She knelt up on the eiderdown, going to the pile on the chair, then to the stocking, not knowing where to begin. There was a book, with a picture on the front of the Sleeping Beauty, and all around her were Puss in Boots, and Jack looking down from the top of the beanstalk, and Aladdin with his wonderful lamp. It said Four . . . Nursery Stories, with a long word in the middle. She tried again. She put the sounds together. The long word was ‘favo-our-ite’. Four Favourite Nursery Stories.
There was a little sewing set, like her mother’s, with tiny reels of thread and red quilting on the inside of the box. There was a card game: Happy Families. And there was a doll. He had brought her the doll. Indeed, she was exquisite, brown eyes and hair so pale it was almost silver, delicate eyebrows permanently raised. Brigid smelled her newness, and watched her close her eyes full of secrets. Her mouth looked as though it might be about to smile, or might not, and her dress was dark, and ruched, and soft. She wore white buckled shoes and socks. She was not a doll: she was a princess.
Yet, placing her back in her box, Brigid was puzzled. She had told Santa Claus about her change of mind, and he had still brought her the doll. She was glad he had not, after all, brought her a theatre. Still, she did not understand. She had told him.
Brigid slid out of bed, lifted the doll in her box and padded in to Francis. He was sitting on his bed, turning over and over a shiny camera, with a round shell-shaped glass on its top, raising it to his eyes, working at the dials on the back, reading the instructions, examining every angle of the camera. Books and an orange and an apple lay beside him on the bed.
“Happy Christmas,” he said, pointing his camera at her. It flashed, and Brigid saw a kaleidoscope of colours.
“Francis,” she said. “Look. He brought me the doll.”
He looked from behind his camera: “Ah!” he said. “That’s a French doll. Une poupée. Happy Christmas to you, poupée,” he said to the doll, reaching over and taking her hard little hand. “Joyeux Noël.”
“How did you know to say that to her?” Brigid asked, impressed. “How do you know she is a French doll?”
“Look at the box in your hand,” Francis said.
Brigid looked, but it made no sense.
“See?” said Francis. “See that word there? ‘Poupée.” French for doll.”
“Then she needs a proper French name. I don’t know any. Do you?”
Francis thought. “Marianne,” he said. “That’s as French as they get.”
“Marianne. All right. Santa Claus does get around, doesn’t he, Francis?”
“He does, yes. He’s some traveller.”
“But, Francis . . .” Brigid struggled to frame her question. “Did you . . . did you get what you asked him for?”
He did not look up. “I got this camera. It’s excellent. It’s got a flash. Look!” and he held up the small box of leather and plastic and glass. “Do you want to hold it?” He held it out.
She placed Marianne on his bed and reached out to take it but, still, he had not answered her question. He held his hands over hers and, distracted, she was surprised by the camera’s heaviness.
“That’s what you asked for?” said Brigid. Francis seemed not to hear. “But, Francis, when we saw Santa, I asked . . .”
“Tell you what,” said Francis, and he took her hand. “Race you downstairs.”
They tumbled downstairs together. Through the railings of the banister, they could see their mother bending down, switching on the Cinderella lights. She was wearing her blue dressing gown. That was another thing Brigid meant to ask about.
“Francis,” she said, at the foot of the stairs. He paused, holding the newel post.
“There is really Santa Claus, isn’t there?”
Francis did not hesitate: “Of course,” he said. “Come on. I’ve something a bit special to show you later.”
She held his arm, and felt his excitement running through it. She would tell him, quickly, before he saw what was in the parcel.
“What?” he said. “What is it?”
“Oh, Francis . . .” She still could not tell him about the theatre . . . but the dressing gown . . . ? “I . . . just . . . I saw blue, not red, blue like Mama’s dressing gown going out the door, just when I woke up and found the presents.”
Francis nudged her across the doorway to the sitting room. “Daft Brigid. Mama would have been checking to make sure we hadn’t wakened. Do you think she would let us see him, or he would let us see him? And don’t you want to know what I’m going to show you?”
