When she opened them, she knew something was wrong. Her father, napkin in hand, was on his feet, and he was looking straight at the door leading from the stairs. Brigid turned right round in her seat, almost taking with her the white tablecloth. At the top of the stairs, she saw her mother, in her heathery costume, small pearls at her neck. But something was wrong. Beside her, inside the circle of her arm, stood Francis, shaking and pale. Over one eye, he wore a thick white bandage. Francis, but not Francis – Brigid remembered her father in the summer. Quickly, she looked up at him. He had no bandage now, only the heavy glasses masked his eyes, but his hands were clenched and white, frozen on his napkin. Joy drained from the day.
Before they could speak, her mother moved quickly across to them, her hand under Francis’ elbow. “I’m sorry, Maurice. I had no means of letting you know. Hello, Brigid,” she said, absently, as Brigid, looking up, touched her sleeve. “Francis was hit by a brick as he was walking into town from school. We’ve had it stitched. He’s all right. No,” she said, as her husband’s mouth opened to speak, “he is all right. Really. There’s no damage to his eye.”
Francis did not look all right. Everything in him seemed to be shaking, and his unbandaged eye had a look Brigid had never seen before.
Their father spoke, and his voice was tight, and high, like wire: “What are we doing here? Let’s get him home,” and he began to signal to the waitress.
His wife laid her hand on his sleeve, shaking her head: “Not quite yet, Maurice. He’s had a shock. Hot sweet tea and something to eat will help him, and then we’ll go. Besides,” she said, and Brigid saw her mother incline towards her, “wasn’t someone else promised tea with her daddy in town, a long time ago?”
Brigid was grateful, but even she, who had so longed for this treat, could not now enjoy it. “That’s all right, Mama,” she said, “we don’t have to,” but her mother, no longer looking at her, was suddenly sitting on the chair that had been Brigid’s, her hands at her face.
“What are we to do?” she said. “What sort of a place is it where a child could have a brick thrown at him because of his uniform?”
“Easy,” said her husband, looking behind him. “You don’t know that was why.”
“I do,” came the low reply.
Both children turned towards their mother, and Brigid saw her, on an instant, fix her face into an expression she knew: interested, cheerful and distant. “Anyway, what sort of time did you two have?” she said.
“A fine time,” said her father, catching the mood. “Brigid saw – what did you see, Brídín?”
Brigid took her attention away for a moment from Francis’ stricken face. “A sky full of starlings,” she said, instantly reliving that joy.
“That’s right,” said her father. “A sky full of starlings. And she has a new book, haven’t you?”
Brigid nodded, and she began to take out the parcel from beneath her white napkin, but her mother put her hand on hers, and stilled her.
“I think we’ll look at that together at home,” she said.
“And then,” said her father in a quiet, measured tone, “and then she walked right into a very large young reverend gentleman, no friend to those of the – shall we say – of the old faith.”
There was silence.
“What?” said her mother, putting down the cup she had just, for the first time, raised. “Do you mean the person I think you mean? The man Cornelius Todd heard preach against . . . ?”
Brigid saw her father, the finger of one hand casually travelling to his lips, nod his head. “He was a giant,” she said.
Her mother kept her eyes on her husband’s face. “Is there something going on in the town? One of those . . . you know, those . . . meetings?”
“Not that I’m aware,” he replied. “The man was standing reading a book, and Brigid charged into him, didn’t you, Brídín?” He turned again to Brigid, and his hands were spread open, inviting her to help him.
“No, Daddy,” said Brigid, firmly, “I did not charge. I just walked into him by accident. And he was not a man. He was a giant. Do you know who he is?”
Her parents looked at each other. Brigid saw her mother shake her head, just perceptibly, and then her father said: “Just a man, Brigid. Just a big man – yes, all right, then, a giant – who came in to look at books in a bookshop, and didn’t notice a little girl bumping into him. There was no harm done.”
