The Friday Tree (39 page)

“I don’t know, Brigid,” she heard Rose say, her eyes still straight ahead. “We have to wait and see.”

They were out of the village, turning slowly away from the shining and treacherous sea. The edge of Brigid’s eye caught pinks and yellows of clouds above, the sunlit flash of seabirds on waves and a shingled shore, but she did not look back. Like Rose, she kept her eyes straight ahead, as the land settled into its comforting mounds, the egg-like drumlins, the people-seeming trees.

“Rose,” she said, “tell me what is in my daddy’s brain.”

Rose answered directly. “It’s called a tumour, and it has grown behind his eyes. It’s like a ball, and it has made him unable to see, and it has given him headaches.”

Brigid began to understand. “It made him different,” she said. “It made him cross, and he forgot things he never forgot. It made him like a dream I had: he was Not-Daddy, and Mama was Not-Mama. They were all the Not-people. Rose, I think I dream straight.”

Rose drew in breath, and let it out, slowly. “I’d be sorry to think so, Brigid,” she said.

Brigid opened her mouth to tell Rose of the dream she had where Tullybroughan was a ruin, then closed it again. She remembered what Michael said: no one wanted to know about dreaming straight.

They drove on to the city, swinging in short, then longer curves into wider roads, the houses more frequent, serried in ranks, the car curving gradually away from the drumlins and the fields, until they were back at the edge of the city, under Brigid’s own mountain, calm and blue behind the house, and the Friday Tree in all its summer fullness, just as if her father did not have a ball growing behind his eyes.

The house folded round them without a sound. Even Dicky was silent in his cage. Brigid’s grandfather sat at the table in the sitting room, his head down, not speaking. Yet, he motioned Brigid to him as she came in, and set her on his knee, just as Laetitia came in. She carried a pot of tea, and a plate of sandwiches.

“You should get a new car,” she said to Rose, without rancour. “I got here long ago.”

Rose said nothing: her eyes rested on the corner by the window, where Francis sat by himself, looking at nothing.

There were so many people in the room, but no Mama, and no Daddy.

“Where is Mama?” Brigid asked her grandfather, in a whisper.

“At the hospital,” he said, his voice low as hers.

The telephone rang, deep and muffled in the dark cloakroom. Surprisingly quickly, Brigid’s grandfather rose from his seat, easing Brigid to the floor, and stepped into the hall. Brigid heard him, even through the closed door, shouting into it as if he were in a high wind: “Hello? Grace? Hello?”

“Brigid, come over here to me,” said Rose, “and you, too, Francis.”

One from the corner, one from the window, they went over, a deepening silence all about them, and they waited.

“Sit here on my knee, Brigid. Francis, come in here beside me.”

They did as Rose said, hearing nothing but their own breathing, and the clink of the cup Laetitia moved to and from her mouth. Yet, she was not drinking the tea. She was simply lifting the cup up and down, up and down, and each time she raised it the teaspoon slid into the well of the saucer.

From the hall came monosyllables: “Yes. I see. I will.”

The door opened. Rose tightened her arm round Brigid, and held Francis so close that Brigid could feel the heat of his body as well as her own. Her grandfather stood in the doorway, his arms hanging as they had when she and Ned were pulled out of the water.

“Gone,” he said. He put his hand over his eyes, and leaned against the wall. “Gone,” he said again.

“Who?” Brigid said, twisting round and taking Rose’s face in her hands. The skin did not move as quickly as the bones, and a red mark spread where she caught Rose’s cheek.

“Who is gone? Is it Mama? Where?”

“No,” said Rose, gently taking Brigid’s hands from her face. “Not your mama. Your daddy.”

She stopped, and Brigid saw Laetitia replace the cup in the saucer, and sit then, like a statue, like long-forgotten Miss Chalk.

Rose said: “God took your daddy home to live with him.”

Brigid felt her head drop, as if her neck could no longer hold it and, as it did, she saw Francis’ head shoot up and back, as if he had been struck in the face. Brigid looked up at Rose.

