Caryl Phillips - A Distant Shore

At first, while Mike was driving and Mr. Anderson was at work, I would help Mum around the house. I enjoyed accompanying her to the shops, and I quickly grew to understand the buses and the money. Soon I was watching the television programmes, and to my eyes England was becoming less of a mystery. It no longer surprised me when I heard women using foul and abusive language in the streets, and Mum took the time to explain why she always put butter on her fingers before taking off her rings. However, it did continue to confuse me why so many of the English newspapers displayed little more than pictures of women in their underwear. However, I felt that this was not a subject I could share with Mum, so I attempted to banish this confusion from my mind. My only real regret was the lack of anybody from my own country with whom I might talk. My language was drying up in my mouth, and sometimes, when nobody was around, I would place my language on my tongue and speak some words so that I could be sure that I was still in possession of it. Every week Mum gave me an allowance, and she would always ask me if I needed paper and envelope and stamps to write to my family, but I would look at her and thank her, but say, “No.” I would never say anything more to her than this.

Mum must have secretly said something to Mr. Anderson, for very early one morning I heard a knock on my door. I glanced at the window and could see that it was still dark. I assumed that the knocking must be the work of Mike, and that he must have fallen into some kind of trouble, so I whispered, “Yes.” However, when the door opened it was Mr. Anderson, and he was holding a cup of coffee in one hand. He set down the coffee on the bedside table and ordered me to prepare myself, for I would be coming to work with him this very morning. I was surprised because Mum had told me that while the officials processed my application it might be difficult for me to work properly. However, I did not question Mr. Anderson, and I soon dressed myself and moments later I was sitting beside my benefactor in his van. He said very little as we made our way through the cold dark streets, but once we reached his work he introduced me to a Greek man who he said would show me how everything was done. By the end of the day I had learned something about brick-laying and carpentry. By the end of the week I had also gained experience with plumbing and electricity, and although my hands suffered very much during this initial engagement, I felt as though I might one day have enough knowledge that I might build a house by myself. At the end of the week Mum gave me an allowance, but it was a little greater than was common and I understood that these were my “wages.” I also understood that Mr. Anderson was trying to provide me with a trade, although the rudeness of the other men caused me to occasionally suffer from periods of great misery.

After some months of working on the building site, Mr. Anderson began to teach me to drive. Whenever Mike was available he would relieve Mr. Anderson and assume this responsibility of providing me with driving skills, thus enabling my mentor to sit by the hearth occasionally and enjoy his evening pipe in peace. Mike was always disappointed when, after his “lesson,” it did not excite my curiosity to go with him inside the pub. I did not tell him that my first experience of such a place had left me without any desire to repeat the experience, for I did not wish to cause offence. He said that I would like “his” pub because it contained bright mirrors and brass work, and it was a happy place, but I tried to explain. First, I told Mike that I did not drink, but he said that I was free to choose a Coca-Cola. I then told Mike that I was fearful of being among a forest of tongues, but he chose not to believe me. Soon Mike ceased his many invitations for me to accompany him to the pub, and after our lesson he would deposit me at Mr. and Mrs. Anderson’s residence and then venture out by himself. None of us would see Mike for the rest of the night, but I would often hear him staggering about before he finally collapsed in a heap on his bed, or sometimes on the floor. Should I encounter Mike the following day he would always laugh and apologise for any noise that he might have made while “bladdered.” Mike was a lonely man who, I believed, must miss his family. I imagined that his drinking was the reason that he was not together with them, but I never questioned him on this most private of subjects. However, it did, on many occasions, occur to me that I never saw Mike drink when he had to drive his lorry. I soon came to understand that the lorry might well be saving his life, for I knew that this drinking could not be beneficial to his health.

The morning after the people painted the words on the wall of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson’s house, I sat at the breakfast table with Mum, who kept glancing anxiously out of the window. Mr. Anderson had a hard brush and a plastic bucket of water, and he was scrubbing ferociously with a look on his face that I found frightening. Mum seemed nervous and she would not stop talking.

“I’ll let this pot of tea mash, but meanwhile another round of toast?”

“No, thank you. I am full already.”

Mum could never disguise her disappointment when I politely refused her food. Mike was away driving, and this only made things worse, for it provided her with the opportunity to once again remind me that Mike would always eat everything that she put in front of him. In twenty years of accommodating people, I knew that we were her only two long-term lodgers. Everybody else came and went: businessmen relocating and who were in need of temporary accommodation while looking for a home for their families; executives at conferences; working-men between contracts; or specialists who were required to operate a piece of machinery, or advise on a contract, before returning to the South. Mr. Anderson was able to assist Mum with her business by occasionally providing lodgers with whom he had professional dealings, but Mum told me that her reputation, and being on the council list, ensured that she was never idle. Mum also told me that Mike and I were like the sons that she had never had, but I never encouraged her to develop this thought beyond this one comment.

When Mr. Anderson re-entered his home, he put the bucket and brush down in the corner of the kitchen by the door, dropped an empty dog-food can in the rubbish bin, and then he walked quietly to the sink to wash his hands.

“They had the paint in the dog-food can.”

“Cup of tea, love?” Mum got up from the table and went to the cupboard to get another cup.

“That’d be grand.” Mr. Anderson looked over at me as he dried his hands on the dishcloth. “You doing all right, Solomon?”

I nodded.

“Good.” He came and sat at the table, and Mum placed the cup of tea in front of her husband. “Good.”

Mum now went to the fridge and took out the bacon. Every time she opened the fridge door my heart would leap. I had still not accustomed myself to the fact that inside the door there was milk, fruit, bread and eggs. Everything was free and Mum kept insisting that I should take whatever I wanted. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson appeared to enjoy life in the manner of rich people, but I had learned enough to understand that in England they were ordinary people, and many families were blessed with the good fortune to live as they did.

After Mr. Anderson finished his breakfast we went together to his van to begin the journey to the building site. There was frost on the inside of the glass and I wiped it with the sleeve of my jacket. On this particular morning, without announcing his intention, Mr. Anderson took a different route, and he turned off the road and parked his van in the car park of a country pub. I looked around, but I had little understanding of where we were located, and then I looked across at Mr. Anderson, who was staring away from me and out of the window, as though preparing himself for something that would be difficult. I noticed the cold winter sun finally break through the clouds, and then I saw a reflection of myself in the glass of the car. In this country, I thought, my skin is turning to ash and inside my head is cold like ice. Mum said summer would soon come, but for me it could not come quickly enough. And then Mr. Anderson turned to look at me, and he caught me gazing at my own reflection in the glass.