Anne Doughty - Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse

They crossed the gravel to the steps that led up the low green hill which hid Drumsollen from the main road and climbed in silence. This was where they had come in April after their unexpected meeting. This was where they had agreed their future was to be together after all.

‘Little bit of honeysuckle still blooming,’ she said, as they came to the highest point and stood in front of the old summerhouse, which Andrew had restored over a year ago, his first effort to redeem the loss of the home he thought he must sell. They stood together looking out to the far horizon. The sun appeared to be sitting on the furthest of the many ridges of land between here and the distant Atlantic.

‘Clare, do you remember once saying to me that you loved this place, that you wanted to be here, but you’d be sad if you never saw anything beyond these little green hills?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, I don’t remember saying it, but I’m sure I did,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s true, of course. And you always did pay attention to the really important things I said.’

‘Makes up for my other unfortunate characteristics,’ he added promptly.

She turned towards him and glared at him until he laughed.

‘Sorry. I’m not allowed to refer to my less admirable qualities.’

‘Oh yes, you can refer to them if you want, but you are not allowed to behave as if they were real.’

‘But they feel real,’ he protested. ‘I’m no use with money. I can’t stand sectarianism, or arrogance, or injustice. What use is that in the world we’ve got to live in?’

‘Andrew dear, it only needs one of us to be able to do sums. I’ve had a holiday from the things you’ve been living with. I’m not ignorant of them, just out of touch. Does it matter?’

‘No, nothing matters except that we are together. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said to spoil your homecoming. Here of all places, where we were so happy last April.’

Clare looked at him and saw the distress and anxiety in his face. She thought of the little boy who’d been told on his very first day at prep school that he had lost his parents. ‘Andrew, my darling. We both have weaknesses. Look at the way we both got anxious when I was flying. With any luck our weaknesses won’t attack both of us at the same time,’ she began gently, taking his hands in hers. ‘Let’s just say that between us we’ll make one good one.’

He nodded vigorously and looked away.

She knew he was near to tears but said nothing. He’d been taught for most of his life to hide his feelings; it would take many a long day for him to be easy even with her.

They stood for some time holding each other and kissing gently. As the sun finally went down, they stirred in the now chill breeze and noticed that the sky behind them had filled with cloud. A few spots of rain fell and sat on the shoulders of Andrew’s suit until she brushed them off.

Clare laughed. ‘We’re going to get wet,’ she said cheerfully, as they turned back down the steps to the empty house below.

‘No,’ he replied, ‘it’s been doing this all day. We’ll be fine. And what does it matter anyway,’ he added, beaming, as he put his arm round her. ‘We’ll be all right, come rain, come shine.’

Two

The little grey parish church built by the Molyneux family in the early 1770s for the workers on their estate at Castledillon, and their many tenants in the surrounding farmlands, sits at the highest point of the townland of Salters Grange. Not a particularly high point in effect, for the hills of this part of County Armagh are drumlins, low rounded mounds, their smooth green slopes contoured by moving tongues of ice that reshaped the land long ago, leaving a pattern of well-drained hillsides and damp valley bottoms with streams liable to flooding at any season after the sudden showers carried by the prevailing, moisture-laden west wind from the Atlantic, a mere hundred miles away.

Despite its modest elevation, the church tower and the thin grey spire above has an outlook that includes most of the six counties of Ulster. From the vantage point of the tower’s battlements, you could scan the surrounding lowlands, take in the shimmering, silver waters of Lough Neagh and, on a clear day, penetrate the misty blue layers of the rugged hills of Tyrone to glimpse the far distant mountains of Donegal.

From the heavy iron gates that give entrance to the churchyard, the view is more limited, a prospect of fields and orchards, sturdy farmhouses with corrugated iron hay sheds and narrow lanes leading downhill to the Rectory, the forge or the crossroads. Through gaps in the hedgerow, a glint of sun on a passing windscreen marks the line of the main road linking the nearby villages with their market town, Armagh, dominated by the tall spires of the Catholic cathedral and the massive tower of the Protestant one, regarding each other from their respective hills.

On this bright September afternoon, the sun reflecting off the grey stone of the tower, the gates stand open, a small, battered car parked close by, as two women make their way up to the church door, their arms full of flowers and foliage.

‘You divide them up, Ma, and I’ll get out the vases,’ said the girl, as she lowered her burden gently on to the pedestal of the font. ‘Aren’t they lovely? Where did Clare get them?’

‘Sure, they’re from Drumsollen,’ June Wiley replied, watching her eldest daughter finger the bright blooms. ‘Hasn’t Andrew and your Da replanted one of the big beds at the front?’ she went on, as she began to strip green leaves briskly from the lower stems. ‘They’ve half of it back the way it was in the old days when the Richardsons had three or four gardeners,’ she added, with a little laugh. ‘You’ll see great improvements at Drumsollen. Mind you, that’s only the start. They’ve great plans, the pair of them. They’ll maybe take away some of your trade from the Charlemont.’

‘That’ll not worry me after next week,’ Helen replied cheerfully. ‘I’ll have my work cut out keeping up with all these Belfast students cleverer than I am.’

‘Now don’t be sayin’ that,’ June replied sharply, as Helen lined up a collection of tall vases. ‘Sure didn’t Clare go up to Queens just like you’re doin’ and look where she’s got to. Just because you come up from the country, ye needn’t think those ones from Belfast are any better than you are. Didn’t you get a County Scholarship? How many gets that?’

‘Clare was the first one from round here, wasn’t she?’

‘She was indeed, an’ I’ll never forget the day she got the news. Her grandfather was that pleased he could hardly tell me when I called at the forge to ask. I thought he was going to cry.’

‘Wish he was here for tomorrow, Ma. He’d be so proud,’ Helen replied, looking away, suddenly finding her own eyes full of tears, so sharp the memory of the old man in his soot-streaked clothes.

‘Aye, he would. But the other granda’s coming from over Richhill way with her Uncle Jack. So I hear. But she hasn’t mentioned her brother who lives with them. She talks about the uncle often enough, but the brother I’ve never met. They say he’s kind of funny. Very abrupt. Unsettled. Apparently the only one can manage him is Granda Hamilton. The granny pays no attention to him at all.’

‘Is she not coming to the wedding?’

‘Oh no. Not the same lady,’ the older woman replied, her tone darkening. ‘Apparently she won’t go to weddings or funerals. Says they’re a lot of fuss about nothing. But I hear she’s bad with her legs, so maybe it’s an excuse,’ she added, a frown creasing her pleasant face as she laid roses side by side and studied the length of their stems.