The Friday Tree (33 page)

“Granda,” she said, as he handed her out, “were they bad, the things that happened that could happen again?”

He said nothing for a moment, and then he said: “They were.”

“And could they happen again? Really?”

“Brigid,” said her father from the gate, and his voice was impatient, “are you going to stand out there the whole evening?”

“I hope and I pray that they will not, girlie,” said her grandfather, and he placed his hand on her shoulder.

Brigid, her hand on the car door handle, silver and straight against the shining grey panel, stood her ground.

“Granda,” she said, and her voice sounded desperate even to herself, “do you dream straight?”

Her grandfather took her hand in his. “I don’t know what you mean, girlie,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go in.” He guided her gently through the gate, and she heard him say again to his son: “Get you those eyes checked, for the love of God.”

Before her father could reply, a small figure slid suddenly through the hedge and, to Brigid’s astonishment, she saw Ned Silver place something round and gleaming into her grandfather’s hand, and just as swiftly she saw him disappear through the hedge, as though he had never been there.

Chapter 22: Brigid of the Flowers

The day after they saw Davy Crockett down town, Francis knocked on the door of Brigid’s room. “Want to hear the latest?” he said, putting his head round the door. On his face was a slight smile.

“Latest what?” said Brigid, puzzled.

Francis flapped out the newspaper as she had seen their father do.“‘
Crush for Crockett
’,” he read. “‘
Davy’s Dash from Stampeding Children
’.”

Brigid sat up. “So it was really him?” Her disappointment returned.

“Listen,” said Francis. “It’s good.” He cleared his throat, flapped the paper as their father did, and began to read: “‘
Traffic was brought to a standstill, women fainted and children were parted from their mothers yesterday afternoon as over four thousand children milled round the premises of Messrs. Robbs, Castle Place, some of them for over two hours, for the arrival of Fess Parker, star of the Walt Disney film, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. As they pushed and scuffled for a better position, the children kept chanting ‘We want Davy’. Before Davy arrived, however, glass in a front door of the store was smashed and police had a difficult time keeping the highly excited children under control.
Fess Parker, complete with Davy Crockett hat and gun, was smuggled into the store through a side door nearly thirty minutes later as children stampeded the store. The programme planned by the senior management was that Davy should stand behind a trading post erected in the store and shake hands with the children as they filed in one door and out the other. But the children were restless after waiting so long and, brushing aside all barriers, they clambered over furniture to get a closer look at Davy who, in vain, put up his hands and tried to talk to the children. In a final effort to restore order, Davy jumped on to a table and tried to quieten the shouting youngsters, but they surged on. ‘I’d better leave,’ said Davy, and off he went.
’”

“And they ran after him?” said Brigid.

“I think that’s what we saw,” said Francis, with a laugh. “Isn’t it great? Here’s another bit. A news reporter interviewed Fess Parker afterwards in the Grand Central Hotel, and he said he was very sorry he had to leave
– ‘“but it was for the safety of the kids. I didn’t want any more casualties,
”
he said.’”

“What are cas-ul-aties?” said Brigid.

“In a war, the casualties are the ones who get killed.”

Brigid thought for a moment. “Did he think coming here was like being in a war?”

“Well,” said Francis, “he seems to have. Wait till you hear what he said next – I love this,” and he laughed as he read: “‘
We had a pretty rough battle at the Alamo, but I’d say there were more casualties at Robbs’ this afternoon
.’” Francis put down the paper. “Isn’t it great?” he said, his eyes dancing.

Brigid was still puzzled. “He thought we were like the people he was fighting in a battle?”

“Not us, silly,” said Francis. “The ones who stampeded.”

“That sort of means us. Ned Silver was there. I saw him.”

“Was he?” asked Francis, and his face grew serious. “Are you sure? But he was here with us . . .”

“I saw him. I did see him, at the front of the crowd chasing Davy Crockett.”

