‘He offered me a lift,’ he said.
‘You should have taken it.’
‘He’s taken enough from them already,’ his mother said. ‘Now, off to bed the two of you.’
‘Does it mean I can’t go?’ his brother asked again.
‘We shall have to see.’
‘He always has the best of everything,’ Alan said.
‘We didn’t arrange it,’ his mother said.
‘It always comes out that way.’ His brother disappeared to the stairs: his feet pounded on the landing.
‘I don’t suppose it’ll happen too often,’ his father said.
‘No,’ his mother said.
‘Once in a blue moon,’ his father said. ‘I reckon it’s their way for saying sorry about Sunday.’ To Bryan he added, ‘Best not to encourage her. We can’t keep up with people like that.’
‘Oh, he’ll be all right.’ His mother gazed at Bryan who, frowning in the light, had turned to the stairs. ‘We don’t want to discourage her,’ she added. ‘It’s just that we can’t keep up,’ she continued, ‘if we haven’t the money.’
He could still hear her voice when he got upstairs, and when he went in the bedroom his brother’s voice came muffled from the bed. ‘You always get the best.’
‘I didn’t ask to go,’ he said.
‘It always turns out that way.’ His voice was low; only moments before, Bryan thought, he might have been crying. ‘What was the picture like?’ he added.
‘All right,’ he said.
He got into bed and lay on his back.
The interior of the cinema returned – the star-shaped lights, the glow from the screen, the concavity of the ceiling – and the image of the girl, the movement of her arm, the curve of her legs as she tucked them up beside him.
EIGHT
A plane appeared above the roofs and passed across the field.
He could see the insignia on its wings and imagined, perhaps even saw, the head of the pilot in the square-shaped cockpit.
‘Did you see its bombs?’
‘Did you see its guns?’
‘Did you see the pilot?’
‘I saw him wave.’
The crackle of its engines faded.
‘Do you think it’s crashing?’
‘It’s making for Fenton aerodrome.’
The grass had been removed from an oblong area of ground at the top end of the field: the soil underneath had been dug out and now, with spades, the older children were digging at the clay beneath.
Alan dug with their father’s spade, his head and shoulders, from a distance, bobbing up and down, the rest of him invisible.
Bryan pushed back the pieces of clay as his brother tossed them up, ran after the other children as they threw pieces of clay at one another and, finally, having nothing else to do, he sat at the edge of the yellowish mound and fashioned figures, pressing in an abdomen, shaping an arm and finally a head. Having finished one figure he stood it up, completed a second, rolled a third, set the head on a flange of neck, attached the legs and the arms, flattened the feet, and stood it, finally, beside the others.
‘What are you doing?’ his brother asked.
He tapped his fingers against a head.
‘That looks like Crossey.’
He indicated a dark-haired, pinched-cheeked boy who was digging at the bottom of the hole.
‘Or more like Cloughie.’
A large, fair-haired boy, digging with a stick, came to the edge of the hole and gazed at the figure: he had a low brow, a thickly-fleshed nose and light-pink cheeks; his resemblance to a pig had earned him in the past the nickname ‘Snout’. He was the eldest of the Barracloughs’ four children, three of whom were digging in or around the hole; ‘Crossey’ was the elder of the Shawcrofts’ two children, his nickname derived from the reputation his parents had acquired for quarrelling. Both boys were Alan’s age, or older, Barraclough the leader: his hands covered in clay he dug his finger against the figure. ‘That’s good.’ He flattened the head to the shape of a saucer. The children laughed.
Their interest, after being distracted, returned to the hole: pieces of clay were lifted up; steps were cut back and battened with wood.
Bryan took a fresh piece of clay across the grass and modelled a head, then a body and, finally, four legs. He attached a tail and a pair of horns. He made a second and then a third; amongst the four-legged figures he set a man. The noise from the hole, the shouting and laughing, the calling of instructions, faded; he sat with his legs outstretched, shaping the figures between his knees. Soon a herd of animals stretched out across the grass with the figure of the man behind.
