Francis shifted his seat, closer to Brigid, and the bus moved down the hill towards home. When they were at the depot, he nudged Brigid. “Look,” he said. “The buses have had a hard day. Probably nod off in a minute.”
Brigid looked, and laughed, and agreed. Trolleybuses had a sleepy air even in the mornings, but now, in the winter evening, even the fierce petrol buses had a mellow look as if, though vigilant still behind their black eyepatches, they had dropped off standing up, like horses in a field.
“And, look!” said Francis. “There’s the boy who lights the lamps.”
Brigid looked out and saw a thin boy at the top of the tall lamp-post outside their house. When they got off the bus and crossed the road he was standing by it, on the pavement looking up. Francis stopped beside him, and Brigid stopped too.
“Excuse me,” Francis said. “Can I ask you, do you climb up all of them?”
“No, not all of them,” said the boy pleasantly. “Only when I have to check the pilot light.”
“The pilot light?” said Francis.
Isobel stood holding the open gate, but Francis did not move, and Brigid stood her ground.
“If it goes out,” said the boy, “in a high wind, say, I have to get up and relight it. But I’m only checking today. It was wavering, that’s all.”
“I’d love to be you,” said Francis. “I’m Francis.” They shook hands. “This is Brigid, my sister and . . .” he turned to introduce Isobel, but she had turned her back.
“I’m Bobby,” said the boy, and he laughed. “You wouldn’t love to be me when there’s a storm.”
“You climb up there in storms?” Brigid was impressed.
“Oh yes,” said the boy, hunkering down beside her. “I climbed up every lamp-post between here and the Ormeau Road the night the
Princess Victoria
went down.”
“Our sort of uncle was lost on that,” said Brigid.
“Was he?” said the lamplighter. “What’s a ‘sort of uncle’?”
“And no one has gone to –” began Brigid, but Isobel’s voice cut across.
“Brigid! Francis! Come on! Now!” Isobel was taking no more.
Francis and Brigid said goodbye, hurriedly,
shamefacedly to the young lamplighter.
“She’s getting worse since she came back,” said Brigid to Francis, beneath her breath, but Isobel heard her.
“Who’s ‘she’? The cat’s mother?” she said. “And it’s
your
mother I came back for, not you, Miss.”
Brigid said nothing, because at least Isobel no longer slept in the house, which was something.
When they got inside, their mother was standing in the sitting room, her arms full of colours, and rustling silver strings. A little strand of silver dangled from one wave of her hair. Brigid thought she looked beautiful. The newly lit fire was leaping in the grate, its flames still white, not yet mellowed to its orange and red, and she was hanging a string of lights on a fir tree which was neatly standing in a wooden bucket.
Turning to them, she said: “Ah, the wanderers have returned! What’s strange in the town? Did you see anybody on your travels?”
Isobel said nothing, and went straight into the kitchen.
Their mother paused, looking after her. “Has something upset Isobel?” she said. “Was anyone bold?” and to Brigid’s irritation, she looked over Brigid’s head at Francis.
Brigid opened her mouth to speak, but Francis pressed her back, warningly. “I think Isobel is just tired, Mama. The town was busy.”
“Well, that would do it,” agreed his mother, nodding her head. “But I don’t want her upset. She’s needed here. Come on, you two, now, and get something to eat. Daddy will be in any minute . . .”
A key turned in the front door, and a voice called “Hello?” from the hall.
“There he is – and nothing ready,” said their mother, running her hands through her hair. “Go on, children, into the kitchen and get some tea, at least, with Isobel.”
“Francis,” said Brigid, as she followed him out the door, “why do you keep nudging me and telling me to be quiet?”
“Say nothing,” he said.
“About what?”
“About anything.”
Brigid sighed: it was the summer and the plot all over again.
