The Friday Tree (18 page)

Her father’s profile was like stone, his eyes looking straight ahead as she got in, and she knew, without a word being said, that Laetitia had told him what had happened.

Her grandfather said: “Go easy, Maurice. It was just curiosity. You were a child once yourself, and no angel.” Then, turning to Brigid, he said to her: “I’ll see you soon, girlie, and your brother too,” and he reached into the car and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t mind Laetitia,” he said, very quietly. “She takes it hard, still,” but he did not say what she took hard, or why.

At the other side of the car, noiselessly, unnoticed, Ned Silver let himself in, and then they were driving away. Brigid watched her grandfather standing with his hands up, as if he were waving down an aeroplane from the sky. He grew smaller as the car gathered speed and Brigid still did not know what he meant, and her father had not said a word, and she was deeply ashamed.

Shocked still, baffled, and angry at Ned, she waited for him to speak. To her surprise, he was quiet, almost docile. His face was pale, turned away from her. She thought: someone must have found him out. Yet, no one had chided Ned that she had heard. Her father, his silent face in the mirror showing his disappointment in her, made no difference in his manner to Ned.

Brigid was cold, and could smell in her nostrils still the mustiness and neglect of the clothes in the cupboard. She did not know whose they were. Smelling the tobacco still on her fingers, she wondered why a piece of paper with writing on it was tucked into a packet of tobacco, or why Ned wanted it, and why he started to pray to God. She did not know why everyone was upset except Granda, and there was clearly no one she could ask. She concluded that Isobel had been right: she was just bad, and Ned was as bad – perhaps even
worse – and they deserved all they got. Only, Ned got nothing. She looked at him again, and she was instantly sorry. Something had happened to him. His eyes were closed, and from under them she could see tears running down his face.

“Ned,” she said, but there was no answer.

It began to rain, and the swishing of the water beneath the wheels ended the outing. Their drive was silent, the wet road sliding along below the wheels. The tree people were not to be seen; the drumlins crouched, hidden, under misted blankets. After a long, uncomfortable time, with no word spoken, they turned into their driveway, and saw a figure silhouetted in the door.

There would come a time in her life when Brigid would know what it was to stand at a door, waiting for someone who had gone away, but that time was not yet. On the October night in 1955 when she sat behind her father in his car, drawing up to the house that was her home, all she saw in the silhouette at the lighted door was trouble. She knew in that moment that her father had not told her mother he was taking her away for the day. Looking across at Ned, she knew, too, that there was no help there. In the silence after the shutting off of the engine, he sat motionless, then pulled at the silver handle on the inside of the door.

“Thank you, Mr Arthur,” he said. “You were very kind to take me with you,” and then, halfway out of the car, he turned to Brigid, whispering something so low, so indistinctly that she could make out only two words.

She hissed back at him, secrecy now instinctive: “Isobel’s brother
what
?”

He was gone. The door closed with a bang, and she was left, with her father, to face her mother. As she climbed the steps, slowly, she was prepared, following the scene with Laetitia, for anything, except what happened. Her mother, dark against the door, began to cry when she saw them, saying over and over: “Thank God.”

Brigid saw her father hang his head, and watched the lines at the side of his face deepen.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “I should have let you know. I . . . I didn’t think.”

Her mother stood crying in the doorway, and Brigid, feeling the cold, did not know how to go into her own house, until Francis appeared, took her hand, and said to his mother: “Brigid’s getting cold.” Then they were inside, and in the kitchen, and their parents went into the sitting room where she heard only the rise and fall of their voices, soft, loud, deep, high, until the sobbing stopped, and silence washed back.

“Daddy didn’t tell her,” Brigid said.

Francis shook his head. “No. About half an hour ago, Mrs Mulvey was putting out the milk bottles, and she saw Mama at our door and she said to her, ‘Waiting for the travellers?’ so Mama knew then he’d gone somewhere with you and Ned.”

“But not where?” said Brigid.

“Not where,” said Francis, and the silence of the night folded round the children until they grew tired, and went to bed. The closed door of the sitting room did not open, and no one said goodnight to them, except themselves.

Yet, next morning, it was as if none of it had happened. For a few seconds after she wakened, Brigid thought it had all been a strange and disturbing dream. Then, stretching out, she saw on her forearm a blue mark turning green, and she remembered. It had all happened. Yet, she could not talk about it, even to Francis, and part of her wanted to forget it all. Ned, the cause of it, was gone. When she came downstairs, the front door was open, and she heard her mother talking. Was it to herself? Brigid put her head, cautiously, round the front door, and was relieved to see that there was another person talking, unseen, from the other side of the garden fence. It was Mrs Mulvey. She knew the voice.

As she listened, Brigid heard Mrs Mulvey tell her mother that the little clip had been packed off to another school: “And let’s hope he lasts a bit longer there,” she said, “though I doubt it, the light-fingered monkey.”

Ned’s fingers had not seemed light to Brigid. Nonetheless, she was glad he had gone. Adventures with Ned came at a price.

Chapter 12: Samhain

It was good to have Granda come to stay, except that he brought Ireland with him, and far too much time was spent discussing the news. True, there was some excitement over a princess, and whether the Queen should let the princess marry her group captain, but Brigid did not care what the Prime Minister had said about partition, or know what it meant, even if everyone else did. Even Francis did.

“What was he asked, Granda?” he said. “The Prime Minister. What exactly?”

“He was asked,” said his grandfather, adjusting his glasses and holding the paper away, “to comment on the possibility of settling the partition question, and he replied – I’m quoting this now – ‘Ah, that is a matter for Irishmen. It’s your show’.”

“Is that all he said?” asked Francis.

“Let me see. My old eyes aren’t as good as they were.”

