Sarah Laker

9 - Sunday Lunch

"Come in Luke. Good grief! Go and change your shirt. You must be soaked."

Luke's mother turned round with her hands full of a large tray of roasted vegetables. She shook her head as if in disappointment over the state of her dishevelled son, who was several inches taller than herself. She put the tray down on the cooker top and began to baste the food with the steaming oil and juices.

"Put those wet clothes straight in the wash bin and hurry yourself up! Chris and Dad are already at the table. Come on, chop chop!"

He could tell she was excited about the prodigal son's return and had been to the hairdressers the evening before to make the best impression. She was wearing her favourite Sunday floral dress and kitten heels. Totally unheard of during her normal daily routine of chicken coop cleaning and dealing with mucky farm dogs.

Luke slid off upstairs and changed, picking out the mummer of laughter and loud male voices coming from the dining room downstairs. Of course his mother would have set up the big table in the one room they only ever used for Christmas and Easter. The bench in the kitchen was always good enough for when it was just him. He rubbed his hair with a towel and combed it back into a short plait.

Wearing a Guns 'n' Roses t-shirt and fresh jeans, he took the stairs two at a time to reach the living room. He passed through it and into the long corridor of the relatively new building, pausing at the end where it curved to meet the open archway into the dining room. Here goes nothing.

Chris was sitting at the far side of the round table which stood in the centre of the square room. The ceiling lights of glass tulips sent out a brilliant glare, causing the day to look even duller through the window behind him. Chris looked up from his plate of toast and pate' starter and welcomed his brother with a half smile which seemed genuine.

"Ah, at last." David Tyler turned himself round in his chair to face Luke in the entrance. "We'd almost given up on you. Well come and sit down, your mother's bringing the duck in a minute."

Taking the chair to the left of the room, between the other two men, Luke started on his food with tentative movements.

"How's Sarah getting on these days?"

David kicked off the conversation, Luke knew he was wishing with all his heart that his two boys could get through this lunch without upsetting their mother this time.

"She's okay."

Chris put down his knife and fork and rested his elbows on the table, folding and unfolding his thick fingers. He watched his brother with a fixed expression, his deep brown eyes shining in the glow of the bright lights.

His father kept going with the smalltalk. "I think we should give her a hand with the grazing though. Bit overgrown now."

"Sure, sure. I'll take the ride-on mower over next week. We can bring the grass back for hay again, right?"

"I'd have thought so."

Luke became more and more conscious of being watched as the silence settled over the table. He put down his knife and sat back.

Angela Tyler bustled into the room, her slender, sunworn face sweating from the heat of the kitchen. She put down the serving plate of Sunday roast and swept her strawberry blonde hair back into its French pleat, wiped her hands on the apron around her waist and sighed happily.

"Ah, there we go boys. Father, can you do the honours?"

David waved his wife to the vacant seat and stood up to sharpen the carving knife. He grinned like a child at Christmas as he wiped the blade back and forth along the steel sharpener.