In the Falling Snow

by Caryl Phillips

  ‘Would you like me to make you something to eat?’

  His father begins to laugh.

  ‘You can cook?’

  ‘Well, not exactly, but I went to the shop and bought some things. Stuff that’s easy to cook.’

  ‘I didn’t think you can cook. You looking to poison me, is that it?’ His father continues to chuckle. ‘Boy, I don’t need no food. I ate something at the centre. The people know me good so sometimes they let me take a six o’clock dinner with the boys.’

  His father picks up the tea again, and this time he swallows a mouthful before setting it down and leaning back into the sofa. His father closes his eyes and he can tell that the exhausted man has fallen asleep.

  Earlier in the day, having left his father playing dominoes at the Mandela Centre, he took a bus to the cemetery. He got off a stop early, having remembered that the short row of local shops included a greengrocer’s, and he bought what the Chinese guy behind the till described as ‘a mixed bunch’. He told the man not to roll the flowers in a tube of decorative paper, and he took them from him in their plain cellophane wrapping. The afternoon was cold and overcast, and as he passed through the gate he saw an elderly lady with a terrier on a lead, but this lady and her dog aside, the place appeared to be deserted. He was surprised how easily he remembered the location of Brenda’s grave, and once there he stood over the simple marble slab and set down the flowers.

  After his thirteenth birthday, when he went to live with his father, he began to visit Brenda after school, and at weekends, for his father’s house was only a twenty-minute bus ride away. If he and Brenda were watching television and it got too late, or if things between himself and his father were not so good, then he would stay overnight in his old room at Brenda’s. The usual source of contention between himself and his father was the number of strange women who seemed to pass through the house, and his reluctance to call them ‘Auntie’. Father and son did attempt to maintain some kind of cordial relationship with each other, but as he grew older they mainly strove to keep out of each other’s way. He never asked Brenda directly about what had happened between herself and his father, but Brenda let him know that his father had suffered two ‘breakdowns’, one shortly after she met him, and then a second, bigger one after they were married and the three of them were all living together. It was she who had made the decision to call the police and section him the second time, but Brenda was adamant that his problems were not all of his own making. ‘He’s sick, Keith, so you have to be a bit easy on him. Hospital changed him, both times, from a quiet man who used to read all the time, and who kept himself to himself, into a depressed and anxious man. But the doctor told me that’s the risk with the shock treatment. You know, the electricity. They eventually get better but they change. I’m sorry love, but he changed and I suppose we all had to just move on with our own lives, but your father never liked the fact that I was ready to move on.’ Brenda’s reference to moving on still disturbs him, for during the years on the Whitehall Estate he had not been aware of any other man in her life beyond himself. His father was convinced otherwise, and had bitterly accused her of infidelity while he was in hospital, but as a teenager this was not a subject that he wished to discuss with his father. However, he had twice come home early from school and noticed a maroon Ford Capri parked by the back gate. Instead of coming in he had chosen to walk around the estate for an hour and come back when the car was gone and, of course, he never mentioned anything to Brenda about the mystery Ford Capri. Brenda once made reference to his mother, in a way which suggested that she knew more if he wished to know more, but he already understood that this was a subject that he and his father would have to sort out between them. As much as he cared for Brenda, he had no interest in learning about his mother from her, and she never brought up the subject again.

  At the start of Brenda’s final summer, he was able to introduce her to Annabelle, and the two of them spent time alone upstairs talking, although he never asked either one of them what it was they had talked about. After his girlfriend had taken her photograph, and left to catch the train south in order that she might begin her summer job at the Wiltshire Times, he took Brenda a cup of tea and sat on the edge of her bed.

  ‘Cancer, darling. Trust me, it’s a bugger.’ She laughed. ‘It’s even more stubborn than I am.’

  He smiled weakly at her, but he remained too shocked to say anything in return.

  ‘Don’t look like that. I’m not going anywhere yet. It’ll take more than some stupid tumour to finish me off.’

  ‘Does my dad know?’

  She laughed now, the kind of large expansive laugh that she always produced when she was at her happiest.

  ‘Let’s just say, I don’t think he’d be too interested, do you?’

  For a moment he wanted to suggest that despite his own problems with the man, his father maybe wasn’t quite that heartless, but he didn’t want to argue. Brenda took his hand and demanded to know everything about Annabelle, and about university, and she pressed him about what he might do after finishing his degree, but his reeling mind was only able to half-concentrate on her words.

