A Prodigal Child

by Storey, David;

  ‘I prefer to take Margaret,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Don’t you like it at Peterson’s?’ she asked.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s the one thing that excuses my seeing you.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said, returning to her playing, the tune changing to something brisker. ‘So that’s all decided,’ she concluded. ‘We’ll go away together.’

  By the end of the first week of the summer holidays Bryan, Margaret and Mrs Corrigan found themselves, each in a separate room, in a secluded hotel on the shores of a lake across which, beyond a line of wooded hills, were visible the peaks of several mountains.

  A curious change had come over Mrs Corrigan: rather than appearing more relaxed she became withdrawn, and spent a great deal of her time alone in her room, seldom answering the door when either Bryan or Margaret knocked and sitting – Bryan observed from the lawn below – at her window, gazing across the lake towards the mountains on the other side. Occasionally, when she did come down, she would sit in much the same mood at a table on the terrace, looking out to the jetty, alongside which several boats were moored, or, idly, without any sign of interest, she would examine the figures sitting beside her on the terrace or at the tables on the lawn below.

  ‘Aunt looks more like a schoolmistress than a courtesan,’ Margaret said, watching Mrs Corrigan in her chair from across the terrace. ‘She gives the impression, away on holiday, of being at home, and when at home,’ she concluded, ‘of being away on holiday.’

  ‘There you are, Bryan,’ Mrs Corrigan said when, on this occasion, after watching Margaret swim off from the jetty, he walked over to where she was sitting. ‘Not swimming?’

  ‘What would you like to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ll sit here,’ she said. ‘You run off, if you like, with Margaret.’

  ‘I’d prefer to stay with you,’ he said.

  ‘Margaret’s more company.’ She shielded her eyes, gazing out to where Margaret’s shouts came up from the lake: amidst several bobbing heads a column of water shot into the air. ‘I’ve never seen her look so happy. It’s what she’s needed all these years. To get away from Freddie. The farm’s not a place for a girl like her.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘It’s too masculine for one thing. It’s what drove Mary into her grave.’

  A figure approached Bryan across the lawn and, laughing, flung out her hand and called, ‘Are you coming in? It’s nice?’

  He shook his head: the figure ran off and plunged back in.

  Sitting on the terrace beside Mrs Corrigan’s chair he was conscious less of her abstracted mood than of something about her that was definitely ‘odd’: she didn’t smile nor was she provoked when he made an allusion to Margaret’s looks. ‘She could,’ Mrs Corrigan said, ‘if she wished, be as pretty as her mother, before that farm, and my brother, ruined her looks.’

  ‘I didn’t think Mrs Spencer’s looks were ruined,’ Bryan said.

  Mrs Corrigan glanced down. ‘When she was young she was the prettiest woman I’d ever met. I was jealous of Freddie for having married her. She put me in the shade. I can tell you that.’

  ‘Mr Proctor says the same about you,’ he said.

  ‘Does he?’ She glanced back to the lake. ‘Prettiness to him is any woman who wears a skirt.’

  She crossed her legs.

  ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘Haven’t you something you can do? Why don’t you swim,’ she added, ‘or hire a boat?’

  ‘I’d prefer to sit with you.’

  ‘I don’t like you sitting with me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’re here to relax.’

  ‘Why don’t we go inside and talk?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve no intention of going inside,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The more time we spend apart,’ she said, ‘the better.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Not long ago you were saying we would never be apart.’

  ‘It’s become a disease.’ Mrs Corrigan lowered her voice. ‘We can’t go on as we are at present.’ She was gazing off across the lake: in a faint striation on the opposite shore stood the buildings of a village. ‘If I were asked to acknowledge it I would have to kill myself.’

  Bryan got up.

  He wandered down to the jetty: the shouts of someone clinging to the supports beneath the jetty were interspersed with the shouts of someone holding to the mooring rope by one of the boats.

