The Friday Tree (3 page)

“It’ll be worth it,” said Ned. “See you round the front.”

“The front!” repeated Brigid, alarmed. “Here will do.”

“Oh no,” said Ned, in the wireless voice. “I don’t want our love to be a secret,” and Brigid could hear his triumphant crow as he ran down his steps and around to the front of the house.

She did not know what to do. There was no point at the moment in trying to find Francis, and she could not tell Isobel. She bit her lip. There was nothing to do but get it over with. She put her head down and ran to the top of the steps, where she stumbled, catching one plait in the rosebush that was being trained along a fence. It pulled taut. The thorns caught. To get away, she had to pull her hair hard, losing one ribbon and scratching her face, so that by the time she got round to the front of the house Ned had had leisure to compose himself, and was leaning easily against the pillar inside the gate.

“Oh,” he said, “I like that wildcat look,” and he pulled her toward him, bending her backward like a dancer, shimmying her with his arms sideways and forward so that her feet followed his, until the moment when, just as she was getting used to the sensation,
he suddenly pressed his sticky mouth straight on top of hers.

Brigid could scarcely breathe. Just as she was thinking it was the way they put stamps on letters, she suddenly found herself sitting, surprised and sore, on the hard ground. Ned had dropped her, and was already halfway back to his own garden through the hedge.

“You pig, Ned!” she cried to his departing back.

His voice carried over the hedge: “You’re not allowed to say ‘pig’, either. I’m telling.”

That was when she heard Rose’s car pull up.

There was no mistaking the arrival of Rose, their mother’s sister. Her little red car, with its noisy horn and an engine too large for itself was, in Brigid’s mind, a life-size clockwork toy. Ned had once pointed out, for no reason which satisfied Brigid, that that was impossible. Francis and Brigid loved Rose’s car, and Rose’s navy suitcase, neat and small, with triangles on it from places where she had been. Francis used to bend his head to read the names; Brigid looked at the tiny pictures of domes and towers and bridges. The case smelled of leather and flowers. Always, Rose carried about her a faint scent of flowers, which remained on everything she touched, even when she was gone. Rose was gentle, and she was kind. Once, Ned, appearing as usual out of nowhere, had sneered at Brigid, sitting in Rose’s car, imagining she could drive, but Rose said, “Would you like a go, Ned?” and, to Brigid’s surprise and annoyance, Ned got in, started steering and making engine noises and braking noises, and seemed, for a while, almost like anybody else.

Now, Rose’s car came to its noisy halt as Brigid sat breathless and dishevelled at the front gate.

Rose, if surprised, did not say so. She helped Brigid up from the ground, her cool hand a relief after the outrage of Ned, and she simply said: “I didn’t know you were a dancer, Brigid.”

Brigid, wiping at her mouth, knew then that Rose had seen the kiss. She said just one word: “Ned.” She was grateful that Rose did not press her and, as they went up the steps together and Rose rang the doorbell, Brigid missed her parents a little less. When the door was opened by Isobel, Francis behind her in the hall, it seemed to Brigid that she herself was arriving, with a suitcase and a car, like a visiting princess.

At the sight of Brigid, however, Isobel’s initial smile of greeting vanished. It occurred to Brigid that, given the state of her hair and clothes she would, right now, have been in trouble again but for Rose. Brigid understood that having to mind the Arthur children was a trial for Isobel. The idea did not distress her. She had gathered from Isobel in the last ten days that, whatever hope there was for Francis, she, Brigid, was beyond help. Isobel read out to them, on mornings when she was friendly, advertisements for jobs she could have without children to upset her. In this moment, however, Rose’s hand in hers, Rose carrying sunshine into the hall, Brigid believed in herself. And, as Isobel stepped back into the kitchen to turn down the kettle, the house itself seemed to relax, warmed and relieved by the arrival of Rose.

Yet, even as Francis stepped forward and pressed in close to Rose beside her, Brigid felt a shadow interpose itself between them and the kitchen. It was momentary, a second’s coldness, and the children looked up to see not a dark shadow at all, but Uncle Conor, his smile as quizzical, his arms as wide as before. Wondering where he had come from, or how, having left earlier, he was suddenly in the kitchen with Isobel, Brigid saw that his smiles were directed not towards them, but towards Rose.

