The Friday Tree (16 page)

The children slid out of the car, and Ned slammed the door shut, watching with satisfaction its effect on the startled birds. Brigid, not to be outdone, climbed boldly up the high sloping sidewall of the steps, balancing like a tightrope walker, as she had often seen Francis do. It piqued her that her father, knocking the heavy iron on the recessed door, did not notice that she had managed this by herself, and Ned said nothing, moving from one foot to the other, staring out to the wide sea, and the vast open sky, scudding away from them. Brigid’s father rang the bell a second time. Nothing happened. He rang it again and, then, slowly they heard bolts being undone.

A tall woman like a gatekeeper blocked the doorway. Behind in the hall, a grandfather clock sang one calm chime.

Then Brigid’s father reached to his head to raise his hat, a curious, graceful movement which meant the hat did not leave his head, yet rose, as if in a light wind and then resettled, all in a second. “Tish,” he said.

“Maurice,” said the woman, without expression, and Brigid wished herself far away. “You’ve brought the children,” she said, and looked at Brigid without warmth. She stepped aside, one sharp eyebrow raised as she saw Ned. “Or, no,” she said. “You haven’t. Who’s this?”

She stared at Ned, and Brigid wanted to stand in front of him.

“Our neighbour,” said Brigid’s father, taking his hat from his head and moving towards the door. “Aren’t you going to let us in, Tish? This is Ned Silver. Ned, let me introduce you to my sister, Miss Laetitia Arthur.”

Ned, suddenly gracious, extended his hand: “How do you do, Miss Arthur?” he said, in a voice Brigid had never heard him use. She was impressed.

Laetitia looked at him. “Where’s my Frankie?” she said. “Where’s my boy?”

Brigid’s father did not reply for a moment, his mouth a sudden pale line. Then he said: “He got a bit of a knock. Horseplay near the school. Boys.”

That half-truth. Brigid, silently ashamed, met Ned’s eyes out of sight of the adults. Lies, said Ned’s eyes, and the half-lift of his lip said: What do you expect?

Now Brigid moved closer to Ned and her father, hanging back slightly. Perhaps Laetitia would go away. They stepped into the hall, dark-panelled, its chequered pattern of tiles cold as the air outside, and Brigid looked up at Laetitia, standing above her, as in judgment. Her hair was like a greying bush, wild and tame at the same time, and had a streak of dark running through it at one side. She was a backwards badger, she said, sometimes, when she was in good humour.

“Well, Biddy,” she said, “you’re no beauty, anyway.” She laughed, as if she had made a joke. “You take after your mother. They should have left your hair long. Who did you say this is?”

She had turned from Brigid and now stood appraising Ned. Brigid kept close to her father as he introduced Ned all over again. Laetitia said she liked him because, she said, she did prefer boys to girls, who were sneaky and hard to teach and she ought to know for she had taught enough of them, and you could give her a boy any day over a sleekit girl, sly and lazy, and where was her Frankie, her own boy, and it all had to be explained again, to be slid over again. Laetitia said they should have let her know they were coming, because she was going out to Mass and she would be back later, but they weren’t to count on her if they had somewhere else to be. Brigid did not relax until her sharp perfume swept past her, and she heard the front door close, and felt the silence that said she was gone.

“Bloody hell. What was that?” said Ned, under his breath.

Brigid, glad of the advantage, said, “Tell you later. You’ve to tell me stuff first,” though how she was to explain Laetitia she did not know.

At least, while Laetitia was out, she could go into the back room and hope to find her grandfather. Her father led them into the room and there, at last, she saw the long figure of her grandfather unfold from a chair, tall, a gleam of a fob in his waistcoat. Her heart began to be happy again as he reached down to shake her hand. He was gentle, and very quiet today. He looked for a moment at Ned. Then, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and lifted out a silver watch, detaching the chain from his waistcoat and its buttonhole. He handed the watch to Ned. Brigid was not pleased: on other visits, Francis had been given this, but she never had. Why should Ned?

