In the Falling Snow (33 page)

‘The foreman looked upon me as though he’s looking at an animal that he thinking of buying. He turn back to face my friend. “Bloody hell, Ralphie where do you find them? This one’s got no meat on him. He’ll probably melt if we put him anywhere near the furnaces. Thin like a piece of liquorice, he is.” Ralph already tell me that this man don’t have any prejudice like most of the others who, according to Ralph, say they don’t want to
work
with us because we’re too friendly with their women, or they claim our hands are too rough, or they can’t share the same lavatory with us, or they frighten that when the tea break come we might use their mug, or they say we blow our noses when they passing by and we won’t take off our hats indoors, but I already know the truth is they just can’t tolerate being close to a coloured man but they will take us as a last resort if no Englishman will work for such low wages. However, Ralph tell me this man is a good man, and Ralph squeeze my arm and laugh and promise the foreman that he will make sure I eat plenty Yorkshire pudding and roast beef, but I not laughing and I looking hard at the English man and remembering what Ralph tell me about these union men who like to talk big about the importance of the empire, and everything is brother this and brother that, and I only been in England for a few weeks but already I have to leave two jobs because these people like to trouble your mind because in one breath they talking all this brother foolishness with a smile, and with the same smile they tell you it is better if you only bring English food to eat at break because some people don’t appreciate foreign muck and if they don’t like your name, or if they find it too hard to pronounce, they quick to call you Jim or Sam or something that is supposed to make you know your place, and Ralph tell me that these are the same men whose children like to dress up in the drainpipe trousers and fancy jackets and carry flick knives, and when they go out “nigger hunting” they wear motorbike chain necklaces and carry iron bars and starting handles and talk about “Keep Britain White” as they leave the pub and begin a “nigger run” for the night, but they always make it back before last orders and laugh about how many spade heads they crack and somebody will sing “Bye Bye Blackbird” and the landlord’s bell will ring out and if they catch you on the street after the pub close then they going
pelt
milk bottles and bricks at you and the “nigger run” begin again right there and then. So I’m standing up straight and Ralph is feeling my arm and talking stupidness about roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and I look at the man and I want to ask him if he have any Teddy Boy sons, or maybe a daughter who he teach to spit on the ground for good luck when she see a coloured man, but I don’t say anything and the man run his big hand across the top of my head and he tell Ralph that “at least we won’t have to prescribe Amplex for this one” and if he can find a pair of overalls into which I don’t disappear then I can start work on Monday and he shake my hand and tell me welcome to the factory and promise me that if I keep my nose clean and my head down they going treat me just like everybody else. Ralph is jumping from one foot to the next and he say “thank you” and I looking at Ralph and wondering what the hell is going on inside the head of my friend because he carrying on all skittish and telling the man that he never see me without a book and how I always studying, and I want to tell Ralph to relax because this is a factory job and as far as I can see book learning don’t have nothing to do with working in an iron foundry. After all, it’s Ralph who tell me that work start at eight, but nothing is done before nine except reading the newspaper and smoking, then at eleven everything stop for tea, then again at one for lunch, then tea again but this time with cake, and then people go home at five, so the thing is not like real work, and I don’t think a man’s brain have anything to do with this job, but I don’t say nothing although inside my head I begging Ralph to stop off his talk about me and the blasted books.

