The Friday Tree (4 page)

Brigid and Francis saw and heard none of this, because they were tired that night and so relieved to have Rose with them that they slept the night through, children again, safe again, secure.

Chapter 3: Smoke

Brigid woke confused, feeling a difference in the house. On the chair by her bed sat a large box, coloured and shiny, like a Christmas present. Was it Christmas? It could not be – the warm light of summer was still filtering through the blinds. Rose. She remembered that Rose had come. Had Rose left her a present in the night? Brigid turned on her side, reached across, and pulled over the shiny box, smelling of newness. She could hardly open it, for the shaking of her hands and the beating of her heart. It was exactly like Christmas. Inside the box, her fingers found soft cloth. Sitting up, swinging out of bed, she lifted from folded tissue paper a fringed skirt, a waistcoat, a tin badge, a red neckerchief with a silver clasp, a hat with a band round it, little boots without feet and, best of all, a leather belt with a holster and a shiny toy revolver. Brigid wondered no more. It might not be Christmas, but this was a present and, where presents were concerned, she asked no questions.

She pulled all of it on over her pyjamas and, despite the chill under her feet, ran straight to Francis’ room, right along the long corridor. Not even the cold following eyes of Blessed Oliver Plunkett, hanging like a reproach on the wall, could hold her back. She ran past him and pushed open Francis’ door, spreading her arms with a flourish. Nothing happened. No one was there. The only movement in the empty room came from the summer curtains, sucked in and out with a sigh. Through filmy light Brigid could see the Friday Tree, far away, spread out in its late green glory at the back of the plot. Yet, inside or out, there was no Francis. The cold of her feet spread through Brigid. Had he gone now too? She raced back past Blessed Oliver to the top of the stairs and there, looking down, she saw Francis standing quite still at the foot of the stairs, his head on one side as if he were listening for something. To her vexation, he did not seem to see her. With one hand on the newel post, he was looking without expression at the sitting-room door. When she called him he raised his eyes, yet, for a second, it was as if he did not know her, looking blankly as if she were a stranger. With some effort, she pulled out her new revolver from its stiff leather holster and, surprised by its heaviness, struggling to hold it in both hands, managed to point it at him.

“
Bang!
” she said, and was delighted to find that the gun made a bang of its own.

She watched his face break into a smile. He lifted his hands, and she saw he was holding a long tube, shining, with a glass window.

“Hello!” he said. “Do you like my new telescope? You look dangerous.”

“
Bang!
” cried Brigid, again, the gun obligingly echoing, and was satisfied to see him crumple at the waist, clasping the newel post as he fell. His falling words, “You got me!” pleased her. Brigid blew away smoke – real smoke! – from the top of the pistol, just the way the cowboys did. Then she scrambled down the stairs, only to find that Francis had, yet again, disappeared. Put out, but no longer afraid, she paused just long enough to shoot into the air, and then she noticed that the sitting-room door was ajar. Low voices floated out.

Brigid stopped. Her heart grew loud. She knew those voices. She thought she knew those voices. Hardly daring to believe what she heard, Brigid once more blew the smoke, hard, from the top of her gun and pushed open the sitting-room door.

And there they were. Her parents, so suddenly gone, were just as suddenly back again. Her mother and father were sitting there, as if they had never gone away. Brigid found herself unable to speak. She found herself, also, angered, which she had not been when, all those days and days ago, they had disappeared. There her mother sat, quiet and composed, one hand out to her from the table, saying as though she had not gone off and left them: “Brigid. Your hair. Come here.” Light caught the slender wedding band as her hand came towards Brigid, and danced on the bright white stones of her other ring.

Yet, to Brigid, distracted by the sudden shining, it seemed that her mother spoke without enthusiasm, her eyes all the time on Brigid’s father. He was different, too. He looked strange.

