The Friday Tree Read Online Free Page A

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.
    Brigid and Francis saw and heard none of this, because they were tired that night and so relieved to have Rose with them that they slept the night through, children again, safe again, secure.

Chapter 3: Smoke

    Brigid woke confused, feeling a difference in the house. On the chair by her bed sat a large box, coloured and shiny, like a Christmas present. Was it Christmas? It could not be – the warm light of summer was still filtering through the blinds. Rose. She remembered that Rose had come. Had Rose left her a present in the night? Brigid turned on her side, reached across, and pulled over the shiny box, smelling of newness. She could hardly open it, for the shaking of her hands and the beating of her heart. It was exactly like Christmas. Inside the box, her fingers found soft cloth. Sitting up, swinging out of bed, she lifted from folded tissue paper a fringed skirt, a waistcoat, a tin