‘A week later I find myself sitting in front of a man who is looking upon me with a strange smile on his face and his two feet propped up on a desk. Underneath one shoe is covered in mud, and the man is stroking his short beard with his right hand.
Then
the man stop doing so and drop both hands together in his lap and begin nodding as though answering a question, although as yet I don’t say a thing. The man is wearing a thick brown jacket and I’m studying the pieces of leather on the cuffs and elbows because I never look upon a jacket like this before. Then I find myself gawping at the shirt and tie and pullover, which bulk out the man’s small frame, for this is the first time in my life that I see anybody wearing so much clothes inside a building. Eventually the man stop dreaming and he reach into his breast pocket and pull out a pipe which he hold carefully in the cup of his palm. His fingers poke about in an envelope of tobacco and he begin to push a clump of weed into the bowl of the pipe before putting the thing in his mouth and lighting it. He haul up some smoke, then he take the pipe from his mouth and begin to use the thing to point. He ask me, “So to what exactly do I owe the pleasure of your visit? The department secretary said that you wanted to see a professor.” He smile. “Well, I’m afraid I’m not a professor, I’m merely a lecturer, but I hope I’ll do.” I thank the man and tell him I want to register at the college to take classes, but if this is not the right place then I can come back at a more convenient time and speak with a next person. I don’t tell him that the ignorant woman at the front desk ask me what I want, and when I say I want to study she look surprised and tell me that it is half-term but she will see what she can do. However, she tell me like she want me to know she doing me some kind of big favour. After a few minutes the woman come back and say, third door on the right, and that I am lucky because this morning Dr Davies is in the office and he have a few minutes to spare. I put down the magazine that I holding and thank the woman, but she don’t have no time for me. “Well go on,” she say, “he won’t bite.” Dr Davies swings down his feet from the desk and he lean forward and ask me if
I
have any idea of what subject it is that I wish to register for, but I tell him that I don’t know, and I looking good at this man because I not sure if he on my side or if the man just amusing himself. “I’m sorry,” he say, “I seem to have forgotten my manners. Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” I shake my head, but then I remember my own manners and say “no thank you,” but the man continue to stare at me. I tell him that I pass all my school exams, but not so high that I can take the scholarship, and then I confess that maybe I want to try for law. The man is listening with a kind of pretend smile on his face so I decide I better tell him everything. I tell him that I work at the factory with my good friend, Ralph, but I can work in the day and still plenty of time to study in the evening. I try to convince the man that I ready to take the college exams or whatever it is that you must do to gain entrance into the place. The man wait a second or two and then he ask me all calm and easy if I can truly work and study at the same time, and I tell the man the hours at the factory are eight to five but I don’t have to go to the pub after work with the other fellars because I prefer to study. Dr Davies look pleased, and then he tap his pipe on the desk and push in more tobacco and light it up again. He say that he hope I don’t mind that he is asking, but why it is that I think so many of us are coming over. “Opportunity or adventure, or a combination of both?” I look at Dr Davies and wonder if this is some kind of examination question. The man look kind enough, but a part of me is ready to get up and go and find Ralph. I watch him begin to smoke the pipe, and then the man tell me he favour Commonwealth migration, particularly as it seem as though we prepared to make a big sacrifice and abandon our lovely sunshine. He say he understand the situation because his sister is a nurse in Ceylon, and before this she is in Nigeria. “But look out of the window,” he say, “look at the blessed weather. Who would want
to
flee paradise for this, for heaven’s sake?” I know the man don’t really be talking to me so I just watch him and wait for him to turn back and look me in the face, which he eventually decide to do. Dr Davies ask me if I have any family in England, but before I can answer the man is talking to himself again. He rest down the pipe and sigh. “You’re all so bloody young. Remarkable really, but you’re all just kids when it comes down to it, just kids.”’

The new, younger, nurse gently touches his arm and he lifts up his head from the tabletop and slits his eyes against the bright light.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Gordon, but your father’s awake now and he’s asking after you.’

He looks around and realises that he is in the cafeteria. The television set is bracketed high in the far corner, where the walls meet the ceiling, and he can see that it is broadcasting the nine o’clock news with subtitles.

‘We’ve tried to bed him down for the night, but he keeps asking after you.’

He squints up at the woman, then shields his eyes with a raised hand and pushes back his chair. This one is prettier, and he likes her manner more than the other one. He remembers the first nurse ushering him away from his father’s bedside, insisting that the older man needed a wash and an afternoon rest, and pointing him in the direction of the cafeteria. Once there, he ordered fish and chips, with a portion of peas and bread and butter on the side, but as he took his place at the Formica-topped table he realised that he didn’t feel much like eating. He dialled Annabelle’s number, but the phone went straight to voicemail and so he quickly ended the call. He remembered that this morning he’d gone to the Mandela Centre for the application
form,
and deliberately tried to avoid Baron. He wondered if he should call Baron and let him know how his father was doing. He could even nip round to see him and have something to eat with his father’s friend at the pub, instead of consuming the rubbish that he had just bought, but he assumed that Baron would only expect to hear from him if his father’s condition took a turn for the worse. Baron was probably giving father and son some time together. He recalled staring down at the fish and chips and pushing the meal away from himself to the far side of the table. He let his head fall forward into the cushioned pillow of his folded arms and closed his eyes. And now the young nurse is standing over him and waiting patiently for him to follow her back to his father’s bedside.

