Caryl Phillips - A Distant Shore

Why not? she thinks. It has been a fortnight now since Mahmood put the phone down on her. Apart from the twice-weekly games of tennis with the boring woman who is the head of English, her life has returned to a familiar routine of time spent at the keyboard, assiduous reading, undemanding television programmes and fitful bouts of sleeping. She misses the idea of Mahmood, almost as much as she misses the man himself. Even when he went at her without any intimacy, she felt connected to something that existed beyond the narrow scope of her own predictable world. There was a stimulating confusion in her life which, with the slamming of a phone, has once more become as unsatisfactory as an unopened suitcase on a single bed. These days she finishes her meals, having often done little more than pick idly at the food, and then she stands her knife and fork to attention next to each other and gazes at the floral pattern of the wallpaper. Sometimes she stares out of the window at the people in the streets walking their dogs, stopping at hedges and lamp-posts for their pets to do their business, then quickly yanking at the dog leash and scurrying away from the little parcels that have been deposited. The one bright note in her life is her rediscovery of the joys of walking, although she is always careful to avoid the dog mess. Three miles to school, and three miles back again, all the while positively sucking in great buckets of fresh air. If, as will occasionally transpire, she feels too fatigued to walk back from school, then there is no guilt attached to hopping on a bus and paying the fare. She now notices the frequent stopping, and the tedious waiting at some stops as large numbers of passengers get on and off, but she tries not to let these things annoy her. These days, once they reach her street, she is careful to disembark one stop beyond the corner shop and walk back to her semi.

She watches him as he stands by the bar ordering the drinks. He tries to attract the barman’s attention, but he does not realise that the barman has already seen him and will come over after he has finished serving the lady in the wheelchair. Her new friend is too keen to prove himself masterful. She stands and goes to look at the jukebox, which is full of music with which she is unfamiliar. A drink in the pub. Jukebox. She remembers this ritual from the early days with Brian in Manchester. She looks around the dark, oak-panelled pub, and notices that all the mirrors are filthy and covered in a thick film of dust. The carpet is worn through in places and badly stained, and for some reason the door to the “Gents” is propped open so that, although she cannot see the actual urinals, she can see a succession of men slowly turning around and zipping themselves up, then wiping their hands on their trousers before ambling back into the gloom of the pub. The place is populated with after-work couples, the men with slightly loosened ties, and the women pulling nervously on cigarettes and speaking with an animation that no doubt eludes them when they are in the office. And then there are the regulars; old men with dun-coloured jackets nursing their solitary pints of beer, and middle-aged women with pinched faces and sugar-sabotaged teeth, who slump in their seats and wait in the dull hope that something approximating to love might once again show itself. As she leaves the jukebox and moves back to their table she decides that there is no reason at all why she should tell him that this is her first time in this pub, which looks as though a jumble sale has exploded in the place. Confession, at this stage, is not going to help the evening to pass.

He places both drinks neatly onto cardboard coasters and, as he does so, she looks up at him with her “hello” face. He moves his still-emaciated briefcase from the bench and onto a chair, and plops down next to her. Then he takes a large mouthful of a pint of what looks suspiciously like lager and lime, and she picks up her half-pint of Guinness and toasts him. “Cheers.” She looks at him and wonders if he truly is this nervous, or if this is part of a game that he plays. He looks around himself.

“Nice place, isn’t it?” She is out of touch with this kind of conversation.

“And so you teach geography?” she says.

“If I can’t see the world, I may as well talk about it.”

“Oh,” she says. “Why can’t you see it?” He laughs now, and for the first time she sees his perfectly spaced white teeth. He is a handsome man, despite the crow’s feet that decorate the corners of his eyes.

“Commitments. I’ve got a wife and child. And they don’t pay us like they ought to. Worse if you’re just a supply teacher. But you know all this already.” She finds herself nodding slightly.

“I’ve never done supply, but I can imagine.”

“Well, I don’t recommend it, but it does serve a purpose.” She turns around to face him more directly, aware of the fact that as she does so her skirt rides up so that her right knee is exposed. She still has good legs. In fact, they are her best feature. Brian was always jealous of the way that men looked at her legs, and he used to compliment her if she wore a trouser-suit. After he left for Spain she put her two trouser-suits, one blue and one grey, into a black-plastic bin liner and put them out with the rubbish.

After two more pints of beer, and one half-pint of Guinness, it is his idea that they should go for a meal. He suggests La Spiaggia, imagining that she will be familiar with the place. She tells him that she generally does not go out to eat, but that she will be happy to dine with him. Her glass is still half-full, but his pint glass is almost empty and he seems unsure of what to do. She solves the problem for him by suggesting that he go fetch himself a half-pint. She watches as he makes his way to the bar, this time with more confidence, and he appears pleased that the barman pulls his beer without his having to ask. He turns round and smiles at her.

La Spiaggia is a family-owned establishment that looks suspiciously like a chain restaurant, but she imagines that the owners prefer it this way. In this town too much individuality will not be rewarded. He chooses a table by the window and they begin to study their four-page menus, but she reads without absorbing any of the meaning from the words.

“The veal is good,” he says. “If you eat meat, that is.”

“I’d just like some pasta. That should see me fine.”

He laughs. “You’ll waste away.”

They order, and he chooses a red that he describes as “special,” but to her it seems quite ordinary. Through the window they watch a group of young boys in designer clothes shouting and swearing at each other, and competing for the attention of two girls who walk on ahead, seemingly oblivious to the pandemonium behind them. The spectacle seems to unsettle him and he takes another sip of wine and laughs nervously.

“There seem to be a lot of gangs in the town. Well, hooligans really, but it’s their body language more than what they say, I suppose. You start to wonder if they’re not carrying knives, or worse.”

“Well,” she begins, “according to the talk in the staffroom, they’re all on hard cider and even harder drugs. We’re expected to believe that they’re looking to cause trouble, or steal something, simply because they’re bored.” She laughs now. “And so there we have it. I suppose we can’t expect the modern kid to find satisfaction by doing ‘bunny hops’ on his or her bike.” She turns towards the window and wonders if she’s boring her new friend.

When the food arrives, he orders another bottle of wine. She has only just finished her first glass, but he asks for neither her opinion nor her approval. He starts to eat and he speaks with his mouth full, but at least he makes some attempt to chew before he begins his sentences.