In the Falling Snow (34 page)

‘By the time the summer reach, and the nights are warm and long, Ralph start to carry on bad and he encouraging me to do
the
same. I press up even harder against the girl, like I trying to drive her into the tree, and as I do so she reach down and open up her coat a little wider, and then her legs, and then the girl begin to liven up her cold performance and start to maul me like she must think I’m her pet monkey. She whisper crude things into my ear but I know she just want me to finish quickly so she can be on her way. Eventually I peel away from the girl who quickly close up her coat and ask me if everything is all right, but a part of me want to laugh because how can everything be all right if I leaning up against a tree in a park with a young girl to whom I just pay cash money in exchange for a few minutes with her body? Everything is not all right and, although this is the third time that Ralph sweet-talk me into coming to the park with him and looking for skirt, I already know that I won’t be troubling with this type of business no more for it’s no good for a man like me. I going have to reason with Ralph about this woman-against-the-tree caper, and about the fact that I paying half the man’s rent to sleep on a mattress on the floor, yet every Tuesday and Friday, when Mrs Jones’s husband on night duty, he put me out in the hall with a blanket and Mrs Jones pay him a visit and collect what Ralph like to call the “extra rent money”. I starting to feel that if I going do any serious studying then I must find a place by myself, and maybe it’s time to give Ralph back his privacy, so I start asking around to see if anybody know of a room that I can rent. It seem like everybody in the factory, and everybody in the pub, saying the same thing about how is only prejudiced landlords in England, and these same landlords who insist on “European Only” keeping back the coloured man from progress because without a decent place to live then we can’t bring over our wives or girlfriends and start to live properly. Every coloured man in England is waiting on decent housing to open up, and in the meantime every coloured man not only
putting
up with prejudice at work, but when he try to find some place to rest at the end of the day he meet more big problems there. The girl finish buttoning up her coat, and I watch as she unwrap a piece of gum from its foil paper and then fold it into her mouth as she speak. “What about the money? You haven’t paid me yet.” She push a finger into my chest. “You lot have to pay a coloured tax, didn’t anybody tell you that?” The girl must think I straight off the boat, so I remind her that I already paid the damn money and she should just fix up herself and move on. When I turn to leave the blasted girl grab hold of my arm and start talking about how she have three kiddies and no money, and then she bite down on she bottom lip and her eyes begin to water, and I thinking about maybe giving the girl another shilling but I’m wanting to ask Ralph first in case it mess up things for the other fellars. That’s when I hear Ralph’s voice, and I turn and see him pelting toward me, and three white boys chasing after him, and so I turn and start to run. After a minute or so I look back and see that Ralph decide to swerve off to the right and my friend running down the hill toward the main road and the three boys following him and nobody following me, but I still run until I reach the small stone wall that surround the park, and I jump the thing and I pleased like hell to see plenty of traffic and people everywhere. I stop to catch my breath and then turn up the collar on my jacket and I start to walk fast, but I taking care to keep my head down. I don’t know where the hell I am, but I too frightened to stop and ask any question and so I just keep walking. Eventually I see a bench near a bus stop and I take a rest for a minute and then realise that I’m looking upon a canal. I like the quiet water, but the noise of the traffic troubling my head, especially when a bus pull up at the stop. For maybe an hour I just sit and stare at the water, and wonder if once I figure out where I am if I should go seek out Ralph at
the
pub, or maybe he gone back to Mrs Jones’s house, but I know for sure that my friend bound to be at one of these two places and I want to make sure that everything all right with him because the three white boys running seriously hard after Ralph.

