He arrives at Annabelle’s house feeling slightly light-headed. On the way over he stopped in at the Queen Caroline for an early afternoon pint of lager, having felt the need to steady his nerves after the unannounced visit from Rolf. He understood that narrowly escaping being ripped off by Danuta should be seen as a wake-up call, reminding him that he has to drastically change his behaviour, but he remains confused. If Danuta really has a husband, does this man know what she gets up to in England? Probably not, he decided, but then again, how does she manage to dupe him, and everybody she meets in England? There must be some small oasis of honesty and integrity in the woman’s life. Attending the language school in Acton, and pretending that she’s learning English so she can open an international kindergarten, and claiming to have to hold down a cleaning job at night to pay for all of this, are most likely familiar lies that she is used to spinning. There must be all sorts of desperate men who are eager to restart their lives and who would give anything to do so with a striking woman like Danuta by their side. Not just good-looking Latvians such as Rolf, but wealthy Arabs from the Middle East, and even Japanese business types. He carried his pint of lager from the bar and found his familiar seat in the corner of the pub, but immediately realised he would have to tune out the noise of two lads seated nearby who were trying to program their mobiles to ring to rap ditties from a menu they were busily sampling. The pit bull terrier at their feet sat impassively, with one Doc-Marten-clad boot clamping the dog’s lead tight against the beer-sodden carpet. It is hard for him to see where, exactly, he might fit into Danuta’s scheme of things, but Rolf was probably right when he claimed that she was just fooling with him and waiting for the opportunity to rob him. But she didn’t take anything, which means that it is still possible that some part of her simply liked him for who he was. A mobile phone Frisbee-ed across the pub and clattered into the wall, and the two lads collapsed into a heap of uncontrollable laughter. The pit bull terrier sprang to retrieve it, but the lead remained trapped beneath a booted foot.
He will have to change his behaviour, which is not an altogether comfortable thing to admit, but it is true. He is in his late forties, and shamelessly flirting with young women is bound to land him in trouble. For over an hour he sat and quietly sipped at his pint while he thought idly about how to make changes to his life, and as he did so he half listened to somebody else’s questionable jukebox selection. He remains open to being persuaded that contemporary pop music has some virtues, but whatever they might be they continue to reside beyond him. Having finished his pint he stood up and, carefully avoiding the dog, he crossed to the bar and returned the empty glass and then, politely declining the barman’s routine offer of a top-up, he walked out.
Annabelle opens the door and he can see that she has been crying. The delicate skin beneath each eye has darkened as though bruised, and her eyes are moist.
‘He’s gone out.’
‘Gone out where? I thought we were going to have a talk with him.’
‘Do you want to come in?’
She leaves the door and walks back into the house. He wipes his feet on the doormat before stepping inside and quietly closing the door behind him. Annabelle has already disappeared, and so he walks down the short corridor and into the kitchen, where he discovers her leaning against the cooker.
‘He just said that he had to go and sort something out and so he left. I told him to wait for you to come round, but he said that he didn’t have time and that was that. Off he went.’
Annabelle looks exhausted, and her bottom lip begins to tremble as though she wants to cry again. He knows that she should be at work, but he assumes that she has already phoned in and informed her colleagues that the BBC will just have to manage without her today.
‘Do you want me to go and look for him? Maybe he’s hanging out by the Westway where you found him with that group of kids with mountain bikes.’
‘And if he’s there what are you going to do? Smack his bum and bring him home? He’s seventeen, nearly eighteen. I just want to know that he’s all right, that’s all. Is that too much to ask? But nothing ever changes, does it? He’s always got to do things his own way. Even as a baby, he always slept soundly, but never when I wanted him to. No wonder I always felt tired or ill.’
Annabelle snatches a pastel-coloured tissue from a box on the kitchen counter top and she quickly dabs at her eyes and then blows her nose.
‘So you don’t think I should bother going to look for him then?’
