The Friday Tree (30 page)

A voice above them broke the peace. Between them and the sun came a cold shadow. The shadow moved, the heat came back, and Cornelius Todd stood above them. Brigid thought: he always stands in our light. Yet, he was smiling, his glinting crooked tooth showing at the side of his mouth. His hands were behind his back, and then they swung round, holding three boxes: two were pirate ships, in jewelled paper, and one was a basket of card, painted with primroses and violets. He handed them to the children, and they saw with delight that each one held a chocolate egg.

Michael got up, buttoning his waistcoat. He did not seem pleased. Neither did Rose, her face pink, a little flushed. Michael said nothing, but Rose, unsmiling, spoke: “That’s too much sweet stuff, Cornelius. They’ve been eating all day. It was good of you, but really, they . . .”

“It’s from . . . Grace sent them. I saw her.”

Here was silence. The Easter House and its glowing embers seemed to fade, and the air grew cold. Brigid felt a shiver run through her.

“My sister? You went to the city?” said Rose.

Cornelius looked at the children. Michael, his pipe between his teeth, walked towards the house.

“Go and play, children,” said Rose.

No one argued.

Rose and Cornelius stood silently looking at each other.

“Bags first on the swing,” said Ned.

“No, you don’t,” cried Brigid, and she scrambled to her feet – but Francis was ahead of her.

“On you go,” said Michael. “I’m going to bring in the cows. Don’t fall off.”

“The cows! Can I come?” asked Francis at once, and when Michael nodded he swung into step with him.

Brigid was left with Ned, already on the swing.

“Push,” he said. “I’ll give you a turn in a minute.”

Brigid, angry and frustrated, pushed.

“If you want a turn, you’d better push harder,” said Ned.

She pushed until her arms hurt, then she stopped.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Ned.

“You push,” she said, and folded her arms.

“Oh, Brigid,” said Ned, sliding off the seat. “I do love it when you’re bossy. Get on the swing.”

She pulled the swing to a halt, and hitched herself into the seat. Ned immediately sent her flying into the air with a mighty push, nearly unseating her, and the swing spun in the air.

As she swung drunkenly back towards him, she heard him say: “I know what’s happening.”

She swung away. “What?” she said, flying higher and higher out over the wall. “Don’t spin
me,” but each time she came back, Ned pushed harder. “What is it you know?” she asked, breathless, the world reeling.

“It’s simple,” said Ned. “Your mother’s having a . . .”

Brigid swung away and did not hear the rest.

She did not see Rose walk towards the swing until she was almost upon them. Rose put out a hand, gradually slowing the swing, and the crazy hills and spinning trees came quietly back into order. Brigid sat, out of breath, her head still running in circles. Far away by the dying Easter House, Uncle Conor stood alone, one foot kicking at the ring of stones.

“Down from there,” said Rose, her voice sharp. “That was too high. There could have been an accident, and then what would I have told your mother? Come inside.”

There was no point in telling her it was Ned’s fault. She did not sound like Rose, and her face was white, and Brigid did not think she would listen if she did tell her.

“Ned, you pig,” said Brigid. “What’s my mother having?”

As if she had not spoken Ned stood still, his eyes on Rose, stooping as she bent below the lintel. He said nothing, his eyes swivelling to Cornelius, still standing by the dying embers of the Easter House.

The air had cooled: the day was ending. Brigid, irrationally disappointed in something, trailed with Ned into the house.

From somewhere came the sound of the cows coming home: she could see Francis with Michael, back in his working clothes. Their shoulders were touching, their heads together, over by the byre, and Brigid wished she had gone with them rather than stayed with Ned. They would probably go on and visit kind Jack Polly in the next farm, and she would be left out.

“Ned,” she said again, “what is my mother having?”

Ned, looking away from Cornelius, seemed not to understand the question at first. Then he shrugged. “How do I know? A rest, probably – a good rest from you,” and he slid away before Brigid could reach him.

She sat alone at the window, wondering how it was that all the good had gone out of their Easter day.

