A Prodigal Child

by Storey, David;

  ‘We won’t throw this away,’ Miss Lightowler said. ‘And once you’ve cast it,’ she continued, glancing at the boys, ‘you can regale us with some other evidence of your skill. Perhaps an animal,’ she concluded.

  Only on the way down did Parkinson say, ‘That was a close shave, Mocky. I thought it was footer, from now on, on Thursdays.’

  ‘Why?’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t think she would wear it.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  ‘Clothes, or no clothes?’ a voice called out and, as they descended the stairs to the floor below and, from there, to the hall, his mind went back to the amorphous mound of clay and, with the same detachment with which he had watched the shape manifest itself beneath his hands, he speculated on whether he might have made it larger or, if not larger, standing up. Running down the last steps, he called, ‘Shall we go to Reggie’s?’ and was already in the street by the time his friend appeared, standing at the door before, finally, gazing down at Bryan and laughing.

  ‘If you find the line that marks the furthest outward projection,’ Miss Lightowler said, indicating with her finger the contour of the hip, ‘you can insert each strip to form a continuous edge,’ inserting the film of tin herself, then handing him the rest and adding, ‘You do it now. You have to learn.’

  Disinclined to damage the figure, he nevertheless constructed across the profile of the hip, the arm, the shoulder and the head, a barricade of tin which divided the front half of the body from the back: a filament of tin he inserted in the orifice between the legs.

  At the central table the boys leaned on their boards, the tins of paint set out beside them.

  Miss Lightowler’s arm, its sleeve rolled to the elbow, was inserted in a bowl of plaster; a handful having been lifted out and held in such a position that not only Bryan but the boys might see it, it was dropped, with a downward extension of her fingers, on to the figure: its thighs and then its abdomen disappeared. Engulfed, the further extremities of the feet and head succumbed to the repeated dabbing, the scraping inside the bowl and the irregular flicking out.

  Soon, only a mound of plaster remained, its two halves separated by the projecting layer of tin. The horror that she might have destroyed the figure, obliterating the clay for good, was displaced in Bryan by a curious sensation which came from watching the figure disappear, the thighs, the hips, the waist, the breasts, until, finally, only the smiling head remained, tilted back: then that too was enclosed by the dome of white and, for good measure, one or two lumps more were flicked across the surface, touched in here and there by Miss Lightowler’s whitened fingers. Turning to the tap to wash her hands, she said, ‘Next week we can remove the clay and clean it. I can’t wait to see the final result.’ Her back to the room, her hands in the sink, picking at the drops of hardening plaster which had coagulated around her wrist, her smock – flower-patterned and buttoned down the front – flecked with plaster, too, Miss Lightowler glanced at Bryan and then at the tin-divided plaster and, smiling, added, ‘You’ll have to think of a title, Bryan. It could be a name.’ Having washed out the bowl she turned it upside-down. ‘Anything in mind?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Not a goddess?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It could be both real, as well as mythological. Like Helen.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Or Diane.’

  Miss Lightowler smiled a second time.

  ‘My name is Diane, as a matter of fact. I’m not sure, in the circumstances, I would welcome its use. How about Penelope?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll have to think.’ Miss Lightowler glanced round the room. ‘Anything the matter, Gordon?’

  ‘No, Miss.’ Parkinson’s guffaw, aroused by the revelation of Miss Lightowler’s name, had been followed by a snort.

  ‘Remember the motto of the art-room.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Concrete and specific.’ She indicated the words written on a notice which hung on the wall above what was the only permanent fixture in the room: a sealed-off fireplace. ‘C and S.’ She indicated that Bryan might return to the table.

  ‘Diane,’ a voice interceded from the end of the room, followed by a snigger.

  ‘It must be cold on the sports field this time of the year.’ Miss Lightowler moved around the table, glancing over the backs at the wooden boards, each mounted centrally by a piece of tinted paper. ‘I’m sure it must be preferable, however, to those who have no intention of understanding the disciplines of art.’ Passing by Parkinson’s back, she added, ‘What are the disciplines of art?’

