Caryl Phillips - In the Falling Snow

The rain had stopped at some point, but the streets remained damp and strewn with puddles into which drivers seemed to be deliberately steering. She held her face close to the window, and whenever they passed beneath a lamppost he was able to catch a fleeting glimpse of her pensive reflection.

‘Near the BBC, you said, mate?’

The minicab driver had a heavy West African accent and he was wearing a lime green dashiki, which made his attempt to speak cockney come across as vaguely absurd.

‘You’ll be wanting this side of the Westway, or just over the other side?’

‘Just before, please.’

The African driver nodded to let him know that he had heard, and then he signalled and took the last left before the motorway. Danuta turned from the window and pointed through the front windscreen.

‘The building there.’

The driver ducked into a space by the night-watchman’s hut, but the man kept the engine running and his eyes focused straight ahead.

‘Perhaps I could see you tomorrow? I’m not working this week.’

She smiled, and then gathered up her rucksack and opened the door in one smooth continuous movement.

‘Thank you for my dry clothes.’

She slipped out of the car and slammed the door behind her. The minicab then began to move off in the direction of the West London Boys’ Club by Wormwood Scrubs, one of the community centres that fell under his jurisdiction. As they passed under the Westway he asked the driver to stop.

‘You have changed your mind?’

He reached in his pocket for his wallet and took out a £10 note which he handed to the driver.

‘I’ll get out here.’

‘Sir, I must charge you the full ten pounds, even though you have not completed your journey.’

‘It’s all right. It’s cool.’

He could see the driver staring into the rear-view mirror and looking closely at him as he slipped his wallet back into his pocket.

‘Cheers, my friend,’ said the driver. ‘Please take care of yourself.’

He momentarily met the driver’s eyes, and then he stepped out of the minicab and slammed the door shut.

Rolf reappears in the window, and this time he finds himself inching forward, out of the shadow of the oak tree, and he looks up. The blond boy scans the distance and raises a hand to his face as though attempting to see more clearly. He continues to look up at Rolf, and then he hears a man’s barking voice.

‘I said, what are you doing here?’

The night-watchman has left his hut and is slowly waddling towards him with his newspaper dangling from one hand.

‘You, over there. Are you deaf?’

Between Rolf in the window, and this man walking towards him, he has no choice now so he turns and begins to run in the direction of the main road. He hears the night-watchman shout something further, but he cannot make out the man’s words. As long as a dog does not come chasing after him he will be fine. He has done nothing wrong. He has broken no rules.

He is fully awake before he opens his eyes. He likes it this way, lying perfectly still in the dark and choosing not to move, and then he remembers. He feels nauseous, and he wants the bed to swallow him whole so that he can disappear and then, after a decent lapse of time, he can reappear and pretend that none of this has happened. He is wrong, he knows this. Wrong to have passed her the note, wrong to have waited for her at the language school, wrong to have invited her back to his place. He opens his eyes and looks around his cramped bedroom. Last night he ran all the way back to the flat and then closed the door behind himself and double-locked it. He slumped down on to the sofa and kicked off first one shoe and then the other before letting his head tumble forward into his upturned palms; shit, shit, shit. Really, what the hell was he thinking of spying on her like that? The curtains are still closed, but he can see that it is light outside. A few birds are singing, and in the distance he can hear traffic humming by on the main road. If it comes to it, he can always deny that he was anywhere near the office building last night. Who is going to be able to prove anything? He sits upright and quickly rubs his eyes. The boy, Rolf, he is probably better suited to her. They no doubt have plenty in common, being strangers in a strange country who are both studying the language and learning to clean up after the natives. The pair of them can laugh about the English and their strange bathrooms, with one tap for hot water, and a completely separate tap for cold water. Clearly this makes no sense, for one can never get warm water unless a decision is made to insert the nasty rubber plug into the bowl. It is all so unhygienic, but this is England. This is what he imagines the young couple thinks of his country, and so let them talk about this together. Perhaps Danuta will grow to love this Rolf and choose not to return to Poland? Perhaps she will go to Latvia? Or perhaps Danuta will stay in dirty England? But not with him, for he knows that his unbecoming obsession is over. This morning marks the beginning of a new resolution, for he must now begin to act his age and stop associating with young girls who one moment appear to be malleable and the next flare with anger.

For two days he secludes himself in the Wilton Road flat and he works eight hours a day on the book. He writes in two-hour shifts, setting the alarm on his mobile so that he knows when his shift is over and he can get up from the computer screen. He chooses coffee over tea, and when his concentration begins to waver he does not distract himself with quick snacks of cheese and crackers, or a microwaved bowl of soup. He walks to the window, and then stretches out his hamstrings by bending forward and lowering his head on to the windowsill. He holds this pose for two minutes, or until he feels dizzy, then he walks purposefully back to his desk. By the end of the second day he has begun to put some substance into the heart of the book, but he is now worried that changing the title of the opening section from ‘Motown and the Suburbs’ to ‘Dancing in the Streets’ might be too cute; after all, how many readers will remember Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and recognise the oblique reference to her hit song of the same name? For the moment, he chooses to stay with the original title, for he is determined to steer clear of those annoying self-referential headings that usually burden the academic articles that he has xeroxed and saved over the years. They tend to involve either a colon or parentheses, as though the writer is trying to signal his or her cleverness before the piece has even begun. ‘Re-Recording Pain: Black and Blue and Makes Me Wanna Holler.’ Or, ‘Distant Lover(s): Masculinity, Evasion and the African-American Voice’. Midway through the third day he realises that he is about to run out of food and he will therefore have to venture outside, but this is good timing for tonight he has an appointment that he cannot break. Just two more hours, then he will shower and dress carefully. He already feels some relief, as though he has paid penance for his sins by reapplying himself to his work with such single-mindedness. At least with the work there is no awkwardness to negotiate and no guilt to absorb, for he ties himself securely to a routine which allows him little opportunity to wander in either mind or body.

Annabelle opens the door and quickly looks him up and down without saying anything. He wants to shake his head for there is no subtlety to her greeting. She still does not trust him, despite the fact that he knows full well how to dress appropriately.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘Are you coming in?’

‘How about “hello” or “good evening” or something?’

Annabelle throws him a fake smile. ‘Hello.’

‘Well, I can’t just march in. It’s your place now, or so you keep telling me. Maybe Mr Documentary Film Editor is in there in his boxer shorts.’