Brigid’s grandfather sat down again and watched Ned turn over the watch. Brigid, aggrieved, really wished her grandfather would stop looking at Ned, and give her something to play with, but he did not. He sat, watching, and then he said: “Do you know, Maurice, I was thinking the other day about Parnell.”

Brigid’s father shifted in his chair. It creaked, and he sighed. “A few weeks ago, that was, Pop,” he said. “Ivy Day is the sixth of October. According to Mr Joyce, anyway.” He turned to the children, perched together on a narrow wooden settle, Ned absorbed, Brigid truculent. “There’s something new for you two. Ivy Day is the name for the anniversary of the death of Parnell.”

Ned and Brigid, bemused, looked at each other.

“Do you know what that means?” Brigid asked Ned, under her breath.

He shrugged. “Of course,” he said. “Everybody does. But it’s ancient history.”

“Like the drumlins?”

Ned slid his eyes across to her, and then back to her grandfather’s watch. “Round the same time,” he said, looking hard at the watch.

“Yes, well, when you get to my age, a few weeks here and there hardly matters,” Brigid’s grandfather was saying. “Do you know, children,” he said, and now he turned to them, “I stood on the platform with Parnell?”

More of this Parnell. What was it, and why did it matter, all of a sudden? Nobody had said anything about it before. Brigid, confused, shook her head, but Ned sat up. Maybe he did know something: after all, there was the drumlin business. In any case, interested or not, she was going to have to hear whatever it was, because her grandfather had settled back, placed the tips of his fingers together, crossed one leg over the other, and that meant he was going to tell them whatever was on his mind.

“It must have been 1881,” he said.

“Told you,” whispered Ned. “Ice age.”

“Or was it ’81? I can’t have been much more than your age.” He leaned forward. “Maybe not even as old as this young man!”

Ned sat up, so suddenly that Brigid almost went right off the settle. She wished they would give them a chair each. Then, as if he had heard her, her grandfather reached out and took her onto his knee. In his pocket he sometimes had sweets for her, she knew, and she slipped her hand into it as she settled down and, sure enough, there was one. She slid it out and, as if by magic, all her rage dispersed. She gave no sweet to Ned. She was comfortable in the crook of her grandfather’s arm, enjoying the sound of the paper she was unwrapping, the smooth sharp colours sliding and crunching between her teeth, and the smell of his tobacco and soap, and the look on Ned’s face when he lifted his eyes and saw that she had a sweet and he did not. Brigid’s eyes sent him a message: he’s my granda, not yours, so there.

Ned’s eyes sent back: so what?

Brigid felt less triumphant, and her grandfather was still talking. “You know,” he said, “I did not realise the importance of that day. My father – your great-grandfather, Brigid – was the secretary to the Land League and he believed in the right of the farmer to the land where he wrought.”

Brigid felt her mind glaze, but she tried to follow. It would be over more quickly if she tried, like school.

“So he built a platform for Parnell outside his baker’s shop. Did you know he was a baker, as well as a farmer?”

Brigid shook her head, thinking: I don’t care. She found it even harder to pay attention to this story.

“Well, Parnell came, and addressed the people at a big meeting of the Land League and I stood beside him, beside my father. I can hear the roars of the people. I can hear them clapping Parnell and my poor father.”

Brigid, giving up, drifted, and noted that Ned seemed interested. Good, she thought: you like this story, you can have it.

“Why was your father poor, Mr Arthur?” said Ned. “Did he lose his money?”

“Oh, son, he lost more than his money. When the sca – when things went wrong for Parnell, the people turned against my father because he had supported him, and we had to leave our farm and that town.”

Brigid, drifting back, heard her grandfather say that they had to leave the farm. The farm her mother grew up on was a happy place. She said: “It would have been nicer for you to stay on your farm.”

Her grandfather, with a short laugh, replied: “Girlie, there may be happiness in a family, or there may not, but there is nothing nice about a farm. It is hard, unremitting and thankless work.”

