The farm, he said, where he had come to court Brigid’s grandmother was tucked away at the end of a narrow lane, a loanen. In summer, it was thick with brambles and red flowers of fuchsia, and if they came at the right time they might eat the sweet blackberries. For a second, Brigid tasted the blackcurrants from the summer garden at home. Ned did not appear to be listening, but Brigid did not care. It was her family, her story. When you walked down the loanen, said her grandfather, fields fell away on either side, silent, golden. Far away would be the sound of men working, distant shouts, no word distinct. Nearby, the quiet would be complete, not silence, but stillness, one bird singing, the sea breathing itself in and out, and they would taste salt in their nostrils as they walked through the cart-ruts, dried on the ground between the high hedges. Then they would see it, tucked away in a hollow.
It would come and go, he said, through the brambles, till they would round a small bend, and they would look across the gate and the pillar into the field, and then they would walk down to the edge of the world, to the Churn Rock they had just seen, boiling and bubbling, and they would hear the sound of the great sea crashing against the rocks below the lighthouse, winking far away. They would make their way over the field, between the grooves where the tractor had made its cuts, and then they would see the water swirling and splashing below, a high crescent of salt spray dashing the inside of the little inlet below the house. He said smugglers came past in the old days. Ned turned towards him for a moment, but only a moment, and the grandfather said he knew a sheltered place for a picnic, big rocks behind them, the calm sea away from the Churn Rock, smooth but white-capped, and they would look out as far as the Isle of Man.
Brigid settled into the back of the car, and she felt she had been, after all, to the house on the Point. Ned, silent again, seemed to be watching the sky go by through the hedge, over the horizon. Brigid turned her head. Behind them, the lighthouse had begun to blink in the gathering gloom and she could no longer see the little house.
“Granda,” she said, “why is no one there now?”
“Oh, families die out, Brigid,” he said, and then there was no sound but the engine of the car.
In the cooling evening, lonely seabirds calling, the car drew up once again outside the stone house. Brigid’s father turned off the engine, pulled on the brake, and then the silence was, for a moment, complete.
Her grandfather reached for the door handle, and opened it to the air. “Frost,” he said. “I can feel it in my bones.”
“I can feel it in mine,” said his son.
Brigid, who could not feel it in her bones, had a more pressing concern. “Granda,” she said, “will you come and see us? See Francis?”
“I will,” he said. “Very soon.” He looked across at his son, sitting silent at the wheel. “I have business anyway to see to in the city, and one of these mornings I’ll be on your doorstep.” He paused again, still looking at his son. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll come next week at Samhain. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” said Brigid, “but what is sow-an?”
It was too late. A light came on in the hall, and her grandfather, unfolding stiffly from the car, stood up straight.
“I’m done,” he said. “I’m an old done man.”
Ned, pulling at the door handle, made to get out of the car.
“You children don’t need to come in,” said Brigid’s father, with some irritation. “We should get on the road.”
His father looked at him in mild surprise. “They might need to pay a visit before the journey.”
Ned spoke up. “May I visit the bathroom, sir?”
“Oh,” said Brigid’s father. “Yes. I didn’t think. Of course, I suppose so.”
“And Brigid had probably better, too, hadn’t she?” said Ned.
“I think so,” said the grandfather, eyeing Brigid as he reached in a deep pocket for his latchkey.
“But I don’t want . . .” Brigid began.
“You do,” said Ned and, most unexpectedly, took her hand and squeezed it hard. He whispered in her ear, so close that his lips tickled her: “I’m going to show you something.”
He held on to her, not comfortably, but tightly, as they climbed out of the car and followed her grandfather’s slow step. Once through the door, Ned steered her straight upstairs, and along a dim corridor.
“Ned,” said Brigid, pulling back on his arm, “that was the bathroom there. You’ve passed it!”
“Oh, bugger the bathroom,” said Ned.
“Ned!” said Brigid, shocked, though secretly she was impressed, and stored it up.
