Chapter 10: Isle Lecale

Still uneasy, Brigid found herself in the back of the car with Ned Silver, heading out of town past the gasworks, through the markets, all shut down for Sunday. The town might be asleep, but she was not, and Ned Silver was to tell her something she wanted to hear. Yet, to her annoyance, as soon as Ned felt the motion of the car, he lay back and closed his eyes.

“Ned,” she said, elbowing him as he folded, catlike, into the seat, “what were you going to tell me?”

Ned shifted, languidly. He opened his eyes. They were navy blue now, telling her nothing. He said: “Did I say I was going to tell you something?” He closed his eyes again, and a slow smile curved upwards from his mouth. “I wonder what it was.”

Exasperated, Brigid snorted. It was a good snort, for a first effort – but it was a mistake.

“Brigid!” said her father. “Behave yourself, or I’ll turn the car and there’ll be no visit to Granda.”

“Are we going to see Granda?” said Brigid, surprised.

“Haven’t I just said so?” replied her father, and drove on in silence.

Brigid sat back beside Ned, conscious in spite of her annoyance of his sleepy warmth. Dark buildings streamed past her, shuttered windows and empty streets. She watched the town turn into scattered houses, barren roads. Above her waved a few forlorn leaves on cold trees, and she remembered with longing the delicate dancing green of summer mornings. Then the close, tight-packed houses cleared away and there, spread out before her, rising and falling in little hills, was the countryside.

“I’ve never been in an aeroplane,” her father said suddenly, “and I don’t intend to be, but I have heard the county of Down, if you see it from the air, looks like a basket of eggs. I can’t say.”

“Yes, it does,” said Ned, unexpectedly. “I have.”

“And me,” added Brigid, not to be left out.

“Liar,” said Ned, and turned his shoulder away from her.

“What did your mama tell you about drumlins, Brigid? Do you remember?” said her father, as if Ned had not spoken.

“Ice,” said Brigid. “It left . . . a basket of eggs.”

“Fool,” muttered Ned, from the far side of the seat. “I did this in school. The ice age left them behind – sheets of ice across the land.” He yawned and, turning a little towards Brigid, opened his eyes. “Thousands of years ago. When it melted, there were drumlin hills. In France too. Even in America.”

“Well done, Ned,” said Brigid’s father. “That’s a powerful school they sent you to, isn’t it?”

Ned, eyes closed again, folded his arms and lay back in silence. Brigid looked at her father’s eyes in the mirror and saw his admiration for Ned’s knowledge. She felt, as Ned had said, a fool, yet still she was entranced by the light through the autumn branches, bright moments like happy thoughts in the time before school. She loved to see the trees marching up the hill on the road outside the town of Tonaghneave. Her father said it meant “the field of saints”, though why the saints were in a field she could not fathom, unless the saints were the people she saw in the trees, old and gnarled, young and dancing, many legs and arms in joyous movement. Sometimes one or two stood whispering together, and others waved branchy arms at them, or changed shape, playing with them, just as they came close enough to see their faces, suddenly shifting or else just standing like a tree, just standing as if that was all they did. The warm car purring, the leather seat soft and giving as a pillow, Ned’s breathing slowing beside her, Brigid let time and place subside.

It was with surprise that she found herself suddenly in the town of Downpatrick, unable at first to know why she was in the back of her father’s car, or why Ned Silver lolled sleeping beside her. His hands lay loosely clasped in his lap, and one skinned kneecap swung towards her. His legs were longer since the summer. He had long fingers, too, slender and delicate and, somehow, that was perplexing. Then Ned’s knee jerked as the car swung past the old gaol, and hit Brigid’s own knee. It was hard, and it hurt. She wished she had a pin, or a sharp pencil.

“Nearly there,” said her father, and his voice came as a shock in the humming silence. “If anyone’s awake, we’re in Isle Lecale.”

Ned opened his eyes, and shot upright as if he had never been asleep.

“But it’s not an island, is it, Mr Arthur?”

“Hello, again, Ned. I thought you two were out for the count.”

Ned’s face, eager and alive, closed up again. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, as though he were at school.

“There’s no need to be,” said Brigid’s father. “It’s a good point you make. Once it was an island, surrounded by water, and it was called Isle Lecale. It’s an old place and our family is part of it. My father courted my mother here.”

At this, Ned’s face shut down again, and he was once more dark and watchful. He sank back on the seat and stared out of the window.

Brigid’s father looked backward in the driving mirror. “You’ll see the place we lived in, Ned. It stands at the edge of the world.”

