In the Falling Snow

by Caryl Phillips

  ‘Well jolly good. I’m pleased to hear it.’ For a moment they were enveloped in a cheerless silence that was punctuated by the sound from the kitchen of clean cutlery being dropped into the appropriate sections of the silverware drawer. ‘Now then, you do love my daughter, don’t you? I mean really love her.’

  As the train leaves Ladbroke Grove station and begins to sweep left in a wide arc towards Latimer Road, he notices that most of the empty carriage seats are covered in discarded crisp packets, empty cans of Coke, and abandoned free newspapers. Kids, he thinks. Every day now he witnesses packs of these youngsters on the street, or on the tube, or on the buses, swearing and carrying on with a sense of entitlement that is palpably absurd. Each of them seems to believe that he or she is an ‘achiever’, and that they deserve nothing less than what they call ‘maximum respect’. Thank God, Laurie isn’t like this, although Annabelle appears to be increasingly concerned by his behaviour. He has tried to explain to her that all teenage boys go through some form of rebellion, and that she shouldn’t take Laurie’s surliness as evidence of anything more than his ongoing, turbulent, passage out of childhood and into the no man’s land of young adulthood. The urgency of Annabelle’s recent messages speaks both to her disappointment with him as a husband and father, and to her concern for their son, although he senses that some other anxiety is troubling her which she will most likely never reveal to him or, he suspects, to this new friend, Bruce. He stands to get off the train and he glances again at the old lady, who appears to have neither accepted nor totally rejected the ill-manners of the teenagers, but rather to have achieved an enviable place of quiet serenity. She raises her eyes to meet his own, and she smiles. As the train pulls away he can see her, still smiling at him, through the filthy carriage window.

  He steps out of the tube station and into the frigid November air. It is Sunday evening, so the traffic is not nearly as heavy as it might be on a weekday, but he assumes that there must have been a gig at the Empire for people are impatiently sounding their horns and he can see that there’s some kind of bottleneck at the roundabout. Across the street he sees the blue and white neon lights of the new Cineplex that he once went to with Yvette. He cannot remember the name of the romantic comedy that they sat through, for he fell asleep soon after the opening credits. After the film, her sullen silence at Pizza Express spoke volumes about her sense of disappointment. The trip to the cinema took place before he began visiting her north London terraced home, so in a sense she had no right to be irritated with him. As he forked the last slice of margarita into his mouth, he looked across the table at her but she would not meet his eyes. For Christ’s sake, he thought, these things happen and it was hardly a criticism of her. She, more than anybody else, should understand that he has been working hard, and he was just tired, and that’s all there is to it. End of story. As the waitress placed the stainless steel tray which held the bill to the side of his now empty plate, he reached for his credit card and wished that she would get over her disgruntlement and grow up. Her sullen demeanour had managed to cast a cloud over a perfectly nice evening and a pretty good pizza. He turns towards Uxbridge Road, and wonders how the atmosphere will be when Yvette comes to work in the morning. He had tried to explain to her that all he wanted was for things to return to how they used to be before they got involved, but as he nervously redistributed his weight on the designer barstool, then sipped at his warm white wine, the look on her face made it clear that she was in no mood to end their arrangement amicably.

  He dashes across Uxbridge Road before reaching the pedestrian crossing, and moves towards the building society cash machine. He really doesn’t need any hassle at work, especially not now when the local authority seem determined to make his life an administrative nightmare by merging his Race Equality unit with Disability and Women’s Affairs. He was pleased when Clive Wilson called him in and told him that as the chief executive he had decided that a certain Mr Keith Gordon should be the one to head up the merger, for it meant more money, a bigger office, and double the number of staff to manage. He soon discovered that it also meant learning about the problems of wheelchair accessibility, understanding why rape crisis centres could not be funded if they excluded male rape, coming to terms with the irony of being an able-bodied black man speaking on behalf of disabled white people, and being the highly visible male spokesperson for feminist groups, many of whom appeared to despise men. The workload was such that it was no longer possible for him to leave the office early and go back to the flat and work on his book. These days it was also unlikely that having surreptitiously scanned Time Out or the Guardian and discovered that some refugee from the seventies such as George Clinton or Sly Stone was playing in Tooting or Brixton, he could just shoot off early from work and go down to the gig with his notebook. After the announcement of the merger, most evenings were taken up with his trying to digest the contents of thousands of pages of printed policy reports, and then adding to the rubbish with short directives of his own. Then he noticed Yvette, who had recently been recruited as a research assistant in his unit. As he tried to tell her over pizza, he didn’t fall asleep at the cinema because he was bored, but because these days he simply has too much work to do and he often finds himself still awake at two o’clock in the morning trying to make sense of endless reams of local government bureaucracy.