Brigid felt very bored, until her grandfather reached across to her and touched her arm: “Brigid, do you remember the word I told you in Irish for Hallowe’en?”

Francis, forgetting Ireland for a moment, caught her eye, and wrinkled his nose. He said: “Oink.”

Brigid opened her eyes wide.

“Oink,” said Francis again.

“Is it pig?”

“Close enough,” he said. “
Samhain
: sow-an,” and he touched his grandson’s elbow, but Brigid remained confused about the pig, and how it got in there.

“Come for a walk with me to the post office,” said her grandfather. “And don’t mind that brother of yours.”

Still, Brigid wondered about the pig. She wondered about it until they were some way down the road. “Granda?” she said. “Sow? Is that not for pig?”

He gave a little laugh, tipping his hat to Ned’s housekeeper who walked past with her shopping bag. “Did you see the villain off to his school, ma’am?”

“Oh, I did, Mr Arthur,” she said. “And villain he is!” She shook her head as she went on past.

“Granda,” said Brigid. “Please. The sow.”

“
Samhain
. Brigid. The night of Hallowe’en in Gaelic, the old Irish language, is
Oíche Shamhna
. Can you say that?”

“
Sow-an
,” said Brigid, slowly. “
Ee-ha howna
. Where did the sow go?”

“It turned into ‘how’,” said her grandfather, and now they both laughed.

Brigid tried it a few more times, and found it pleased her.

They walked on, past the cemetery, and her grandfather crossed himself. Brigid thought of Mass.

“Is howna a Catholic word, Granda?”

He stopped. He was not laughing any more. “A what?” he said. “Brigid, what do you mean?”

“Francis says we’re Catholic, but other people are other things. Do we have our own words? Catholic words?”

“Brigid,” said her grandfather, and he shook her hand in his when he said it. “Ah, Brigid. What age are you now?”

“Five, Granda. Nearly five and a half.”

“God above,” he said. “Five years old, to be asking that.”

“Nearly five and a half.”

He nodded, shook her hand in his once more, and said
nothing.

“Granda?” said Brigid.

“Yes, Brigid,” he replied. “I’m coming to your question,” but he walked on, and still said nothing.

Brigid opened her mouth to ask about howna again but, as she did, he spoke.

“Brigid,” he said. “Listen carefully to what I have to say. The language belongs to us all. It’s not anyone’s property.”

“But what does the howna mean, Granda?”

“As I told you,
Oíche Shamhna
means ‘The Night of Hallowe’en’, the eve of All Hallows, the night before the feast of all the saints. It’s the night when the souls of the dead are free to visit their old homes.”

Brigid drew breath, sharply. She could see the whiteness of it in the air, like a ghost. She said: “Ghosts, Granda?” and she held his hand more tightly.

“Ah, not ghosts, Brigid. One time, long ago, I heard an old man say: ‘How would I be afraid with the souls of my own dead as thick as bees around me?’ And how would he, or anybody? They’re our own families and friends, who have gone on the journey we’ve all to take some day. We cannot see the spirits of our dead, but on this night they come back to be with us, and they are gentle and good, as they were in life. If we pay attention, we know they’re there.”

They turned to go into the post office. Brigid was not at all sure she liked the idea of the return of the dead, however friendly. Besides, there was a large queue in the post office, and she did not want to stand still in the crowded space. Yet, her grandfather did not seem to mind. He reached deep in his overcoat pocket for his money, standing with Brigid’s hand in his behind the other people, some straight, some bent. Their coats brought in the cold from outside, and some of them shrugged their shoulders and rubbed their hands as they came in. “Skin fairies,” said a man. “Hardy day,” another.

Now her breath was not white, but steamy, and wet. Brigid moved from foot to foot, and wished the queue forward.

“Granda,” she said, when a long time had passed. “Why are we standing?”

“I’ve some money to collect. And, I’m going to post a letter to Laetitia. She didn’t behave very well the day you came to call, but she’s a good girl at heart.”

Brigid felt him sigh. “What is it, Granda?” she said. “Are you sad because she’s a good girl at heart?”

“No, no,” he said. “I’m always glad when I see that, though I don’t see it often enough. No, I was wondering, so close to Samhain, how I lived to be so old, when young people lie across there in the cemetery.”

Brigid followed his eyes. Through the misted window of the small post office, no bigger than a little house, she could make out the jagged stone wall of the cemetery. A long line of crosses faced towards them: they were the priests’ graves. Were they saints? Brigid did not care for that stern, unbending line, staring at her as she stood in the post office. And now, she thought with alarm, all these saints under the crosses might be getting ready to visit tonight.

Just in time, the queue took a large step forward. The window moved behind her, and suddenly there was another window, small, with a grid. She saw a hand, long fingers flittering through a sea of papers and brown books and sets of stamps, then reaching for a big, shining stamper and stamping them with a thumping click, rolling it back and forth, flipping the book shut, then handing rustling papers under the grid. Her grandfather took the papers from the hands – where was the head? – and then, all at once, they were released from the steamy press to the blessed cold outside and turned, at last, away from the graves and the headless hands.

They passed the Glen and Brigid, remembering the judge’s murdered daughter, tried to quicken the pace, but her grandfather was not a man to move quickly. It was a relief to see the smoke spiralling from their own chimney, up into the chilly sky. How warm the house looked! Brigid began to want to be inside. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw that Francis was in the garage. Her heart leaped. He was not sitting in the house, listless and tired. He was out in the garage! She let go her grandfather’s hand without a word, left him to go up the steps by himself, ran up the hilly passage and straight into Francis, busily rolling a spare tyre from the pile at the back of the garage. He looked up. He did not seem surprised to see her.

“Good,” he said, as if she had been there all along. “You can help me. Take the small ones.”