Emily’s Dream
credit to internet
The sound of the news presenter’s voice stirred Andy out of his doze on the chair in front of the telly. He focused his eyes on the image on the screen as a smiling politician and his wife presented their new baby son to the waiting media. “What a lovely surprise – baby was born during the election campaign,” the newsreader enthused. Stretching over Andy watched with satisfaction as the smarmy face of the politician was swallowed up by the black dot
He wished he could fade out of his memories so easily. Election spiels and empty promises always brought him back to the 1980s because he always associated it with the beginning of his own troubles. “I was twenty-five, living at home and newly married to Emily,” he mused.
Emily. Small and stocky with beautiful long flowing red hair and eyes as golden brown as the autumn leaves they tramped through as they wandered content and happy in the country lanes that surrounded both their farms. She was what his father called ‘from good stock.’
“Aye,” It’ll be grand to have a few wee redheads disturbing the place,” he’d commented to nobody in particular.
Me and Emily – our heads full of dreams and plans. Wild about each other they’d made a pact to wait until their wedding night before making love. “At least Emily did,” he sighed. “It was to be the night that would seal our love for each other and start us on the next stage of our lives “
That was our first mistake; he thought bitterly as he filled the kettle. Lost in his thoughts he stared out the window at the spiral of turf smoke curling lazily from what he always thought of t as Emily’s dream house. Perhaps if we hadn’t waited things might have turned out different, he thought.
“Ach,” he said to the empty kitchen,” there’s no point in raking over oul coals.”
Coal and politicians, he reflected, as he spooned the dry tea leaves into the pot and poured on the boiling water. The two things would be forever associated with the troubles in his life.
Emily had not taken to marriage. Or to being a farmer’s wife. She found every excuse to avoid making love. “Your mother will hear us,” she would whisper fiercely as he tried to kiss and cuddle her in bed. As the first year of their marriage passed his parents, especially his father, began to look expectantly at them. Andy knew, the question of when they would make them grandparents was foremost in their minds.
“I’m not having kids until we build a house of our own first,” Emily muttered every time he brought up the subject.
Andy stirred the strong brown tea absently. “She could be loving and persuasive when she wanted something,”he reflected. Fool that I was I could refuse her nothing.
“If you went to work in England, we could build the house quicker ,” she’d pouted. Their lovemaking that night had been a hurried flustered affair. “Nothing like what making love to the girl I loved with all my heart should have been, “Andy murmured. He gave the teapot an impatient shake and watched the golden brown liquid swirl in the dark interior of the pot.
Leaving the farm, taking the boat to England had been bittersweet. “I thought it would make Emily happy… imagined returning home with money to build the kind of house she wanted. Finally, she would let me love her as a wife should. We’d live the life we’d dreamed of as we’d lay in the summer grass… before we married.
He cast his eyes over the lower field and thought about the day before he’d went to Newcastle-on-Tyne. His father, a man who seldom spoke unless he had something important to say, had found him in the barn forking straw.
“Don’t go son,” he said, fiddling with the binding cord around a bale of straw.
“I have to Da. I need money to build a house for Emily.”
For the first time in a long time Andy took a good long looked at his father. The tall, dependable man of his childhood was still evident in the length of his stride and the broad back and strong sinew arms that stretched above his greying head to firm the bale into place. But with a jolt he recognised that the thick crop of his father’s hair was thinning, his face lined with age.
“You could build a house in the field beyond,” his father said looking past the end of the field they were in.”It’s a good spot and Emily would have a beautiful view of the rolling hills,” he continued half to himself. “You couldn’t get a better spot. It’s like a picture postcard.”
Andy curbed the sharp impatient retort that rose in his throat. “Da, you know they’re not passing plans for farming families to build on their land anymore,” he said as civil as he could manage.
“Maybe with a place of her own your wife might want children before we get too old to enjoy them, “his father went on as if Andy hadn’t spoken. “You know the farm is yours when I die,” he said quietly.
“The new house will be well weather beaten before it’s my turn to run the farm and you’ll get no peace at all once the grandchildren come. They’ll be running around the place like spring lambs,” Andy had assured him.
“I know a man. I’ll see about getting the plans passed,” his father said turned away but not before Andy saw the sad, reflective look in his eyes. A quiver run down his spine as if someone had walked over his grave. Now, years later, he realised that his quiet, unassuming father was astute and observant and knew without being told how things between him and Emily weren’t good.
Taking the boat was hard. Work in England was plentiful. The pay was good and if the beer wasn’t Guinness, well, it wasn’t too bad. He’d sent money home every week. The foundation of our house was laid; Emily seemed happy, he thought.
Trouble always comes in pairs, my mother used to say, Andy thought. In contrast to his da his mother was a sharp-tongued woman who worked from dawn to dusk and expected everyone else to do the same. “That was part of the problem with her and Emily,” he mused. “My mother thought Emily should do the same.”
He looked out the window at the few hens pecking the ground in search of something to eat. That was all was left his father’s farm now. “What was the old folk’s hard work all for,” he said wistfully. There had been a hard frost the night before and he knew that the hens’ hard work would be in vain. “Just like it was when I pleaded for work when we got paid off in England,” he reflected.
Without any warning the gaffer paid him off, “That’s the way it is,” he replied, when Andy asked why it was him that was being let go, “Last in, first out, that how it is. Ach, strong man like you will have no bother getting another job,” he said, slapping Andy on the back. “Away and have a pint and stop worrying yerself man.”
When he got home to the digs another shock was waiting for him. “Could I have a word? Paddy,” the landlady called after him as he turned the corner on the stairs. No matter how many times he told her his name was Andy she still called him Paddy. He liked Mrs Armstrong. She treated the lodgers well. Andy noticed that her eyes were red from crying. “I must ask you to leave right away.” She twisted her hands together in agitation.
“What did I do,” he asked her. Had he forgotten to pay his rent?”
“My son,” she began, “my son…a soldier, was shot dead in Belfast this morning.” Her body began to shake uncontrollably.
“But I’m not from… “Andy tried to explain,
Mrs Armstrong clung on to the banister of the stairs “Please, please go, right away,” she pleaded. “You’re Irish. Go before my husband and other sons get here.”
“Just like that, I found myself out on the street, unemployed and homeless,” Andy murmured.
Part 2 next week
Gemma Hill ©2021
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