Into Brigid’s head from nowhere came a picture: a rainy winter Saturday when she had sat on the floor at his feet, his hand on her head. She had been held close between the rolled chair-arm and his knee. The radiogram sang quietly in the corner, and her father tapped out its rhythm on her hair. Outside it was cold, rain in grey needles beating against the window, but she was warm, watching mountains and caves in the fire. The music stopped. Her father’s hand slid to her shoulder and, pressing her arm so that she turned to him, he stood her up and placed her between his knees. He covered one eye with his hand. “I can’t see you, Brigid,” he said, and when she looked, she could not see herself. There was no mirror in his uncovered eye. It was a stone, not an eye. She tried to pull away, but he held her. Then he covered the other eye, looked at her, the eye alive, her own frowning face reflected in the shining blackness in the centre. He said: “Now I can see my girlie.” That night, she dreamed they had all, everyone in the house, turned to stone.

Now, today, mysteriously returned, he wore a large white bandage over one eye, and he did not extend his hand to her. Still angry, she told herself that the cowgirl suit must be to make up for leaving, and she said: “Daddy – Mama,” but she did not go to them, and she did not thank them. Then, she said, “Where did you go?” and her mother looked down again at her hands before replying, “To London. Did you like your present?” and her father, at last, looked round, pointing his hand like a gun. “Bang, bang!” he said. “You’re shot – you’re dead.”

Brigid thought: To London? Without us? Without me? But she did not say it. Instead, she said, “Thank you. I like it very much,” but in her head she asked her questions, over and over, until a face appeared round the door and made her forget to be angry.

Francis, comically fearful, was peering out from under his hair. “Is she gone?” said his voice, low and hollow. “Somebody tell me when she’s gone.”

Brigid turned and shot him again. “
Bang, bang!
You’re shot, you’re dead!” she cried, looking, in spite of herself, to see if her father had heard her. He had not. Gazing out the window through the eye not covered, only his blind, bandaged face was turned towards her. Francis fell obligingly dead, but Brigid felt no elation. She no longer wanted to know why her parents had gone away. Her father had just told her.

And yet, though they had come back, everyone was quiet, and there was no rejoicing. Even Rose was quiet, not cold as when Uncle Conor came, simply saying very little. They all seemed to be living inside themselves. Brigid was not unhappy when they were told to get dressed, get their breakfast and go outside in the fresh air. In the hall, she stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to her brother.

“Francis?”

He put his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot me, ma’am. I’m real scared,” he said, but Brigid did not respond.

“Francis. Don’t they want to see us?” she said.

Francis sighed, dropped his hands and his head, suddenly deflated. “Brigid,” he said, and then for a moment or two said nothing. He sighed, folded his arms, and looked at her, clear and straight, almost hard: “Do you know what, Brigid? Sometimes you disappoint me. He has been ill.”

Brigid thought: he means Daddy, but he does not call him Daddy.

“He needs quiet,” Francis said. “We’re too noisy in the house. Don’t you see that?”

“I saw the bandage.”

“Exactly. The thing is, Brigid, we’re a bit in the way here. Come on. Get ready and we’ll go out to the garden. Do you know your hair looks as if a bird’s been nesting in it?”

Brigid, confused, thinking of Ned and the rose thorns, did not know what to say. She pulled at her head, ineffectually. “It’s always getting tangled,” she said. “Nobody has time to fix it. I can’t.”

Francis did not reply. He seemed to be thinking about something else.

“Brigid?” he said.

She turned, halfway up the first stair.

“Don’t say anything about yesterday. To anyone.”

“Not to you?”

He had turned away. “Not to anyone, just for now.”

In her room, Brigid looked at herself in the mirror. She was untidy. Mama had said nothing after that first abstracted remark. Mama had forgotten about her hair. Mama had forgotten about her. Brigid gave the plaits a good shake, took herself briskly past Blessed Oliver into the bathroom, still cold even on an August morning, and scrubbed and took short cuts, until she judged herself ready for her cowgirl suit, except that the hair still had to be replaited. Francis could not be asked to do this. She had to go to Isobel, knowing she would do it too tightly, and scold her all the while for failing to keep still. Brigid wished she could have gone to Rose, but Rose was in the silent room with her parents and Brigid decided that she had better just go and get breakfast with Isobel, and put up with her pulling at the hair.

