In the Falling Snow (32 page)

hell
to work up some feeling for the man, but my father never recover from Desmond leaving, and he never care much for either me or Leona, and I steal a quick glance at my sister who is dealing with her two children and she too look like she is don’t have no feelings for the proceedings. It seem like the man going into the ground cold and without a tear shed, but I don’t feel it’s my place to pretend and so I just focus on some goats standing nearby who cropping the short grass and keeping the cemetery all shipshape and tidy. Later that same afternoon I sit on the hardback chair in my father’s bedroom and watch Leona open every cupboard and every drawer, but my sister don’t search through anything she just open and open as though she making ready to unpack the man’s life but she don’t know where to begin. Leona pick up his Sunday suit and she hook the hanger over the back of the bedroom door. My sister look closely at the man’s only suit before unhooking it and hanging it back where she find it. “You want anything of his?” I just shrug and tell her, “Take whatever you want for your husband, or give it away to the church. I don’t need anything.” On the bedside table is a bible, and sticking out from the side of the book is the card that I know Desmond send from America. I thinking to myself, so this is where my father keep the thing. On the front of the card is a picture of some trees and a town square with a big clock, but when you turn over the card only a few scratchy words written there. My brother telling his father to let everybody know that he is “just fine”. Nothing about when he might come back, and nothing about how we doing, just he is “fine” and a signature that make it clear that the card is from Desmond. Leona take a seat on the edge of the bed and she ask me what it is that I going do now, meaning now that the man is dead and I don’t have no reason to play nurse any more. “You planning on staying here and growing old in this house?” I look round and realise
that
the house have nothing for me except bad memories. “Look,” say Leona, “why you don’t take yourself and your books to England. I can sell the house and send you the money to pay back the price of the boat ticket. No point you staying here and feeling miserable. Me, I can’t go no place with two children because England is for people without no obligations, but if you stay here then you just going get catch by Myrna or some other woman and then what will become of you? Think about yourself, Earl. Think about what you can do that will improve your situation.” I looking at Leona, whose eyes make it seem like she upset with me or something. She stand and turn away and slam a drawer shut with a big noise. “Earl, you’re the only brother I have left so this not easy for me, but nothing is here for you. You want to live your life just dreaming and growing old in this two-room house and eventually dying on the same bed that take both our parents?” Outside I can hear the village children squeezing the last drop of playtime out the day, but I know the light is gone and the children just chasing shadows. I also know my sister is right. I want to say “thank you” or something, but instead I look through the open window and watch a chicken backscratching in the dirt beneath the guava tree. The fowl is throwing up a cloud of dust, and then something frighten the bird and it shriek and open its wings and disappear from view. I decide that the next day I going come home from the sugar factory and call on Leona and we can talk properly. Maybe tomorrow brother and sister find it easier to look each other in the eye, but not today, for today things is difficult because we are the two who been left behind. We sit next to each other on the bed and listen to the stubborn children playing outside in the dark, but neither one of us say another word.’

He pushes the key into the lock but he cannot open the door. After trying a second time to twist the key in both directions,
he
puts down his bag then slips a hand into the letterbox. He takes a grip which enables him to pull the door towards himself and turn the key at the same time. The key swivels and he shoves open the door and steps inside. The unpleasant smell of mouldy food wafts through the darkness and his hand scrambles up and down the wall until he finds the light switch. He retrieves his bag from the doorstep and closes the door behind him with a resounding clatter. He coughs then cups his hand to his mouth and nose, before moving into the kitchen where he sees that Baron has neither cleared the pots and pans from off the top of the cooker, nor has he done the washing up. However, he can’t blame him for he must have been in a rush to get his father to the hospital. He looks at the mess, but in spite of his own fatigue he knows that he won’t be able to relax until he has cleaned up. When the nurse had suggested to him that he leave now so that his father could rest, he hesitated and thought about insisting that he be allowed to remain seated in case the patient woke up and wanted to keep talking, but he realised that the stern-faced woman would have none of it. ‘Will you be wanting me to tell you a second time?’ He continued to look at the slumbering man, whose pursed lips suggested a quiet determination, but he realised that, in fact, he was the one who needed to rest. He stood up from the metal chair and stretched. The neon green parabola continued to blip away reassuringly on the small screen to the side of his father’s bed, and he wanted to ask the nurse if his father was ‘stable’, whatever that meant. ‘If you take my advice you’ll be away to get some sleep. No point in the two of you being sick.’ The nurse was now leaning over her patient and busily applying extra tape to the needle that was attached to his father’s arm. He looked at her and decided that it was best not to argue with, or even question, the woman. Everything could wait until tomorrow.