Ned said nothing, but Brigid saw him look up, and meet the eyes of her father in the mirror. In a burning, jealous moment, she felt she had no part in the outing and she hated Ned Silver. She also hated her father for bringing him. She longed for Francis, but he was far away. She was on her own here.

They made their way through Downpatrick’s hills and steep slopes, out into country again and, in the reflection of the glass she so sullenly watched, the car itself was curved and rounded like a drumlin. In spite of herself, she felt first quiet, then almost content as they turned away from Downpatrick, down into the hedges and stubble fields, past the shining stillness of the lough. They drove through a large port, smelling of fish, little boats in the harbour touching then separating, birds wheeling and crying their secret messages above in the mackerel sky. The car cruised through little coastal towns, empty now of the sounds of summer people and, as they passed beneath the trees of Port St Anne, Brigid and Ned, forgetting their quarrels, turned to each other and held their noses, united in disgust at the odour of seaweed. Brigid’s father laughed, and she forgot the seaweed. She could not remember the last time she had heard him laugh.

They pulled up in front of a dark, stone-clad house. The engine stopped, and Brigid’s mind filled with the silence of the sea. Gradually, she began to hear the off-key clinking of two masts hob-bobbing below in the waters. Beyond, she saw little islands, the drowned drumlins, and above them lonely seabirds, calling back as they flew towards a far-off windmill on a hill.

The children slid out of the car, and Ned slammed the door shut, watching with satisfaction its effect on the startled birds. Brigid, not to be outdone, climbed boldly up the high sloping sidewall of the steps, balancing like a tightrope walker, as she had often seen Francis do. It piqued her that her father, knocking the heavy iron on the recessed door, did not notice that she had managed this by herself, and Ned said nothing, moving from one foot to the other, staring out to the wide sea, and the vast open sky, scudding away from them. Brigid’s father rang the bell a second time. Nothing happened. He rang it again and, then, slowly they heard bolts being undone.

A tall woman like a gatekeeper blocked the doorway. Behind in the hall, a grandfather clock sang one calm chime.

Then Brigid’s father reached to his head to raise his hat, a curious, graceful movement which meant the hat did not leave his head, yet rose, as if in a light wind and then resettled, all in a second. “Tish,” he said.

“Maurice,” said the woman, without expression, and Brigid wished herself far away. “You’ve brought the children,” she said, and looked at Brigid without warmth. She stepped aside, one sharp eyebrow raised as she saw Ned. “Or, no,” she said. “You haven’t. Who’s this?”

She stared at Ned, and Brigid wanted to stand in front of him.

“Our neighbour,” said Brigid’s father, taking his hat from his head and moving towards the door. “Aren’t you going to let us in, Tish? This is Ned Silver. Ned, let me introduce you to my sister, Miss Laetitia Arthur.”

Ned, suddenly gracious, extended his hand: “How do you do, Miss Arthur?” he said, in a voice Brigid had never heard him use. She was impressed.

Laetitia looked at him. “Where’s my Frankie?” she said. “Where’s my boy?”

Brigid’s father did not reply for a moment, his mouth a sudden pale line. Then he said: “He got a bit of a knock. Horseplay near the school. Boys.”

That half-truth. Brigid, silently ashamed, met Ned’s eyes out of sight of the adults. Lies, said Ned’s eyes, and the half-lift of his lip said: What do you expect?

Now Brigid moved closer to Ned and her father, hanging back slightly. Perhaps Laetitia would go away. They stepped into the hall, dark-panelled, its chequered pattern of tiles cold as the air outside, and Brigid looked up at Laetitia, standing above her, as in judgment. Her hair was like a greying bush, wild and tame at the same time, and had a streak of dark running through it at one side. She was a backwards badger, she said, sometimes, when she was in good humour.

“Well, Biddy,” she said, “you’re no beauty, anyway.” She laughed, as if she had made a joke. “You take after your mother. They should have left your hair long. Who did you say this is?”

She had turned from Brigid and now stood appraising Ned. Brigid kept close to her father as he introduced Ned all over again. Laetitia said she liked him because, she said, she did prefer boys to girls, who were sneaky and hard to teach and she ought to know for she had taught enough of them, and you could give her a boy any day over a sleekit girl, sly and lazy, and where was her Frankie, her own boy, and it all had to be explained again, to be slid over again. Laetitia said they should have let her know they were coming, because she was going out to Mass and she would be back later, but they weren’t to count on her if they had somewhere else to be. Brigid did not relax until her sharp perfume swept past her, and she heard the front door close, and felt the silence that said she was gone.