By the time she got outside, she was cross and resentful. Francis, with his new telescope, was crouched down in the garden, looking out towards the end of the plot. He did not seem to hear her come up behind him. “
Boo!
” she said, but he did not move.

“Boo yourself,” he said, but he did not turn round. “You think I didn’t hear you.”

“Did you?” she asked, thumbs in her waistcoat, legs apart.

“No.” He still did not turn round, so Brigid leaned on to his shoulder, trying to see what he was seeing.

“What is up there?” she said. “What are you looking at?”

He folded up the telescope, and turned to face her. His face was guarded. “Just birds,” he said.

She clapped her hands. “Oh, let me see. Let me have a go.”

“Sometime,” he said. “Not in that gear. Did you ever see a marshal with a telescope . . . Marshal?”

That did it. Up she got, legs wide, thumbs so firmly in the waistcoat that they hurt.

Francis stood up against the sun, blotting it out. Then, as he shifted slightly, Brigid thought she saw something.

“Francis, is that smoke?” She could not be sure. Everything beyond a short distance had a haze round it, which Brigid quite liked unless, as now, she wanted to make something out. “Is it, Francis?” she said again.

He glanced round quickly, far too quickly, to Brigid’s mind, to have looked at it properly, then immediately turned away.

“No,” he said, training the telescope towards the house. “I don’t think so. Or if it is, it’s old smoke. Maybe a campfire. Maybe someone lit a fire to burn rubbish.”

“A campfire!” Brigid, forgetting for a moment that she was a US Marshal, jumped up in excitement. “Francis,” she said, “could it be whoever was there when we looked for Dicky?”

He did not respond. “Are we going to play, or not, Marshal?” he said. “Seems to me that could be Cherokee smoke . . .”

Immediately, as if a switch had been pulled, Brigid sprang into action and ran up the garden, close to the boundary of the plot.

“Yes!” she cried. “And I’ll be the bad one. I’ve just ridden into town!”

“How can you be a bad one, with the marshal’s badge?”

“I just am,” answered Brigid. “I can be what I want.”

Then she stopped. She had heard something across the fence. That voice, that whisper could only be Ned Silver.

“If you want to be a really bad one,” it said, “just shout ‘I’m the IRA’.”

“I’m not lis . . .” she began. Then in spite of herself, she whispered back, “What? What’s that?”

The whisper came again: “You want to be a bad one, these days, that’s what to be. Go on. Try it.”

“Brigid!” called Francis, from the end of the path. “Who are you going to be?”

And Brigid, without thinking, cried out, as loudly as she could: “
I’m the IRA!
”

Too late, she saw Francis’ face change and move from side to side, and his mouth begin to frame the word ‘no’.

Like a whirlwind from nowhere, up the garden steps, furious and white-faced, flew Isobel, flinging a large basket of washing to one side. “You tinker!” she cried. “You bold, brazen tinker!” Taking Brigid roughly by the arm, she spun her round: “How dare you say that? Don’t you understand anything? God, if you were mine, I’d give you what for!”

Brigid had never seen Isobel so angry. She had never seen her violent. And her arm hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Isobel.” Isobel’s face was lined and drawn, not like her face at all. “It was only a game – and it wasn’t even me. It was Ned –”

She looked round for Ned, but he was nowhere. Instead, Francis was beside her. Gently removing the furious hold, he patted Isobel’s arm. “It’s all right, Bella,” he said, quietly. “It was my fault. Brigid’s just excited, and I made her worse without meaning to. It was, really, only a game. Brigid doesn’t understand . . . what she said.”

Isobel relaxed her grip, but her face did not soften.

“Bella,” said Francis, “she’s not very big. She really doesn’t understand.” He eased Brigid, too sore and frightened to protest, away from Isobel. His hand rested gently on the arm she had raised to Brigid, until she composed herself.