The Friday Tree (29 page)

Chapter 19: The Easter House

On the morning of Easter Sunday, Brigid woke to the sound of her uncle’s steady tread, then the hurtling of feet: Francis and Ned were up. First there was to be breakfast, then Mass.

Brigid and Francis started to get ready: Ned did not.

“Aren’t you coming?” said Brigid, rubbing her mouth with her sleeve.

“Ned goes to his own church,” said Rose, lifting Brigid’s hand away and scrubbing her face with something quite rough. “Go all three of you and clean your teeth. Quickly now. Do you not hear the bells?”

“His own church? By himself?” asked Brigid, getting up. She felt a prickle of envy, though for which of these two freedoms she did not know. “Is he allowed to go by himself?”

“Not by himself,” said a voice at the door, and the light of the April morning was momentarily obscured by the tall form of Cornelius Todd. “Happy Easter,” he said and he leaned across and kissed Rose on her cheek.

Brigid, embarrassed, looked at Francis, but he kept his eyes on a spot above the door.

Cornelius turned to the children. “Ned’ll go with me, won’t you, Master Silver?”

Ned looked up, not at all displeased. “I don’t always go, but . . .”

“You’ll go today,” said Michael’s voice from the door. He wore his Sunday suit, double-breasted, and his hair shone wetly, as if he were a seal. “Good morning, Cornelius,” he said, and his voice was not over-friendly. “Come, children. It’s time we weren’t here.”

Michael stepped outside. They could hear him start the engine, a black, square sound. Rose went to collect her missal and her gloves, and she handed Brigid the hat she disliked, with the elastic that cut her chin. In the hall, pulling it on, Brigid said, as quietly as she could: “Is Ned really not Catholic like us?”

“No,” said Francis. “Why should he be?”

“But Uncle Conor? Is he not?”

“No,” said Francis, without surprise. “Did you think he was?”

Brigid had not thought about it until that moment, and it had never occurred to her that people she knew went to different churches. Unless, she thought, as she climbed into the back seat of Michael’s car, there just was not room for everybody in one.

Slowly and carefully Michael drove Rose, Brigid and Francis down the hill, along the broad road past the slanting gravestones, and into the quiet white church. He led Francis to one side where the men sat; Brigid took Rose to sit on the other with the women. They could have sat together: there were plenty of seats. Brigid, baffled, gave up trying to comprehend, and settled for the dreaming doze of Mass, remembering only to kneel and stand when Rose did, and to keep her eyes open when she drifted away. The first thing that interested her, beyond the morning light dancing on the walls, was when they walked up afterwards to the hilly cemetery and stood at their family grave. Brigid could see nothing but smooth grey stone.

Francis took out from his trouser pocket a small piece of chalk, and said: “Okay, Michael?”

Michael nodded. Francis rubbed the chalk over the smooth slate and, as if by magic, Brigid saw the name ‘
Francis’
, and then her uncle’s name, ‘
Durrant
’ and the numbers, ‘
1715’
.

“What does it mean, Michael?” said Brigid.

“It’s the death date of the first of us, two hundred and . . . forty, yes . . . forty, years ago.”

“Two hundred and forty?” cried Brigid. It was an unimaginable number of years.

“Yes,” he said, as if it were nothing at all. “Say your prayers for the happy repose of all their souls. I’d like to get back home for the dinner.” He paused. “But maybe you’re not hungry?”

“Oh, no,” said Brigid, “or yes, I mean, I am!” and she scrambled away in haste down the steep hill, holding on to the slabs as she went, no longer interested in the names or the numbers of the long dead, or anything now but her lunch.

Yet, at first, despite her hunger, Brigid found it hard to concentrate on the food before her. Uncle Conor looked at Rose all the time, as if he owned her, and Michael looked at Uncle Conor as if he did not care for him. Rose looked at neither, concentrating on the children and the serving and clearing of food. Ned and Francis addressed themselves with joy to all she had put before them and, gradually, the smells and the tastes of Rose’s preparation worked on Brigid, too, and she relished every mouthful. At the end of the meal, she was once more content.

