A Prodigal Child

by Storey, David;

  ‘I wanted to send back for one of the men, but Mr Corrigan wouldn’t have it.’

  Her husband straightened.

  ‘Which one of us,’ he said, ‘would have had to go and fetch him?’

  ‘Oh, I’d have gone,’ she said, shaking her hat in her hand.

  Bryan, from a distance of several feet, was conscious not only of her smile but of the strange effect of the evening light, for it appeared to silhouette her figure.

  He gazed at her for several seconds during which her husband, having removed the rear wheel of the car, came round to the back and, having unscrewed it, lifted out the spare tyre.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Bryan said.

  ‘That’s kind.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘There’s not much to do but fit it on.’ He bounced the wheel beneath his hand.

  Bryan, laying down his bike, helped him to lift it on to the bolts.

  The underside of the car was covered in mud; in the open door, lying on a seat, was the tall man’s jacket: beside it lay a pale-blue handbag: a light-coloured handkerchief was lying on top. The back seat of the car was covered in parcels.

  ‘It must have been a nail in Freddie’s yard,’ the tall man said, and added, ‘There were any number lying about.’

  His wife stepped back to the verge to watch; Bryan was conscious of her dark-blue shoes, high-heeled and open-fronted: he was reminded of the moment when she had stretched out from her chair to take his hand and had revealed, beneath her dress, at the apex of her thigh, the outline of her stocking.

  Her husband, stooping, inserted a spanner on one of the nuts.

  ‘It’s better to screw it on with your fingers,’ Bryan said. ‘And tighten the nuts when you’ve taken out the jack.’

  ‘You know one or two useful things, Bryan,’ the tall man said. He glanced at his wife.

  ‘The moment I saw him I knew he was intelligent,’ she said. ‘I’m never wrong on first impressions.’ She glanced at Bryan and smiled: he had already taken the handle of the jack and begun to lower it. The car sank down on the tyre.

  Taking the spanner, he tightened the nuts.

  ‘That’s been useful.’ The man felt in his pockets.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Bryan said.

  The man held out a coin.

  ‘I’d like you to have it.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said again. He collected the tools from the grass: he placed them in the boot of the car, disengaged the jack, and set it beside them.

  ‘I’d like to give you some token of our appreciation, Bryan,’ the tall man said, stooping, lifting up the hub-cap and trying, unsuccessfully, to fit it on.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Bryan said.

  He sat by the car then, leaning back, pushed the hub-cap on with his foot.

  Dusting his hands, he got up, smiled at the woman and picked up his bike.

  A smell of perfume engulfed him.

  ‘Perhaps you’d accept it from me,’ she said.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Not even to please me?’ She offered him a smile.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘He’s determined not to accept it, Fay,’ the tall man said. Having pulled on his jacket he stood by the car door, reaching inside. ‘Perhaps we can give you a lift?’ he added.

  ‘No, thanks,’ Bryan said.

  ‘We shall find some way of rewarding you. We’re not used to being refused,’ the woman said.

  Bryan got on his bike.

  ‘You shan’t get away with it.’ The woman laughed.

  ‘Good night,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Good night, Bryan,’ the tall man said.

  They watched him cycle off. ‘If she feels she owes me something,’ he thought, ‘there’s the possibility she and I might meet again. If, for instance, she asks Mrs Spencer and on her advice sends me a present, I can always write back and thank her for it, or even,’ he concluded, ‘take a letter round: I wonder what sort of house she lives in?’

  Absorbed by these thoughts he forgot that the subject of them was only a short distance behind him in the road and when, a few moments later, the car came past, sounding its horn, he swerved to one side and saw that, on the passenger’s side at the front, the window had been lowered.

  The brightly-featured face gazed out.

  ‘Good night,’ the woman called.

  The car sped past and left in its wake a cloud of dust which, irritating his eyes, prevented Bryan from gazing after it.

  NINE

  ‘You’ve got a surprise,’ his mother said one morning when Bryan came down to breakfast.

  A brown-paper parcel, fastened with string, was lying on the table; beside it, ready, lay a pair of scissors.

  His name and address were written in a script he couldn’t decipher; only with his mother outlining the words did he make out his name and then the number and the name of the road. ‘Stainforth’ was printed in capital letters and the word ‘estate’ had been omitted.

  ‘Open it,’ she said, for he continued to hold it. ‘See what it is.’

  Alan was standing by the table and had taken the parcel once himself, read the address closely, then handed it back.

  ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Bryan cut one string and then the other; a metal box, rectangular and flat, gleamed from the sheet of paper.

  He drew it out.

  ‘Open it.’

  He was aware of his mother’s hands, inflamed, as her fingers reached out to press back the lid.

  A small metal catch released it.

  In a white metal surround lay innumerable oblong blocks of colour: they varied through innumerable shades and were arranged in several rows; in a central well lay two black-handled brushes, together with several black-capped tubes.

  ‘Bryan!’

  He could feel his mother’s excitement more clearly than he felt his own.

  ‘Who on earth is it from?’

  Having gazed at the paints and run her hand across their surface, each block upraised, she examined the sheet of wrapping paper and finally drew out a blue-tinted envelope on which his name, once more, was written.

