Francis picked up the paper. “‘The air was filled with SOS messages from all around the British coast,’” he read. “‘For the first time in living memory, the island on which the Copeland lighthouse stands was completely submerged.’”
The Copeland Islands. That was where Francis said the Princess Victoria went down. The children, looking at one another in silence, stayed sitting still until their father came back in, alone, and sat down.
Almost immediately, he got up again. “I think I’ll take a drive down to see my father.”
His wife, coming slowly into the room, stopped in the doorway. “You’re not serious, Maurice. In that weather?”
He stood up, patting his pocket, tightening his tie. “Oh, talk sense,” he said. “Didn’t we make it out to Mass this morning?”
“Yes, just about, but . . .”
“But nothing. I’ve been waiting for the weather to settle since Christmas. I want to go down and see my family, and I can wait no longer. They need a visit round this time. You know that as well as I do.”
“Well, I . . . Isobel isn’t here today. I thought I’d rest . . .”
“Rest, then,” said her husband, buttoning his jacket. “The children will come with me, and you’ll have plenty of time to rest,” and before their mother could protest he had shooed the children out to get hats and gloves and warm coats, and they, surprised and delighted, were in the car before they knew it, rolling in the sharp wind through the drumlins and the bare whipping trees, down to where the sea sent up high spray, and they could taste the salt in the air.
Their good humour lasted until they went through the door their grandfather, unsurprised and clearly pleased, opened to them. Yet, from the kitchen, its door almost closed, there was no sound. They looked at each other, sure that Laetitia was in there, and equally sure she was not going to come out to greet them. Their grandfather, without a word, closed the door to the kitchen and, taking Brigid’s hand and Francis’ shoulder, led them across the hall to the tall long-case clock.
“Did you ever see how I wind it up?” he said.
Brigid and Francis stood beside him as he inserted the key, like a letter Z, into two holes on the clock’s white face. They stood watching the great weights move up the inside, the sun and moon inching round the dial, and the pendulum ticking away undisturbed as if its insides were not being moved around. High above them, on the top of the clock, a brown wooden eagle stood poised for flight. Then the clock struck, clear and bell-like, eleven times, and though it echoed around the hall and the whole house, it could not erase the bitter silence from the kitchen.
Brigid’s father, slapping his pocket, said, “Right. I’ve had enough of this,” and he opened the kitchen door. A warm rush of cooking, like meat, or onions, filled the air. The door closed behind him, but the voices were clear.
“What are the histrionics about now?”
“He didn’t read out the name. I gave him the name for the prayers, and he didn’t read it out.”
“He probably did. You were probably asleep. Probably snoring.” His tone, dismissive, was familiar to Brigid. For a second, she thought of Ned Silver.
“I was not asleep, though I could have been, up since the crack of dawn, cooking and . . . Ah, what do you care? It’s all right for you, taking it easy.”
“Yes. I take it very easy,” Brigid heard her father say. “That’s why I drove down here in a winter gale. Well, if the priest didn’t read out Laurence’s name, or if he did, would it bring him back? We all lost him. Not just you.”
The door opened, and the smell of cooking wafted out once more. Laetitia swept into the hall, then stopped as she saw Brigid and Francis. Ignoring them, she stood, her face white.
“Make some tea, Tish, will you?” said Brigid’s grandfather, and he calmly replaced the key on top of the clock.
In silence, uncertain, Brigid looked up at her father, emerging from the kitchen.
“Make tea. That’s all I ever hear,” Laetitia said, her eyes on Brigid. “You back to go hoking where you’ve no business?” It was her only greeting. She turned to Francis, her face for an instant softening, then again to Brigid, and there was little liking there.
Silent, taken aback, the children watched her turn away and, once more, the kitchen door closed.
“I’m not having any more of this nonsense,” said their father. He rapped on the door, then pushed it until it stood open.
