The Friday Tree (20 page)

“Bella!” cried Francis. “You scared us!”

“Did I?” said Isobel, and the glasses glittered an extra bit by themselves. “Maybe it’s the glasses. I borrowed those,” she said. She took them off. Now she looked more like Isobel. “Are you going to let me in?”

Francis said. “I’m sorry, Bella. I was just so . . . We didn’t expect to see you . . . tonight.”

“No,” said Isobel, “I’m sure you didn’t, or Miss Prim over there, either. I heard I was needed. So here I am, like the Bad Fairy.”

Brigid started. That was exactly what she was like.

“Did I give you a fright?” she said, seeing Brigid look up.

“Yes,” said Brigid, hating her.

“Good,” said Isobel. “That’s what Hallowe’en is for. And, by the way, Francis, did you read that
Our Boys
I sent you when you got that wallop with the stone? Did you read ‘Kitty the Hare’?”

Brigid looked at Francis in surprise. She had not known that Isobel sent Francis anything when he was hit. That meant Isobel knew what had happened to Francis. Yet, how?

Francis nodded and widened his eyes: “It
was
frightening,” he said.

Isobel laughed to herself. “I thought that would shake you. Take your mind off yourself.
Now
do you still not believe in ghosts?”

Francis frowned a little, and signalled sideways to Brigid, but Isobel only lifted her eyelids, gazed coolly across at Brigid and slanted them away again.

“She doesn’t heed you,” said Isobel. “She doesn’t even listen, half the time.”

Brigid was stung. “I do so heed him. I do so listen. And I do understand about ghosts, only,” she paused, then lifted her head and stood up, wishing herself tall as Isobel, “they’re not ghosts. They’re our friends and our family and on this one night they can visit their homes. They are good to us.”

Isobel raised her eyebrows above insolent, staring eyes: “Well, Mouse woke up!” she said. “Where did you learn all that? At a keyhole?”

Brigid set her mouth in a straight line. She did not say ‘Like you,’ but she thought it. “From my granda,” she said, and picked a piece of warm crust from one of the apple tarts her mother had made. She was not missing Isobel any more.

Yet, something in her was almost relieved she was back. She was here, so Mama would not have to be tired with all the housework and have to take rests. If she was here, she could make the tea, and call them when it was time to go outside and watch Daddy light the fireworks. Indeed, Isobel did all of that, that night, and she brought tea to their mother, who was still lying down. She was there when hats and coats and the scratchy papier-mâché falsefaces had to be put on and, though Brigid hated the feel of the masks, her skin going cold and her teeth shuddering, she wore hers because they had been specially got the day Francis had his accident. It was Isobel, not their mother, who stood with them and their grandfather that night, while their father stepped forward to light the fireworks.

“‘
Light blue touch paper’
,” he read, “‘
and retire to a safe distance
.’” He stretched out his arm to make sure the children were nowhere near, and his hand looked very long, and very white.

Brigid watched in a daze, entranced by the spirals of colour springing from the Catherine wheels, the Jumping Jacks like live things hopping round the square in front of the garage, the glorious rockets shooting green and red and yellow as they sped into space. All the while the children held sparklers, candyfloss of light, silver and gold, dropping them just before they burnt down to a sad metal needle in the hand. In the distance, there was a smell, like burning eggs. “Our tyres,” Francis said just once, and no one said anything. Above them, the sky was alive with colours, soaring and whistling through the sky. Brigid thought: perhaps they are the souls of the dead trying to find their way home. But she was not troubled. Her family was close by, and the spirits, if they visited that night, were gentle.

Chapter 13: On Broadway

They whizzed above her, tiny spaceships, zinging along their lines with lightning intent. Brigid could not take her eyes from them, little steel canisters in the air. She would not move.

Isobel said: “Right,” and pulled her arm until she came into the queue for Santa Claus.

“Look at them!” cried Brigid, craning back.

Isobel, still pulling, did not reply, but Francis, a little ahead, heard her. He took his own eyes away from the flying canisters, and turned around: “You’ve seen them before. They’re for sending change and receipts to different parts of the store.”

