A Distant Shore

by Caryl Phillips

  I sit back down and stare at the pile of letters. Solomon sits too, and he asks me if I would like more coffee. I look across at him and nod. “Would you mind?” He takes my cup and saucer and disappears into the kitchen.

  “I’m not naïve.” I say this to myself. I whisper it under my breath. I’m not naïve. I’ve got stuck into these arguments in the past. With Mum and Dad, for starters, both of whom disliked coloureds. Dad told me that he regarded coloureds as a challenge to our English identity. He believed that the Welsh were full of sentimental stupidity, that the Scots were helplessly mean and mopish and they should keep to their own side of Hadrian’s Wall, and that the Irish were violent, Catholic drunks. For him, being English was more important than being British, and being English meant no coloureds. He would no more listen to me than would the teachers at school, who also hated coloureds. When people were around, they’d go on about them not really adapting well to our school system, but in private they were always “cheeky little niggers.” I know this is what people think, I’m not naïve, but why the hatred towards Solomon, who doesn’t talk to anybody? Who washes his car. Who hasn’t done anything. What do these people hope to achieve? In fact, who are these people? Are they the same people who write letters to the paper complaining about the new coins being too bulky, and the fact that telephone kiosks are no longer red? Do I know these people? Do I sit on the bus with them? I look up and Solomon has returned from the kitchen. He’s watching me looking at the pile of letters.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, as he sets down my coffee and takes up the seat opposite me.

  “You are sorry for what?” he asks. “I do not understand. You did not write any of these letters, did you?” He flashes me a smile. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to laugh, or if my laughter will somehow be interpreted as being disrespectful. But Solomon saves me. “Do not worry,” he says. “I know you did not write any of these letters. I am only making a joke.”

  “But I’m sorry and I’m ashamed.”

  “Well,” says Solomon. “I too am ashamed.”

  “But what have you got to be ashamed about? You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything.”

  “Why not? Sometimes the behaviour of my fellow human beings makes me ashamed.” He pauses. “And I too am not without guilt. Who among us is?”

  I look at Solomon as he bites into a biscuit. He looks up and catches my eye.

  “Please,” he says, “you must not apologise for these people. Most of them sign their names. They want me to know who they are.”

  “But what do they want?”

  “They want me to go away.”

  “But why?”

  Solomon sits back in the chair now. He seems nervous, but behind his uncertainty there is hurt.

  “I do not know. They just want me to go. That is all.”

  “But go where? I don’t understand.”

  “Away.” Solomon looks tired. It’s still early in the morning, but there’s an aspect of defeat about his demeanour. “Just away, that is all.” He pauses and then he slowly shakes his head.

  In the evening I decide to go to the pub for a second time. The landlord is friendly and he remembers me. He doesn’t, however, remember what I drink and so he asks me what I’d like. I tell him a half of Guinness, but I’m never sure if I really should be drinking and undergoing Dr. Williams’s tests at the same time. As he begins to pour, I make a promise that I’ll limit myself to the one drink.

  “We don’t see many of you folk down here.”

  I’m not sure if I’m being criticised, or if this is a situation with which the landlord is comfortable.

  “A lot of people work long hours. Two jobs some of them, I think.”

  “Yes,” he says as he takes a plastic knife and smooths off the top of the Guinness. “I expect they need to make some brass to pay off their fancy mortgages.” He laughs to let me know that this is his idea of wit. I smile to let him know that I’m not offended.

  I hand him the exact money, and then I sit in the corner of the pub so that I can look out over the canal. In the garden, and seated around the wooden picnic tables, are the young hooligans, all of whom are drinking beer and gazing lovingly at their cluster of motorbikes as though worried that people might not realise that they’re the ones who own them. There’s only myself and the landlord in the pub, and an elderly man who watches over a pint in the corner opposite me. When I sat he nodded in silent acknowledgement, and I gave him the briefest of nods in return. It was, however, already clear that this would be the full extent of our intercourse.

