by Neil Rowland
Previously; you know, when the heart was in tune; I wouldn’t have the patience for yoga. Now I’m in no hurry for a last rash move, so I can sit in my own spiritual bubble of mild suppleness. There’s a whole class filled with beautiful women in the lotus position. They’re just waiting with relaxed diaphragms for the right guy. I first noted the yoga class on our way out of the squash courts. I was taking my raw joints and torn muscles towards the bar, allowing Rachael and Marcia to slug it out until the death. Even before my aorta and aleatory tactics failed me, yoga looked like a clever alternative.
Heart disease has made me a wiser, better balanced guy. Serious illness can have this effect on the victim, of putting him back in touch with himself. It was making me confront life adversities, not only to overcome health obstacles. I took strength from this, even if I am more dented and scarred than an old punch bag.
Radical surgery had been brutally invasive, that is fair to say. I couldn’t stop thinking that my integrity as a human being had been wrecked. My soul, if you want to talk about it, was smashed and trampled, like the skinny kid’s wire glasses in the hands of a bullying crowd. But I don’t want to sound ungrateful.
As I dropped off that night I thought that I should have told Angie the truth. I hadn’t set out to lie and deceive, but I had made the wrong decision, in the fear of a moment, by choosing to conceal. I resolved to explain myself when the right moment came along. Problem was that this evening was a good moment - I’d fluffed my lines. Now I’d have to wait for another opportunity, to be alone with her in the right mood.
Going by her questions she knows something’s up. Would she be as interested if she knew the ridiculous truth? It’s easier for her to ask caring questions than to hear honest answers. After missing the moment of fearful truth, I might be kept waiting forever.
Rousing myself from oblivion next morning, I heard Angela running down the staircase, then pulling the front door after herself. Where was she heading, after fleeing the scene again, before I could ask about her pastimes? I had woken with a determination to confess all my dark secrets to her. That’s typical of her schedule these days, if that’s the right word. It’s like taking a ride on the last bloody metro around here some times.
While I am brooding about this, Luke turns up into the kitchen. Not from the direction of his bedroom, as you might expect, but from the front door. Most likely he passed his sister in the street on his way. He’s come back from an illicit graveyard shift at his mate’s computer lab. Looks like he didn’t get any sleep at all last night. How’s he going to grow and strengthen like that? Or maybe he catches up during lesson time. Hair up in a rough and quill; a pilot’s jacket and silk tee have been thrown on. My heroes were rebels too, but at least they had a sense of style and fashion. Elizabeth purchased these clothes for him, in protest against the Woody Guthrie donkey jacket and checked shirt that I bought for him. Why does she protest against the style that Dylan adopted when he first began to play around the Village?
I like the idea of bringing Luke into my business one day. The plan is becoming more urgent as bad luck begins to outpace me. That’s assuming that I can keep my kites and balloons in the air, by juggling with the balance sheet. Luke never looks impressed with the idea, and it’s optimistic to believe he is yet capable.
Luke’s our eldest boy, so how am I expected to think? There’s nobody else to take over the controls, after I’ve thrown away the guide rope. He could still develop a passion for our kites and balloons after I fly into the heavens. But I can’t quite see it at the moment.
Luke’s not our ‘little’ boy any longer. Best to clear up any misconceptions. He’s just a shade under six feet and not quite sixteen. Takes after his mother’s uncle; Teddy, the civil servant who couldn’t get his knees under the table. There’s been a lot of lanky bastards on her side of the family. With the exception of her parents, who cut themselves back to regulation size and took out a chainsaw on me. Fortunately I always kept them at a conversational distance. Student politics and the folk music scene taught me how to verbally defend myself. Though I’ve never been a street fighting man. I’ve never been a bar brawler as my brother used to be.