“Bloody hell. What was that?” said Ned, under his breath.

Brigid, glad of the advantage, said, “Tell you later. You’ve to tell me stuff first,” though how she was to explain Laetitia she did not know.

At least, while Laetitia was out, she could go into the back room and hope to find her grandfather. Her father led them into the room and there, at last, she saw the long figure of her grandfather unfold from a chair, tall, a gleam of a fob in his waistcoat. Her heart began to be happy again as he reached down to shake her hand. He was gentle, and very quiet today. He looked for a moment at Ned. Then, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and lifted out a silver watch, detaching the chain from his waistcoat and its buttonhole. He handed the watch to Ned. Brigid was not pleased: on other visits, Francis had been given this, but she never had. Why should Ned?

Brigid’s grandfather sat down again and watched Ned turn over the watch. Brigid, aggrieved, really wished her grandfather would stop looking at Ned, and give her something to play with, but he did not. He sat, watching, and then he said: “Do you know, Maurice, I was thinking the other day about Parnell.”

Brigid’s father shifted in his chair. It creaked, and he sighed. “A few weeks ago, that was, Pop,” he said. “Ivy Day is the sixth of October. According to Mr Joyce, anyway.” He turned to the children, perched together on a narrow wooden settle, Ned absorbed, Brigid truculent. “There’s something new for you two. Ivy Day is the name for the anniversary of the death of Parnell.”

Ned and Brigid, bemused, looked at each other.

“Do you know what that means?” Brigid asked Ned, under her breath.

He shrugged. “Of course,” he said. “Everybody does. But it’s ancient history.”

“Like the drumlins?”

Ned slid his eyes across to her, and then back to her grandfather’s watch. “Round the same time,” he said, looking hard at the watch.

“Yes, well, when you get to my age, a few weeks here and there hardly matters,” Brigid’s grandfather was saying. “Do you know, children,” he said, and now he turned to them, “I stood on the platform with Parnell?”

More of this Parnell. What was it, and why did it matter, all of a sudden? Nobody had said anything about it before. Brigid, confused, shook her head, but Ned sat up. Maybe he did know something: after all, there was the drumlin business. In any case, interested or not, she was going to have to hear whatever it was, because her grandfather had settled back, placed the tips of his fingers together, crossed one leg over the other, and that meant he was going to tell them whatever was on his mind.

“It must have been 1881,” he said.

“Told you,” whispered Ned. “Ice age.”

“Or was it ’81? I can’t have been much more than your age.” He leaned forward. “Maybe not even as old as this young man!”

Ned sat up, so suddenly that Brigid almost went right off the settle. She wished they would give them a chair each. Then, as if he had heard her, her grandfather reached out and took her onto his knee. In his pocket he sometimes had sweets for her, she knew, and she slipped her hand into it as she settled down and, sure enough, there was one. She slid it out and, as if by magic, all her rage dispersed. She gave no sweet to Ned. She was comfortable in the crook of her grandfather’s arm, enjoying the sound of the paper she was unwrapping, the smooth sharp colours sliding and crunching between her teeth, and the smell of his tobacco and soap, and the look on Ned’s face when he lifted his eyes and saw that she had a sweet and he did not. Brigid’s eyes sent him a message: he’s my granda, not yours, so there.

Ned’s eyes sent back: so what?

Brigid felt less triumphant, and her grandfather was still talking. “You know,” he said, “I did not realise the importance of that day. My father – your great-grandfather, Brigid – was the secretary to the Land League and he believed in the right of the farmer to the land where he wrought.”

Brigid felt her mind glaze, but she tried to follow. It would be over more quickly if she tried, like school.

“So he built a platform for Parnell outside his baker’s shop. Did you know he was a baker, as well as a farmer?”

Brigid shook her head, thinking: I don’t care. She found it even harder to pay attention to this story.

“Well, Parnell came, and addressed the people at a big meeting of the Land League and I stood beside him, beside my father. I can hear the roars of the people. I can hear them clapping Parnell and my poor father.”

Brigid, giving up, drifted, and noted that Ned seemed interested. Good, she thought: you like this story, you can have it.

“Why was your father poor, Mr Arthur?” said Ned. “Did he lose his money?”

“Oh, son, he lost more than his money. When the sca – when things went wrong for Parnell, the people turned against my father because he had supported him, and we had to leave our farm and that town.”

