The Friday Tree (6 page)

“Take those in to your mammy,” he said, “like good children,” and Brigid was ashamed to have thought badly of him.

They thanked him together; he saluted them with a hand to the side of his forehead and turned to walk back up the plot again, his slow tread measured and steady, like a farmer who walks behind his plough, not like a policeman at all.

Chapter 4: The Men

As the summer days shortened, and the nights began to draw in, the men came back. Each night, when it grew dark and Francis had gone past her on the landing, once she heard his light click off, Brigid would hear them. The voices floated upstairs to her, low and soft. She was not disturbed by them: she was even reassured. Brigid had decided that the men used the house for meetings, about important matters, after the family had gone to bed, and it seemed to her quite reasonable that once people were in bed, a house could be used for other purposes. The voices of the men kept her company as she slid into sleep.

Now that the men were back, it was no surprise to wake to the sound of the summer curtain being taken down from the front door. It had been brought out in the first days of summer, smelling stiffly of itself, green stripes and mothballs, and by the end of August its scent had softened, like the memory of cut grass. Brigid lay listening to her mother and Isobel as they worked.

She felt lazy and contented until she heard her mother say: “Shoes. I have to get shoes for them. School already.”

“And the pair of them, this time,” said Isobel. “I wonder how Miss Madam will like that.”

“Oh, she’ll like it well enough,” said her mother. “I’ve already held her back a year: it’s time she went. It’s Francis I’m more concerned about. He’s very young in some ways.”

“He has an old head,” said Isobel, “and he’ll be twelve soon.”

Then they moved from the hall, their voices fading under the stairs where they put the sun-curtain away.

To keep from thinking about school, or why Francis had an old head, Brigid began to think of the television she was allowed to watch with Francis. She closed her eyes, and conjured up the images she liked: a lion roaring or a man beating a gong to show the film would begin, and she heard again in her head the music that would surround them as they settled down by the fire. Then there would be more music, different, sweet or sad, magic girls in circles on black and white tiles, a man in dancing tails wonderfully spinning a feathered lady. Best of all was the one she saw at Christmas, where a great bell clanged, and a Christmas card appeared to the sound of sleighs, and a voice said they were now in Bedford Falls. Then bright stars in the sky told the story of a boy who saved his brother, and one star became an angel. He went down to the world to watch the boy become a man. He was George Bailey. There was an upstairs office like their father’s, and the town was just like theirs. George wore a coat and hat like the ones her father wore, and when things were as bad for him as they could be, the angel showed him what would have happened if he had never been born. George Bailey learned that his life was good after all. Sometimes, listening at night to the comforting drone of the men, Brigid thought about George Bailey, and his wonderful life.

Now, weighed down with thoughts of school, Brigid found that not even George Bailey was any help. She turned over in bed. Everything good was coming to an end. Even Ned Silver, her tormentor, had left to go back to his school. She pulled the covers over her head, and burrowed down in the semi-darkness. Perhaps she could just stay there, not get up at all. Then, as if a light had been switched on, she remembered: school was all about learning to read. Her mother wanted her to be able to read before she started school, like Francis, and for some months had been urging her to do more than look at the pictures in her books and her comic, her
Robin.
It was simple. If she did not read, she would not have to go to school. If she could hide the fact that the shapes and patterns had begun more and more to speak to her, jumping into sense in her head, nothing would change.

The comics would be there today. She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, pulled off her pyjamas and flung them into the tangle of bedclothes, pulled on the clothes she had abandoned the night before, and ran downstairs. There they were: on the sideboard, beside the newspaper
and
The Eagle
lay her own
Robin
. Brigid watched them all through her breakfast, trying not to rush, and rushing all the more. She had almost slid down from her place, when her mother caught her firmly about the waist and pulled her to her.

“Now, reading, Miss,” she said, “and no nonsense!” and holding Brigid near, she placed
Robin
in front of her. Brigid squirmed. Her mother turned her round. “Reading, Brigid.”

“I like looking at the pictures, Mama,” Brigid said, unhappily.

“Well, you’ll like them better when you can read as well,” said her mother.

Francis, across the table, wiggled his eyebrows up and down to make her laugh.

Her father said, “Maybe she should finish her breakfast,” but he did not help her.

Her mother held fast. Brigid reached for one of her plaits, and put it in her mouth.

“And that hair,” she heard her mother say. “I should cut it before school. We’ll never manage with her and those plaits.”

Isobel, listening in the kitchen, called out: “And think of what she might catch!”

Even Dicky squawked briefly in his cage, as if he, too, agreed. Brigid caught hold of both plaits. Clearly, the threat of school was very close.

“Do I have to go to school?” she asked. “If I learn to read here with you, can I not stay at home?”

Her mother turned her round to face her, and looked her in the eye.

“Brigid,” she said, “I think you are well able to read. Can we just get on with it?”

Brigid met her eyes. Clearly, there was no way out. She turned back to her comic, looked at the pictures for help and, deep in her head, tried to make sense of the black shapes on the page.

“Break them up into bits. Come on. I’ve told you,” said her mother, and she put her finger under the words.

Brigid looked. Black lines and circles. She broke them up into little bits. Nothing. She broke them further and began to say the sounds she knew. “
A
,” she said. That was all right. The picture of a bird she knew. More sounds, slowly, slowly: “
R. R – R. R-o-b. Rob. In.
”

Everyone stopped. They were all looking at her.

“
A rob-in s-at
. . .”

Francis nodded encouragement, eyes alight, her father watched her with his good eye, Dicky put his head on one side, Isobel’s head appeared at the door . . . but Brigid did not move. She knew they were all listening. She could hear their silence, she could see them out of the sides of her eyes, but she did not dare take her gaze away from the patterns which were suddenly starting to speak.

