The car stopped, releasing a silence where the sky became a wider blue, the crying of the birds more intense, and the smell of seaweed and salt still stronger and more enticing. The children tumbled out of the car, and were greeted with handshakes from Brigid’s grandfather.
“Well,” he said, “this is an expected pleasure! I’m sorry that I have no picnic, but I am afraid I didn’t tell Laetitia where I was going. Enough on her mind. She’ll think I am out for a walk when she gets in.”
“We didn’t expect a picnic, Mr Arthur,” said Rose. “Did we, children?”
Ned and Brigid exchanged eyes, and it was clear to Brigid that he, like her, had rather expected a picnic: but they shook their heads, for once united.
In a straggling line, at varying speeds, they began to make their way across the grassy bank above the sea. In the distance they could see the little house.
“What news?” said Brigid’s grandfather to Rose.
“None yet,” she said, and Brigid could feel the careful reticence of her voice. “A little later, I’ll phone from the telephone box near your house, if I may.”
“The one you telephoned from, Granda,” said Brigid.
“Good girl,” said her grandfather, “to work that out.”
“I worked it out, really,” said Ned.
“Good boy, then, too,” said the grandfather, “though it might have been more gallant to leave a lady’s word unchallenged.”
Ned bit his lip, and Brigid felt a small rush of triumph. She thought, that’s for Davy Crockett, and missed the beginning of something Rose was asking.
“I didn’t want to involve my daughter in any anxiety,” she heard her grandfather say. “She knows that there is . . . concern, and I am leaving it there for the moment.”
Brigid did not understand what he was leaving where, but she said nothing. Ned had been put in his place, and it was enough now to concentrate on the rocks and tufts of the bank, clambering over a place where there once had been a path and now was none.
As they climbed, however, it seemed to get harder, and Brigid saw her grandfather reach his hand more than once to Rose. “I am sorry, Miss Durrant,” he said. “I’m so used to clambering about here myself, I forget what it must be like for a lady.”
Brigid thought, indignantly: two ladies.
“Oh, Mr Arthur,” said Rose, “I’m almost ashamed to say how much I am enjoying myself, just being away from, well, everything.”
“We could have gone by the lane,” said Mr Arthur, “but it is very muddy . . . and your shoes . . .”
“Are wrong, I know,” Rose said, with a slight laugh. “I should have worn walking shoes. I don’t know what I was thinking . . . Oh!” and she stopped, as the gable of the little house came suddenly into view, above a cove that seemed to be simmering green-blue, throwing up arcs of white spray.
Brigid and Ned, almost colliding, stopped where they stood.
“The Churn Rock,” said Brigid’s grandfather, proudly. “I promised this to you, children. Do you remember?” They did. “My wife used to say she used to lie awake as a girl, listening to the sound of the sea at night, and the lost sound of sirens, and the beam of the lighthouse . . . See over there?” and they did, indeed, see the lonely tower on a distant rock. “It made her afraid, she said, till morning came.”
Brigid took her grandfather’s hand: she understood that fear. She felt him turn to Ned, “Smugglers came here too, you know. That little cove over there,” and he pointed to a shallow inlet to the left, “that’s called Jack’s Point.”
“Jack’s Point,” repeated Ned, and Brigid saw his eyes look far away.
Then her grandfather put up his hand: Brigid thought again of Mr Steele and Mr Doughty. “Now, children, make a chain,” he said, “because I don’t want anybody falling in. It may not look it, but it’s treacherous. The last submarine to be sunk in the First War went down there. There are ships and fishing boats and God knows what else beneath that water, and I don’t want any of us to join them. Hold on tight.”
In her mind Brigid saw pictures: a child in the night, the sea’s high waves, far out at sea a creaking rigger tossed in a storm. She held tightly with one hand to her grandfather. The other she raised to be taken by Rose. The noise of the water and the crying of the seabirds filled her ears: it was impossible to speak as they passed above the inlet. Damp spray settled on their hair and faces, and the taste of it sat in their mouths. Brigid was terrified and exhilarated all at once, and Ned seemed lost in his own secret world.
Then they turned a corner and, quite suddenly, there was quiet. A small stone wall led to a sheltered place, mossy and grassy, and there was a little mound of stone, like a beehive.
