In the Falling Snow

by Caryl Phillips

  ‘Maybe a week pass before they say I can get up from the bed, and that’s when I start to get the visits from the doctor. Every time the doctor come into the hospital room he make me sit in a chair and shine a light in my eyes with a small torch and ask me how I feel about this and how I feel about that and if I happy in England. I’m looking at the man and I don’t want to annoy the fellar so I give off the answers I think he expecting and I try to smile at him, and after weeks of these blasted visits I want to ask the man when he think I can leave this place and go back to my rented room, but I know the doctor not going to answer me truthfully so I keep the question to myself. The other people in the place seem fine, but sometimes things can be difficult because I don’t know if these people are talking to me or if they talking to themselves, for the thing about this hospital is that nobody seem to mind if a man decide to talk to himself. The only thing I don’t care for is when they take me to the room where they strap me down on the bed and attach the wires. Not only does it hurt bad, but afterward they feed me tablets that make me sleep for days, and even when I’m awake I feel as though I’m asleep. Brenda start to come to see me every weekend and when she arrive they put me in a clean shirt and take me to a reception area with big windows so everything is bright and the two of us sit together. Brenda tell me all the different things that she done in the week, including babysitting, but when she say this I have to tell her that I never hear of this word and so she explain it to me, but the woman laughing hard because she can’t understand that I don’t know what is babysitting. Brenda tell me everything that happen at the hairdresser’s and in the pub, and she give me all the chat that the fellars have, and I know that she is doing so in order that I don’t have to feel no pressure to say anything because what is there for me to talk about? She know I don’t go no place. Every week I look at Brenda and wonder why it is she trouble herself to come to the hospital, but I never ask the question in case I scare her away. One day I see the doctor and the man ask me if I know how long it is that I been “with them”. I look at the doctor, but I don’t say anything. Then he put his hand on my own hand, but he do so suddenly and I find myself pulling away from him. “I’m sorry,” he say smiling. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. Over five years,” he say. “It’s been a long time but we think that you’re ready to go now. Are you ready?” I smile. Yes, of course I’m ready. I mean, what kind of foolishness is this? Five years is a big piece of life. Ralph claim that he is going home after five years. Five years is plenty of time so yes, I’m ready. “Perhaps your friend can help you settle into life outside. Is this possible?” The next weekend I sitting in the reception area and listening as Brenda tell me everything that happen that week at the hairdresser’s and in the pub. Apparently Baron decide that he don’t want to speak with anybody, but nobody seem to notice. Then I ask Brenda if she will consider marrying to me as soon I going be leaving the hospital. I let her know that I hoping to get back my job at the factory and maybe we can set up a house together. I know that the medicine make me put on some weight, but when I start to study again I sure that the weight going drop off. Brenda don’t say anything, so I tell her that if she already have a mister then I will understand and she must just forget that I ever say a thing. I confess that I don’t like to think of her with a next man, but if she don’t have anybody special in her life then perhaps she will consider me. Brenda just keep looking at me and so I keep talking and I tell the woman that I’m not going home. I tell her that I don’t have nothing to go back to, not after all this time. Only my sister, Leona, and I never hear from her. Brenda is staring at me, and then she start to smile.

  ‘I don’t see you till you was six. Some coloured man come knocking on my door and the man ask Brenda if I living in the house. Standing behind him is a small boy in a blue school uniform and with a sharp parting in his hair and wearing glasses. I think you know the boy. Brenda call me to the door, and the man tell me that Shirley finally die of the lung infection that is making it difficult for her to breathe, and that he can’t keep Shirley’s son as the boy should be with the father. This is how I find out that you are now my responsibility, and suddenly I find myself being asked to play the role of the father. Brenda usher both you and the man inside, and then she put on the kettle. Me, I sit down heavy in a chair and wonder how the hell I’m supposed to play this role. I marking you sitting in a corner and screwing up your face like you trying hard not to cry, and Brenda come to sit with you and she start talking soft and offering you sweets, but still you can’t hold back the tears. The man tell me that he marry to Shirley before she even have you, but the pair of them never pretend with you that this man is your father. The man insist that it’s Shirley who tell him that if anything happen to her then he must give you to me, and I watching the man sipping at his tea and making a loud noise, and then the man look up and catch me watching him and he just shrug his shoulders. That night I lie in bed with Brenda and tell her that I don’t see how we can afford a child. Between her work at the hairdresser’s and the bar, and my work at the factory, we have just enough to cover the rent payments on the house. I don’t have much in the way of vices; I smoking a little, and drinking a few beers when I go down to the pub to pick up Brenda at the end of a night, but I already discover that if a man is living in a house, and not just one room, then paying bills in England is a serious business. I see Brenda watching me, but she don’t say a thing. She wait until I finish talking then she put out the cigarette in the ashtray to the side of the bed. The woman turn to look at me. “He’s your child, Earl. It doesn’t matter what you think of Shirley, or if you believe she tricked you. The only thing that matters is he’s your child and you better face up to this fact, okay?” When Brenda finally fall asleep I get out of bed and creep along the corridor and open up the door to the bedroom in which you’re sleeping. I go inside and look down at you lying there with your mouth open and your nose slightly blocked up with cold, and I’m thinking to myself that nobody can say that I don’t do nothing with my time in England. I lose my best friend, and then I get fooled off by a woman, and then I find myself living with an English girl, but at least I have you. But I’m not ready for this. It’s not you that I don’t want, son. I just don’t want this life, because England already hurt me enough as it is. It seem like every time I think I discover some peace of mind then something else come along to trouble my head. But it’s not you that I don’t want, it’s this damn life. I looking at you lying so still and peaceful and I want to bang my head on the wall because I just don’t have any idea how to go forward with my life. I watching you sleeping on the bed in front of me but I just not ready. A part of me want to turn back the clock and find myself in the Harbour Lights bar with Ralph, and I want somebody to give me back my law book and my dictionary, and I want back my mother and my father and Desmond and Leona. Your face is so peaceful and I looking down at you, Keith, and I want to tell you about tall, crazy Ralph, who you never going to meet, and how the two of us sit together drinking beers and listening to the wind passing through the palm trees and the two of us thinking of England. The idea of England is fine. I can deal with the idea. You understand me, son? I can deal with the idea.’

