A Prodigal Child

by Storey, David;

  ‘I’ll not.’

  Having looked at the illustrations, then at the cover, he gave him it back.

  ‘They said you should have come in,’ Bryan said.

  ‘It was you they asked for.’ His brother went through to the scullery. ‘Have you had some tea?’ came his voice.

  ‘They gave me some.’

  His brother came back with a bucket and a shovel.

  ‘What wa’ the house like?’

  ‘Big.’

  ‘Wa’ both of them theer?’

  ‘Mr Corrigan came later.’

  ‘Have they got any kids?’

  ‘No.’

  His brother, having filled the bucket with ashes, went out again.

  Bryan heard the bucket clank in the garden, then came the rumble of the coal in the coal-house as his brother filled it.

  The back door closed and he came back in.

  ‘I’m not doing all of it. Tha can go outside and chop some wood. I’ll not ge’ it lit wi’out.’

  Bryan went out to the porch; he got the wood from the coal-house and chopped it on the step.

  When he went back in his brother had crumpled up the paper and swept the hearth: he laid the pieces of wood on top of the paper, then put on pieces of coal, tipped the bucket over it and, having poured half of it on, added, ‘You can go out and fill it.’

  When Bryan came back the fire was burning behind a piece of newspaper propped up on the shovel.

  They gazed at the blaze, Alan sitting forward on his chair, his arms across his knees.

  ‘They’ve invited me again.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head.

  ‘What did they think to your pictures?’

  ‘They said they’d frame them.’

  ‘All of ’em?’

  ‘One or two.’ He paused again. ‘They’re giving one as a present, at Christmas, to Mr and Mrs Spencer.’

  ‘Thy’s moving on.’ His brother’s hair was disarranged and his shirt was grimier than ever. His jersey, too, was torn at the waist, and there were holes in each of his elbows. ‘What did they give you for tea?’

  ‘Salmon.’

  ‘I’ sandwiches?’

  ‘And jelly.’

  His brother nodded; from the darkness of the field came several shouts and, looking out of the window, Bryan saw the outline of figures running past.

  ‘I mightn’t go back.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Bryan shook his head.

  ‘They might do summat for you.’

  ‘What?’

  It was his brother’s turn to shake his head. ‘You never know. They might come up wi’ summat.’

  The glow reddened and the sheet of paper began to burn; Alan reached forward and drew the paper off.

  The flames licked up around the coal.

  ‘I suppose he’ll say we should have used wood i’stead o’ coal. But there’s not much heat in a bit of wood.’ He added, ‘I’d go, if they invited me.’

  ‘Why?’ he said.

  ‘What chance do you have round here?’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘Anything.’

  Bryan’s hand crept out to feel the smoothness of the book and for the first time, too, he felt a sense of reassurance, not merely in his brother’s tone, but in the fact that Mr and Mrs Corrigan existed, that they had given him a present, and that the book, like a credential, lay beside him, an indication that there were forces in his life that were stronger than those in the lives of anyone around him.

  ‘I’ll do summat,’ Alan said.

  ‘What will you do?’ Bryan asked.

  ‘Nay, I’ll do something,’ Alan said. ‘I’ll make something of my life. I’ll not be like all the rest round here. Cloughie’s going into decorating like his father and Shawcroft says he’s off i’ the mill, and I suppose Donny’ll work in his father’s shop.’

  ‘But what will you do?’ he asked again.

  ‘I s’ll be a boxer.’

  Bryan saw that perhaps his brother had been talking about this to his friends in the den: the declaration came, not so much with an air of resolution, as in a reflective, almost inquiring tone of voice, as if the decision, though made, had already been questioned. He could imagine Barraclough saying, ‘Thy can’t beat me,’ and laughing. ‘So how’s thy going to be a boxer?’ and yet he thought that, although Alan never had, his brother could beat Barraclough in a fight and that it was because he could beat him that he allowed Barraclough’s authority to prevail.