  I stare out of the window at the dark leaves of an old oak tree. Through its branches I can see the enlarged sun finally sinking in the west. I haven’t given it much thought, and perhaps this is my failing, but Solomon is the only coloured person in the village. In the town there are plenty of dark faces, but in this village he’s alone. And maybe he feels alone. Perhaps I should have invited him to come to the pub? It would have been easy to have said, “Can we get together this evening? Maybe go for a walk by the canal, and then pop into the pub for a drink. Would you like to do this, Solomon?” But I didn’t make any effort. Even tonight, as I was leaving the house to come out, I could have stopped by and asked him if he’d like to join me for a drink, but I didn’t. The landlord is washing glasses behind the bar. I have Solomon’s number on a piece of paper in my bag. I could ask the landlord if he has a public phone, and then call Solomon and suggest that he comes down and joins me in the pub, except that it would look like an afterthought and he might be insulted. I don’t want Solomon to become a problem in my life, but today I get the feeling that this is what he’s becoming and it’s making me feel awkward. I lift the glass to my mouth and take another sip. I decide that I’ll mind this drink until I see the sun disappear beyond the canal, and then while there’s still some light in the sky I’ll walk back up the hill to Stoneleigh. By the time I get to the top of the hill it will be dusk and I should be able to walk home without being seen.

  I wait by the bus stop and worry that I might have got the time wrong. After a long night without sleep, I have made my decision and this morning I will act upon it. But I’m the only person standing here. Across the main road there are those villagers who are going into town. They talk to each other with casual ease, picking up conversations as though they have simply been set on the back burner for a few minutes. I stand by myself, going in the wrong direction, with a small suitcase by my side. I feel like I’m running away. In fact, I’m temporarily avoiding a man I don’t really know. I’m leaving my home for a few days. A day? I don’t know. But I’m alone at a bus stop waiting for a bus to come into view, and for the life of me I can’t work out if I’m doing the right thing. A girl is waving at me. It’s Carla, who’s seated in a white van that’s sitting outside the newsagent’s. A boy in a leather jacket, and with one of those army crew cuts, comes out of the shop and gets behind the wheel. Carla turns from me to the boy. They say something to each other, and then the boy leans past Carla, looks at me, and then the hairless boy starts the van’s engine. They pull off in the direction of town, and as they do so Carla waves me a final greeting. No doubt somewhere, down beneath the boy’s waistline, desire is already leaping like a trout, but who am I to warn Carla of the ways of men? Maybe I’m imagining it, but I think Carla feels sorry for me. However, she shouldn’t, for I’m quite resilient. People, especially young people, are always picking things up and dropping them again. Especially feelings. But I imagine Carla will find this out for herself in the fullness of time.

  As I walk by the canal I keep looking around and wondering where exactly they found him. I know it was beyond The Waterman’s Arms, and out towards where the double locks are. It seems stupid that I should be so concerned with this, but I am. Where exactly? As far as I know, he didn’t go for walks down by the canal. In fact, he hardly left his bungalow apart from taking me to the hospital and patrolling Stoneleigh with his torch. It’s been raining heavily so the towpath has turned muddy
, and the odd puddle has formed here and there. Somewhere, behind the hedges, I can hear the rush of a stream that has been swollen by the recent rain, and over the canal there hangs a thin ribbon of mist, which makes the water look like it’s sweating. At the best of times the stiles are an obstacle, but today it’s like climbing Ben Nevis. I don’t like traipsing about when it’s like this. You seem to spend as much time looking at your feet as you do trying to take in the scenery. The other thing about wandering up the canal path is that there are no benches, so this means that you have to keep going. And these towpaths always remind me of work. Straight lines, no messing, keep walking. Unlike rivers, canals are all business, which makes it hard for me to relax by one. It’s late morning, which probably accounts for why there’s nobody around. Early in the morning or late in the afternoon, before or after work, people walk the dog or take a stroll to work up an appetite; these are canal times. But even then, there’s hardly ever anybody by this canal, which is why it doesn’t make any sense that Solomon should be down here by himself.