Chapter 14: Truce
Brigid woke, knowing it was Christmas Eve. Even in the warmth of her bed she could see expectation in her own frosty breath. The sunlight, pale, almost white, was trying to drift through the yellow of the blind. She made the chilly hop from bed to window, and snapped the blind, sharply, sending it speeding to a quivering, abrupt halt. There it was: the winter sun, pale as the moon through the empty branches of the Friday Tree. Spreading coldly from it, the plot lay bare, brown furrows almost grey. For no reason, Brigid remembered, with a suddenness that was almost painful, the summer sun on her head, birds soaring above, bees busily circling nearby. She shook her head. Then she shook it again: her hair had grown long enough to make a curtain round her face in the morning and, until someone clipped it back, Brigid looked out from the safety of a dark, soft screen.
“Hold on, Veronica Lake,” said her mother, catching her as she went into the kitchen. “Come here and see who’s arrived.”
Brigid pushed back her hair, and looked, and her heart lifted. “Rose!” she cried, then with an immediate tightening in her stomach looked to see who else might be there. No one. No one stood behind her. No Uncle Conor. Not even Isobel. Perhaps Isobel had gone for her own Christmas somewhere. Brigid could only hope.
“Yes,” said her mother. “Rose arrived out of the blue last night, and she’s going to help us finish the tree before she has to go home, aren’t you, Rose?”
“I am,” said Rose, “and before I go, I may put something under that tree, too.”
Brigid caught her breath.
“But not,” said Rose, “unless I see porridge eaten this morning.”
Brigid felt her happiness deflate. “Will Francis have to, too?”
Francis, rubbing his eyes, covered a yawn as he walked through the door: “Do what?” he said, then: “Morning.”
“Eat porridge,” said Brigid. “I have to.”
“All right,” said Francis, and ran his hand through his own hair.
“Good morning to you,” said his mother. “What time did you stop rooting around last night?”
Francis let his hand drop. “Did I keep people up? I’m sorry. I was . . . looking for something.”
“They’re like two longhorns under that hair,” said Rose. “It’s a wonder they can see at all. Good morning, Francis.”
With a glance at one another, the sisters left the children at the table, and left the kitchen. They did not say where they were going or what they were going to do.
Brigid was sure that what occupied them was to do with Christmas – smells and spices and rustlings that could only come to good. She tried to eat the porridge. She did not relish it, but she persevered. Something extra might go under the tree if she did.
“Francis,” said Brigid, swallowing, “am I still not allowed to say we saw Rose and Uncle Conor yesterday?”
Francis, moving his spoon round and round the bowl, thought for some moments, then looked up. “Yes,” he said. “If Rose wants to tell us, she will. If she doesn’t, it’s not our business.”
“Do you think it was about the dog?”
“Dog?”
“The dog. Uncle Conor said he had to see a man about a dog.”
Francis reached for the milk, and poured it in a slow spiral round his bowl. “I wish I could like porridge,” he said. “I don’t know what it was about, Brigid. It’s not our business. I told you. Can you finish that?”
“I hate it,” said Brigid.
He shrugged. “Better try. It’s not bad, really.”
Brigid sighed, and swallowed three more spoonfuls, the graininess catching in her throat.
“Well done,” said Francis. “Now, here’s something for you to do. I’m supposed to finish doing the tree, and you can give me advice and encouragement. Come on,” and he was up and away from the table, her bowl and his rinsed and left to drain before Brigid was properly out of her chair.
The sitting room was filled with a bright smell: sharp, like a forest. Brigid could not touch the lights: if one bulb got damaged, Francis said, the whole thing would go. All she could do was gaze in wonder at the string of lights as they came out from their box with a slow clinking, like little china cups. They were coloured bells, the size of Brigid’s palm, pale blue and green and red and yellow. Here was Cinderella in rags on one, there was the plump Fairy Godmother bibbidi-bobbing in her blue cape, there was the star-shining ball gown, and, best of all for Brigid, was the bright green bell with the pumpkin-coach and the mouse-horses.
It took forever until the lights were in place, and Francis said: “Now, Brigid. Your turn,” and held out his hand.
