In the Falling Snow

by Caryl Phillips

  He looks around the living room and realises that should Laurie come here then his son will most likely take his bedroom and he will be relegated to sleeping on the sofa. And what, he wonders, of those days when Laurie is at home revising for his exams? The flat isn’t big enough for them to stay out of each other’s way, and he can already predict what his son’s reaction will be should he suggest that Laurie decamp and work at the undeniably grotty local library. It would have been better if Annabelle had said nothing to Laurie about the possibility of spending more time with his father, but given his son’s palpable lack of enthusiasm it is highly unlikely that he will have to grapple with these practical issues in the immediate future. He leans back, stifles a yawn, and listens to the wind whipping around the roof and rattling the window panes. Tomorrow morning he and Annabelle will have to face the annoying Mr Hughes. Rather than stay up late watching television it would probably make more sense to go to bed and try and get a decent night’s sleep. He looks at his mobile and can see that nobody has called him, but he decides to take no chances. He picks it up and adjusts the ring tone to ‘soft’. He will carry the phone through with him and leave it by the side of the bed, just in case.

  He stares at the headmaster, whose permanent smile is beginning to irritate him. Annabelle can barely bring herself to look at the man, but he knows her well enough to understand that although she may be smouldering inwardly, she will do her best to avoid any overt conflict.

  ‘Let me put it this way.’ Mr Hughes stops playing with the stapler and pushes it to one side of his desk. The space in front of him is now clear. ‘If Laurie works hard, or should I say harder, then there’s every possibility that he can still go to university. When he applies himself he’s a very able boy, and in the top twenty per cent of this school in terms of ability. But the key is when he applies himself.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Annabelle looks up. ‘No, I’m afraid neither do I.’

  ‘Why are you suddenly talking about our son as though university is something that he might miss out on? He’s at home revising for his mocks. Nothing’s changed since we last spoke to you.’

  Mr Hughes seems surprised. ‘He’s at home?’

  ‘He’s got time off to do his revision. They all have, don’t they?’ He looks across at Annabelle. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  Annabelle nods. ‘It’s their revision week.’

  Mr Hughes rocks back in his chair and uncaps, then recaps, the expensive fountain pen in his hands, before tucking the instrument back into his breast pocket.

  ‘Fair enough, although I must say I wasn’t aware of this, but so be it. However, the point is that things have changed since we last spoke. I’m afraid that back then there was already some concern about his lack of appetite for study, and the slipshod manner in which he was applying himself, but I think you’ll agree that recently things have gone a little downhill. Shoplifting and brawling, and now time spent under investigation in a police station.’ The headmaster looks directly at them both. ‘We are doing all we can at our end, but when it comes to shepherding a boy through these difficult years then there must be some kind of partnership between school and home.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Annabelle and I are not doing our bit?’

  ‘Heaven forbid.’ Mr Hughes laughs now. ‘Of course not. All I’m suggesting is that there is only so much that we can do from our end. We are extremely careful about monitoring social networking sites like Facebook for signs of gang activity. On school property we have zero tolerance with regard to bandannas or colours, and carrying a weapon of any kind leads to immediate expulsion. We don’t allow top of the range mobile phones, and all coincidental absences are investigated, as are any reports of over-sexualised behaviour or dress on the part of the girls. What else can we do short of bringing in airport style scanners and random searches? But if, for instance, drugs were to become a problem, then of course we would have no hesitation in really clamping down. That said, we are a school, not a prison system, so we have to be a little open, which is why we rely greatly upon the vigilance of parents. After all, we’re in the fight together against this culture of adolescent silence.’

  He looks at Annabelle, who has again chosen to avert her eyes and is now staring across the school playground at the tall brick wall which surrounds this Gothic Victorian structure. They never discussed sending Laurie to a private school, although Annabelle’s parents made their feelings clear. An inner city comprehensive was not what they had imagined for their grandchild, but then again they had not anticipated somebody like Laurie entering their lives. Annabelle had been predictably stoic in the face of their displeasure, but she has never successfully disguised the fact that this school, with its loutish pupils and ill-mannered parents, has been a source of great disappointment to her.

  ‘I’m still not clear what you’re saying to us.’ He realises that he should probably lower his voice. ‘Laurie’s not in a gang or doing drugs. I feel like we’re being lectured, and I’m not too happy about it, okay? Is there something that you would like us to do, or is there something that you think we’re not doing? If so, just say it.’

  ‘No, no, no. Nothing of the kind. I suppose I just wanted to meet with you to reassure you that we’re doing all we can from our side. My door’s always open, and if there’s any way in which we can partner with you with regard to young Laurie then let’s explore it.’

  Annabelle picks her bag up from the floor. ‘Is that it, then?’

  Mr Hughes smiles directly at her. ‘Certain lifestyles are more attractive to juveniles, and there’s no denying the cultural cachet of the ethnic way of life. It’s just that I don’t want Laurie to lose his focus any more than you do.’

  ‘You don’t want what?’ He feels Annabelle’s hand on his arm.