“In here,” said Ned, and he pushed her into one of the rooms.
“Ned, this is one of the bedrooms. We’re not meant to . . .”
“Oh, shut up, Brigid.”
Another forbidden phrase was squirrelled away. “Do you want to see something or not?”
Brigid was torn. She knew they should not be here. She wished she were out in the car with her father. She did not know whose room this was, and looked nervously behind her. It had a silver-backed hairbrush on the dressing table, and hanging on the wardrobe was a coat of fine wool. Over its shoulder hung a silver fox, its eyes glittering at her. Her mother had one of those in her wardrobe, but it was dark brown, soft and sad, and its eyes did not glitter. Only one person she knew had a silver, glittering fox: Laetitia. They were in Laetitia’s room.
She could hear her grandfather’s voice downstairs, coming through the hall: “Are you children nearly ready? Maurice wants to get on the road.”
“Ned,” she began again. “How did you . . . ? Why did you . . . ?”
“For God’s sake, Brigid, don’t you want to know things? This place is full of . . . Here. Pull open that cupboard.”
It was a narrow cupboard, part of the dressing table.
“Go on,” said Ned. “She keeps secret things in there.”
Still, Brigid did not move.
“Maybe things for Christmas,” he said. “Presents, maybe?”
That was too much. She pulled open the door: it gave with a soft pop, like a sigh. Then, suddenly, horribly, something sprang at her, dark and formless, and she inhaled a musty staleness so pungent that she put out her hands to push it back in again, yet she could not and, as she pushed, another thing, white, snapped viciously in her face. She tumbled backwards, one hand to her face, the other pushing away the enveloping cloud of dusty cloth.
On the ground, sitting, she tried to fight her way free, and found that the thing had collapsed on her. It was cloth, lots of cloth, and the white was a shirt collar, stiff and yellowing, and there was a dark square of something. These empty objects lay harmless, dead, in her lap. Now, she saw the dark cloth was almost green, the white tinged with yellow, and the things were just a man’s jacket, a black shirt front, and a round collar. Brigid, her breathing coming more slowly, realised they were only old clothes.
She turned to Ned. He was watching her, smiling, and Brigid, in an instant, knew what he had done.
“You came in here that other time, when you went up to the bathroom. You knew what was in here. You did this on purpose.”
“Go to the top of the class,” he said. “Nice surprise?”
“But . . . why? Why did you do this to me, Ned?”
He did not move, and his smile stayed in place. “You’re such good value, Brigid. You fall for anything.”
“You’re a horrible boy, Ned Silver,” said Brigid, and she started to roll up the clothes, trying to push them back into the narrow space. It was not easy, and Ned did not help. He moved in an easy, leisurely way, like a young cat, prowling round the room, feeling the material of the curtains, picking up books, turning over the mirror, drawing out a hair from a hairbrush. Brigid grew hot, ashamed to be there, to be there with Ned.
“Brigid!” she heard. “Ned! Come on!” It was her grandfather’s voice again.
Outside, the engine was revving. Her father must be growing impatient. She badly wanted to le
ave, but she could not, how could she, until the clothes were put away – and something was blocking them. Frustrated, and anxious now in case someone came to find them, she rolled and pushed, yet still something blocked her. She reached round the bundle, skinning her fingers as she pushed against the side of the cupboard. There was something in the jacket pocket.
Skinning her knuckles further, she reached in: her fingers closed round a shiny pouch, slippery as a raincoat, and pulling it out, she felt it open. It held a packet of brown tobacco, musty, like damp leaves: tucked into the back of the pouch was a small piece of paper, with writing on it. The writing was very small, and blurred in places, but the signature was large, and Brigid read: My-ra.
“Myra,” she said, aloud, but it made no sense, as a word or a name.
As she worked with one hand to squash the bundle of cloth into the cupboard, the box was suddenly snatched from the other and, angered and surprised, she saw Ned pull the paper from the box and stand, white-faced, staring at it.
