‘Miss Watkinson?’
She shook her head. ‘Why do you say Miss Watkinson?’
‘I thought you might be jealous.’
‘Why should I be jealous?’ She laughed, squeezed his hand, and added, ‘It’s when you say things like that I like you more than ever.’
‘Who was it, then?’
‘Someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t have to submit to your questioning, Bryan. I am merely telling you something I wish you to know.’
‘You’ve only told me half,’ he said.
‘I wish you’d told me about your mother.’
‘Would you have gone up to her?’ he asked.
‘She might have come to the conclusion we’d decided not to acknowledge her.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘That’s cold-hearted.’
‘Is it?’
His own grasp on her hand had tightened; he felt the pressure of her ring.
‘You have to acknowledge your mother,’ she said.
On either side narrow streets opened out on to cobbled thoroughfares and yards: from beyond the nearest roofs came the hooting of a tug.
‘I used to live down here,’ she said. ‘It was an exciting place in those days.’
‘My mother used to live down here as well,’ he said.
‘What was your mother’s maiden name?’
‘Wolmersley.’
‘I never heard of it.’ She glanced up one of the brick-lined yards: children were running to and fro; their screams echoed between the houses. ‘How awful,’ she said, and added, ‘Not that I knew many people. I was determined to get out of it as soon as I could.’
‘I thought you enjoyed it.’
‘Whatever gave you that impression?’
‘You said it was an exciting place to live.’
‘It was,’ she said, ‘for a girl, and at an age when I didn’t know any better.’
‘When did you know better?’ he said.
‘Quite early, Bryan.’ She added nothing until, emerging from beneath a railway bridge, they came out by the river: water cascaded over a concrete weir and barges were moored to a crane-lined wharf. ‘We can walk back home from here,’ she said.
They passed the Chantry Chapel and, with Mrs Corrigan leading, descended a flight of steps to a footpath which, paved with flagstones and flanked by a fence, followed the bank on the opposite side.
‘I used to play down here,’ she said. ‘I used to come down with Mr Spencer. He had lots of friends. There were always lots of fun.’
‘If you were poor, and had no money, how did Mr Spencer become a farmer?’
Mrs Corrigan paused where the path broadened and was joined, at a lock-gates, by a stone-banked canal. Beyond stretched a vista of fields crowned, at their summit, by the houses of the village. ‘He was employed as a farm-labourer,’ she said, ‘and fell in love with his employer’s daughter.’
‘How did you get out of it?’ he asked.
‘That story,’ she said, ‘will have to be told another time.’ She extended her hand towards the village. ‘What a wonderful view. I can’t tell you how my heart used to rise when we got to here and we crossed the lock-gates and the town and its dirt had been left behind.’
‘You don’t like dirt,’ he said.
‘Throughout my life,’ she said, ‘I’ve always learnt that dirt and indifference go together. Where there’s apathy,’ she added, ‘there’s always filth.’
She stopped by the lock-gates.
‘You go across first. I haven’t come this way for ages.’
Holding to the metal rail, he crossed to the other side.
She followed, pausing where the gates came together, and called, ‘When I got to here my brother’s friends would often threaten to throw me in.’
‘Did they ever do it?’ he said.
‘Mr Spencer would never allow it.’
‘Why do you call him Mr Spencer?’ he asked.
‘He is Mr Spencer to you,’ she said.
‘He’s your brother.’
‘You can’t be informal at your age, Bryan.’ She indicated a footpath which led off through what, at one time, had been an orchard; the stumps of several trees, arranged in rows, were covered in ivy. At one side, behind a stone wall, stood the ruins of a cottage. ‘This is Morgan’s Place,’ she said. ‘A man used to live here who always chased us. He looked after the lock and didn’t like people coming across. Particularly children.’
‘What shall I call you?’ Bryan asked.
He felt the tug on his arm as she came to a stop.
‘You could call me “Aunt”.’
Already she was walking on.
‘Shall I call Mr Corrigan “Uncle”?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
A stile came into veiw at the end of the path.