Brigid, drifting back, heard her grandfather say that they had to leave the farm. The farm her mother grew up on was a happy place. She said: “It would have been nicer for you to stay on your farm.”

Her grandfather, with a short laugh, replied: “Girlie, there may be happiness in a family, or there may not, but there is nothing nice about a farm. It is hard, unremitting and thankless work.”

“Mr Arthur, sir,” said Ned, so polite and so interested that Brigid thought she was hearing things, “how did things go wrong for Mr Parnell?”

Her grandfather set Brigid down on the ground, but he did not answer. Then he drew something from his wallet. “Look, now. Here’s his Land League Card. I doubt you will ever see one of these again.”

“Pop. Do you think they’re ready for that?” said her father, and Brigid saw the animation die in her grandfather’s eyes.

Sadly, the grandfather put away the faded card, and Brigid felt sorry. It had got more interesting. It was suddenly a story, and now she wanted to know what happened next, and to look at the pictures and the writing on the card.

Ned seemed disappointed, too. He shifted in the seat. “Mr Arthur,” he said, “may I visit your bathroom?” and with a glance at Brigid that said, you’re on your own, he went off up the stairs, two at a time.

Brigid’s heart dropped. She wished she had Francis here. Ned was mean to leave her, when the only interesting story had been stopped. She slid, unnoticed, out of the room, thinking to find Ned. In the hall, as if far away, she could hear the voices of the two men, their brown voices going over another time . . . “Land League . . . Parnell . . . even today . . .” No help there: they were still in the past. Then, suddenly, she heard the words change. “That wild night. January . . .”

This was different. This might be another story. Brigid began to listen again and, as she did, she heard the front door open and close. Laetitia was back. Brigid, safely in the shadows, could see her, slowly taking off her coat, and it was clear that she was listening too and then Brigid saw her walk boldly into the room without announcing herself. She slipped back in herself, then, lingering near the door.

“The storm,” Laetitia said, as if she had been there all along. “All those people lost. He tried to save a woman. They told us that. But he was lost.”

Brigid was interested now. Was this the story no one would tell her? The almost-uncle who was lost? He was lost trying to save someone, but from what? And how was he lost? She decided to risk asking. “How was he lost, Laetitia?”

“I just said. On the Princess Victoria, of course, trying to save someone,” said Laetitia.

But Brigid still did not know how, because no one ever answered her question.

A chair scraped: her father was on his feet. That was enough talk, she heard him say, his voice rising: there was no point going over it all again, nothing would bring him back, or anyone for that matter, and if they were to be home that night, they’d better get on.

Brigid said: “Aren’t we going down to see the house at the edge of the world?”

“Not today,” said her father, and his voice told Brigid there was no room for discussion.

So, there was no trip to the edge of the world after all, and still no story about the Princess Victoria. No one did what they said they would do and, as well, there was no tea. It did not make sense: they talked and talked about things in the ice age, but people got lost and could not be found, and she had no one at all to discuss it with her, now that Francis was ill. She stopped: what if Francis were lost? Would they not find him either? And where had Ned Silver got to?

“Where’s Ned?” she said aloud. She did not see him, but she felt his eyes, somewhere, looking at her. Turning, she saw him crouched at the turn of the stairs, looking down from the landing, like a small ghost. Brigid wondered how long he had been there. For no reason, watching him, she felt cold, and seeing that his eyes were not on her after all, but past her, she realised he was looking straight at Laetitia, and that he had heard what she said about the Princess Victoria, and she remembered: his mother. His mother was lost too.

“Did you find the bathroom, Ned?” said her grandfather, suddenly behind her.

Ned met the old man’s eyes, and nodded. He uncurled, slowly, and seemed to tumble down the stairs, as if his legs were not quite steady.

“Do you know,” said Brigid’s grandfather, looking straight at Ned, “I think there would be time to run down quickly and see the house, if the children would like it, before the evening draws in.” He reached out his hand to Ned, and Ned took it, trustingly, like a small child. “Come on,” he said, “till we see what we shall see.”

Outside, in the blessed light, Brigid turned to Ned: “Where did you get to?”

“Tell you later,” said Ned.

“You haven’t told me anything, Ned,” said Brigid and dug him hard with her nails.

He dug her back, hard, far harder than she had him. “And I won’t, now,” he said, “but I could. If I wanted.”

“I’m not telling you anything, either, then,” Brigid replied. “And I could, too. If I wanted, which I don’t.”

The car slid away from the dark house, and the October sun dappled over the faces of the silent children.