To Brigid, watching Rose’s face, it was as if she had switched out all the lights, in her eyes, in her smile, even in her voice as she said: “Cornelius. What a surprise.”

“Cornelius!” he said, one eyebrow raised, his arms absently extended to the children. “I’m usually Conor in this house, amn’t I, children?” He dropped his voice, unexpectedly, almost frighteningly, as he added: “Except when I’m a grizzly bear!” He made his arms suddenly long, his face slack, eyes bulging, and he growled. He was suddenly a bear.

Brigid did not like it. Something heavy hanging from his neck swung towards her, like a live thing. She moved back, behind Francis.

Rose put out her hand to draw Brigid behind the circle of her skirt, and she said: “I don’t believe in diminutives, Cornelius. In fact, as I think you may know, I don’t much care for short cuts of any kind.”

Uncle Conor looked towards the children: “My!” he said. “Is the grizzly bear in trouble?”

“Certainly not,” said Isobel, smiling again, appearing from the kitchen with a tray. “Come all of you now and have some tea.”

Brigid, remembering her earlier exclusion, whispered to Francis: “Does she mean us, too?” and Francis, just as urgently, whispered back: “She’d better. I’m starving. Say nothing. Just sidle behind me . . . no, sidle, Brigid, not shove . . .”

It was not, in the end, a very comfortable gathering. Rose’s sudden coldness made it hard for Brigid and Francis to concentrate on the tray, though there were sandwiches.

After a time, which seemed very long, Uncle Conor, no longer a grizzly bear, got up to leave, and Francis, who had, for some time, been looking intently at the pendulum around Uncle Conor’s neck, unexpectedly asked: “Uncle Conor, are they new, your binoculars?”

The ice broke. The big man smiled, and his shoulders eased as he loosened and swung from his neck the heavy object. He took out of a dark case something solid yet shining, angular and curved at the same time, glasses and a camera at the same time, to Brigid’s eyes a large black letter M. “They are new,” he said. “Well spotted.” He looked at Francis for a moment, as though wondering about him. “Would you like to try?”

“Yes, please,” said Francis, and looped the heavy weight about his neck, moving quickly to stand at the window, whistling below his breath as he swept the binoculars round.

Brigid, concentrating on the name of the black shiny glasses, did not even ask for a turn. Instead she repeated the word, slowly, in her head:
bin-oc-u-lars . . . bin-oc-u-lars
.

At last she said: “Francis asked Ned for some bin-oc-u-lars, for the plot.”

“The plot?” said Uncle Conor. “I’m intrigued. Have you two been hatching a plot?”

Francis turned from the window, his eyes warning Brigid. “No, Uncle Conor. Dicky got out of his cage, and we were afraid he might fly away – or even go into the plot. I mean the plot behind the house.” He handed back the binoculars.

Uncle Conor worked at placing them in their case for quite a long, careful time.

“And did he?”

“Did he what, Uncle Conor?” said Francis, his face shut down.

“Go into the plot,” said the man, his eyes, looking down, little more than slits.

Isobel, collecting the tray, straightened up and answered for them: “It wouldn’t have mattered if he had, Mr Todd. They’re not allowed in there, and woe betide them if I find out they went in.”

Uncle Conor snapped the case shut, half-opened his eyes and looked down at the children. He was the grizzly bear again, but not a friendly one. “Woe betide them indeed,” he said. The silence sat uncomfortably in the air. “Woe betide them if they disobey Isobel.” He smiled, showing his crooked tooth. Yet his eyes remained watchful as, with one swift, sharp twist of his hand, he fastened the lock of the binocular case. “Well,” he said, “Dicky’s in his cage now, isn’t he? I think I can hear him.”

Indeed, they could all hear Dicky, squabbling to himself, crossly reminding anyone listening that he was on his own in the other room.

“And that surely means he can’t have gone anywhere very far, can he?” continued Uncle Conor, and he looked directly again at Francis.

Francis met his eyes and said: “Not very, no.”