‘It’s late by the time I decide to abandon the bench by the bus stop and go and search out Ralph, but when I finally reach the Red Lion all I see is Baron by himself in the corner with a copy of the
Racing Post
and a stub of pencil behind one ear. He tell me that he don’t know where Ralph is, and as usual the man don’t have much time for conversation so I decide no point in staying for a drink and I move off. At this time nothing really worry me because I expect to find Ralph back in his room and lying on the bed with a bottle to his mouth ready to tell me everything with plenty of exaggeration. However, as I walk toward the front door of Mrs Jones’s house I hear groaning coming from the bushes and so I step off the path and discover Ralph, whose face is covered in blood and the man’s mouth moving but no words coming out. I pound on the door and Mrs Jones open up and ask me if I lose my key, but I point at Ralph and the woman look frighten and she say that she will ask Mr Jones to call for an ambulance. I ease past Mrs Jones and into the house and fill a cup with water which I bring back for Ralph. I prop up my friend’s head and start to feed him some water from the cup, but his lips can’t form a funnel and everything dripping down the man’s cheek and all the time I speaking to him, take it easy Ralph, take it easy man, you know everything going be just fine, just take it easy. Maybe fifteen minutes later, I watching the ambulance man rub some ointment into the head wound, but the blood continue to flow so the man quickly put on a fresh piece of bandage. As he does so he lose his balance because the ambulance take a hard right and the tyres squeal before we straighten out again. I hold on to Ralph’s hand, but I can’t bring myself to look again into the man’s face because
I
know the nose is broken and squashed flat and cotton wool is pushed up into each nostril. One eye closed up tight, and the other only half open, and Ralph’s lips big like two red balloons. The ambulance man try to move one of my friend’s twisted legs, but Ralph cry out in pain and so the man stop what he is doing and ask me again if I am with Ralph when the attack happen, and if I see the men who beat him, but again I tell him I just see three boys chasing Ralph out the park, and I’m running the other way, and that is all. After the ambulance arrive at the hospital, I wait for the night nurse to pass back into the empty visitors’ room, and when she does so I climb to my feet and ask the woman if she have any news, but the woman say the doctor will come and talk with me but in the meantime I must sit back on the hard wooden chair and wait. I ask if she have change for a shilling as I need to make a phone call, but the night nurse shake her head then take out a threepence from her purse which she give to me and ask if I know where the phonebox is. The first week I arrive in England, Ralph hand me a piece of paper with the number of his sister in Manchester saying if anything happen to him then I should let her know. I can’t imagine anything going happen, but for some reason I keep the number safe and sound in my wallet where I can find it. Shirley know who I am, but she talking down the phone like she don’t trust me, but then I realise that I must have woken her up and so she bound to be a little suspicious. I tell her what happen and I can hear the worry in the woman’s voice. Shirley say she will make the arrangements to come over tomorrow at the end of work, and I tell her that if I can meet her at the station I will do so, but in the evening I have to go to college. I say this hoping to impress the woman, but all she say back to me is “thank you” and that she will see me at the hospital and then she hang up and the woman leave me feeling foolish with the receiver in my hand. I fold up the piece of paper with
Shirley’s
number and push it back in my wallet, and I go back to the empty visitors’ room where the clock on the wall telling me that it is past one in the morning. Again I take up a seat, and the double doors swing open with plenty urgency and the doctor come forth with some papers in one hand and the other hand pushed down in the pocket of his white coat. The man move quickly toward me as though he is going to arrest me. He ask me what happen to my friend, but I tell him that I don’t know because I’m not there, and he say he must file a report with the police because it’s the law in England and so I say fine. I still waiting for him to say something about how Ralph is doing, but the man just look at me and slowly shake his head which make me anxious, but if the man don’t want to talk then the man don’t have to talk, and I can’t force him to say whatever it is that is on his mind.

‘The next day I ask the foreman if I can leave early because of what happen to Ralph. The foreman assume that I going to the hospital and so he say, “yes, of course you can go and see your friend,” but instead of going to the hospital I decide to go to the train station and I get there just as the Manchester train is pulling in. It’s two or three years since I last see Shirley, but she don’t change much. Even the heavy coat can’t disguise her sweet figure. She smile when she see me, but on the bus to the hospital she don’t say a word. Once we reach the hospital I find a seat in the visitors’ room while Shirley alone go in to see her brother, but at least other people waiting in the room. After twenty minutes the same doctor come out to speak with a man who is sitting across from me, but when the doctor sight me he just nod then continue with his quiet quiet conversation. Once he finish talking to the man he come over and drop a hand on my shoulder and tell me they doing all they can for Ralph. I remember the doctor smiling as he say this, but before I can ask him what he mean by “doing all they can” the doctor turn and
leave.
