The Friday Tree (2 page)

Her words sounded friendly: the children knew they were not.

Francis looked out from under his hair. “Watching for our Aunt Rose, Bella,” he said. Only Francis was allowed to call Isobel by that name. “
Elle est absolument pure
.”

“Oh, your nonsense,” said Isobel, but she had softened again. “She’ll be here, a bit later. Come in now till we get Mr Todd a cup of tea.”

“Can we have tea, Isobel?” asked Brigid, thinking of her lost breakfast.

“Waste not, want not,” said Isobel, sharp as before. “You’ve torn your dress. Get upstairs and change.”

Brigid, thinking how little adults could be relied upon, went angrily upstairs, past the silent room where her parents should be and began, as best she could, to change out of her clothes. Downstairs, she could hear the clinking of cups. There would probably be something nice with the tea. Isobel would leave her out, just because.

I should really kill her, thought Brigid, but left the thought as she heard footsteps on the stairs, heard a bumping knock on the door and, awkwardly pulling on another dress, scrambled to open it. There stood Francis, with tea in the blue-rimmed cup she liked and, beside it, on a saucer, a piece of buttered, floury white soda bread. In his mouth he held another piece of bread.

“Oh, Francis!” said Brigid. “Snow bread! The breadman came? I didn’t hear the van.”

“Mm,” said Francis, taking the piece of bread from his mouth. “You need to listen more carefully. Please adjust your clothing.”

Brigid pulled and stretched at the cloth, and then gave up. She began to gobble up her bread and gulp down her tea.

“Who’s down there now?” she said then. “Did Rose come?”

“Not yet. There’s nobody down there now, except Isobel.”

“Has Uncle Conor gone?”

“Yes,” said Francis. “I think he wanted to see Rose.”

“Oh,” said Brigid, disappointed. “I wanted to talk to him. I thought he might tell us about Mama and Daddy.”

“I doubt that,” said Francis. He was silent for a moment. Then he shook himself, like a swimmer. “Anyway, Uncle Conor will be back. Now,” he stood up, and brushed floury handprints on his shorts, “up you get.”

“Why? What are we doing?”

“We’re going to get Dicky, of course. He’ll be ready for us by now.”

“What about Isobel? She’ll be so cross.”

“Too busy to be cross at the moment. Come on.”

Brigid followed him, trying to talk through a whisper: “But if he’s in the trees, that’s the plot. We’re not allowed in the plot.”

Francis stopped on the stairs, and looked up at her, his face crossed by the bars of the landing rail: “I’m going to bring Dicky in. Are you coming?”

Brigid thought, looking down at him: I’m taller than you now. She said, “Yes. Wait. Wait for me,” but she had to run to catch him, ducking past the sitting room where Isobel was now sweeping, sidling through the kitchen, careful not to slip on the damp patches of mopped tiles, and even more careful not to leave sandal marks, out after him through the backyard, past the narrow coalhouse, up the steps into the high bushy garden. She crept along the path by the next-door fence, making sure over her shoulder that Ned was not there to tell tales, then bumping up against Francis’ warm
shoulder at the hidden place behind the broom tree, the one little place where it was possible to climb over into the plot.

Francis was waiting easily, calmly, as if they were not forbidden to go into the plot. It belonged to Ned’s family, but it was used by other people to grow vegetables. Some neighbours had bought parts of it. One man had made a house for his plants from an old tram. The part of the plot directly behind their house was let to two policemen from the barracks at the end of the road. The children knew them as Mr Doughty and Mr Steele, and Brigid had an idea that they kept house together in the barracks, until the day Francis told her, to her disappointment, that they each had their own houses, and families. Brigid pointed out to him that they grew flowers – roses – at the front of the barracks, which to her mind meant it was their house, but Francis did not see the importance of this. When Mr Doughty and Mr Steele worked in the plot they wore no collars on their shirts. Their trousers, sitting just under their arms, were held up by braces with shiny clasps and leather buttonholes. Mr Doughty wore wellingtons, their toes turned up like clown shoes, but Mr Steele wore great leather boots with steel caps on the toes. Sometimes, when Brigid was by herself in the garden, Mr Doughty would come to the fence and give her large heads of cabbage, or a bunch of rhubarb tall as herself and say, “Bring that in to your mammy,” which Brigid, with some difficulty and much anxiety – there were creeping things in the leaves – usually did. Mr Steele did not hand her things to bring in. He raised a straight hand to them sometimes, from a distance, but he did not come up to the fence, and he did not speak.