Luke strikingly resembles his mother physically. I hope that his heart was turned out of the same maternal jelly mould. He’s wired up in the same way she is too. That’s why she isn’t angry or upset that he chooses to live with me. He’s supposed to be torturing me with his mere presence, reminding me of what I lost. But does his mother care what I think and feel anymore? To her I’ve always been flying above the clouds. Once Bob Dylan was the poet of our experiences, not the adenoidal fraud she now claims him to be. That was calculated to wound me. She put her knee into my soul.
Luke’s living here out of habit, I sometimes believe. Kids don’t measure or quantify love, according to my family thesis. So does he take our love for granted, even as it has forked out? There have to be a few questions in that mental processor of his. Even his would-be step father, Frank, doesn’t have enough hard disk capacity to resolve those equations. Most human codes are beyond Frank’s reach, if you want my opinion.
Luke doesn’t play his parents off against each other. That’s more than you can say about the gaggle of lawyers and accountants. He has a smaller and less experienced heart, in better condition. It’s able to cope, to function, and to keep going. In fact his heart is beating away contentedly, despite lack of sleep and revision work. Final school exams loom through his wet dreams like Godzilla. That’s my role.
Feels sometimes as if Luke and I merely exist under the same roof. The kid’s moody and remote, spending hours on the computer, locked away in his control centre. That’s a top of the range model, suggested by Frank. The Edible Woman got her magazine husband at last. So what could be more perfect?
I’d be surprised if Luke didn’t feel any anger. You have to feel something when your world ends. Even when you have the chance to build a new one. I feel like mother bloody goose buttering up his slices of toast and pouring out a mug of tea. Can I really imagine him taking over my business one day? How can I wait around until he gains enough experience?
“Hey, Luke!”
He grunts like a troglodyte that’s taken the wrong exit.
“So you coming to the footie match this afternoon?”
The next rough noise indicates a negative. There’s none of his computer wizardry on display for me.
“Your little brother’s coming along,” I explain.
Luke collapses on to the chair and swipes away his cereal bowl. “I already told you. Tim’s just a little kid, aint ‘e. How many more times?”
“You’ve lost all interest in football now?” I reply.
“Yeah.”
“Cool,” I comment.
He rests is chin on his forearms. “I’m going in to town,” he explains.
“Who you going in to town with?”
“My mates!”
“What you doing in town all day?”
“What do you think?” He treats me to a roll of eyes into the back of his head.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary about this, I understand. But he’s not going to get any cuddlier either. I’ve noticed a gang of youths skulking about the town centre lately. He’s familiar with them at weekends and some evenings. Elizabeth has some logic by dazzling him with technological boxes of tricks.
What draws them to the most god-forsaken spaces of the city? The isolated walkways, concrete expanses, graffiti smeared underpasses and vandalised benches and shelters? These are useful surfaces for skateboarding, but they are often just hanging about. Why do they laugh like loons, or simply scowl, when they notice me walking by looking at them? They don’t need to escape from my generation of enlightened parents. There’s no way they can satirise us as a bunch of squares or green monsters. When are they going to appreciate what we did and emulate us?
&nbs
p; I could hardly concentrate on reading my newspaper. Luke’s dead fortunate to have a father tuned into youth culture. I still have a decent knowledge of what’s going down with contemporary music. He’s into the hip hop and crap music. He doesn’t even appreciate the more melodic and fashionable bands of today. Liz is right to worry that extreme volume will ruin his IQ. In a few years he won’t be able to find the volume control, or even the power switch of his computer. Although his mother and I should have brains like dried peas in an oil drum by now, if that theory is correct. Although she was originally a big fan of Joan Baez. You could only hear Joan’s voice and acoustic guitar if the whole festival was keeping a hush. So Liz has frontal lobes of alien proportions obviously, hardly able to tolerate my presence any longer.
“So who are these new mates of yours?” I wonder.
“Nobody ‘oo wan’s to know about you, Noah!”
“I’m your father,” I remind him. “Don’t refer to me by my first name.”