He slides the cardboard box of photographs to one side and clears a space on the table so that he is able to put down the mug of tea. He has not only washed up, he has dried and put away all the crockery and utensils and carefully wiped down the counter tops. However, he will have to drink his tea black, for the milk in the open carton that he found sitting next to the kettle is curdled. Baron must have forgotten to put it back in the fridge. He can see that there are still some photographs in the cardboard box, but the majority of the black and white prints are scattered on the tabletop like jettisoned invitation cards to the past. His father must have taken the box from his son’s room and started to look through them, and maybe Baron was helping him to remember faces and names, but clearly there was no time to complete the task or tidy up after themselves. He wants to call Annabelle, but he is reluctant to say anything further to her about his father’s condition; he just wants to hear the reassuring sound of her voice. However, his reticence will be transparent and she will know that something is amiss, and so he decides to forget this idea. Through the uncurtained window he can see a cluster of stars in the sky and he contemplates stepping outside and staring up at the heavens. But what’s the point? It’s cold outside and he’s seen stars before. He slips his mobile out of his pocket and thinks about texting Laurie. ‘Are you okay?’ Or is that ‘R U OK?’? There’s no way he’s going to start bashing the English language in this way. And what if Laurie texts him back? What’s his excuse for not breaking off from texting and giving him a call? He can’t think of anything that he wants to say to his son so he decides that it’s best not to text. Or call Annabelle. Or do anything, including standing outside in the dark and staring up at the sky. It’s not going to happen, is it? The moment when his father’s anger turns to tenderness and a touching acceptance of his situation. He’s wasting his time hoping that the man’s face might
be
transfixed by the gentlest hint of a reconciliatory smile. After all these years, why now? He looks again at the sea of photographs and then picks up his mug of tea. Just what, if any, connection do these people have to his own life, let alone that of Annabelle and Laurie? His father’s silence has meant that his son has never been able to properly explain himself to anybody. For a moment he is tempted to gather up the photographs and toss them all into the box and then push the cardboard receptacle into a cupboard and out of sight, but unlike the pots and dishes these photographs have considerable weight. He can’t bring himself to pick them up, or even touch them. Not now, not at this moment. He will just have to be careful as to where exactly he places his mug of tea when he sets it back down on the table.

His father is cautiously spooning a breakfast of stewed prunes into his mouth, but his shaking hand means that the spoon hovers for two or three beats before he quickly dips his head towards the implement. He sits opposite his father with a carefully folded napkin in his hand ready to offer it to the older man should he need to mop up any spillage, but his father appears to be well-practised. This morning he left his father’s house and walked to the Mandela Centre, where he asked the caregiver on duty if she would give him an application form in order that a family member might apply for a flatlet. The woman took her time rifling through various filing cabinets, and having found the form she made a performance of folding it in half and inserting the form into an official-looking brown envelope. He silently urged her to hurry up, for the last thing he needed was for Baron to wander downstairs and discover his presence and start to ask him about his father. A quick in and out was all he wanted, and when the caregiver finally handed over the envelope he was already on his feet and pointedly glancing at his watch. ‘Thanks,’ he said. The woman
asked
him if there was anything else she could do, or maybe he would like a tour of the facility but, looking again at his watch, he politely declined her offer and moved quickly out of her carpeted office and into the hallway. His eyes fell upon the bamboo-framed poster which read, ‘Have a Positive Encounter With Yourself’. The eager woman followed him out of her office and for a moment he was tempted to say something to her about the crassness of the slogan, but he could see the enthusiastic gleam in her eye and so he smiled and once again thanked her for the form before hurrying his way out of the centre.

He takes the empty bowl from his father and sets it on the bedside table, and then he rearranges the pillows behind his father’s back so the patient is once again propped fully upright. As he moves to sit back on the metal chair he takes the brown envelope from his inside pocket.

‘I’m going to leave this envelope for you on the table. You can take a look at it later.’

‘Later when? You going abandon me like last night?’

‘You were asleep.’

‘I sure these people giving me something to make me sleep like a donkey. It ain’t normal.’