Brigid was not satisfied, and thought she might ask Francis about it later, if he was able to speak. He was still very pale. They left straight after tea, and walked to the sad car park, past the ruined house. Brigid saw again the corner room, cut away like a doll’s house, its peeling wallpaper and the darker places where pictures had hung, and the empty grate where a fire had been. She looked away. In her dreams, she had been the child of that house.
When they reached home, Francis asked to go up to bed. On the stairs, he stumbled once, and their father made to move forward and catch him, but their mother, coming from the telephone, caught his arm and shook her head. “Leave him,” she said. “Let the child be. I’ve sent for the doctor. He’ll look at him.”
Still, to Brigid, her father seemed restless, pacing the kitchen, until her mother led him out to the hall by the arm. “Maurice,” she said, “please. It does no good to get excited, and you are really under my feet at the moment. Why don’t you and Brigid go out for a walk, while I see to Francis? You’ll see the car at the gate when the doctor comes, if you don’t go far.”
Brigid’s father said nothing and, without looking at his wife, put Brigid’s coat back on her, took her hand, and opened the door.
Superfluous, they set off together down the road. Neither was in the mood for a walk. Not far from the house, to the relief of both, they met Mr Doughty. Until now, Brigid had seen him only in the plot. How different he looked in his uniform, not exactly black, not quite green. His flat cap had a peak that hid the kindliness of his eyes. He looked much taller, not as tall as the giant in the bookshop but, because she could not see his eyes, he was forbidding. And like Mr Steele, he carried at his hip a great gun, in a holster. Brigid felt a slight shock. She had become used to the idea of Mr Steele carrying a gun, but she could not reconcile it with her picture of gentle Mr Doughty. She did remember, from the meeting with Mr Steele, that she must not mention the gun. Still, she could not avoid looking at it, on a level with her eyes, as her father and the policeman stopped in greeting. They spoke of the kindness of the weather, and a surprising result in a match they had both watched on television the previous Saturday. Mr Doughty inquired after Mrs Arthur. He said Brigid was growing taller by the day, and asked after her brother.
“He was hit on the head, Mr Doughty,” said Brigid and, immediately, just as her mother had done when she stared at Mr Steele and his gun, her father squeezed her hand very tightly.
“How’s that, Mr Arthur?” said Mr Doughty, with concern.
“Oh,” said her father, and his hand on hers tightened even more. “Schoolboys, you know, Mr Doughty. Horseplay.”
“Oh, indeed,” said Mr Doughty, shaking his head. “Boys are holy terrors for horseplay.”
Amazed, Brigid looked up at her father, who did not respond. Why did he not tell what happened to Francis? Wasn’t it something he should tell a policeman? She could make no sense of it.
Then, just as her father was touching his hat, ready to walk on, Mr Doughty said: “All the same, Mr Arthur. Schoolboys and horseplay apart, we need all to be careful these days, nearer home.”
“Indeed,” said Brigid’s father, carefully.
Mr Doughty cleared his throat, and looked over Brigid’s head, to the plot, and the mountain beyond. “Those IRA fellows in England haven’t been caught yet, planting their packages. It’s said they were on the Liverpool boat in the summer. Could be anywhere now.” He paused again, took out a large white handkerchief from under his tunic, and blew his nose. For a moment he looked like the Mr Doughty Brigid knew from the plot. The
n, just as suddenly, he was the policeman again. “Could be here among us.”
“Aye, indeed, Mr Doughty,” said her father, lifting his hat a little from his head. “Well, good evening to you, now. I must get this girl of mine home.”
Mr Doughty looked down at Brigid, and she saw her old friend. His face softened.
“Good night to you, Miss Brigid,” he said. “I haven’t seen you out in the garden now a while. Too cold to play, is it?” and he ruffled her hair. The action sent the gun swinging heavily towards her, almost into her face and, just as she stiffened, Mr Doughty took back his hand, and the menacing blackness pulled away.
They turned back to the house. “There’s the doctor’s car,” said her father. “Come on, Brigid. Pick up your feet.”
“Daddy,” she said, “why did you not tell Mr Doughty what really happened to Francis?”