  Six weeks later Brenda was dead. The funeral was a miserable affair, attended by a handful of her relatives, some of whom he had heard of but never met, and a small delegation of Brenda’s colleagues and clients from the hairdressing salon. Predictably, his father chose not to attend, and after the coffin had been lowered into the ground, and the priest had said his few words then closed his book, he made his way back to the train station and then back to university without bothering to visit his father. As his father sleeps on the sofa, the cup of tea on the floor having long gone cold, it frustrates him to think that the two of them have never had a proper conversation about the woman who became a second mother to him. He understands that his father’s unforgiving attitude towards Brenda has always been fed by his conviction that she betrayed him by calling the police to take him away, despite the fact that even he remembers that his father’s response to any disagreement was to strip half-naked or bury himself in a book. What else was Brenda supposed to do? Over the years his father’s negative feelings have, of course, been further informed by his stubborn belief that during his second stay in hospital Brenda habitually slept around, but this woman looked after him. It was Brenda herself who told him that when she went to see the doctor about the situation with her husband, the man suggested committing her husband and then having the child fostered, but Brenda remembered her promise to him and told the doctor to ‘fuck off’. Nobody was taking ‘her Keith’ from her. He leans forward and shakes his father gently by the shoulder and asks him if he is ready now to go up to bed. His father does not answer, he just gets to his feet and then sneezes. He passes his father a paper tissue, which he waves away, and then his father pulls a crumpled handkerchief from his back pocket and again he sneezes and noisily blows his nose into the handkerchief.

  ‘Do you want me to bring you anything upstairs? Another cup of tea, maybe?’

  ‘No, the walk finish me off, and I just need to get a little sleep then everything is going to be just fine, okay?’

  He watches as his father begins to slowly drag himself upstairs. Eventually he hears the bedroom door slam shut, and then he turns up the volume on the television remote and tries not to think about his father’s predicament.

  In the morning, he tells his father that he went to the cemetery and put flowers on Brenda’s grave. His father barely looks up from his Daily Mirror, he simply nods and continues to read.

  ‘Would you rather I hadn’t told you?’

  His father puts down the newspaper and looks closely at him for some time before answering.

  ‘The truth is, I don’t care what you feel you must do about Brenda. It don’t have anything to do with me, and I don’t have no feelings for the woman.’

  ‘Brenda was like another mother. I can’t ignore her.’

  ‘Who is asking you to ignore her? You have a different rel
ationship with the woman than I do, so you must do what you want to do.’

  ‘Don’t you ever think about her? I mean, she was your wife.’

  His father folds his newspaper in half, and then in half again, but he keeps a tight grip on it. ‘I was working hard to make some money so that things can be better for all of us, but she don’t want to listen. She get a ring on her finger and then suddenly she have her own ideas. And then she gets rid of me, and takes you away, and when I get out the hospital and I hearing all kinds of things about her seeing other men and you think that this is decent or even respectful behaviour? I don’t see why a man, including this man, should have to put up with it.’ He tosses the Daily Mirror on to the table and shakes his head. ‘I’m grateful to Brenda for looking after you, and she did a good job and everything, but my wife is not supposed to be climbing into another man’s bed, do you understand? Anyhow, this is a long time ago, and I move on, and she move on, and that’s just how it is with big people. You learn to get on with your life and put both good and bad behind you. Anything else you want to know?’

  He knows that he has to say something further for he fears that once his father closes this conversation it might never again be opened up.

  ‘Don’t you ever miss Brenda?’

  ‘A woman is supposed to look after her husband, not have the police come to his house and take him away.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Then what is your damn point?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’ve got a point.’

  His father shakes his head. ‘Women can say whatever they like, and do whatever they want to do, and they get away with it. And if you don’t know that by now then I feel sorry for you.’

  ‘I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.’

  ‘Boy, there’s no reason for you to get upset. I going down the centre for a while. You want to come and help out? Today they do form-filling and so forth.’

  He looks quizzically at his father, who slowly climbs to his feet and picks up his pork-pie hat.

  ‘They fill out paperwork, and everyone helps. Paperwork for pension cards, bus pass, social security, passport, anything you can think of. They choose one day a week on which they can just get everybody together to do it. Maybe you can help instead of trying to bite off my blasted head about Saint Brenda.’

  He says nothing in response to his father.

  ‘Well, you just going to stare at me?’

  He sits with Baron, who has no idea what to do with the tax exemption form that he has filled in as best he can. He takes the pen from the older man and quickly checks the right boxes, and then pushes the form back in front of Baron for his signature.

  ‘Don’t bother with the date. I can fill that in.’

  ‘So I’m going to get some money from the people?’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but you shouldn’t be getting any more tax demands.’

  ‘I just throw them away anyhow.’

  He dates the form and then hands it back to Baron, who tucks it into the torn and sellotaped pocket of his brown leather jacket.

  ‘Your father seem all right to you?’

  ‘The house is in a hell of a state.’

  ‘Your father is difficult like a mule, and lonely too. He long ago finished messing around with the ladies.’ Baron smiles a broad toothless grin. ‘All of us put those days behind us, but it’s not good for him sitting alone in the house. He can get a flatlet upstairs like the rest of us and at least we can keep each other company. He can even go back to pretending he’s still reading plenty of books and nobody will laugh at him like in the old days. I can make sure of that. What do you say? I always understand your father a little better when I see how he is around you.’

  ‘What do you mean how he is around me?’

  ‘Well, Earl likes your company. The man is always boasting off about you, and how you’re doing this big job and in charge of all kinds of people in London.’

  He looks closely at Baron to see if he is making some kind of a joke, but Baron’s eyes narrow and his face becomes increasingly serious.