Francis laughed then, but his smile had gone. “Ned,” he said. “Always in there. Sure as there’s trouble.” He put down the paper. “I suppose . . . I don’t know . . . he would have had time to get a bus and be down town the same time as us . . . but would he have been allowed?” He seemed to be speaking to himself.

“Ned Silver is allowed to do anything he wants,” said Brigid. “Anything at all.”

Francis, his brow furrowed, nodded. “He gets away with things, all right,” he said, “but I wouldn’t be him.” He folded up the paper. “I’d better take this back down. Anyway, Brigid, I wouldn’t worry too much about not seeing Davy Crockett. It was an actor playing him. He’s in this new film about him. I’m sure the real Davy Crockett wouldn’t have run away from a crowd of children.”

“No,” said Brigid, loyally. “The real Davy wouldn’t have. He killed him a bear when he was only three.”

“He did not,” said Francis. “He
kilt
him a
bar
. You have to get these things right,” he said, and then he was gone.

Brigid followed him downstairs. She was still put out. When Ned said he was going to see Davy Crockett, she had thought he was being brought to the picture house, something rare enough to be remarkable in itself. It had not occurred to her that he might be going to see Davy Crockett himself, and it had never struck her that he might be going to do such a thing alone. Meanwhile, whatever Francis said, she had missed the nearest thing to an adventure. She might think up as many stories as she liked, but she would never meet Davy Crockett now.

Her disappointment, however, was short-lived. April brought longer, brighter days, and her mother came home from hospital. Brigid’s first, sharp disappointment about the baby was brief. She had never known the baby, had hardly taken in that she was expected, and had not yet learned to feign emotion. What she wanted was her mother at home, and life as it had always been. She welcomed every return to normality, glad even to hear her father read out the news, telling his wife what was going on in the world as if she had caused it, getting excited about who should speak for the people in Mid-Ulster, or why the government was cutting the children’s allowance. “In England,” he declared, “they have two shillings for third and following children. And we are to make do with one shilling and sixpence! Because Stormont doesn’t want to extend encouragement to people to have large families! Holy cats!”

“I don’t think we need worry, Maurice,” came the quiet reply.

Brigid, watching the blue lines on her mother’s thin hands, and the brown shadows beneath her eyes, felt a sadness she did not understand.

And then, though the days lengthened further and the leaves on the trees grew bolder, the Friday Tree waving to her its early summer bloom, time slowed. Even Brigid’s birthday, due in the middle of May, seemed to have stopped its steady approach. She could not understand why the days had extra hours and minutes, each longer than the one before, and began to believe she would never get to her birthday. She longed to be six, yet was sorry to leave five behind. It had been such an achievement to reach five that it seemed unkind just to abandon it, yet every lengthening day, every creamy blossom on the rowan or burst of pale yellow on the broom, the flowers that would become blackcurrants, every sound of the proud blackbird and his tired brown wife planning their day, and the cackling magpies swaggering up the garden, told her it was time to move into another summer. She wanted to get into short socks, but Isobel, whose business Brigid considered it was not, said, “
Ne’er cast a clout till May be out
”, and Brigid thought she would be in woollen socks forever. One morning, however, when the birthday was very near, Brigid asked again, and heard Isobel say the thing about clouts yet again. Just as she was about to pull on the grey woollens, her mother, frail still, but less tired, more like herself, called from the landing as she went past: “That refers to the May flower, Isobel, the hawthorn, not the month. And it’s well out. Put her in short socks, please.” Brigid felt a surge of happiness, and when she heard her mother say, “It’ll be time for sandals soon too,” she believed at last the summer days might come again.

There was something else going on, as the summer came in. Though nothing had been said to Brigid, she gathered on this first day of short socks that new schools were being considered. Coming along the hall in anticipation of breakfast, she heard her mother’s voice.

“I boarded,” she heard her say. “I came to like it all right in the end.”

