Caryl Phillips - In the Falling Snow

‘It take me nearly a year before I find the courage to ask out Brenda. I used to go into the public bar after work and sit and talk with her, but I’m trying to do so in a way that people won’t think that something is going on with the two of us. But, of course, I know that some people beginning to wonder if I don’t have any other friends. I do, but these fellars are in the lounge. Baron is a good man, but he’s not a man to say much, and the other people remind me of Ralph too much and I don’t want no reminder of my friend because the police still don’t prosecute anybody and every time I think of Ralph my head hurt like hell and the voices start up again. So, three or four nights a week I find myself in the public bar and I talk with Brenda who tell me how she is from Bradford, and how she meet her husband there, and when he join the army they station them near some place called Ripon. Brenda tell me that at first things is fine, but when the doctor say she can’t have babies the husband change and start to get mean, and then he begin to raise his hand to her which is when she say she decide to run off and find a job. She can’t go back to Bradford for the husband have family there who will tell the man where she is, and so she renting a bedsit near the city centre and she take a job in a hairdresser, and in the evening she work in the pub, and according to the woman she just about getting by. I listen to her, but I don’t have no story to offer in return, and it never occur to me to make one up, so I just listen and when this Brenda done with the conversation I try to get her to tell me a next story, and then a next one, but the woman just keep asking about me, and the situation getting uncomfortable and so I start to drop by the pub only two or three times a week and then she begin to ask me where I been and so I ask her if she ever take any time off from the bar work and if she does then maybe one night we can go to a restaurant together. She look at me and start to laugh. “I was wondering when you were going to ask me out. I’d nearly given up on you.” The place I take her to is the same Indian restaurant that I was foolish enough to think might treat a coloured man good, but for some reason I think maybe things will be different if I walk in with an English woman. But it don’t turn out so. From the moment we enter the place I feel everybody looking down on me and I can tell that the Indian people are talking about Brenda. I know that Brenda can sense it too, but the woman just keep behaving as though nothing is the matter, and she never take her eyes from me, but I can’t concentrate, and I’m looking at the curry and rice in front of us, and Brenda is still talking, and I can hear the voices in my head making all kind of loud noise and so I just lean over and push the rice bowl on to the floor and watch it break into pieces and Brenda stop talking, but everybody else in my head still talking, including Ralph, who is talking the loudest, and I just wait for the people to come and clean up the mess, but the Indian people slow to come so I shout, “Hey you people, you can hear me? Clean it up, clean up the fucking mess now!”

‘Maybe a week pass before they say I can get up from the bed, and that’s when I start to get the visits from the doctor. Every time the doctor come into the hospital room he make me sit in a chair and shine a light in my eyes with a small torch and ask me how I feel about this and how I feel about that and if I happy in England. I’m looking at the man and I don’t want to annoy the fellar so I give off the answers I think he expecting and I try to smile at him, and after weeks of these blasted visits I want to ask the man when he think I can leave this place and go back to my rented room, but I know the doctor not going to answer me truthfully so I keep the question to myself. The other people in the place seem fine, but sometimes things can be difficult because I don’t know if these people are talking to me or if they talking to themselves, for the thing about this hospital is that nobody seem to mind if a man decide to talk to himself. The only thing I don’t care for is when they take me to the room where they strap me down on the bed and attach the wires. Not only does it hurt bad, but afterward they feed me tablets that make me sleep for days, and even when I’m awake I feel as though I’m asleep. Brenda start to come to see me every weekend and when she arrive they put me in a clean shirt and take me to a reception area with big windows so everything is bright and the two of us sit together. Brenda tell me all the different things that she done in the week, including babysitting, but when she say this I have to tell her that I never hear of this word and so she explain it to me, but the woman laughing hard because she can’t understand that I don’t know what is babysitting. Brenda tell me everything that happen at the hairdresser’s and in the pub, and she give me all the chat that the fellars have, and I know that she is doing so in order that I don’t have to feel no pressure to say anything because what is there for me to talk about? She know I don’t go no place. Every week I look at Brenda and wonder why it is she trouble herself to come to the hospital, but I never ask the question in case I scare her away. One day I see the doctor and the man ask me if I know how long it is that I been “with them”. I look at the doctor, but I don’t say anything. Then he put his hand on my own hand, but he do so suddenly and I find myself pulling away from him. “I’m sorry,” he say smiling. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. Over five years,” he say. “It’s been a long time but we think that you’re ready to go now. Are you ready?” I smile. Yes, of course I’m ready. I mean, what kind of foolishness is this? Five years is a big piece of life. Ralph claim that he is going home after five years. Five years is plenty of time so yes, I’m ready. “Perhaps your friend can help you settle into life outside. Is this possible?” The next weekend I sitting in the reception area and listening as Brenda tell me everything that happen that week at the hairdresser’s and in the pub. Apparently Baron decide that he don’t want to speak with anybody, but nobody seem to notice. Then I ask Brenda if she will consider marrying to me as soon I going be leaving the hospital. I let her know that I hoping to get back my job at the factory and maybe we can set up a house together. I know that the medicine make me put on some weight, but when I start to study again I sure that the weight going drop off. Brenda don’t say anything, so I tell her that if she already have a mister then I will understand and she must just forget that I ever say a thing. I confess that I don’t like to think of her with a next man, but if she don’t have anybody special in her life then perhaps she will consider me. Brenda just keep looking at me and so I keep talking and I tell the woman that I’m not going home. I tell her that I don’t have nothing to go back to, not after all this time. Only my sister, Leona, and I never hear from her. Brenda is staring at me, and then she start to smile.

