The Friday Tree (32 page)

“Later, for reasons which are none of my business, or any one’s business, your mother was unhappy, and all I know is that she asked Laurence for advice. I know . . . I knew him. I know he would have remembered their friendship. But I also know he was faithful to his work and his calling: and his calling required him to give aid to the suffering. I believe they both died on the day he was trying to do just that. Just that, Ned.”

Now, Ned opened his mouth.

“And,” said Brigid’s grandfather, raising his hand to prevent interruption, “I know you know she asked him for help, because you . . . borrowed the piece of paper which was in Laurence’s effects. Isn’t that right?”

Ned hung his head, and nodded. He had flushed a dull red.

“Have you got it? The paper?”

Ned, reddening even more, shook his head: “I’m sorry, Mr Arthur. I tore it up.”

“Well,” said the old man. He sighed, and tapped his foot on the ground. “Well. No matter. It may have been for the best.” He looked up again, and the skin round his eyes was damp. “Do you remember what it said?”

Ned looked at the floor. His voice was very low. “It said: ‘
Laurie. I’ve tried. Please help me. Stranraer. Sat. P. Vic. Myra.
’”

Brigid remembered the piece of paper that Ned had taken away. She remembered the word ‘Myra’, in its bold black hand.

“And that is why he set out on that Saturday to come home on the
Princess Victoria
, earlier than he needed to, in order to answer a call for help. He did his best. If he could have, I believe he would have saved your mother. It is what I would have expected from him, and what I would expect from myself, or my son, or from Francis, or from little Brigid there, if the situation were the same, or from you, Ned. But, because Laurence was a clergyman, a dedicated servant of God, he tried to do more, and he lost his life. That I would never have wanted, or expected, of him or anyone, Catholic, or Protestant, or any of the world’s religions you care to name.”

Ned’s head was sunk on his chest, his knees bent as if they would buckle.

“Come over here,” said Brigid’s grandfather, and Ned, head down, went to him, like a much smaller child than he was.

Brigid saw her grandfather put his hand on Ned’s head, and, reaching in his fob pocket, take out his watch. He looked at the time, unhooked the round silver moon from his buttonhole, and then handed it, shining, to Ned.

Ned looked up, the dark bruise vivid in his white face.

“I lent this to you once to play with. Do you remember?”

Ned said: “Sir, I . . .”

“Take it now and play with it, if you like, till it’s time for us to go the hospital. Then you can bring it back.”

Ned looked up. His eyes showed blue again, clear as the sky. “Thank you, Mr Arthur,” he said, and he moved backwards.

“Ned Silver,” said Brigid’s father, and his eyes were hard, “you’re a lucky boy it wasn’t me you had to deal with. Never let me hear of you saying anything about my family, or our Church, or for that matter anybody’s Church, ever again.”

Ned, whose eyes had darkened again momentarily, flinched a little. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said.

“And to Francis?”

Ned breathed in, and turned to Francis. “I’m sorry, Francis,” he said.

“I am too, Ned,” said Francis, and he held out his hand.

Ned took it quickly, and then he ran out of the room.

“You can say goodbye to your watch,” said Brigid’s father, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Bigoted little brat.”

“We’ll see,” said her grandfather. He spread his long hands out on the table, and looked at them for a long time.

After that strange morning Brigid found herself torn between relief at being the onlooker rather than the miscreant and jealousy at Ned’s good fortune in getting away with it and being allowed to play with the watch. She struggled with even more jealousy that he was going to see Davy Crockett, and she was glad to get out of the room, and leave her father and grandfather in their companionable silence. Francis was sent upstairs to change, and Brigid, in the confusion of solitude, wandered out to the garden. She expected, though she did not wish, to encounter Isobel. Yet, Isobel was nowhere to be seen. Brigid, standing in the garden, was surprised to see her emerge from the corner where she and Francis had once, in the summer, climbed over the fence into the plot. Isobel looked equally taken aback, and not at all pleased.

