Free Beyond the Green Hills by Anne Doughty Page B

right for a columnist, doesn’t it? I’ll remember that. See you sometimenext week then, Keith. Enjoy the party,’ she said happily, as they emerged from the crowd milling around on the steps and he headed off towards the bicycle sheds.
    She looked for Andrew, but saw no sign of him. All around her, couples were greeting each other, going off hand in hand or with arms twined round each other. For those taking languages, this was the very last paper. Parties and celebrations had been planned for weeks now. They’d be welcome at several of them, she knew, but what she really wanted was to get away. They were going to drive up into the Craigantlet Hills, walk among the hayfields, look out over the lough and watch the lights come on in the city below. Just the two of them. To make up for all the lovely summer evenings they’d had to miss.
    Clare sat down on the low wall opposite the examination hall and watched the remaining clusters of people finish their post-mortems, say their goodbyes and head off in different directions. She looked all around her. No sign of a dark-suited figure with fair hair anywhere.
    Of course, she told herself, one of the senior partners could have descended on Andrew just as he was leaving. It happened often, but seldom on Fridays. Unless they’d been in court, the partners tended to begin their weekend after lunch, leaving Andrew and his colleague in sole possession of the elegant chambers.
    She tried to imagine Andrew bending over his desk amid the boxes and bundles of documents. Shewondered if he ever noticed the portraits of former partners and prime ministers looking down at him so solemnly, the etchings of nineteenth-century Belfast and the paintings of the SS Titanic leaving the lough on her sea trials.
    ‘Not for much longer now, love,’ she said softly.
    The three elderly partners had been very hard to work with. So arrogantly self-confident, so sure of their own judgement, alternative views were not required. However hard Andrew worked, only doing what they wanted done in the way they wanted it done was acceptable. Worse, what they wanted paid little attention to the ethics involved in a case. What they did was no doubt legal, but seldom what Andrew would judge right.
    ‘I’ll be a good boy. Not say a word. Not tell them what I think. Just keep my nose clean and work for a good reference,’ he’d said, as they sat one evening, large scale maps of Southwest Saskatchewan spread out before them. Even if they were leaving Ulster, a good reference would still be very useful. Clare was grateful she already had hers, a letter from Henri Lavalle that made her blush every time she read it.
    ‘Canada,’ she said, quite firmly, looking around her once again.
    Though crowds of people streamed past on the nearby pavements and there was a long queue at the bus stop, there was no one left on this side of the entrance gates to hear anything she said.
    Over the last weeks, the thought of Canada had kept her going. Whenever washing and ironing simply had to be done, or when she tidied herroom, her mind would fly off. Beyond broad expanses of wheatfield, she saw mountains rising into clear air, great white clouds piled up in a blue sky. She felt so heartened by the unlimited possibilities of moving freely in so vast an expanse of space, over the mountains themselves, or across the great plains that rolled towards their feet. All that empty country, and with it the chance to do new things. To live a real life in the real world.
    When she and Andrew were together, they talked of nothing else. They perused the catalogue in the Library, took out whatever they could lay their hands on: geographical monographs, historical writings, exploration. They’d had great encouragement from Ronnie himself and also from Andrew’s much older cousin, Crossley.
    Crossley had thrown up his London bank job in the thirties and settled in a little-known part of Saskatchewan, the Palliser Triangle. He’d read about it