Name Upon Name by Wilkinson Sheena;

Author:Wilkinson, Sheena;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Island

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 with 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.

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