  He grabs the five £20 notes and tucks them into his wallet before slipping the thick wad back into his pocket. A sudden gust catches an abandoned newspaper and it begins to fly in all directions. He kicks away a few pages that are swirling around his feet and begins to move off in the direction of his flat. There are very few people out walking on this windy Sunday night, and he imagines that most folks are sensibly at home watching television or already safely tucked up in bed and getting ready for another week of work. For over twenty years he shared a front door with Annabelle, which meant that there was always a good chance that he would not be coming home to an empty house. The lights would be on, and the smell of cooking would have permeated the flat or the house, and perhaps there would also be the sound of music blaring out. After graduation they had decided to stay in Bristol, and so they moved out of their respective halls of residence and into a slightly damp one-bedroom flat in the supposedly respectable Clifton district. He accepted a job in the black community of St Paul’s, and Annabelle also successfully applied for a position in social work, although her own particular focus was single women and violent men. After a difficult pre-graduation dinner with her mother and father, Annabelle had decided not to apply for any jobs in publishing, which would have meant moving to London and perhaps spending the occasional weekend in Wiltshire with her parents. At the dinner, she finally introduced her boyfriend of two years to them, but having witnessed her father’s behaviour Annabelle had decided that there was nothing further to be gained by trying to be diplomatic. They had forced a choice upon her, and so she had chosen. The idea of moving into social work interested her, and it seemed practical given her boyfriend’s vocation but, after four years in Bristol, Annabelle felt burned out and in need of a change.

  They were offered a husband and wife job in residential care in Birmingham and, without even thinking about it, they went one morning to a registry office in Bristol and asked two guests who were there for the wedding before their own if they would stay on for a few minutes and be witnesses. The registrar would not look them in the face, and the man’s hand shook as he turned the book around for them to sign. Having blotted the ink dry, the registrar handed the certificate to the husband, who quickly folded it in half and gave it to Annabelle, who pushed it into her handbag. They then drove out to a country pub for a celebratory lunch that soon descended into silence. He knew that as happy as Annabelle was with him there was no getting around the fact that Annabelle’s parents had ‘let her go’, and that he had no real family to offer her as a substitute. After two difficult years in Birmingham, a city they both loathed as much for the grating accent as the labyrinth-like
city centre, it was he who suggested that they move to London and that Annabelle might consider switching careers and trying to get a job in the media. They had saved enough to put down a small deposit and buy their first property, a tidy Victorian terraced house by the village common in an unfashionably scruffy part of west London, and while he took up his new job as a community liaison officer for the local authority, Annabelle found employment reading scripts for a theatrical agency who, as though already anticipating how her life would develop as both she and her husband now closed in on thirty, suggested that she could work some days from home. Three years later, and only months after Mrs Thatcher was finally removed from office, Laurie was born. In addition to the house being filled with the aroma of cooking, and the sound of music, there was now the babble of a newborn child and the breathless gunfire of his excitable laughter.

