Free In the Falling Snow by Caryl Phillips Page A

he didn’t even feel particularly attracted to her. Before leaving, he placed his hand against her cheek, and then he crossed the room and quietly closed the door behind him. Early the next morning, he called the room of the colleague who was giving him a lift back to London and asked if they might leave an hour ahead of schedule as he had an emergency to attend to. Back in the office, Lesley smiled in his direction and offered him every chance to ask her out, but after a week had passed, and it had become clear to her that he was unlikely to do so, she cornered him by the Xerox machine. She announced that her sister had let her down and was going to Crete with her husband, and she therefore had two tickets to see a revival of a Pinter play at the National Theatre. For one moment he thought about making up a plausible excuse to spare her dignity, but in the end he could think of nothing to say and so he simply shook his head.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I can’t.’
    A surprised Lesley Thornton smiled weakly and slowly nodded, and then she gathered her composure and said, ‘Oh well, I tried.’ She turned and walked away, and for a week or so her icy silence in his presence made him feel uncomfortable. And then he told Annabelle what had happened and his life changed. During the nightmare week in the Travelodge, Lesley began again to smile in his direction, having heard the rumours of his changed circumstances. But once he moved into the flat in Wilton Road, and studiously refused to meet her eyes at work, or reply to her email messages with anything but the tersest of responses, their frosty relationship was once again re-established.
    Clive Wilson begins.
    ‘Keith, Keith, Keith. What have you got yourself into now?’
    Clive Wilson is the chief executive of the council, and effectively his boss, and these days he works increasingly closely with his boss. However, he has come to understand that Clive Wilson loves only Clive Wilson and the thrill of wielding both actual and imagined power. He is generally quite good at reining in his smug bonhomie, but occasionally he gets a glint in his eye and crosses a line, at which point his tone becomes both over-friendly and admonitory.
    ‘Tell me, Keith. Why would she want to do this to you?’
    ‘I wanted to break it off and I suppose this is her way of trying to slap me in the face.’
    ‘And, as it were, shoot herself in the foot.’
    ‘Well I don’t know if she’s bothered about that.’
    ‘Quite.’
    Clive Wilson steals a glance at Lesley, whose detached demeanour betrays no emotion, and then he rocks back in his chair.
    ‘She’s been a researcher in your department for three months now, right?’
    He nods.
    ‘And how long has your affair been going on?’
    ‘It’s not an “affair”. That makes it sound like there’s been some kind of secretive thing to it. We’ve been having a relationship. It’s all there in the emails.’
    Clive shakes his head and stands up. He turns and walks a few paces, then he stares out of the window.
    ‘Well, Keith it’s a bit of an awkward one.’ He turns around to face him. ‘What do you want me to do about this? I can have a word with her and tell her not to wash her dirty linen in public or something like that, but I don’t think I’ve got any grounds for dismissal.’ He laughs now. ‘I’d have the bloody unions all over me like a Bangkok rash.’
    ‘Technically,’ says Lesley, corkscrewing her body around to face Clive, ‘she hasn’t done anything wrong. She’s been stupid, yes, but she’s obviously feeling hurt and rejected.’
    ‘Well I don’t know what she’s got to be hurt about.’
    For the first time, Lesley looks directly at him. She uncrosses, then crosses, her legs and he can hear the rasp of her tights as she does so.
    ‘Well maybe you should find out.’
    Clive Wilson takes his seat again.
    ‘Lesley’s got a point there, Keith. Maybe you should talk to her and try and bring her to her