Name Upon Name Read online

  ‘You’ll have to get the tram home alone,’ Mama pointed out.

  ‘I don’t mind. I sometimes do anyway, if Mabel has hockey practice.’

  Papa smiled. ‘I’d love to think of you helping with the school magazine,’ he said. ‘I had a few articles in it myself about a hundred years ago.’

  Mama sighed. ‘I suppose it’s all right,’ she said. ‘James, would you put more coal on that fire? There’s no heat off it at all.’

  * * *

  Next day, Helen turned up hot and breathless after hockey, to find Edith and George already sitting round a desk, sorting out letters and scraps of newsprint from a fat manila folder.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, pulling over a third chair. She didn’t want Edith to think she was unreliable. ‘Miss Thomas erupted into the changing rooms to check everyone’s tunic wasn’t too short.’

  Edith looked amused. ‘She did that to us yesterday. She must be having one of her clamp-downs on legs.’ She grinned at George, who was blushing. ‘You boys don’t know how lucky you are.’

  Helen’s job was to sift through a pile of letters and cuttings and add anything relevant to the Roll of Honour.

  ‘Just write it in as neatly as you can,’ Edith said. ‘Oh – and put a line through anything that’s out of date. The secretary will type up a new list when you’re finished. You can do R-Z.’

  ‘That means I get Sandy!’ Helen said, and Edith smiled. ‘That’s why I kept it for you.’

  ‘Do you have anyone at the Front?’ Helen asked George, who was copying out the details from a casualty report, his face even more serious than usual.

  He shook his head. ‘We’re Quakers,’ he said. ‘So we’re pacifists.’

  Helen wondered if that made things easier or harder, but didn’t feel she knew him well enough to ask, even though they’d been in class together for years. Boys and girls didn’t mix very much out of lessons. If the war were still on when George was old enough – would being a conscientious objector be easier or harder than fighting?

  ‘We have a friend – from our meeting – who’s out there as a stretcher bearer,’ George went on, as if he could tell that Helen was interested. ‘He wanted to help but not to engage in combat.’

  ‘I think you’d need to be very brave to do that,’ Edith said. ‘Hugh and Gilbert have told me something about it.’

  Helen had forgotten that she had two brothers in the army.

  ‘Yes. But some of his family think even doing that is supporting armed conflict,’ George said. ‘They wouldn’t even read his letters.’

  Gosh, thought Helen, that doesn’t sound very pacifist. She went to say something but George pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded at his papers. ‘Better get on with this.’

  Helen took the hint and sifted through her pile of cuttings. She made herself go in strict alphabetical order, but even so Sandy – Alexander Charles Reid, Second Lieutenant, Royal Irish Rifles (BCS, 1907-1914) – was one of the first names she had to deal with. Taking a ruler from her satchel she drew a careful line through ‘Second’ to show that he had been promoted, and then through the sentence After being seriously wounded in September, Second Lieutenant Reid is making a good recovery in hospital in England. She wasn’t expected, of course, to write the amended bit herself – there was a small white piece of paper, the standard form the school sent home requesting information, and in Aunt Violet’s spiky copperplate was written: ‘Lieutenant Reid has returned to his regiment and is fighting the good fight in France.’

  It wasn’t exactly how Helen would have expressed it, but it wasn’t untrue – it was just too simple, too naïve. Sandy’s recent letters hadn’t been as upsetting as the one about Robbie and C, but they certainly never mentioned ‘fighting the good fight’. She had eventually replied to that shocking letter, but had found nothing better to say than, ‘That sounds horrid. Poor you.’ Which she knew wasn’t what he had hoped for.

  He had apologised: ‘I don’t think I was in my right mind when I burdened you with all that. Too much of the old rum ration. Just as well officers are trusted to censor their own letters! Sometimes I forget you’re only fourteen. Please put it out of your head.’ Helen had been relieved, but also felt as if she had failed him.

  The next three names had no changes except that Arthur Sheldon had been promoted. She vaguely remembered Arthur as a glittering head boy. It was easy to see him as a captain. But then there were two in a row – Henry Taylor and Cyril Vance – about whose deaths, one in action, one from wounds, she had to copy the details, and when she had finished, taking particular care in inking a neat black cross by each name, she felt quite miserable.