‘Anyhow, I’ve left it there for when you’re ready.’

‘There where?’

He had a sneaking suspicion that his father’s vision was impaired for, unless something was right in front of him, his father appeared to be having difficulty seeing objects. And now he is convinced. The envelope is just to his left, but clearly his father can no longer see anything out of his left eye. When his father next falls asleep he will have to find the nurse, or a doctor, and question them about it.

‘It’s there. On the table.’

‘What do I want with a blasted envelope? Last night I was
talking
to you, remember? One minute saying something to you, and the next minute you gone. You don’t want to hear what I have to say?’

‘Of course, I do.’

‘Well then listen to me instead of this damn envelope business. After I arrive in England, and the taxi drop me off at King’s Cross station, I make my way into the place and ask a white man in uniform where I can find the proper train to take me to the north of the country. He point me toward a platform, then laugh and tell me I must first buy a ticket. I thank the man, and touch the brim of my straw hat, but the man continue to laugh, but for the life of me I can’t see what the joke is. I want to ask the jackass, “Mister, what exactly it is that is amusing you?” but I just turn my head and walk off because I don’t want to put a foot wrong. Eventually I get on to the right train and pass into a small compartment full of English people who don’t pay me no mind. As the train leave London and begin to journey out into the countryside, I decide to keep my nose pressed up tight against the glass and look at the small fields, but I can’t see no pasture, just everything organised and sliced up small and neat. One other West Indian man is in the compartment with me, crouching down beneath his sharp hat and pretending to read the English newspaper and fit in with everybody, but he don’t fool me because I can see the man’s reflection in the window and he falling asleep. I have to look twice at him, because to begin with I think the man favour Leona’s husband and I wonder if maybe the fellar is family to the Williamses, but I sure somebody would have tell me if Leona have people in England so I just study the resemblance and let it go at that. The English people in the carriage all reading their newspapers for true, and smoking, and it seem to me that they trying hard to ignore the pair of us, although an English man in a grey suit sitting opposite
keep
raising up his eyes to look across but I just stare out of the window and make sure that my feet don’t touch up against his own in the little space that we have to share. Sometimes the train leave the countryside and pass into a town where I can see the buildings all close together, and everywhere chimneys pointing toward the sky with smoke coming out so at first I thinking they must be factories but it don’t make no sense because I sure they don’t boil so much sugar in England. However, I soon realise that these places is houses where English people live, and even from the train I see that the English like to walk fast and these people don’t trouble to look up at each other and smile or something like that, and the man must have been watching me all this time because without any warning he fold up his newspaper with a big noise and lean forward and offer me a cigarette in a way that make it clear that he is hoping to take part in some kind of conversation. I accept the man’s cigarette and I watch him take hold of his umbrella, which is balanced upright between his knees, and the man stand up and place it on the overhead rack before opening up his briefcase and he reach in and pull out a package. The man close up the briefcase and place it on the seat, then he hold open the compartment door and I realise that it is expected of me to pass out into the corridor with him to smoke the cigarette. I stand and edge my way past the other passengers and the man follow me and slide the door closed after himself. At first the man don’t say a thing, and he don’t even light my cigarette, he just open up the package of greaseproof paper and offer me a sandwich. “Tuna paste” is all the man say, so I take one because I know that it is rude not to do so, and I bite into it and the man does the same with his own sandwich. “Somewhat crowded in there,” he say. “Just arrived, have you?” I nod at him, but my mouth is too full to answer so the man just continue. “Student?” This time I shake my head and wait a
moment
before telling him that I will be looking a job. “I have a friend who say he is going to help me.” The man seem to approve and he nod his head. “Well, the weather’s not too good at the moment, but if you can cope with this then I imagine you can do well here.” The man finish off his sandwich and then he light his cigarette before lighting my own. I try to look cool, and I take a long hard pull, like in the cinema, but my head start to feel strange and I explode in a fit of coughing that only manage to embarrass the hell out of me. “You can throw it out if it’s not to your liking. I won’t be offended.” The man hold open a small window at the top of the glass and I quickly drop the cigarette down on to the track. “I’m sorry, but I’m just not used to the English cigarette.” The man don’t give me any time to say anything else and he start to pat me on the back. “Are