She held his hand.
‘We ought to get something straight,’ she said, as they regained the footpath the other side. ‘Because I take an interest in you, you don’t have to be,’ she paused, ‘familiar.’
‘I’m not,’ he said, not sure what the word implied.
‘You talk to me at times,’ she flushed, not having taken his hand again since crossing the stile, ‘as if I were a friend.’
‘You are,’ he said.
‘I hope you won’t forget that I am also someone who is responsible for your welfare.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘You were right about the shop.’
‘What about it?’ Bryan asked.
‘I don’t like seeing Mr Corrigan there.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s the way I am. I can’t tell you why.’ She clasped his hand. ‘You don’t mind the way I am?’ she added.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘so that’s all settled,’ and, clasping his hand more tightly, her eyes brightening, the colour lightening in her cheeks, she led him up the slope.
FOURTEEN
The building stood up a cobbled sidestreet opening off a main thoroughfare of the town. The room they waited in was occupied by a secretary seated at a desk. Her hair was fastened in a bun, one strand of which she leant back in her chair to fasten.
Mr Corrigan was dressed in a dark-grey suit with a high-winged collar: from the top pocket of his jacket projected a handkerchief and, intermittently, from beneath his jacket, he extracted a watch, wound it, then returned it to his waistcoat pocket.
‘Mr Berresford won’t be long.’ The secretary smiled. A bell rang on her desk. ‘Mondays are always busy,’ she added.
She got up from her desk and crossed the room, opening a door the other side.
‘Mr Corrigan, Mr Berresford,’ she called inside.
A man stood up behind a desk; strands of dark hair grew out, like wings, from the back of his head, the brow of which projected heavily above a pair of dark-brown eyes. Large nostrils were underlain by a dark moustache: a mouth, thin-lipped and scarcely visible, ran down into a circle of fat which, projecting outwards, was compressed against a stiff white collar.
The man wore a dark-brown suit and – like Mr Corrigan, and contrasting strangely with its colour – a pale-blue tie.
‘Hello, Harold,’ he said, and shook Mr Corrigan’s hand.
‘This is the gentleman in question.’ Mr Corrigan indicated Bryan.
The man shook Bryan’s hand, indicated two chairs which had already been placed in front of the desk, and asked, ‘What do you think to our building, Bryan?’
‘It’s old.’
‘Very.’ Teeth, tinted yellow, were revealed within the thin-lipped mouth. Opening a drawer, the man took out a pipe. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘Go ahead.’ Mr Corrigan crossed his legs and, having done so, glanced at Bryan.
‘Two old boys.’ The headmaster gestured at his pale-blue tie, and then, with the stem of his pipe, at Mr Corrigan’s. He laughed, Mr Corrigan laughed, and each, in turn, once more, glanced down at Bryan.
‘What are
we to make of him, Max?’ Mr Corrigan laughed again.
‘Another Petersonian?’ the headmaster said.
‘I think so.’
The headmaster, having struck a match, applied it to his pipe.
‘His report gives grounds for hope.’
‘Considerable,’ Mr Corrigan said.
‘From rougher wood than this.’ The headmaster exhaled a cloud of smoke.
Along one wall ran a case containing books; a second, glass-fronted case was occupied by silver cups: above it, suspended from the wall, hung a wooden plaque bearing, in relief, a painted coat of arms beneath which, in black, was inscribed the one word, ‘Independence’.
The headmaster, following Bryan’s look, glanced up. He exhaled another cloud of smoke. ‘Any questions before we cast him to the wolves?’
‘He hasn’t his books,’ Mr Corrigan said.
‘Been ordered, have they?’
Mr Corrigan nodded. ‘Nor his uniform.’
‘Being altered at Bennett’s?’
‘Correct.’
The headmaster stood up; he opened the door to the outer office. ‘All under control, in that case,’ he said, and added, ‘You’ll find it different from what you’re used to, Bryan. We’ll make greater demands, despite our lack of the State’s resources, and also, as a consequence, look for better results.’