  When he glanced back Mrs Corrigan had gone: her chair was being taken by a woman escorted by a man – a figure who, in plus-fours and a check jacket, and with a neckerchief in his open collar, was drawing up a chair to sit beside her.

  He glanced up to her room and caught a glimpse, not of her, but of a maid passing to and fro across the window; finally, after one last look round, she moved in the direction of the door and disappeared.

  He was inclined to go inside and find her but Margaret, hanging to the side of the boat below, called, ‘Aren’t you coming in? What’s happened to Aunt Fay?’

  ‘She went off,’ he said.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask her to come in? It’ll do you good. You’re both a couple of grumpies.’

  ‘I don’t feel grumpy,’ Bryan said.

  ‘You look it.’

  ‘I’ll get my costume, in that case,’ Bryan said, and was already walking back along the jetty when he saw Mrs Corrigan walking away from the hotel, across the lawn, towards a clump of trees at the opposite end.

  ‘Hurry up!’

  The voice came from the water and, having paused, he turned back to the terrace and started to his room.

  He was already changed when the thought occured, ‘She’s dead!’, the image so vividly evoked of her lying amongst the trees which enclosed the back of the hotel that he moved to the window and gazed down at the lawn, craning out to see if she might have reappeared: the same figure, foreshortened from this perspective, occupied her chair, with the foreshortened figure of the man beside her.

  His towel in his hand he ran down to the jetty to find that Margaret was, in fact, some distance out, surrounded by several youths each of whom, effortlessly, she appeared capable of out-swimming, her breathless laughter coming back as, beside him, on the jetty, a man called, ‘No swimming from the boats,’ waving him towards the bank where a portion had been roped off for bathers.

  Waiting for Margaret to acknowledge his arrival, he stepped in, gasped, felt the water lap between his legs, shivered, his arms held to him until, closing his eyes, he plunged forward and swam for several strokes, frenziedly, beneath the surface, coming up breathless, thinking, ‘If only she could see me now it would wipe away our conversation and she’d forget everything she told me.’ He glanced along the lawn, in the direction of the jetty.

  ‘Bryan!’

  He choked, swallowed, struggled, pushed up, pushed out and, surging upwards, reached the surface, retched, half-choked, felt his head pushed down again and, swimming, set off back, beneath the water, in the direction of the bank.

  He caught his breath, clutched his chest and, still coughing, crawled up on the grass.

  ‘You’re not mad at me?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I saw you come in.’

  ‘You were miles out.’

  ‘Part of the plan.’ She laughed. ‘You never saw me coming.’

  He coughed again.

  ‘You’re a jolly good sport. I never thought you’d do it.’ Glancing along the lawn, she added, ‘Where’s Aunt?’

  ‘She went off to the woods.’

  ‘In one of her moods.’

  ‘What moods?’ Bryan said.

  ‘Doesn’t like people having fun.’

  ‘That’s not like her at all,’ he said. ‘She could easily come in and swim.’

  She turned to the bank, stamping at the water. ‘Ten years ago she would, but not any longer. Race you to the boats.’

  She disappeared beneath the surface.
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  When he came back up, after diving in, she was swimming on her back beside him.

  ‘Go with it,’ she called. ‘You’re fighting the water.’

  A youth, having climbed into one of the moored boats, dived off.

  His head came up beside them.

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘My cousin,’ Margaret said, and laughed.

  Bryan swam round the edge of the nearest boat and caught hold of the rope at the bow.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  He nodded, swimming around the boat, releasing the rope and clutching the gunwale.

  Margaret, having climbed up on one of the boats, dived off.

  Bryan watched the disappearing legs, the brisk elevation of the head and shoulders and was conscious of a sudden warmth radiating now across his chest.

  He recalled the softness of Margaret’s body and when, a moment later, she came towards him, he began to smile, the smile expanding until, as she reached the boat, she called, ‘Do I look funny?’

