A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips

anybody? Who washes his car. Who hasn’t done anything. What do these people hope to achieve? In fact, who are these people? Are they the same people who write letters to the paper complaining about the new coins being too bulky, and the fact that telephone kiosks are no longer red? Do I know these people? Do I sit on the bus with them? I look up and Solomon has returned from the kitchen. He’s watching me looking at the pile of letters.
    “I’m sorry,” I say, as he sets down my coffee and takes up the seat opposite me.
    “You are sorry for what?” he asks. “I do not understand. You did not write any of these letters, did you?” He flashes me a smile. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to laugh, or if my laughter will somehow be interpreted as being disrespectful. But Solomon saves me. “Do not worry,” he says. “I know you did not write any of these letters. I am only making a joke.”
    “But I’m sorry and I’m ashamed.”
    “Well,” says Solomon. “I too am ashamed.”
    “But what have you got to be ashamed about? You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything.”
    “Why not? Sometimes the behaviour of my fellow human beings makes me ashamed.” He pauses. “And I too am not without guilt. Who among us is?”
    I look at Solomon as he bites into a biscuit. He looks up and catches my eye.
    “Please,” he says, “you must not apologise for these people. Most of them sign their names. They want me to know who they are.”
    “But what do they want?”
    “They want me to go away.”
    “But why?”
    Solomon sits back in the chair now. He seems nervous, but behind his uncertainty there is hurt.
    “I do not know. They just want me to go. That is all.”
    “But go where? I don’t understand.”
    “Away.” Solomon looks tired. It’s still early in the morning, but there’s an aspect of defeat about his demeanour. “Just away, that is all.” He pauses and then he slowly shakes his head.
    In the evening I decide to go to the pub for a second time. The landlord is friendly and he remembers me. He doesn’t, however, remember what I drink and so he asks me what I’d like. I tell him a half of Guinness, but I’m never sure if I really should be drinking and undergoing Dr. Williams’s tests at the same time. As he begins to pour, I make a promise that I’ll limit myself to the one drink.
    “We don’t see many of you folk down here.”
    I’m not sure if I’m being criticised, or if this is a situation with which the landlord is comfortable.
    “A lot of people work long hours. Two jobs some of them, I think.”
    “Yes,” he says as he takes a plastic knife and smooths off the top of the Guinness. “I expect they need to make some brass to pay off their fancy mortgages.” He laughs to let me know that this is his idea of wit. I smile to let him know that I’m not offended.
    I hand him the exact money, and then I sit in the corner of the pub so that I can look out over the canal. In the garden, and seated around the wooden picnic tables, are the young hooligans, all of whom are drinking beer and gazing lovingly at their cluster of motorbikes as though worried that people might not realise that they’re the ones who own them. There’s only myself and the landlord in the pub, and an elderly man who watches over a pint in the corner opposite me. When I sat he nodded in silent acknowledgement, and I gave him the briefest of nods in return. It was, however, already clear that this would be the full extent of our intercourse.
    I stare out of the window at the dark leaves of an old oak tree. Through its branches I can see the enlarged sun finally sinking in the west. I haven’t given it much thought, and perhaps this is my failing, but Solomon is the only coloured person in the village. In the town there are plenty of dark faces, but in this village he’s alone. And maybe he feels alone. Perhaps I should have invited him to come to the pub? It would have been easy to have said, “Can we get together