‘I don’t see the point. I’ve called and he’s not picking up, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait here until he comes back. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks.’ He sits at the kitchen table and watches as Annabelle switches on the kettle. ‘Did the lawyer bother to call you?’
‘He just confirmed that they’ve charged the other two boys with grievous bodily harm or something like that, and he said that the police know that Laurie wasn’t involved. I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.’
‘You “suppose”? That’s like dodging a speeding bullet. He could have screwed up his chances of university. Maybe six or seven hours in a police station will have scared some sense into him. I know it would have set me straight.’
Annabelle drops two teabags into a plain red pot. ‘Earl Grey all right with you?’ He nods. ‘I meant to ask you, did Laurie ever mention a girl called Chantelle?’
‘Who?’
‘Chantelle. A tall doe-eyed thing. She turned up last night at the police station and asked for him at the desk. I was standing by the noticeboard so she didn’t see me, but I heard her say that she wanted to see Laurie. The young officer on duty just pointed at me and so she turned around and saw me standing there.’
‘Is she his girlfriend?’
‘Well, I wasn’t going to ask her that, was I? She seemed a bit nervous, but then she said that she wanted to know if Laurie was all right and would I tell him that she’d been by to see him. And then she left.’ Annabelle paused. ‘High carriage, like a model.’
‘That was it? She didn’t wait?’
‘So when we got back last night I told Laurie that Chantelle had dropped by the police station and he just nodded, you know how he does, and then he went up to bed.’
‘Well, she’s obviously his girlfriend but neither of them knows how to deal with the situation. It’s probably not cool to have a girlfriend.’
Annabelle fills the teapot with hot water and then sits down at the table with him. ‘What’s awkward about having a girlfriend?’
He laughs. ‘Come on, you’re asking me? We got together when neither one of us was living at home. We were at university, with our own rooms and everything, but once your parents were in the picture, “awkward” would be a nice way of putting it, don’t you think?’
‘But I don’t have any objection to Chantelle. In fact, she seemed like quite a nice girl.’
‘Of course you don’t have any objection to her, but like I said that’s not the problem. They both live at home and it’s probably not hip to be coupled any more. These kids like to just hook up.’
‘Hook up? What the hell’s that?’
‘Well what does it sound like?’
‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it sounds like, but my son is not an animal. You really don’t know what it’s like, do you? Going off to watch football in Barcelona is nothing compared with some of the things that Laurie wants to do. He comes home asking me if he can “hit the road” with his mates and go off to some music festival or other, living in a tent and sloshing around in mud and rain. I do my research, you know. It’s all about mosh pits and drinking and drugs, and I’ve not mentioned the carbon footprint so there’s no need to look at me like that. You know I don’t approve of piles of abandoned tents, and thousands of flushing toilets, and all those idling cars, but I’m not giving you some green tirade now, I’m just talking about protecting my son, and remember I’m the one that gets the glares and the door-slamming. A
dmit it, Keith, you really don’t know what it’s like, do you, because you’ve conveniently missed the past three years holed up in your stupid little flat.’
‘Have you finished?’
‘Actually no, I haven’t finished. You’re not the one having the horrible conversations with him about wanting to monitor his email and check the websites he visits, are you?’
‘Come on, Annabelle. They invent personalities, you know that. It’s not real.’
‘Well, the internet’s been real enough to get you into hot water. Or is this Yvette girl really a nun who is just pretending to be a cheap prostitute?’
‘Have you finished?’
‘There’s a serious point here, Keith.’ She pauses. ‘Sometimes I feel like the only way to retain proper control over our son would be to install bloody CCTV in his room. It’s not been easy, and for the last three years, while you’ve been playing Mr Eligible Bachelor up the road, it’s bloody well me who has had to deal with Laurie.’
‘I said, have you finished?’
‘Yes, I’ve finished, but sometimes you just disappoint me.’ Annabelle pours the tea, but refuses to make eye contact. ‘I suppose I haven’t gotten over the fact that the sensitive young man I knew during my last year as a teenager bears so little relationship to the man who twenty-five years later bloody well left me. But then again, why should you be the same person?’