  The police haven’t a clue. They told me that there isn’t necessarily anything suspect, although they detected some evidence of bruising to the head. The truth is I’m not sure how hard they’re trying. I mean, there’s no yellow police tape, or signs asking for witnesses. It’s only two days ago that a man was drowned in this village, but everything is just going on as normal. I stop and peer over a hedgerow where a white-ankled horse stares back at me with that vacant quizzical look that they sometimes have. And your problem is? My problem is that my friend was found face down in this canal and nobody seems to care. I turn from the hedgerow, and the field’s curious occupant, and begin now to walk back in the direction of the village. Face down in a canal because he said something to somebody? I just don’t know. When I reach The Waterman’s Arms I turn from the towpath and cross the sodden garden, dodging the discarded children’s toys, until I come to the six stone steps that lead up to the public bar.

  Inside the pub it’s quiet. A few people have already settled in for a lunchtime pint, and they barely look up as I enter. As I walk to the bar the landlord surprises me by reaching for a half-pint glass. “Half of Guinness, isn’t it?” I smile and ease myself up and onto a stool. The landlord focuses on the drink, as people tend to when they’re pouring a Guinness, and then he looks up at me.

  “Friend of yours, wasn’t he?” The landlord hands me the Guinness and I remember to answer the question.

  “Yes,” I say. “He was a friend of mine.”

  “It’s a sad business, isn’t it? I’m sorry for him and I’m sorry for what it’s doing to our village.”

  I take the Guinness and wonder if I should leave this stool and go to the other side of the pub, but it’s too late. It would look as though I was running away from something, which would, of course, be the truth.

  “What it’s doing to the village?”

  “Well, it makes us look bad, doesn’t it?”

  “I still don’t understand,” I say. This time I take a drink and stare directly at him.

  “Well, it must have been an accident because there’s nobody in Weston who would do anything like that.”

  “I see.”

  He looks over my shoulder at the other men in the pub. Now I understand. This is not a private conversation.

  “If you’ve lived here as long as I have, love, and you’ve grown up with folks like these, you’d understand that there’s not one among them capable of harming anybody. That’s just how they are. Decent folk committed to their families and their community. We don’t have murderers here. A few villains, some with light fingers, and a few who are quick with their fists, but that’s about it. Nothing more than this.”

  I nod, for I have no desire to upset his sense of community. I’m not sure that I want the rest of the Guinness, but to leave at this point would be to admit defeat, and out of respect for my friend I won’t be doing that. Not with these people. And then the landlord suddenly reaches beneath the bar as though remembering something. He rips open a packet of crisps and offers the bag to me, but I shake my head.

  “No, thanks.”

  He withdraws the bag, and then thrusts his hand in and pulls out a half-dozen crisps at once. “I can’t help it,” he says, “I’m addicted to the beggars, but only Bovril and maybe prawn. The others I can let go, but I’m addicted to Bovril.”

  I watch this unselfconscious man and understand that until the bag is empty our conversation will remain on hold, which suits me fine.