“But this is his home,” said Brigid. “With us. Here.”

The silence grew larger, filled the whole house. No one broke it, not Laetitia or Rose, not Francis or Granda Arthur. Not even Dicky made a sound, and yet there was a sound like sobbing, but it was so far inside Brigid’s head that she did not know whose it was.

Time then stopped measuring itself in hours and minutes, and went into a rhythm that did not have day or night, but was like water, like the green water that had swirled round Brigid as she fought to breathe at the Churn Rock. Everyone moved like dreamers. One minute they seemed to be at the house, then they were in the hospital, the same hospital where Brigid had been, where Mama had been, and they were standing looking down, and somebody – Michael, in his Sunday suit that he wore for Easter − was holding Brigid up, looking down at a figure that seemed like her father, but was cold, with a sharp nose and closed eyes and a pale, straight mouth. This Not-Daddy was utterly still; he was haughty, removed, his face a little puzzled as though there was a question he was trying to answer. His hands were clasped round black rosary beads, but when she touched his fingers, they were hard and stiff. His face, too, was chill to her lips. Even his greying hair lay still and lifeless. Brigid thought: he is not there. She kissed his coldness anyway, and Michael lifted her down, and placed her beside her mother, pale and remote as Mary the Mother of God. Beside her stood Rose. Laetitia was the only person who cried. Her grandfather stood by in silence, tall and spare and puzzled in his face as Brigid was inside, as her father seemed in his box.

Time stretched out, day into night into day, and Brigid thought it would go on like this for ever, that this was life now, all the people, and her father in the box, and from morning to night tea and sandwiches and muffled voices, and candle wax, and blinds closed, and the clocks all stopped.

She could not bear it when the men came into the pale room and put a lid over the shiny wood of the box. Standing by Francis, remembering the waters over her head, she said: “How will he breathe?”

Francis said: “He doesn’t need to, any more.”

Brigid looked at him in disbelief. In the water, when she could not breathe, it was all she could think about, all she longed to do. How could he not need to breathe? She wanted to ask, but all the people then began to pray, over and over, the words and the pleas and the petitions she had heard at Mass and in school, all to the God who had taken her father away. They spoke now, in one low voice, but Brigid was silent. She slipped from the room, and no one noticed.

She wandered the house, looking at his books on the shelf, and his hat on the hat stand, and his shoes in the cloakroom, waiting for him as she was waiting for him. She saw his handwriting – “
From your daddy
” – on the book he had bought her last October, and her heart lifted. Then she remembered: he would not write to her anything again. His hands were still now, wrapped round his black rosary.

The people came out from the room, in a line, as if they were at school. Brigid watched them. They extended their hands and they shook their heads. They were sorry for Mrs Arthur’s trouble, and the children, God bless them. It was like a sad party, and everywhere there were people sitting in groups, darkly clad, nodding and sighing, talking about their father and the good man he was, and people placing their hands on Brigid’s head and shaking theirs again, and telling Francis he was the man of the house now. Mr Doughty came and he too was sorry for Mrs Arthur’s trouble, and the children, God bless them, and he said Mr Steele was out now looking for young Silver, and they would find him, the clip, and he spoke to Rose, too, and Brigid heard him say Ned’s name.

Mrs Mulvey came from next door, and Brigid saw her shake her head. “No sign,” she said. “No sign yet, all last night or today,” and to Rose, she heard her say, “No, indeed, it was not your fault. Nobody could watch him, nobody on this earth could watch that child – like mercury, and his father not here, never here, God knows. Only for Mr Todd I don’t know what I’d . . .” and she went away, shaking her head.

Cornelius Todd came, and Brigid saw him run his hand though his hair as he looked down at his friend. She heard him say “
A Mhuiris, a chara
,” and saw him bend his head. Rose did not come into the room when he was there. Brigid heard her say, to Brigid’s grandfather: “No, he hasn’t found him, and the police haven’t either. God knows where he has gone, and I can’t even think with all of this . . .” Brigid’s heart lifted again: she thought Rose was talking about her father, that he was not really gone. Then she heard her grandfather say, “Young Silver’ll turn up. We’ll get him back,” and he patted Rose’s hand, and Brigid knew in despair it was only Ned Silver they were talking about.