  She remembered packing an old boys’ parcel for Cyril Vance, saying to Mabel, ‘Isn’t Cyril Vance a horrid name?’ She wished now she hadn’t said that. She wondered if she would be given the same task next term, and what changes there would be. By the winter, many of the summer’s leavers would have joined up and added their names to the list. She wondered if in Michael’s school in the town near Derryward someone was doing something similar now: ‘Michael O’Hare is training with the Royal Irish Regiment.’ Or did the Christian Brothers who had taught him feel the same as Uncle Sean? Was his old school proud, or ashamed, like his family?

  She remembered what George had said about his stretcher-bearer friend and his family not reading his letters. At least he had written. If only Michael would! Looking at these lists, name upon name of young men facing death every day, Helen wished he would change his mind. Letters were something to keep. She couldn’t bear to think of anything happening to Sandy, but if it did, she knew she would be glad to have his letters. And before long Michael, like Sandy, wouldn’t be safe in camp. He’d be at the Front.

  She touched Sandy’s name, stroking the three words carefully with her finger as if by doing so she could protect him. Though there was nothing she could do to stop his name, by next term, or even next week, acquiring that neat black ink cross.

  14.

  A week later, in prayers, Dr Allen announced the death of another old boy. It was Edith’s brother Hugh.

  Helen only vaguely remembered Hugh – it was Gilbert, the younger brother, who had been on the rugby team with Sandy, but even so, it felt like the nearest death yet. All day Dr Allen’s voice followed her around: ‘He was operated on to amputate both legs, but he died of haemorrhage. Let us all remember him and his family in prayer.’

  She and George went to the sixth-form room to finish off their work on the Roll of Honour. They divided Edith’s cuttings between them without being asked, and neither quite liked to put the black cross against Hugh Ross Hamilton, Lieutenant, Royal Irish Rifles (BCS, 1906-13). In the end, George did it, and they finished their task in silence, taking the amended lists to Miss Cassidy when they were done.

  ‘Good work,’ she said. She gave Helen a quick smile. ‘No chance of you changing your mind about the scholarship class?’

  Helen shook her head. ‘Sorry, Miss Cassidy. My mother needs me.’

  ‘Ah well, you’ve plenty of time yet. Sometimes I forget you’re only fourteen.’

  How funny, Helen thought, that she should have said just the same as Sandy.

  ‘Is it not unfair for girls to have special coaching and not boys?’ George asked as they walked together down the drive, Helen feeling self-conscious at walking with a boy she wasn’t related to.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Helen said. ‘It’s much harder for girls to get to college than it is for boys.’

  ‘Both my sisters are at Queen’s,’ George said. ‘And my family was delighted for them. But then we’re Quakers – that’s how we think. Men and women should be treated equally.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Helen admitted. ‘I wouldn’t mind being a Quaker; I like the sound of that.’

  George shrugged. ‘You just are what you are. Like you’re a Protestant.’

  ‘I’m not really, though,’ Helen said. ‘I mean, not a proper one. I go to the Presbyterian church wit
h my father and his family. But my mother’s a Catholic.’

  She didn’t tend to talk about this in school. Belfast Collegiate was officially non-denominational but there weren’t any Catholics there, because they had their own schools.

  ‘A mixed marriage?’ George said as if it were something interesting instead of, as Helen had always thought, a bit embarrassing. ‘How did they meet?’

  They had reached the school gates now, and as both seemed to want to keep talking, they leaned against the railings in a way that would have scandalised Miss Thomas.

  This was a story Helen knew well. ‘Mama came up from the country to look after a sick aunt. Papa was lodging in the house next door and he used to see her taking the aunt to the park in a wheel chair. She was very beautiful and he fell in love with her.’ She imagined her long-ago mother, the sun on her brown hair, pushing the old lady in the chair, and Papa with the funny old-fashioned moustache that looked so odd in their wedding photo. ‘Both their families were horrified. But she was over twenty-one so they had to make the best of it.’