“God,” he said. “God.”
“Ned,” she said, “that has to go back. It has all to go back.”
Ned said nothing, and at that moment Laetitia entered, a pale furious storm.
“You sneak, Brigid Arthur,” she said, and her voice was a hiss. “You sly little . . .” She raised her hand to strike her, and Brigid, lifting her arm to protect herself, remembered Isobel, furious in the garden. She looked in despair for Ned, catching sight of him just behind the door. Then she saw him slide round it, and ease out into the corridor.
As Laetitia’s hand fell on her upraised arm, she heard the lavatory flush, and Ned’s voice saying: “I don’t know, Mr Arthur. She was waiting out here while I went to the lavatory. I don’t know where she is now.”
So then there was her grandfather, standing at the doorway. He did not come in.
“Laetitia,” he said. “Leave that child, now.”
Laetitia, suddenly limp, took her hand away, and left the room. Brigid could hear her crying as she rattled down the stairs.
“I’m sorry, Granda,” said Brigid, and she could not hold up her head. “I am really sorry.”
Her grandfather lifted up her chin. “There’s no harm done,” he said. “It’s time we cleared out some of those things anyway. What good are they, now?” He took Brigid’s hand, and led her gently down the stairs and out the door, past the silent woman standing in silence beside the car.
Her father’s profile was like stone, his eyes looking straight ahead as she got in, and she knew, without a word being said, that Laetitia had told him what had happened.
Her grandfather said: “Go easy, Maurice. It was just curiosity. You were a child once yourself, and no angel.” Then, turning to Brigid, he said to her: “I’ll see you soon, girlie, and your brother too,” and he reached into the car and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t mind Laetitia,” he said, very quietly. “She takes it hard, still,” but he did not say what she took hard, or why.
At the other side of the car, noiselessly, unnoticed, Ned Silver let himself in, and then they were driving away. Brigid watched her grandfather standing with his hands up, as if he were waving down an aeroplane from the sky. He grew smaller as the car gathered speed and Brigid still did not know what he meant, and her father had not said a word, and she was deeply ashamed.
Shocked still, baffled, and angry at Ned, she waited for him to speak. To her surprise, he was quiet, almost docile. His face was pale, turned away from her. She thought: someone must have found him out. Yet, no one had chided Ned that she had heard. Her father, his silent face in the mirror showing his disappointment in her, made no difference in his manner to Ned.
Brigid was cold, and could smell in her nostrils still the mustiness and neglect of the clothes in the cupboard. She did not know whose they were. Smelling the tobacco still on her fingers, she wondered why a piece of paper with writing on it was tucked into a packet of tobacco, or why Ned wanted it, and why he started to pray to God. She did not know why everyone was upset except Granda, and there was clearly no one she could ask. She concluded that Isobel had been right: she was just bad, and Ned was as bad – perhaps even worse – and they deserved all they got. Only, Ned got nothing. She looked at him again, and she was instantly sorry. Something had happened to him. His eyes were closed, and from under them she could see tears running down his face.
“Ned,” she said, but there was no answer.
It began to rain, and the swishing of the water beneath the wheels ended the outing. Their drive was silent, the wet road sliding along below the wheels. The tree people were not to be seen; the drumlins crouched, hidden, under misted blankets. After a long, uncomfortable time, with no word spoken, they turned into their driveway, and saw a figure silhouetted in the door.
There would come a time in her life when Brigid would know what it was to stand at a door, waiting for someone who had gone away, but that time was not yet. On the October night in 1955 when she sat behind her father in his car, drawing up to the house that was her home, all she saw in the silhouette at the lighted door was trouble. She knew in that moment that her father had not told her mother he was taking her away for the day. Looking across at Ned, she knew, too, that there was no help there. In the silence after the shutting off of the engine, he sat motionless, then pulled at the silver handle on the inside of the door.
