In the Falling Snow (30 page)

‘Here, you going need the keys to your father’s house.’

He takes the keys from Baron and folds them into the palm of his hand. Baron continues to stare at him.

‘You love your father?’

He looks closely at Baron, but he is unsure how to answer this question.

‘Keith, whether you love the man or not, the fact is you’re doing this for him, not for you. At this stage of his life who else can he talk to?’

On the way back to the hospital he sits on the lower deck of the bus close to the front door. The bus has been parked for ten minutes now, and the driver is still arguing with two youths who want to bring their KFC on board. The driver is insistent. ‘You can poison yourself all you like with that crap, but I’m not having smelly food on my bus.’ One lad defiantly eats a piece of chicken in front of the driver, while his friend seems to be increasingly aware of the fact that they are holding up a bus full of people eager to get home after a day of work. ‘Come on, guy. You’re being a mentalist now.’ He looks away from the turmoil and out through the window of the bus, and then he takes out his mobile phone and dials the access number to his voicemail. Lesley sounds matter-of-fact, but she is letting him know that she did as promised and spoke with Yvette, who has agreed not to go before a tribunal. Apparently, Yvette has fired her lawyer and decided to take the settlement package that Clive Wilson has offered her. ‘I think she was seeing the lawyer. Not that it means anything, but I suspect that her relationship with the lawyer was the hold-up.’ She pauses. ‘She didn’t mention you, in case you were wondering, it was all about the lawyer. But she sounded good.
Well,
you know, relieved.’ Again Lesley pauses. ‘Look, I won’t be calling you again so no worries, okay? Well, that should be the end of it.’ The awkwardness of the phone message seems to be intensifying and then she laughs. ‘Bye, Keith.’ He continues to hold the phone to his ear. It is the commotion of the police car pulling up, and the two youngsters swiftly jumping from the bus and bolting away in the direction of the concrete and glass shopping centre, that suddenly jars him back to life.

His father props himself up in bed, and the no-nonsense nurse hands him the cup and saucer before turning her attention to the task of filling in her patient’s chart.

‘You see what I’ve turned into? A bloody Englishman sharing a cup of tea and a biscuit with you.’

‘Nothing wrong with a cup of tea.’

‘So, I have a son who thinks that there’s nothing wrong with an English cup of tea.’

‘Do you want a son at all?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Not every man wants to be a father.’

‘Well, I didn’t plan to have no kids, but your mother was a woman, and women have their own ideas about these kind of things. Anyhow, you’re here, and I don’t have no problem with that.’ He pauses and sips his tea. ‘Nothing can change that.’

Does this obstinate man not realise that after thirty years spent sweeping out lecture halls, and cleaning blackboards and emptying dustbins, his pitiful life has been reduced to drinking by himself in a depressing pub, or making the occasional trip to a community centre to play dominoes, or else falling asleep in front of his television set while programmes about people attempting to sell the junk from their attic blare out until he once again wakes up and crawls upstairs to bed. This is the life
that
he is trying to rescue his father from, but the man’s feistiness hardly suggests gratitude.

The nurse finishes filling in the chart, which she now hooks on to the foot of the bed. She feels the older man’s forehead with the back of her hand, but his father ignores both the nurse and his son and stares out of the window where it is pitch black. Winter nights are upon them.

‘Mr Gordon, I’m going to love you and leave you, all right? I’ll be back later to check up on you, but you can give me a call if you need anything, okay?’ She pauses. ‘You’ll be all right, will you?’

He realises that the nurse is now talking to him, but she has caught him by surprise. The nurse looks at him as though she is expecting a reply, but then she swivels on her heels and squeaks her way down the polished linoleum floor and in the direction of another patient’s bed. His father puts his tea back down on the saucer with a clatter.

‘That one’s just playing nice.’

‘She seems okay. I suppose they’re overworked.’

‘You think so? I take it Baron phone you and tell you what happen?’ His father coughs violently and reaches out for a tissue. He picks up the box and places it in his father’s lap.