you, in fact, used to any cigarette? You see, in this country you don’t have to pretend. Just be yourself and I’m sure you’ll do very well here. Can I get you some water?” I look closely at the man and I shake my head, but he just smile at me. “Do you have a wife or a girlfriend?” Again I shake my head. “I imagine you’ll be quite popular with some of our girls, but a word of advice. Don’t be getting too saucy. Some of you boys do take liberties and it does stir up bad feelings. I mean, there’s no reason for you to be giving white girls babies, is there? Or tapping them on the shoulder at ‘Excuse me’ dances. I fought for two years in the jungles of Malaya alongside you chaps. If you’re good enough to fight and die with us then you’re good enough to live on my street. Same with the Jews and the Irish. Everybody’s the same in my book. Come along, there’s a good chap. Let’s get back inside and out of this nasty draught.” Once we pass back into the compartment I close my eyes and try to sleep, but the noise of the engine, and my worries about whether I going find Ralph, mean that my mind can’t turn off. The train arrives with a big carnival of shouting
and
whistling and I open my eyes and blink against the bright light. The man opposite me is standing and holding his briefcase in one hand, and his rolled-up umbrella is tucked underneath his arm, and the man reach out with his free hand. “Take this loose change, please. If you have any difficulty using the telephone system then you can always request that the charges be reversed and that way you won’t have to pay. However, if you remember my instructions then you should be fine. I do hope that you locate your friend.” I take the man’s change for this is the quickest way to get rid of him, and I watch the man disappear into the corridor. I wait and let the others go before me, including the West Indian fellar who decide to keep quiet throughout the whole journey, and I am the last to leave the compartment. When I find a telephone box I follow the man’s instructions and dial the number slowly and I’m waiting. I hear an English woman ask me, “Hello, can I help you?” and I panic because I’m expecting to hear Ralph’s voice and I sure that I must have call the wrong number. “Excuse me please, but I’m looking for Mr Ralph Henry.” There is a brief pause and then I hear the woman make a big sigh as though she annoyed. “Who is it that I should say is looking for him?” I tell the woman to let him know that it’s Earl, and that I just arrive, but having discover who I am the woman decide to tell me that Ralph is not “at home” but I can find him at the Red Lion pub, but of course I don’t know where to find this pub. She ask me, “Are you at the train station?” However, before I can answer the woman say that I should take a taxi and tell the driver that I need to go Randolph Lane and he will know exactly where to carry me. “If Ralph’s not there then you can call me back, but you’ll find him at the pub, I’m sure of it.” I watch the taxi driver hard, trying to make sure the man is driving in just one direction and not seeking to rob me by making circles. However, outside is dark, and I don’t
know
these streets, and so I have to trust him. Eventually he turn into a narrow road that have more of these joined-up houses crammed together on both sides of the street, and then it start to rain and the man switch on the window wipers and I see him look at me through the rear-view mirror. “It’s just up here on the right, mate.” Having parked the car, the man turn round in his seat and he look at me. “Let’s call it two bob.” I hand the man half a crown and wait for my change. “Are you not planning on getting out? You can make it in there without getting wet.” I smile at the taxi driver and continue to hold out my hand, but the man just stare back at me. “Listen, sunshine, you getting out or what? I have got other jobs, you know.” The first thing I notice when I open the door to the pub is the noise. It hit me and nearly knock me down, and then there is the smoke, which is so thick I can barely see a damn thing. Once I step inside I happy to see plenty of coloured men in the pub so I don’t feel so out of place, and then it occur to me that maybe this is where all the West Indians in the town come, so if you want to meet somebody then you have to find yourself here. That’s when I see Ralph in the far corner sitting with a heavy man who looking closely at a newspaper and making some markings upon it with a pencil. As I walk closer to Ralph, I can see my friend is tired and that he don’t shave for days, but the bright eyes are the same. He look up at me and smile. “Well, what the hell is this coming in from the cold?” Ralph don’t bother to stand, he just pat the seat next to him to let me know that I must sit down. “I have no idea what time to expect you or I would have come to the station myself, but I take it you speak with Mrs Jones?” Ralph don’t wait for no answer. He point to the man on the other side of him who still have his head buried in the newspaper. “This is Baron from Jamaica. He been in England since forever. Maybe longer than this.” So here we are on a Friday night just drinking some
bitters
