather would be. For all of the years she had visited this house, his bedroom and those of whichever of her uncles were ‘at home’ had been out in the large, upper storey of the big barn where he had his workshop.
‘Ach, hello, Clare. You’re a stranger.’
Her youngest aunt, Dolly, now in her early fifties, a dressmaker by trade and a spinster by choice, rose from the fireside and looked her up and down.
‘Granny’s lying down. She says her heart’s broke with people trippin’ in and out all day. She’s not had a minit’s peace.’
‘How is Granda?’ Clare asked cautiously, knowing Dolly’s view of her father would match in all respects the view held by her mother.
‘There’s not much wrong with him if he’d just content himself and not go poking at things in that workshop of his,’ she said sharply. ‘The doctor said he was to rest. He’s in Jack’s room to save us both running back and forth to the barn.’
Clare took a deep breath. She’d never liked Dolly, though she’d done her best over the years, especially when she’d had to share a tiny bedroom with her. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely her fault that her manner was so sharp. She’d been spoilt and petted by her mother and allowed no life of her own. On the other hand, as a grown woman, she could have tried harder.
‘Has he a visitor at the moment?’
‘No, not one,’ replied Dolly airily. ‘Some of the boys were in earlier and a couple of neighbours came a while ago, but they’re all over in the workshop now fiddling with something or other,’ she added, with the dismissive sniff that had become habitual, as if nothing in the world was ever likely to please her.
‘I’ll away and see him then,’ Clare said quickly before Dolly could offer any reason why she might not.
She stepped into the short passageway behind the fireplace, her feet echoing on the wooden floor. The bedroom she’d shared with Dolly on her visits from Belfast was small, but Jack’s room next door was even smaller. She opened the door quietly in case her grandfather was asleep. But he was not. He was sitting up and a slow smile spread across his face as his bright blue eyes met hers.
‘I thought I heerd yer voice,’ he said, as she squeezed down the side of the bed nearest to the window to give him a kiss. ‘How’re ye doin’?’
‘More to the point, how are you, Granda?’ she came back at him.
He laughed and put out his hand for hers. It was large and warm, broad fingered and deeply lined. She had to admit he looked well enough, his face and almost bald head suntanned and shiny. Were it not for the two bright spots of colour on his cheeks, a bit like badly applied rouge, she might have been reassured, but there was something about him that was different from the last time she’d seen him.
‘D’ye see that wee box?’ he asked, glancing to the other side of the bed, where a jug of water and a glass sat on a small chest of drawers beside his well-thumbed Bible. ‘Bring that roun’ to me like a good girl,’ he said, speaking in that soft tone she had always found so comforting and reassuring. The box, a few inches square, was made of battered white cardboard.
‘This is for you,’ he said, taking out a gold fob watch. ‘D’ye know what this is?’ he asked, handing it to her.
She pressed the raised catch and looked at the elegant numerals on the clock face. It must be his retirement present from Fruitfield. Jack had sent her the newspaper cutting from the Portadown Times.
‘D’ye see what it says?’ he asked softly.
The room was already becoming shadowy, so she turned it to the light and looked closely. ‘Sam Hamilton, a good and faithful servant. With gratitude from the Lamb Brothers and all their staff,’ she read slowly, looking up at him.
‘There’s some says it’s a lot o’ nonsense, Clare, givin’ a man a watch when he retires and has time to himself, but maybe they don’t understand that somethin’ in your hand helps somethin’ in your heart,’ he said slowly. ‘It reminds you of all the hard work, the good times, aye, and the bad times too. An’ all the friends ye had.’
She could see he was short of breath, but was quite untroubled by the fact. He simply took his time.
‘If yer father had been alive, Clare dear, I’d have given him this. I tried to make no favourites with my family, but he was my namesake and truth to tell, I always knew what he was thinkin’ as well as I knew m’self. He an’ Ellie were a joy to me. They worked in one with the other . . . ach . . . if only there were more like them. Like you an’ yer man, Andrew,’ he added with a short nod.
He paused again for breath and she could see how tired he was, his bright eyes drooping now as he looked at her. ‘You’re like your mother, Clare, for all you’re dark an’ she was fair,’ he said with an effort. ‘Keep that by you for them an’ me. Come rain, come shine, it’ll mind you of the best, like it has minded me these last lock of years.’
She stayed only a little longer, stroking his hand until his eyes closed and he dozed off. Then she slipped away, escaped Dolly as quickly as she could and let Andrew drive her home, tears streaming unheeded down her face, the small box clutched firmly in her hand, as if she feared someone might try to take it from her.
Unlike the twenty-first of June 1961, two years ago to the very day, when Sam Hamilton was laid to rest in the green space surrounding the Friends Meeting House in Richhill, full of cloudy skies and sudden heavy showers, the twenty-first of June 1963 promised to be fine and dry, the sun already beaming down on Drumsollen long before the smell of cooked breakfasts wafted up from the basement.
Clare walked out to the garage with Andrew, wished him well for a court hearing in Belfast and turned back purposefully into the silent house. She collected a bucket and secateurs, caught the front door back on its chain and ran down the steps to begin her favourite Friday morning task, choosing roses for the tall, cut glass vase that sat all summer through on the polished oak table in the centre of the entrance hall.
As she moved slowly round the flourishing rosebed, Andrews parterre, she breathed the cool morning air and listened for the distant sounds vibrating in the stillness. There was a tractor on a neighbour’s farm, a milk float, its crates of bottles chinking as it passed their own gates, and then the heavy throb of an Ulster Transport bus making the first journey of the day with people going to work in Armagh.
As she leaned over and felt the warmth of the sun on her back she remembered the quiet September evening she’d had to search the small bushes for enough blooms to make a wedding bouquet for herself. All the ones with long stems were already in the church, but she had managed to find the few buds she needed. She’d mixed them with sprays from the honeysuckle up by the summerhouse and tied them with ribbon. After the wedding pictures had been taken, she’d walked round the side of the church and left the little bouquet on Granda’s Scott’s grave, the buds now open in the sunshine.
When the time came, as she knew it would, she had made a similar bouquet for Granda Hamilton. She’d picked white roses for him, but she chose only those with a touch of pink on the outer petals. White flowers were considered very suitable for a wreath and white lilies the most suitably sombre of all, but Granda Hamilton did not approve of such demonstrations. Death was part of life, he always said. He was not troubled by its coming, nor by his own going. That was why she’d not worn black at his funeral.
She wondered why