Coming Home Read Online Free PDF

hour. I saw him coming up the road.’
    Home an hour after five years away, Hannah thought, and Fred resents even that.
    ‘ What have you to tell me?’ Steven asked, looking round the three faces in turn.
    ‘ Nothing,’ his mother said shortly, setting her mouth in a tight line. ‘It’s nearly dinner time. We can talk later.’ His father was silent, rubbing his forehead, his eyes fixed on the table top. Hannah had only given him an edited version of Fred’s threats but he still looked troubled. She knew how much he had always hated quarrels.
    ‘ If you won’t tell him, I will.’ Fred jerked his head towards the door and Steven wondered how he could have forgotten his half brother’s sullen manner. He remembered how frustrated and angry he used to get when Fred failed to do his work and then blamed him. His mouth tightened but he rose and followed Fred outside. He was beginning to understand the reason for the tense atmosphere now. He guessed Fred was bent on making trouble of some kind, almost before he had put a foot in the door, but there was nothing new in that. He had no inkling of how much trouble though.

Three
     
    Steven stood outside the door of the sturdy stone built farmhouse where he had been born and stared incredulously at his half-brother. He couldn’t believe Fred could dictate who should, or should not, live at Willowburn. Their father had followed them outside and he turned to look at him. His heart sank at the sight of his haggard face and the look of defeat in his eyes. He looked beyond them to the fields sloping upward towards the head of the glen. They were green and fresh after the city streets with their shells of burnt out homes and factories. How often he had dreamed of the Scottish hills and glens during the hellish years spent fighting for his country and for the freedom of people like Fred. It was the dream of returning to the farm and the home he loved which had sustained him in his darkest hours.
    In the tense silence he could hear the familiar gurgle of the burn which ran by the stack-yard boundary, beyond the house. He had played there as a boy. He knew every inch of Willowburn Farm. He had spent the first eighteen years of his life here. As soon as he was fourteen he had worked in the fields and the farm steading. All that was before the war. It seemed like another life.
    His eyes narrowed as Fred’s words echoed in his brain as clearly as they had five years earlier.
    ‘I’m not going to the army. I’m staying here. He’ll have to go.’
    ‘But Steven isn’t eighteen yet.’ He recalled his mother’s anguished protest.
    ‘ I don’t care. He’ll be eighteen in two more weeks.’ Now he knew Fred had wanted rid of him even then. Steven had a mouth curved for laughter but his upper lip curled in contempt as he brought his gaze back to Fred’s sullen face. Had his brother hoped he would perish in a foreign land as so many others had done - as his best friend Sam had done? He would never forget those last hours as they had lain side by side knowing Sam was dying. No medal on earth could replace a friend like Sam.
    Anger began to burn in him. He drew himself to his full height, his chin jutting proudly. Fred’s piggy eyes narrowed warily and he took a step backwards. Steven raised an eyebrow. His blue eyes flashed.
    ‘Coward,’ he hissed between his teeth. ‘I suppose you always were, but I didn’t know that when you were bigger than me. Did you hope I’d be killed like Sam? Did you hope I’d never return home?’
    ‘So what if I did?’ Fred sneered. ‘There’s no place for you here. We don’t need you. Willowburn is my birthright—’
    ‘ The farm still belongs to father, and he’s my father too, or had you forgotten?’ Steven looked at his parent, willing him to raise his eyes from contemplation of his boots. His father’s gaze remained lowered.
    ‘ I’ve made him a partner in the farm,’ he muttered slowly. ‘I would have made you a partner too,