In the Falling Snow (36 page)

The young man seated two rows in front of him on the bus is watching an action film of some kind on his iPod. The youth’s baseball cap is turned backwards on his head so that despite the mid-afternoon gloom he can just about make out the faded logo of an American sports team. He can also hear the screeching of tyres and the popping of gunshots as the action film climaxes in some sort of car chase sequence. He is still not sure why he decided to take the bus back to London instead of the train, but he suspects that some part of him imagined that the longer journey would give him more time to turn things over in his mind, but as the bus hustles its way down the M1 all he can think about is the time when his father came to see him, the week after the thirteenth birthday visit, and abruptly announced to Brenda that he was taking his son to the pictures. Brenda shrugged her shoulders and told him to go upstairs and get ready, while she stood calmly by the door and waited with his father. He couldn’t be sure if Brenda was standing guard to prevent his father from storming into the house and causing confusion, or if she was worried that his father might disappear without waiting for him. Either way, he hurried upstairs and grabbed his coat and scarf, and then he ran back down, not because he was eager to go to the pictures, but because he didn’t want to leave Brenda alone for too long.

‘What time will you be bringing him back?’ Brenda ruffled
his
hair as she spoke, and then she encouraged him to fasten his scarf into a knot around his neck. ‘Not too late, all right?’

‘Whatever time the film finish.’

‘Look, Earl, I’m not planning on going out anywhere, but he has got homework to do this weekend.’

He looked up at his father, who was visibly annoyed, but he could also see that his father had now made a decision to remain silent.

‘Well, can you give me
some
idea of a time?’

His father turned to leave, and he understood that this was his cue to step forward and join him.

Brenda called out. ‘I’ll see you later, love.’

The film was an animated Disney cartoon, and from the moment it began he found himself caught up in the plot. He had been to Saturday morning children’s matinées before, but this was the first time that he had been to a proper late afternoon screening. He couldn’t remember if his father bought him any sweets or anything to drink, but he clearly recalls that when the film was over he followed his father out of the darkened auditorium and back into the lobby. Through the huge glass windows, he could see that outside it had got dark, and that car lights were on. He could also see that it was snowing and huge white flakes were tumbling down out of the sky and coating the pavement white. His father held up his coat for him and he pushed one arm into a sleeve, and then fished around looking for the other one. He finally jammed his arm into the hole and threaded it through but he couldn’t take his eyes from the snow. His father offered him his hand and even though he felt too old for this he took it, and together they left the warmth of the foyer and stepped out into the bitterly cold evening. They began to walk back in the direction of the bus stop, past the parked cars that were already clad in snow, and as the flakes continued to
fall
on their bare heads he could feel his hand tight and safe in his father’s hand. He looked behind him and saw two sets of footprints where they had walked, a large pair and his own smaller ones, and then he gazed up at the sky where a sudden surge of wind buffeted the flakes so that the snow began to swirl feverishly. As they turned a corner, he tugged his father’s hand. His father looked down at him and smiled. He pointed to the sky. ‘Look at all the snow!’ His father continued to smile.

Brenda opened the door and quickly beckoned him inside.

‘I thought you two might be building an igloo or something.’ She paused and looked at his father. ‘Would you like to come in for a warm before you head off?’ His father shook his head.

‘I have everything with the lawyers so that I can get my son back with me. They say you will hear from them next week.’

Brenda sighed. ‘Look, Earl, it doesn’t have to come to this. Have I argued with you? He’s your son, you just have to make sure that you’ve got a proper place for him and then we can come to an arrangement, that’s all.’

His father ignored Brenda and looked down at his son. ‘I better go now before the buses stop running.’ His father leaned over the threshold and hugged him, although the older man was clearly somewhat uncomfortable with the gesture. Once his father released him he stepped outside the house and into the snow, and he looked on as his father gingerly picked his way down the path in search of some form of transportation that might convey the snow-furred pilgrim back to wherever he lived. As he walked, his father left behind a single set of footprints, and he remembered lingering by the doorstep and watching closely as the falling snow steadily erased all evidence of his father’s presence.