The secretary, typing, looked up from her desk.
‘I’ll be downstairs, Mrs Fletcher,’ the headmaster said.
‘Right-o, Mr Berresford,’ the woman called out.
A flight of stone steps led down to a hall: a door opened off on either side; a front door, at the opposite end, opened to the street. Here, after calling, ‘Good luck, Bryan,’ Mr Corrigan put on his hat, turned, waved, added, ‘Cheerio, Max,’ and disappeared, closing the door behind him.
‘Down to business,’ the headmaster said, knocking on one of the two doors and, thrusting his head inside, called, ‘One more for the chopping-block, Mr Waterhouse.’
‘Come in. Come in, Mr Berresford,’ came a high-pitched voice. ‘I’m ironing out,’ the voice added, ‘one or two creases.’
A group of heads, each surmounting a pale-blue blazer, was turned in Bryan’s direction: large, wooden desks faced a larger desk, behind which stood a blackboard on metal castors and in front of which, his arms folded, leaned a small, bald-headed man, with stocky shoulders, bow-legs and a bright-red face: within the bright-red face were set a pair of pale-blue eyes, a protuberant nose and a similarly proportioned mouth which, as Bryan came into the room, was opened in the configuration of the letter ‘O’.
‘Mr Waterhouse,’ the headmaster said to Bryan, and added, ‘I believe we have a desk for Bryan.’
A desk was pointed out at the front.
‘The uniform is forthcoming. Books and utensils forthcoming, too,’ the headmaster said.
‘Compris.’ The teacher glanced down at Bryan.
‘Any problems?’
‘None.’
‘Any problems, Morley?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘“Sir” is the normal suffix, Morley.’
‘No, sir,’ Bryan said.
‘Correct.’
The headmaster, having run his hand across Bryan’s head, glanced round him at the class, nodded, placed his pipe in his mouth and went over to the door. ‘Carry on.’
His footsteps sounded from the stairs outside.
‘Morley, initial “B”,’ the teacher said, stepping behind his desk and mounting a stool. ‘No other initial?’
‘No, sir,’ Bryan said.
‘B.M.,’ he wrote with a pen taken from the top pocket of his jacket. ‘Not B.O.M., or B.A.M., or even B.U.M., but simply,’ he wrote silently for several seconds, ‘B.M.’
A murmur of laughter came from the room.
‘Have you got a pen?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He took one, like the teacher, from the top pocket of his jacket, a fountain pen given him that morning by Mrs Corrigan.
High overhead a gas candelabra, unused, hung from a stuccoed ceiling.
The window beside him, and one other, looked out to the street: a house, of similar proportions to the one he was in, stood directly opposite, a brick-built structure with seven windows on the first floor, seven smaller ones above, and five dormer windows in the attic roof.
‘You will find your exercise books inside your desk. The red is for English, the blue is for French, the green is for Science, the orange for Maths, the purple for History, the pink for Geography, and the grey,’ he concluded, ‘is for General Studies, including,’ he raised his head, ‘Religious Instruction.’ He glanced round him at the class. ‘Perhaps you’ll do us the favour of inscribing your name, together with “Class 3”, on each of them.’ He returned his gaze to Bryan. ‘And then we shall all get down to work.’
Voices echoed in the room; feet shuffled on the ceiling: the building, he decided, had once been someone’s home. Behind the blackboard, on its metal castors, was the sealed-in fireplace with it high mantelshelf and voluted surrounds, and beside each window, folded back, were the original wooden shutters.
The walls, like the ceiling, were cracked, the cream distempered surfaces pocked here and there by the outline of a football and, in one spot, above the door, by the marks of someone’s foot.
The teacher’s voice droned on; at intervals, having descended from the stool and resumed his position, standing, in front of his desk, he glanced at Bryan and called, ‘Is that understood?’ crossing to his desk and inquiring, ‘Have you got the subject “English” written on the red book?’ or, ‘It’s orange for Maths,’ or, ‘The darker green, by the way, is Latin. I may have missed it off my list. If you’ve any inquiries raise your hand.’