  ‘When will you start?’

  ‘I do some now.’

  ‘What sort of boxing?’ Bryan asked.

  ‘There’s only one sort. I s’ll turn professional. Tangey,’ his brother added, referring to a teacher at the school, ‘says he’ll teach me.’

  Bryan picked up the book again, glanced at it in the faded light, and asked, ‘Shouldn’t they have been back by now?’

  ‘I don’t know about my dad, but my mother should.’

  ‘Did they have a quarrel?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ His brother shrugged; he leaned forward, picked up the poker, and lifted the coals at the front of the fire: the flames, dying down, were re-ignited.

  ‘If they don’t come soon we can make some supper.’

  Having put down the poker, he leant back in his chair.

  ‘How did you come back?’

  ‘In a car.’

  ‘What kind wa’re it?’

  ‘An Alvis.’

  ‘My dad says Spencer’s is a Wolseley.’

  ‘Mr Corrigan’s is bigger.’

  ‘Did you sit i’ the front?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The elation of returning from the Corrigans’ had begun to fade; it had begun to fade, initially, with his returning to the house to find no one there, the fire out, and to see the plates from the dinner washed but not dried on the draining-board by the sink – something his mother normally would never have allowed.

  More certainly, however, the elation was being replaced by a feeling of unease; Mrs Corrigan disturbed him: she was not at all like she had been at the Spencers’, nor on the roadside when she’d watched him help to change the tyre, nor how she’d been when she’d waved to him, in passing, from the window.

  ‘If they invited me again, I’d go,’ his brother said.

  It was the first disinterested attention Alan had shown him and he wondered, after recognizing it as such, if there wasn’t another motive.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘Are they posh?’

  ‘They have a servant.’

  ‘What’s she do?’

  Bryan paused; he had liked Mrs Meredith despite her appearance which, at first sight, might have discouraged anyone from liking her at all. When he was leaving and he had gone down to the car she had come to the door and had stood there, waving.

  ‘She brings in the food and serves it.’

  ‘Tangey reckons I should be a heavyweight when I’m fully grown. He reckons I should have a build like Harvey.’

  ‘Who’s Harvey?’

  ‘Have you never heard of Harvey?’

  His brother glanced across.

  ‘Harvey’s the best boxer we’ve ever had. Middleweight, light-heavyweight, heavyweight. There’s nought he hasn’t fought at.’

  As he spoke they heard the rattle of his father’s bike as it was propped against the fence and a moment later his feet sounded at the door.

  The sneck rattled.

  His brother stood up.

  The back door opened, his father coughed then, calling, ‘Alan?’ he coughed again.

  A moment later came the sound of someone falling.

  The room shook.

  Alan crossed over to the hall and stood in the threshold of the scullery, gazing in.

  His father was lying on the floor, sprawled out towards the sink.

  ‘Dad?’

  His father groaned; he had still got on his cycle clips and was dressed in his suit, the sole
s of his shoes turned up to the light.

  ‘Dad?’

  Alan stepped into the scullery and his father stirred.

  One set of his father’s false teeth had fallen out and lay on the floor beside what looked like a pool of spittle.

  ‘Wheer’s the light?’

  His father spoke with his mouth compressed against the carpet: his cheek was cushioned underneath and from the corner of his mouth came a stream of bubbles.

  Alan stooped down; all Bryan could see were the backs of his brother’s legs, the swelling of his calves as he took his father’s weight.

  ‘Gi’e us a hand, Bryan.’

  Bryan caught his father’s arm and, with Alan tugging at the other, tried to lift him.

  ‘What’s up, Dad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s up?’

  His father closed his eyes.

  ‘Wheer’s the light? Who left it off?’

  ‘Is he ill?’ Bryan asked.

  His brother gazed down at his father’s teeth, at the curve of the plate that fitted his father’s mouth, and at the pool of blood-flecked spittle.

  ‘Should I fetch Mr Foster?’

  His brother shook his head.