As the speeding bus continues to careen its way down the motorway towards London, most of the passengers are trying to doze. However, he notices that the young man with the iPod is
now
busily selecting another film whose ambient soundtrack will no doubt torment his neighbours for what remains of the journey. This morning the familiar older nurse had pushed his shoulder somewhat aggressively, and then she stood over him until his blinking eyes began to focus.

‘That’s not the best chair to fall asleep in, but you were obviously shattered after listening to him.’ She paused. ‘Older people often have a lot to say. We see it from time to time.’ Again she paused. ‘After he’d finished his chatting we thought it best to leave you both, and eventually you nodded off too.’

He could feel that both of his shoulders and his back were aching because of the angle at which he had fallen asleep, and so he pulled himself upright on the metal chair. He then realised that he could no longer hear the sonar beep of his father’s machine. In fact, the hospital bed was empty.

‘I’m sorry, love but about half an hour ago we moved your father to intensive care as his vitals were failing. That’s when I first tried to wake you, but it was an emergency so we had to rush. And then we lost him. He just slipped away in his sleep so he wouldn’t have known a thing about it.’

He looked up at this woman’s face in disbelief. What was she trying to tell him?

‘I’m very sorry, but it happened quickly and quite frankly there’s not a thing that you could have done or said. I’ve just come back from over there.’ She paused. ‘Intensive care, that is.’

‘Is that where he is?’

‘They’ll be moving him now. We’ve left a message for his friend at the Mandela Centre is it?’

‘Yes, the Mandela Centre. His name’s Baron.’

‘We know, love. He checked your father in so we have all of his details.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry for what? I take it that you’ll be going over to your father’s place and starting to sort things out as you’re the only family we have registered.’ He nodded. ‘And can we reach you there, or do you have a mobile number that we could perhaps have?’

He couldn’t remember his mobile number so he took out the phone and checked. He wrote down the number on the back of an old receipt and handed the piece of paper to the woman. The nurse gave him a sympathetic smile, but it was apparent that the woman had nothing further to say and she hovered awkwardly. He sensed that he was keeping her from something. Fearful of any more platitudes, he climbed to his feet and began the long, confusing, walk down the length of the ward away from his father’s empty bed. So that was it? His father had ‘slipped away in his sleep’? Slipped away? The words echoed in his mind like a pedalled note. That was all she had to say? That was her explanation?

The bus begins to slow down and bully its way across the motorway and into the inside lane. As they bear left and take the service station slip road, the driver announces that this will be a very short stop and they will leave in five minutes. Only those who need to disembark the bus should do so, the others should remain on board. ‘Sorry, but there’ll be no time for the games arcade or the food emporium as we’re running behind schedule.’ They cruise past the entrance to the car park, and the family picnic area, before swinging extravagantly into the bus parking zone and coming to an abrupt halt. He left the hospital knowing that he would have to go back to his father’s house, but he is still not sure how he found himself at the central bus station buying a one-way ticket to London. He remembers putting the key in the door and then lumbering upstairs and grabbing his bag, before trudging back downstairs and looking at the photographs that remained scattered on the kitchen table. For a moment he lingered, but it was too soon to even think of beginning the
process
of sifting through the evidence of his father’s life and so he turned his back on the house. He remembered to lock the door behind him, and he now finds himself just over an hour away from London and he realises that he should probably call Annabelle. He wants to do so before the driver starts up the thunderous engine, and so he arches his still aching back, and squeezes the mobile phone out from his trouser pocket and hits Annabelle’s speed dial number. She sounds fraught.

‘Keith? I was worried about you. In fact, I left you a message last night.’

He has not checked his messages so it’s now his turn to be worried. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Are you sitting down?’ She doesn’t wait for him to answer. ‘It’s Chantelle. She’s pregnant.’

‘For Laurie?’

‘Well, yes, who do you think?’