  ‘I don’t know, Miss.’

  ‘I’ve read them on the notice, Gordon.’

  ‘Concrete and specific.’ Parkinson raised his head.

  ‘To be specific and to be concrete. To the point,’ she concluded, glancing at Bryan, ‘and to be exact.’

  ‘First,’ she said, ‘we’ll detach it from its base,’ and handed the heavily-weighted board along the bench, together with a piece of wire, to either end of which was attached a wooden peg. ‘Slice it like a piece of cheese,’ she added.

  He slid the wire towards him, felt it grate against the plaster and, towards the middle, against the softness of the clay beneath.

  ‘Turn it over.’

  He lifted the plaster from the board.

  ‘We’ll scrape it out.’

  ‘Won’t it spoil it?’ Bryan asked.

  ‘This is the easiest part,’ she said and, taking the spatula, began to dig out the clay herself.

  Nothing of the model now remained, its surface only distinguishable as the inner cavity of the plaster was suddenly revealed. An inverted image of the figure appeared, the abdomen, the legs, the arms and, finally – its features echoed in the recess of the mould – the head.

  ‘We’ll wash it out.’ Miss Lightowler parted the piece of plaster, along the line of the metal foil, into two uneven sections.

  She rinsed each section beneath the tap; within the wedges of plaster he could discern more clearly the lineaments of the figure, the abdomen cut along its length, the features of the face on one side, the back of the head on the other.

  ‘We’ll cast it this afternoon,’ she said, and laid the pieces to dry, face upwards, by the sink. ‘We’ll paint the inside of the mould with clay, to make sure the plaster doesn’t stick.’

  He gazed at Miss Lightowler’s hands as she took the spatula to mix the plaster, and said, ‘Shall I paint the mould myself?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll do that. It has to be light. Merely a smear.’ She turned to the sink, extracted clay from the bin beneath it, mixing it with water. She painted the inside of the separated halves: the inverse of the figure showed more clearly, the details of the eyes, the lips and, below the shoulders, the configuration of the chest. ‘The consistency has to be right. Not too thick. Nor must it be too thin,’ taking a length of coloured ribbon after painting the inside of the mould and adding, ‘We’ll join the halves together.’

  She arranged the mould with its base upturned, its two halves coated along their adjacent edges with a layer of clay and fastened by the ribbon. ‘Into the mould it goes,’ she called finally, the head and the upper extremities disappearing first, the whiteness expanding upwards from the neck, across the shoulders, around the abdomen and into the crevices that formed the toes.

  Into the central cavity of the body Miss Lightowler inserted a length of wire.

  ‘Stiffening.’ She inserted the wire more firmly, inserted a second, shaped the plaster into a rectangular base and added, ‘We’ll put it on the shelf to dry.’

  ‘We’ll chip it first,’ she said, ‘to see if it’ll take the pressure,’ holding the chisel against the joint and, with a wooden mallet, tapping the handle, a thin crack appearing in the mould, where-upon she raised her head, glancing down at him, and added, ‘It’s coming,’ running her finger along its edge. She tapped the crack again.

  The boys glanced up; some lea
nt forward, the drawing-boards propped up before them: with the tapping of the mallet the table shook.

  The mould split; she prised the halves apart, loosening one side and then the other.

  ‘If we can get it off in two pieces we can use it again. Even if it cracks into three or four, we might still patch it up,’ she added.

  She tapped at either end with the chisel, tapped again, and laid the mallet down.

  Stooping, she drew one half of the mould away.

  Loosening the other half, she drew it off: the head, white-dusted, was revealed inside, its features intact, the abdomen curved to the line of the hip, the toes extended at the end of either foot, the knees subtended, one from the other, drawn apart, the pelvis turned upwards from the angle of the hips, the supporting arm running up to the flexed white shoulder.