He did not reply for a moment and then he said: “Brigid, I was going to tell you this later, but I’ll do it now. Say nothing to anyone about Francis.”
“But why, Daddy?”
He sighed, stopped, and hunkered down to face her on her own level. For an instant, she thought of George Bailey. “Brigid,” said her father, and his eyes were not smiling. “Listen. I’m only going to say this once. In this place, we keep our business to ourselves. Can you remember that?”
Brigid, not understanding, nodded her head. She had thought she might tell Mr Doughty, the next time she saw him in the plot, until that moment when the gun came close to her, swinging near her face like a live thing. Now, after that, and because her father asked her, she would never tell Mr Doughty, or anybody, what really happened to Francis.
Chapter 9: Children of Other Lands
Now it was Francis who had to stay in bed. When Brigid went in to see him, he was not even reading. Beside him the wireless sat oddly silent and this, more than anything, made Brigid feel uneasy. Without him the house felt too still, though Francis himself was all stillness. What was missing was his light, his peaceful acceptance of whatever came his way. Francis in bed, Francis not reading or listening to the wireless, Francis looking listlessly from of his window at the seven trees, was wrong.
As much to cheer herself as him, Brigid brought him her new book, invited him to run his hand over its cover of red cloth, rough yet warm to the touch, showed him the colours and sounds of the pictures inside, easing herself onto the bed until she sat beside him. The hospital had put on a white bandage, far too much like the bandage their father had worn when he came home from London. When their own doctor had come, he had shaken his head. He had redone it, so that now there was a small bandage; all around it, his skin was purple and blue.
“Some of the words are too hard for me, Francis,” Brigid said. “Will you help me?”
Francis turned his head as if he had been a long way away. At first, he did not speak, then he said: “I can’t read at the moment, Brigid. Tell me what you think they are. I’ll tell you if I know.”
Now, she was afraid. Francis not reading could be an accident: Francis not wanting to read, or worse, not knowing the answer, was too much like the latest bad dream, where she came home from school, by herself, and the door was opened by someone who was nearly Mama, but not, and inside were people who were Not-Isobel and Not-Francis, and Not-Daddy, and she could tell no one because in this town they must keep their business to themselves. Perhaps this was real, and the Not-people were taking over. Perhaps the happy life was the dream? No. No to that. There was Francis. There would always be Francis, even if he lived to be a hundred, and when he was a hundred, he would wait for her to be a hundred too.
“Well,” she said, opening at one of the pictures, “one shows a boy with his finger in a wall. He has a blue coat on and a cap, and fair hair. He looks cold. Why is his finger in the wall?”
Francis smiled a little. “Ah. This I can do. He is the Little Dutch Boy. If the water comes through the wall, the dyke, all of his country, a flat country, will be flooded and everyone will drown. He doesn’t have time to tell anyone, so he puts his finger in the hole he’s found and stays there till someone comes.”
“He saves the country?”
“Yes,” said Francis, “he saves the country.”
Brigid looked at the cold little boy, all alone by his wall. “Would you do that, Francis, to save a country?”
“I don’t know, said Francis. “I’ve never thought about it. If I had to, I suppose I might.”
“I think you would, Francis,” said Brigid. “But I know I wouldn’t.”
She laughed, and Francis almost joined her.
“Do you know who else wouldn’t?” she said.
The corners of his mouth turned up in something like his old smile. “Tell me,” he said.
“Ned!” cried Brigid. “Ned Silver wouldn’t.”
Francis laughed, at last. “I think you’re right,” he said but, as he spoke, he drew in his breath and his hand went up to his head.
Brigid, concerned, looked at the bruises beneath his fingers. They were like a map of a country.
“Francis, what did happen to your head?”
Francis turned away; she felt him shift in the bed. “I don’t really know. There’s a street that runs between the road below your school and a road that’s near my school. Like the bar in the capital H?”
Brigid nodded her head.
“Well, there are quite a few of those streets round there. They’re like the rungs in a ladder. Do you know what I mean?”