Their Aunt Laetitia stood there, unconcerned by the bubbling and steaming of the pots on the stove. She was looking from the window at the grey and sullen sky. One hand held a lighted cigarette, the other sat on her hip, the peppery tweed of her slim skirt skimming her body, one leg elegantly pointed, like a dancer’s. The grey-and-dark striped hair showed starkly clear, as she turned round, walked towards them, then closed the door of the kitchen in their faces.
Brigid’s grandfather joined his son. Together, they stood looking at the door.
“Pop,” said the children’s father, “what started it this time?”
The grandfather sighed. “What starts it any time?” he said. “I could say it’s the time of the year, and the weather. I could say it’s reading about the Copeland Island lighthouse.” He sighed again, heavily. “I could say that the young priest did forget to read out Laurie’s name in the list of the anniversaries.”
“She said that . . . but I don’t see . . . it’s not the anniversary yet,” said his son, puzzled.
“No, but Laetitia got it into her head that . . . the weather lately . . . she . . . and, oh, I don’t know. I could say it was any number of things, but really what it is, is . . . her.”
Brigid said: “Are we going to stay, Daddy? It’s hot in our coats.”
Her father looked down, as if he had forgotten her. “Coats,” he said, absently. “Yes, take them off,” and he took off his own, and hung it by the mirror. He did not bother to hang it by its loop. “Ah, Pop,” he said, still standing in the hall, running his hand through his hair, “can you and she not agree, even at this hard time of the year?”
“I think it’s because it is this hard time of the year,” the grandfather said quietly and, taking Brigid by the hand, he led her into the sitting room and sat her on his knee.
Francis did not follow them. Brigid heard him go into the kitchen and close the door behind him.
“Granda,” said Brigid, “I’m sorry for hoking the last day I was here.”
“It’s all right, girlie. You’re only a child.”
Brigid said: “I won’t do it again. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But . . . I would like you to tell me about my sort of uncle who was lost.”
She heard her father’s exasperated sigh. He got up, turned his back, and crossed to the window, looking out at the angry sea.
Brigid knew she had taken advantage, and was almost remorseful. Her father would not have told her if she had asked him. Yet, she wanted to know.
Her grandfather sat back and brought her with him. “Laurie. Ah, Laurie. He was like one of my own – a big, gentle boy. I did my best for him, after his parents died. I knew them well, the parents: the father was a far-out connection of my own. They had often been here, and the child with them. He would have played with my two, outside there, the way you would with your brother. Maurice, now, he was older, but Laurie and Tish, they were very close: you never saw one without the other – like you and Francis, or young Silver.”
Brigid, struggling, fought back a strong urge to correct him about Ned Silver, but she managed to stay quiet.
“Then, an aeroplane crash: that’s what killed them. An aeroplane, on the way to Lourdes. The mother, she was very religious – the father, well, he did his best, like most of us. But it was terrible – and Laurie, you see, he was away at school. He had it in his head that he must become a priest: maybe he thought it would please his mother, I don’t know. He was a nice lad, but he wasn’t the easiest to deal with when he got a notion in his head and, God he
lp him, he got a terrible shock when they died. He did go on to Maynooth, and he was ordained, but he found it tough enough. Maybe because of what happened, maybe not. Anyway, he was always able to treat this house as his home, and us as his family. Wasn’t he, Maurice?”
Brigid’s father nodded his head, but said nothing.
“Do you remember, earlier it was to be medicine – nothing would do him but he’d be a doctor? He wanted to do something useful, do you see, Brigid? He wanted to do something for other people. Anyway, a priest is what he became.”
“Laetitia stayed close to him?” Brigid asked, intrigued by this new picture, of a Laetitia who ran about and played, a Laetitia who cared about somebody.
Her grandfather paused before he answered. Her father looked across, watching them both.
“She thought there was no one like him,” said her grandfather, at last.
“What did he think about her?” asked Brigid. “Uncle Laurie?”
Her father was still watching, but she could not read his face.