Someone came across; a boy called out: a second shouted.
Soon the whole group was spread-eagled in the grass.
‘Who’s digging?’ his brother called, only he and Barraclough being left in the hole.
Bryan took two lumps of clay and climbed into the garden; he sat in the porch and modelled the shapes again: he constructed a table, around it a number of block-like chairs. He fashioned a dog.
‘Aren’t you playing in the field?’ His mother came out and, inadvertently, placed her foot on the edge of the table. ‘What a mess you’re making.’ She stepped over the clay and shook a cloth. ‘Keep it off the step or we’ll have it in the house.’ Striding over it again, she returned indoors.
He collected the pieces of clay and took them back to the field. Alison Foster was standing by the hole; Barraclough, O’Donald, Shawcroft and Alan, together with the other children, were leaning on their spades: in the bottom of the hole was O’Donald’s sister, a dark-haired girl, with glasses, her hair tied back in a single plait.
‘You can’t come out, Muriel,’ Barraclough said.
The girl gazed up, the light, reflected from her glasses, concealing her expression.
Shawcroft and his brother laughed; the younger children danced up and down, one tripping up and falling. A moment later, as he scrambled up, Muriel took the opportunity to climb out herself.
She was pushed back in.
‘Let her out, Cloughie,’ Alison said.
She was a small, well-built girl, wearing a pinafore dress, her fair hair tumbled down across her shoulders: having leant down to take Muriel’s hand she was pushed back, first by Barraclough, then by Shawcroft.
‘You’ll go in, Ally, if you let her out.’
‘Push her in,’ O’Donald said.
The boys jostled Alison at the edge of the hole.
‘Push her.’
‘Grab her.’
Alan had clasped one arm and Shawcroft the other: she was taken to the side, held there, then pushed forward to where the other girl knelt in the bottom.
‘Take them off, or you don’t come out,’ Barraclough said, standing by the steps and pushing Alison back.
The dark-haired girl had begun to cry.
‘If you don’t let her out,’ Alison said, ‘I shall fetch my father.’
‘How will you fetch him?’ Barraclough said.
‘Bryan, go and fetch him,’ Alison said.
‘Nay, let her up,’ Alan said. He had played with Alison when he was younger and occasionally, even now, he would talk to her, brusquely, across the fence. He put down his hand and pulled her up.
‘Take ’em off,’ Barraclough said, more intent on the dark-haired girl than ever.
Her brother stepped back from the hole and glanced at the house.
‘You have to take ’em off,’ Barraclough said, ‘or you can’t come out.’
The girl stooped; from beneath her skirt she lowered her knickers.
‘Lift it.’
Her gaze, obscured by the reflected light of her glasses, was turned, red-cheeked, to the figures round the hole.
‘You have to bend down.’
‘Lift it.’
‘Bend down.’
‘You have to bend down.’
The figures laughed; they danced up and down at the side of the hole.
‘High
er.’
The skirt was lifted.
‘Longer.’
The skirt was lifted again.
‘I saw it!’
Barraclough stood at the side of the hole, his spade in his hand.
Shouts sprang up on either side.
The girl pulled on her knickers; her sobs, stifled by the hole, muffled by the screams, were audible as the shouting died.
Alison stooped down and the girl, having pulled on her knickers, clasped her hand.
‘She’ll tell her mother.’
‘No, she won’t.’
‘You won’t tell her, will you?’ Barraclough said.
Having been pulled up the side the girl cried in her hand.
‘She’s passed the test. She’s one of us. When we’ve got the hole finished she can come inside.’
A guffaw of laughter came from the boys.
Bryan took a fresh piece of clay across the field, set it down, and, sitting, dug in his fingers: as the clay dried it cracked or, where it had caught up fragments of soil, it crumbled. He spat on his fingers, rolled the clay between his hands then, as the screaming and the shouting faded, he lay back in the grass and gazed at the sky.