“He might,” said Brigid. “And, yes, I do . . . but Francis . . .”
“Then come on,” he said, and took her arm into the room. Now it was, finally, too late.
“Well, children!” said their mother. “Happy Christmas! Did he come?”
Brigid held out her doll in its box, and Francis his camera. Sitting down, lines under her eyes darker than the blue of her dressing gown, she seemed pleased. Francis stroked her arm.
“Shall I take a photograph, Mama?” he said, and pointed the new camera.
“Oh, please, Francis,” she said, and she pushed it gently away, “have mercy. But, come here, both of you. What are these under the tree? Look. I see your names!”
Brigid looked at Francis, and watched him as he dropped to his knees and began to open his parcel. Brigid watched him untie the string, fold back the paper.
“Ah!” cried Francis, as he put aside the wrapping. “Meccano! Excellent!” and his eyes, as he turned to Brigid, were bright and dancing. “Go on,” he said, nudging her elbow. “Open yours. And then . . . you know what I told you. There is something else . . .”
Brigid, her heart contracting, began to undo the string and, once again, she saw emerge the little theatre in its shining morning colour. “Oh,” she said, and she did not look up. A long moment passed, and then she had to look up.
Francis, his face closed, sat perfectly still on his heels. “Well, now,” he said. “That’s . . . something you really wanted.”
“Francis, I . . .”
“You are two lucky children!” said her mother, as if Brigid had not spoken. “Rose has spoiled the pair of you, hasn’t she, Maurice?” She turned to her husband who, already dressed in his Sunday suit, had come into the room unnoticed.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes showing the kindly lines of his smile, “and I’d say that Conor Todd had a hand in it, too.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said his wife, smoothing and folding the wrapping paper against her knees. “I think it was really Rose. Now, look at that clock! Time to get dressed.” Slowly, holding her back, she straightened. “Francis,” she said, “could you take . . . ?” She looked around, puzzled, her hands full of the folded paper.
Francis was no longer in the room.
No one but Brigid had seen him go. Looking down at the present she had asked for, she felt suddenly hot and ashamed. “I’ll get him,” she said, and ran out through the hall to the kitchen, to the back door.
She lifted the latch and stepped out into the back yard, the sharp wind taking her breath. For a moment, she stopped, her eyes travelling up beyond the back yard, beyond the house and the plot to the trees. She could just see their tops, poor skeletons touched by frost for Christmas, and beyond them the dark mountain, hung with late stars. Her eyes travelled downwards: cold points like diamonds glistened on the roof of the coalhouse, and on the bolt of the door which was hanging a little ajar. Brigid, with the remains of hope, picked her way across the frozen ground, and pulled the door open. There was no one there: she had known there would be no one there. There was nothing to be seen but coal, and logs. The cardboard theatre, with its careful balconies and marked doors, its brave square opening, was gone, as if it had never been, and there was no Francis.
In the corner of the yard, the frosted bin sat forlorn, its lid a little askew. Brigid, sadness and shame running through her like fire, did not need to look further. She saw the corner of an abandoned box jutting out
from the top of the bin, its edges squared away as if it had been cut with a knife.
Chapter 16: The Princess Victoria
Christmas could not last forever. One morning she woke up, and knew it was over. Her theatre stood on a stool in the corner, Marianne in front of it, disdainful. Her book and her games sat bright and inviting by her bed, and the wintry world outside spoke still of Christmas, but the music of wonder had ceased.
Brigid got up and followed the sound of voices downstairs. She saw at once what was different: the tree was gone. A great empty space showed too much light from the window; a trail of sharp pine needles led to the door.
Her mother sat propped on the arm of a chair, one hand on her chest. She was wearing the polka-dot smock again. “Ah, Brigid,” she said. “The very one. Have you seen the Santa Claus? You know it, the one I sewed.”
Brigid shook her head, but her mother still seemed to be waiting. “Oh, well,” she said, after a moment, sounding suddenly tired. “I daresay it’ll turn up. It just would be nice to get it all tidied and away. But, Brigid?”