“Well, he was good with her. They got on well. I think he brought out the best in her. No one’s been able to do that, since he . . . since he left us. And she’s never been the same since, so you need to make allowances.”
Brigid heard her father make a sound that was almost like a snort.
“Francis can make her laugh,” said Brigid, leaning back against his waistcoat – she felt something missing from it, but she could not think what it was.
“Well, yes, that’s true. Francis can. Anyway, two – no, three, dear God, three years ago, he went across to make a retreat, outside Edinburgh. That’s in Scotland, girlie, just over the water. He was to be there for a week, but for whatever reason he decided to come back early. We never could understand why he set out that bad morning. But he did, and it was a bad day, and a bad night after. I spoke to a man who survived. I met him at a memorial for the ones who died. He saw Laurie.”
Brigid’s father turned from the window. “Why go over this, Pop,” he said. “It won’t bring him back.”
“Because the child asked me,” said her grandfather, more sharply than she had ever heard him speak. “The man saw poor Laurie,” he continued, as if his son had not spoken. “The ship was lying over to starboard. Do you know what that means?” Brigid shook her head. “It means to the right.” He held up his right hand, the fingers long and fine, like Francis’ hands, like her father’s. “The ship was full of water. There were cars on it, and the doors were buckled by a huge wave. A vast wall of water, the man told me. All the people who could climbed up the deck. Oh, this man, he said it was like climbing a sheer mountainside. They were trying to climb to the port side – the left side. The man who survived told me he saw a young clergyman holding on, talking to a woman, distressed, because she had lost someone.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t know.” Her grandfather shook his head. “Who knows? A child, maybe? A husband? A parent? The man I spoke to said he could hear her lamenting, and this young clergyman, this man told me, he kept trying to get her to go on the lifeboat. There was a boat for the women and children, but she wouldn’t go, and he wouldn’t leave her, talking to her, all in the waves and the wind, and then finally he did get her to go, and he put her on, the man said . . . and then the whole ship cowped.’’
“Cowped, Granda?”
“Turned turtle. Turned over. Went upside down in the water.”
“Did she get away, in the boat for the women and the children?”
“The boat got away at first, but another big wave came along and threw them upside down, beneath the ship as she was going under the sea. They were all lost. All the women and children.”
“And our almost-uncle was lost, too.” Brigid understood now, and she was not sorry that she had asked.
“Yes, he was lost, with other souls too.”
Brigid thought: Ned’s mother.
“We heard in the afternoon that the ship had sunk, but we didn’t know he was on it until the next day. That was a Sunday. It was Wednesday before they found the body. From Sunday to Wednesday we prayed that by some miracle he would be safe, but there was no miracle for Laurie, or for us.”
She was leaning against her grandfather’s face, and felt it wet. She was sorry, but there was one more thing she needed to know. “Granda, how did the man know it was Laurence he saw?”
“The length of him, the length of him laid out like that,” was all he said.
They heard the kitchen door open and close again, and Francis looked through the door. “She’s better now,” he said. “I’ll just stay with her for a bit,” and he went back towards the kitchen.
Brigid’s father, unsmiling, spoke for the first time: “She might give you your dinner yet, Pop. Francis has smoothed it over.”
“She does her best, in her own way,” said his father, and reached his hand to his waistcoat. “What time of the day is it, anyway? Oh, my blessed watch. I forgot. I can’t find it anywhere, this last while.”
“Past midday. It’ll turn up,” said his son. “It’s time we were on the road anyway, if you think you’re all right.”
“Oh, I am. And it will turn up, I’m sure,” said his father. “I just can’t think where I . . . I’m getting old, Maurice . . . an old man.”
Her father put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Not you, Pop,” he said. “You’ll see us all out.”