“What’s that, Granda?” asked Brigid.
“Ned, don’t climb in there,” said her grandfather, his hand suddenly firm on Ned’s arm. “That’s a corbelled pigsty and, believe it or not, is a listed building. It’s a very ancient structure. No, there are no pigs now,” he said, as Ned’s face looked the question, “though I shouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t the odd ghost.”
Ned, peering, said scornfully: “I see no ghosts.”
Then Rose’s quiet voice spoke: “I’m not so sure,” she said.
They all turned to look at her and, receiving no response, followed her eyes. Above them, at the gable of the house, dark against the light, stood a figure, quite still. Brigid’s heart pulled tight: perhaps it was a ghost, angered at their having come back to the deserted house. How lonely and grey the poor house looked – no smoke from the chimney, the front door locked for years, the garden forlorn and abandoned, and a tall sentinel standing by the blank gable. In spite of herself, Brigid took hold of Ned Silver’s arm, and he did not pull away. Together, they moved a little backward.
Then the figure stepped forward, and she saw that it was Cornelius Todd. Confusion swept over her. Why was he here? He had not been seen since Easter. No one but Ned had even mentioned him, and only Ned seemed happy to see him now. “Uncle Conor!” he cried, pulling forward, but Brigid held on to his arm, restraining him, for no reason that she could articulate.
“Ssh,” she said. “Rose.”
Rose, white and a little unsteady, her hand on the arm Brigid’s grandfather offered, moved carefully across the stony grass, towards her former fiancé. Brigid, standing by the wall with Ned, saw her grandfather lift his hat in greeting, yet she saw, too, an unusual stiffness in his bearing. She noted that he did not release his hold on Rose’s arm. Brigid heard only “called to see” and “telephone” and “no response” and “came myself”, but she could not hear more without going forward, and some dim fear, something she could not explain, held her back.
Ned, by her side, pulled on her arm. “Come over here,” he said, and his voice was urgent. Brigid, still watching the adults, allowed herself to be led backward. “Look,” he said, and now he sounded really excited. “There’s this ledge, and we can look right into the water. It’s like a cave.” His hand was on her arm, and he felt strong as Francis. She glanced again over her shoulder. The adults were engrossed: no one would miss them for a moment. She took Ned’s hand, and they stepped out onto the edge of the rock. He was right. It was wonderful, the prow of a pirate ship, water around them and beneath them, spray salting their faces and, yet, they were sheltered from the noise, the hissing boom at once far away and close, hypnotically close beneath them.
Throughout her life, Brigid could never explain, even to herself, what happened next. One moment she and Ned were safely placed in a crevice of the rocks, close together and yet separate. The next, his arm was clasped around her, his face beside hers, his eyes deep as the sea and bright with sudden terror; a wall of white water was wrapping them in cold salt spray, and they were slipping, and falling, and gasping all at once. The next thing she knew was a pumping silence that was heavy and green, echoed by a pounding that was inside her head. Above her was black darkness like rocks and a wet, wavering blue sky. She opened her mouth, calling
“Mama!” but water rushed in, salty and choking, and no sound came out. She tried again: “Francis!” No sound, more salt, more water, more rushing and pounding inside her ears, her whole head bursting, unable to breathe. She flailed and kicked, the weight of her clothes and her shoes pulling her down, but she kicked, and kicked again, until she broke the surface of the water, and the sky was blue and still, and there were dark figures above her, and she heard a voice cry “Brigid!” out into the wind. It was Rose, spinning above Brigid’s reach, her arms out.
Another cry sounded, without words. That was her granda. In the same instant, beneath and around the other cries, she heard: “Myra! Oh God!” Then, she slid beneath to the green gasping and the salt and the pounding, and the blue above wavered again, and darkness like an octopus enfolded her, and arms and legs that must be hers were flailing, not able any more to rise above the green waving ceiling, slowing down, giving way. And then, through the opaque swirling rush, her heaviness was lifted, a great sodden weight, straight out of the water, and a sharp slippery warmth came up beneath her.