and chatting about home, and Baron following the form of the horses because the man look like he prefer horses to people. I’m listening to Ralph but I not really hearing the man’s words because I still trying to work out how this tall shabby-looking man is the same man that only a couple of months earlier stagger out of the Harbour Lights bar to take the boat to England. “Man, I’m seeing you good now,” say Ralph. “Since when was the last time you get any sleep? It look like you can barely keep your eyes open. Your body don’t know what time of day it is, right?” Ralph laugh loud and hard, and then he stand and pull a ten shilling note from his trouser pocket and tell me that he is going to fetch me a next drink at the bar and I should just wait. “Baron can keep you out of trouble till I get back.” However, Baron seem occupied with his newspaper business and he don’t look as though he have much to say to anybody, especially to a man fresh off the boat. I’m sure that this Baron don’t want to hear about my father’s funeral, or how my sister move herself and the two children into my father’s house before I even leave the island, or how Sonia create a stink and tell everyone that Ralph abandon her for a woman in England, or any of the things that I trying to remember that I must tell my friend. Later that night I follow Ralph up a dark staircase, but I stay three or four steps behind him because Ralph already slip twice and I frighten that he going tumble backward and come crashing down on me. At the top of the house we reach a door, but Ralph have trouble getting the key into the lock and my friend begin to curse under his breath. Ralph eventually manage to push open the door, and I follow him into the attic room and wait while he scratch round for the light switch. Having turn on the bulb the man fall down on a single bed and point to a mattress in the corner and tell me I must sleep there and be grateful I have a roof in England because finding a place to sleep at night is the biggest problem that
everybody
have. I look around and I see dirty clothes drape everywhere, and unwashed cups and plates on the floor, and an empty bedpan in the middle of the room, and I surprised to find my friend living like this. I watch as he haul himself upright on the bed and pull out a pack of cigarettes and light one, and then Ralph blow out a big cloud of smoke. I ease out of my shoes and line them up, then I lean back on the mattress and look up at the ceiling because I can feel sleep rushing into my body. I hear Ralph start to laugh. “You know I was hoping that you coming to England would make home feel closer, but the truth is you here now and it seem like you making home feel even further away. Sometimes I can be walking down the street, or riding a bus, and suddenly I see somebody who remind me of somebody I know back home, and I close my eyes and find myself thinking of the sea, or the taste of grafted mango, or the smell of saltfish frying, and then I come back to myself and open my eyes and realise where I am. Lord man, I’m in a place where people give me a form to fill out and then ask me if I can read, and on the bus they prefer to stand rather than sit down next to me. I travel all this way for what? To see England with her pants down and her backside hanging out? But nobody tell me that I must leave for England and cut up my life like this. I swear, five years and then I going back to open up a garage, you believe me?” I don’t say anything, but Ralph not studying me anyhow. “Man, England is good, but you soon going to find out that England ain’t easy. Sometimes I just can’t believe that people back home selling tools, and furniture, and borrowing money, and putting themselves in big debt, and all for this, to come to a place where people eat on the street out of a piece of newspaper full of chips and vinegar. People mashing up their lives for this? A West Indian can’t afford to be sensitive and decent in a country like this. Let me tell you, man some of them like to mess
with
you, asking you for a cigarette then reaching for the whole pack, and if you refuse they crowd you and start to kick you, but I don’t play that game. Next time a white man want to mess with me he better be ready, you hear? He can call me “nigger” and “spade” and box me one time, but just one time, because if he come again he better be ready for the next time I going have something for him.” I watch Ralph turn to one side and reach for a bottle from beneath the bed and tip it up to his mouth and drain it. Two minutes later he is slumped over the bed and he don’t say goodnight or anything and he just start to snore. Then I hear a knocking at the door, then a silence, then more knocking and a woman’s voice call out “Ralph, Ralph!” I recognise the voice as the same woman who speak to me on the telephone, but I just keep quiet because I not sure what kind of trouble is going on and eventually I hear the firing of the floorboards as the woman move away from the door. So this is my first night in England, and I cold as hell and I don’t know where I am, and I want to use the toilet but I don’t know where to find it, and I sure I not going to get any sleep with Ralph making so much noise with the damn snoring. Things don’t look so good, but I trying to put a confident face on everything or else what is the point of coming all this way? That is what I telling myself, that I have to simmer down and believe that everything is going work out to my satisfaction and I have to be positive about things, otherwise what is the point?