His father watches him take a seat on the metal chair and then he slowly twists his body to one side and places the brown envelope back on the bedside table. The older man grimaces with the effort, and the new nurse gently massages the underside of his arm where the intravenous drip is needled into a thin vein. Having done so, the nurse stands with her arms crossed before her and watches carefully before speaking to the son in a half-whisper.

‘I’ll be going off duty at midnight, but I’ll stop by from time to time before then. It’ll be all right for you to stay so long as you’re both quiet. But don’t overdo it. He’s weaker than he thinks.’

He nods appreciatively, but it is only after she has turned and started to walk away that he realises he still hasn’t raised the subject of his father’s eyesight.

‘Why is the girl whispering?’

‘It’s getting late and people are sleeping. She’s just trying to be respectful of others.’

‘You want to sleep?’ His father looks hurt. ‘You want to sleep, then sleep. I don’t be stopping you sleeping.’

‘I’m not tired. I was listening to you.’

‘Well, I was telling you about meeting this man, Dr Davies. You remember?’

‘I remember. The college lecturer.’

‘Well nearly a month pass by since I have the meeting with this Dr Davies, and one night I find myself sitting with the fellars in the pub when suddenly Baron fold up his newspaper with a big performance and he stand and push the thing into his coat pocket. He announce that he gone for the night. My eyes follow him across to the door and I watch as he leave the pub. This is the third time this week that Baron get up from the table for he can’t listen any more to Ralph shooting off his mouth about what he will do to the next teenager who try to push him off the pavement. Ralph return from the bar with three pints of bitter balance in his two hands and set them on the table before he drop back down into his seat. My friend continue to talk as though he don’t notice Baron gone. As Ralph lift the new pint to his mouth, I can see the bruise on the side of his face where the English boy punch him in the head. “You know,” he say, “they still have pubs in this town that don’t let us in at all. We barred, and like I tell you, don’t bother going to any dance club without a girl, coloured or white. They don’t care what kind of girl you bring, but what they don’t want is no single coloured man prowling around the place sniffing up the women. They believe all this inter-racial business begin in the dance hall, but what they can’t deal with is when the English girls begin sniffing back and that’s when you hear them start talking about not wanting a country full of half-castes. They think all of us is ponces looking to prey on a piece of white thing that we give a drink to, or a bit of dope, then we breed them and put them out on the street. Well, you know that’s what they saying, don’t you?” I’m listening to Ralph, but I hear the speech already because every night since Ralph start seeing an English girl who work on the buses, my friend getting drunk and
loud
and saying the same thing over and over. Tonight, as he walking the girl back to her place from the bus depot, the girl’s brother ambush him and Ralph beat the boy and take a knife from him and pitch it down a drain, but not before the boy thump him hard. The girl decide to stay with the brother, who shouting that he going get Ralph and calling him a coon and a sambo and other things that Ralph say he can’t understand because the accent is too thick, and Ralph seem upset that the girl would want to stay with the brother even though I tell him that blood is thicker than water and he should realise the brother don’t mean nothing and the boy is just trying to save face. Every night since Ralph get sweet on Doreen from the bus depot my friend drinking too much. Ralph say the brother have big sideburns like he think he a man, and he wear stupid thick, thick shoes, but Ralph claim that he show him who is the man and he is sure the boy not coming back for a next beating. Ralph empty his pint in one and my friend move to get up from the seat but he fall back. “Jesus Christ, man, you know these people want a colour bar here so why they don’t just get on with it and make it legal. But where does that leave the Cypriots, you tell me? They let them run a café here and there and everywhere, but are the Cyps coloured people? They look coloured to me, don’t you think?” I watch Ralph lift up his paper mat out of a puddle of beer, and then he put down his empty glass on it. “They seriously think they can lynch me? They think they can do me like Little Rock? Don’t make me laugh. I know them, smiling at us at work and then ignoring us when they see us in the street. Man, I know them, I know them good, and if I can’t walk home a decent girl like Doreen in peace and quiet then what the hell is going on, you tell me that? Man, this place is a joke.”