He did not seem to hear her. Brigid saw him look straight at Rose, but all Rose appeared to see was a trolleybus rolling past on the road.
“Tell us about the Commemoration in Down, Conor,” said their father from his chair, as if none of them had said a word.
“Who spoke, you mean?” said Cornelius. Turning away from Rose, he pulled up the knees of his trouser-legs, and settled himself in the armchair. “Ah, you know, Maurice,” he said, pleasantly, as if nothing had happened, “it was our friend – that character who . . .” and as if no one else were present in the room, began what seemed to Brigid a very long account of people talking in a field about someone who was dead.
Brigid could not imagine how it interested her father, in his weakened state, yet it clearly did. He nodded and leaned forward in his chair so that Brigid thought he might slide out of it altogether. He asked questions of Uncle Conor as he had not done of her, or of Francis. Back and forth, they repeated the same words and numbers over and over: Connolly, Collins, Pearse, Tans, Hunger, Strike, John Bull, Sixteen, Twenty-one, Treaty, Troubles.
Her father grew more animated with every minute. He finally left his chair, half standing as he said: “And the Captain, Conor? Did you hear about the bold Captain, and his so-called ‘liberal policy towards the minority’? Did you read that? It was in the paper. Look.” He slid back into the chair, and reached down beside him where, in his excitement, he had dropped the newspaper on the floor. “Here, yes. I have it. I can’t make it out too well, but I can get the gist. Have you read it, Conor?”
“No need, Maurice,” said Conor, his hand out to take the newspaper. “I know what it said. The good Captain said he was warning what he called the minority that they must not meet this liberal policy with what he described as ingratitude. The papers said it was a hot Twelfth this year, and they were not wrong. And, you know, I went over and heard that young clergyman – you remember I said I would? I heard him preach at his new church in the east of the city. I’m sure you’ll be interested to learn that the Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian Church, and that the Pope is the Anti-Christ.”
Their mother reached across and placed her hand on her husband’s arm. “Maurice,” she said. “The children,” but he seemed not to hear, looking with his good eye only at Conor.
“Ah, that fellow’s a firebrand,” he said. “He’ll burn himself out. I’m more concerned about the fifteen thousand Orangemen marching by the Longstone Road on the Twelfth. Their right! Their right! Holy cats o’ cats!”
Uncle Conor, glancing at the children, turned to their mother. “All quiet now though, Grace, down that direction. There was no trouble in the end. It was a respectful remembrance of a brave man who died, all those years ago, for a principle.”
“By starving himself? What was brave about that?”
To everyone’s surprise, this voice belonged to Rose.
No one else spoke. Brigid tried to catch Francis’ eye, in hope of escape, but Francis did not respond. His eyes were fixed upon their visitor.
“Does it still happen, Uncle Conor?” he said.
“Does what still happen, son?”
“Does it still happen in Ireland that people die because of politics, or get . . . you know, get killed?”
Conor looked at him straight in the eyes, as if Francis were an adult. “It still happens,” he said.
Francis intent, a cub about to spring, seemed suddenly to hesitate.
“Go ahead, son,” said Uncle Conor, and his voice was very quiet. “Say what’s on your mind.”
Francis stood up, ran his hand through his hair and said quickly, as if he could not stop the words: “Is there still an IRA, Uncle Conor?”
Brigid, no longer bored, felt herself stiffen, her eyes widen, and looked towards the door for Isobel. She was there, outside, Brigid knew. She had often seen her in the hall, quite still, listening. The clock on the mantel ticked for a long time before Uncle Conor stopped watching Francis. Brigid saw again his eyes grow cool, distant and appraising. She thought he would never answer.
Then, almost carelessly, he said: “Why do you ask that, Francis?”
Francis looked at the floor, then directly at Uncle Conor. “I thought the IRA was long ago. I thought it was over. I thought it was remembered in days like the one you were talking about, but just remembering, not happening any more.”
More silence. More moments for the clock to mark.
Francis took a deep breath: “Then I read in the newspaper that the police found guns in London. Boxes of them. They said they were IRA guns. They were to blow up places, army barracks. It said police, Special Branch, were looking for IRA men in London, and at the ports. Liverpool. The paper said they could have come here.”
The children’s mother lifted the heavy silver teapot, holding it poised as if it were made of paper. “Cornelius,” she said, “more tea?”
Uncle Conor looked at his hands, spread broadly in front of him. “The papers are full of stories, Francis,” he said. “That’s how papers are sold.” He put his hands on his knees with a loud smack, and stood up. “I don’t think I’ll have any more tea, thank you, Grace. I must get on the road.”