When she opened her salt-stung eyes, she was propped against a rock. Beside her was Ned Silver, wet, his hair flat against his face, gasping as she was gasping, and beside them both knelt Uncle Conor, soaked, his coat gone, his shirt clinging to his back, coughing and gasping too. Rose, her face white and pinched, wrapped warmth around Brigid. It smelt of tobacco and tweed, like Uncle Conor. She was very cold. Leaning against Rose’s skirt, she could see that Rose had put her arms round her front, and yet she could not feel them. Her grandfather stood with his hands hanging loosely by his sides, his eyes on Cornelius. He was breathing as if he had been running.
Through her body, Brigid felt the vibration of Rose’s voice: “Myra?” she said. “Myra, Cornelius?”
Cornelius, hunkered still on the rock, looked up at her, his mouth slightly open.
“Rose, I . . .”
“My mum,” Brigid heard, the voice not that of Rose or Cornelius, but Ned Silver, small, white and hunched against the rock beside her.
Below them, the sea churned and spat, and the day had turned to mizzling rain.
“Quite,” said Rose, and it was clear the conversation was at an end. She began to ease Brigid to her feet. “Mr Arthur, you have had a shock, and these children are wet and cold. We must get you all into the car.”
“Mine,” said Cornelius, and his voice was strong again. “Go up through the field. Mine’s at the gate.” Rose lifted her hand as if to protest, but Cornelius extended his own and caught it. “Please,” he said. “It’s too far down the way you came, and no one’s fit for it.”
Rose, drawing back her hand as if she had been stung, lifted Brigid to her feet, and helped her pick her way across the grass and stones. They climbed past the silent pigsty, empty of beasts and ghosts, past the closed-up house that they would not now explore, past the haggard, past the trough where the horse had drunk, along the path walked by all the generations of that deserted farm, through the long grass of neglect, until they reached the gate, tied up with rope to a white pillar like the pillars at faraway Tullybroughan. Then, tired and slow and sleepy, and no longer at all sure where she was, Brigid felt herself lifted into a car she did not know, Ned at her side. Rose was between them, her arms round them both, her grandfather was in front, and Cornelius in the driver’s seat, and he was slowly, slowly, turning the car in the narrow lane, and then they were bumping along under green, thorny branches, and there was a beating and a scratching against the roof, and then they were on a smooth road, and the bumping stopped. No one spoke. The children shivered, and the car smelt of damp and salt and seaweed.
As they came to the edge of the little town, Brigid heard Rose, her voice as cold as the seawater she still tasted: “If you would be so kind as to leave me here, I will drop Mr Arthur off and take the children home.”
“Please,” Brigid heard her grandfather say, his hat turning from the front seat, “do, please, come into my house and get the children warmed before you set out. And, we can telephone to the city from outside the door.”
For a moment, Rose was quiet again. The car purred easily on the smooth surface, Cornelius drove steadily, eyes ahead, intent on the road, saying nothing, his face set like stone.
Rose drew in her breath. “Yes, Mr Arthur,” she said then. “Perhaps that would be best. Though, thanks to Mr Todd, I already know something of what is happening.”
Brigid thought: Uncle Conor is Mr Todd again. And what is happening? She said: “What is happening, Rose?”
Rose, beside her, with silent Ned nestled in on her other side, breathed in again: Brigid felt it suck in and go out, like the tide she had just been in, all through the coldness of her body. “Your daddy has to stay in hospital, Brigid. He isn’t too well.”
It was not possible for Brigid to feel colder, yet she felt a new shiver go through her. “For how long?” she said.
Rose did not reply at once. “I don’t know that, Brigid. I’m sorry.”
Her words fell like snow upon Brigid’s heart, and she said nothing more until they had gone through the village, and drawn up outside her grandfather’s house and everyone, including Cornelius, had got out of the car. On the doorstep stood Laetitia, her hands to her face and Brigid, cold and shocked though she was, could not help but be glad when Laetitia took both children to the kitchen, pulled off the wet things, wrapped them in towels and rubbed their skin until they were dry and warm, and the shivering had almost stopped. She took some clothes out of the ironing basket, a man’s shirt and some trousers of her own, and she made Ned put them on and roll up the sleeves and the legs, and pull the belt of the trousers tight, and she told Brigid she would get her something from the hot press. This was a Laetitia Brigid had never seen yet, dazed as she was, she did not even think to wonder at it. This new Laetitia sat the children close beside the range, warm for cooking, gave them hot, sweet tea, and then, saying she would just go and find something for Brigid to put on, she left the kitchen.