That morning he had kissed Mrs Corrigan good-bye, she stooping in the porch then watching him descend to the car in which Mr Corrigan was already waiting, her figure still visible on the steps as they reached the end of the drive and the car dipped down to the road, and, in glancing across at the gaunt-featured figure beside him, he had thought, ‘This is part of the plan. She might not even be his wife.’
‘Morley?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Do you agree with that?’
‘With what, sir?’
‘Weren’t you listening?’
The tiny mouth was pursed.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Sit up.’
‘She’ll be sitting in the dining-room,’ he thought, ‘or playing the piano. Or might even be coming into town, or be walking past the school.’
‘Do you always sit in a day-dream, Morley?’
‘No, sir.’
The teacher, after waiting for the class’s laughter to subside, stepped closer. ‘Have you inscribed your books correctly?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Let me see.’
He handed up each book in turn.
‘Ever done Latin?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do they teach French where you come from?’
‘No, sir.’
‘This will be a new adventure.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘A new start.’
The pale-blue eyes examined him intently.
‘Why are you trembling?’
His arms and his legs had begun to vibrate; he could feel the disturbance inside his chest.
‘You’re not frightened of me, are you?’
‘No, sir.’
Glancing round at the uniformed figures, the teacher said, ‘I’m not a frightening person, am I?’
‘No, Mr Waterhouse,’ the class as a single voice replied.
‘Far more,’ he continued, ‘it’s the other way round. They,’ he gestured at the class, ‘have a far greater capacity to frighten me, one which they exercise without compunction. The hours,’ he concluded, ‘I have shivered at this desk.’
The class laughed; they banged their desks: the majority, however, gazed at Bryan.
‘Parkinson.’
&nb
sp; A tall, thin-featured boy stood up; he had bright-red hair and his pale face, particularly around his nose and across his forehead, was sprinkled liberally with freckles.
‘Parkinson is the worst boy in the class and he will hear me out as to how much he and his co-conspirators can frighten me.’
‘We don’t frighten you at all, sir,’ Parkinson said, closing his eyes and stammering before he added, ‘You frighten us.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘It is, sir.’
‘I, Algernon Hardwick Waterhouse, frighten this class?’
A hand was placed above Mr Waterhouse’s breast pocket, the top of which was lined by several pens.
‘It can’t be true.’
‘It’s true, sir,’ came a chorus of shouts.
‘I, who have never raised my voice in anger.’
‘You have, sir!’
‘When, ever, Parkinson, have I raised my voice to you?’
‘Every day, sir.’
‘Every day?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The tall, red-headed figure bowed its head and a crimson flush rose across its freckled brow.
‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Your name isn’t Algernon,’ a voice called out.
‘If it isn’t Algernon,’ Mr Waterhouse replied, ‘may I lose every hair on my head.’
‘You have, sir!’
The hand from the breast pocket of Mr Waterhouse’s jacket was raised to the top of Mr Waterhouse’s head. ‘And this morning, in the mirror, I looked so pretty.’
The class laughed. Desk lids were banged. Feet stamped on the floor.
‘You’ll have to bear me out in this,’ Mr Waterhouse said, raising his hand, at which the banging of desks subsided. ‘Have I ever frightened anyone?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Parkinson said.
‘Who?’
‘Everyone, sir.’
‘Including you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I see little sign of it.’ He glanced at Bryan. ‘You will have to believe me when I say I was not aware I frightened anyone. If I do,’ he added, ‘I apologize.’
The desk lids were tapped, the feet were stamped; the laughter in the room broke out again.
‘I am an ogre. What am I?’
‘An ogre,’ everyone in the room replied.
‘A tyrant.’
‘A tyrant,’ everyone in the room responded.
‘I terrify everyone, as Parkinson can attest. No one sleeps at night who has spent the previous day in my classroom. Why, no one sleeps at all,’ he concluded, ‘if ever I catch them at it.’
A Prodigal Child Page 20