In the Falling Snow

by Caryl Phillips

  II

  FOR THE FIRST time since his student days, he is living without a daily structure. Clive Wilson’s suggestion that he take a research break has enabled him to ignore the alarm clock. During his first year at university his erratic sleeping habits inconvenienced nobody for he had no girlfriend and, aside from his lectures and the odd tutorial, his main focus was football training, and that did not start until four in the afternoon. During his second and third years his involvement with Annabelle meant that he had less time for football but, much to his girlfriend’s frustration, he remained unpredictable with regard to the time when he went to, or emerged from, his bed. Thanks to Clive Wilson he has been able to resume the indulgent sleeping patterns of his youth, but after just one unstructured week he realises that he is simply wasting his time. He has filled a yellow legal pad with notes for his proposed book about music, but most of the so-called notes are copied from earlier ideas that he had initially scribbled on Post-its before transferring the nuggets of wisdom into the back of old diaries. The one thing that he has achieved in the past week is to create an office space in the corner of his living room where he has arranged everything in an orderly fashion. The books on the two shelves are neatly divided into fiction and non-fiction, the A4 writing pads are neatly stacked, the Post-its and brightly coloured paper files are easy to reach, and the newly purchased laptop computer and printer-scanner-fax, while not the absolute top of the range, suggest a man who is serious about his home office. He stares at the screen and resists the urge to listen again to David Ruffin’s recordings as a solo artist and then compare Ruffin’s voice to when the singer was lead vocalist of the Temptations. He has replayed ‘I Wish It Would Rain’ three times already, but his written thoughts amount to two sentences. ‘Once he liberated himself from the Temptations there was a new tonal flexibility to his voice. One can sense both pain and elation co-existing in a raw and vulnerable fashion, whereas loyalty to the group had previously reduced his voice to harmonic decoration.’ Would he really learn anything new by listening to this song for a fourth time?

  He checks his email. Ruth wants to know if he will be attending a disability workshop in Milton Keynes next month because, if so, she will have to book a hotel room for she’s heard that the non-smoking doubles are going fast. There are two emails from Annabelle, who is clearly still annoyed that he hasn’t made time to meet her and have the ‘urgent’ talk about Laurie’s behaviour, but in the meantime she wants to know if he is coming to parents’ evening. Her second message, somewhat sarcastically, reminds him of the date of parents’ evening. He clicks out of his email account without answering and pulls up the chapter headings and wonders if he should reconfigure the structure of the book. Maybe this will get him started. During the course of the past week the book has shrunk in scope as he abandoned the chapter to do with gospel music, and then the one about the blues, having finally admitted that he knows precious little about either genre. With regard to jazz, he agonised and wondered if it was even possible to write a book about contemporary music without including something about this tradition, but he finally convinced himself that there were already hundreds of respectable volumes on the subject and, quite frankly, he didn’t need the hassle of adding his opinions into the mix for even the most level-headed people tended to become either very defensive, or unusually aggressive, when explaining their convictions about jazz.

  He is now contemplating a three-part study of the music of the sixties, the seventies and the eighties. The first part of the book, ‘Motown and the Suburbs’, will specifically concern itself with soul music, the middle section, ‘Rebel Music,’ will address itself to the rise of reggae as a global phenomenon, and the final third of the book ‘Whose World?’ will look at the implications, musically and culturally, of the emergence of so-called ‘World Music’. This new structure seems more manageable to him, but he still has the problem of not being entirely sure of how one actually starts to write a book. He wonders if this is what people mean when they talk about having writer’s block, but he quickly reminds himself that, up until this extended research break, he has had little chance to seriously address himself to the project, having had to be content to snatch writing time at weekends, or on bank holidays. Annabelle often consoled her husband by telling him that his responsibilities at work meant that he obviously did not have enough free time to do anything other than simply plan a book, and he should not be so hard on himself. In her less supportive moments, his exasperated wife would point out that if he really wanted to write then he should stop bleating and just get on and do it, but within the hour she would be apologising and literally, and metaphorically, stroking his back and encouraging him to keep trying. For his part, he remains undecided whether or not the issue really is time, or if he fundamentally lacks motivation. Conjuring with the idea of writer’s block is a new option, and while he remains tempted by the ease with which he might claim to be afflicted with this malady, the more rational part of him is fully aware that in order to be stricken with this condition he would first have to be able to provide tangible evidence that he has gone beyond the planning stage and actually written something.

  The local library is undeniably dingy. People toting heavy shopping bags often step inside its vaulted entry hall simply to shelter from the rain, and stubborn local vagrants have to be regularly ushered out and back on to the street. In the centre of the reading room are two large wooden tables surrounded by orange plastic chairs, which are generally vacant. Should anybody inadvertently leave a book on top of one of the tables then the eager librarian will swoop and swiftly return the volume to its rightful place on a shelf. It is over a year since he first scanned the popular music ‘collection’ and discovered that, apart from a paperback biography of Nat King Cole, and a semi-academic book which claimed to be an investigation of the influence of religion on the musical development of Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett and Curtis Mayfield, there is no material in this library that is going to be of any use to him. Nevertheless, he has temporarily abandoned the neat desk at his Wilton Road flat in the hope that a change of atmosphere will stimulate him to begin writing. This is the second afternoon that he has sat in a plastic chair at the far end of the larger of the two tables with his back to the window. From this vantage point he need only raise his head slightly to see who is coming through the door. However, in two days he has barely set down a word that he has not immediately scratched out with his cheap blue biro, having deemed the writing to be either derivative or so trite that, were he to be brutally honest, his advice to himself would be to give up.