  ‘Open it.’ Her head stooped down beside his own.

  Inside was a sheet of blue-coloured paper folded once and inscribed with several words more carefully written than those on the cover.

  ‘To our Good Samaritan. From a grateful Mr and Mrs Corrigan.’

  His mother read the note aloud. Alan, leaning over to read it as well, gazed at the colours; he picked up one of the brushes, drew out the bristles, then pressed the brush, lightly, then more heavily, against the lid.

  ‘Don’t spoil it.’ His mother took the brush herself, examined it, ran its bristles between her fingers, then returned it to the box. She picked up one of the tubes, read the label, ‘White’, then put it down, and gazed at the box again.

  Finally, she leant down and smelled it.

  ‘It smells very nice.’

  She closed the lid, examined it, then opened it again: the inside was set with several panels.

  ‘Those are to mix the colours in.’

  She smelled the paints again.

  ‘They must have cost a fortune.’

  ‘How much?’ Alan said.

  ‘Over a pound.’ She glanced at Bryan. ‘And this for helping to change their tyre.’

  He had told them, on the evening of his return, about the incident with the car.

  ‘He couldn’t have done much,’ his brother said.

  ‘He’s obviously impressed them,’ his mother said. ‘Otherwise, would they go to all this trouble?’

  She must have considered what to buy, he thought. Perhaps, even, had analysed what she knew of him, as opposed to what she might have learned from consulting Mrs Spencer.

  Only now did he run his fingers across the lid, contemplate the turned-up edges, which formed a white line against the blackness of the box itself, and open it again: several shades of red gave way to several
strips of orange, the orange to yellow, the yellow to blue, the blue to green. On yet another rank deep-purple gave way to violet, to brown, to ochre. Stooping, he read the labels: viridian, blue lake, cerulean, sienna. He picked up a brush, felt the fineness of the bristles, then, moistening them in his mouth, he painted a pattern on the inside of the lid.

  ‘What a beautiful present.’ His mother’s head came down as she read the names herself. ‘Lamp Black. Naples Yellow. Burnt Ochre.’

  Alan had gone off across the room. He was pulling on his stockings, and putting on his shoes.

  ‘They must have got the address from Mr and Mrs Spencer. You didn’t give them it?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll have to write and thank them.’

  ‘I shall,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll have to get you some paper.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll find some,’ he said.

  ‘It has to be special paper. Perhaps we can buy a sketch-book.’

  ‘How much do they cost?’ Alan said.

  ‘Oh, we’ll find the money,’ his mother said.

  In the evening, when he came home, his father, too, examined the box; he did so, after his initial surprise, by turning it over and over in his hand, the blocks of paint, the paint-tubes and the brushes rattling inside. Finally, when he opened the lid, he gazed at it in silence; then, flush-faced, he glanced at Bryan.

  ‘That’s a good present.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘You’ll have to make sure you take care of that. Make proper use of it.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘Have you tried it out?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Make sure you mix it properly.’ He ran his fingers across the colours. ‘Make sure they don’t run into one another.’

  He had just come in from work and hadn’t taken off his coat or his cap: his blackened hands had marked the lid.

  ‘I s’ll wash my hands,’ he added, ‘afore I look at it again.’

  Having washed his hands, he wiped the lid clean, picked up the brushes, the tubes of colour, put them back, then laid the box on the table before him while he ate his supper, its lid up, gazing at the rows of paints, smacking his lips, shaking his head and occasionally glancing at Bryan, his face still red, not only from washing, but from the strange embarrassment if not confusion the giving of the present by the Corrigans to Bryan had aroused.

  ‘Have you written back to thank them?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’ve told him to,’ his mother said.

  ‘By go, it must have cost a bob.’

  ‘Over a pound,’ his mother said.

  ‘More.’

  His father had turned the box over, intending to discover a label and, having failed to find one, examined the lid more closely.

  ‘More, far more. It’s not a cheap ’un. It’s got every colour that’s been invented.’

  ‘Two brushes,’ his mother said.

  ‘And tubes of paint, an’ all.’

  ‘We’ll have to get him some paper to paint on.’

  ‘By go, it comes expensive, does painting,’ his father said.

  ‘We can’t have him wasting it,’ his mother said.

  ‘No. We can’t waste it,’ his father said, nevertheless gazing at the box with a deeper frown.

  Bryan kept the paintbox on a shelf in the bedroom; even in the darkness he could see the blackness, gleaming, for the lid caught the light and, where it didn’t, lay like a stark rectangle against the whiteness of the paint behind.

  The shelf formed a box-like structure in the corner of the room, behind the door, and adjacent to the foot of Alan’s bed. On it were one or two books and an embroidered cloth, creating the semblance of a table: the structure was fashioned from the intrusion, into the corner of the room, of the staircase ceiling. Half sitting up in bed he could gaze across at it and identify not only the shape of the paintbox but the outline of the embroidered cloth, and the books propped up by the wall in the corner. He could, he speculated, make that corner of the room his own: on the opposite side of the door, adjacent to the foot of his own bed, was a wardrobe, and the only clear space in the room was the area between the beds and the even narrower space between his own bed and the window.