“Lay off me, will yer?”
“So who are your mates? Where are you going... And how long will you be?”
Luke hurls his chair aside and stomps out of our kitchen. The illuminated heels of his pricey sneakers flash like airport semaphores. Now it looks as if he’s hopping mad, with a pair of Liz’s luxury cheesecakes tied above his ankles.
“You suck!” he shouts back.
I don’t respond to his movie Americanism. “These guys are more important than your own brother?” I fire off towards his back, helplessly.
All right, he’s unpredictable and I always say the wrong thing. He’s a volatile teenager in a broken home. He’s developing an after-hours life style to rival his sister’s. I begin to wonder if brother and sister know more about each other than I do; if they have more confidence and trust in each other; if they conspire to keep their secrets from their parents.
Luke spends two nights at his mother’s new place: at the show home. From time to time he manages to get out of those dates. But he has a more harmonious relationship with his mother lately. They’re more attuned to each other. He gets along with her new husband no worse than with any other horny old dinosaur. Prehistoric beasts enjoy a certain vogue with the very young.
The high tech attractions of the Noggins household are losing their power. He’s losing his morbid fascination for the fat-wad techno-Dino. I guess he’s grown up in this house and it will always be our home. I wish I understood exactly what’s happening with Luke. I agreed to purchase all that expensive computer stuff, as Liz told me it was educational. Why blast off for a new planet, when the old planet is comfortable? Why risk a strange atmosphere with unknown occupants? That sums up Luke’s attitude, when he chose a house to live in. Liz may regret allowing him to stay here with me at Big Pink. Now the dinosaur and she are trying to renegotiate. She doesn’t want to trust a ‘failed father’ to watch over him. All they require is a good legal technicality or evidence of paternal neglect and failure. Our goalkeeper doesn’t have to stay as watchful and nimble toed as I do.
While I try to read a feature article and polish off my egg, I am disturbed by the thumping of Luke’s feet over the boards above. When this storm concludes I hear him bouncing down the staircase and slamming the door after him; in the style of his sister before. He’s abandoned the good ship Enterprise to leave me alone on the bridge. A great Earth day this is turning out. Doesn’t his attitude show psychotic tendencies? Or is this another episode of space warp paranoia?
Wickham should understand how difficult it is to lead a peaceful life. I can join a yoga club, but how can I regulate my breathing in between? How to keep a count of my heart rate, when our kids are going off in every direction? Against my peaceful principles I’m tempted to fall on my own sword sometimes.
Giving up on any family style breakfast, I tidy away dishes and go to tidy up the living room. John Lennon took a nurturing role for many years, didn’t he? I wonder if he was frustrated with the tasks of a house husband. I don’t believe his sons were ever the victims of this pubescent psychosis however. But what do I know?
The place is neglected and turning into a pigsty. Even the moth balls are getting dusty. Angie never does any work around the house, while Luke only vacuums his own space. He’s got a sudden mania for keeping his bedroom spotless. Perhaps this is a symptom of missing his mother. You could describe me as an abandoned house husband.
Elizabeth grew intolerant of any disorder or dirt. I thought we’d get through that ‘bad patch’ in our marriage but, man, it just kept spreading and spreading. It was a sign of the future that I chose to misinterpret. A pebble hit me on the head one day, and this was no mistake, it was danger of rock fall on the road ahead.
Liz would be horrified if she could see the house today. Not that I have any plans to invite her back. God no. You never know how far the lawyers are behind her; those black riders of the marital row. I don’t approve of the mess either, but I’ve got tubes in my body to worry about; and the untidiness does remind me of our student days. But even my mother has a more exciting home life these days. My social diary shrinks in proportion to my lung capacity. Though believe me, I’m still trying, I haven’t given up on a great gig yet.