  ‘Or Mr Patterson?’

  ‘I shouldn’t.’

  His brother’s fear, curiously, dispelled any fear in Bryan himself. He thought, ‘If Alan is frightened there’s no need for me to be frightened, too,’ and he wondered in that instant, as he gazed down at the figure of his father and then looked up at his brother standing, helplessly, with his legs astride it, if he didn’t despise his brother to the exclusion of everything else: ‘And yet, why should I?’ he thought, for he couldn’t help but feel that his father lying there and his brother standing astride of him, that they were, for some reason, curiously united.

  ‘Shall we lift him again?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Wheer’s the light?’ His father moaned as they lifted him together.

  ‘Can you get up, Dad?’ Alan asked.

  Bryan lifted the teeth and, feeling the slime on the plate, dropped them in the sink.

  ‘He’s drunk.’

  ‘I thought he was ill.’

  ‘Can’t you smell it? He’s had too much to drink.’

  His father moaned.

  It was inconceivable to Bryan that his father should be drunk. As he gazed at the figure on the floor and recognized a growing relief in Alan that his father wasn’t ill, Bryan felt that he had been cut off from his father for good; he could never imagine him to be again the father that he had known before, nor could he imagine joining in his brother’s relief that what his father had done was not important, and, going by his brother’s reaction, could even be condoned.

  ‘By go,’ his brother said, ‘he’s plastered.’

  Alan gazed at his father with a look of respect; then, in the back of his throat, he began to snigger.

  ‘Let’s get him up.’

  They stooped to his father again.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ his brother said.

  ‘I s’ll be all right,’ his father said.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ Alan said again, and added to Bryan, ‘Grab ’o’d of his legs.’

  Half-carrying, half-dragging, they drew him into the living-room and on to a chair, his father’s head subsiding against one arm, his legs thrust up on the other.

  ‘I’d better wash his face.’

  His father, his eyes closed, had begun to snore.

  ‘I’d leave off the light,’ Alan said. ‘We’ll let him sleep.’

  Liquid gurgled in his father’s throat.

  ‘I’d better put a bucket here in case he’s sick.’

  Bryan fetched a flannel from the bathroom; his brother, when he came down, had taken off his father’s shoes.

  ‘Can you get us a towel?’

  Alan stooped across his father’s face.

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘He’ll be all right. He might have brok’ his nose when he fell. He won’t know,’ he added, ‘until he wekens.’

  Bryan brought the towel through.

  His brother, stooping over his father, had begun to laugh. ‘Would you believe it?’ he said, and added, ‘have you got the bucket?’

  Bryan went through to the scullery, poured water into the bucket and brought it in: he stood it by his father’s head.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ his father said. He echoed, ‘All right,’ his chest and his jacket streaked with spittle.

  ‘Wheer’s our mother?’ Alan asked.

  ‘She’s gone back home.’

  ‘What home?’

  ‘Thy Granny’s home.’

  ‘Is she coming back?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ His father paused. ‘We had a quarrel.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘The Corrigans.’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘I s’ll fetch a coat and cover him up.’ His brother wiped his father’s jacket and added, ‘That’ll need washing. What a smell,’ and took the towel and the flannel through to the kitchen.

  Bryan gazed down at his father sprawled with his feet on the arm of the chair, at the fringe of hair which had fallen across his brow, at the strange animation of the face which came with the flickering of the fire, and was suddenly conscious that his father’s eyes were open.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  From the scullery came the sound of Alan washing his hands.

  His father’s chin was compressed against his chest, his head forced forward by the arm of the chair: his mouth didn’t move, and in the one eye only the firelight flickered.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you want to go upstairs?’

  ‘I’ll lie down here.’ A moment later he resumed his snoring.

  ‘What wa’re he saying?’ Alan said, bringing with him his father’s overcoat from a peg in the hall.

  ‘I think he’s awake.’

