‘A week later I find myself sitting in front of a man who is looking upon me with a strange smile on his face and his two feet propped up on a desk. Underneath one shoe is covered in mud, and the man is stroking his short beard with his right hand. Then the man stop doing so and drop both hands together in his lap and begin nodding as though answering a question, although as yet I don’t say a thing. The man is wearing a thick brown jacket and I’m studying the pieces of leather on the cuffs and elbows because I never look upon a jacket like this before. Then I find myself gawping at the shirt and tie and pullover, which bulk out the man’s small frame, for this is the first time in my life that I see anybody wearing so much clothes inside a building. Eventually the man stop dreaming and he reach into his breast pocket and pull out a pipe which he hold carefully in the cup of his palm. His fingers poke about in an envelope of tobacco and he begin to push a clump of weed into the bowl of the pipe before putting the thing in his mouth and lighting it. He haul up some smoke, then he take the pipe from his mouth and begin to use the thing to point. He ask me, “So to what exactly do I owe the pleasure of your visit? The department secretary said that you wanted to see a professor.” He smile. “Well, I’m afraid I’m not a professor, I’m merely a lecturer, but I hope I’ll do.” I thank the man and tell him I want to register at the college to take classes, but if this is not the right place then I can come back at a more convenient time and speak with a next person. I don’t tell him that the ignorant woman at the front desk ask me what I want, and when I say I want to study she look surprised and tell me that it is half-term but she will see what she can do. However, she tell me like she want me to know she doing me some kind of big favour. After a few minutes the woman come back and say, third door on the right, and that I am lucky because this morning Dr Davies is in the office and he have a few minutes to spare. I put down the magazine that I holding and thank the woman, but she don’t have no time for me. “Well go on,” she say, “he won’t bite.” Dr Davies swings down his feet from the desk and he lean forward and ask me if I have any idea of what subject it is that I wish to register for, but I tell him that I don’t know, and I looking good at this man because I not sure if he on my side or if the man just amusing himself. “I’m sorry,” he say, “I seem to have forgotten my manners. Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” I shake my head, but then I remember my own manners and say “no thank you,” but the man continue to stare at me. I tell him that I pass all my school exams, but not so high that I can take the scholarship, and then I confess that maybe I want to try for law. The man is listening with a kind of pretend smile on his face so I decide I better tell him everything. I tell him that I work at the factory with my good friend, Ralph, but I can work in the day and still plenty of time to study in the evening. I try to convince the man that I ready to take the college exams or whatever it is that you must do to gain entrance into the place. The man wait a second or two and then he ask me all calm and easy if I can truly work and study at the same time, and I tell the man the hours at the factory are eight to five but I don’t have to go to the pub after work with the other fellars because I prefer to study. Dr Davies look pleased, and then he tap his pipe on the desk and push in more tobacco and light it up again. He say that he hope I don’t mind that he is asking, but why it is that I think so many of us are coming over. “Opportunity or adventure, or a combination of both?” I look at Dr Davies and wonder if this is some kind of examination question. The man look kind enough, but a part of me is ready to get up and go and find Ralph. I watch him begin to smoke the pipe, and then the man tell me he favour Commonwealth migration, particularly as it seem as though we prepared to make a big sacrifice and abandon our lovely sunshine. He say he understand the situation because his sister is a nurse in Ceylon, and before this she is in Nigeria. “But look out of the window,” he say, “look at the blessed weather. Who would want to flee paradise for this, for heaven’s sake?” I know the man don’t really be talking to me so I just watch him and wait for him to turn back and look me in the face, which he eventually decide to do. Dr Davies ask me if I have any family in England, but before I can answer the man is talking to himself again. He rest down the pipe and sigh. “You’re all so bloody young. Remarkable really, but you’re all just kids when it comes down to it, just kids.”’
The new, younger, nurse gently touches his arm and he lifts up his head from the tabletop and slits his eyes against the bright light.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Gordon, but your father’s awake now and he’s asking after you.’
He looks around and realises that he is in the cafeteria. The television set is bracketed high in the far corner, where the walls meet the ceiling, and he can see that it is broadcasting the nine o’clock news with subtitles.
‘We’ve tried to bed him down for the night, but he keeps asking after you.’