Chapter 8
By the following Saturday I’m in better spirits. I slap on a bit of expensive stench - some mix of whale musk and stag sperm - pull on a new pair of posh jeans, cowboy boots, a peacock waistcoat and velveteen jacket. Then I confront myself again in the shaving mirror, inspecting the signs of waste, smoothing back my fringe, before stepping out into town.
If you know Bristol you can see that Park Street isn’t very kind to cardiac patients. It has a gradient to daunt Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. I feel like making a camp half way up the hill, to boil up a kettle and catch some gasps of thin air. Liz and I would bounce up there as students, but that was a whole different epoch. Light years back.
Fortunately I am going downhill - if that’s the right way to put it. My idea is to call at a place called Mike’s Café at the bottom of the street. That’s where Angela works and I decide to say hello to her, whether she wants my greeting or not. She stands about in the café in a blue uniform, rather similar to a school uniform, except for the white pinafore apron and legitimate cigarette breaks.
The café has an airy bohemian ambience. Where have all the artists and intellectuals gone? I can’t help wondering. These people’s trivial conversations just make my head ring. Man, the times have changed. It isn’t cool to be clever or even want to understand anything.
Not that Angie is rushed off her feet as a waitress. When I spot her she’s relaxing under the outside awning with friends. She has an impressive number of friends; hedonistic bat people who watch the world labour by. Mike’s Café is a perfect bolthole for them to regroup and recover from the night before. Unless, like me, the body clock has gone crazy. I have to settle back into Zen-like emptiness. There’s no ready cure for dysmorphia.
The chat staggers to a halt when they realise who’s coming to lunch. Angela spots my approach and she makes signals. What’s this all about? She would be happier if I waved and just kept walking by. At first I thought my trendy threads would be sure to impress these youths. They would be in respect and awe of a hep-cat guy. I’ve seen many of the greats in the flesh. But on the contrary, they are not impressed or intimidated: they regard me as a teetotal magistrate on a field trip.
“Hey, Angela! You don’t mind if I hang out with you for a bit, do you?”
I peel off my sunglasses and try to grin winningly. They are not impressed, but somebody jumps up and offers me a seat, as if I need one.
“Sit yourself down, Noah,” the guy says.
“Thanks boy. That’s kind of you,” I agree.
“Comfortable?”
“No need to fuss.”
Stuck with me, the group look about at each other awkwardly. Despite
my expensive aftershave there is a bad smell around here. It’s a beautiful morning but suddenly there are rain clouds in their view. But I’m not to be discouraged so easily. I always take along my own nuclear umbrella.
“Having a good day, Angie? Busy?” I venture.
She manages to grumble darkly through her fingers.
“So how’re you doin’ anyway, Mr Sheer?” one lad asks.
“Couldn’t be better,” I reply.
“Are you sure?” he says.
“Try that one on me again?” I say.
They give the impression that they don’t know where to look. They haven’t bumped into Angela’s Dad for a while. I’ve dropped into their group like an unwelcome gargoyle. They only remember the guy who was once going away on a romantic holiday. It’s hard for them to grasp that I now stay away from travel agents at all costs.
“This is a cool little café,” I tell them. “I enjoy coming here with my friends as well.”
“Lennon and McCartney,” Angie comments.
“Your mother and I used to come here,” I correct her.
“Did it exist in those days?” a girl asks.
“D’you know there used to be groups and artists performing in here?”
“Music in a café?”
“A folk club. Those were some talented guys. Great times.”
They remain unimpressed, distracted.
“What would you like?” This from the waitress still on duty. The girl stands eagerly next to me, notepad ready.
“Double espresso. Something to jab the life back into me.”
The chick scribbles this down into her little book.
The group continue to exchange ironic and impatient glances. Or they resume their nonchalant gestures of drinking and smoking; while cutting out any chat. I may resemble the thousand year old man, but I’m still interesting and attractive, don’t they realise?
“No thanks, I don’t smoke. That’s a lethal blend of tar and ‘monoxide,” I tell him.