  At four o’clock she comes in, and again she sits at his table and reaches into her rucksack and pulls out a carefully folded copy of today’s Evening Standard. She takes out a small notebook and a battered paperback dictionary and she begins to read the newspaper. Every few minutes she carefully writes a word into her notebook, and then she reaches for the dictionary and quickly leafs through it until she finds the appropriate dog-eared page and meticulously transcribes more words into her notebook. Her face is strangely angelic, and he guesses that she is Slavic. She is certainly pretty, despite the fact that she is wearing no makeup, and her blonde hair is bunched untidily on top of her head and loosely fastened with some sort of bulbous plastic clip. The previous day their eyes met briefly as he stood up to leave, and she offered him the faintest of smiles before lowering her gaze and returning her attention to the clutter of material on the table. As he passed behind her back he noticed that the newspaper was open at the international news section, but he didn’t know if these pages were of particular interest to her, or if the girl just systematically worked her way through the tabloid.

  He folds the flimsy piece of paper in half and then leans over and slides the note towards her. She looks up before he has time to withdraw his hand, and he self-consciously pushes the message the last few inches. It rises up and momentarily butterflies open before coming to rest, closed, in front of her. He smiles and shrugs his shoulders
in a gesture of fake helplessness, and he watches as she ignores him and picks up the note and begins to read. She reads it again, and then again, and he worries now that either her English is bad, or his handwriting is unclear, but after what feels like an age she reaches for her pen and begins to write. Without meeting his eyes, she slides the note back in his direction and continues to read the newspaper. ‘In one hour, please.’ The letters are carefully attached to each other with anxious loops and curls as though this is a child’s first attempt at joined-up writing. He remembers that Laurie’s first sentences betrayed a similar deliberation, and he accused Annabelle’s mother of interfering with what the boy’s teachers were doing. Annabelle admitted that, on the afternoons that her mother spent with Laurie, she often sat him down on a bench at the zoo, or in a café, and helped her grandson with his writing, but Annabelle failed to understand what harm her mother was doing. When Annabelle asked him what exactly he meant by ‘middle-class writing’, he tried to explain, but he soon gave up, realising that he was beginning to sound ridiculous. He looks again at the four carefully inscribed words, then across in the girl’s direction as she continues to read, then back at the note. Okay, one hour it will be.

  The girl looks around at the shabby interior of the Queen Caroline and gestures with one hand, palm turned up.

  ‘But this is an ugly place. For old men and tramps. Why does somebody like you wish to come here?’

  ‘Well, because it’s never full and it’s never noisy. I suppose I can think in here.’

  ‘And what do you think about?’

  ‘The same as everybody else. What I’d like to do.’

  ‘And what is it that you would like to do, Mr Keith? Do you have a big plan?’

  He looks at her closely as she picks up her gin and tonic and takes an unconvincing sip. She wants to appear confident, but he wonders if behind the bluster she is perhaps unsure of herself. However, he can’t imagine an English girl reading his note and then agreeing to come for a drink with him.

  ‘Smoke?’ She offers him a freshly opened pack of twenty but, as she balls up the cellophane and places it in the ashtray, he simply shakes his head. He watches as she knocks the box against the side of the table and loosens the cigarettes, then she pulls one clear and prepares to light it with a blue throwaway lighter.

  ‘I’m afraid not. No smoking any more.’

  She tosses down the lighter, but keeps hold of the cigarette. ‘Stupid country with crazy rules.’

  ‘Are you from Poland?’

  ‘What do you know about Poland? Have you been there?’

  ‘No, I’ve never been there.’ He smiles in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. ‘It’s just that in the library I noticed the dictionary. “Polski”. That’s Polish, isn’t it?’

  ‘You are a detective?’

  ‘Of course. I am an extremely smart detective, which is why I worked out that “Polski” might mean Polish.’

  ‘And you think you are also a funny man?’

  ‘Yes, but only in my spare time. The life of a comedian is very demanding. And you, you are a student?’

  ‘Very good, Mr Keith. In the day I learn English at a language school in Acton. It is not far from here.’

  She points quickly with her cigarette in the direction of Acton, and then carefully slides the cigarette back into the pack.

  ‘A twelve-week course but I have to practise as well, which is why I go to your library. To learn English words.’

  ‘And after your course you will go back to Poland?’

  ‘For sure, I will go back to Warsaw.’