  The young man seated two rows in front of him on the bus is watching an action film of some kind on his iPod. The youth’s baseball cap is turned backwards on his head so that despite the mid-afternoon gloom he can just about make out the faded logo of an American sports team. He can also hear the screeching of tyres and the popping of gunshots as the action film climaxes in some sort of car chase sequence. He is still not sure why he decided to take the bus back to London instead of the train, but he suspects that some part of him imagined that the longer journey would give him more time to turn things over in his mind, but as the bus hustles its way down the M1 all he can think about is the time when his father came to see him, the week after the thirteenth birthday visit, and abruptly announced to Brenda that he was taking his son to the pictures. Brenda shrugged her shoulders
and told him to go upstairs and get ready, while she stood calmly by the door and waited with his father. He couldn’t be sure if Brenda was standing guard to prevent his father from storming into the house and causing confusion, or if she was worried that his father might disappear without waiting for him. Either way, he hurried upstairs and grabbed his coat and scarf, and then he ran back down, not because he was eager to go to the pictures, but because he didn’t want to leave Brenda alone for too long.

  ‘What time will you be bringing him back?’ Brenda ruffled his hair as she spoke, and then she encouraged him to fasten his scarf into a knot around his neck. ‘Not too late, all right?’

  ‘Whatever time the film finish.’

  ‘Look, Earl, I’m not planning on going out anywhere, but he has got homework to do this weekend.’

  He looked up at his father, who was visibly annoyed, but he could also see that his father had now made a decision to remain silent.

  ‘Well, can you give me some idea of a time?’

  His father turned to leave, and he understood that this was his cue to step forward and join him.

  Brenda called out. ‘I’ll see you later, love.’

  The film was an animated Disney cartoon, and from the moment it began he found himself caught up in the plot. He had been to Saturday morning children’s matinées before, but this was the first time that he had been to a proper late afternoon screening. He couldn’t remember if his father bought him any sweets or anything to drink, but he clearly recalls that when the film was over he followed his father out of the darkened auditorium and back into the lobby. Through the huge glass windows, he could see that outside it had got dark, and that car lights were on. He could also see that it was snowing and huge white flakes were tumbling down out of the sky and coating the pavement white. His father held up his coat for him and he pushed one arm into a sleeve, and then fished around looking for the other one. He finally jammed his arm into the hole and threaded it through but he couldn’t take his eyes from the snow. His father offered him his hand and even though he felt too old for this he took it, and together they left the warmth of the foyer and stepped out into the bitterly cold evening. They began to walk back in the direction of the bus stop, past the parked cars that were already clad in snow, and as the flakes continued to fall on their bare heads he could feel his hand tight and safe in his father’s hand. He looked behind him and saw two sets of footprints where they had walked, a large pair and his own smaller ones, and then he gazed up at the sky where a sudden surge of wind buffeted the flakes so that the snow began to swirl feverishly. As they turned a corner, he tugged his father’s hand. His father looked down at him and smiled. He pointed to the sky. ‘Look at all the snow!’ His father continued to smile.

  Brenda opened the door and quickly beckoned him inside.

  ‘I thought you two might be building an igloo or something.’ She paused and looked at his father. ‘Would you like to come in for a warm before you head off?’ His father shook his head.

  ‘I have everything with the lawyers so that I can get my son back with me. They say you will hear from them next week.’

  Brenda sighed. ‘Look, Earl, it doesn’t have to come to this. Have I argued with you? He’s your son, you just have to make sure that you’ve got a proper place for him and then we can come to an arrangement, that’s all.’

  His father ignored Brenda and looked down at his son. ‘I better go now before the buses stop running.’ His father leaned over the threshold and hugged him, although the older man was clearly somewhat uncomfortable with the gesture. Once his father released him he stepped outside the house and into the snow, and he looked on as his father gingerly picked his way down the path in search of some form of transportation that might convey the snow-furred pilgrim back to wherever he lived. As he walked, his father left behind a single set of footprints, and he remembered lingering by the doorstep and watching closely as the falling snow steadily erased all evidence of his father’s presence.