He wasn’t his parents’ child at all: he’d been put out to live with the Morleys in order to make him realize what life was all about. He had nothing in common with the people around him although he was subject to them in every respect. His caning at school had been to test his courage; similarly, his invitation to the Spencers’, despite his falling sick, and the subsequent invitation to the cinema, were part of the plan conceived by the King whereby his experience of life should not be confined to Stainforth School.
As he examined his clay-ringed fingers he came to the conclusion that everyone with whom he came into contact was involved in his assessment: periodically they would attend a meeting and it would be decided how well or, conversely, how badly he was doing; the test, he assumed, was going well, otherwise, he calculated, he would have been sent back to the place from where he started.
He had both hands raised against the sky and was confirming within himself that it was the intensity of his feelings, together with their depth, that marked him out from other people, when he heard Alan’s voice say, ‘What are you doing?’
‘What?’
‘Come and dig.’
‘I don’t want to dig.’
Alison’s voice came screeching from the hole as she was chased around its clayey edge.
‘They won’t let you in unless you dig.’
His brother sat beside him.
‘I don’t want to go in,’ he said.
‘It’ll be a good den when it’s finished. We’re making a chimney.’
He indicated Shawcroft delving in a crevice some distance from the hole.
His brother’s hands were larger than his own: he looked at his brother’s feet, spread-eagled in the grass, at the thickness of his brother’s legs.
‘We can go in at night and cook some grub.’
‘What?’
‘Anything you like. We’re going to have a signal.’ He handed Bryan the spade. ‘I should let Cloughie see you and dig a bit.’
Bryan took the spade and crossed over to the hole: it was deeper than when he’d last looked in.
He joined the two or three boys who, together with Barraclough, were digging in the bottom.
‘Don’t put it near the edge. It’ll fall back in,’ Barraclough said, rooting at a hole dug into the side and which, presumably, was to be the chimney.
‘How deep are you going?’ Bryan asked.
‘Where’s thy Alan? Has he gi’en o’er?’
Yet Alan was chasing Alison Foster.
‘Are you coming, Ally?’ Barraclough called. ‘Gi’e your kid a hand?’ adding, ‘Shove it down harder,’ to O’Donald who was digging the outlet to the chimney. ‘Shove it down harder, and then we’ll meet.’
Someone had stood the survivors from his earlier figures on a ledge at the side of the hole. Digging out a piece of clay, he crouched in the corner and shaped it into a face.
‘’Ow go, Bry?’ came his brother’s voice and a hand, streaked with earth, came down and squashed it.
‘So this is the young man,’ the woman said.
She sat at the kitchen table, a small, slim-featured woman with tawny-coloured hair. She wore a blue coat with large white buttons, and a dress made up of white and blue dots: a hat of the same light blue, with a white ribbon around its crown, was lying on the table before her.
On her feet, which were small and dainty, were shoes of a darker blue, the fronts of which were open.
Mrs Spencer, while not retaining her coat, had nevertheless retained her hat, a pink, broad-brimmed shape, not unlike the woman’s: over her dress she wore an apron, while on the table before her stood several parcels.
‘This is Bryan, Fay,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘Bryan, this is Margaret’s aunt,’ and, moving to the door, called out to the passage, ‘Could you help me in the kitchen?’ waiting a moment, then calling once again before, from overhead, came a sound, first of the stamping of a foot, then of a muffled shout and, finally, of Margaret’s voice: ‘I’ve been helping out there already.’
The mother came back to the room.
‘They’ve been out in the fields all day,’ she added, cutting bread at the table. ‘She makes it feel like a week.’
‘How is my brother?’ The woman glanced at Bryan.
‘How is Mr Spencer, Bryan?’ Mrs Spencer asked.
‘He’s driving the tractor,’ Bryan said.
‘Has he given you a ride?’ the woman asked.
‘I’ve been stooking,’ he said.
‘That sounds hard. Is it hard?’ The woman smiled.
‘Yes,’ he said. He opened his hands.
‘Look at his bruises!’ The woman pushed back the sleeve of his shirt. ‘And his arms.’
‘Oh, Bryan’s a soldier,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘He doesn’t mind one or two bruises.’