  I lock, and then bolt, the door behind me. The clock reminds me that it is only one in the afternoon, and I look around and realise that I’ve simply replaced the gloom of the pub with the gloom of my own house. It’s early autumn, but it looks and feels like winter. The Guinness seems to have gone straight to my head, and not even the walk up the hill in the fresh air has sorted me out. I slump down into the chair nearest the fireplace and close my eyes. It was only yesterday afternoon that I came back from the seaside and went directly to the hospital. When the bus passed through the village I stayed put. The doctor had previously told me that I must come in straight away if I ever didn’t feel right, and so I did as I was told. I had spent just the one night away, but I was in some discomfort and I could barely think. However, when I got to the hospital Dr. Williams took a quick look at me, and then he stared at my suitcase. He asked me to sit and then he began to quiz me about where I’d been, and so I told him that I’d just been to see my sister. I knew this would upset him, and I was right. “Dorothy,” he said, “your sister is dead. She died earlier this year in London. You know you haven’t been to see your sister, so where have you been?” I said nothing, for we’d already been through this enough times. He put on that caring face of his. “Dorothy, you’re going to have to learn to live without Sheila. I know it’s difficult for you, but if you can’t let go then we’ll have no choice but to get you some help.” Again I said nothing and I just waited until he’d run out of things to say. Eventually he got fed up of me, and then I dashed to the bus stop for it looked like it might start to rain. I was standing on the bus going home when I felt it in my blood that something was wrong. It wasn’t just the sight of burly, unemployed men sitting in the seats reserved for the handicapped and the elderly that was disturbing me, there was something else. I stared out of the window at the town’s terraced houses, great stripes of them arranged in narrow, ramrod-straight streets which, as we made our way into the countryside, finally gave way to a desolate landscape of empty fields over which the sun now hung ominously low.

  I got home and had barely set down my suitcase before I heard the knock on the door. Standing there in the dark was a policeman and a policewoman, both in uniform, so there was no need for them to introduce themselves. I felt my stomach lurch. They asked me if I was Miss Dorothy Jones, and when I said “yes,” they asked me if they might come in for a minute. I stepped to one side and tried to work out just what they were doing round at my place. I mean, why would the police come banging on my door? They wiped their feet on the mat, took off their hats and I ushered them into the living room. However, even before they said anything it suddenly dawned on me who it was they had come to talk to me about. The woman spoke up.

  “It’s about Solomon Bartholomew.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Please take a seat.” They looked around and then, hats in hand, they backed gently into the sofa. I was going to offer them a cup of tea, but this seemed ridiculous. I wanted to hear what they had to say. The man spoke now.

  “So you know Solomon Bartholomew?”

  “Yes, he drives me to the hospital. He’s a very nice chap, who lives just there.” I pointed. “The green car is his.”

  Now it was the turn of the policewoman.

  “And when was the last time that you saw Mr. Bartholomew?”

  “Just before I went away. I’ve been at the coast for the past day. Well, one night and two days. In fact, I’ve only just come back. Is something the matter?”

>   Again the woman spoke. “And you’re returning directly from there, are you?”

  “Well, no. I stopped in town at the hospital.”

  “But what I mean is you’ve not been here, in the village, for the past two days?”

  “I’ve just told you, I’ve only just got back.”

  The policewoman looked at the man, as though giving him the cue to assume his seniority.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you, but Mr. Bartholomew has been found dead. He was found drowned, face down in the canal.”

  I don’t know what expression crossed my face, but the look obviously registered something with him for he felt compelled to go on.

  “You know the canal we’re talking about?”

  “What happened?” I knew that I was whispering, but I couldn’t find my breath.

  “Well, there was some bruising to the head so we can’t rule out foul play. But as I’m sure you appreciate, we don’t want to jump to any conclusions for there isn’t necessarily anything suspect.”

  The woman leaned forward and lowered her voice.

  “I’m sorry. We thought it best to come and tell you ourselves as people said you knew him.”

  It was after the police had gone that Carla came to see me. I hardly ever have anybody come to my door, so to have two visits in rapid succession was disturbing. I got out of the chair and imagined that it was somebody else wanting to tell me about Solomon. Young Carla stared up at me with sad eyes, and so I asked her in. She wiped her feet and then sat down somewhat heavily in the armchair that I had just vacated. She did so without taking her eyes from me the whole time, which made me feel nervous. I asked Carla if she’d like some tea or coffee, but she just shook her head and then, for the first time, she spoke.

  “It’s about your friend. The black guy.”

  “Solomon.”

  “Yeah, him.”

  I looked at her and waited for her to go on, but she said nothing. She lowered her eyes and stared at the space between her trainer-clad feet. “What’s the matter, Carla?”