‘I don’t see you till you was six. Some coloured man come knocking on my door and the man ask Brenda if I living in the house. Standing behind him is a small boy in a blue school uniform and with a sharp parting in his hair and wearing glasses. I think you know the boy. Brenda call me to the door, and the man tell me that Shirley finally die of the lung infection that is making it difficult for her to breathe, and that he can’t keep Shirley’s son as the boy should be with the father. This is how I find out that you are now my responsibility, and suddenly I find myself being asked to play the role of the father. Brenda usher both you and the man inside, and then she put on the kettle. Me, I sit down heavy in a chair and wonder how the hell I’m supposed to play this role. I marking you sitting in a corner and screwing up your face like you trying hard not to cry, and Brenda come to sit with you and she start talking soft and offering you sweets, but still you can’t hold back the tears. The man tell me that he marry to Shirley before she even have you, but the pair of them never pretend with you that this man is your father. The man insist that it’s Shirley who tell him that if anything happen to her then he must give you to me, and I watching the man sipping at his tea and making a loud noise, and then the man look up and catch me watching him and he just shrug his shoulders. That night I lie in bed with Brenda and tell her that I don’t see how we can afford a child. Between her work at the hairdresser’s and the bar, and my work at the factory, we have just enough to cover the rent payments on the house. I don’t have much in the way of vices; I smoking a little, and drinking a few beers when I go down to the pub to pick up Brenda at the end of a night, but I already discover that if a man is living in a house, and not just one room, then paying bills in England is a serious business. I see Brenda watching me, but she don’t say a thing. She wait until I finish talking then she put out the cigarette in the ashtray to the side of the bed. The woman turn to look at me. “He’s your child, Earl. It doesn’t matter what you think of Shirley, or if you believe she tricked you. The only thing that matters is he’s your child and you better face up to this fact, okay?” When Brenda finally fall asleep I get out of bed and creep along the corridor and open up the door to the bedroom in which you’re sleeping. I go inside and look down at you lying there with your mouth open and your nose slightly blocked up with cold, and I’m thinking to myself that nobody can say that I don’t do nothing with my time in England. I lose my best friend, and then I get fooled off by a woman, and then I find myself living with an English girl, but at least I have you. But I’m not ready for this. It’s not you that I don’t want, son. I just don’t want this life, because England already hurt me enough as it is. It seem like every time I think I discover some peace of mind then something else come along to trouble my head. But it’s not you that I don’t want, it’s this damn life. I looking at you lying so still and peaceful and I want to bang my head on the wall because I just don’t have any idea how to go forward with my life. I watching you sleeping on the bed in front of me but I just not ready. A part of me want to turn back the clock and find myself in the Harbour Lights bar with Ralph, and I want somebody to give me back my law book and my dictionary, and I want back my mother and my father and Desmond and Leona. Your face is so peaceful and I looking down at you, Keith, and I want to tell you about tall, crazy Ralph, who you never going to meet, and how the two of us sit together drinking beers and listening to the wind passing through the palm trees and the two of us thinking of England. The idea of England is fine. I can deal with the idea. You understand me, son? I can deal with the idea.’