Today, no one was in the plot. Brigid and Francis looked at each other and, with easy accord, broke the rules. Francis took the piece of grass he was chewing out of his mouth, and lifted
Brigid over the fence. “Don’t step in the nettles,” he said, and handed her a large, springy docken leaf.

“What’s that for?” said Brigid, turning it over in her hand, all damp and furry.

“For when you step in the nettles. To rub on the sting. Hold on to it, and keep behind me,” he said and, swinging himself quickly over the fence, landed beside her like a long-legged cat.

Facing him, in his cool shadow, Brigid could see their house as she had never seen it. Now, it seemed someone else’s house, strangely angled and chimneyed, the television aerial a large surprising H. The pipes on the back wall were a crooked nose. The windows, their blinds pulled midway up, were half-closed eyes, looking their disapproval and, seeing them, Brigid hesitated. Then Francis took her hand and, threading a path through the chess-squares of vegetables, kept her close behind him. Here and there, he indicated hidden nettles and Brigid saw they did all have docken leaves beside them. She looked about her. The plot was much bigger when they were in it and, glancing back, Brigid saw the house had gone far away. It was not strange any more, but a lost warm place.

They made their way to the centre of the plot, quiet, watchful, as if the birds or the bushes would give them away, as if any moment they would hear a voice calling them back. Yet, no voice came. Somewhere, they could hear a contented insect browsing, a lazy summer sound. As they neared the seven trees, the high leaves about them brushed their cheeks, as though lifted by the light itself. The children stopped. High above them, in the sudden stillness, the birds sang out their joy. Francis, his head on one side, put his hand to his ear to listen. Close to, the trees were bigger, leafier. Now and again the sun darted through the dense summer leaves, light green, dark, light again, shining like diamonds in the cool hollows.

Brigid, fearful of heights, was not afraid of the trees. They were familiar to her, though this was the very first time she had been close to them and seen them clearly. They had the shapes and colours of all the days. Right ahead of them was the Wednesday Tree, fan-shaped, a dull orange, not like the warm brown of Saturday, or the bright apricot of narrow Tuesday, or the dark blue of Thursday. Over to the far left was the Sunday Tree, a green implacable square, and beside it the dun-coloured bulk of Monday. To the right, the far right, was the tree that Brigid loved most. Friday was leaf-shaped, a light blue day, and the Friday Tree was a haze of greys and greens against the moving sky. It lifted Brigid’s heart to be near this tree, so close she could discern the whispering of its kindly leaves. She tugged Francis’ sleeve to see if he heard it too, but Francis did not seem to notice. He was looking up, scanning the branches for Dicky.

In a sudden moment, Brigid could hear Dicky squawking, not far away, and could picture his black eye challenging them.

Francis reached a hand to Brigid. “Stay here,” he said and moved forward, quietly, purposefully.

Dicky, his point made, seemed to be tiring, less in the mood to play. Letting Francis climb up to him, he stepped with delicacy from his branch on to the arm which was extended, and allowed himself to be covered, lightly and gently, in the cupped shade of Francis’ hand. Brigid, afraid to breathe, watched their slow descent, Francis’ softly cupped hand, Dicky’s twitching dark tail, the leaves and the branches folding and releasing them as they slid towards the earth.

Halfway down Francis stopped, frowning, looking down.

Brigid, who could see nothing but a dark space below him, called softly: “What’s wrong?”

Francis did not answer. He was still looking down, all the time holding Dicky in his cupped hand. After some moments, beginning once more to move, he said thoughtfully: “Someone’s been here.”