  ‘We have to go now.’ Annabelle stands up and gestures that he should also stand.

  ‘We must work together if we’re going to arrest this issue of Laurie’s academic free-fall.’ Mr Hughes continues to smile. ‘Laurie’s an intelligent boy, but like so many of today’s youngsters he’s confused about the options that are open to him. He needs to be nudged gently down the right path. They all do.’

  Annabelle loops her arm through his and guides him towards the door. She looks over her shoulder.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Hughes.’

  Before he has a chance to say anything further, he finds himself outside the headmaster’s office and Annabelle is pulling the door closed behind them.

  ‘He’s not worth it, Keith. Pick your battles, okay?’

  He sits in the pub around the corner from the office and waits for him to arrive. A large flat screen TV hangs on the wall, but for some reason it appears to be tuned into a German sports channel and is presently showing table tennis. The place is full of the type of suited men who think that it is acceptable to parade up and down airports or train corridors bellowing business details and dinner arrangements into their Bluetooth attachments for everybody to hear. Mercifully, it is the end of the working day so these buffoons are now clutching their expensive glasses of plonk and braying directly at each other with their champagne-coarsened voices, but it makes them no less offensive to his eyes and ears. He made sure that he had first ordered a pint, and found a seat, before taking out his mobile phone and dialling the number. Clive Wilson seemed somewhat taken aback to be receiving a call, and he could hear him trying his best to appear calm and friendly as he agreed to pop around to the pub in about twenty minutes. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to play things with his boss, but it was clear that after their last encounter there needed to be some kind of resolution. Clive Wilson had not indicated that he would call, but he was disappointed that, in spite of the way in which their last meeting had concluded, his boss had not seen fit to seize the initiative and mend bridges with a senior executive. He takes another mouthful of beer, and then looks at his watch, and then suddenly Clive Wilson is standing before him and apologisin
g for having turned up a few minutes late. His boss offers his hand, which he shakes. He moves to get to his feet.

  ‘No, no. Sit down, Keith. I’ll get myself a drink. You take it easy. I won’t be a second.’ He watches as Clive Wilson fiddles around in his pocket for money, and then his boss turns and begins to jostle his way to the bar.

  After the encounter with Mr Hughes, Annabelle had suggested that the two of them grab a quick coffee at a French pâtisserie around the corner from the school. He agreed with her that he needed to calm down, and once they reached Le Fumoir he secured them both a table while she went to the counter to order their lattes. As he waited, he looked around and found himself formulating a short spiel for Annabelle about how the place appeared to be full of media types who looked like they were discussing whether this year they should go white-water rafting in Tanzania or off-piste skiing in Chile, but he decided that given the present circumstances it was probably best to bite his tongue and keep his cynicism to himself.

  ‘Well?’ said Annabelle, placing the coffees down on the table and then looking directly at him. ‘That was pleasant.’

  The lattes were served in what appeared to be skinny fluted vases and he stared at them and tried to work out whether to overlook this nonsense or demand a proper cup.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, no problem.’ He decided that there were bigger issues at stake than the coffee cups, but he made a mental note that he wouldn’t be coming back here. ‘I was just thinking, maybe we should take him out of that bloody school.’

  ‘And do what? He’s only got six months to go and you want to move him to prove what exactly? That you won’t be spoken down to?’

  ‘You really think Laurie is being helped by that kind of atmosphere? That guy’s a jerk.’

  ‘Keith, we’re not moving him, okay. We need to do something, but not that.’

  ‘Well then you’re right, he should spend some time with me. But a few days isn’t going to do anything. I should start looking for a bigger flat, and if he’s serious about not going to Barcelona then I will take him to the West Indies. Maybe over Christmas?’

  ‘You don’t have to do all of this, you know.’

  ‘I’d like to.’ He pauses. ‘Maybe this will give you time to get back together with Bruce.’

  ‘I beg your pardon? Is that meant to be funny? Because if it is, I have some news for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He paused. ‘I just don’t know how you could have been with a guy who seriously thinks that we need a set of citizenship rules, or whatever it was that he said. All that bullshit about reclaiming patriotism for the left. He comes over like a member of the BNP.’

  ‘You only met him once.’

  ‘And that was enough.’

  ‘Have you finished your rant?’ She stares at him. ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s not a rant.’

  ‘Good, then I’ll assume that you’ve finished. Do you think that we might talk about our son?’

  ‘That complete arse of a headmaster was trying to shift responsibility from his lazy, ignorant teachers and put it on to us, the parents.’

  ‘Well not all the parents are paragons of virtue. Hitting their children right outside the school gates, or not bothering to dress them properly for school, or not even caring if they go to school at all. And that time when I tried to say something at the PTA meeting they practically lynched me.’

  ‘You mean the black parents practically lynched you.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about black or white.’

  ‘Well it didn’t help that you stood up and started talking about kids kissing their teeth and how you couldn’t understand their accents, or have you forgotten what you said? Maybe you’d prefer if the kids were all called Fergus or Becky, and their mothers spent all their time chasing between Sainsbury’s and the gym?’