Michael, who had stopped looking at Cornelius, turned to Brigid. “Well,” he said, “you were hungry after all. I hope you’ve left a little room for –”

“Michael!” said Rose, and Michael stopped.

“I think I’ll stretch my legs,” he said, “if anyone wants to come for a walk.” Then he was on his feet, a signal that the meal was over.

Cornelius stood up, and Rose began to collect the dishes.

Through the window waved tiny pink blossoms from the orchard: Brigid wanted to be outside. She stood up.

“Now,” Michael said, “who’ll walk down the lane with me?”

“Go you on with the children,” said Rose. “I’ll clear up here. Cornelius?”

Brigid saw her uncle stiffen where he stood, yet he said nothing.

Cornelius looked at Michael, then back to Rose. “Well, no, I think I’ll go into the town. I have a man to see about a dog.”

Still, thought Brigid, still that man and the dog. Rose stopped clearing. Michael stopped still. On the wall, the clock ticked through silence.

“Into the town, here?” Rose said. “Do you mean up to the city?”

There was a brief silence.

“Just the town here,” he said, but he did not look at her, then added, reaching for his overcoat: “I’ve a number of things to do.”

“Just as you wish,” said Rose, her voice devoid of emotion. He got up and left, and she did not see him to the door, or wave him away in his car. Instead she turned to her brother. “I may run over later next door to Jack Polly’s and use his telephone. I’d like to know how things are in the city.”

Home was in the city. “Is Mama coming here tonight?” asked Brigid. “And Daddy?”

Rose tied on an apron. “I told you, Brigid. Your mama is resting at home for a day or two. And you,” she covered the remains of the apple pie, and looked towards the door, “are going for a good walk that nice day with Michael, while I prepare . . .”

Francis, who had been silently listening said, quietly: “A surprise.”

“That’s right,” said Rose. “Now, go, while the day is good.”

Michael, standing, looked over at Rose, and went to the door. His eyes, deep in his head, looked almost navy blue, dark as the clothes he wore, and his long nose when he lifted it had a slight curve. His mouth, too, was long and straight, even when he smiled or laughed, and his laugh carried the sound of his pipe tobacco. “Did I say to you, Rose,” he said, “that I had a dream last night?” He reached for his coat, and lifted the latch on the door.

“Please don’t tell me,” said Rose, brushing down the table.

He was clean and scrubbed in his dark suit yet, despite the scent of soap and the whiteness of his shirt and handkerchief, Michael carried with him the air of the farm – of grass, and earth, and faintly, a scent like the dogs who followed him when he was outside, coming to meet him now as he came through the door. They bowed their narrow heads, black and white, sleekly padding from their house by the gate.

“Good enough,” said Michael. “Tell Jack Polly I’ll be over later to call. Maybe I’ll tell him my dream,” and he ushered the children before him through the door.

Now in the lane there hung the scent of early blossom, drifting from the orchard behind the house and, setting out to climb the long hill, Michael pointed out the ferns and the primroses showing new and damp; the pale fragile flowers played in the light wind, peeping and swaying as the walkers picked their way down the uneven track. Up the hill they went, growing warm, then down, cooler again. The farm was all hills, rising and falling in its own cluster of drumlins. Looking back, it seemed to Brigid the farm lay in hiding behind the hill of the Limekiln Field, with its low grey house where they were not allowed.

Something hooted, and Brigid stood behind Michael. “What was that?” she asked.

Michael said: “Oh, there’s an old lady lives in there. She doesn’t like visitors.”

“In the Limekiln house?” said Brigid. “But . . .”

Ned said: “Could that noise not be a bird?”

But Michael did not reply. He quickened his step, and walked on.

“It could be an owl,” said Francis.

“Do you think there’s lime still in there?” Ned asked, but Michael was still not answering. “Could we see it?”

“Well, I think there is,” said Francis, “but you can’t see it. We’re not allowed there because the lime is in a deep pit.”

“It burns without fire,” said Ned, gleefully. “They use it in prisons, when they hang people. I know! The little old lady is the ghost of a –”

“Stop that,” said Michael, finally turning round. “I think you may be right about the bird. I think it’s an owl. I was mistaken about the little old lady. She’s long gone.”