  ‘When your mother decide to birth you and leave him out of everything, it really break the man’s heart. She was the one who did him wrong, and no wonder he end up in the hospital. And then again, later, after your mother die and send her husband to deliver you like a parcel, your father is angry and suffer all over again, which is why he end up back in the hospital. Your father is not an easy man, but life has dealt him some wicked blows. However, the man can get himself some peace of mind if he just sign up for a flatlet and come and live here among the boys, but for the life of me I don’t know what goes on in that man’s head.’

  ‘Pride?’

  ‘Pride about what, Keith? Look at us. The sons of Empire. The men who came to this country to make life better for ourselves. What have we got to be proud about, aside from the fact that we’re still alive? Have we made this country a better place for you? You can be honest and tell me, have we? And look at how we’re living after all these years. When your mother and father come to this country, you really think that either one of them expect to die here?’

  He looks around at the men and women in the room, some filling in forms, others watching television, some medicated and asleep, and Baron’s words make sense. But he knows that this is not the whole story.

  ‘What about the children, Baron? Some of us have gone on to college or university and we’re doing okay.’

  Baron laughs quietly to himself.

  ‘Keith, you aside, you see any children here? Man, the kids don’t give a damn, and I don’t blame them. I got daughters and sons and so on, but we don’t really keep in touch, or anything like that. A lot of the kids doing just fine, and some of them getting through in spite of us, not because of us. Why you don’t ask your father what he thinks of his time in this country?’

  He looks across at his father, who is trying to help a man with a passport form. Baron is right. He should ask his father what he thinks of his time in England. In fact, there remain a lot of questions that he should ask his father, but this morning’s outburst does not fill him with hope that his father will ever talk honestly with him on any subject.

  They are sitting quietly together watching EastEnders on the television when his mobile rings. Aside from texting Annabelle on the first night to let her know where he was, he has had the phone turned off as he wanted to leave London behind. However, after they returned from the Mandela Centre he decided to check and see if he had any messages and he realises that he has obviously forgotten to switch it off again.

  ‘Is that Keith?’

  Annabelle sounds unsure of who she is speaking with.

  ‘Annabelle? Just hang on a minute, okay?’

  He stands and leaves his father alone in front of the television. He shuts the kitchen door behind him, and turns on the kettle before taking his hand away from the phone.

  ‘What’s the matter? Is everything all right?’

  ‘Not really. Look, I think you might want to come back to London.’

  ‘Well, I can come back in the morning. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Can’t you come back now?’

  ‘Now? What’s going on?’

  ‘Laurie’s down at the police station, and they’re questioning him and his friends. Somebody got stabbed.’

  ‘Stabbed? But Laurie’s okay, right?’

  ‘He’s fine, but they’re saying he was involved. Look, I think you should come back.’

  ‘Oh Jesus. I’ll get my things together and call you when I’m on my way.’

  ‘Are you still with your dad?’

  ‘Where else am I going to be?’

  ‘Look, hurry, will you? I’ll wait to hear from you.’

  He closes the phone and takes a deep breath. It is probably too late for a train, but he knows that the buses run till well after midnight. As he steps back into the living room he sees his father staring up at him with a look which suggests both curiosity and ind
ifference.

  ‘That was Annabelle. It looks like I’ve got to go back to London.’

  His father sucks his teeth and shakes his head, making it clear that he doesn’t understand why his son is obeying a woman to whom he is no longer married.

  ‘It’s Laurie,’ he says. ‘Annabelle says he’s got into some kind of trouble.’

  His father tosses his head slightly. ‘The woman don’t know how to raise a black child.’

  He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and decides to ignore his father’s comment. ‘Listen, Dad, I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more.’

  ‘You had something more you wanted to talk to me about?’

  He sits by the window of the half-empty bus, and stares across the central reservation at the traffic that, even at this hour of the morning, is charging in the opposite direction and away from the capital city. Initially, the bus was cold, but a woman sitting near the driver made a fuss of putting her coat back on, and then her scarf and gloves, and then eventually getting up and speaking with the driver who turned up the heating so that it is now positively tropical. He suspects that his father is not well, for he can see it in his eyes, but he knows that there is only so much that you can say to a man such as his father. He continues to stare at the bright, undimmed, car headlights that flash by in the opposite direction and he chastises himself for not remembering to search in the cardboard box for a picture of his mother. The bus begins to slow now as they approach the end of the motorway, and he stands up and takes his bag down from the overhead rack. He could always send his father a stamped addressed envelope and ask him to mail a photograph to him. This would minimise the awkwardness, and his father might even feel inclined to respond, although the more he thinks about it the less likely it seems that his father would ever bother to go into his son’s old bedroom and deliberately re-engage with his past.

  He stands in the lobby of the police station with a distressed-looking Annabelle. He feels somewhat tired, but he is also irritated for although it is three o’clock in the morning these people haven’t bothered to provide any chairs where they might sit down. Annabelle has been here for six hours. She told him that she has repeatedly gone out to the car to try and calm herself down, then come back in to talk with the officer on duty, who keeps repeating the same nonsense about Laurie already having a lawyer with him, so he can’t have anybody else in the interview room. Sensing her frustration rising, he touches Annabelle on the arm.