  She stares at him. ‘Why are you doing this? Turning it into something that it isn’t. All I’m trying to say is that some of the parents are pretty damn useless, and almost all of them are time-poor.’

  ‘“Time-poor”? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means they’re too busy to put their kids first. They’re not our type of people.’

  ‘There you go again! “Our type of people?” Are you deliberately trying to wind me up?’

  ‘I can’t put it any simpler than that, so if you don’t like it you’ll just have to take it on the chin. I don’t mean anything offensive, and I’m certainly not defending that idiot Mr Hughes, but it’s unfair to suggest that there are not a few good teachers who are trying. All kids need some kind of help at home, but some of the kids in that school have no bloody supervision, and no wonder Laurie finds himself having to mix with delinquents.’

  ‘You know, Annabelle, sometimes I wonder what that clown Bruce turned you into.’

  ‘How dare you be so condescending!’ She looked around and then lowered her voice. ‘He didn’t turn me into anything. I’m telling you what I feel and if you don’t like it I’d prefer if you would at least credit me with enough intelligence to be able to form my own opinions.’

  ‘And they’re really your opinions?’

  ‘Yes, they’re my opinions.’

  He leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. ‘Look Annabelle, I’ve known red-faced tossers like Bruce all my life, in their pink and black hooped rugby shirts, sitting on barstools pontificating about how we’ve carried the jocks for years despite the fact that they’ve got oil, and how we need our traditional friends, meaning New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, not these fair-weather Johnnies in Brussels.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve said enough?’

  ‘No, I don’t actually. Why don’t you credit me with some intelligence? I don’t want my son around arseholes like Bruce.’

  ‘Well as long as our son is in my custody then he’ll be exposed to my judgements on people, not just yours.’ She paused, then snorted in disgust. ‘You can really be an arrogant bastard when you want to be, can’t you?’

  ‘You’re entitled to your opinion.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Annabelle shook her head. ‘Was he that much of a threat to you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Listen to yourself. It’s pathetic. You know exactly who I mean. Bruce. Or do I have to spell it out for you?’

  His phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He was about to answer it when he thought he should check first with Annabelle, for he had no desire to further antagonise her. He reached into his pocket and held up his still vibrating mobile.

  ‘I don’t know who it is.’

  ‘Well, then you’d better find out, hadn’t you?’

  Baron sounded hesitant and slightly unfamiliar with the telephone.

  ‘Keith? It’s you? I get your number from your father.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Good, good, man. It’s all right, but I’m staying by your father’s place as he has some chest pains. I tell him that I will let you know, so that’s all. I’m just letting you know that I’m staying here tonight.’

  He looked across at Annabelle, who was averting her eyes and making a clear effort not to listen.

  ‘I didn’t call you to make you take off time from work or anything. I know you is a big man in a big job.’

  ‘No, it’s no problem. I’ll come up in the morning. Just tell him that I’ll be up in the morning, okay?’

  ‘You didn’t hear me? I said I have it under control. You just go along with the work business.’

  He waited until Baron hung up, then he switched off the phone and placed it on the table. Annabelle looked back in his direction. She glanced down at the mobile.

  ‘Are you expecting another call?’

  ‘I hope not. That was my Uncle Baron, one of my dad’s friends.’

  ‘Well? You never told me how it went up there.’

  ‘Well other things kind of got in the way, like picking up our son from a police station. But it was pretty much just as you might imag
ine it.’

  ‘A laugh a minute then.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He paused. ‘So what do you think we should do about the school? You’re happy for him to stay there with the hoodlum children of the time-poor parents?’

  ‘“Happy” might not be the best way of putting it.’

  He tried hard to concentrate on his conversation with Annabelle, but he found it difficult not to worry about what exactly was behind Baron’s call. His father’s friend was saying all the right things, but for Baron to ask his father for his son’s number, and then take the trouble to actually pick up the phone and call, suggested to him that his father must be in some kind of trouble.

  ‘Would you like my help looking for a larger flat? I can look online while you’re away.’

  ‘Away where? Who says I’m going away?’

  ‘Well, excuse me, didn’t I just hear you say that you would “come up in the morning”?’

  ‘But only for a day or so at most.’

  ‘So I should just leave it then?’ He stared blankly at Annabelle. ‘Hello, Keith. Anybody at home? Do you want me to look online or not?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m not sure how much money I have.’ He took a sip of his latte and then shook his head. ‘Renting in this city is tough, and it’s probably a lot more expensive than it was when I signed the lease on Wilton Road.’

  ‘Do you have any savings? And don’t look at me like that because I’m not prying.’

  ‘I’ll have to figure out the whole money thing. I’m just not sure what’s happening.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Annabelle looked quizzically at him, but he suddenly felt overwhelmed as he realised what his next move would have to be. ‘Well, are you okay? You seem to have gone mental walkabout.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Really, I’m fine, just a bit tired, that’s all.’

  ‘Another coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. Honestly, I’m fine.’

  He watches as Clive Wilson edges his way back from the bar with a pint in his hand, and then his boss sits opposite him.