“I still think they’re magic,” Brigid said.

Francis shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows,” he said. “Maybe they are.”

This much Brigid knew: she and Francis were here, in Robbs’ Store to travel in a spaceship and visit Santa Claus. How this could happen in a shop Brigid did not question: magic could happen anywhere. Still, looking up at Isobel, and her mouth’s unpromising set, Brigid felt faith waver. The queue was long, and hot: before long, she tired of the slow shuffling. She wanted to meet Santa Claus, now. So, when it was suddenly their turn to step into the spaceship, and they zoomed upwards, she was quite taken by surprise. Here was magic, spinning them through space to Santa’s house. Brigid’s heart filled with little fluttering birds. It was almost like being sick: in fact, she thought she would be
sick if it went on any longer. It would have to stop before she . .
. and then it did, just as suddenly as it had begun as, with a shuddering jolt, the spaceship wall opened to show a shining winter kingdom, glittering with bright points of light. And there he wonderfully was, in his warm red fur-tipped coat, and his white, kind, snowy face. His eyes, deep and soft, looked into her as he reached down, and she did not feel sick any more. He put his hand on her head and it was like her grandfather’s, long and cool. Then, he handed her a pink parcel, and he gave Francis a blue one. He put an arm round each of them, drawing them into the warm circle of his arms. For a second Brigid was back with her father, as his eye turned to stone. She felt herself go stiff and cold, until she came back to the winter landscape, to the kindly face of Santa Claus, and he was saying: “What would you like me to bring you for Christmas?”

Brigid took his hand in both of hers, and placed her trust in him. “Please,” she said, “may I have a theatre?”

Francis, in Santa’s other arm, looked quickly towards her, the fading scar beside his eye beating like a pulse: he seemed surprised, but Santa Claus could not be. It was true that in the letter she had written with painstaking care, and which Francis had kindly posted up the chimney for her, she had asked for a doll, but really, until Santa Claus asked her, she did not know that she had changed her mind.

Yet, Francis seemed troubled. “I didn’t know that was what you wanted, Brigid,” he said.

“I didn’t either,” said Brigid. “I just thought of it now,” which was true, and it seemed to her an inspired choice. This way, she could see the stories come alive, without the labour of writing them down.

“Hm,” said Isobel, to no one. “Trust her. Anything to give trouble.”

They had left Santa Claus’s grotto by another door, and now they were on ordinary echoing stairs, green-walled back stairs, and the magic was gone. Brigid, put out, could not think how she had given trouble by answering a question, but she shrugged her shoulders as she had seen Francis do, and was surprised to find that as she did so, her irritation fell away.

Isobel even let them open their presents: Francis had a set of Travel Draughts, Brigid Travel Ludo. There were bigger games like these at home, with stronger boards and bigger pieces: but these were special because Santa had sent them early.

Brigid was content to turn out into the evening, Christmas in the very air of the frosty street, carols in the distant darkening sky. It would not have surprised her to find a host of angels in the gloaming space above her, like the starlings she saw the day Francis was hit; and just as she thought it, Francis touched her elbow.

“See that red light up there?”

She followed his eyes. Sure enough, up above a red light made a trail across the sky.

“That could be him,” he said.

“Isn’t he in there, where we were, with the other children?”

“No,” Francis said. “We were the last. Look behind you.”

Brigid looked, and she saw that the doors of the store were closed. So he could be up there in the sky. She stretched her neck to see, then stopped. Sometimes, it was still painful.

“Does that hurt?” asked Francis. “You shouldn’t do it if it does.”

“Only sometimes,” said Brigid, “if I turn it too far.”

“Don’t then,” said Isobel, not unkindly, taking her hand. “And watch where you’re going.”

There was too much to see to watch where she was going. She stayed craned up towards the sky, until finally, crossly, Isobel tugged her back.

“Brigid,” she said, “in the name of God would you –” and then she stopped, and her voice changed. “Why, hello,” she said, quite softly, and Brigid, looked up and saw Uncle Conor, that crooked tooth gleaming.

