Caryl Phillips - A Distant Shore

The house in which I live is at the far end of the street, and it is smaller than the other houses. In fact, Mr. Anderson said that it was originally a storage hut, but once they decided that it was necessary for somebody to live on the estate, they quickly adapted the house so that it blended in with the others. Mr. Anderson moved my belongings in yesterday, but there were few items to transport. They hardly occupied the rear seat of his car, and they were mainly clothes and books that I had managed to acquire. However, now that I am parking my own car, or what used to be Mike’s car, outside the house, I feel as though I am truly arriving here for the first time. Strange, because I have been working in this village for many months, helping with the carpentry and installing plumbing. I am familiar with this village, and this area, but now it is to be my home. I am to be the night-watchman, and my job will be to watch over these people.

Inside the bungalow there is little furniture. I do not need much, but what I need Mr. and Mrs. Anderson have given to me. They purchased new pieces for their home in Scotland, and so the bed, the table and four chairs, and the armchair are gifts from my guardian angels. The developers have made sure that I have a fridge and a cooker. I do not have a television set, but I can survive without this luxury. I have a radio and that is enough for me. I sit in the armchair and I think about Mike’s funeral, and wonder how it is that a man who was so friendly can reach the end of his life with so few colleagues to mourn his passing. But this question would not have troubled Mike, for he never concerned himself with what other people thought of him. Or at least, that is what Mike always told me. (“You can’t be controlling what others think.”) I stand and look out of my window at the cloudy skies. It is still bright, and it is therefore too early for me to take my torch and patrol the area. To begin my job. There will be plenty of time for this at a later hour. Now that it has stopped raining I decide to go for a walk in my new village.

At the bottom of the hill I cross over the road. I see the pub, but I have no desire to once again enter into one of these places, so I follow the pathway beside the water. It was Mr. Anderson who encouraged me to take daily exercise, confessing to me that it was the secret to his own good health at his advanced stage of life. He advised me that “Every day you must take some time by yourself and walk,” and so I have tried to follow his guidance. These walks by myself have helped to change my mood for the better. When I first arrived at Mr. and Mrs. Anderson’s, I could not sleep, but I now sleep through almost every night like a peaceful child. I discover this water to be a most harmonious place, and it gives me pleasure to notice how the trees bend over the path so that the ground is striped with thin fingers of sunlight. But I know this vision cannot last for much longer, for although it is the English summer, the wind is already combing through the trees and cruelly stripping them of their leaves. In England the weather is difficult, and every day I watch the sun struggling to reach the roof of the sky. It is very sad, but at least today there is a little sunlight. It is my great ambition to once again feel the comfort of the sun on my skin.

Up ahead I see a group of four boys walking towards me. For a moment I consider turning about-face, but I do not wish to turn my back on them for I know they do not desire to use me well. It is better that I can see them. After all, I recognise them. They are strangely almost hairless, with egg-shaped heads and blue tattoos on their bare arms. They all wear polished boots, which suggests a uniform of some kind, but the rest of their clothes are ill-matched. Sometimes they have visited the estate, and other workmen have been forced to chase them away. I have noticed how they look upon my person, and I know that they have anger towards me. They are blocking my way and laughing. In order to pass by I will have to walk within inches of the water, but this is dangerous and I do not trust them. I stop and politely ask them to “excuse me,” but they continue to stare at me.

“What’s the matter?”

I do not answer their leader’s question, and as if to punish me they decide to offer abuse in my direction. I turn and begin to retrace my steps, for I know that should I stand my ground, or attempt to sway this spiteful rabble with entreaties, my efforts will prove useless. But they follow me, and spit at my back, and they laugh. I continue to walk at the same deliberate pace, knowing that if one among them should attempt to bruise me, then the situation will become very unpleasant. They do not know who I am. I am the son of an elder, a man who decided disputes and punished crimes. I am a man who travelled a very considerable distance south and then returned to the bosom of my doomed family, always moving at night, and eating berries and drinking water from streams. I am a man who has survived, and I would rather die like a free man than suffer my blood to be drawn like a slave’s.

When we reach the pub they turn into the garden and release me. I continue to walk back to the road, and then up the hill to my bungalow. It is becoming dark, and it will soon be time for me to take my torch and go out among these people and attempt to protect them. At the top of the hill I pass the girl who, while I worked on the construction site, always seemed to be staring in my direction. She lives with her mother at the other end of the street to my bungalow. Whenever I see this girl, I have noticed how she looks at me. I am sensitive to the weight of her gaze. The girl reminds me of Denise, and like Denise she too lacks the modesty that I would expect in somebody of her tender years. I walk past the girl and resist the urge to turn and see if she is watching me. I keep walking in the hope that she will soon disappear from my life. I have been fooled already and I do not wish to be fooled again. Once I am inside my house, I stand in the living room and study the street. There is a lamp-post outside my window which bestows light in such a way that it is possible for me to see out, but if I stand back and in shadow I do not think that it is possible for anybody to see in. There are also plastic window blinds, which give me further protection. This pleases me, for although I welcome the opportunity to look out at them, I do not wish these people to be able to look in at me.

Mum embraced the challenge of making my status in England a legal one. Each morning Mr. Anderson departed for work, and he left Mum to wrestle with the difficult problem of my situation. Mum informed me that Mr. Anderson was the manager of a company that builds houses and small factory units, so he would often have to leave at five o’clock in the morning in order that he might assess progress and decide what tasks were to be accomplished on that particular day. Should he find himself working close by, then there was a possibility that he would consider returning for his breakfast and to read the newspaper, and then he would return again to his work. However, Mike did not live his life in this manner. Once Mike had departed for his work I might not see him again for many days, for he often drove his lorry great distances. Mike told me that he had once been married, and that he was the father of a teenage son to whom he sometimes wrote short but loving letters. He attempted to see his son once or twice a year, depending upon where his driving jobs might take him, but he described himself as “cured of marriage.” He liked to laugh when he said this. “Been there, done it,” and then he would once again burst out laughing. He had long ago discovered that to ask any personal questions of his new African friend meant that he was likely to be greeted with silence. The situation with Mum was very different, for she seemed to regard it as her duty to question me, but I learned to be tolerant of her habit and I hoped that she did not take offence at my sometimes evasive answers.