A Prodigal Child

by Storey, David;

  ‘Is Bryan back?’

  ‘He’s up here,’ he called again, still leaning to the bed.

  ‘Is he coming down?’

  He got up from the bed. His suitcase he stood on his brother’s bed.

  His mother – a sign of her displeasure, since she didn’t wait to greet him at the foot of the stairs – had gone through to the living-room and was sitting in the chair he’d been sitting in himself, his brother’s carrier bag beside it.

  ‘How’s Mr Spencer?’

  ‘He keeps himself busy.’ He sat down in the chair in which his brother had been reclining.

  ‘And Margaret?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ve got used to it yet. At one time Margaret called out, “Mother,” looking up from the table when she wanted to know where something was.’

  ‘She once did me a very good turn. I shan’t forget. She was very good to me. She gave me advice I’ve never forgotten.’

  Later, when his father came back and had eaten his dinner, Alan and he left for the boxing – inviting Bryan to come but not disappointed when he refused, his father pulling on his coat in the door and calling, ‘You’ll still be here tonight?’ his feet clipping on the path outside, his figure visible beyond the hedge as, fastening the buttons of his overcoat, he hurried after Alan.

  Bryan went for a walk in the afternoon; he walked to the phone box at the foot of Spinney Moor Avenue and rang up the Corrigans’, getting Mrs Meredith first: then came the sound of Mrs Corrigan’s footsteps crossing the hall, and her voice inquired, ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘I was calling you,’ he said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

  ‘Where are you calling from?’ she asked.

  ‘From Stainforth.’

  ‘Is your mother ill?’

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, Bryan,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll have to put another coin in,’ he said, and heard the gasp of impatience, then, as the clicking subsided, he added, ‘What are you doing this evening?’

  ‘Mr Corrigan and I are giving a dinner.’

  ‘Who for?’

  ‘One or two old friends. We’ve both been feeling low this week.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow night,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the arrangement, Bryan,’ she said.

  ‘How many are coming?’ he asked, gazing out of the telephone box at the bleakness of the house opposite.

  ‘Quite a few,’ she said, and added, ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Not really. One or two faces from the Fraser.’

  ‘Will you be entertaining tomorrow night?’

  ‘Tomorrow night I shall be in bed. I shan’t see you until the following morning. Providing you’re not staying at Feltham.’

  There was the sound of Mrs Meredith calling.

  ‘I shall have to go,’ she said. ‘Thank you for ringing.’

  The telephone was replaced the other end.

  His mother was coming downstairs when he reached the house; she had washed her face and her cheeks were shining: pulling down the sleeves of her dress, she stooped to the fire, poked it, then called, ‘Can you get some coal?’ She felt the kettle, reassured herself it held some water, and set it against the flames. ‘I’ve just had a sleep,’ she added.

  He made her some tea; she appeared content he should move about her, her back propped against a cushion, examining the fire, taking the tea, concluding, after she’d drunk it, ‘It’s so peaceful, Bryan, when everyone’s out.’

  The fire crackled, the ashes fell, the flames burned fiercely in tiny jets.

  ‘Shall I close the curtains?’ he asked.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Mrs Corrigan wrote in her letter the house seemed emptier than ever without you.’ When he didn’t reply, she added, ‘She wanted us to feel how valuable you are.’

  She flicked down her skirt.

  ‘Certainly when your father and I got married I never dreamt we’d have a son out there.’

  ‘I don’t want to be content with what I’ve got,’ he said. ‘I want to create something which, without me, could never have existed.’ He watched her look and, beyond her silhouetted head and shoulders, in the darkened window, he watched his firelit figure.

  ‘What does Mrs Corrigan think?’ his mother asked.

  ‘I haven’t mentioned it.’

  ‘People can’t be exceptional,’ his mother said, ‘unless it’s in their natures.’

  ‘What about Alan? He’s trying to be special,’ Bryan said.

  ‘That won’t last. If he isn’t beaten senseless he’ll grow too old to fight. How can that be special?’

  ‘If we give in before we start there doesn’t seem to be any purpose in doing anything,’ he said.

  ‘You can choose a profession. That’s what Peterson’s is for.’