Brigid took this to mean they were going home, and went to collect her coat. Through the half-open door of the kitchen she saw to her surprise her aunt sitting at the table, a wreath of smoke about her head. Beside her sat Francis. They were sitting, quietly, companionably, chatting. To Brigid’s surprise her aunt looked lively, and, if not pretty like Rose, at least warm, approachable. Brigid, puzzled, went back in to the others, pulling on her coat.
Her grandfather said: “Well, somebody’s ready for the road,” and the two men laughed, the first time that morning, and their father called Francis to come on.
It was a quiet journey, the children tacitly agreeing to let their father have his time to himself, and the wind and the weather stayed kind long enough to let them reach home without incident. Yet, in the car, an image stayed with Brigid. It was not of her father, or her grandfather, or Laetitia, or even Laurence whom she had never known. Brigid imagined Ned, hearing at six years old that his mother was never coming back, and she was truly sorry.
Back at home, their father locking the car in the garage, Brigid walked down the passage with her brother.
“Did you know Ned’s mother, Francis?” she said.
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “They just moved here before Mrs Silver was lost. Mrs Silver’s family owned all this land – you know, the plot and everything – but they had never lived here. I think her family came from somewhere quite near Granda. I think he knew Mrs Silver, or her family, anyway – I mean her family before she was married. I remember that house next door was empty for a while, and then we heard the Silvers were going to live in it themselves. Was it something to do with Ned? I can’t remember. I used to see his mother from time to time, but I never saw his father.”
“I’ve never seen him,” said Brigid. “I’ve never seen anybody but Mrs Mulvey.”
“Did you know she was famous? Mrs Silver, I mean, not Mrs Mulvey.”
“Famous? Famous for what?”
“She was a singer. I was brought to see her in the Opera House. The Mikado, I think.”
“Was she good?”
“I don’t remember which one she was. She was away a lot, I remember that. She had been in Scotland, I think, singing in something. That’s why she was on the Princess Victoria. It was in the paper: ‘Myra Silver among Dead on Princess Victoria’. It was shocking. Everybody talked about it – and then, Ned had nowhere really to go but next door, and that’s why he is off at school, and only here some holidays, and that is why – though you weren’t pleased – everybody else was glad that Rose took Ned home for Christmas. Brigi
d, are you listening?”
Brigid, puzzled, was trying to remember something. “I am listening. Did you say she was called ‘Myra’?”
“Myra Silver, yes.”
Brigid concentrated. “Francis, I’ve seen that name.”
“Where?”
Brigid bit her lip. “When I was hoking that time, in Granda’s. There was a pouch of tobacco in among the things, and they all crumbled, and there was a piece of paper folded up in the box, and there was writing on it. The writing was hard for me to read, but I could read it in the end. It said: M – Y – R – A. Isn’t that Myra?”
Francis looked thoughtful. “It is. But why . . .” He stopped. “Brigid. What happened to it? Did you put it back? Did you tell anyone about it?”
“I’m sorry, Francis. I couldn’t put it back.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you kept it.”
“No. No, I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Ned took it. He kept it.”
Francis was silent. “Are you sure?” he said. “Are you really sure?”
“Yes. He took it.”
“You are telling me the truth, Brigid? Ned Silver saw that paper in Granda’s house, and took it?”
“I am telling you the truth, Francis.”
Francis drew in a breath. He tapped her shoulder, absently, as if he had something else on his mind. They were at the door, and they could hear their father’s step behind them, and she knew she was taking a chance, but Brigid had one more question.
“Francis,” she said urgently. “There is something else I need to know, then I promise I won’t ask about the Princess Victoria any more.”
Francis looked warily behind them. “Make it quick, then.”
“The man who saw Uncle Laurie? The man who talked to Granda? How did he know it was him?”
“Oh,” said Francis. “The clothes, I think. And then, I suppose, Granda had to identify him.”
The clothes! The clothes leaping out at her that day, horribly alive – yes, that made sense, but what to identify meant, she could not ask, not because of her promise, but because their father caught up with them, and shooed them into the house.
The Friday Tree Page 19
