A Distant Shore
Page 30
I don’t like visitors. Last night, after Dr. Williams left, they decided to skip the tablets and the hot milk and they put me to sleep with a needle. Now the nurse tells me that I have another visitor, but she won’t tell me who it is. I’m still in bed, ensnared in a single twist of cotton sheeting. I slept, perhaps too much. Because of this they make a special exception and offer to help me get myself right. I sit up in bed while the nurse tries to make me look respectable. I remind her that these days I prefer to wear my hair up in a bun, and so she helps me with this. I no longer have to use make-up to cover up the bumps and bruises from where the gypsy woman hit me, for it’s all mended. I’m as ready as I’m going to be, and then I see him. An older, even tubbier, Brian, clutching a bunch of red flowers. His shoes are unpolished. I thought he’d have a bit tucked away by now, but apparently not. He doesn’t know what to do, whether to come to the bed and lean over and kiss me, or remain standing or what. The nurse eventually leads him in the direction of the plastic chair by the side of the bed, and he takes a seat. And then he begins to talk, as if he’s frightened to stop talking. The nurse sits on a chair by the door and buries herself in her book. He tells me that his wife, Barbara, has left him and that he’s back in Birmingham and running a bed and breakfast. He tells me that computer technology has overtaken him so he couldn’t get back into banking, but he doesn’t mind. He’s quite happy. It turned out that Spain wasn’t everything he’d hoped it would be. I can see him looking at me as he continues to jabber on like a crazy man. He’s shocked, that much is clear. And I don’t blame him. I suppose somebody must have called him out of the blue and told him that his ex-wife was convalescing in a home, and he probably thought it’s nothing to do with me any more, and he’s right. But he came anyway. I look at shabby Brian, and I try to turn him back into that slim, impressive posh boy that I met at university, but he no longer fits. However, I’m sure that I don’t fit with whatever it was that he saw when he first met me at university. What were we thinking of? I’m sure that love has never stirred any kind of disorder in poor Brian’s lumpish heart. I look away, but I can feel his eyes upon me, as though he feels sorry for me, but it’s pathetic. I feel sorry for him. He clears his throat and so I turn back ready to hear whatever else he’s got to say for himself. He should have shaved. There’s nothing more unattractive than stubble on a man who’s gone grey. It really brings it home to you that they’re at that stage where they can’t look after themselves. That’s something that’s just around the corner for both Mahmood and a certain Mr. Geoff Waverley. Brian smiles at me. It’s long been over with him. He’s well past his sell-by date. I can’t help it, but I have to laugh. The nurse looks over at me, but I make eye contact with her so she knows that everything is fine. Reluctantly she returns to her book. He reaches out an arm towards me as though he wants to touch me. No fear! I pull back, and I can see it in his eyes. He doesn’t understand. Why don’t I want his grubby hand on me? Why am I laughing? I stop laughing. He’s got to go now. I mean, this is embarrassing. I stare at him, which clearly makes him even more uncomfortable. He forces a smile, but he has no idea how unappealing this is. The nurse puts down her book, and I notice her fold over the corner of the page to mark her spot before she closes it shut. I hate it when people do this. They could easily get a bookmark, or a piece of paper or something. Why damage the book in this way? It shows no respect for the book. I want to tell all of this to her. Perhaps I will, but not now. (“Dorothy.”) I turn and look at him. He’s still smiling. He only said my name to get my attention. Flowers don’t speak. That’s one of the things I like about them. You can sit quietly with them and they don’t have to have your attention. (“Dorothy.”) Again he stops. If he thinks I’m going to help him out, then he’s very much mistaken. I’ve nothing to say to him, especially if he wants to sound like a broken record. Dad always used to say that in the end it didn’t matter what somebody had in terms of money or qualifications. What mattered was manners, and how you respected other people. I mean, after all, without manners we’re no better than animals. In fact, I saw a television programme once about gorillas. It seems to me that some animals have got far better manners than us, and that’s a fact. He should go now. I shouldn’t have to tell him this, or make a fuss in any way, but he’s leaving me no choice. I’m here because my nerves are bad and they’ve collapsed. I’ll admit it. I’m not ashamed to admit it because this kind of thing happens to a lot of people, including many famous people. And they recover, so it’s not as if there’s something unusual about it, or there’s no cure for it. It’s fine, and it will soon just go away and I can get back to normal. That’s what I’m doing. Convalescing. I let Sheila down. I know this now. I was a coward. But right now I just need to be protected, the doctor told me this. I need to feel as though somebody is looking after me until I get my strength back. And sometimes I can’t cope with everything. I’ll admit that too. But I’m not stupid, so why is this man treating me like a fool and repeating my name? He should go now. I don’t like visitors and I don’t want any more. Why don’t they ever listen? I see the book slide from her lap, and I watch her start to run towards me. And now she’s holding her hand over my mouth telling me to be quiet. I begin to struggle because I don’t like the way she’s holding me. I can hear her shouting for help. She’s telling Brian to go and he stands up and begins to back away. As he back-pedals I tumble out of the bed. The nurse is on top of me now. I can see the flowers that Brian brought for me. The red ones are the angry ones. I know that now. They are the only ones that I can see. I can see this man’s feet in his ugly unpolished shoes. He’s walking backwards, and I can see red flowers.
I like to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Particularly at night. Of course, days in this place never really begin. There’s no routine. There’s nothing that you have to do, except take your tablets and your hot milk and behave. A piano would help. Especially now that the years of discord between the keys has been resolved, and I’m once more able to make them speak easily to each other. I’m lucky because the patterns of music that Sheila helped me to discover remain firmly stitched together, as I knew they would. But there’s no piano. There’s no routine. The unit, as they like to call it when they’re being official, is supposed to be a place that’s different from out there. A retreat. Somewhere where you can lick your wounds and gather some strength before going back to the world. A place where you can learn to remember, and therefore understand your life. But what use is that now? They say they’re protecting us. In here, time doesn’t matter. At night they allow me to leave the curtains open and I watch the shadows of the trees making strange shapes against my wall. I know that this is not Weston. Or Stoneleigh. There is no viaduct in the distance. My heart remains a desert, but I tried. I had a feeling that Solomon understood me. This is not my home, and until they accept this, then I will be as purposefully silent as a bird in flight. Sometime before dawn, as light begins to bleed slowly through the night sky, I will ease myself out of this bed and proceed to put on my day face.
Caryl Phillips
A DISTANT SHORE
Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies. Brought up in England, he has written for television, radio, theater, and film. He is the author of three books of nonfiction, The European Tribe, The Atlantic Sound, and A New World Order, and six novels, The Final Passage , A State of Independence, Higher Ground, Cambridge , Crossing the River, and The Nature of Blood, and has edited two anthologies, Extravagant Strangers and The Right Set. His awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Phillips lives in New York.
INTERNATIONAL
ALSO BY CARYL PHILLIPS
FICTION
The Final Passage
A State of Independence
Higher Ground
Cambridge
Crossing the River
The Nature of Blood
NONFICTION
The European Tribe
The Atlantic Sound
A New World Order
ANTHOLOGIES
Extravagant Strangers
The Right Set
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 2005
Copyright © 2003 by Caryl Phillips
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Phillips, Caryl.
A distant shore / Caryl Phillips.—1st American ed.
p. cm.
1. Africans—England—Fiction. 2. Marginality, Social—Fiction. 3. Retired
teachers—Fiction. 4. Illegal aliens—Fiction. 5. Watchmen—Fiction.
6. England—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9275.S263 P4729 2003b
823’.914—dc22
2004296247
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eISBN: 978-0-307-42432-7
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