  ‘No,’ he said and added, for no reason he could account for, ‘I feel very light.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ She grabbed the gunwale of the boat herself. ‘Not ticklish?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Her arm was placed around his waist. ‘Not even there?’

  With his free arm he drew her to him.

  The spray splashed in his ear; it filtered into his nose: in a moment, instead of coughing, he began to laugh.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘You’re an awful ass. Race you to the bank.’

  She swam on her back.

  Bryan slowly followed.

  Across his hips and against his chest he could still feel, rhythmically, the movement of her body: her arm curved, her wrist came down and, moments later, as she climbed up on the bank, he thought, ‘She’s like Mrs Corrigan must have been when she was a girl.’

  ‘You don’t swim badly, Bryan.’ She picked up a towel and dried her hair.

  ‘I don’t swim fast.’

  ‘Speed isn’t important.’

  ‘You swim quickly.’

  ‘I like it.’ She bowed her head, flung back her hair, and added, ‘You don’t strike me as a physical person. You never have.’ She dried her legs, gasped, said, ‘That feels better,’ and lay back in the grass.

  He spread his towel beside her.

  ‘How many girls have you kissed?’ she asked.

  ‘Not many.’

  ‘There aren’t any at all at Peterson’s.’

  ‘There aren’t any boys at St Margaret’s.’

  ‘We get Peterson’s boys over,’ she said.

  ‘We get St Margaret’s girls.’

  ‘Not many.’

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘No one would be seen dead outside Peterson’s,’ she added. She pulled herself up.

  ‘There were girls at Stainforth before I met you,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Were there?’

  She leant on her side, picking at the grass between them and dropped several strands on Bryan’s chest.

  ‘Ticklish?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘I bet.’

  With something of a laugh she knelt across his chest, ran her hands across his ribs, then, flushed, turned back to the lake and, laughing, ran down to the water and quickly plunged in.

  He watched her swim out to the boats, glanced down at her rumpled towel, rolled over on his stomach and – listening to the voices from the lake – he dozed.

  Cold water trickled on his back.

  ‘Spoil-sport, Bryan,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Not coming in. We’re thinking of swimming across tomorrow.’

  ‘The lake?’

  The nearest headland, on the opposite shore, was shrouded in mist.

  ‘It’s not far.’

  ‘It looks it.’

  ‘Three-quarters of a mile. Though they think, with a current, it’s nearer two.’

  ‘Are you telling Mrs Corrigan?’

  ‘I can swim two miles without a rest. In any case,’ she gestured off to the crowd of youths, ‘one of their fathers has a boat and says he’ll sail as pilot.’

  She picked up her towel.

  ‘I think I’ll get changed. Race you to the door.’

  She disappeared across the terrace.

  He went up to his room, dressed, laid his towel on the window-ledge, and gazed down at the terrace.

  ‘Bryan?’

  She was standing in the door.

  Her hair, still wet, had been drawn in a single swathe to the back of her neck: she wore a light-blue dress, belted at the waist. Her legs were bare.

  She came to the window, avoiding his towel.

  ‘Forget about her.’

  ‘I wondered where she’d got to.’

  ‘She’ll be all right.’ Her shoulder brushed against his. ‘She’ll have picked up a man.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the woods.’

  ‘I doubt if she’s in the mood,’ he said.

  ‘She’s always in the mood.’

  ‘Are you glad you came away?’ he asked.

  ‘From what?’

  ‘Feltham.’

  She hunched her shoulders and glanced at the prostrate bodies on the lawn below. ‘Are you?’

  ‘I’m glad I came away with you.’

  ‘Me, too. Though I don’t know why.’

  ‘When was the last time you had a holiday?’

  ‘The year before my mother died.’ She paused. ‘And you?’

  ‘I haven’t been away for years.’

  ‘I suppose you couldn’t afford it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall we go down to the kiosk?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Beat you downstairs.’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to swimming as far as that.’

  ‘Come in the boat tomorrow.’