  ‘Sounds like Romeo and Juliet.’

  ‘Hardly,’ Helen said. ‘Juliet was thirteen. Younger than me. And they died.’ And then she blushed, at having in a way compared herself to Juliet in front of a boy. She played with the strap of her satchel. ‘I should go and get the tram,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the tram stop,’ George said.

  They fell into step along the road, their black school shoes clomping along. Helen posted a letter to Michael at the pillar-box at the end of School Gardens. It was an important one because in it she suggested to Michael that he should write to his family. She knew he would object and remind her that his father had threatened to throw any such letter into the fire, but Helen had thought of a brilliant way round this: ‘Send it to me,’ she written, ‘and I’ll make sure it gets safely to your mother.’

  She felt solemn dropping the letter into the pillar-box, and George gave her a quick glance, as if he was about to ask her about it, but he didn’t.

  On the corner of the main road, a newspaper boy, with sticky-up hair and sticky-out ears, shouted, ‘Tele!’ and thrust a Belfast Telegraph at them. Helen flinched from the headline – MORE ULSTER CASUALTIES. She wondered if George might buy a paper – it seemed the kind of odd, elderly thing he might do – but he brushed the boy off and went back to the subject of Helen’s parents.

  ‘So – why do you go to your father’s church?’ George asked. ‘I thought children were normally brought up in their mother’s religion?’

  Helen was vague. This wasn’t much spoken about in 22 Cyclamen Terrace.

  ‘I think Papa’s family just took over. Mama was ill when I was born. She’s not very strong. By the time she was able to look after me, they’d had me baptised and everything. My grandfather said it would break his heart if his only granddaughter were brought up in the Catholic church. He said I’d be born into darkness.’ She always imagined those words in capitals, haloed in infernal flames.

  George shook his head.

  ‘And Mama just gave in. I don’t suppose she had much choice. But if I’d been brought up Catholic my life would have been completely different, wouldn’t it?’ She thought of her jealousy over Nora’s First Communion dress. ‘I’d have gone to a different school, believed something different.’ She wasn’t exactly sure what she would have believed except that it was something to do with praying to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and believing the priest actually changed the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood, which always sounded improbable. But exciting too; sort of romantic. ‘Played different sports; maybe even learned Irish …’ Though she wasn’t sure if that was something you learned at school.

  Even saying all these things out loud felt defiant: she could imagine Aunt Violet’s lips disappearing inside her mouth. I wonder, she thought, if I’d actually have ended up a different person. She imagined herself at a convent school, the corridors filled with black-robed nuns, but she couldn’t see her own face.

  ‘Actually, lots of Presbyterians helped revive the Irish language, at least in Belfast,’ George said. ‘And wanted an independent Ireland. Haven’t you heard of the United Irishmen? The 1798 rebellion?’

  Helen wrinkled her nose. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure. Don’t you know any history? Apart from what we do with Perry, which is all British and Empire history anyway.’

  Helen was silent, readjusting to this strange information. Surely it couldn’t be right? She longed for the tram to come round the corner: talking to George was – interesting, but rather disturbing. Challenging, like Miss Cassidy telling her she must think things out for herself.

  ‘I can lend you some books if you like,’ George said. ‘My father’s a professor of Irish history. Things aren’t as simple as you might think.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean – yes to the books.’ (Though she wasn’t sure she wanted to read the kind of books a professor might lend her.) And here, at last, was the tram, its shabby red and cream shining through the grey afternoon drizzle. ‘And no, things don’t feel simple to me. I just thought they were for everyone else.’

  ‘No,’ said George after a short pause. ‘Not for everyone.’

  APRIL 1916

  15.

  Dear Helen,

  I’ve thought about that suggestion about writing home. It’s worth a try. I suppose we’ve all calmed down a bit since the day I walked out. And I’ll be going into action soon; they don’t keep you hanging around the way they used to – can’t afford to. And it would mean a lot to think they’ve forgiven me. NOT THAT I THINK THEY HAVE.