Brigid nodded again.
“Those are short cuts for me when I’m going to the College. I get off the bus, and go across one of them – Agnes Street, usually, or sometimes over Dover Street.”
Brigid laughed. “Over Dover!” she said.
This time, he did not laugh. “Yes,” he said. “That’s it. Well, that’s where I was going when something hit me on the head. They said in the hospital it was a brick or a big stone. I don’t even go that way, usually, after school. I was coming to meet you all.” Now, he laughed a little, but he did not smile. “Trust me to get it wrong,” he said.
“Yes, but who did that?” Brigid asked. “Why? Who would want to hit you with a big stone?”
“I don’t know,” said Francis, his voice flat. “That’s the thing. They say it could have been children.”
“But, why?” said Brigid, and she felt the bed springs twang. “Who? Why?”
Francis turned in the bed, and looked away. “Brigid, would you please not bounce? Maybe because I was wearing a uniform that says I am a Catholic, and I went across a street where somebody didn’t like that. Someone, they think a Protestant boy, hit me because of that.”
“I don’t understand. I know Catholic from school. But what is prodoson? What does that mean?”
“Brigid,” he said, and his voice sounded very tired now, “I don’t have the energy to explain it to you now. We are Catholic. You know that. But not everyone in the world is. Some are Protestant. Some are Jews. Some are Muslims. There are many, many different religions in the world. There’s a good word for you, if you want one. Religion.”
“I hear that one in school,” said Brigid, “but I don’t really know what it means.”
“It comes from Latin, religare, to join together. I only learned the meaning myself last week. Then I learned it a different way today.” He started to laugh, and then stopped, as if it hurt. “Sometime I might tell you why that seems a good joke to me right now.” He smiled, but his eyes did not smile. He looked away again and the skin round his eyes was blue. “The thing is, they are all meant to be roads to God and heaven.”
“I don’t understand, Francis,” said Brigid, and she meant it. She had no idea what he was talking about.
“Well, don’t worry about it,” he said. “Your book. What’s it called?”
She held it out to him.
“Children of Other Lands,” he read, then he let it fall back behind the folds of the eiderdown. “That’s it,” he said. “Maybe just think about th
at. We’re all children of other lands, to somebody. That’s it.”
Still, Brigid did not understand but, seeing that he had closed his eyes, that his hands had slipped from the book, she picked it up gently, slipped off the bed and backed from the room as quietly as she could. She wondered what he meant. How could they be children of other lands, if this was their land? And, now, who was there to ask? She looked up at Blessed Oliver as she went past, but there was no hope there.
The house sat silent. Her mother was in the cloakroom on the telephone, her voice indistinct. Brigid walked past on tiptoe, then swiftly through the kitchen, out into the yard with its comforting stack of coal and wood. She reached up, closed, with some effort, the high latch on the back door, and ran up to the garden.
Without Francis, everything felt too big. The garden seemed asleep, and all the trees had lost their leaves. Even the Friday Tree stood empty. Through its bare ribs, she saw a vast and lowering grey sky. Beyond the fence, the ground in the plot looked hard, dark and brown, unrelieved by anything green or soft. Everything seemed tired, as Francis was tired and, though it was Saturday, neither Mr Doughty nor Mr Steele seemed to have any work to do in the plot. All Brigid could hear was silence. Somewhere, there was a distant smell of smoke. She sniffed it, and a memory shifted inside her. Had there not been a day in summer when they had gone up to the Friday Tree and known someone had been there? She tried to remember. Had they not seen the remains of a little fire then, or did she make that up? She shaded her brow against the steely sun, and half-closed her eyes to see far away. Maybe there was a wisp of smoke beneath the Friday Tree, maybe not. Francis would know, if she could ask him. She looked up to his room, hoping she might see him at the window in his old way, looking beyond the trees, following a bird with his telescope, listening to sounds that only he could hear. There was no one. The window was a blank, sightless eye. Brigid, looking up, shivered quickly. What if Francis did not get better?
The Friday Tree Page 10