  As the speeding bus continues to careen its way down the motorway towards London, most of the passengers are trying to doze. However, he notices that the young man with the iPod is now busily selecting another film whose ambient soundtrack will no doubt torment his neighbours for what remains of the journey. This morning the familiar older nurse had pushed his shoulder somewhat aggressively, and then she stood over him until his blinking eyes began to focus.

  ‘That’s not the best chair to fall asleep in, but you were obviously shattered after listening to him.’ She paused. ‘Older people often have a lot to say. We see it from time to time.’ Again she paused. ‘After he’d finished his chatting we thought it best to leave you both, and eventually you nodded off too.’

  He could feel that both of his shoulders and his back were aching because of the angle at which he had fallen asleep, and so he pulled himself upright on the metal chair. He then realised that he could no longer hear the sonar beep of his father’s machine. In fact, the hospital bed was empty.

  ‘I’m sorry, love but about half an hour ago we moved your father to intensive care as his vitals were failing. That’s when I first tried to wake you, but it was an emergency so we had to rush. And then we lost him. He just slipped away in his sleep so he wouldn’t have known a thing about it.’

  He looked up at this woman’s face in disbelief. What was she trying to tell him?

  ‘I’m very sorry, but it happened quickly and quite frankly there’s not a thing that you could have done or said. I’ve just come back from over there.’ She paused. ‘Intensive care, that is.’

  ‘Is that where he is?’

  ‘They’ll be moving him now. We’ve left a message for his friend at the Mandela Centre is it?’

  ‘Yes, the Mandela Centre. His name’s Baron.’

  ‘We know, love. He checked your father in so we have all of his details.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what? I take it that you’ll be going over to your father’s place and starting to sort things out as you’re the only family we have registered.’ He nodded. ‘And can we reach you there, or do you have a mobile number that we could perhaps have?’

  He couldn’t remember his mobile number so he took out the phone and checked. He wrote down the number on the back of an old receipt and handed the piece of paper to the woman. The nurse gave him a sympathetic smile, but it was apparent that the woman had nothing further to say and she hovered awkwardly. He sensed that he was keeping her from something. Fearful of any more platitudes, he climbed to his feet and began the long, confusing, walk down the length of the ward away from his father’s empty bed. So that was it? His father had ‘slipped away in his sleep’? Slipped away? The words echoed in his mind like a pedalled note. That was all she had to say? That was her explanation?

  The bus begins to slow down and bully its way across the motorway and into the inside lane. As they bear left and take the service station slip road, the driver announces that this will be a very short stop and they will leave in five minutes. Only those who need to disembark the bus should do so, the others should remain on board. ‘Sorry, but there’ll be no time for the games arcade or the food emporium as we’re running behind schedule.’ They cruise past the entrance to the car park, and the family picnic area, before swinging extravagantly into the bus parking zone and coming to an abrupt halt. He left the hospital knowing that he would have to go back to his father’s house, but he is still not sure how he found himself at the central bus station buying a one-way ticket to London. He remembers putting the key in the door and then lumbering upstairs and grabbing his bag, before trudging back downstairs and looking at the photographs that remained scattered on the kitchen table. For a moment he lingered, but it was too soon to even think of beginning the process of sifting through the evidence of his father’s life and so he turned his back on the house. He remembered to lock the door behind him, and he now finds himself just over an hour away from London and he realises that h
e should probably call Annabelle. He wants to do so before the driver starts up the thunderous engine, and so he arches his still aching back, and squeezes the mobile phone out from his trouser pocket and hits Annabelle’s speed dial number. She sounds fraught.

  ‘Keith? I was worried about you. In fact, I left you a message last night.’

  He has not checked his messages so it’s now his turn to be worried. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Are you sitting down?’ She doesn’t wait for him to answer. ‘It’s Chantelle. She’s pregnant.’

  ‘For Laurie?’

  ‘Well, yes, who do you think?’

  ‘Well, hang on a minute, I don’t know. I’ve never even met her.’

  ‘Well they’re both coming over to explain things to me. Their words, not mine.’

  ‘I’m on my way back. I should probably come over too, right?’

  ‘I thought you were going to be away for a few days? Is your dad okay?’

  ‘Yes, no problem. Why?’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, why the change of plan?’

  ‘No reason really.’ He pauses. ‘Do you think it’s best if you see them by yourself? I can be there in a couple of hours at most.’

  The doors to the bus close with a cushioned sigh and the engine rumbles to life. He lowers his head and cups his hand around the phone so that he will be speaking directly into the microphone, and then he feels the bus beginning to lurch its cumbersome way out of the service station parking zone.

  ‘Well that would be brilliant, if you’re really on your way back. I won’t start talking about anything until you’re here.’ She pauses. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You sound a bit stressed.’

  The iPod-playing youth has now located yet another shoot-em-up film and he seems to have increased the volume on his iPod to maximum. Annabelle is right, he is stressed, but he understands that sleep is the best remedy and, although it appears to be a long shot at best, he will try to block out the noise of small screen murder and mayhem and grab a quick nap before they reach London.