  He wonders if he is irritating her, for she is speaking to him with an exasperation which suggests that she thinks he is an idiot. In fact, her ironic tone seems calculated to remind him that his questions are somewhat tedious. He is curious to know about her family, and he would like to raise the subject of whether or not there is a boyfriend. Perhaps there is a small flat in Warsaw that she intends to return to, or maybe she has a clerical job waiting for her, or a junior university position that she has been paid to take leave from in order that she might improve her language skills, but he dare not risk these questions. She is a little overweight, but it suits her. However, the angular bones of her face do seem slightly at odds with the graceful curves of her hips and breasts. The truth is, it looks as though her body has recently put on weight but her face has yet to catch up. Probably fast food, he thinks. McDonald’s, KFC, Burger King, deep-fried garbage that will quickly ruin a slim body. He wonders if she is hungry. Perhaps she would like to go for an Indian, or maybe to his flat for another drink if she doesn’t like this pub? He thinks carefully about how to pose the question for he doesn’t want to come over as tacky. Who is he trying to fool? She has to know that he likes her, for she will have felt the weight of his gaze in the library, and then again here in the pub, and she will undoubtedly have measured it and made her calculations. In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more he realises that the girl will already have anticipated both his question and his uncertainty as to how to frame it.

  He opens the front door and steps to one side, enabling her to pass out of the spitting rain and into the communal hallway. The light comes on automatically, the management company having installed a motion detector both for safety and to save money, for the young couple in the ground floor flat were in the habit of leaving the light on all night. As she squeezes past him she lets her rucksack swing down from her shoulder and it now dangles from her hand. He closes the door then stoops to pick up some mail, which he places on the small glass-topped table that stands beneath the ornately framed mirror.

  ‘It’s upstairs. Let me go first.’

  He begins to climb the stairs, conscious of the fact that she is behind him and watching his every movement. Just as he reaches the top landing the light snaps off and plunges them both into darkness. He fumbles for his keys.

  ‘A sixty-second delay’s not really very much, is it?’ The girl doesn’t answer, so he concentrates on unlocking the door and then he ushers her inside. He gestures in the direction of the sofa, then excuses himself and passes into the kitchen where he leans against the cooker and wipes his brow with a piece of kitchen towel which he then pushes into the tall swing bin. He shouts through.

  ‘Would you like some food? I’ve got crackers and cheese, or I can even make you some soup. It’s not much, but it’s all that I’ve got.’

  He pours two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and wonders if she minds the fact that it’s a screwtop bottle. Some people like to hear the cork pop, but her silence is making him uneasy so he has chosen the quickest option. When he walks back into the living room she is sitting forward on the edge of the sofa and apparently gawping at the blank television screen. However, he soon realises that in the absence of a mirror she is probably staring at her own reflection. She has removed the plastic clip, and spilled her blonde hair so that it now reaches down to her shoulders. However, he can see that the roots are dark brown. He hands her a glass of wine and then crosses to the CD player.

  ‘I said I could put together some food if you’re hungry.’

  ‘I am not hungry. But if you are hungry then you must eat.’

  He puts on some Wynton Marsalis, the music being neither too abstract nor too difficult, and then he sits opposite her on a plain wooden chair. He thinks of Marsalis as the prime exponent of light jazz, for his graceful music is perfect for background atmosphere as it never seems to disrupt a private train of thought or hijack a conversation. The skies have opened, and rain is now lashing against the windows. Add a view of a Paris skyline, and the cliché would be complete. She sits back and raises her glass.

  ‘Cheers, Mr Keith.’

  ‘And cheers to you too. And to learning English in Acton.’

  ‘Now that is quite funny. Very good. Cheers to learning English in Acton.’

  They listen in silence to the end of the track. Her black woollen winter tights represent the triumph of common sense over style, but he
notices that her shoes are both scuffed and badly worn down at the heels. He looks up at her pale, slender face, and decides to ask the question before Marsalis has a chance to blow the long mournful notes of the next ballad.

  ‘Are you married?’

  She laughs.

  ‘No, of course I am not married. Are you married?’

  ‘I used to be, but three years ago we decided to go our own way. It was reasonably amicable.’ He pauses. ‘Friendly.’

  ‘I understand “amicable”.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘And so you are a social worker who lives by himself and who likes to try to pick up girls in strange places.’

  ‘Have I picked you up?’

  ‘I am curious about you, Mr Keith. You like lonely pubs, and this is a lonely flat.’

  He understands that being occasionally talked down to is the price an older man has to pay for the privilege of having a young girl flatter him with some attention. If he took anything from his disastrous relationship with Yvette, he took this much. He is learning to tolerate a disrespectful aggression that women of his own age would never resort to, but he suspects that this is because women of his own age no longer possess the gift of youth to embolden their behaviour. The confidence of most older women has usually been undermined by the harsh reality of accepting that their stepping into a room no longer results in heads being turned, but not this girl called Danuta who behaves as though she has never suffered a single moment of self-doubt. He imagines that her parents are most likely still alive, and he suspects that she has probably never endured the sudden, heart-wrenching loss of friends or loved ones. The girl in the black woollen tights remains untouched by life.