‘You were asleep when I arrived so I went round to see Baron and thank him for looking out for you.’

‘I feel like I have water on my chest, and I don’t mean a drop or two, it feel like a whole pail full of water is pressing down on me.’

‘Do you want me to call the nurse again?’

‘Call her for what? We just get rid of the woman.’

He watches as his father looks for somewhere to discard his tissue, so he lifts up the wastepaper basket and offers it to him. He has already decided that he won’t bother to bring up anything
to
do with the Mandela Centre, beyond mentioning his visit with Baron, for his father’s belligerence cannot disguise the fact that he is still weak and in need of rest.

‘Shall I leave the bin by the side of the bed?’ His father nods, and so he places the wicker basket on the floor. ‘Maybe you should get some sleep.’

‘I don’t know why I’m so tired. I can hardly keep my damn eyes open.’

‘Well you’ve just had a heart attack. The next few weeks you’ll need to rest up and let these people do what they have to do.’

His father snorts in disgust, but he can see that the older man’s eyes are closing like curtains.

‘You really believe these people know what they’re doing?’ He looks up at his son. ‘Maybe they give me something to make me sleep? I don’t feel normal.’

He takes his father’s hand in his own and squeezes gently.

‘Just rest, okay.’

‘Rest?’ His father laughs. ‘This is no time to rest. Me, I want to go home.’

‘Home? Maybe in a few weeks, but what are you going to do there by yourself? You know it doesn’t make any sense to be living all alone in that house.’

‘You don’t understand me, Keith.’

He looks at his father’s weary face and wonders if maybe this is, in fact, an appropriate time to revisit the idea of his father taking a flatlet in the Mandela Centre. He doesn’t want to bring social services into the picture and force a move upon his father, for he understands that to do so will inevitably trigger painful memories. But having visited Baron, and seen the accommodation for himself, he is now adamant that his father will not be returning to his house. Tomorrow he will go back to the Mandela Centre and pick up the necessary paperwork which will ensure
that
when his father is discharged from St Joseph’s he will be going directly to a flatlet.

‘You listening to me?’

He looks down at his father’s face.