‘And do you think you’re the same young woman?’ He pauses. ‘Well?’
She looks at him as she places the cup of tea in front of him. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right.’
‘I don’t know why you’re suddenly biting my head off.’
‘I said I’m sorry, okay?’
‘I heard you.’ He pauses. ‘Look, it doesn’t make sense to be snapping at each other like this.’
‘Is the tea all right?’
‘Yes, it’s fine. Thanks.’
He looks at Annabelle. ‘Is the tea all right?’ Really, that’s it, right there in a nutshell. ‘Is the tea all right?’ No real attempt to take any responsibility for whatever she’s venting about, it’s just a quick middle-class shuffle and all the unseemly hostility is swept under the carpet, and they can once again proceed with civility. ‘Is the tea all right?’ Did he imagine her anger? And she has yet to talk to him about the tears in her eyes when she opened the door, but Annabelle appears to have calmed down and he is disinclined to raise anything that might once again disturb her. Twenty-eight years ago this girl found the courage to lean over and speak to him during the interval of a play. Yes, this girl, the one in front of him, the girl from Ashleigh who is concerned about the Earl Grey tea. He stares at her and he feels the question rising within him.
‘Do you still think about going to live abroad?’
Annabelle looks closely at him over the top of her cup of tea. She places it back in the circle of the saucer. ‘What made you think about that?’
‘Well, I just wondered. You remember how we used to talk about it back then.’
‘Jesus, Keith, another ten minutes of living under Mrs Thatcher and I’d have willingly moved to Timbuktu.’
‘The more I think about it the more I wonder about this place.’ He pauses. ‘I mean, Britain. It’s not like it’s done a lot for Laurie.’
‘Really? So where do you think we should have brought him up? The West Indies, your imaginary homeland?’
‘I don’t know, Annabelle, but I’m done with all this, okay? I simply can’t be doing this any more. I’m so bored with myself, and fed up with what’s become of my life. And maybe you’re right about the Yvette thing. Maybe I am behaving recklessly in order to get some kind of thrill because I’m just bored. I’m forever waking up in the morning and feeling that I’m stuck. I can’t put it any better than that. Some part of me knows that there’s a lot more ahead, I really believe that, but I can’t quite work out how the hell I got stuck here.’
‘Sounds like you’ve become middle-aged.’ Annabelle begins to laugh. ‘Welcome to the club. And I told you, don’t look at me like that. They’re your words, not mine.’
‘I’ve been thinking about my mother a lot recently. Wondering if this is the grown-up son that she imagined.’
Annabelle puts down her cup of tea and looks up at him.
‘Keith?’
The truth is, he has no clear memories of the woman who was his mother, just fleeting images of a slender lady and a man, and himself as a very young boy, and all three of them living together, one on top of the other, in a small room that was always cold because the fumes from the paraffin heater made him sick. As a result, the unshaven man never took off his heavy cardigan or his trousers, but the man was kind to him, that much he remembers. Often the two of them would be left alone while his mother went out to work, and the man would give him large sheets of plain paper and a pencil and encourage him to draw, but he remains disturbed by the fact that he doesn’t remember ever leaving the cramped room until he was old enough to go to school. By then it was his mother who was spending most of her time with him in the room, while the man went out to work, and it was his mother who used to talk incessantly about a man called Mr Littlewoods who she hoped would send them back home, but he was practically an adult before he was able to cast his mind back and realise that this Mr Littlewoods was, in fact, the pools coupon, and that only by marking down ten draws on the coupon would this Mr Littlewoods grant his mother her wish and send them back to the West Indies. However, while his mother talked to Mr Littlewoods, he started to go to school where he learned that he had other names besides Keith, most commonly ‘chocolate drop’. In the afternoons he would come home from school and meet his mother still lying on the bed in their attic room and it was his job to take food from the cupboard in the corner and go down one flight of stairs to the communal kitchen and ask whoever was in there to boil up something for his mother to eat. And then later the unshaven man would come back, but usually with his eyes and nose running, and he would sit on the end of the bed, and take off his brown shoes, which always seemed to be damp from the rain, and carefully rub cream into his