Brigid was glad to get to bed that night. She curled beneath the eiderdown, waiting for Rose. Drifting towards sleep she thought, or dreamed, that she heard Rose’s voice: “Because you lied. You lied. I cannot trust you to tell me the truth.” She dreamed she heard Uncle Conor: “I didn’t lie. I changed my plans – and I brought you news of your sister,” and Rose’s reply: “You did. There are places in the world where they kill the bringer of bad news. Did you know?” Brigid, falling towards sleep, thought she heard Uncle Conor’s engine starting, widening out into the night, leaving the air empty but for the sound, distant but distinct, of a woman’s weeping.

Chapter 20: Dreaming Straight

That night, Brigid dreamed that she wakened in the yard and the house was a ruin. It stood blackened and eyeless, the orchard in bloom but overgrown, choked with nettles and docken leaves. No hens pecked across the yard, no dogs lay in the sunshine, no cattle brayed from the byre, and from the chimney there rose no smoke. In her dream the farm was silent, and everyone was gone. The only noise she heard was the ragged cawing of rooks, circling the orchard, the chestnut tree and all the unheeded blossom. In her dream she knew she was alone, her parents gone from her, her grandfather, Rose and Michael. Worst of all, in her dream, Francis was gone. She would never see him again. Brigid came out of sleep as she had gone in, to the sound of weeping, and found that it was now herself, the pillow wet when she woke.

She threw back the covers, got out and pulled open the door and, suddenly, in the ticking quiet of the morning, everything became itself again. In the kitchen, Francis stood by the window watching Michael outside, and Rose, stretched on her tiptoes, was lifting down a suitcase from a high shelf. So: they were to go back home. That was all right. Brigid suddenly longed for the smell of her own house, for the faded red of the carpet on the stairs, the light through the blinds in the morning; the black and white tiles of the hall; Dicky complaining in his cage; Isobel truculent by the sink; Daddy reading the news; Mama, thoughtful in the kitchen; the Friday Tree, steady as a sentinel at the back of the plot.

With an effort, she brought herself back to Tullybroughan. The front door was open. Standing there, just sheltered from the soft drizzle, she could see where their Easter House had been, the ring of blackened stones cold, stained and dampened by a fall of rain in the night. A blackbird sang in the hedge. Michael, outside the door, was hefting a milk churn to be taken to the road, the hens were clucking and a proud cockerel crew. Michael straightened. The rooster, picking his way across the stones, crew again.

“Good morning, lazybones,” Michael said. “I thought you were going to stay in bed all day.”

Brigid looked down at her pyjamas. She shook her head, tumbling its untidy hair all about her face. “No,” she said. “I’m getting up, now. Why does she do that?”

“Why does who do what?”

“That hen.” Brigid indicated the rooster. “The big one. Why does she make that noise?”

“That’s a rooster,” he said. “That’s no hen. ‘A whistling woman and a crowing hen, good for neither beasts nor men’,” and without further comment he began to move on to his work.

“Michael,” called Brigid, and he turned to look at her. She hesitated. She did not know quite what she wanted to ask.

“What is it?” he said. “Do you want to go with me on the tractor?”

She pointed to her pyjamas, and shook her head again. “Michael,” she began once more, “could this farm ever be empty, ever be a ruin?”

Michael reached down to the place where the wall met the yard, and pulled out green leaves. “There’s some good mint for you,” he said. “That’s near as good for you as toothpaste.”

“Could it?” asked Brigid, again. The leaves did smell of toothpaste.

Michael straightened, looked up at the greying sky, raised his hand to the mizzling rain, and said: “That rain’s on for the day. No. Not while I’m alive, it couldn’t.”

Brigid was not quite satisfied by this answer. “Michael,” she said, “when you dream straight, do you know it?”

He said, steadily, no laughter about him: “When you dream straight, you know it.” He resumed his measured walk towards the haggard, calling back over his shoulder: “Still, you’re safer telling no one. People aren’t that happy with straight dreams, or the ones who dream them.” He moved on, leaning forward with a straight back, feet turned slightly out as if, already, he were behind his plough.

