‘Aye. Will I say it over tae ye?’
She shook her head. ‘Nay, nay, ye’ll be late. Ye’ll say it for me the night, when the work’s away tae Belfast.’ She smiled up at him and held out the napkin she had just begun. ‘Look, Georgie, these must be for ye. There’s half a dozen for G.E.’
He stood looking down at the intertwined letters with their broad satin-stitch bodies and delicate chain-stitch swirls. It had never happened before. In all the allocations, the dozens of pieces she had worked, there had never before been a G.E. He reached out a finger and touched the letters cautiously, knowing full well that a dirty mark would mean a deduction in the payment. She held out the others, five more large squares of finest damask, each traced lightly in blue with his own initials.
He looked at them wistfully. By the end of the afternoon they would be finished, and long before he got back from the farm they would be wrapped in clean cotton rag, tied into a bale with the others and carried up the track to the waiting carrier. He would take them to Belfast and somewhere in the crowded streets of the city, in a warehouse or in a factory shed, they would be smoothed and folded, tied with fine green ribbon and put in boxes lined with soft white tissue. Made in Ireland. Hand finished. In tiny gold letters. So she had told him. And then they would go on their way to those who could afford to buy such things, to some great house in some other part of Ireland, or to England, or across the ocean to America.
‘Some day, Georgie,’ she said quietly, breaking into his thoughts, ‘ye’ll have napkins, an’ books, an’ things of yer own. Make sure ye lissen hard to all the master says. What gaes into your head, Georgie, belongs to ye, e’en when you’ve nae piece to take to school.’
There were two ways down to McTaggart’s farm. You could climb upwards on a rough track till you struck the metalled road and then follow it along for a mile or more, till it dipped into the head of the glen and then rose up out of it again to strike across the plateau to Ballymena, or you could drop down the hillside and pick your way along a narrow path which followed the valleyside just where the overlying basalt met the underlying chalk and the rough, hungry land of the dark rock became suddenly gentler and greener.
George chose the low path and set off downhill between the gorse bushes, the rush of water in his ears. Their own stream from which he carried the buckets for washing and cleaning was in full spate and the broad flat stepping stones his father had placed there were well covered. He stepped gingerly across, the cold water tugging at his ankles, concerned for neither his much-mended clothes nor his bare feet but for the book tucked inside his battered satchel. Once safely across, he took to the straggling grass, still wet from the rain and scattered with wildflowers. Soon the walking became easy. With chalk beneath, the turf was short and springy, dry already after the rain and sprinkled with the yellow stars of tormentil and the blue bell flowers of milkwort.
He stopped on a small, grassy lawn and listened to the muffled roar of a stream in its subterranean course. He tipped back his head and looked up. Over the black, frost-shattered basalt flowed one of the many streams that coursed down the rock-strewn beds they had carved out for themselves. Where he stood, it had already dived deep, seeking out the cracks and fissures in the porous rock. Only in the wettest of winters did these streams overflow their underground routes and flood across the patches of springy turf like this one where he stood wriggling his toes luxuriously in the softness.
Below him the valley lay green and shining in the sunlight, the two grey trackways weaving their way along either side of the river until they met the Coast Road. Beyond the straggling village on the southern side of the glen, an arc of sand dazzled in the sunlight. Blue and barely rippled by the breeze, the sea lay so calm, so tranquil. It was hard to imagine the winter storms churning the waves into great crashing breakers, brown with sand and broken shell, boiling up the beach and snatching hungrily at the concrete base of the new road that took the visitors in their jaunting cars to see the sights of the rocky coast, from The Glens to Ballycastle and beyond.
Across the calm water lay the coast of Scotland, so sharp and clear he felt he could reach out and touch it. He smiled, remembered his father and what he used to say on all the fine summer days like today when he came back into the cottage, calling out for Ellen. ‘Boys it’s a powerful day, Ellen. Iss tha’ clear I ken see them tossin’ ther hay o’er in Scotlan’.’
Reluctantly he walked on, his eyes still moving over the valley below. The hawthorn had flowered late, right at the end of May, but it had blossomed so richly the branches looked as if they were laden with snow. The scent lay heavy on the air and he drank it in, savouring it like the smell of delectable food, bread fresh from the griddle or bacon frying over the fire.
As he strode up a small rise where the path opened into a broad track leading to the farm, he must have closed his eyes for a moment to taste its richness, for suddenly he found his way blocked. He was looking up at Andy McTaggart, the eldest of the McTaggart sons, astride one of the big plough horses. Andy stared down at him, the reins in one hand, an elegant-looking whip in the other.
‘’Tis a gae fine mornin’,’ Georgie said agreeably as he waited for the horse to get used to his presence and allow him to pass by. But the rider made no motion to let him through.
‘Is ther nae shorter way fer ye tae gae doun an’ o’er tae the school?’ he asked unpleasantly.
‘Ther is, aye. But I hae a message for yer mather.’
‘Oh, an’ what’s that?’
Georgie felt the blood rush to his face as he remembered the two eggs in his satchel. For a moment he thought he might make up some message, a greeting, or a bit of news. But it was no good, he knew he wasn’t quick enough for the likes of Andy McTaggart.
‘’Tis for hersel’,’ he said, flustered.
‘Oh aye, it is. We all nae tha’. Come to beg yer piece tae tak tae school. Ye’re a beggar, Georgie Erwin.’
The horse shuffled, suddenly uneasy, and McTaggart struck him with the whip. It was not a hard blow but it made a crack that sounded loud in the stillness of the morning. Georgie knew that he was showing off, copying some horseman he had seen when his father took him to the Antrim Races. But the knowledge helped him not at all. He felt his face stiffen and the pleasure of the June day fall away as if a thunderstorm had rolled down the valley and shut off the sun.
‘I am nae,’ he said fiercely, ‘I hae me piece in me bag, so I hae. Ye can tell yer mather I’ll be late the day. I hae an errand to the shop.’
So saying, Georgie darted past, his eye level with McTaggart’s boot in the short stirrup of the saddle. It was well-polished and so new it had not even been mended. He didn’t make for the path down into the valley but struck out between the bushes and the outcrops of rock, indifferent to the sharp stones and brambles he encountered that bruised his feet and tore at his bare legs.
‘I’m nae a beggar. I’m nae a beggar,’ he said, over and over again as he reached the road and strode out along it as fast as his legs would carry him. And all the while, high above his head, he could hear the crack of the whip and the noise of hoofs on the track that led back to McTaggart’s farm.
When the grandfather clock in the hall chimed four, George opened his eyes again and breathed a sigh of relief. The pain had gone. No sign of it at all. He did feel very drowsy and a bit confused, but he managed to make up the fire without bending over and without setting off the pain again. As the fresh logs sparked and crackled, he sat back gratefully and looked at the clock.
‘That’s another week over, dear,’ he said aloud, thinking of Jenny.
He’d been to her school on its Open Day last year and he could imagine her coming down those stairs with her pile of exercise books and the briefcase he’d bought her when she got her scholarship. He wondered when she would arrive. With her shopping to do and no car to help, it would hardly be much before six. He’d asked Edna at supper time