  He moved over to the fire and saw his shadow, projected by the flames, rising and falling across the wall.

  ‘There’s no limit to what I can do,’ he thought, watching the expansion of his shadow on the wall behind. ‘That’s why the Corrigans are so important.’

  It wasn’t the feeling he wished to express and, glancing down at her, he asked, ‘Don’t you want me to be something special?’

  ‘The only thing I want,’ his mother said, ‘is for you not to have to live like we do.’

  ‘Alan is no different from her,’ he thought. ‘It’s only a temporary flickering which will die down the moment his energy subsides.’

  Yet later, when his father came back – opening the front door without a sound – he stood in the threshold of the room and, with an exuberance Bryan had scarcely seen before, he called, ‘He’s beaten him, Sarah!’ stepping into the room and pressing on the light to reveal, in its sudden glare, the smiling, red-cheeked figure of his older brother.

  NINETEEN

  A cream-coloured van was parked in the drive; its side was embellished by the painting of a cow, above which was inscribed, in a rising arc, the legend, ‘S. Proctor, Purveyor of Meat and Pork Specialist’.

  Mrs Corrigan was sitting in the kitchen, together with a man in a brown-check suit; Mr Spencer wasn’t there: the sound of Margaret calling came from a room upstairs.

  The man stood up; in addition to the suit he wore a brown-check tie folded inside the collar of a red-check shirt: a check-patterned handkerchief protruded from the top pocket of his jacket.

  Mrs Corrigan’s legs were crossed, her skirt drawn up above her knee.

  ‘The culprit in question.’ The man was fat: a florid face, jowled and thickly creased – with a square moustache, a thick-lipped mouth and pale-blue eyes – was overtopped by a fringe of short fair hair. ‘She’s been waiting here for hours. Come to fetch you back and you’ve been walking i’ the fields.’

  ‘This is Mr Proctor,’ Mrs Corrigan announced.

  The man’s nostrils flared.

  ‘I’ve been hearing about your statue, Bryan.’

  ‘What about it?’ Bryan asked.

  ‘How it sent this teacher mad.’ Having grasped Bryan’s hand he turned him to the light. ‘There’s not much more than a sparrow inside this jacket, Fay,’ he added.

  Mrs Corrigan glanced down at Bryan and added, ‘Mr Proctor’s an old friend of the family, Bryan.’

  ‘Not so much of the old, Fay. Tha’s only as old as you feel and, in present company,’ he released Bryan’s hand, ‘I scarce feel o’der than this ’un.’

  Mrs Corrigan uncrossed her legs; she drew down her skirt and, as Margaret shouted again from upstairs, ‘Dad?’ she crossed to the door and, leaning against the post, called, ‘He’s out, Margaret. You father’s not here.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s in the yard.’

  The slamming of a door was followed, from behind Mrs Corrigan, by a burst of laughter.

  ‘By go, Fay, you must have a way of speaking to her that I
nor her father could muster.’ The check-suited figure turned to Bryan and added, ‘There’s a flat hand behind every word she says.’

  Mrs Corrigan returned to her chair; she hesitated from sitting down: a pile of plates stood beside a pile of saucers in the centre of the table. ‘We were staying to tea.’ She glanced at Bryan. ‘I’m not sure whether Margaret has abandoned it, or is hoping you or I will do it.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll do it,’ the check-suited figure said. ‘Freddie’ll be back, and she,’ he gestured overhead, ‘has only gone up to put on a dress.’

  ‘You’re invited, too?’ Mrs Corrigan said, beginning to distribute the plates and saucers.

  ‘I am.’ The man drew up his sleeves; on the table, adjacent to where he’d been sitting, lay a bowler hat. ‘Is this woman’s work?’ he added.

  ‘There’s no such thing as woman’s work,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘Not inside a house.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ The man laid out the cups. ‘Spoken like a Spencer. Where one leads,’ he added, ‘the other follows,’ glancing up as the sound of feet came from the stairs, a rapid descent followed by a thud: Margaret, wearing a dress, appeared in the door.

  She also wore make-up.