Isobel was not there. Isobel did not come, and Brigid thought: unreliable.

They were at the church, then, its tall spire tolling out long mournful notes, sad as night on the bright July day. Far off, in the hills, there were drums. The Twelfth of July was coming. Bees droned in the bushes outside as they waited for the coffin to be brought in. One buzzed loudly in the church, louder and more urgent than the priest’s sad voice. Brigid heard prayers, and more prayers but, above her, outside the colours of the window and the impassive statues, the summer birds sang as if her father had not died. She saw faces she knew: Mr Doughty but not Mr Steele, Uncle Conor. She thought for a moment that made her stomach turn over that she saw George Bailey. It looked like him, standing in half-shadow, his tall thin form, his kind face, his dark hair; she could remember the deep skies that were his eyes from the day he took her home. She longed to be back there, anywhere but here.

Just when it could not get worse, it got worse, and the box was lifted by men in black coats. Francis stood by his mother, in his school blazer and, at last, long trousers. Next, they were outside. Far away they heard children playing, and the flowers outside the church were bright in their beds, yellow and red and pink. Brigid, in the sea of dark people, stood with her family.

Then all the men at the funeral, including her grandfather, Francis and Michael, walked a little behind the hearse, followed by cars, slow as walking. Brigid sat with her mother, Rose and Laetitia in the first car. They went past the houses, and when they came to theirs, every car stopped. Brigid’s mother opened the car door then, took her by the hand and led her out, followed by Rose and Laetitia.

“Why are we getting out, Mama?” said Brigid, watching the black car sliding away. “Why are we not going, too?”

“Ladies don’t,” her mother said.

They stood outside the gate, and the slow procession moved on, down past the post office and the barracks, down to the big gates of the cemetery. From their gate, Brigid and her mother and Rose and Laetitia saw the snaking line of cars vanish, one by one, into the silent graveyard.

Somewhere far off, just as they turned to go in the gate, Brigid heard a sharp cracking sound, like a firework. Everyone stopped.

“What was that?” said Rose, reaching for her sister’s arm.

Brigid’s mother shook her head.

“It was for all the world like a gunshot,” said Laetitia.

Rose scanned the skies. “But where did it come from?” She turned round, on one heel, her hand outstretched. “From there,” and she pointed to the trees, “or the cemetery? I can’t tell.”

“Oh, God,” said Laetitia, beginning to weep. “I can take no more, and my poor brother just dead.”

Brigid’s mother tightened her hold on Brigid’s hand. “No need for histrionics, Laetitia,” she said. “It was probably nothing. A car backfiring.”

They went into the house. It was very quiet, blinds still drawn, clocks still stopped. Dicky, his head under his wing, stood still on his perch. Brigid climbed the stairs to the bathroom, Blessed Oliver watching her all along the corridor, there and back. She kept her eyes away from the closed door of her parents’ bedroom. She did not want to remember that her father was not there. All through the house, she saw the places he would never be again. His chair in the sitting room sat empty. On the mat, discarded, kicked to one side, the morning paper he would never read. Though she had wanted all the people milling through the house to go away, Brigid felt suddenly afraid of this silence, of the absence like a presence, weighing on her like a stone. She wanted to be out of it.

She slid through the kitchen and out to the brightness of the birds in the garden and the trees in the plot. The blackcurrants were out, and she was even glad to see the wasps about the yellow broom tree. She did not care if they stung her: they could sting away. Anything was better, even the wicked buzzing of a wasp was better than the silence and the candle wax and the darkness of the prayers. She leaned on the fence between the plot and their garden, right into the corner beside the Silvers’ house. High in the sky, the sun sat bright. One cloud, floating past the top of the house, settled over the cemetery where her father was. At the back of the plot the Friday Tree shimmered its leaves, the other trees waving to its lead: and for a second Brigid felt a reminder of happiness.