“Thank you, Mr Arthur,” he said. “You were very kind to take me with you,” and then, halfway out of the car, he turned to Brigid, whispering something so low, so indistinctly that she could make out only two words.
She hissed back at him, secrecy now instinctive: “Isobel’s brother what?”
He was gone. The door closed with a bang, and she was left, with her father, to face her mother. As she climbed the steps, slowly, she was prepared, following the scene with Laetitia, for anything, except what happened. Her mother, dark against the door, began to cry when she saw them, saying over and over: “Thank God.”
Brigid saw her father hang his head, and watched the lines at the side of his face deepen.
“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “I should have let you know. I . . . I didn’t think.”
Her mother stood crying in the doorway, and Brigid, feeling the cold, did not know how to go into her own house, until Francis appeared, took her hand, and said to his mother: “Brigid’s getting cold.” Then they were inside, and in the kitchen, and their parents went into the sitting room where she heard only the rise and fall of their voices, soft, loud, deep, high, until the sobbing stopped, and silence washed back.
“Daddy didn’t tell her,” Brigid said.
Francis shook his head. “No. About half an hour ago, Mrs Mulvey was putting out the milk bottles, and she saw Mama at our door and she said to her, ‘Waiting for the travellers?’ so Mama knew then he’d gone somewhere with you and Ned.”
“But not where?” said Brigid.
“Not where,” said Francis, and the silence of the night folded round the children until they grew tired, and went to bed. The closed door of the sitting room did not open, and no one said goodnight to them, except themselves.
Yet, next morning, it was as if none of it had happened. For a few seconds after she wakened, Brigid thought it had all been a strange and disturbing dream. Then, stretching out, she saw on her forearm a blue mark turning green, and she remembered. It had all happened. Yet, she could not talk about it, even to Francis, and part of her wanted to forget it all. Ned, the cause of it, was gone. When she came downstairs, the front door was open, and she heard her mother talking. Was it to herself? Brigid put her head, cautiously, round the front door, and was relieved to see that there was another person talking, unseen, from the other side of the garden fence. It was Mrs Mulvey. She knew the voice.
As she listened, Brigid heard Mrs Mulvey tell her mother that the little clip had been packed off to another school: “And let’s hope he lasts a bit longer there,” she said, “though I doubt it, the light-fingered monkey.”
Chapter 12: Samhain
It was good to have Granda come to stay, except that he brought Ireland with him, and far too much time was spent discussing the news. True, there was some excitement over a princess, and whether the Queen should let the princess marry her group captain, but Brigid did not care what the Prime Minister had said about partition, or know what it meant, even if everyone else did. Even Francis did.
“What was he asked, Granda?” he said. “The Prime Minister. What exactly?”
“He was asked,” said his grandfather, adjusting his glasses and holding the paper away, “to comment on the possibility of settling the partition question, and he replied – I’m quoting this now – ‘Ah, that is a matter for Irishmen. It’s your show’.”
“Is that all he said?” asked Francis.
“Let me see. My old eyes aren’t as good as they were.”
Brigid felt very bored, until her grandfather reached across to her and touched her arm: “Brigid, do you remember the word I told you in Irish for Hallowe’en?”
Francis, forgetting Ireland for a moment, caught her eye, and wrinkled his nose. He said: “Oink.”
Brigid opened her eyes wide.
“Oink,” said Francis again.
“Is it pig?”
“Close enough,” he said. “Samhain: sow-an,” and he touched his grandson’s elbow, but Brigid remained confused about the pig, and how it got in there.
“Come for a walk with me to the post office,” said her grandfather. “And don’t mind that brother of yours.”
Still, Brigid wondered about the pig. She wondered about it until they were some way down the road. “Granda?” she said. “Sow? Is that not for pig?”
He gave a little laugh, tipping his hat to Ned’s housekeeper who walked past with her shopping bag. “Did you see the villain off to his school, ma’am?”
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