The Friday Tree Read Free Page B

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