Durrant knocked at the door and came in. "You want to see me, sir?"
In some odd way some of the boy's obsequiousness had gone. He had never exactly grovelled before Brannigan, but he had tended to stoop and mumble. Brannigan, catching a look from the boy's eyes, felt uncomfortably as if he were being measured up and found wanting. It was a familiar enough look from Alison – especially during the last few days – but he had never noticed it in Durrant before.
He came crisply to the point "How much money did you spend on your mother's camera, Durrant?"
The question visibly took the boy off-balance. "What do you mean, sir? What camera?"
"Don't stall. I haven't time for that. The camera you gave her for her birthday. It was to have been a book of Keats – obviously you changed your mind."
Durrant lost an inch or two. "Not very much, sir. I had meant to buy her the book of poems, sir. But I saw the camera in Franklin's – the nearly new shop at the corner of Brook Street."
"How much did you give for it?"
"Four pounds fifty." His voice became ingratiating. "And then I bought the razor, sir. The one you told me to buy." He rubbed his chin. "It does a good job, sir."
"Have you a receipt?"
"For the razor?" He saw Brannigan's expression and went on hastily, "For the camera? Yes, sir, I did have a receipt. But I don't keep them, not unless they're for a lot of money. I threw it away."
"Have you a lot of money? From your father – for instance?"
Durrani's surprise was genuine – so much so that he didn't answer. He seemed to be casting around in his mind for the reason behind such a stupid question. At last he thought he'd found it. "That money you advanced me, sir. You did get it back, didn't you? I told Mr. Hammond about it and asked him to give it back to you."
"Yes, I did get it back. Have you had a substantial sum of money from anyone recently?"
"Chance would be a fine…" Again he caught Brannigan's eye. "No, sir."
"Your mother seems to think you have. She phoned me this morning and wants to speak to you. You might as well make the phone call now." He indicated the brown leather armchair. "Go and sit over there and take the phone with you. I have this paper-work to see to." He implied that Durrant would disturb him less if he didn't make the phone call at the desk. Durrant hesitated. Brannigan lied irritably, "I won't listen."
As Durrant picked up the telephone and began to dial, Brannigan noticed his hands for the first time. They were large and bony with prominent knuckles. The nails were well shaped and well kept. Somehow he had expected them to be bitten to the quick. His overall appearance was scruffy, but that was mainly due to the way his hair grew over his collar and to the side-burns the razor had carefully avoided. He looked a strong young brute, but a strong young brute who showered daily without being told. He was a child in a man's body – but some of the time not a child at all.
He was a child now.
His whole attitude as he got through to his mother dropped years off him. His obvious delight as he heard her voice showed in the slight flush in his cheeks and in the relaxing of his attitude. He sat more comfortably in the chair, cradling the telephone base on his knee, stroking the flex absently with his left hand.
"Many happy returns for Tuesday. Did you like my card? And the present?"
Brannigan couldn't hear Lorena Durrant's side of the conversation, but he could see the effect of it. It was as if a cold, unexpected wind had caught the boy naked. His hand on the flex became still.
"What do you mean… my father?… Why should he?… What friend?… I don't think I know that friend (there was ice in his own voice now)… How would your friend know?… Eighty pounds (genuine surprise)… You think I spent eighty pounds?… If I had it, then I would – on you."
Brannigan looked away.
Durrant said bleakly, "No, I don't see my father much… No, he doesn't write much – and you don't either… I'm not changing the subject… If you want to believe your friend and not me… (A long unintelligible tirade which seemed to drive needles into Durrant's skin and leave small flushed areas of distress on his face)… All right, I know… I'm not criticising… Yes, you must have someone… I know you do… I wasn't trying to… It was just a present I thought you'd like… I'm sorry you don't like it… Why keep on about that? I know money's important… Yes, I will tell my father if he… No, I'm not lying about that… I haven't any… If I had I'd let you…" (the voice becoming dry, the words difficult to form).
Brannigan looked- back at him. The boy's face was set hard as if against the pain of a dental drill. Durrant was the first to hang up. He put the phone down because he couldn't take any more. He got up slowly and took it over to the desk. He looked at Brannigan as if he were an apparition at the end of a long tunnel. And then he knew him.
"Thank you, sir."
Brannigan said gently, "Women – mothers included – are creatures of many moods. She probably liked your present very much. Someone misled her about the price – that's all."
He had intended asking Durrant about Corley, but couldn't. It would be like putting the boot in after his mother's vicious heels had trodden all over him.
Durrant went straight from Brannigan's study to the store-room off the gym. The sun slanting down from the high window warmed the pile of new coir mats so that they smelt and looked like gingerbread. They were the only new items in the place. He pulled a couple of them into a corner behind the door and sat down. He couldn't face anybody yet. Brannigan's last few words were like fire in his chest. He was as near to tears as he had ever been.
Damn his mother, damn his bloody mother. And then because that was too unbearable he switched his mind off her completely and let the force of his pain and rage fall on the man she was with. A photographer. A mincing, mealy-mouthed, – misinformed, shitting photographer. Eighty pounds! If Corley's camera had been worth eighty pounds Corley wouldn't have handed it over so easily. Anyway -• who would give a kid of ten, or whatever he was, a camera worth that much? What sort of daft parents would do a thing like that? What was Corley's old man – a bank-manager or bloody Croesus?
He regretted now that he had gone to Brannigan for the postage money. If he hadn't he couldn't have posted the bloody thing. A fiver for a Keats had seemed a nice round sum and a bit of a joke, too. It wasn't a joke any more. It would be even less of a joke if Corley split on him.
He wondered where Corley had gone. If he was aiming for home, then a kid with any intelligence would have arrived there by now. It had rained during the night. If he had been out in that, the cold and wet would probably kill him. His chest rattled when he breathed – or perhaps he just breathed oddly. When he'd held him down in the hollow his breath had squeaked out of him like rusty bellows and his lips had turned blue. It had been disgusting of him to get sick all over him.
The memory was unpleasant and he switched it off.
He began building an image of the photographer in his mind. He saw him as small, fat and frightened, but getting no satisfaction from that began building him bigger. An enemy had to be worthy of him. Fleming's father was worthy of him. His hatred made him ten feet tall. He tried making the photographer ten feet tall, but the imagery wouldn't work. He kept seeing him as small, fat and greasy, lying naked in bed with his mother. Despatching him would be like killing a pig. The blood would get on his mother and defile her. His inability at this moment to control his fantasies frightened him. He had always, until now, been able to walk the particular corridor in his mind he chose to walk. His own feeling of supremacy had never been shaken. Now he felt used – as if other hands were controlling the power-house and he couldn't pull them away.
There was someone crossing the floor of the gym and he sat quietly willing whoever it was to go away.
A small dark-haired boy with eyes as brown as pennies came and stood at the door. He hadn't seen this one before – or if he had he hadn't noticed him. He looked about seven.