“What are you doing here?” said Isobel, sharply. “Spying on me?”

“No,” said Brigid, with indignation. “I was just . . .”

“Brigid!” called her father’s voice from the back door. “What are you doing out there? Come on, get in the car. We’re going across to see your mama.”

Brigid, turning to go down the steps, thought she glimpsed from the corner of her eye another figure, like a man, just moving out of sight on the other side of the fence. There was no time to look. It must be Mr Doughty, or Mr Steele. She ran down the steps, ready to get in the car. Yet, as she climbed in, it occurred to her that the person was not dressed to work in the plot, as Mr Doughty and Mr Steele would be. She thought she had glimpsed a tweed coat and, for a moment, with a bright stab of memory, she remembered George Bailey, whom she had not seen since the day he was her angel.

Her father drove. His grey hat nodded to her grandfather’s black hat, their faces hidden beneath the brims, then both hats turned to face forward. Easter Monday: there was very little traffic on the road. It was quiet, and the sun shone even on the streets down town.

Francis, looking out, said suddenly, “I love it when it’s quiet like this.”

Their grandfather’s hat turned so that they could see half his face. “It’s not always a good sign,” he said.

Their father’s hat nodded.

“You remember that?” said their grandfather, and their father’s hat nodded again.

“Too well. And if the Orangemen get their way and march again on the Longstone Road . . .”

“Which they will. It’s shaping up to be hot round the border towns. I’ve always said, it could all happen again.”

“What could all happen again?” asked Brigid.

No one answered. Brigid nudged Francis in the ribs. He had started this and now took no part. He went on looking out the window, as if nothing interested him more than the writing on the advertisement hoardings and then, quite suddenly, he turned and caught Brigid’s arm: “Look!” he cried. “Look, Brigid! It’s Davy Crockett!”

Brigid craned past his arm and saw a scene from a dream. There, before her eyes, was Davy Crockett, hand to his raccoon hat, musket in hand, diving into a car outside Robbs’ store, and behind him was a crowd of children, shouting his name and waving papers and their own, smaller hairy-tailed hats.

“Holy cats,” said Brigid’s father. “What the . . . ?”

“Drive, Maurice,” said his father. “It’s some kind of publicity business for a picture they’re showing. I saw something about it in the paper. Don’t get caught up in that.”

Brigid and Francis, holding on to each other, were entranced. 

“Francis,” said Brigid, “is it really him?”

“It looks very like him,” said Francis. “I think it is him! But why’s he running away? Look, Brigid, look. It’s him, it is him!” 

Brigid had not seen Francis so excited since the day Dicky flew into the plot. She looked, but all she saw was a car door shutting.

“Daddy, please,” Francis cried. “Please stop the car!”

“I’ll stop the car for no actor,” said his father, sharply. “I’m surprised at you, Francis, and your poor mother in the hospital. If it were Brigid, I could understand.”

Francis, his face reddening, slackened his hold on Brigid, and sank back in the seat.

Brigid thought: Stop for me, then. I want to get out. I want to see Davy Crockett. But she glimpsed the stony profile in the mirror, and stayed silent, her breath matching that of Francis, fast and beating in the back of the car. 

Slowly, irrevocably, the car pulled away. Brigid and Francis stared hopelessly from the window at the other car, Davy Crockett’s car, and the noisy, jostling posse behind it. Brigid, longing with all her heart to be part of that joyous crowd, suddenly saw among them a familiar figure. As Davy’s car slid around a corner, Brigid was sure that the loudest shouter and the foremost pursuer was Ned Silver, Ned Silver himself.

“Oh,” she said to Francis. “Oh, Francis. It must have been him. It must have been Davy Crockett. Ned Silver said he was going to see him, but I didn’t know it was the real one,” and she leaned back against Francis’ shoulder because, for once, he had nothing to say that could comfort her, and she cried silently, inside her head, until they arrived at the hospital. Leaning against his shoulder, it seemed to her that Francis was crying inside his head too. 