  The box dominated the room; even when he lay back and closed his eyes he was aware of it lying in the corner and, furthermore, aware of its smell, a strange combination of paint and metal. Every few seconds he breathed it in and, although some time had elapsed since he had last seen her, he tried, as he re-animated the smell, to imagine the processes involved first in thinking about, then in setting off and, finally, in buying the present itself. Perhaps she and Mr Corrigan had chosen it together; more likely, however, she had chosen it herself. He saw her enter the shop, witnessed, from a distance, her conversation at the counter, the picking out of the box, its actual purchase where she opened a bag and took out the money; then, in his imagination, he followed her out to the street and then, from that moment, the rest of the process became a blur, ending with a picture of her sitting at a table and writing the note on the blue-coloured paper.

  At some stage she would have wrapped the paintbox up, first tucking in the note, then the box, folding them both within the paper; then the name and address would be written on, the string fastened and, later she must have picked it up and taken it to a post office.

  He sat up in bed to gaze at the box again. He could just make out the whiteness of the line at the edge of the lid and the faint, symmetrical swellings which indicated the indentations for the mixing of the colours.

  His head sank back against the pillow.

  He was standing on a road which wound off between high hedges: standing on the verge was a woman in a light-blue dress; her features were half-concealed beneath her hat. Beneath the brim, as he drew closer, he was aware of the brightness of her eyes, half-smiling, and yet half-anxious – gazing out at him with such an intensity of expression that instinctively, he put out his hand.

  He felt his fingers taken; the blueness of her dress engulfed him and, by some peculiar adjustment of their height, he found himself, a moment later, gazing not only at her eyes but at her lips.

  ‘Are you still awake?’

  His brother’s bed creaked and his own bed jarred as, having waited for an answer, Alan knelt down to say his prayers.

  Opening his eyes, Bryan saw his back and heard the faint murmur of, ‘God bless Mother, Dad and Bryan, and make Alan a good boy. Amen,’ then felt a fresh jarring as his brother curled up in the blankets, drawing them in a cowl about his head.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  Bryan closed his eyes; perhaps his brother had already seen them open: nevertheless, re-invoking that blue-clad figure, he kept them closed, adjusted his breathing and endeavoured to keep his body still.

  ‘I know you’re awake.’

  His arm ached, pinned beneath his body.

  ‘The paintbox indicates,’ he thought, ‘that Mr and Mrs Corrigan are aware of who I am.’ The possibility that the tyre had not been punctured, that the Corrigans had been waiting there in order that he might encounter them on his own; that they, and the ‘incident’ were a futher planned step in his ‘education’, had already crossed his mind. From his mother and father’s home he had progressed to the Spencers’, and from the Spencers’ he had progressed to the Corrigans’; or, specifically, if he had had a choice, to Mrs Corrigan. In his daytime speculations, he had already invented a scene whereby he heard of Mr Corrigan’s death and, paying Mrs Corrigan a visit and finding her in tears, he took her hand, stooping to her and, discovering her to be as solicitous of his feelings as he was of hers, he kissed her cheek.

  ‘You can’t even paint.’

  ‘I have done.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At school.’

  ‘You’ve done nought here.’

  ‘I hadn’t any paints.’

  Opening his eyes, he gazed at the box again: its shape was still visible, against th
e embroidered cloth, adjacent to the foot of Alan’s bed.

  ‘If you’d wanted some you could have asked for them.’

  ‘I never thought of it.’

  His brother was silent; his solemn rhythmical breathing came from the other bed, the sound muffled by the proximity of the blankets.

  Bryan wanted to get up at that moment and bring the box a little closer; from a distance of several feet he thought he could still detect its smell. The paintbox was a message. It said: ‘Have faith. I am with you here as well.’

  ‘You can have a go, if you like,’ he added.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ his brother said. ‘Painting’s soft.’

  ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘I think it is.’

  Having decided to get out of bed and move the box, perhaps place it beneath his pillow or on the floor beneath the bed, he now lay back and gazed at it from a greater distance.

  ‘Why did they send you it?’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘They could have sent you money.’

  ‘They offered me some.’

  ‘You should have taken it.’

  ‘I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Or sent you a book.’

  His gaze returned to the box.

  ‘The paints,’ he said, ‘were what I wanted.’

  ‘You could always send them back,’ his brother said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re what I wanted,’ and, turning on his side, his head arranged on the pillow so that, when he opened his eyes, he could still see the box, he fell asleep.

  First there was the red, then, beside the red, came the orange.

  Beside the orange came the ochre and, beside that, the yellow.

  Beyond the yellows came the blues.

  He painted slowly. First the colour deepened then, when dry, it lightened. The figures, with their protuberant limbs, succeeded each other across the page.

  ‘Is that the one you’re sending?’

  His mother looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you send them something pretty?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A picture of a country scene.’

  ‘I can’t think of one,’ he said.

  He gazed at the massive figures, each straight, its head erect, a gun thrust diagonally across each shoulder. In the distance, against the cloud, was silhouetted the shape of an aeroplane and, beneath the aeroplane, a large explosion, with fragments flying off on either side.