He squints up at the woman, then shields his eyes with a raised hand and pushes back his chair. This one is prettier, and he likes her manner more than the other one. He remembers the first nurse ushering him away from his father’s bedside, insisting that the older man needed a wash and an afternoon rest, and pointing him in the direction of the cafeteria. Once there, he ordered fish and chips, with a portion of peas and bread and butter on the side, but as he took his place at the Formica-topped table he realised that he didn’t feel much like eating. He dialled Annabelle’s number, but the phone went straight to voicemail and so he quickly ended the call. He remembered that this morning he’d gone to the Mandela Centre for the application form, and deliberately tried to avoid Baron. He wondered if he should call Baron and let him know how his father was doing. He could even nip round to see him and have something to eat with his father’s friend at the pub, instead of consuming the rubbish that he had just bought, but he assumed that Baron would only expect to hear from him if his father’s condition took a turn for the worse. Baron was probably giving father and son some time together. He recalled staring down at the fish and chips and pushing the meal away from himself to the far side of the table. He let his head fall forward into the cushioned pillow of his folded arms and closed his eyes. And now the young nurse is standing over him and waiting patiently for him to follow her back to his father’s bedside.
His father watches him take a seat on the metal chair and then he slowly twists his body to one side and places the brown envelope back on the bedside table. The older man grimaces with the effort, and the new nurse gently massages the underside of his arm where the intravenous drip is needled into a thin vein. Having done so, the nurse stands with her arms crossed before her and watches carefully before speaking to the son in a half-whisper.
‘I’ll be going off duty at midnight, but I’ll stop by from time to time before then. It’ll be all right for you to stay so long as you’re both quiet. But don’t overdo it. He’s weaker than he thinks.’
He nods appreciatively, but it is only after she has turned and started to walk away that he realises he still hasn’t raised the subject of his father’s eyesight.
‘Why is the girl whispering?’
‘It’s getting late and people are sleeping. She’s just trying to be respectful of others.’
‘You want to sleep?’ His father looks hurt. ‘You want to sleep, then sleep. I don’t be stopping you sleeping.’
‘I’m not tired. I was listening to you.’
‘Well, I was telling you about meeting this man, Dr Davies. You remember?’
‘I remember. The college lecturer.’
‘Well nearly a month pass by since I have the meeting with this Dr Davies, and one night I find myself sitting with the fellars in the pub when suddenly Baron fold up his newspaper with a big performance and he stand and push the thing into his coat pocket. He announce that he gone for the night. My eyes follow him across to the door and I watch as he leave the pub. This is the third time this week that Baron get up from the table for he can’t listen any more to Ralph shooting off his mouth about what he will do to th
e next teenager who try to push him off the pavement. Ralph return from the bar with three pints of bitter balance in his two hands and set them on the table before he drop back down into his seat. My friend continue to talk as though he don’t notice Baron gone. As Ralph lift the new pint to his mouth, I can see the bruise on the side of his face where the English boy punch him in the head. “You know,” he say, “they still have pubs in this town that don’t let us in at all. We barred, and like I tell you, don’t bother going to any dance club without a girl, coloured or white. They don’t care what kind of girl you bring, but what they don’t want is no single coloured man prowling around the place sniffing up the women. They believe all this inter-racial business begin in the dance hall, but what they can’t deal with is when the English girls begin sniffing back and that’s when you hear them start talking about not wanting a country full of half-castes. They think all of us is ponces looking to prey on a piece of white thing that we give a drink to, or a bit of dope, then we breed them and put them out on the street. Well, you know that’s what they saying, don’t you?” I’m listening to Ralph, but I hear the speech already because every night since Ralph start seeing an English girl who work on the buses, my friend getting drunk and loud and saying the same thing over and over. Tonight, as he walking the girl back to her place from the bus depot, the girl’s brother ambush him and Ralph beat the boy and take a knife from him and pitch it down a drain, but not before the boy thump him hard. The girl decide to stay with the brother, who shouting that he going get Ralph and calling him a coon and a sambo and other things that Ralph say he can’t understand because the accent is too thick, and Ralph seem upset that the girl would want to stay with the brother even though I tell him that blood is thicker than water and he should realise the brother don’t mean nothing and the boy is just trying to save face. Every night since Ralph get sweet on Doreen from the bus depot my friend drinking too much. Ralph say the brother have big sideburns like he think he a man, and he wear stupid thick, thick shoes, but Ralph claim that he show him who is the man and he is sure the boy not coming back for a next beating. Ralph empty his pint in one and my friend move to get up from the seat but he fall back. “Jesus Christ, man, you know these people want a colour bar here so why they don’t just get on with it and make it legal. But where does that leave the Cypriots, you tell me? They let them run a café here and there and everywhere, but are the Cyps coloured people? They look coloured to me, don’t you think?” I watch Ralph lift up his paper mat out of a puddle of beer, and then he put down his empty glass on it. “They seriously think they can lynch me? They think they can do me like Little Rock? Don’t make me laugh. I know them, smiling at us at work and then ignoring us when they see us in the street. Man, I know them, I know them good, and if I can’t walk home a decent girl like Doreen in peace and quiet then what the hell is going on, you tell me that? Man, this place is a joke.”