“
Bet
. . .”

“Yes, come on, good girl,” said her mother, her voice low, and her arm firm about Brigid’s waist.

“
Bet-ween h-is m-m-m
. . .”

She stopped. It was too hard. The shapes were starting to move away. She folded her arms. Isobel, shaking her head, disappeared from the door.

“Brigid,” said her mother, “come on, like this, like Daddy, come on. Look!”

Brigid looked at her father, who had taken the paper in his hand, looking over his teacup at her, the bandage gone, his good eye winking in encouragement. She took a deep breath.

“
M-m-mum-mummy a-nd
. . .”

Her father winked again.

“
D-a-dd-y!
”

She put down
Robin
, and her mother said: “That’s a
good
girl,” squeezing her once more before letting go.

They were all pleased with her. Even Dicky, in the spirit of celebration, clucked and rocked a little on his perch.

Isobel again put her face round the door from the kitchen, saying, “Well, it’s not before time,” and she withdrew her head, like a tortoise, it seemed to Brigid, just like a tortoise going back into its shell.

Brigid’s head was spinning. She was stunned. She was singing in her head with the joy of it. The lines and circles had slid into place and stayed there. They had made sense. Now at night, she would be able to keep her light on like Francis, and the others would hear her click it off. And, maybe, because she had done it, she would not have to go to school. In this instant Brigid loved her whole family, and she wanted to share all her secrets. Still standing by her mother, still looking at the miracle of
Robin
, she said: “Do you know, Mama, that men come to this house every night, and sit here at this table, and talk about things, and I hear them upstairs?” She turned eagerly to her mother, and knew at once that she had made a mistake. Her mother’s face had closed, and her father was frowning. Francis looked down.

Her mother put a hand on Brigid’s forehead: “Don’t tell me you’re running a temperature,” she said, “and school next week.”

“But, Mama . . .” began Brigid, until Francis’ face warned her to stop. She did stop, but it was not because of Francis. With a sickening that felt like a heavy weight, she heard the word “school”. She was not saved. There was nothing to be done. There was not even a chance that her mother would understand about the men. Nobody would. “I’m not sick,” she said. “I just had a strange dream last night.”

She felt through her mother’s body a wave of relaxation and relief. “Well, if that’s all. Men coming to the house, indeed.” She turned to her husband. “Killed with imagination. The wireless, maybe. Voices carrying on the air.” She brushed her skirt, and moved Brigid slightly to one side. A little cool breeze seemed to have moved between them. “Time she was at school.”

“But is she all right?” said her father, as if Brigid were not there.

“Well, her forehead’s cool anyway.” Her mother turned again to her, brisk, already rising from the table. Brigid’s moment was over. “Go on now, you two, run up and get ready – or you’ll have to start school in sandals, both of you.”

Brigid’s father spoke: “If I can get away in time, we’ll meet and have tea later.”

Her mother, the narrow arch of her eyebrows rising just a little, paused, hands on the table. She sat back into her chair, heavily. She looked for a moment at her hands, then at her husband, and said: “Are you going into the office today, Maurice?”

He said: “I think I will. A little later, for a time, anyway.”

Both Francis and their mother looked at him for a moment, in silence, in a kind of concern.

He looked back with defiance, his good eye angry. “Am I to sit around the house all day? Am I to be a chronic invalid?” He gave the paper a sharp slap.

Dicky flapped in his cage, but no one spoke. Francis looked away, excused himself from the table, went to the cage and talked quietly to Dicky. Their father gathered up his glasses and, shaking his paper with another hard slap, as if there had been an argument, stared at it with his eye of stone. Brigid looked at the eye, and was afraid.

Apart from the low whisper of Francis to Dicky, and the squabbling of Dicky back to Francis, a harsh silence surrounded them.

“Maurice,” said their mother, “I –”

“And you should get that fellow’s hair cut, if you’re in the mood to cut hair. He can’t go to the College like a Shetland pony.” He slapped the paper again, a snap like a boat’s sail in the wind.

Their mother pressed her lips together. “Isobel?” she called. “Will you see to Brigid please, as soon as you’re ready, and then could you come with me into town for an hour or two? I seem to have more to do today than I thought.” She got up. Breakfast was at an end.

Brigid was trying to move away unnoticed when her father called her back, reaching out his arm and pulling her towards him. His voice was gentle again. “Here,” he said, and handed her a piece of toast from his own plate. He offered her tea from his cup, and she looked at him over the rim as she drank it. He smiled with his good eye, the lines she liked forming in the corners. “We’ll have some tea later, when everything’s done.”

Brigid whispered: “Do I have to get my hair cut, Daddy?”

He pulled one plait, gently, and into her ear his voice said: “No. You don’t. I like your hair. You meet me later with your mama and your brother and I’ll take you and your plaits for tea in the Abercorn – or the Bonne Bouche. Somewhere nice. Would you like that?”

Brigid nodded.

“Then it’s a promise. Run now, do what your mama tells you.”

Chapter 5: Miss Chalk

Brigid was happy. She had not escaped going to school, but she had a promise that she would meet her father for tea. She liked the thought that her mother would dress for town in her costume and her pearls. She looked forward to the walk to the bus stop where, looking back, she could see the tops of the seven trees. Their house would look down at them with friendly window eyes. She would see all the other proud houses falling away in a line, one side towards the park, the other side towards a low-roofed factory and quiet grey buildings leaning towards the cemetery. If they walked up to the bus stop, they would pass the thatched house where the shoemaker, in his leather apron, sat tapping behind a half-door. Across the road from him was a farm, where they could hear the lowing night and morning of the cows Brigid longed to ride, like a proper cowgirl, on their broad swaying backs, their sharp smell in her nostrils.