“Will the dogs know not to go into the pit, Michael?” asked Brigid.

He turned round on the road. “Dogs have more sense,” he said, and they continued on their walk, out beyond the lane on to the road and beyond. Michael was a steady walker, and it seemed to Brigid that he might just keep going. Her feet began to drag, and she was greatly relieved, after what seemed like a long time, to find that he had looped them round, and that they were somehow back at the entrance to their own lane.

“Michael,” said Brigid, as the farm came back into view, “do you want to tell us about your dream?” She took his hand, to encourage him.

He laughed his smoky laugh. “Not if Rose says no. Rose thinks I dream straight, and she could be right.”

Brigid was about to ask him what he meant, when he suddenly lifted her up in his arms and said: “Look across the fields. See the trees at the side of the house? See? The horse chestnuts are putting out their candelabra for you.”

It was true. The trees in blossom were hung with creamy light, like the Easter candles in church.

Brigid stayed high up in Michael’s arms as they rounded the last corner, and together they saw Rose come out with a covered pot. She motioned to Michael. He swung Brigid down, bent to go through the door, and came out a few moments later with a shovel of coal.

“Mind now,” he said. “We want no catastrophes.” He took the pot over to the side of the haggard, to a little hollow before a big branchy tree, where Rose had made a ring of stones. The fire was laid in this and the pot, which was filled with water, put on it.

Rose told the children to sit on stools Michael had carried out to them. “This is our Easter House,” she said. “We always did this, with your grandparents, and your mama, and Michael.”

“And James, God rest him,” Michael added.

The pot was beginning to bubble.

“You have another brother?” asked Brigid. Where were they coming from, all these brothers?

Rose shook her head. “He was our uncle. He’s dead now. He lived a while in New York.”

“Why?” asked Brigid.

“A farm can’t keep all that many people,” said Michael. “Some have to go out foreign.”

Ned said: “Did you ever go out foreign, Mr Durrant?”

Michael said: “I had no call to go anywhere. The wireless and the newspaper will tell me all I need to know. Why would I want to go running about the world?”

“What happened to your uncle?” said Ned.

“He came home from America, very sick, and he died,” said Rose. “We don’t need to go into that now.”

Michael, ignoring his sister, said: “The night he died, I was sent on my bicycle for the doctor. I cycled and then I walked the bicycle up the hill – just the way we did today – and as I walked my uncle James walked up the hill beside me.”

Brigid could not understand. “How, Michael? How did he walk if he was sick?”

Michael looked at her in surprise. “He didn’t. It was his spirit walked beside me. I went on and got the doctor and, when I came home with him, sure enough James had died that time.”

Brigid, not entirely comfortably, thought back to Hallowe’en, and wished again that the dead would stay where they were put, and not go round annoying people. Yet, nobody else was troubled.

Rose certainly was not, lifting perfect brown eggs into the blue-and-white eggcups. “Don’t heed him,” she said. “He dreams straight. You know that.”

“Rose, did you go over to Jack Polly and telephone to the city?” said Michael, unperturbed.

“Not yet,” said Rose. “I will after this.”

“Did you put onion skins in the pot, by the way?” asked Michael.

“No need. Those need nothing but fresh air and the hot water.”

“Grandma always put them in,” said Michael, and he knocked his pipe against the stone beside him. “I’ll telephone, if you like, when I go over later to see Jack.”

“Well, maybe you would, when you’re over there, and I’ll stay with the children,” said Rose. “Eat up now, you three, eat your Easter eggs.”

Brigid, warm in the shade of the haggard and the sheltering trees, saw why she had been told to leave some room: she wished she had. The house sat low and content, and the dogs snoozed in a patch of light. High up, the rooks were calling that it was time to make a nest, and the apple trees, tinged with pale pink, sat like young girls in spring dresses. Tea, and eggs and wheaten bread left the children sleepily content, yet when, from somewhere on her person, Rose produced little sugar eggs, pink and white, they found even more room. Michael lit his pipe, and lay back against the tree, and one of the dogs curled in beside his feet. Everything grew still, and time stopped.