Brigid, wary, turned at the door.
“After you get dressed – I’m sure that’s where you’re going now – have a good think about where that Santa might be. And have a good look, too.”
Outside the wind was gathering, and the sky sat low. In the warmth of the house, Brigid felt a chill: everything was flat. She really did not know where the Santa had gone, but she understood that she was under suspicion, after the hoking. Even now, it came back. Even here, sitting on the stairs at home, she was once more in Laetitia’s bedroom, breathing that smell as the door came suddenly away. Once again the choking mustiness, once again the nightmare musty mouldering, springing at her, and that yellowing boomerang thing she fought with and tried to stuff back. She could not shake the memory away.
The back door opened and shut: another chill swept through the hall. Then, Francis came out of the kitchen, smelling of pine needles.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said.
“I just remembered something horrible,” she said.
Francis swung round the newel post and sat down beside her. He leaned his back against the wall. “What?” he said.
“I don’t want to tell you.”
Francis moved to get up. “All right,” he said. “You don’t have to.”
Brigid caught his ankle. “No. No. Don’t go. I do. I do want to tell you.”
“Tell me, then,” said Francis.
“Just don’t be cross.”
Francis waited.
“When we went with Daddy – me and Ned, not you – you had your head thing, remember?”
Francis passed his hand over the fading scar. He nodded.
“That time, I . . . I went hoking in Granda’s. But it wasn’t me really – it was Ned Silver’s fault. He made me.”
Francis said nothing.
“He did make me. He’s a horrible boy. And nobody said a word to him about it, and he pretended it was all me. It wasn’t fair.”
“You went hoking,” said Francis, with a shrug. “Everybody knows that. Is that all?”
“It’s not really. There was this horrible thing. It jumped at me, green and dark and smelly, and a roundy thing that was yellowy-white, and a slimy pouch coming open and a paper with writing . . . and I could smell it and Laetitia came in and she shouted, and she hit me on the arm . . . I just remembered it and it was worse. It was worse than when it happened, Francis.”
“Laetitia hit you?” he said, and his face changed.
“Just once. Granda stopped her. Daddy said nothing all the way home. I thought I had forgotten, Francis. I thought it was gone.”
He dropped his eyes, silent and still, close beside her on stairs. “Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. He reached his hand down to her. “Let’s go and sit for a moment in my room.”
Brigid followed him down the corridor, Blessed Oliver especially severe as she passed below. Francis swung her up and perched her on the edge of his high bed. He left her there and sat on the window ledge, shadowing the window’s wintry light. Behind him the branches of the Friday Tree spread out, cold and forlorn.
Francis looked down at his shoes, and then straight at Brigid. “Listen to me,” he said. “What you did wasn’t good.”
Brigid’s head hung down.
“Look up,” he said. “Look up, Brigid.” She looked up, swallowing. Francis was the only one who had never been cross with her. “It’s not the end of the world, but you have got to think about things more. You didn’t mean to do any harm, but you can’t . . . you don’t go hoking in other people’s things. Do you get that?”
Brigid nodded, vigorously, several times. She opened her mouth to speak.
Francis held up his hand, square, palm towards her. “Don’t say anything,” he said. “I haven’t finished.”
She said nothing.
“Those things you found in Granda’s belonged to our Uncle Laurence, who was lost. Remember?”
Brigid nodded again. Perhaps they had gone and found him. “On the Princess Victoria?”
“Yes. He died on the Princess Victoria.”
Brigid drew in her breath. “He died? I thought he was lost?”
Francis paused. “Listen. Laetitia was very upset about Laurence.”
“I know,” said Brigid, with feeling. “I’m the one she hit. But I don’t really see why. He was only a sort of uncle, wasn’t he?”
“No, well, that’s it, you see. He wasn’t exactly her brother, but he was like a brother, because Granda Arthur took care of him after his own parents died – and he spent so much time in the house, he became like one of the family.”