  ‘Do you want to get up, Dad?’ Alan said, and though he stooped over him and added, ‘Do you want to go up?’ his father didn’t reply. His brother laid the coat over his father’s legs. He began to laugh. ‘It doesn’t half smell. It smells in here, an’ all,’ he added.

  Bryan went through to the scullery: there was the outline on the carpet of his father’s head.

  He opened the back door to clear the air.

  His brother had gone upstairs.

  Voices called: feet sounded on a path.

  He went into the living-room and got his book: it was lying on the floor where, in putting his father down, his brother had dropped it: he glanced at the strange symmetry of his father’s feet thrust up beneath the coat and, hearing his brother come downstairs, went out to the hall, closing the door of the living-room behind him.

  ‘Will you be all right on your own?’ his brother said.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ the field.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘They won’t have you.’

  He crossed to the door.

  ‘You’re not frightened, are you?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘He’ll be all right in yonder.’

  He looked at the book in his hand.

  ‘You can read your book.’

  The back door banged.

  The thudding of his brother’s feet was followed by a shout, ‘Donny!’ as he climbed the fence.

  He put the book down on the mangle.

  Not wanting to go upstairs, he picked up the tea-towel and began to dry the pots; he banged the plates, then the cups, stacking them on the mangle top, then he clattered the two pans, reaching up to put them on the scullery shelf, hoping the sound might waken his father.

  Through the closed door of the living-room came his father’s snores and, at one moment, when they paused, and an intense silence filled the house, he waited, the tea-towel in his hand; then, with a snort, the snoring began again.

  He went into the pantry; on the s
tone shelf was the piece of meat for the Sunday’s dinner.

  The biscuit tin was empty.

  In the bread bowl was a loaf his mother had bought that morning.

  He came out, picked up his book, put the light out, and went upstairs; he wondered if he should lock the door: on the other hand, he could take the pots through to the cupboard by the fire, and stack them in their usual place and, perhaps, with the noise, his father might wake and, feeling better, get up and go to bed.

  He put on the bathroom light: his brother had laid his pyjamas over the cistern in order to get them warm, and it was with something of a shock that he realized his own were still downstairs in the cupboard next to the fire.

  He washed his face and cleaned his teeth and, still holding the book, went back downstairs.

  He opened the living-room door; his father’s arm had fallen to the floor, the hand upturned: his head, too, had been turned towards the fire and the light of the flames danced across his features.

  A crust of blood had formed around his nose.

  As Bryan crossed the room his father stirred; his breathing faltered.

  He opened the cupboard door, got out his pyjamas, and re-crossed the room in front of the fire.

  His father, suddenly, flung out a hand: his breathing then his snoring recommenced; a strand of saliva glistened from his mouth.

  He closed the door and went upstairs.

  He undressed in the bathroom, put his clothes on the banister then, glancing along the landing, crossed to his bedroom door, felt inside, switched on the light, glanced in, closed the door behind him and, reluctant to allow his fear to persuade him to look inside the wardrobe, got into bed.

  He laid the book on the counterpane, closed his eyes, and thought, ‘No one will kill me while I’m saying my prayers, nor will anyone kill me while my father is snoring,’ and, after praying, ‘God bless Mother, Father and Alan, and make Bryan a good boy, Amen,’ he added, ‘Will my mother come home soon? Amen,’ and wondered, as he glanced round the room, if angels would guard his father if he were drunk, or whether, even, they might abandon him and the family altogether, gazing at the tasselled lampshade then at the cover of Barnabus and the Pirates, then getting out of bed and laying the book beside the paintbox on the wooden projection behind the door.

  He drew the covers up and listened intently to the sounds of his father.

  Only a faint murmur, periodically, came from the room downstairs.

  What would the Corrigans think if they could see him now? What would they have thought of him that afternoon if they had known what was going to happen that evening? He recalled the ten to fifteen minutes sitting in the car, the smell of the petrol; and recalled, too, the strange mixture of excitement and apprehension evoked by Mrs Corrigan herself.