‘By the time the summer reach, and the nights are warm and long, Ralph start to carry on bad and he encouraging me to do the same. I press up even harder against the girl, like I trying to drive her into the tree, and as I do so she reach down and open up her coat a little wider, and then her legs, and then the girl begin to liven up her cold performance and start to maul me like she must think I’m her pet monkey. She whisper crude things into my ear but I know she just want me to finish quickly so she can be on her way. Eventually I peel away from the girl who quickly close up her coat and ask me if everything is all right, but a part of me want to laugh because how can everything be all right if I leaning up against a tree in a park with a young girl to whom I just pay cash money in exchange for a few minutes with her body? Everything is not all right and, although this is the third time that Ralph sweet-talk me into coming to the park with him and looking for skirt, I already know that I won’t be troubling with this type of business no more for it’s no good for a man like me. I going have to reason with Ralph about this woman-against-the-tree caper, and about the fact that I paying half the man’s rent to sleep on a mattress on the floor, yet every Tuesday and Friday, when Mrs Jones’s husband on night duty, he put me out in the hall with a blanket and Mrs Jones pay him a visit and collect what Ralph like to call the “extra rent money”. I starting to feel that if I going do any serious studying then I must find a place by myself, and maybe it’s time to give Ralph back his privacy, so I start asking around to see if anybody know of a room that I can rent. It seem like everybody in the factory, and everybody in the pub, saying the same thing about how is only prejudiced landlords in England, and these same landlords who insist on “European Only” keeping back the coloured man from progress because without a decent place to live then we can’t bring over our wives or girlfriends and start to live properly. Every coloured man in England is waiting on decent housing to open up, and in the meantime every coloured man not only putting up with prejudice at work, but when he try to find some place to rest at the end of the day he meet more big problems there. The girl finish buttoning up her coat, and I watch as she unwrap a piece of gum from its foil paper and then fold it into her mouth as she speak. “What about the money? You haven’t paid me yet.” She push a finger into my chest. “You lot have to pay a coloured tax, didn’t anybody tell you that?” The girl must think I straight off the boat, so I remind her that I already paid the damn money and she should just fix up herself and move on. When I turn to leave the blasted girl grab hold of my arm and start talking about how she have three kiddies and no money, and then she bite down on she bottom lip and her eyes begin to water, and I thinking about maybe giving the girl another shilling but I’m wanting to ask Ralph first in case it mess up things for the other fellars. That’s when I hear Ralph’s voice, and I turn and see him pelting toward me, and three white boys chasing after him, and so I turn and start to run. After a minute or so I look back and see that Ralph decide to swerve off to the right and my friend running down the hill toward the main road and the three boys following him and nobody following me, but I still run until I reach the small stone wall that surround the park, and I jump the thing and I pleased like hell to see plenty of traffic and people everywhere. I stop to catch my breath and then turn up the collar on my jacket and I start to walk fast, but I taking care to keep my head down. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I too frightened to stop and ask any question and so I just keep walking. Eventually I see a bench near a bus stop and I take a rest for a minute and then realise that I’m looking upon a canal. I like the quiet water, but the noise of the traffic troubling my head, especially when a bus pull up at the stop. For maybe an hour I just sit and stare at the water, and wonder if once I figure out where I am if I should go seek out Ralph at the pub, or maybe he gone back to Mrs Jones’s house, but I know for sure that my friend bound to be at one of these two places and I want to make sure that everything all right with him because the three white boys running seriously hard after Ralph.