“Mr Arthur, sir,” said Ned, so polite and so interested that Brigid thought she was hearing things, “how did things go wrong for Mr Parnell?”

Her grandfather set Brigid down on the ground, but he did not answer. Then he drew something from his wallet. “Look, now. Here’s his Land League Card. I doubt you will ever see one of these again.”

“Pop. Do you think they’re ready for that?” said her father, and Brigid saw the animation die in her grandfather’s eyes.

Sadly, the grandfather put away the faded card, and Brigid felt sorry. It had got more interesting. It was suddenly a story, and now she wanted to know what happened next, and to look at the pictures and the writing on the card.

Ned seemed disappointed, too. He shifted in the seat. “Mr Arthur,” he said, “may I visit your bathroom?” and with a glance at Brigid that said, you’re on your own, he went off up the stairs, two at a time.

Brigid’s heart dropped. She wished she had Francis here. Ned was mean to leave her, when the only interesting story had been stopped. She
slid, unnoticed, out of the room, thinking to find Ned. In the hall, as if far away, she could hear the voices of the two men, their brown voices going over another time . . . “Land League . . . Parnell . . . even today . . .” No help there: they were still in the past. Then, suddenly, she heard the words change. “That wild night. January . . .”

This was different. This might be another story. Brigid began to listen again and, as she did, she heard the front door open and close. Laetitia was back. Brigid, safely in the shadows, could see her, slowly taking off her coat, and it was clear that she was listening too and then Brigid saw her walk boldly into the room without announcing herself. She slipped back in herself, then, lingering near the door.

“The storm,” Laetitia said, as if she had been there all along. “All those people lost. He tried to save a woman. They told us that. But he was lost.”

Brigid was interested now. Was this the story no one would tell her? The almost-uncle who was lost? He was lost trying to save someone, but from what? And how was he lost? She decided to risk asking. “How was he lost, Laetitia?”

“I just said. On the
Princess Victoria
, of course, trying to save someone,” said Laetitia.

But Brigid still did not know how, because no one ever answered her question.

A chair scraped: her father was on his feet. That was enough talk, she heard him say, his voice rising: there was no point going over it all again, nothing would bring him back, or anyone for that matter, and if they were to be home that night, they’d better get on.

Brigid said: “Aren’t we going down to see the house at the edge of the world?”

“Not today,” said her father, and his voice told Brigid there was no room for discussion.

So, there was no trip to the edge of the world after all, and still no story about the
Princess Victoria
. No one did what they said they would do and, as well, there was no tea. It did not make sense: they talked and talked about things in the ice age, but people got lost and could not be found, and she had no one at all to discuss it with her, now that Francis was ill. She stopped: what if Francis were lost? Would they not find him either? And where had Ned Silver got to?

“Where’s Ned?” she said aloud. She did not see him, but she felt his eyes, somewhere, looking at her. Turning, she saw him crouched at the turn of the stairs, looking down from the landing, like a small ghost. Brigid wondered how long he had been there. For no reason, watching him, she felt cold, and seeing that his eyes were not on her after all, but past her, she realised he was looking straight at Laetitia, and that he had heard what she said about the
Princess Victoria
, and she remembered: his mother. His mother was lost too.

“Did you find the bathroom, Ned?” said her grandfather, suddenly behind her.

Ned met the old man’s eyes, and nodded. He uncurled, slowly, and seemed to tumble down the stairs, as if his legs were not quite steady.

“Do you know,” said Brigid’s grandfather, looking straight at Ned, “I think there would be time to run down quickly and see the house, if the children would like it, before the evening draws in.” He reached out his hand to Ned, and Ned took it, trustingly, like a small child. “Come on,” he said, “till we see what we shall see.”

Outside, in the blessed light, Brigid turned to Ned: “Where did you get to?”

“Tell you later,” said Ned.

“You haven’t told me anything, Ned,” said Brigid and dug him hard with her nails.

He dug her back, hard, far harder than she had him. “And I won’t, now,” he said, “but I could. If I wanted.”