“Did you come up on the train this morning, Cornelius?” said their mother, rising as she spoke.
“Not this time. I got a lift, as it turned out. We came through the Mournes, through Eightmilebridge.”
“I love the train,” said their mother, turning all her attention on the children. “Maybe we’ll do that some day. We’ll go on the train, and you’ll see the hedges and fields and houses all streaming past you in a whistle.” She smiled, her warm smile, but there was in it a warning.
Francis, still watching Uncle Conor, turned with reluctance and met her eyes. “Faster than fairies,” he said, “faster than witches.”
“That’s right,” said his mother, and she reached out to stroke his head. “Good boy.” She turned back to Conor. “Now, Cornelius, I’m going to send these two out again. It’s a shame to have them inside this good day. Dear knows how many more we’ll have before the summer’s done.”
“Ah, don’t put them out,” he said. “I’m away. I can hear the sound of a car, and it could be my transport.” He smiled his crooked smile, and pulled them both close into his big arms. There was no softness in him today. Brigid, uncomfortable, remembered the grizzly bear. “And if your mother brings you over the border on the train, you can come and see me in my house, can’t you?”
Even as they nodded “Yes”, Brigid heard their mother say: “We’ll see what happens, Cornelius,” which both children knew meant ‘No’.
With relief, and anxious to be outside, Brigid and Francis ran out again through the kitchen. Yet, even before they turned out of the back yard, they heard a car door open, and veered round the side of the house to see who was coming or going. They were in time to see Uncle Conor getting into a car, but they could not see who was driving it. Turning round as he swivelled in, Cornelius included Brigid and Francis in his friendly wave, a kindly lion again, the grizzly bear hidden away.
On the morning air their mother’s voice carried through the window: “I don’t know what to think when I see Cornelius Todd. He just appears, and then he disappears. Like the Cheshire cat, but less comfortable.”
Then Rose’s voice spoke, smaller, flatter, not Rose’s voice at all: “And always when there is something going on,” she said.
“You’re right,” they heard their mother say. “I’m sorry, Rose. I was forgetting. It must have been uncomfortable for you,” and then the voices floated away.
Brigid and Francis looked at each other, but said nothing. They walked back around the house.
At the foot of the steps, Brigid stopped and said up to Francis, already near the top: “Why do we call him ‘Uncle’ and ‘Conor’ when he is not our real uncle and the grown-ups call him that name I can’t say?”
Francis said, reasonably: “That’s why. You can’t say Cornelius properly, and neither could I
one time. Daddy calls him Conor, the Irish for it. And ‘Uncle’, well, people call their parents’ friends that sometimes. That’s about it.”
“But we don’t call Rose ‘Aunt Rose’ when we speak to her. Or Michael ‘Uncle Michael’ when we go to Tullybroughan.”
“Because she is really our aunt,” said Francis, shrugging his shoulders. “We don’t need to. We know she’s our aunt, and Michael’s our uncle. Same with Laetitia in Lecale.”
Brigid made a face. “I don’t always like Laetitia,” she said. “I’m not sure she likes me.”
“Laetitia’s all right,” said Francis. “Don’t annoy her, that’s all.”
“And there is an Uncle Laurence who is not really an uncle either?”
“Was, not is. Don’t think too much about it all, Brigid. Here, take this.”
Brigid, wondering what she would do if she did not have Francis to explain things to her, took the chocolate he handed her, and they sat, both thoughtful, on the grass.
“Francis,” asked Brigid, as they peeled away the silver paper and broke off chunky squares. How good chocolate was! How smooth and velvety-warm in her mouth. “Why did you ask those questions about,” she looked round, “that thing we aren’t supposed to mention? You know,” and she dropped her voice to a whisper, “IRA.”
Francis took a square of chocolate, slowly inserting it between his teeth. “I wanted to know,” he said.
Behind them, there was a sound in the plot. Turning, they saw Mr Doughty, his collar off, his face reddened with heat. He was coughing beneath his hand, quietly, to himself.
“Mr Doughty,” they said together, getting to their feet.
“Would you like some chocolate, Mr Doughty?” asked Francis, moving towards the plot fence.
“Morning, children,” he said, quite stiffly, then more kindly, “No, thank you. I’d spoil my dinner.”
Brigid wondered if he had heard her shouting about the IRA or, worse, if he guessed – since he was a policeman – what they were not mentioning now. His hands were behind his back. Perhaps he had handcuffs. Brigid stiffened as he reached his hands forward towards her, and then she saw what they held seemed like two large bouquets. One was cabbage, the other rhubarb.
“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 newspaperand 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 bac
k 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.
The Friday Tree Page 4