dry elbows and his aching feet and promise his mother that one day they would get out of this one room and start living like English people until, that is, the morning when he discovered dogshit smeared all over the bottles of milk on the doorstep and he stopped talking about getting out of the room and living like English people, and with his mother too poorly to say anything, and the man now seemingly reluctant to say anything at all, his world began to go quiet and maybe it’s this sudden silence, which fell on him like a heavy blanket and smothered the light and life from his world, which accounts for the fact that to this day he has no clear memories of his mother. And then one afternoon he returned from school and discovered that his mother was no longer in the bed and the unshaven man was standing in the room with his coat on, and a packed suitcase by his side, waiting for him. The man didn’t even give him time to put down his school satchel, he just took him by the hand and the next thing he remembers is a train journey to another town, and then a ride in a taxi, and by the time the man knocked on the door to the strange house he was beginning to understand that he might never see his mother again. The next morning the new woman wiped away his tears with a white handkerchief which she then pushed into his pocket. She suggested that they go for a walk, and the woman held his hand tightly as they walked past buildings that were coated black with soot and through streets that were dense with fog. She told him that it was mild, but he didn’t know what mild was. He knew hot and he knew cold, but this was a new word for him. Once they reached the shops she bought a big bag of jelly babies, and as they walked back in the direction of the house she started to talk. She told him that his father had put on weight because of the tablets that he was taking, for England had hurt his head. She laughed: ‘He prefers books to people. Except you, that is, and perhaps me when he’s in a good mood. Trust me, though, he’s happy to see you, love. Since he’s come out of the hospital things have been difficult for h
im, and even the smallest upset makes him disappear inside himself, so it’s best not to take it personally, that’s how I cope. You have to understand that it’s not always you that he’s upset with, it can be something he’s just remembered from the West Indies, or something he’s read in one of his books. He’s sensitive like a petal, which is why I fell for him, but he has got a bit of a temper, although I shouldn’t let that bother you. They told me at the hospital that if they released him into my custody then I’d have to keep an eye on him and make sure that he takes his medicine, but he’s stubborn like an ox, your dad is, and it’s as though he prefers to be depressed and anxious rather than take a few tablets and get better. He can give you some gubbins about how he’s taken this pill and that one, and then I look in the bottle and has he heckaslike. He says not only do they make him fat, but he feels like he’s swallowing his tongue, and he does go on about it. These days it’s two buses for me after work, so I’m sometimes late, but you’ll soon get used to the idea of being around him and he’ll appreciate having you in his life. I’m hoping that he’ll soon be able to find a job and get out and about again, but if he doesn’t hurry up the Pakis will have all the jobs. But one thing at a time, eh?’ He remembers walking with one hand in the woman’s hand, and the other hand in his pocket holding on to the bag of jelly babies, and the woman never stopped talking. ‘We’ve got a gogglebox so you can watch television, but only after you’ve done your school work. You’ll be going there tomorrow, love, but let me tell you now, if they call you names you just let them have it. “Ginger” or “Shortie” are one thing, but even that’s not nice, yet I imagine they’ll be laying it on thick with you. I try to remember that there’s good and bad everywhere, but I won’t have name-calling, and neither should you.’ When they got back to the house his father was sitting quietly at the table reading a newspaper. He stood by the door and looked at his father, but what should he say to this man who seemed to be ignoring him? He knew that the kind unshaven man, who gave him paper and pencils to draw with, would not be coming back, and then again he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. Brenda took his coat and hung it up, and then she removed the bag of jelly babies from his pocket and handed them to him, but he didn’t want any. He began to cry for he couldn’t remember what his mother looked like. He knew that he had a mother, but her face was already lost to him. The slender lady was gone.
In the Falling Snow Page 21