  By the time young Laurie found words, his father was pouring most of his energy into the local authority’s nascent Race Equality unit, which he one day hoped to lead. Laurie’s words soon took the form of a mild interrogation as he learned to ask, ‘Where have you been, Daddy?’ and ‘What did you do today, Daddy?’ and then eventually, ‘You’re not going out again are you, Daddy?’, and Annabelle would shush him while chopping carrots, or basting a chicken, or pushing her fingers into a batch of buns to see if they were ready. As he invested increasing amounts of time in his work, Annabelle’s supply of scripts and freelance work started to dry up, but it appeared to him that she had plenty to occupy herself with coping with Laurie and trying to be a pillar of support for her mother whose devotion to her grandson was genuine but, according to Annabelle, masked an increasingly obvious gaping void at the heart of her own life. He could see that Annabelle was struggling to cope with her own family situation and he was actively looking for an opportunity to help her to heal the rift. In the meantime, although he occasionally felt guilty for not being around the home more often, he had to admit that he was enjoying the new work opportunities to travel to conferences and make presentations, junkets which gave him a sense of having reclaimed some of his independence.

  The wind continues to gust, and as he makes his way along Uxbridge Road he turns up the collar on his jacket and leans slightly into the gale. He can hear dustbins being turned over, and up ahead of him a row of decorative plastic pennants which have been strung up outside a petrol station look as though they, and the flimsy piece of rope to which they have been affixed, are about to fly clear of the forecourt. Then he feels suddenly overwhelmed by panic and checks that the wallet with the five £20 notes is still in his pocket. As he nears his street, he rues the fact that, having left the family home, he has found it difficult to enjoy his new freedom for he has never been able fully to reconcile himself to the fact that each time he arrives back at the rented flat it will be a cold beginning. He has to switch on the lights, he has to turn on the heat, draw the curtains, warm up the place, select the music, and create some atmosphere. He has almost forgotten what it feels like to slide into a body-warmed bed. Three years ago, it was entirely up to him to transform the empty flat into a place that he could relax in, but it soon became apparent that there were aspects of the shared responsibility of marriage that he was going to miss desperately. Before turning into his street, he decides to stop at the pub for a quick drink. His local is one of the few pubs left in west London that has refused to capitulate to the sawdust-on-the-floor and alcopop trend, so at the best of times there are only a handful of ageing drinkers in the place. However, the melancholy, almost nostalgic, ambience of the Queen Caroline seems, these days, to match his own mood.

  He carries his pint of Australian lager across to the jukebox, rummages around in his trouser pockets for some money, slots in the £1 coins, and then taps out the song numbers. The jukebox is a relic from an earlier period, as are the singles that will eventually swing into place. Bob Marley, Barry White, the Isley Brothers, the Clash, the Specials, and Stevie Wonder. He smiles to himself realising how helplessly he has become a creature of habit, for these are probably the same six songs that he chose the last time he ventured into this pub. As ‘No Woman, No Cry’ begins slowly to crescendo and energise the musty atmosphere of the public bar, he picks up his pint and tucks himself behind a circular wooden table in the furthest corner of the empty room. The upholstered bench is dirty, and the shabby fabric needs to be either cleaned or replaced, but from this vantage point he is able to monitor the door and observe everything that might occur in the pub. In this sense, he is in control, which is precisely what Yvette accused him of needing to be.

  She covered her glass with the top of her hand, and then she watched as he decided to pour himself another drink and quickly took a sip. She pulled at the collar of her turtleneck sweater, as though suddenly afflicted with a flush of heat, and she smiled and told him that the one thing she had learned from her break-up with Colin was that men who rigorously police the boundaries of their lives are always looking outwards. According to her, such men don’t seem to understand that whatever it is they have inside is most probably wilting, or even dying, because they are refusing to take the time to nourish their inner selves.

  ‘You think I sound like some new-age imbecile, don’t you? You don’t have to say anything, I can tell by the way you’re just staring at me.’

  He put down the glass of wine and reached out to cup her hands with his, but she withdrew so abruptly that her whole body snapped away from him.

  ‘What’s the matter? I only want to hold your hands.’

  ‘Keith, don’t treat me like I’m stupid, okay. All this bullshit about how I’m too young, and I work for you, and we don’t have enough in common. You’ve got it all worked out in your head like it’s some bleeding presentation that you’re giving. Doesn’t it matter to you that I really care, and that I’d actually like this to work out? It’s not as if I’ve been with any other blokes since Colin left. And, in case you’ve forgotten, it was you who asked me out, remember?’