Wrapped in blankets, the children sat at opposite sides of the warm stove and looked at each other. The pile of wet clothes steamed gently on the clotheshorse.
For a time, neither spoke, then: “Myra,” said Ned. “He said ‘Myra’.”
Your mama, thought Brigid.
“It was him,” Ned said. “It must have been him all along.”
Brigid said: “All along what?”
“The note, stupid . . . I thought it was Laurence she was running after, but it must have been Uncle . . . it must have been Conor. It must have been him. I’m sorry, Brigid. I’m sorry about falling in, too.”
Brigid shook her head. “It’s all right,” she said, though she did not really understand what he meant. “But, what happened in the water? Did Uncle Conor save us? Is that what happened?”
It was already like a dream.
“He’s not our uncle, Brigid,” said Ned, shaking his head in his turn. “But I thought he was my friend. I thought he was like . . . you know, Davy Crockett, like a hero.” His face was very young, as if he were younger than Brigid, and she felt sorry.
“I might let you wear my Davy Crockett hat when we . . .” began Brigid, and then, from under his blanket, Ned lifted his hand. It was still white, almost blue, but there were traces of pink in the skin as he lifted it.
“Hsssttt,” he said.
Outside the window, they heard voices.
“Please,” floated Rose’s voice, low but clear, “I have enough to cope with, and I want to telephone my sister. Please step out of my way.”
“Rose,” said Cornelius, coaxing, penitent, and Brigid pictured him standing in Rose’s way, blocking out the light in that way he had, big and dark with his crooked tooth and his hooded, sleepy eyes, and his coat that smelled of tobacco and spice. “Rose, please.”
“Myra Silver,” said Rose. “You called Myra Silver’s name, when the children were going under the water. Not my niece’s name. Not even Myra Silver’s son’s name. Her
name. Her name. Get out of my way, please.”
Ned had frozen, his hand still in the air. The pink was leaving his fingers.
“Rose!” said Cornelius Todd’s voice, and Brigid could hear its urgent pleading. “You’re wrong. You are wrong. She . . . I knew her when we were young, long before you, long before she was married. I knew her as Myra Moore, just as the Arthurs did. She sang. You know I grew up near here. I . . . took her out once or twice, years ago. That’s all.”
“Oh,” said Rose, and her voice was like ice. “That’s all? That’s why you called out her name when you saw her son and my niece about to drown?”
Brigid heard Cornelius sigh, and the dark shadow outside the window shifted. She imagined Rose trying to walk round him. She imagined him blocking her way.
“All right. All right. She . . . well, she got in touch with me when the marriage to Silver began to go wrong. She – she wrote to me when she was in Scotland, and I went and met her to try to help, but that was all. I tried to help, and I couldn’t, because she . . . wanted more from me than I could give. And then she took the ferry for home, and she never made it. Rose, what can I say? She wanted from me what I can give to no one but you. She was in despair, she turned to me, and I couldn’t help her. You think I don’t have to live with that?”
In the shadowy window, there was silence, but no movement.
“Oh Rose,” he said, and his voice, though soft, was a resonance through the cold air, “you know there’s nothing I would not give up for you. God, I’ve already done it. I’ve turned my back on everything I believed in, my whole commitment to a cause that is . . . I . . . Rose!” The shadows on the window grew, lessened, and grew. “Rose! She didn’t mean anything to me.”
His voice had grown louder, stronger, and Brigid, in spite of herself, stood up and, trailing her blanket, shuffled to the window to try to see what was happening, but the windows had thick bubbled glass, like her father’s glasses. She remembered him then; and for a moment, she could not hear or think, and her mind went blank, and her ears heard nothing, and her eyes could not see for salt and mist. When she came back to herself, rubbing her eyes, pulling the blanket round her, she saw that the shadow was gone from the window.
The Friday Tree Page 28