Bryan gazed steadily into the woman’s face: most clearly of all he saw the blueness of the eyes, and most powerfully of all he was conscious of her scent. ‘He seems so young to be doing rough work.’
‘Bryan’s older than his years,’ Mrs Spencer said, and added, ‘There you are, Margaret. You can butter the bread.’
Margaret had worn a skirt and a blouse in the fields and now she had put on a dress.
‘You see how difficult it is to have even one day off,’ Mrs Spencer said as Margaret took a knife and, glancing at Bryan and then at her aunt, dug it at the butter. ‘It’s resented by everyone. If her father came in now and saw those parcels I don’t think he’d speak to me again.’
‘You didn’t have to go out shopping,’ Margaret said.
‘If I hadn’t have gone today I wouldn’t have gone at all.’ Mrs Spencer glanced at the aunt. ‘Aunt Fay and Uncle Harold offered me a lift. Something your father has no time for at present.’
‘He’s busy.’
‘I know he’s busy. So am I.’
‘How do you like working with the men, Margaret?’ The woman turned her attention to Margaret’s face which glowed not only from the work she had done and the heat of the day but from the wash she had had upstairs.
‘I’ve worked with them before,’ she said.
‘Have you?’
‘Often.’ She dug the knife at the bread. ‘But not in company,’ she added, indicating Bryan.
‘It must be rough,’ the woman said. ‘Doesn’t it do awful things to your hands?’ She glanced at her own which were small and neat.
‘I find it pleasant,’ Margaret said, cutting the bread then counting the slices. ‘Why don’t you come out, Aunt Fay, and join us?’
‘Me?’ the woman said. ‘I don’t believe I could. Exertions of that nature have been beyond me now for quite some time.’
‘It would do your figure good, Aunt,’ Margaret said.
‘Do you think so?’ the woman got up from the table and crossed to a mirr
or above the sink. ‘I used to work here in the old days,’ she added. ‘But that was some years before your time.’
‘Not so many years, Fay,’ Mrs Spencer said.
‘Not so many.’ The woman laughed. She returned to the table. ‘Do you think I look stout?’ she added to Bryan.
‘No,’ Bryan said. He shook his head.
‘What category would you put me in?’
‘What categories are there?’ Bryan asked.
‘The slim, the medium and the fat.’
‘The slim.’
‘What a diplomat.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t think he’d tell me if I wasn’t,’ she added. ‘Although I’m quite sure that I am.’
Sandwiches were cut; tea was made and, together with the milk and the stirred-in sugar, poured into two enamel jugs. The sandwiches were wrapped in towels. Margaret and Bryan took one jug and one bundle of sandwiches apiece, and on Bryan’s arm Mrs Spencer threaded a carrier bag containing metal mugs.
‘Will you be back before I leave?’ the aunt inquired.
‘Probably,’ Margaret said, already at the door.
‘I won’t say good-bye in that case.’ She smiled, came to the door and watched them cross the yard.
‘I’ll stay out till midnight, in that case,’ Margaret said.
‘Why?’ Bryan said.
‘She’s so conceited.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I know so.’ Cows were drifting across the pasture and the herdsman had come out from one of the sheds. ‘Any of that for me?’ he called.
‘It’s for the men, John,’ Margaret shouted.
‘What am I?’ the man complained.
He was tall and thin, and wore a blue overall and a large, check cap.
‘There’s some for you at the house,’ she shouted.
‘Nay, they know where I am.’ The man turned back to the shed. ‘It’s all for them out theer, then, is it?’
‘Ask at the house,’ she shouted again, but the man had already disappeared inside the shed from where, after a moment, came the sound of sweeping. ‘Don’t tell me you like her?’ Margaret added as they started across the pasture to a wood the other side. ‘Even Daddy doesn’t like her, and she’s his sister.’
Bryan didn’t answer; the presence of the woman had taken him by surprise: the neatness of her movements, her gentleness, the brightness of her eyes.
A Prodigal Child Page 11