Maybe an hour later, Shirley come out through the double doors but the woman looking sad as if she been crying. I tell her if she not planning on going back to Manchester tonight then she must stay in Ralph’s room and I will sleep on the landing. Shirley don’t say anything in return and so I ask her if she hungry, but the woman shake her head without looking up at me. Once we get on the bus, I ask Shirley if she want to go straight back to the room or if she want to do something else. The truth is I prefer not to take Shirley to the pub, because I know the pub is no place for a woman like this, and I looking at the brightly lit streets and thinking it will be a shame to go straight back to the miserable room, so when Shirley say she would like to go to the pictures I glad. I’m trying hard to think of where I can find a film place, but Shirley tell me she notice a cinema across the square outside the train station. “A big place that is named Majestic,” she say. When the film done, and the name of the people begin to come up on the screen, it’s then that I realise I going have to move myself. For the past two hours my leg been accidentally resting against her own leg, and I can’t concentrate on the film but at the same time I don’t want to move. Now the film is over and I not too sure about what I must do. Then the national anthem start to play and this solve the problem because now I must stand up, and then after the music finish we leave the cinema. Shirley don’t say a thing as we walk to the bus stop, and I thinking that she must still be upset about Ralph and the film don’t make no difference to her mood. Back at the room I bring a cup of tea from the kitchen and I set it down on the small table beside Ralph’s bed. I tell her, “I put in three sugars, but if you need more I can go and get more.” I also tell her that everything is straighten out with Mrs Jones, the landlady, so the woman is not going get a shock if she run into Shirley in the bathroom or in the kitchen. It’s then that I notice Shirley still not taken
off
her coat. “I sorry if you cold,” I say, “but the paraffin heater take time to warm up.” I pick up some clothes and a blanket and pillow from the mattress on the floor, and I balance everything in my arms. I tell Shirley that if she need me then I going be outside, and I mention that in the morning I will take her back to the hospital before I go off to work. She look at me and ask me why it is that tonight I don’t go to college. Before I can answer Shirley tell me that this is the first time she ever see me without a book in my hand. “I surprise you don’t already come a lawyer.” For a moment I not sure if the woman is making a joke, and then she smile and say that she not tired yet and maybe I want to talk. I look at her and decide to set the bundle of clothes, and the blanket and the pillow, back down upon the mattress. I sit on the floor with my back to the wall and stretch out my legs in front of me.

‘Maybe a week after the attack on Ralph, Mrs Jones make it clear that I have to find a next room. The English man who own the house, and advertise the room, just throw open the door but he don’t bother to turn on the light bulb. He gesture with an arm but I find myself watching the ash on the end of the man’s cigarette. “Well? It’s a double room like I said, with a small gas stove. You got your privacy in here, pal. You share a lav in the basement, but no hot water though. However, it doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Two pounds ten shillings a week for the room, no questions asked, just be sensible with the visitors and respectable girls only. I don’t want the house going down. A shilling for a shower at the local baths, which is three streets away, and that’s a coal fire, but you’ll have to get a guard. Well, you want it or not because it’ll go? I wouldn’t hang about because there’s plenty of people looking for a roof for the night, you do know that don’t you?” The man take a deep draw on his cigarette, then he stub it out on the wall and I watch the ashes flake
down
on to the nasty carpet. Back on the street I can see that these houses had once carried some style, but these days they broke down and paint peeling from them and the tiny front garden just pile up with rubbish. My head is hurt bad, and I push the scrap of paper with the addresses of the rooms to rent back into my pocket and I keep walking. Me, I done look at my last room for the day. Mrs Jones tell me I must leave because after what happen with Ralph her husband say he don’t want no more coloureds in his house. It’s not that he’s prejudiced, she say, it’s just that he can’t take any bother with coppers. And so I walking in London town, and the night smog starting to itch my eyes, and I can’t see more than ten yards ahead of me. The streetlights don’t help with the fog, because they just make everything look like ghosts everyplace. In my head I can hear people talking to me, but I try not to listen and I keep my eyes down and walk quickly until I find myself outside a restaurant. I go into the empty place, but as soon as I sit down the two men who work there look hard at me and start to talk to each other in their language. The scruffy, younger, man come over and hand me a dirty piece of paper with the menu printed on it, and I say thank you very much but I already know what I want. I just need a plate of rice. “Just rice?” Yes, I say, just plain white rice. The man take back the paper and I watch as he go into the kitchen with the older man. A few minutes pass and I stare out of the window into the black night, but I find nothing to see and nobody is walking by. These days, it dark going out to work and dark coming in again, and I try to think about this but it no use for the people in my head still talking. For a week now I been hearing these blasted people in my head, but nothing they say make any sense and I can’t seem to make them stop. Tomorrow I going look at some more rooms, because Mrs Jones don’t have to ask me twice. I’m not a dog or a cat. Nobody going put me out at
night.
The younger man come back through from the kitchen with a plate of rice which he put down in front of me and the man move off to one side and wait by the door. It’s then that I reach down in my pocket and take out the tin of sardines and start to open it with the metal key, carefully curling back the tin lid, then I tip the sardines on to the rice and stir them in good. I pick up the salt and pepper and flavour the food. By now the older man come out from the kitchen and the two of them staring at me. They come to my table and the older man start to wave his hands and shout. “Oh no, sir, this is not possible. You cannot do this. It is our food that you must eat.” I just keep eating and I ignore the both of them.