The hospital was an old building, full of crannies: a warren, her father called it. They went up winding stairs, and more stairs, smelling of darkness, and then they were brought into a little room, a cosy room with a fire in the grate. Outside it was spring, but in this big old building, the fire warmed the chill of the hospital. To Brigid’s joy, there was Mama, her hair lying flat and straight on her head, her eyes tired, but still Mama, and that look was gone from her, that look of being in another world. Brigid was glad: she’d had enough of that. She ran towards her, until checked by her father.

“You’ll hurt your mama, doing that,” he said.

“Oh, let her come on,” said her mother, and she reached out her other arm to Francis, who allowed himself to be circled into her with Brigid, into her lavender smell and her warm safety.

Their father and grandfather sat together formally, on two chairs, their hats on their knees, as if they were waiting for a train, until the children emerged, all in a tangle, and Brigid slid onto her grandfather’s knee, and Francis stayed by his mother, holding her hand.

Beside their mother was a tray of food, barely touched. “Can you not eat yet, Grace?” asked their father.

“Not too hungry yet,” said their mother, then lifted her fingers as she had often done at home. “I know who might help me, though,” and she motioned them over, and divided out her dinner, which Brigid and Francis obligingly ate.

“I thought Rose would have been here,” said their father, after watching the children for a moment.

“She was, briefly,” said their mother, “but she didn’t stay.”

“Why?” asked their father, and his brow was furrowed. “She left specifically to see you.”

“Well,” said his wife, and Brigid, one eye on the spoon in the custard, one eye on her parents, saw that her mother glanced at her before replying, “she had a visitor here herself. Unless Cornelius Todd happened to be on this side of the town just to see me, which I doubt.”

“He might have been,” said her husband, and Brigid saw her grandfather turn in surprise.

“Yes,” said the children’s mother, plucking idly at the cotton coverlet, “and there might be a blue moon in the sky, too.”

Brigid glanced out the window. She saw the prison, and beyond it the College, Francis’ school. They were like twin buildings: both tall, grim-eyed, brick-built buildings, blocking out the sky. Between them there was a patch of blue: but there was no blue moon. Her eye drifted down to the street below the hospital and there she saw, unmistakably, even to her limited sight, the tall broad form of Uncle Conor. He was alone. He was not with Rose. Brigid sensed Francis beside her, and knew that he, too, had seen this. His eyes met hers and, without a word, they stayed quiet.

“What are you two at, over there?” said their mother.

“Looking over at the College, Mama,” said Francis, with a warning glance at Brigid, who did not need to be told to say nothing.

She could see her mother was tired. She had blue shadows under her eyes, like the bruise on Ned Silver’s face, and when a nurse, a small neat lady like Rose, came in with tea, they followed their father’s signal and got up, and hugged their mother again, and let themselves be shepherded out.

“When will Mama come home?” asked Brigid.

“When she’s well,” said her father, and nothing more.

He still seemed preoccupied as they went out of the hospital, and at the corner of the road he stalled the car.

The dance of the hats began again.

“Did you stall the car, there?” said their grandfather’s hat.

“You saw that I did,” came from the other one, and then there was silence.

He started the car up again.

At the main road another car, big, black and sleek, stopped suddenly, and Brigid and Francis shot forward as their father slammed the brakes. The car died again. “Holy cats!” said their father.

“Maurice, what are you doing?” said their grandfather, and Brigid heard fear in his voice.

“I didn’t see him,” said their father.

“Then get those eyes checked,” said the grandfather, his face fully visible in profile below the black hat, his voice strong as it had been when he spoke to Ned Silver, “before you take these children in the car again.”

They drove home in a silence heavy as an argument. At the house, the adults got out first, and still no one spoke. Her grandfather opened the back door of the car, and put out his hand to Brigid.