Soon after breakfast, Michael stood once more in the yard, checked that the boot was closed and pushed shut the doors of Rose’s car. “Safe home,” he called, and stood with one arm raised as the tyres crunched on the gravel. From the hilly lane, turning to wave, Brigid watched the farm go away from her with a rush of regret, the dream of the night before suddenly reality, and the firm certainties of her life elusive as shadow. White and clean as the house stood behind the apple-blossom, wiry and strong as Michael looked at the gate, she had seen the farm old and empty, broken and neglected, and no one could promise her it would not be so. Easter eggs, Easter House, dogs and tractors and the rooster’s crow could all disappear, like the life in the house of her other grandparents, lonely and empty by the water’s edge. And, mild though the morning was, Brigid felt cold.

The journey home was faster than the journey down, hedges filling with a fresh green, rooks building high, hidden birds sending one to the other their songs of the summer to come. The children were quiet: Francis thoughtful, Ned sleepy, his sharp shoulder turned from Brigid, no sound but the steady thrumming of the car’s engine. Yet, when they began to see the signs for home, Brigid felt gladness return.

As they stopped outside the house, and the engine died away, Rose turned round in the car. “Now Ned, hop in to Mrs Mulvey, like a good boy, and I’ll see you soon.” She smiled her wide smile. “Won’t I?”

To Brigid’s surprise, Ned, uncurling, leaned forward and placed his straight arms as near as he could round Rose’s neck, and kissed her cheek. Why everyone was going round kissing Rose, all of a sudden, was a mystery to Brigid, especially as Rose seemed to have no objection. She put her hand up to pat his cheek and Brigid saw, to her surprise, that she wore no sparkling ring. She forgot about it again, almost immediately, as Ned climbed over her to get out on the safe side of the car, scraping her knee with his sandal and digging his elbow into her ribs.

“Pig, Ned,” she spat, and he stood on her foot.

Ned turned as he got out of the car and suddenly, to her surprise and disgust, kissed her too, loudly and wetly. She drew her hand across her mouth. “You love it,” he said into her ear, then, “I’m going to see Davy Crockett, and you’re not, so there,” but before Brigid, red-faced, could register any protest, he had turned away. “Bye, Francis,” he said, sliding out of the car. Then he suddenly said: “Can I write to you from school?” and he caught Francis’ shoulder.

Francis said: “Yes, Ned, why not?” just as if Ned were not a horrible boy who was going to see Davy Crockett when they were not.

Rose was nearly as bad. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “But Ned, wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to Francis about
today
? Maybe Francis might bring your case up to your room for you?”

Brigid saw Ned Silver pause before nodding his head, and she saw Francis turn in surprise to Rose. He had rarely been in Ned Silver’s house, and he was obviously puzzled about why Rose wanted him to go now; but he said nothing, got out of the car with Ned, and went off into the next-door house with him.

Brigid, angry and once more excluded, made to follow the boys out of the car, but Rose did not move to go with her. Instead, she tapped her hand on the front seat, and said: “Hop in here a minute, Brigid.”

Brigid scrambled over the armrest and slid into the seat beside Rose.

“Rose,” she said, sure of at least some sympathy, “Ned says he’s going to see Davy
Crockett. Ned’s going to see him and we’re not. It isn’t fair. He gets everything.” She put her hands to her eyes, knuckling the fists, conscious that a wrong had been done. She was put out when Rose lifted her hands away, quite firmly, almost impatiently.

“Brigid,” said Rose. “Stop your nonsense and listen. I don’t know anything about this Davy Crockett business. Stop it now. Listen. Mama is not at home at the moment, and I don’t need any fuss from you. No, don’t say anything till I’m finished. She’s resting.”

“Not in the house?” asked Brigid, puzzled.

“She’s in hospital for a few days,” said Rose. “She hasn’t been well, but she’s getting better, and she will soon be home.”

“But why?” asked Brigid. “She wasn’t sick when we went down to the farm.”

Rose paused, drew a deep breath, and swallowed. Brigid saw her neck, without ornament, move up and down.