“Well, well,” he said and, dropping down to squat before Brigid, he put an arm round her, and drew her to him.

She could not pull away; she did not lean towards him.

“Christmas shopping?” he said, one finger on the pink parcel, loosely rewrapped.

“We’ve been to see Santa Claus, Uncle Conor,” said Francis, but he did not sound happy any more.

“Indeed?” said Uncle Conor. “And am I allowed to know what you asked for?”

Brigid looked at Francis, and both looked at Isobel.

“Oh, you can tell Mr Todd,” said Isobel, in her suddenly girlish voice. Her face was as pink as Brigid’s parcel.

“I asked for a theatre,” said Brigid. “I changed my mind from before.”

Uncle Conor whistled. “Oh?” he said, and his eyebrows went up. “Is that not a bit risky, so close to Christmas?”

Brigid did not understand him.

Francis stepped closer, filling the space next to her. “Well, we know it’s up to Santa Claus to decide what we are given,” he said, very slowly, looking straight at Uncle Conor. “We know he decides.”

Brigid, who knew nothing of the kind, opened her mouth to protest, but Francis’ elbow pressed hers, and she understood. “We know that,” she said.

“Well,” said Uncle Conor, unfolding himself to his great height, “you can never tell what Santa Claus will decide,” and he tipped his hand in salute. “I would see you all home,” he said, “but I have to see a man about a dog.” He turned to Isobel. “I’ll leave them in your good hands, Bella,” he said.

Brigid and Francis, taken aback, exchanged glances and, before anyone stopped her, Brigid said: “Uncle Conor, however did you know that? Nobody calls her that but Francis.”

He looked down at her, one eyebrow far above the other. “Why . . . I must have heard Francis say it, then. My apologies, Miss, to you, and to your brother and – most of all,” here he turned again to Isobel, “to you, Isobel.”

To Brigid’s surprise, Isobel’s smile widened, and her cheeks turned a deeper pink, but she said nothing at all.

With a final, dismissive wave, Uncle Conor turned away, and was quickly swallowed in the evening crowd. The children said their puzzled goodbyes to his back, and followed Isobel’s newly jaunty step through the cold streets to their own bus, scarcely stopping until they sank down, with one sigh, on the dark, hard leather bench. The bus pulled away, the glass of the windows misting beside them.

Brigid, puzzling over something, breathed warm circles on the glass. “Is Uncle Conor getting a dog?” she said, but Francis did not answer, and Isobel did not seem to hear. Her face was soft, her eyes far away. Brigid let it go: she would find out some time if he got the dog. Tired, she leaned towards Francis, watching the evening darken on the hill as they climbed past Broadway, and was almost asleep when her comfortable pillow suddenly jerked itself upright.

“There’s Uncle Conor!” cried Francis.

“Where?” said Isobel, and she twisted in her seat. Brigid, rudely awakened, opened her eyes, pressed with Isobel against the window, and saw that Francis was right. Walking purposefully up Broadway was Uncle Conor, just as he had said, but he was not alone.

“And, Francis, look – Rose!” said Brigid, for Rose was walking with him. Uncle Conor had his hand under her elbow, the way her father took her mother’s arm as they crossed the road. “Rose is with him,” she said, tugging at her brother. “Francis, Rose is with him!” but Francis, staring out, said nothing, and Isobel, silent, seemed suddenly heavy against her. Brigid rapped the window, calling “Rose!”, and Isobel did not stop her, but neither Rose nor Uncle Conor heard her. His hair stood up, brown, springy as heather. Rose’s face wore a smile, her small teeth wide and white, and her eyes were bright. Then, Francis knocked the window, quite sharply. Still, nothing happened. No one turned towards them. The bus moved on, slowly, inexorably and the figures of Rose and Cornelius Todd, close together, like dancers just taking the floor, grew smaller and more distant until they were just a speck in the dimming light. With one instinct, the children turned for explanation to Isobel: but Isobel said nothing. Her face was not pink any more, but white. She was white as Miss Chalk. The children looked at each other, and kept quiet.