  So I’ve written a letter and here it is. DON’T POST IT. Give it to Nora as she will know the best time to give it to Mammy. DON’T EVEN MENTION IT TO DA. I’ve asked them to write back if they forgive me – if they still think of me as their son; and if not just to ignore the letter. I’d rather have silence than another row, even on the page.

  Helen, it is a great comfort to know I can trust you. I always said you were the brainy one of the family.

  Your loving cousin

  Michael

  Helen read the letter with mixed emotions. Pride that he trusted her with something so important. Worry that she wouldn’t be able to deliver it. Because they hadn’t been to Derryward for ages.

  If only she could have gone alone one Saturday – but the very idea was ridiculous. She would never be allowed. She could explain to Papa and ask him to take her, but running to her father, asking a grown-up to sort it all out – wasn’t that a very ‘wee Helen’ thing to do? Michael had asked her because he trusted her, because she wasn’t ‘wee Helen’ any more. She would just have to pray that they would go to Derryward at Easter, and perhaps in the meantime she shouldn’t mention the letter to Michael. He would assume that she had delivered it, and could start looking forward to a reply. That would be best.

  16.

  It was all right! They were all going to Derryward for Easter – even Papa. She could deliver the letter.

  When Helen remembered what Mama had said about the O’Hares blaming Papa for helping Michael to enlist, she was a little worried. But she didn’t want to say that in front of Mabel. They were in Caprini’s as a treat on their way home from school. You weren’t allowed to eat in school uniform, so they felt daredevil and endof-termish. And anyway, as Mabel said, an ice-cream sundae in a cut-glass dish in a respectable café wasn’t in quite the same league as the fish and chips in newspaper three prefects had been caught scoffing on the Lisburn Road last week.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Mabel said. ‘Easter on a farm must be lovely – will there be lambs?’ She sucked the tip of her ice-cream spoon.

  ‘It’s nice of you to pretend to be jealous,’ Helen said, ‘but you’ll have a much better time in Dublin with your aunt. Having tea at the Shelbourne! Spending your birthday money in Switzer’s!’ These were only glamorous names to Helen; she had never been to Dublin, but she loved saying them as if they
meant something to her.

  ‘But it won’t be half as much fun without you,’ Mabel said mournfully. ‘I can’t think why your father said no. Aunt Jean’s very respectable. She lives in Clontarf, near the beach.’

  ‘I know.’ Helen sighed.

  She would have loved to go to Dublin with Mabel, and it wasn’t true that Papa had refused the invitation: she simply hadn’t asked him, because of the importance of getting the letter to Derryward. She still felt that she had somehow failed Sandy over his letter. She wasn’t going to fail Michael. She felt quite noble and self-sacrificing.

  ‘Derryward won’t be the same without Michael,’ she said.

  Mabel’s face brightened. She loved hearing about Michael. ‘Show me his letter again,’ she begged.

  ‘Mabs! I showed you this morning.’

  Mabel wriggled in her chair. ‘I know. But I can’t believe he mentioned me!’

  Helen gave her a hard stare and said, in Miss Thomas’s voice, ‘I would be very disappointed to see signs of Unbecoming Conduct in Collegiate girls.’

  They both giggled as Helen slipped the letter out of the book George had lent her, leaving it sitting on the table. Of course she would never normally let anyone read a private letter, but Michael had specifically asked to be remembered to Mabel:

  How’s your pal Mabel? We’ve some greedy lads here must never have had a square meal till they joined the army but I still say I’ve never seen anyone eat ice cream like her. Tell her that from me.

  ‘Cheeky!’ Mabel said, digging her spoon deep into her sundae dish, and blushing. ‘What else does he say?’ She moved round beside Helen so they could look together, and her soft dark hair tickled Helen’s cheek.

  I don’t mind telling you we are all fed up with being stuck in camp, still in Ireland, training training training; drilling drilling drilling. And some of the fellows training us – well, I don’t think they can be the cream of the regiment, otherwise they’d be off doing some real soldiering, wouldn’t they? Not trying to lick us into shape. But the good news is, we are to be posted soon – within a fortnight I think. Can’t wait for some real action. So soon I’ll be writing to you from France. Maybe I’ll even run into the bold Sandy out there – wouldn’t that be a joke?