The Friday Tree (25 page)

Brigid swallowed, and stopped.

“For a start, nobody makes you do anything. You chose to go hoking. Remember that.”

Brigid breathed hard, but said nothing. She knew Ned Silver had made her.

“Next. Those were his clothes you found. They were the clothes he was wearing when he died. The white thing was his collar, a stiff collar. Daddy has some a bit like it.”

“It jumped,” said Brigid, still stung. “Collars don’t jump.”

“They don’t if you leave them be. Anyway, Laurence died when the
Princess Victoria
went down in a storm coming from Scotland. It was just a few miles from the shore, at the Copeland Islands, nearly home, but it was a terrible storm, and it hit all round the coast of here and Scotland and England, and lots of people died. The boy who lights the lamps outside?”

“Bobby? Bobby we said hello to one day?”

“Bobby, yes. You remember Bobby told us about that night? When every lamp he lit was put out, and he had to climb up in the storm and light them all again?”

She nodded: “He said it went down.” She had not forgotten Bobby: the storm raging, the boy clinging to the pole. Now, finally, she knew what it meant to be lost, and she knew where the
Princess Victoria
had gone, and why Laurence was lost. It went down to the bottom of the sea, and to be lost was to be dead. “Francis,” she said. “I’m sorry, Francis. I am, really. Don’t be cross.”

“I’m not cross,” he said, in surprise. “I’ve nothing to be cross about. I’m only telling you, so you understand. Anyway, just don’t hoke. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Brigid, and then Francis got up, and the light came flooding into the room, and she scrambled down. As she landed on the floor, she said: “Francis, did anybody else we know die?”

“On the
Princess Victoria
? Well, Ned’s mother, for one.”

Brigid was silent.

“And now you know why Ned gets away with things we never will, and why nobody ever gets cross with him.”

Brigid felt a hot wave of jealousy: Ned was probably still enjoying Christmas on her family’s farm. Their tree might even still be up. Then she checked herself: he had no mother, and his father was always away.

“Is that why his father is always away?” she said. “In Egypt?”

“I suppose so. But, he has a big job – there’s a lot about Egypt in the news, and he has something to do with the government.”

The government, like Ireland, meant the end of interest for Brigid. She said she would be good, and when he replied that it would help if she meant it, said that she did mean it, and then she left his room.

It seemed to Brigid that Blessed Oliver looked down almost kindly as she walked beneath him. She was fairly penitent: perhaps that had impressed Blessed Oliver.

Nonetheless, for the rest of that day, in the flatness of winter without Christmas, she continued to wonder about the
Princess Victoria
: how it came to be lost, what happened to all the people, what happened to her almost-uncle whose death made Granda and Daddy and Laetitia so sad. Yet, with the feeling of one who has had a narrow escape, she thought it best not to raise the subject again.

January settled in, and life picked up again. Isobel came most days as before, but she no longer stayed overnight. Too late for Christmas, proper snow came, and the world for a time sparkled and shone. Then the weather worsened. Every day the newspaper told of gales hitting the coast, ships struggling in distress. Slates like sharp knives flew from roofs, walls tumbled in the fury of the wind. Dustbins fell helpless on their sides, trees blew across the roads, travel was discouraged. There were fuel shortages. Sometimes, miraculously, there was no school.

By the middle of the month, it was even worse. At breakfast one Sunday, their father picked up the newspaper, then set it down and, abruptly, stood up and left the room. The children heard him call their mother.

Francis picked up the paper. “‘
The air was filled with SOS messages from all around the British coast
,’” he read. “‘
For the first time in living memory, the island on which the Copeland lighthouse stands was completely submerged.
’”

The Copeland Islands. That was where Francis said the
Princess Victoria
went down. The children, looking at one another in silence, stayed sitting still until their father came back in, alone, and sat down.

Almost immediately, he got up again. “I think I’ll take a drive down to see my father.”

His wife, coming slowly into the room, stopped in the doorway. “You’re not serious, Maurice. In that weather?”

He stood up, patting his pocket, tightening his tie. “Oh, talk sense,” he said. “Didn’t we make it out to Mass this morning?”

“Yes, just about, but . . .”

“But nothing. I’ve been waiting for the weather to settle since Christmas. I want to go down and see my family, and I can wait no longer. They need a visit round this time. You know that as well as I do.”

“Well, I . . . Isobel isn’t here today. I thought I’d rest . . .”

“Rest, then,” said her husband, buttoning his jacket. “The children will come with me, and you’ll have plenty of time to rest,” and before their mother could protest he had shooed the children out to get hats and gloves and warm coats, and they, surprised and delighted, were in the car before they knew it, rolling in the sharp wind through the drumlins and the bare whipping trees, down to where the sea sent up high spray, and they could taste the salt in the air.

Their good humour lasted until they went through the door their grandfather, unsurprised and clearly pleased, opened to them. Yet, from the kitchen, its door almost closed, there was no sound. They looked at each other, sure that Laetitia was in there, and equally sure she was not going to come out to greet them. Their grandfather, without a word, closed the door to the kitchen and, taking Brigid’s hand and Francis’ shoulder, led them across the hall to the tall long-case clock.

“Did you ever see how I wind it up?” he said.

Brigid and Francis stood beside him as he inserted the key, like a letter Z, into two holes on the clock’s white face. They stood watching the great weights move up the inside, the sun and moon inching round the dial, and the pendulum ticking away undisturbed as if its insides were not being moved around. High above them, on the top of the clock, a brown wooden eagle stood poised for flight. Then the clock struck, clear and bell-like, eleven times, and though it echoed around the hall and the whole house, it could not erase the bitter silence from the kitchen.