‘I want to go home, Keith. I don’t mean to some stupid English house. I mean home. Home, home.’ His father stares up at him. ‘You understanding what I mean? I’m not from here. I land in England on a cold Friday morning. It is April 15, 1960, and only three weeks before this I put my father in the ground. It seem to take forever to pass through the Bay of Biscay with its rough, rough sea that is so bad that at night not a single person want to play dominoes, or organise a dance, or any of that kind of thing for everybody is suffering hard, but then eventually all the pitching and rolling and vomiting come to an end and suddenly the sea is smooth like a slack water pond, and I find myself gawping upon land. But even before I get off the boat England deliver a big shock to my system. Looking down from the deck I see plenty of white men in dirty clothes hurrying this way and that way up and down the dock, pushing wheelbarrows, and spitting on the ground and shouting at each other. These people don’t look like the type of white men I used to seeing back home wearing club blazer and tie and walking about the place ramrod straight. Jesus Christ, I don’t know England have such poor white men. I’m only twenty-two years old, in a thin jacket and foolish straw hat, and people on the boat arguing about whether spring reach or if it’s still winter but I feel cold invading my body like it don’t care if it throw me down and finish me off right there and then on day number one, so even before I get off the damn boat England punishing my mind and my body and teaching me a hard lesson about what kind of place it is. I remember, soon after we leave the West Indies, two Trinidadian fellars fall into the habit of sitting out on deck in the afternoon and talking all
singsong
about what to expect when we reach England. It turn out the two of them get demobbed from the RAF after the war and they take off back to Trinidad hoping to make a go of it, but after fifteen years’ hard scrabbling they coming back to England with big ideas about how much money they going make, and chatting foolishness about how they understand everything about England and so if we want to make good we should shut up and listen to the pair of them running their mouths about how you have to dress for the cold because England have icy wind and sleet and snow that can bite your backside hard, and they telling us that in England everything is dear, and whatever you do don’t show off to these people, and Lord have mercy you better learn to queue because the English relish nothing more than making a queue in an orderly fashion, and in England you have to learn double-talk, because if they ask you to please stay a bit longer, they want you to leave, and they love a sweet clock because everything have to be punctual and on time, and all shipshape and proper, and English people don’t like noise or any kind of trouble with the neighbours, and you must get accustom to the fact that everywhere is a sea of white faces, everywhere you turn you always looking on a sea of white faces and they don’t know nothing about you, or where you from, or who you be, and they don’t know the difference between a Jamaican and a Bajan, or where is this West Indian island, and they never hear the name of that West Indian island, so while you know everything about them, daffodil, king this and queen that, poet and lyrical feeling and so forth, Sherlock Holmes, Noel Coward, this statue and that statue, castle and tower, Robin Hood, Lord Nelson, whatever question they care to test you on you have England under control, but the truth is most of these people don’t know a blasted thing about themselves so every question pointing at you but if you want to shame them you just turn it round and ask them
about
themselves and their own history and you soon going see how quickly they stop talking. Mark you, the one thing they all know is they don’t care much for the foreigner and that is you, man, that is always you, but don’t call them prejudice because that will vex them, and don’t tell them you don’t want to hear them talking like you is savage and they come missionaries whose job is to educate and civilise you because this is just going to heat up their blood. What you must do is play the stranger because it make them feel better; play the part of the stranger and nod and smile when they ask you if you know what is a toilet, or if you ever see running water coming from a tap. Look upon their foolishness like a game you winning and the stupid people don’t even know that you busy scoring points off their ignorance. Play the damn stranger and you can win in England and maybe you don’t run crazy, but it don’t matter what the two Trinidadians on the boat say, because when I finally reach England I not ready to deal with everything that I seeing, beginning with the scruffy white men with the wheelbarrows going in all directions up and down the dock. I know then, right there at the start, that serious pressure reach my head because my mind don’t understand what my eyes looking upon, but I have to keep this worry lock up inside of me so nobody can tell what it is that I feeling. Back home people know me as a quiet fellar, and they respect the fact that I keep to myself, especially my sister Leona and my best friend, Ralph. They know me, but I also know them, and because this is the situation we all just get along fine with one another. But even before I get off the boat I looking at this new place and I feel my heart pounding, for what I looking down upon don’t make no sense, and the hurting in my head begin right there, and I find myself standing up on the deck and leaning against the rail in my thin jacket and straw hat and trying hard to act like nothing in the world is the matter even though I feel
hungry
and light-headed but I fight back the hunger and the fear and I follow everybody down the walkway and straight into the immigration office where I wait and wait and then eventually I show the man my British passport and he speak fast to me with a voice like a gun (
got a job have you, son?
) and I shake my head and he hand me back my passport and then I take the train to London in a carriage that is full of people from the boat so I don’t really meet England proper till I reach London and I have to change train stations. I make my way across London town in the back of a taxi that I share with a man from Barbados, who say that he also need to find this King’s Cross station, but from the moment we get in the car neither one of us say a word and we just stare out of the window with big, big eyes like we standing up outside a bakery and neither one of us eat properly for a week. Even though it’s still late afternoon, it already look to me like night reach, and then I see the place called Hyde Park which is big like a rainforest, but I take it that all the trees must be dead for hardly any leaves on them. As we pass through the centre of the city the lights from Piccadilly Circus burn my eyes and make me feel giddy, and noisy double-decker buses choking up everywhere I look. I see all the people rushing about and London seem like a place where opportunity must knock and knock again and keep a man awake with all its possibilities for the city is big and crazy like I imagine America must be big and crazy, and it make me think of my brother Desmond, and what he must be going through in whatever part of America he finally decide to live in. In truth, London don’t seem real but this taxi man is driving me through the place in the direction of King’s Cross station at a hell of a lick and I want to lean forward and say to the man, take it easy now because I want you to set me down safe and sound, but I don’t say nothing to the man because it’s his town and he must know what he’s doing.