Read Online The Friday Tree by Sophia Hillan - Free Book Online Page B

said that to you?” he asked, but he did not smile. “Uncle Conor, I’ll bet. It’s Irish. Tá mé go maith . ‘I am well.’ He meant it as a joke, you looking like a boy.”
    “Oh,” said Brigid, still puzzled. “Irish. Like Ireland, that he and Daddy talk about. Is that funny, Francis? I didn’t think Ireland was supposed to be funny.”
    “I know what you mean,” said Francis, with feeling. “Not much about Ireland is. But I suppose he means it to be funny. Your hair isn’t, though,” he added. “I should have minded you better. I don’t know what’ll happen when we get home.”
    They walked to the bus stop with their ice creams, and made their farewells to Uncle Conor. Isobel asked him if he would like to come to the house and have tea with them, but he said he could not: he had to see a man about a dog. He tipped the brim of his hat, said goodbye, and began to thread his way through the crowd. When Brigid looked out from the bus, he was swallowed up among them. Isobel seemed far away, not thinking of the children at all and Francis, too, was very quiet. Brigid asked him if Uncle Conor was going to buy a new dog, but he did not seem to hear, and she had to content herself with looking out at the grey church, and the houses, and the convent, and the shops, and the park, until they got off near home. She saw the blank eyes of the house from the bus stop, and felt its emptiness as soon as they entered it. No one was there.
    Brigid was almost relieved that her parents were not yet home: it gave her a breathing space. She went into the sitting room and watched Francis put in the plug of the television. He switched it on then, and got up, just turning at the door to say, “I’ll be back in a moment, Brigid – just want to see to Dicky,” and then he left her alone. She watched the picture grow large from a tiny point, and the grey spinning world fill the screen. Then a voice announced: “ The following is suitable for older children only ,” and a play began, about a teacher named Miss Chalk. She was not kind to her pupils, and so she was turned into a large piece of chalk, shaped like a woman, thin and white. There were no eyes in her head, just emptiness. Her mouth was a rigid line, chalk teeth grinning. Miss Chalk was to be locked inside this body, forever. Brigid, unable to stop watching the terrible story, was transfixed. She could not speak. She could think only of the day her father showed her his blank and sightless eye, and the dream that followed it, where her family had been turned to stone.
    Yet, she sat on. Her limbs would not take her from her father’s chair, even when she heard voices outside, and the key of the front door was turned, even when she heard Francis run down the hall, and heard her mother’s surprise: “Francis! What is the matter with you?”
    Words tumbling from Francis carried through the air: “Brigid’s had her hair cut. We met Uncle Conor. She didn’t mean to cut it. It wasn’t her fault.” His voice trailed away. “Where were you? Where did you go?”
    Brigid could not get up, could not stop watching the bleak white head on the screen. She could hear her mother’s voice, but she could not go out to her. “At the hospital,” her mother said. “Daddy’s head was very sore, and we needed to check it because of, you know, the bother he had with his eyes. No, it’s all right. He’s all right. Just let him get upstairs and rest, and for heaven’s sake let me through the door, like a good boy. What did you say Brigid had done? And where is she?”
    Isobel called from the kitchen door: “Stuck in front of the television! I’ll attend to her. Go you on and see to the invalid.”
    Brigid heard the word “invalid”. She thought: that is what Daddy said he did not want to be, and now he is, and it is his eyes, he will be blind again, and he will look like that again, and we will be turned to stone. She waited for her mother to come, but she did not come. Brigid