The Friday Tree starts with a statement in French. "Elle est absolument pure . . . " It may be more or less franglais, but still: to present that crucial first sentence in a foreign language suggests a novelist with chutzpah, and possibly stubbornness in facing down her editor's protests. And a boy of 11 saying it suggests an intriguingly precocious, unusually interesting child character. Although the novel never quite delivers on these promises, it does offer frequent shining glimmers to remind us of them.
The boy is Francis, revered older brother of Brigid, around whom the novel revolves. Francis and Brigid are the Arthur children, living in a nice suburb of Belfast in the 1950s. Mama makes fragrant stews and apple tarts and wears a costume and pearls to go into town. Daddy wears a hat to drive to the office and uses the bookshop as other men use the pub.
They have a lovely aunt, Rose, who drives a little red car and a “girl”, Isobel, who isn’t really a girl, to help in the house.
This being Belfast, however, there is also a policeman neighbour who carries a gun in a big black holster, and there’s shushed talk about something called the IRA and far too much talk, as far as Brigid is concerned, of something called “Ireland”. With Uncle Conor, Daddy discusses whether the Twelfth will be “hot” this year and the latest sectarian remark of some politician. There are the usual secrets, the not-in-front-of-the-children murmurings. But these are to do with “Ireland” and history and why exactly Francis had a brick thrown at him on his way home from school, keeping him in bed for weeks.
The action takes places over a year, from one summer to the next. The rhythm of life is slow and extended as it is when you’re five. But, nonetheless, momentous events occur in the lives of the Arthurs in this time. The procession of illnesses and deaths and near-deaths might seem too tumultuous for one family to face, but the leisurely pace of the novel allows them space and credibility.
For Brigid the summer, perhaps her first conscious summer, is a glimpse of paradise, and she wistfully remembers it in the dark days of winter. It’s epitomised in what she calls the Friday tree, her favourite of the seven trees that border the plot at the end of the garden, its green trembling in the breeze. Brigid’s imagination is vivid, and her character is a satisfying mix of the simple and complex. She adores Francis, dislikes Isobel, sadly observes the growing remoteness in her father’s gaze, suspects Uncle Conor, who is not really her uncle, with his crooked tooth and the smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. And then blithely goes off to watch television or into the garden to spar over the fence with Ned Silver, the shifty, clever boy next door.
By the end of the summer the world is closing in around her. Brigid has to go to school for the first time and finds it a dismal prison. She has to learn to keep her head down, to not tell, to safely negotiate with the jibes and treacheries of schoolgirls. Meanwhile her mother is increasingly tired and wears the shapeless smock Brigid doesn’t like, and her father’s eyes are worryingly troublesome. Francis has his “accident” with the brick. The Friday tree is bare and mundane.
Grafted on to the domestic dramas is a story to do with the plot that lies beyond the garden. Are its bushy shadows hiding something or someone? The story involves the IRA and Uncle Conor is implicated. Brigid distrusts him, but he is the most interesting character. Turning up and disappearing again “like the Cheshire cat”, raffish, expansive, secretive, the classic uncle figure.
The avidly watching child who fails at understanding as much as she or he succeeds is a figure in Irish fiction. The one to follow in recent times must be Christine Dwyer Hickey's funny and wonderful Tatty. But Tatty, being older, is able to be more acute. And this is a problem with Hillan's Brigid. At five she is too young to bear the weight of the events, and inevitably her speech and insights often jar with her childish outlook.
But five-year-olds do differ. A bigger problem is the awkwardness of the narration. The early part is awkward enough to make you fear for its recovery, though thankfully it does. Basically The Friday Tree has the faults to which many first novels are prone. A technique lacking in artfulness, a reliance on banal exchanges; overly explanatory, too long, overly prolix, the wish to put everything in . . . But they're all resolvable. And it's a pity they weren't resolved, because Sophia Hillan is quite a lovely writer.
She conveys Brigid's enthusiasm, her imagination, the charm of her credulity and the mellow grimness of 1950s life. Its lack of expertise may lose it readers, but, moving and memorable, this novel is better than that implies. The "Elle est absolument pure"? Francis reads it off a sauce bottle.