So that was why he was only a sort of uncle. Brigid began to see.
“And, three years ago,” Francis continued, “just around this time of the year – well, a bit later, end of January, he died, and nobody has ever felt able to get rid of his things. They can’t. It’s too hard. How do you think they felt, Daddy or Granda, or Laetitia, to find you going through them?”
Brigid, unable to help herself, began to sniffle. “It was Ned Silver’s fault. He made me.”
Francis handed her his handkerchief, but he did not soften. “Stop that,” he said, “and listen.”
Brigid swallowed, and stopped.
“For a start, nobody makes you do anything. You chose to go hoking. Remember that.”
Brigid breathed hard, but said nothing. She knew Ned Silver had made her.
“Next. Those were his clothes you found. They were the clothes he was wearing when he died. The white thing was his collar, a stiff collar. Daddy has some a bit like it.”
“It jumped,” said Brigid, still stung. “Collars don’t jump.”
“They don’t if you leave them be. Anyway, Laurence died when the Princess Victoria went down in a storm coming from Scotland. It was just a few miles from the shore, at the Copeland Islands, nearly home, but it was a terrible storm, and it hit all round the coast of here and Scotland and England, and lots of people died. The boy who lights the lamps outside?”
“Bobby? Bobby we said hello to one day?”
“Bobby, yes. You remember Bobby told us about that night? When every lamp he lit was put out, and he had to climb up in the storm and light them all again?”
She nodded: “He said it went down.” She had not forgotten Bobby: the storm raging, the boy clinging to the pole. Now, finally, she knew what it meant to be lost, and she knew where the Princess Victoria had gone, and why Laurence was lost. It went down to the bottom of the sea, and to be lost was to be dead. “Francis,” she said. “I’m sorry, Francis. I am, really. Don’t be cross.”
“I’m not cross,” he said, in surprise. “I’ve nothing to be cross about. I’m only telling you, so you understand. Anyway, just don’t hoke. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Brigid, and then Francis got up, and the light came flooding into the room, and she scrambled down. As she landed on the floor, she said: “Francis, did anybo
dy else we know die?”
“On the Princess Victoria? Well, Ned’s mother, for one.”
Brigid was silent.
“And now you know why Ned gets away with things we never will, and why nobody ever gets cross with him.”
Brigid felt a hot wave of jealousy: Ned was probably still enjoying Christmas on her family’s farm. Their tree might even still be up. Then she checked herself: he had no mother, and his father was always away.
“Is that why his father is always away?” she said. “In Egypt?”
“I suppose so. But, he has a big job – there’s a lot about Egypt in the news, and he has something to do with the government.”
The government, like Ireland, meant the end of interest for Brigid. She said she would be good, and when he replied that it would help if she meant it, said that she did mean it, and then she left his room.
It seemed to Brigid that Blessed Oliver looked down almost kindly as she walked beneath him. She was fairly penitent: perhaps that had impressed Blessed Oliver.
Nonetheless, for the rest of that day, in the flatness of winter without Christmas, she continued to wonder about the Princess Victoria: how it came to be lost, what happened to all the people, what happened to her almost-uncle whose death made Granda and Daddy and Laetitia so sad. Yet, with the feeling of one who has had a narrow escape, she thought it best not to raise the subject again.
January settled in, and life picked up again. Isobel came most days as before, but she no longer stayed overnight. Too late for Christmas, proper snow came, and the world for a time sparkled and shone. Then the weather worsened. Every day the newspaper told of gales hitting the coast, ships struggling in distress. Slates like sharp knives flew from roofs, walls tumbled in the fury of the wind. Dustbins fell helpless on their sides, trees blew across the roads, travel was discouraged. There were fuel shortages. Sometimes, miraculously, there was no school.
By the middle of the month, it was even worse. At breakfast one Sunday, their father picked up the newspaper, then set it down and, abruptly, stood up and left the room. The children heard him call their mother.
The Friday Tree Page 18