‘Well, hang on a minute, I don’t know. I’ve never even met her.’

‘Well they’re both coming over to explain things to me. Their words, not mine.’

‘I’m on my way back. I should probably come over too, right?’

‘I thought you were going to be away for a few days? Is your dad okay?’

‘Yes, no problem. Why?’

‘Are you sure? I mean, why the change of plan?’

‘No reason really.’ He pauses. ‘Do you think it’s best if you see them by yourself? I can be there in a couple of hours at most.’

The doors to the bus close with a cushioned sigh and the engine rumbles to life. He lowers his head and cups his hand around the phone so that he will be speaking directly into the microphone, and then he feels the bus beginning to lurch its cumbersome way out of the service station parking zone.

‘Well that would be brilliant, if you’re really on your way back. I won’t start talking about anything until you’re here.’ She pauses. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? You sound a bit stressed.’

The iPod-playing youth has now located yet another shoot-em-up film and he seems to have increased the volume on his iPod to maximum. Annabelle is right, he is stressed, but he understands that sleep is the best remedy and, although it appears to be a long shot at best, he will try to block out the noise of small screen murder and mayhem and grab a quick nap before they reach London.

He stands in line at the newsagent’s intending to buy chewing gum, but these days they seem to have converted these shops into places where you simply wait your turn to purchase lottery tickets. Traditional transactions, such as buying a newspaper, seem to take forever. Just as he is about to give up, the young man behind the counter, who sports the faint shadow of a moustache above his top lip, reaches out a hand and takes his money while continuing to process a lottery request with his other hand. Back outside on the pavement, it is both dark and windy. He stuffs a piece of gum into his mouth and then hoists his bag up and on to a shoulder, but he does not move off. He stands and stares across the village common at the row of Victorian terraces where Annabelle lives. These houses are now highly sought after, despite the fact that they open up right on to the street, but when they moved here from Birmingham, this area was hardly fancy or trendy. Today, outside the self-consciously designer shops, there are increasing numbers of basketed bicycles chained to purpose-built bike stands with a variety of unlikely locks, but back then if you were reckless enough to leave a bicycle chained anywhere for five minutes you would be lucky to find its skeletal remains. At the weekend there is a farmers’ market, and any stall
vulgar
enough to sell non-organic products is likely to find itself picketed by what Laurie calls his mother’s ‘Green Posse’. Other parts of London seem to have made peace with Pound shops and Somali-run internet cafés offering to unlock your phone for a fiver, but not this little haven on the common which boasts a gymnasium for children called Cheeky Monkeys, and pubs which feature foreign beers served in breast-shaped glasses and a female clientele who wear long skirts and shooting jackets and walk soft-mouthed dogs, while the guys, if not English, are Mediterranean types who like to tuck their hair behind their ears like Premier League footballers. The truth is, he liked the area better then; in fact, he liked his life better back then. He remembers moving to London in the eighties as an exciting time for them both. Annabelle was beginning to think about a new career in the media, and he was finally going to be able to be the type of social worker who wouldn’t have to spend most of his time listening to pleas for Saturday schools for under-performing black kids, or fielding applications for black theatre workshops where kids could learn the cultural importance of playing steel drums. His new job in London meant that he could leave behind the discomfort of being the black guy with a suit and briefcase, whose job seemed to principally involve him going into Afro-Caribbean centres and being taunted by angry dread-locked men as a ‘baldhead’. Coming to London represented a new start and a new challenge, albeit in an unfashionable part of west London, but as he slowly chews gum outside the newsagent’s shop across the common from Annabelle’s house, he realises how dramatically things have changed, and not only in this now-fancy part of the city. So that’s it then? His father has gone and now there’s nobody ahead of him. Nobody higher than him on the tree. The traffic suddenly dies down for a moment, and he stares across the common and finds himself
enveloped
in a pocket of silence. He feels exposed and vulnerable. Small. That’s it. Small. An accelerating lorry blasts by, and then another. So that’s it then?