  ‘Listen, I’m not arguing with any of what you’re saying. And you’re right, since I split up with Annabelle I have been a bit more stand-offish and vigilant, if you like. I suppose it’s only natural that once you get your freedom back you want to protect it.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘I suppose I’m saying that policing my borders is a good way of putting it, but I don’t want to be like that.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem is I can’t just suddenly let my guard down and get involved in something serious.’

  ‘So you don’t think I’m serious?’

  ‘Of course you are. Listen, Yvette, I think you’re great.’

  ‘But you’re finishing with me.’

  ‘I told you, it’s not going anywhere, how can it?’

  ‘Well why didn’t you think of that before you fucked me?’

  For a moment he thinks about refilling his glass, for she has finally hit a nerve.

  Yes, he had been secretly looking at her, but it was actually Yvette who had asked him if he wanted to go out to the cinema, and a week or so later, when she had finally forgiven him for falling asleep, it was she who suggested that he visit her north London home. He could have said ‘no’ and not gone to the cinema with her, and he could have made up some plausible excuse and not visited her home. But he liked her and he wanted to sleep with her, and he was curious to know if she wanted to sleep with him, which it soon transpired she did. It was a bit much suggesting that he was the only one responsible. Rather than give voice to these thoughts, he deemed it best to leave while there was still some vestige of civility about their discussion. He pushed his glass away from himself, then slid from the barstool and started to edge his way towards the hallway.

  ‘Listen, it’s getting late so I’d better go.’

  Yvette shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘So that’s it then, you want to just end it like this?’

  He quickly licked his dry lips and then shrugg
ed his shoulders. This degree of indignation was not something that he had anticipated.

  ‘Listen, let’s just leave it. We can talk about it later, okay? I probably need to do some thinking.’

  Yvette held on to the counter top with both hands, and then she stepped down from the barstool and caterpillared her bare feet into her fluffy carpet slippers.

  ‘So what do you think’s going to happen now, Keith?’

  ‘Listen, Yvette, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well you had better go then, hadn’t you.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry about everything.’

  Yvette moved swiftly past him and into the hallway, where she yanked open the door.

  ‘Just fuck off, Keith. I don’t like being used. Colin tried and it didn’t work.’

  He could hear birds twittering in the small front garden, and then a sputtering car attempted to change gears as it passed by. He looked into Yvette’s fiery green eyes, but it clearly didn’t make any sense to linger.

  ‘I’m sorry, Yvette. Really.’

  He felt the rush of air behind him, and then he heard the crash of the door as it slammed shut. He stood still, shocked at the fury that he had unleashed. Carefully buttoning up his jacket against the early evening chill, he began to walk quickly back in the direction of the tube station.

  The music has stopped, so he feels in his pocket for more change and then stands and crosses towards the jukebox. He selects the same artists, but different tracks, beginning with Bob Marley’s ‘Exodus’. He sits back in his corner and nurses the third of a pint that he still has in his glass, having decided not to bother topping it up with another half. The music is good, but there’s no escaping the fact that the pub is dismal. His mind revisits the problems of work, and the policy report on trans-racial adoption that his department is supposed to produce by the end of the week, and he shakes his head. After many years working in the Race Equality unit, during which time he has contributed to drawers and cabinets crammed with spurious material associated with countless quickly forgotten initiatives, he has no appetite left for reading, let alone producing, these meaningless policy reports. Twenty-five years ago, when he was leaving Bristol University, he thought differently. The urban insurrections, or riots as the media liked to call them, which punctuated his days as a student, convinced him that staying on and doing graduate work would almost certainly prove to be a frustrating waste of time. He already understood that while he would be bashing the books in the university library, out there on the streets there were youths who looked just like him who were being brutalised and beaten by Maggie Thatcher’s police. His generation of kids, who were born in Britain and who had no memory of any kind of tropical life before England, were clearly trying hard to make a space for themselves in a not always welcoming country. Back then that’s how it seemed to him, and that’s how he tried to explain it to Annabelle’s father when he and his wife took the young couple to dinner at the Madras Bicycle Club shortly before they graduated.