“Mr Doughty or Mr Steele?” said Brigid, alarmed. Quickly, she looked about her. Mr Doughty might not mind; she was not sure of Mr Steele.

Francis shook his head. “No. Someone’s been sleeping here. Come and see.”

Brigid did not move at first. “But Mr Doughty and Mr St–” she began, then stopped.

Francis was not listening. He was looking fixedly at something, and Brigid was curious to see what it was. She stepped over the roots and tangle of brambly shoots and there, at the foot of the Friday Tree, Brigid saw what looked like a nest, a small pile of possessions in a little branchy hut. Someone had made a place to stay here. Brigid thought: why not? A person might well want to live beneath the Friday Tree. It would be an obvious thing to want to do.

She shrugged her shoulders, took Francis’ hand and, while he minded Dicky against his shirt, she led the way back through the plot. She felt strangely content. Their parents were gone without explanation, they would probably be in trouble with Isobel, but they had Dicky back, they had been to the end of the plot, they had walked right up to the Friday Tree and, best of all, they had a secret.

Chapter 2: Rose

When they were as far as the house, Francis paused uncertainly at the back door. He turned to Brigid and, dropping his eyes, said: “Strict truth. We were just outside in the back. Where were we?”

“Just outside in the back,” said Brigid.

Francis nodded.

“In the plot,” added Brigid.

Francis, who had turned away, stopped. His shoulders fell. He sighed, shook his head, turned back to her once more and, taking her shoulders, held her eyes: “That’s not necessary, Brigid,” he said. “Outside in the back will do.”

Brigid, meeting his gaze, repeated: “Outside in the back,” and made to follow him into the empty kitchen, until he stopped her.

“Stay out here for a bit,” he said, “till I settle Dicky.”

Brigid, about to protest, stayed quiet. Francis did not move.

“Please, Brigid,” he said. “I do know what I’m doing.”

Disconsolate, Brigid turned and went back out to the garden without him, the whole day suddenly darker and smaller. She thought: he only wants me with him when he has nothing better to do. She was pulling some leaves from the blackcurrant bush, shredding them, rolling them into green paint in the heart of her hand, when she heard a voice on the other side of the fence.

“Saw you,” it said.

“Go away, Ned,” said Brigid. “I told you I hate you.”

“You can’t hate me,” said Ned. “I know too much.”

Brigid stopped rolling the leaves. “Know too much what?”

“Saw you,” said Ned again.

Despite the summer sun, Brigid felt suddenly cold. “Saw me what? This is our bush. It’s our garden. You just stay in yours.”

“It’s not your plot,” said Ned, his voice like honey on a spoon, a golden sticky drip.

Brigid felt her breath tighten. “We were getting our budgie,” she said and she felt her voice shake.

“It’s not your plot. I could tell the police. I could just run down now to the barracks and tell them.”

Brigid spun round, but she still could not see him. “Ned!” she said, and suddenly, maddeningly, his face appeared, smiling and insolent, from behind the hollyhock.

“Unless,” he said.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you do as I say.”

Brigid looked round in despair. No Francis. No parents. No one to help her. She said nothing. She could say nothing.

“All right,” said Ned. “I’ll just run in now and telephone.”

In that second Brigid was, in spite of herself, impressed. It was possible that Ned did know how to use the telephone, and that his father’s housekeeper might just allow him to do it.

“I’ll tell your daddy,” she said.

“Will you?” he said, and examined his nails. “He’s in Egypt. Are you going sometime soon? Or will you be telephoning long distance?”

“All right,” she said. “All right. What is it you want me to do?”

Ned dropped his voice, as if he were on the wireless. “Kiss me, you little fool.”

Brigid snickered.

“Naughty,” said Ned, smoothly. “I could tell about that too. I could tell your Ma-
ma.
”

“It’s
Ma
-ma, stupid, not Ma-
ma.
”

His face hardened. “Kiss me,” he said, “or else.”

“Ned Silver, I will hate you for ever.”