  No one spoke.

  ‘The mould hasn’t cracked,’ Miss Lightowler said.

  The clay-lined interior of each half lay on either side of the figure.

  ‘We can smooth the mould-line off,’ she added, running her hand along the roughened edge.

  She produced a piece of sandpaper and, stooping, removed the rim of protruding plaster which crescented the head.

  ‘Your job.’ She handed him the paper. ‘Take it off gently without damaging the rest.’

  The boys got up from the table; they ran the tips of their fingers along the legs, over the hips and, in Parkinson’s case, across the shoulders so that, in drawing it aside, Bryan said, ‘I haven’t finished,’ removing the protruding rim of plaster so that finally, no longer blemished, the figure reclined beneath him on its plaster mount.

  ‘Shall we give it a bronze colour, like metal, or ebony, like wood?’ Miss Lightowler said, having inverted the moulds on the table to dry.

  The boys went back to their places: the murmur of voices resumed, the rattle of paint-tins, the scraping of chairs.

  ‘How do we colour it?’ Bryan said.

  ‘Polish is best,’ Miss Lightowler said, running her finger along the figure.

  ‘What kind of polish?’

  ‘Boot.’ Miss Lightowler laughed. ‘Paint will merely be absorbed, whereas polish,’ she added, raising her head, ‘can always be polished, and always,’ she concluded, opening a drawer and getting out a tin, together with a rag, and addressing the room in general, ‘comes up with a shine!’

  A large crowd had collected around the table; at first, approaching it, he was unable to see between the bodies: only when he had completed a circuit of the room did he catch a glimpse, not of any shape, but merely of a colour, and realized that the cause of all the pushing and jostling, the shouting and the laughter, was his brown-polished figure, lying on a box or plinth set on a table in the centre of the floor.

  Typed on a sheet of paper beside it was the cryptic message, ‘RECUMBENT FORM. EXECUTED BY BRYAN MORLEY’.

  The table on which the figure was arranged was one which was used to display objects of an archaeological nature: one week a key had lain there, found in the garden of an adjoining house; on another occasion a collection of fossils had been exhibited inside a showcase and, previous to that, Bryan recalled, a number of artefacts from the local museum. On the wall opposite the table it was customary to display the latest composition from the attic art-room.

  The room was the province of Doctor Beckerman; here he held classes in religious studies, in Greek and Latin, and here, too, he marked his books away from the distractions of the staff-room on the floor above.

  A second piece of paper caught Bryan’s eye: it was fastened by pins to the corner of the table and, jostled to and fro by the figures behind, he could only decipher the words, ‘form’ and ‘content’ and, finally, ‘content being synonymous with form, and form synonymous with content’, underlined.

  The voices behind him quietened: he turned to find a figure wearing a Homburg hat, a black raincoat and carrying a half-rolled umbrella standing in the door.

  The umbrella was shaken, the Homburg was removed: specks of rain were visible on the figure’s shoulders.

  ‘Is anything the matter, Parkinson?’ Doctor Beckerman inquired. He raised the umbrella in the direction of the nearest boy.

  ‘No, sir,’ Parkinson’s brother said.

  ‘Why is everyone in here?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Why are you in here?’

  ‘I came to look at the statue, sir.’

  Parkinson’s brother pointed at the table.

  ‘What statue?’

  ‘The one on exhibition.’

  ‘What exhibition?’

  ‘On the table.’

  Several tables, standing in bays, and each enclosed by chairs, occupied the room. The table in question stood adjacent to the one normally occupied by Doctor Beckerman himself.

  His gaze settled on the statue; only after an interval of several seconds did it move to the piece of paper pinned beside it: after perusing the name inscribed beneath the title he read the second sheet pinned to the corner of the table itself.

  ‘Who put it here?’

  ‘Miss Lightowler, sir.’

  ‘Could you take everyone’s name? I’ve made a mental note of everybody present. If any name is missing I’ll need to know the reason why.’