‘It’s late by the time I decide to abandon the bench by the bus stop and go and search out Ralph, but when I finally reach the Red Lion all I see is Baron by himself in the corner with a copy of the Racing Post and a stub of pencil behind one ear. He tell me that he don’t know where Ralph is, and as usual the man don’t have much time for conversation so I decide no point in staying for a drink and I move off. At this time nothing really worry me because I expect to find Ralph back in his room and lying on the bed with a bottle to his mouth ready to tell me everything with plenty of exaggeration. However, as I walk toward the front door of Mrs Jones’s house I hear groaning coming from the bushes and so I step off the path and discover Ralph, whose face is covered in blood and the man’s mouth moving but no words coming out. I pound on the door and Mrs Jones open up and ask me if I lose my key, but I point at Ralph and the woman look frighten and she say that she will ask Mr Jones to call for an ambulance. I ease past Mrs Jones and into the house and fill a cup with water which I bring back for Ralph. I prop up my friend’s head and start to feed him some water from the cup,
but his lips can’t form a funnel and everything dripping down the man’s cheek and all the time I speaking to him, take it easy Ralph, take it easy man, you know everything going be just fine, just take it easy. Maybe fifteen minutes later, I watching the ambulance man rub some ointment into the head wound, but the blood continue to flow so the man quickly put on a fresh piece of bandage. As he does so he lose his balance because the ambulance take a hard right and the tyres squeal before we straighten out again. I hold on to Ralph’s hand, but I can’t bring myself to look again into the man’s face because I know the nose is broken and squashed flat and cotton wool is pushed up into each nostril. One eye closed up tight, and the other only half open, and Ralph’s lips big like two red balloons. The ambulance man try to move one of my friend’s twisted legs, but Ralph cry out in pain and so the man stop what he is doing and ask me again if I am with Ralph when the attack happen, and if I see the men who beat him, but again I tell him I just see three boys chasing Ralph out the park, and I’m running the other way, and that is all. After the ambulance arrive at the hospital, I wait for the night nurse to pass back into the empty visitors’ room, and when she does so I climb to my feet and ask the woman if she have any news, but the woman say the doctor will come and talk with me but in the meantime I must sit back on the hard wooden chair and wait. I ask if she have change for a shilling as I need to make a phone call, but the night nurse shake her head then take out a threepence from her purse which she give to me and ask if I know where the phonebox is. The first week I arrive in England, Ralph hand me a piece of paper with the number of his sister in Manchester saying if anything happen to him then I should let her know. I can’t imagine anything going happen, but for some reason I keep the number safe and sound in my wallet where I can find it. Shirley know who I am, but she talking down the phone like she don’t trust me, but then I realise that I must have woken her up and so she bound to be a little suspicious. I tell her what happen and I can hear the worry in the woman’s voice. Shirley say she will make the arrangements to come over tomorrow at the end of work, and I tell her that if I can meet her at the station I will do so, but in the evening I have to go to college. I say this hoping to impress the woman, but all she say back to me is “thank you” and that she will see me at the hospital and then she hang up and the woman leave me feeling foolish with the receiver in my hand. I fold up the piece of paper with Shirley’s number and push it back in my wallet, and I go back to the empty visitors’ room where the clock on the wall telling me that it is past one in the morning. Again I take up a seat, and the double doors swing open with plenty urgency and the doctor come forth with some papers in one hand and the other hand pushed down in the pocket of his white coat. The man move quickly toward me as though he is going to arrest me. He ask me what happen to my friend, but I tell him that I don’t know because I’m not there, and he say he must file a report with the police because it’s the law in England and so I say fine. I still waiting for him to say something about how Ralph is doing, but the man just look at me and slowly shake his head which make me anxious, but if the man don’t want to talk then the man don’t have to talk, and I can’t force him to say whatever it is that is on his mind.
In the Falling Snow Page 29