  ‘I didn’t know there were going to be so many,’ she said, glancing at the check-suited figure.

  ‘Mr Proctor has no intention of staying if he’s not welcome,’ Mrs Corrigan said, removing a kettle from the ring and turning off the gas.

  She retreated across the kitchen.

  ‘Nay, I’m not one to force a hand.’ The check-suited figure winked at Bryan. ‘If I’m not being asked to play it.’ He winked at Bryan again. ‘I can take my hook. And here I’ve come with an olive branch.’ On the table he indicated a dish of boiled ham, the lid of which he raised. ‘Nowt but the best and I’m shown the door.’

  ‘Is there something the matter with your eye?’ Margaret adjusted the cups and the saucers which had already been adjusted once, if not twice, by the check-suited man himself.

  ‘I can see as true this minute as I could when I first set eyes on your aunt, who is as pretty now as she was in those days.’ He winked at Bryan a third time. ‘It’s not often I get the privilege of being in a room with two such beautiful women.’

  Mrs Corrigan mashed the tea; steam rose from the pot and, turning to the table, she covered it with a cosy and set it down.

  ‘Is your father coming?’ she asked. Something in the check-suited figure’s manner had displeased her more than it had her niece.

  ‘I’ll call him,’ Margaret said, and went to the door, Mr Proctor’s gaze following her as she disappeared to the yard outside: he winked at Bryan again.

  ‘Dad?’ came the shout, then, ‘Dad?’ again, followed, after an interval, by a response from the yard for she called, ‘Are you coming in? We’re ready.’

  ‘What a performer.’ Mr Proctor glanced back at Bryan. ‘If independence and strength of character are still considered virtues in a woman, Fay.’

  ‘Are you staying or leaving?’ Mrs Corrigan inquired.

  ‘Staying. I’ll not give in so easy. Past history,’ he concluded, ‘will have told you that.’

  ‘I’d have thought Mrs Proctor would be expecting you,’ Mrs Corrigan said, sitting at the table.

  ‘We’ve been married long enough for her not to expect me until I get back,’ Mr Proctor said.

  ‘That sounds convenient.’

  ‘If she doesn’t know me now she never will.’ Mr Proctor took a seat beside her. ‘What a girl.’ He nodded at the door. ‘It runs in the family, and always has. Take a leaf out of my book, Bryan. Where one woman has trod, the other follows.’ With a motion of his head he indicated the figure seated beside him.

  ‘On his way, or is he staying out?’ Mrs Corrigan said to Margaret as she came back in.

  She handed Bryan a cup.

  ‘He’s coming,’ Margaret said. ‘Strange to come into your own home and find someone having tea with you.’

  ‘We’ve no time to sit and argue,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘If you’re quarrelling with Mr Proctor you can take it up the moment we’ve left. I don’t wish to hear any more about it.’ She handed Margaret a cup. ‘I like your dress.’ She made no reference to the make-up.

  ‘Seen my new van?’ Mr Proctor smacked his lips.

  ‘I noticed the lettering.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I saw you in town,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘You never asked.’

  Mrs Corrigan smiled at Bryan.

  ‘If I’d have seen you I’d have stopped,’ Mr Proctor said, moving back from the table.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  Mr Proctor watched her with a frown; he might have winked, too, no doubt, only Mrs Corrigan refused to look in his direction, concentrating her attention, when not on the sandwich she was eating, and for which she showed no appetite, on Bryan and, finally, at the sound of her laughter, on Margaret herself.

  ‘A butcher is a butcher. As for “specialist in pork”, how can one specialize in that?’

  ‘I specialize in lots of things,’ Mr Proctor said. ‘That’s the one I’m on with at present.’

  Both his hands were laid on the table, the fingers, square-ended, stretched out across the cloth.

  ‘Why not “Pork Butcher”?’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘I’m no more a pork butcher than Harold is a furniture salesman,’ the check-suited figure said.

  Mrs Corrigan continued eating; then, reaching for the teapot, she lifted it and said, ‘More tea?’

  Bryan passed her his cup.

  ‘Margaret?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Harold is a retailer of household furniture,’ Mrs Corrigan continued, ‘because that happens to be his business.’