  ‘I’d prefer to wait over here,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t want to see me drown.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  She laughed, waited for him to close the door, then added, ‘You’re not knocking?’ as he went to Mrs Corrigan’s door and, dissuaded by the tone of her voice, stooped to it, listened, then, lightly, his body shielding the action, tried the handle.

  The door was locked.

  ‘The way you run after her.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’

  She took his hand and, side by side, they ran down to the terrace.

  He was conscious of a figure moving across the dining-room whose gestures alone attracted his attention: her shoulders were bare; her face shone. Not until she was at the table did she glance at Margaret, nod at Bryan and, as her chair was held for her by the waiter, inquire, ‘Had a good day?’ laying her handbag on the cloth beside her.

  ‘Not bad,’ Margaret said, glancing to the window and, beyond the window, to the evening light across the lake. ‘Had one yourself?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

  ‘I swam,’ Margaret said. ‘Bryan drew.’

  ‘What did you draw?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ he said.

  ‘Drawing isn’t your line,’ she said. ‘More, modelling, I should think, which is very messy. He hasn’t, fortunately, brought any clay.’

  Her features glowed; her hair shone: the dress she wore, a pale-blue, enhanced her colour.

  The food was brought; as other groups finished they came across, offered invitations to Mrs Corrigan, and passed on to the lounge across the foyer.

  It was to the terrace, however, that Mrs Corrigan led them when the meal was finished.

  They sat at a table, Mrs Corrigan between them.

  ‘I’ll go up early this evening,’ she said. ‘Sitting out all day has tired me.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a swim, Aunt?’ Margaret said. ‘We could find somewhere around the lake if you’re feeling shy.’

  �
��I shouldn’t feel shy,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘But,’ she added, ‘I don’t anticipate swimming.’

  ‘Or sun-bathing.’

  Mrs Corrigan stood up. ‘Let’s see how I feel in the morning.’ She kissed Margaret good night, kissed Bryan, and disappeared inside the foyer.

  ‘All that preparation and she doesn’t do anything with it,’ Margaret said.

  ‘What preparation?’ Bryan moved up to the chair beside her.

  ‘It must have taken hours, her hair. Even her dress. Just to sit down to a meal,’ she added.

  ‘Perhaps it’s for our benefit,’ Bryan said.

  ‘She’s far more selfish than that,’ Margaret said.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said.

  ‘You always see her as someone without motives,’ Margaret said. ‘At least, without the sort of motives I know she has.’ Her arms swept down as she smoothed her dress. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

  He took her hand; he glanced to Mrs Corrigan’s window as they reached the jetty: the curtains had been drawn.

  ‘She must have been in her room,’ Margaret said, ‘before we came down to dinner.’

  ‘Perhaps she was busy.’

  ‘In one of her moods.’

  ‘What moods?’

  ‘She has lots. Particularly,’ Margaret said, ‘when I’m around.’

  They gazed down at the reflected lights in the water; the waves lapped against the moored boats: the sound reverberated beneath the jetty.

  ‘We rub each other up the wrong way,’ she added. ‘It’s a chemical reaction. Just as, with you, she feels compatible. With me, it’s oil and water.’

  ‘You’re both women,’ Bryan said.

  ‘Temperament, mainly,’ Margaret said. ‘Aunt is an artist. Only, she creates herself instead of pictures.’

  ‘Why do you dislike her?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t dislike her. But there’s a lot I ought to criticize. And a lot,’ she concluded, ‘that needs explaining.’

  Other figures drifted past, paused to glance out across the lake, turned, and drifted back towards the terrace.

  ‘Do you want to walk far?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m feeling tired.’

  ‘Me, too. I’m beginning to ache,’ she said. ‘I mightn’t swim across tomorrow.’

  ‘I thought you’d arranged it,’ Bryan said.

  ‘I can easily dis-arrange it,’ she said. ‘They do anything I ask them as a matter of fact.’

  ‘You talk like Mrs Corrigan,’ he said.