Caryl Phillips - In the Falling Snow

He arrives at Annabelle’s house feeling slightly light-headed. On the way over he stopped in at the Queen Caroline for an early afternoon pint of lager, having felt the need to steady his nerves after the unannounced visit from Rolf. He understood that narrowly escaping being ripped off by Danuta should be seen as a wake-up call, reminding him that he has to drastically change his behaviour, but he remains confused. If Danuta really has a husband, does this man know what she gets up to in England? Probably not, he decided, but then again, how does she manage to dupe him, and everybody she meets in England? There must be some small oasis of honesty and integrity in the woman’s life. Attending the language school in Acton, and pretending that she’s learning English so she can open an international kindergarten, and claiming to have to hold down a cleaning job at night to pay for all of this, are most likely familiar lies that she is used to spinning. There must be all sorts of desperate men who are eager to restart their lives and who would give anything to do so with a striking woman like Danuta by their side. Not just good-looking Latvians such as Rolf, but wealthy Arabs from the Middle East, and even Japanese business types. He carried his pint of lager from the bar and found his familiar seat in the corner of the pub, but immediately realised he would have to tune out the noise of two lads seated nearby who were trying to program their mobiles to ring to rap ditties from a menu they were busily sampling. The pit bull terrier at their feet sat impassively, with one Doc-Marten-clad boot clamping the dog’s lead tight against the beer-sodden carpet. It is hard for him to see where, exactly, he might fit into Danuta’s scheme of things, but Rolf was probably right when he claimed that she was just fooling with him and waiting for the opportunity to rob him. But she didn’t take anything, which means that it is still possible that some part of her simply liked him for who he was. A mobile phone Frisbee-ed across the pub and clattered into the wall, and the two lads collapsed into a heap of uncontrollable laughter. The pit bull terrier sprang to retrieve it, but the lead remained trapped beneath a booted foot.

He will have to change his behaviour, which is not an altogether comfortable thing to admit, but it is true. He is in his late forties, and shamelessly flirting with young women is bound to land him in trouble. For over an hour he sat and quietly sipped at his pint while he thought idly about how to make changes to his life, and as he did so he half listened to somebody else’s questionable jukebox selection. He remains open to being persuaded that contemporary pop music has some virtues, but whatever they might be they continue to reside beyond him. Having finished his pint he stood up and, carefully avoiding the dog, he crossed to the bar and returned the empty glass and then, politely declining the barman’s routine offer of a top-up, he walked out.

Annabelle opens the door and he can see that she has been crying. The delicate skin beneath each eye has darkened as though bruised, and her eyes are moist.

‘He’s gone out.’

‘Gone out where? I thought we were going to have a talk with him.’

‘Do you want to come in?’

She leaves the door and walks back into the house. He wipes his feet on the doormat before stepping inside and quietly closing the door behind him. Annabelle has already disappeared, and so he walks down the short corridor and into the kitchen, where he discovers her leaning against the cooker.

‘He just said that he had to go and sort something out and so he left. I told him to wait for you to come round, but he said that he didn’t have time and that was that. Off he went.’

Annabelle looks exhausted, and her bottom lip begins to tremble as though she wants to cry again. He knows that she should be at work, but he assumes that she has already phoned in and informed her colleagues that the BBC will just have to manage without her today.

‘Do you want me to go and look for him? Maybe he’s hanging out by the Westway where you found him with that group of kids with mountain bikes.’

‘And if he’s there what are you going to do? Smack his bum and bring him home? He’s seventeen, nearly eighteen. I just want to know that he’s all right, that’s all. Is that too much to ask? But nothing ever changes, does it? He’s always got to do things his own way. Even as a baby, he always slept soundly, but never when I wanted him to. No wonder I always felt tired or ill.’

Annabelle snatches a pastel-coloured tissue from a box on the kitchen counter top and she quickly dabs at her eyes and then blows her nose.

‘So you don’t think I should bother going to look for him then?’

‘I don’t see the point. I’ve called and he’s not picking up, so I suppose we’ll just have to wait here until he comes back. Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Thanks.’ He sits at the kitchen table and watches as Annabelle switches on the kettle. ‘Did the lawyer bother to call you?’

‘He just confirmed that they’ve charged the other two boys with grievous bodily harm or something like that, and he said that the police know that Laurie wasn’t involved. I suppose that’s something to be grateful for.’

‘You “suppose”? That’s like dodging a speeding bullet. He could have screwed up his chances of university. Maybe six or seven hours in a police station will have scared some sense into him. I know it would have set me straight.’

Annabelle drops two teabags into a plain red pot. ‘Earl Grey all right with you?’ He nods. ‘I meant to ask you, did Laurie ever mention a girl called Chantelle?’

‘Who?’

‘Chantelle. A tall doe-eyed thing. She turned up last night at the police station and asked for him at the desk. I was standing by the noticeboard so she didn’t see me, but I heard her say that she wanted to see Laurie. The young officer on duty just pointed at me and so she turned around and saw me standing there.’

‘Is she his girlfriend?’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to ask her that, was I? She seemed a bit nervous, but then she said that she wanted to know if Laurie was all right and would I tell him that she’d been by to see him. And then she left.’ Annabelle paused. ‘High carriage, like a model.’

‘That was it? She didn’t wait?’

‘So when we got back last night I told Laurie that Chantelle had dropped by the police station and he just nodded, you know how he does, and then he went up to bed.’

‘Well, she’s obviously his girlfriend but neither of them knows how to deal with the situation. It’s probably not cool to have a girlfriend.’

Annabelle fills the teapot with hot water and then sits down at the table with him. ‘What’s awkward about having a girlfriend?’

He laughs. ‘Come on, you’re asking me? We got together when neither one of us was living at home. We were at university, with our own rooms and everything, but once your parents were in the picture, “awkward” would be a nice way of putting it, don’t you think?’

‘But I don’t have any objection to Chantelle. In fact, she seemed like quite a nice girl.’

‘Of course you don’t have any objection to her, but like I said that’s not the problem. They both live at home and it’s probably not hip to be coupled any more. These kids like to just hook up.’

‘Hook up? What the hell’s that?’

‘Well what does it sound like?’

‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it sounds like, but my son is not an animal. You really don’t know what it’s like, do you? Going off to watch football in Barcelona is nothing compared with some of the things that Laurie wants to do. He comes home asking me if he can “hit the road” with his mates and go off to some music festival or other, living in a tent and sloshing around in mud and rain. I do my research, you know. It’s all about mosh pits and drinking and drugs, and I’ve not mentioned the carbon footprint so there’s no need to look at me like that. You know I don’t approve of piles of abandoned tents, and thousands of flushing toilets, and all those idling cars, but I’m not giving you some green tirade now, I’m just talking about protecting my son, and remember I’m the one that gets the glares and the door-slamming. Admit it, Keith, you really don’t know what it’s like, do you, because you’ve conveniently missed the past three years holed up in your stupid little flat.’