Caryl Phillips - A Distant Shore

“It’s worrying though, isn’t it? I mean these days everyone’s a victim and nobody’s responsible. Do you think it’s because there’s a lack of discipline and order in schools? Are we to blame?”

Again she laughs. “You sound like my father. He died a few years ago.”

He stops eating. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. He lived his life, I suppose. It’s just that he began to worry about young people. He worried that they no longer had any fear, that it wasn’t just how they talked that bothered him, it was what they would do. I suppose he’d have said it was to do with discipline in the home, more than with discipline in the schools. And immigration.”

“Immigration?”

“Well, you know, to some people everything’s to do with immigration.”

“But these kids were not black.” He gestures out of the window. “They were not out to mug anyone.”

“I know.” She lowers her eyes and concentrates on the remains of her plate. “I know. I agree with you.” She picks up her still-full wine glass by the stem and rolls it in her fingers. “Your wife and child, they won’t be coming here then?”

“Maybe at the end of the year. After the affair with the squash player burns itself out.” He laughs loudly now, throwing back his head. The waiter looks across, but quickly looks away. “Bit of a cliché really, isn’t it? But that’s the truth. I’m just giving them space.”

“That’s good of you,” she says, taking a sip from her glass.

“I go back to Nottingham at the weekends. To see my daughter, Claire. But I thought it best to get out of town for a while, and this local authority had jobs, so here I am.” He pours a fresh glass of red wine, and he drinks quickly. She watches as he swallows the mouthful that marks the line between coherence and mess. “I’m staying in lodgings with a landlady. Like I’m a sodding student again.” He laughs and with one hand he loosens his tie. “Who’d have thought it.”

“Thought what?”

“That I’d come to this.” She looks into his eyes and sees the vulnerability beneath the bluster. “Thank you, though.”

“For what?”

“For asking me for a drink. I’ve been dreading the evenings. Leaving my temporary job and going back to my temporary lodgings. Sitting in the living room watching stupid television programmes with Mrs. Johnson, and then having to endure the embarrassment of her offering me a cup of Horlicks and a plate of biscuits. It’s either put up with her, or go out to the local pub and find somebody to play darts with and bore to death with my life story. So thanks.”

She takes a sip of wine and smiles broadly at him.

“My pleasure.” And then she continues. “Perhaps we ought to be going now.” He looks at her as though shocked. Then he puts down his glass and reaches across the table and takes her hands in both of his.

“I mean it. I’m really grateful. Thank you.” She lowers her eyes and then gently wriggles her hands out from under his grip. He clears his throat. “Are you still married to your husband?”

“No, we’re divorced.”

“Happily?”

She does not say, no, he washed his hands of me. “Everything runs its course.”

“Lonely?”

She does not say, I used to be the fancy woman for the Asian man in the corner shop, but he dropped me. “I’m comfortable with my own company.” She laughs. “Most of the time.”

As they wait by the bus stop he drapes a protective arm around her shoulders, but she senses that in all probability he is simply trying to maintain his balance. A homeless man, who pulls a filthy sleeping bag after him, crosses the street and looks as though he is walking towards them. She feels her protector grow tense and then, as the tramp ignores them and walks on his way, he releases an audible sigh.

They both look down the street in the direction that they imagine the bus will arrive from. Across the road in the pub car park, some louts, who are all tattoos and bared teeth, are now pushing and shoving each other and making the loud braying noises that suggest they are having a good time. She notices that two among them are brazenly advertising the contents of their bladders in triumphal watery arches, and then to her horror she realises that their performances are competitive. She wonders if any of the young vagabonds are pupils of hers, and then she catches herself and realises that she is ignoring her escort.

“You know, you really don’t have to wait for me. The bus won’t be long.” He dares to finger her cheek. She hopes that he won’t speak, for his words have long since begun to slide, one into the other. And then she hears the sound of the bus rumbling up the hill towards them. He quickly retrieves his hand.

“Ah, your chariot approaches.”

“It’s been a lovely evening.” The bus idles before her and then the doors swoosh open accordion-style.

“You saved me from an evening of hell.” He laughs. “Or you saved somebody from an evening of hell.”

She moves quickly before he can say anything further. Once on board she fishes in her purse for the exact change, and then she takes her ticket. It’s a short ride so she sits by the door. As the bus lurches away she turns and sees him still standing by the bus stop. He waves.

The following morning she waits in the staffroom. Everybody arrives in one mad rush. Sally Lomax, the young head of English, flashes her a bright, but clearly manufactured, smile.

“I’ll have to bring George and Samantha tonight. But they’ve got colouring books and crayons, so they should be fine.”

She nods at Sally, who is too busy to register the fact that there has been a response to her statement. As Sally turns away, she can see again just how much the poor woman’s body has thickened and run to fat at the waist and hips, which no doubt accounts for her enthusiasm for exercise. Sally gulps down a final mouthful of coffee, then throws the rest in the sink. The cup goes in after the coffee. She is one of those who cannot be bothered to rinse their cup and then turn it up on the draining board. Memos have been posted, but hardly anybody takes the time to read them. She waits in the staffroom until everybody has left, but there is still no sign of Geoff Waverley. It is too late to go into assembly now. The head abhors lateness from pupils. A teacher being late for assembly is an open invitation to a hastily scribbled note of admonishment from Mr. Jowett. Instead, she goes straight to her classroom and sits at the piano. A single C establishes a tone. A beginning. But she is too anxious to develop the pattern. Through the window she sees stragglers bolting across the school playground in a pantomime of unpunctuality, their shirt-tails flying in the wind. They will clatter through the door and straight into the clutches of a prefect, but they have forgotten this. Again she hits a single C, and she listens closely to the rise and fall of this one note.

When the bell goes she walks briskly to the computer room. She pulls up the school home page, taps in her password and under “new staff” she clicks on his name. The screen flickers for a moment, as though dying, and then it bursts to life and all the details are glowing before her eyes. His degree, his previous employment, his wife’s name, Claire’s full name, her age and their address in Nottingham. The phone number has been omitted, but this will not pose a problem. She pushes the print button and then quickly makes her way past the pupils playing computer games, and those sending lovesick emails. Hers is the first sheet printed at the central terminal and she quickly folds the warm piece of paper into four and tucks it into her bag. One of her fifth-formers, a talented cellist, is staring at her.

“Morning, Miss.”