Brigid’s father, slapping his pocket, said, “Right. I’ve had enough of this,” and he opened the kitchen door. A warm rush of cooking, like meat, or onions, filled the air. The door closed behind him, but the voices were clear.

“What are the histrionics about now?”

“He didn’t read out the name. I gave him the name for the prayers, and he didn’t read it out.”

“He probably did. You were probably asleep. Probably snoring.” His tone, dismissive, was familiar to Brigid. For a second, she thought of Ned Silver.

“I was not asleep, though I could have been, up since the crack of dawn, cooking and . . . Ah, what do you care? It’s all right for you, taking it easy.”

“Yes. I take it very easy,” Brigid heard her father say. “That’s why I drove down here in a winter gale. Well, if the priest didn’t read out Laurence’s name, or if he did, would it bring him back? We all lost him. Not just you.”

The door opened, and the smell of cooking wafted out once more. Laetitia swept into the hall, then stopped as she saw Brigid and Francis. Ignoring them, she stood, her face white.

“Make some tea, Tish, will you?” said Brigid’s grandfather, and he calmly replaced the key on top of the clock.

In silence, uncertain, Brigid looked up at her father, emerging from the kitchen.

“Make tea. That’s all I ever hear,” Laetitia said, her eyes on Brigid. “You back to go hoking where you’ve no business?” It was her only greeting. She turned to Francis, her face for an instant softening, then again to Brigid, and there was little liking there.

Silent, taken aback, the children watched her turn away and, once more, the kitchen door closed.

“I’m not having any more of this nonsense,” said their father. He rapped on the door, then pushed it until it stood open.

Their Aunt Laetitia stood there, unconcerned by the bubbling and steaming of the pots on the stove. She was looking from the window at the grey and sullen sky. One hand held a lighted cigarette, the other sat on her hip, the peppery tweed of her slim skirt skimming her body, one leg elegantly pointed, like a dancer’s. The grey-and-dark striped hair showed starkly clear, as she turned round, walked towards them, then closed the door of the kitchen in their faces.

Brigid’s grandfather joined his son. Together, they stood looking at the door.

“Pop,” said the children’s father, “what started it this time?”

The grandfather sighed. “What starts it any time?” he said. “I could say it’s the time of the year, and the weather. I could say it’s reading about the Copeland Island lighthouse.” He sighed again, heavily. “I could say that the young priest did forget to read out Laurie’s name in the list of the anniversaries.”

“She said that . . . but I don’t see . . . it’s not the anniversary yet,” said his son, puzzled.

“No, but Laetitia got it into her head that . . . the weather lately . . . she . . . and, oh, I don’t know. I could say it was any number of things, but really what it is, is . . . her.”

Brigid said: “Are we going to stay, Daddy? It’s hot in our coats.”

Her father looked down, as if he had forgotten her. “Coats,” he said, absently. “Yes, take them off,” and he took off his own, and hung it by the mirror. He did not bother to hang it by its loop. “Ah, Pop,” he said, still standing in the hall, running his hand through his hair, “can you and she not agree, even at this hard time of the year?”

“I think it’s because it is this hard time of the year,” the grandfather said quietly and, taking Brigid by the hand, he led her into the sitting room and sat her on his knee.

Francis did not follow them. Brigid heard him go into the kitchen and close the door behind him.

“Granda,” said Brigid, “I’m sorry for hoking the last day I was here.”

“It’s all right, girlie. You’re only a child.”

Brigid said: “I won’t do it again. But . . .”

“But what?”

“But . . . I would like you to tell me about my sort of uncle who was lost.”

She heard her father’s exasperated sigh. He got up, turned his back, and crossed to the window, looking out at the angry sea.

Brigid knew she had taken advantage, and was almost remorseful. Her father would not have told her if she had asked him. Yet, she wanted to know.

Her grandfather sat back and brought her with him. “Laurie. Ah, Laurie. He was like one of my own – a big, gentle boy. I did my best for him, after his parents died. I knew them well, the parents: the father was a far-out connection of my own. They had often been here, and the child with them. He would have played with my two, outside there, the way you would with your brother. Maurice, now, he was older, but Laurie and Tish, they were very close: you never saw one without the other – like you and Francis, or young Silver.”

Brigid, struggling, fought back a strong urge to correct him about Ned Silver, but she managed to stay quiet.

“Then, an aeroplane crash: that’s what killed them. An aeroplane, on the way to Lourdes. The mother, she was very religious – the father, well, he did his best, like most of us. But it was terrible – and Laurie, you see, he was away at school. He had it in his head that he must become a priest: maybe he thought it would please his mother, I don’t know. He was a nice lad, but he wasn’t the easiest to deal with when he got a notion in his head and, God help him, he got a terrible shock when they died. He did go on to Maynooth, and he was ordained, but he found it tough enough. Maybe because of what happened, maybe not. Anyway, he was always able to treat this house as his home, and us as his family. Wasn’t he, Maurice?”

Brigid’s father nodded his head, but said nothing.

“Do you remember, earlier it was to be medicine – nothing would do him but he’d be a doctor? He wanted to do something useful, do you see, Brigid? He wanted to do something for other people. Anyway, a priest is what he became.”

“Laetitia stayed close to him?” Brigid asked, intrigued by this new picture, of a Laetitia who ran about and played, a Laetitia who cared about somebody.

Her grandfather paused before he answered. Her father looked across, watching them both.

“She thought there was no one like him,” said her grandfather, at last.

“What did he think about her?” asked Brigid. “Uncle Laurie?”

Her father was still watching, but she could not read his face.

“Well, he was good with her. They got on well. I think he brought out the best in her. No one’s been able to do that, since he . . . since he left us. And she’s never been the same since, so you need to make allowances.”

Brigid heard her father make a sound that was almost like a snort.