Boarding meant going away to school, like Ned Silver. Brigid did not want that.

Then she heard her father: “I don’t want him sent away,” and Brigid, understanding, with relief, that she was not to be sent away, quickly realised with a cold jolt that it was Francis they were discussing. She stopped in the hall, still and silent, hardly breathing, listening as she had seen Isobel do.

“But that blow,” she heard her mother say. “Those streets across to the College. If he should be hurt again . . .”

She heard her father flap the paper, the signal that discussion was at an end.

“Well, anyway,” her mother said, “we’ll try to get Brigid changed – yes, Maurice, we will – even if she should have to pluck daisies and play with plasticine. She’s not even six, yet. There’s lots of time and, for heaven’s sake, can’t I bring her on myself at home?”

Brigid, wondering still if she ever would be six, felt her heart lift at the thought that she might be able to escape from her school. With a spring to her step, she announced her presence, and settled to her breakfast with new hope.

In fact, it was not so very bad any more in school. Now that she was reading well, and writing, and had learned to keep her stories to herself, she managed quite well. It was important to know the group games, to avoid being singled out. Skipping was essential. She learned to join the end of a line, poised on one foot, and not to miss her turn. Then, to the sound of a chant of a lady on a hillside, wanting quantities of gold and silver, she learned to jump through the semi-circle of rope without becoming tangled. If it caught in her legs it stung like a wasp, and on rainy days it smelled like wet washing, but Brigid mastered the rope, and got through playtime most days without much incident. Some days, hard voices closed about her, girls with folded arms lined up in twos and threes at the gate, at the door of the outside toilets, even in the classroom if the teacher stepped outside for more than a moment. Brigid learned to saw her natural voice to a harsh edge and to use this voice when the gang came after her to pull buttons off her coat or hold her down in mud. Approaching six, she knew that the most important thing in school was to keep her head down. She learned the things that would protect her, and protect her family from knowing what it was like. Her mother was still frail, and her father was far away these days, there but not there, always thinking, sitting with his head in his hands, holding the paper at different angles as though things would change if he looked at them another way. And, in the glorious month of her birthday, it began to seem that she might escape to a school where children plucked daisies and played with plasticine.

Every morning in May, a statue was carried to the front of the schoolyard, and flowers were placed in front of it. The statue was to remind them that Mary was the Mother of God, and that the month of May was hers. At first, Brigid thought that the statue itself was Mary the Mother of God, but it was quickly made clear that this was not so. She liked only one of the hymns, of flowers from woodlands and hillside: it made her think of Tullybroughan and the farm, and she decided that she, too, would bring flowers of the fairest. She would bring flowers of the fairest and blossoms the rarest, to Mary, the loveliest flower of the May, and perhaps then Mary would ask her son who was God to give her a new school, and keep Francis from being sent away, and make her mother strong, and help her father see the paper properly.

On the morning of her birthday, therefore, before anyone was up, Brigid managed to take scissors and a little string from the kitchen. She turned the lock and undid the latch of the back door without difficulty, and it struck her that this was because she was now six. She was able, with some effort, to cut a little of the pale broom with its slender stalk; and buttercups and daisies were easy. She picked white bells from the hedge, and long-stemmed daisies and yellow buttercups from the grass. She was tying this bundle when she had a sudden thought, and picked a bright flower, golden as the sun, and then another, and soon she had made a fitting bouquet for the May altar. It was fortunate that, the weather was still considered cold enough for a coat: it meant she was able to conceal her flowers fairly well. Her mother told her to behave in school, because when she got home, she would find surprises; and Brigid did not point out that in school there was no choice but to behave.

By happy chance she did not have to go with Isobel: her father drove her, and he was very quiet, not noticing the flowers tucked inside the coat, not noticing anything but the road ahead. Brigid wondered why he did not mention her birthday. She stood at the gate and waved to him, puzzled at his forgetting, then turned in to place her offering with those of the others.