Caryl Phillips - A Distant Shore

“Are you all right?” Gabriel speaks softly, but the boy is frightened. Gabriel takes another step towards young Felix, but the sobbing boy turns on his heels and runs for his life. He moves quickly, and soon he is out of sight and Gabriel knows that it will be futile to chase after him, for the boy will soon be safe in the arms of Amma. No doubt Joshua will also comfort the boy, and together they will resume their walk by the side of the great river so that to all who look on they might appear to be the perfect family.

Gabriel looks around himself and he now realises that he has no idea of where he is. His dream is becoming a nightmare. He hears a voice shout to him, “Gabriel!” but he does not know how to find this person. Suddenly the street is in total darkness and he can see nothing. Then again the voice cries out, “Gabriel!” and he realises that he is being lured by this man. The light begins to improve, and as Gabriel follows the voice, people begin to mill about. French people. He is still in Paris. Shops and cars appear, and Gabriel feels as though he has walked from death into life. He begins to relax now and walk freely. Gabriel no longer hears the voice calling to him, but he seems to know exactly where he is walking. He crosses a busy highway and turns into a side street, where he stops by a pavement café and looks at the man who is the centre of attention. The man is surrounded by a group of fellow Africans, and they hang on his every word as he tells his tales and orchestrates their communal laughter. Then Gabriel recognises the voice that has led him out of darkness and to this present place. It is the voice of Bright. His young friend does not look across at Gabriel, he simply continues to talk, and Gabriel listens, and then Gabriel realises that none of the men can actually see him. Should he go and sit down among them, they still would not be able to see him. Bright has clearly made something of his life, but Gabriel is surprised to see him in Paris. He had imagined that Bright would, after all the effort that he had made to get to England, at least have tried to reach London. “Bright,” he says. He waits for Bright to respond, but Bright continues to ignore him. Gabriel tries again, but then Gabriel realises that, like the other men, Bright cannot hear him. He shouts one final time, “Bright!”

When Gabriel opens his eyes he can tell that it is dawn. The birds outside are singing, and the light is weak. He feels rested now, not only from the terror of the ride on the side of the ship, but from the whole journey. He moves his leg slightly, and although it still hurts, the pain does not shoot through it in the same manner. It is only now, however, as he moves to stand, that he notices that Bright is not in the room. Gabriel walks to the door, and although it still troubles him to place his full weight on the leg, he can at least move with some freedom. He opens the door and steps outside, and then he looks up at the house. In the morning light, the true extent of its abandonment is now clear. At first he had noticed that only one window was broken, but he can now see that most of the windows are either cracked or have small holes in the panes of glass as though stones have been pelted through them. The woodwork on the house lacks paint and is peeling, and the guttering is falling from the structure. In between the bricks spout tufts of grass, and in places some bricks are either dislodged or missing altogether. Gabriel walks around the house and discovers that the dereliction is the same on all sides. However, at the back of the house the state of disrepair seems to be greater still, for not a single pane of glass is intact, and birds appear to have taken to nesting in what used to be the kitchen. To the side of the kitchen wall he notices roses climbing wildly on some rickety trelliswork, but their red splendour serves only to reinforce the misery of the place.

Gabriel wanders round to the front of the house, and as he does so he wonders what might have happened here. England was not enduring a period of war, so why would somebody flee from a grand house like this? He walks down the short path to the road and looks first to the left and then to the right, but he can see nobody. As he turns to go back inside the house, Gabriel hears a noise behind him. For a moment he stands still, not daring to turn around.

“It’s only me.”

He hears Denise’s voice, and then her laughter, and then he turns to face her. He sees that she is wearing the same red uniform with black tights that she wore the previous day and she is holding a plastic bag, which Gabriel hopes contains food. She pushes past him with her tank-like body, and then she dashes up the path and into the house, and Gabriel follows her.

“Scared you, did I?” She doesn’t wait for Gabriel to answer. “I brought you some food and some drinks. Where’s your friend?”

“Bright?”

“Yes, Bright. I thought he was going to be here.” Gabriel can barely take his eyes from the bag of food, which the girl now passes to him. “Take what you want, it’s for you.”

Gabriel takes out a loaf of bread and tears off a large piece. As much as he wishes to eat slowly and with some dignity, he cannot restrain himself from cramming the bread into his mouth, for his stomach burns with hunger. Denise sits down now and stares at him.

“Hungry, are you?” She starts to laugh, and Gabriel realises that she is laughing at him. He glares at her, but an unperturbed Denise continues to laugh. As he chews his food, Gabriel studies this girl, who appears to be younger than his own sisters, and who wears her school uniform with neither pride nor dignity. The skirt is too short and it rides up one leg so that half of the girl’s thigh is exposed. Gabriel looks at her, and her exposed thigh, and then he attempts to open the bottle of water, which starts to bubble when he finally unscrews the metal cap.

“I don’t think Bright’s coming back, do you?” Gabriel begins to drink, but he does not answer. He decides instead to wait for her to continue. “I saw him this morning by the train station.” Gabriel stops drinking. “He didn’t tell you anything, did he?” Gabriel says nothing. “Well, don’t worry, I’ll look after you till you’re ready to go. I couldn’t find any bandages, but I haven’t told anybody that you’re here, honest.”

Gabriel looks away from this girl. He needs time to think, but he can feel the girl’s eyes upon him. She is staring at him and waiting for him to say something, but Gabriel has nothing to say to this disrespectful girl. He does not even wish to look upon her. Gabriel can sense that she is about to ask another question and so he closes his eyes against the girl, and the bright sunlight, in an attempt to control his anger.

The day warder unlocks the final door and moves to one side so that Gabriel can pass into the room where the woman and the man are already sitting at the table waiting for him. As he walks in, Katherine stands up and smiles. Today she is dressed formally in black, but he can see that she has not surrendered her love for men’s trousers. Stuart Lewis remains seated, his face a mask of concentration, and he studies the papers that are spread out before him. Gabriel hears the door bang shut behind him and he knows that the warder is standing guard behind his back.

“Sit down, Gabriel,” says Katherine, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the table.

Gabriel sits, but Stuart Lewis does not look up at him. The man continues to shuffle through the pile of papers in front of him.

“Gabriel, we just want to know if there’s anything that you’d like to tell us before we go to court this morning.” Katherine pauses, and the man finally looks up. He adjusts his glasses.

“Gabriel, since we last met I’ve spent some time looking through the files. Given the circumstances, there’s little point in having a barrister present.” Katherine sighs, but she remains silent. “I think that only by saying something along the lines that you ‘think’ this thing never happened will you really have a proper opportunity to help yourself. Do you understand?”