  He glanced at Bryan.

  ‘Your name is Morley.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Did you have permission to come inside?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Bryan said.

  His arms and his legs had begun to tremble.

  ‘Go back to your room until I call you.’

  A figure scampered off along the landing; names began to be called in the room behind.

  Downstairs, in the classroom, he sat at his desk for several seconds conscious of the faces in the desks behind turned in his direction.

  Mr Waterhouse appeared; he mounted his stool.

  ‘I hear,’ he called, ‘there’s been a commotion.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ several voices said.

  ‘Doctor Beckerman is taking names.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No one’s name in here, I trust?’

  Bryan, after glancing round, put up his hand.

  ‘Your name was taken, Morley?’

  A burst of laughter was followed, at the back of the room, by the banging of a desk.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I saw your figure in the library.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘By your figure I don’t mean your figure per se but your representation of the female form.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The room was silent.

  ‘Commendable.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Bryan nodded.

  ‘I relished in particular,’ he got down from his stool, ‘the modelling of its features.’

  A murmur of laughter passed across the room.

  ‘Also the feet.’

  Bryan nodded.

  ‘Not to mention,’ he continued, ‘several of the toes.’

  The laughter, no longer suppressed, burst out at the back.

  ‘Also the hair.’

  The laughter spread to the front.

  ‘No other part I missed?’ He waited. ‘One would have thought, from the expression, that there was someone in particular you had in mind. The whole figure,’ he continued, ‘is so specific.’

  The tapping of desks increased.

  ‘Though whether it is appropriate to mention it I’ve no idea. Art is inimical to this building. At least,’ he concluded, ‘it has been in the past.’

  The door opened: a figure came inside: his tie dishevelled, his remaining tufts of hair pushed back, his suit rumpled, Mr Berresford called, ‘Could I see you outside, Mr Waterhouse?’, the master adding, ‘Carry on from where we were. I’ll be with you in a minute, boys,’ crossing to the door, peering out before, with a backward glance, he closed the door behind.

  The ceiling shook.

  ‘What’s happened?’ someone asked.

 
The door opened as one of the boys went out; another followed.

  Feet ran past. The windows rattled.

  ‘He’s had a fit.’

  A figure in a dishevelled uniform appeared at the classroom door.

  ‘Berry’s called a doctor.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘Becky.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘He’s jumping up and down.’

  A weight was drawn across the ceiling.

  A voice called out.

  ‘Who’s with him?’

  ‘Heppy and Watty.’

  A crowd of boys moved out to the door; other figures appeared from the opposite classroom.

  Voices called from the top of the stairs.

  Feet ran down from the floors above.

  The ceiling shook.

  ‘Not in here,’ a voice called out.

  A door slammed.

  ‘Not in here,’ the same voice called again. ‘Not in this room. Ever.’

  ‘Did he dislike it because it had been placed in the room without his permission?’ Mrs Corrigan said, sewing more quickly.

  ‘On principle,’ Bryan said.

  ‘I take it the figure’s nude?’ Mr Corrigan leant back.

  ‘I haven’t seen it,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘I was asking Bryan,’ Mr Corrigan said, folding his evening newspaper on the arm of his chair.

  ‘It’s lying on its side,’ Bryan said. ‘Its head propped up on its hand.’

  ‘It was the point I made to Max,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘If there is someone in the school who can lead,’ she glanced at Bryan, ‘he should seek to support and not discourage.’

  She pulled out a thread, snipped it with a pair of scissors – the handles ringed neatly on her thumb and finger – and, taking up another skein, selected a length, drew it out, and, licking one end, held it to the needle. With one eye closed, she threaded it.

  ‘When did you talk to Berresford?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘On the telephone.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He has ambition, Harold, like everyone else.’

  ‘Ambition to do what?’

  ‘To please me, for one thing,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘Did Miss Lightowler suggest the subject?’ Mr Corrigan asked Bryan.