  ‘I’m a purveyor of meat,’ Mr Proctor said.

  ‘A retailer of household furniture is a fact,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘A purveyor of meat is an affectation.’

  ‘If Harold retails, I purvey. I also retail, myself, and if I retail then Harold must also purvey.’

  ‘If Harold were a furniture salesman then that is all that Harold would do,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘He is, however, a manufacturer. He hires salesmen, but is not a salesman himself.’

  ‘I purvey meat,’ Mr Proctor said, smiling at Bryan, ‘and I specialize in pork. Pork comes from pigs.’ He winked at Margaret. ‘And pigs are my speciality and always have been, ever since I was so high.’ He extended one hand to the height of the table.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Mrs Corrigan laughed.

  ‘When you were on your hands and knees at the Corrigans’, washing floors, before Harold came into his fortune, I don’t think we’d have had an argument of the sort we’re having now. You’d have been glad I was a purveyor, as, indeed, you were at the time, and you wouldn’t have minded what I specialized in as long as I specialized in summat.’

  He clapped his hands and laughed himself.

  ‘I was never on my knees in anyone’s house,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘Why hide where you came from?’ The check-suited figure directed the question, as he had the laugh, at Bryan. ‘I never do.’ He nodded his head. ‘Nor does Freddie. We’ve each made our way in the world. Yours in a woman’s way, ours in a man’s.’

  He offered Mrs Corrigan a look.

  ‘No side on me.’ Mr Proctor laughed. ‘You’ll know that from the past.’ To Margaret, he added, ‘Ask anyone about Stan Proctor.’ To Bryan, he concluded, ‘We both started out with nought and see where we both end up.’

  ‘I’ve finished eating.’ Mrs Corrigan stood up. ‘We ought to leave. I’d like to get home before it’s dark.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Mr Proctor said.

  ‘I’m sure Freddie is capable of doing that,’ Mrs Corrigan said as Mr Spencer appeared in the door and stood there, for a moment, gazing in.

  ‘There’s
not a piece of meat in it, Fay,’ Mr Proctor said, ‘apart from the ham I brought over for Freddie.’

  ‘If Stanley’s a brand-new van you ought to take up his offer,’ Mr Spencer said, crossing to the sink and washing his hands. ‘I’ve to be out in the fields in a couple of seconds.’

  Turning to dry his hands, he winked at Bryan.

  ‘We’ll walk, in that case,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘We’ve walked before,’ she added. ‘No doubt,’ she concluded, ‘we’ll walk again.’

  ‘You’re not above riding in a commercial van, Bryan?’ Mr Proctor asked.

  ‘No,’ Bryan said. ‘I’ve got my case.’

  ‘You’ve carried it before,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘I’d prefer to have it carried for me,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Outvoted, Fay. What do you say, Margaret?’ Mr Proctor asked.

  ‘I say Aunt Fay should do exactly as she pleases,’ Margaret said.

  ‘If Bryan has something heavy to carry then Mr Proctor can carry it for him,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘There’s nothing to stop us walking. It’s a fine evening. If we set off now we can be at the station in time for the train.’

  ‘I’d prefer to go in the van,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t.’

  She crossed the room to the door. ‘I’ll be outside when you’re ready,’ she called, and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Is she going, or isn’t she?’ Mr Proctor said, gazing from Mr Spencer to Margaret, then back again.

  ‘We’ll go in the van,’ Bryan said. ‘I’ll get my case.’

  When he came back down Mr Spencer and Margaret were standing in the drive with Mrs Corrigan and Mr Proctor; neither of the men looked happy: Margaret was digging her shoe against the gravel. Another quarrel, he assumed, had taken place: Mrs Corrigan’s eyes were dark, her nostrils flared.

  Opening the passenger door, Mr Proctor indicated that Mrs Corrigan might get inside.

  Her response was to draw her skirt behind her and, the eyes of the check-suited figure fixed firmly on her knees, to slide in sideways, easing herself back and drawing her skirt across her legs more fully.

  ‘Bryan.’ Mr Proctor closed the door and opened the one at the back. His case was lifted in.

  Mrs Corrigan glanced back.