One by one she picked out the decorations: she handed him the baker boy who had come from a threepenny lucky bag, the tiny basket full of bright coloured balls, the home-sewn Santa Claus, soft as a cushion, glass baubles of emerald and ruby, delicate, ready to shatter in a grip too tight, and the glittering tinsel, catching every colour it came near. Last of all, Brigid handed Francis the angel in her paper gown. He pushed the back of their father’s armchair against the wall, steadied it, climbed up to stand on the arm, wobbled a little, righted himself, reached up, and placed the little angel at the top of the tree. Then he leapt down from the chair, knees bent. “Call me Errol Flynn!” he said, landing like a cat.
“Why?” said Brigid, but he did not explain.
He stood back, moved forward and made some adjustments: a loop of tinsel, a coloured ball too near the edge of the branch, Santa Claus in danger of plummeting through the fir branches. Finally, he said, “That should do”, pushed the chair back to its place, went to the window, pulled the heavy curtains and quickly, surprisingly, shut out the morning. Bending, he unfurled the twisted trailing flex, pushed the plug into the wall socket, and flicked the switch. Sharply, Brigid drew in breath. They were in their own fairy tale. For an endless moment, they stood together in stillness. Then Francis switched off again.
“Oh, Francis,” said Brigid, “don’t put it away.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Don’t worry. Wait till it’s dark, and we’ll put them on, and it’ll be magic all the time till Santa Claus comes.”
Brigid sighed. “All right,” she said. “Maybe you’d better do the curtains, too, before they catch us.”
“Good thinking,” said Francis, and swished aside the curtain.
In that moment, two things happened. The doorbell rang and, just as she heard her mother say from the top of the stairs, “Somebody see who that is, will you?”, Brigid’s eyes were filled with a terrible image at the window: a face squashed, a red, raw tongue plastered against the glass. She heard a low, groaning sound, and was just about to dive behind her father’s chair when Francis said: “Oh, boy. The gang’s all here.” He rapped the window, hard, against the flattened face. It sprang back, startled, and Brigid saw who it was.
“Francis,” she cried, “that was Ned Silver!”
“Was,” he said, drawing back the rest of the curtain sharply, “and is. And – don’t ask me why – he’s with Uncle Conor. Remember what I told you. Not a word about yesterday unless someone mentions it first. Maybe not even then.”
Brigid, her head full of lights and colours, could not think at first what had happened yesterday: it was already a long time ago. Still, she nodded, then shook her head. “Not a word,” she said. Then it came back: “Uncle Conor?” she said. “But, why,
why
is he with Ned?”
“I don’t know, any more than you,” said Francis, exasperated. “But stay put, stay quiet and we may just find out.”
Out in the hall there was a commotion, sounds of surprise and greeting: men’s voices as Brigid’s father arrived home early from the office, surprised and pleased to see his friend – softer, higher voices as Rose and her sister brought in the unexpected visitors. There was another surprise, less pleasant: Isobel’s voice was among them. She had not gone yet, after all.
It looked for a mad moment as if everybody was about to spill into the sitting room on top of Brigid and Francis, until a voice, taking charge, put a stop to that. “Isobel,” called their mother, skilfully guiding Ned Silver into the sitting room to the children. “Would you mind putting down the groceries and checking that oven for me? Then, would you set two more places in the dining-room? You children can stay in here for the moment, and,” she said, with a glance that in one sweep included, encouraged and warned, “I am trusting you” – she looked for a moment at Ned – “all of you, to behave. This is a big occasion.”
Well, of course it is, thought Brigid: it’s Christmas Eve, and something’s being baked in the kitchen, and up in the North Pole Santa must be getting ready . . .
For better or worse, the three children were left together.
No one said anything, until Ned, looking at Brigid, put out his tongue. “Got you at the window,” he said. “Again.”
“I knew it was you,” said Brigid, and Ned snorted.
“Ha,” he said.
“I did,” said Brigid, “because it was so ugly.”
“Stop it, the two of you,” Francis cut across, sharply. “Just stop, will you?”