Uncle Conor watched Francis, straight and hard, for a little longer, then turned to Rose, standing quietly with her hands folded. “Who is Ned?” he said.

“Next-door child,” replied Rose, not yet warm, but not quite as frozen as before. “Nine years old. Precocious, but, well . . . Prep school, comes next door for holidays.”

“Parents?”

Rose dropped her voice and turned a little away. Brigid heard only the words “The Silvers . . .
Princess Victoria . . .
You must have heard at the time.”

There was a long pause before Uncle Conor replied: “Ah, yes. The
Princess Victoria
.” He paused again: “Do little pitchers . . . ?” His head inclined toward the children and back again to Rose.

Brigid heard Rose say, in her newly distant voice: “More than one house bore that loss,” and then, shaking Cornelius Todd’s hand civilly, distantly, she walked with him to the front door, and stood there with the children behind her until he was out of sight.

Only Isobel seemed sorry to see him go, and the children stayed subdued and careful until Rose became herself once more. Once she did, she answered the questions which Isobel had not. They learned that their parents were well, would
return in a very few days and that she, Rose, would be here with them until they arrived. Rose was quiet and reassuring. Yet, there was in her face and her voice something which told them not to ask too much, so that neither Brigid nor Francis asked why their parents had gone without telling them. They knew enough for now. They went quietly and with something of their old content about their day and their evening and, when it was time for bed, climbed the stairs without protest.

Still, they did not go straight to their rooms. Francis was brushing his teeth when Brigid came in and settled herself on the edge of the bath.

“What happened to privacy?” said Francis.

“Francis. Tell me. Is that the same Princess Victoria we aren’t supposed to talk about when Granda Arthur comes?”

Francis rinsed his mouth. “Come over and clean your teeth, seeing as you’re here.” He spread the toothpaste on her brush and handed it to her. “Yes, it is.”

“Who is Princess Victoria?” asked Brigid, foaming.

“Don’t do that. Spit out. No, here, Brigid, not there. The
Princess Victoria
is not a person. It was a ship, a ferry that went down off the coast two years ago, in a winter storm. Someone Granda and Daddy knew well was lost on it. He was sort of an uncle. I called him Uncle Laurence. Or Laurie.”

Brigid could not imagine why, if he was lost, they did not just go on the ship and find him, but she had another question, which she could not ask without spitting and foaming again. She brushed. She rinsed. She spat. Francis, watching her, sat where she had, on the edge of the bath.

“Before you ask me, yes, that is what happened to Ned’s mother too – but I don’t know much about that – and I can’t ask, and you’re not to, either.”

“She got lost on the
Princess Victoria
?”

“Yes,” said Francis. “She did.”

“But Francis, if a person is lost why doesn’t someone just go and –”

Francis stood up. “Brigid, please. I’m tired. Leave it for tonight. I’ll do the
Princess Victoria
with you another time.”

Brigid, who was tired herself, decided to let it be, but she still wondered why no one simply went and found Ned’s mother. Brigid shook her head. She was tired, and she’d had enough of the Silvers, lost or found, for one night.

If Francis or Brigid had not been so relieved that night that they slept almost immediately, and if they had looked through the banister railings from the landing, they might have seen Rose, sitting by the fire, in her hand an envelope on which was written, in a bold, black hand, her name:
Miss Rose Durrant
. They might have seen her, after a few moments, tear up the envelope and toss it on the fire, watching it curl, watching it catch in the dying tongues of fire, ignoring its last leaps and sallies in the grate. They might, if they had had patience, have seen her sit a long while with her head in her hands and then rouse herself, smooth her clothes, rise from the chair and, slowly, climb the stairs.

They would have heard her clear her throat to signal to them that she was on her way, and they might have glimpsed her checking their two heads on two pillows, a red-brown mop in one room, a freckled arm thrown back – in the other a dark tangle of plaited hair, a careless red ribbon trailing from the covers. If Brigid and Francis had been able to read her thoughts, they might have learned that she wondered if this was the nearest she would come to having children of her own. They might have heard her, when the telephone rang, loud and shrill, run quickly down to the cloakroom to answer it.