by Neil Rowland
“You used to smoke, didn’t you Dad,” Angie rebukes.
“Used to,” I retort. “You might as well start sucking on exhaust pipes. Gonna do you just as much good.”
“Thanks for the advice, mate.”
“Anyway, what’s happening here?” I persist.
“Happening?”
“Going on.”
“Nothing much,” comes the laconic reply.
“So what’s hip this week?” I pursue.
“Why don’t you keep quiet and relax, Dad,” Angela advises.
I notice a jittery quality to Angela, extra to embarrassment. She couldn’t be more relaxed than here, ‘working’ with her friends, but somehow she’s tense. There’s a constant underlying anxiety, a negative charge that sets off her mental alertness. Something is definitely going on, even if she refuses to share her secrets.
Gradually their conversation begins to pick up again. Like an old folkie at a psychedelic séance, I grow accustomed to sitting mutely in the background. Meanwhile the double espresso goes to my head. I speculate if any of the young men are my daughter’s latest beau. There’s more than a heavy gold bracelet hanging off her these days. There’s a sense of happiness and exaltation about her lately, despite or because of the late nights. She isn’t going to sneak this new boy past me, even if she thinks I was born yesterday. Life as it is, you don’t need to experiment with drugs.
The mystery guy is having a powerful effect on her. If she’s a natural romantic she is taking after me. I have noticed the signs of a party atmosphere around her tropical island. Like a hint of absinthe, her falling in love hasn’t escaped me.
I decide that the new boyfriend isn’t present. I keep an eye on her as she looks around the table of faces. It’s hard to determine what her taste in boys may be. Except that she’s had a few already. But it wouldn’t be cool to express any opposition. All I can do is keep my ears flapping like the wings of a condor. While I am between them her friends stick studiously to neutral topics.
I’m trying to persuade her to enrol at the university. Liz and I have been conducting this campaign since Angie decided to take that gap year or two. It isn’t as if the girl isn’t clever enough to get a decent degree: she passed her A Levels with a few stars. She wouldn’t have to leave Bristol to attend university. That would satisfy her mother.
So far Angie has taken three years away from education. She doesn’t have any desire to work for charities or to go backpacking around the globe. She’s a student of experience, that girl. Not necessarily wasted time, as I try to argue to Liz. But I still hope that she chooses a course before long. There’s no better way to meet a free thinking boyfriend, with good taste in music and sound sense in life. Don’t plant seeds in the garden and go digging around to try to find them. The girl will flower.
Talking about myself, I have a talent for getting along with the young. I have to be the envy of her friends’ parents. The trick is, I retain my youthful spirit and curiosity. Obviously you tend to fall behind in the operating theatre. But my mind and spirit burn brightly as ever. I wore my hair long until my thirty fifth birthday. I can’t quite remember what happened to me on my thirty fifth birthday.
Kites and balloons are an expression of idealism. They keep me in harmony with the world, as seen from above. They’re the epitome of peacefulness. Get me away from the noise and craziness of this world. I feel happiest up there in my balloon, to be honest: Enjoying a sport that does no harm to the earth or to any other human being. We all need to take some spiritual time out. This world is a beautiful if scary place.
I’m telling Angela’s friends as much, once I get an entrée.
“Yeah, that’s really cool, Noah,” somebody remarks, sarcastically.
Angie continues to cringe and to keep checking the heavens, as if to see if I am going to return there in a balloon.
“Yeah, for the Chinese kites have religious significance. They even used them in warfare... to help them gain advantage in battle.”
There’s no positive response.
“Yes, kites spread across the rest of Asia. In India kite flying is considered to be a sport of the gods. Did you know that? The practise has powerful symbolism, you see, within the Hindu religion. Do any of you know anything about Hinduism?”
“That interesting, Noah, like fascinating!”
“Sure it is, because the Japanese were flying kites a century before Christ showed up,” I explain, “or thereabouts.”
“Amazing, man!”
“We sold some of our kites into China and Japan. That was pretty amazing, let me tell you. Did you know that our fighter kites are among the quickest in the world.”
“Amazing!”
I relate my legendary, notorious business trip to Tokyo. This adventure almost claimed my earthbound existence, before a coronary got hold of me. That was my only significant long haul trip out of the country. When I showed my currency to the wrong bar friend and got chased along back alleys by the thief’s friends. As yet I haven’t visited China, although we have representatives in Shanghai. There’s a chance of setting up a factory there one day, as the dragon economy begins to breathe fire. I’m practically rubbing my hands together. In a few years’ time I could be bringing home the pandas.
“Thanks for the life story, again.”
Even my denims had the wrong cut and label. They’d never seen me in a crushed velvet jacket before, yet it failed to impress. They’d no idea what was hip. So I didn’t pick up any news items about my daughter, or any clues about her new boyfriend. Angie had to return to her serving duties, with her private diary locked and hidden. It was her turn to stand behind the cash register, looking pretty and numerate. Maybe this was a positive image of her life that I could report back to Liz.
I stood up from my chair, somewhat stiff, breathless and awkward. Bout de Souffle, indeed. There was hard proof that my youthful charm had worn away. I managed to swap polite farewells. From there I tackled the hill back to home, as casually as I knew how. My jacket was hooked over my shoulder, sunglasses repositioned. This didn’t fool them or disguise my own unease.
I rediscovered the security of my big nosed French car. I was back behind the wheel and gear stick, feeling in control. Then I set off towards Redland: not the socialist utopia it sounds, but that district in the north of Bristol, where my ex-wife Elizabeth now lives with our youngest son. With any luck the horny dinosaur might be out, hunting for his lunch.
Chapter 9
“What time do you call this?”
“Only a few minutes,” I insist.
To escape her derision I already tucked away my sunglasses. Her censorious look cannot so easily be deflected. But I’m completely out of phase in this era.
“Why are you so early? every time you call around here?”
“Don’t know, maybe I’m excited to see my son,” I counter.
“What happened to the navigational wristwatch?” That was a Christmas present from her; a last souvenir.
“That’s why I’m here on your doorstep. That watch is far too efficient,” I bluff.
She masks an exasperated look.
“Would you prefer me to be late?”
“You were never so generous with your time,” she replies.
“Am I interrupting something, by any chance?” I wonder.
“That’s no longer possible,” she remarks.
She takes in my dishevelled weekend image; the faded denims, the curly image of Dylan under a floral shirt and waistcoat. There’s still no sign of access, as Liz looks down on me from the doorstep, as a cat watches passers-by from a window ledge.
“Why can’t you wait in your car for ten minutes?”
“I have the legal right to see Tim whenever I choose,” I retort. I am forced to resort to standard dirty tricks, or I will be banishe
d to an alternative reality. It’s essential to control the feeling of panic and outrage, as my heart threatens to bolt, with a danger of plummeting over that cliff edge.
Liz casts a repelled look at my car, which is moored to the opposite kerb of her street, like an old monster from a tormented realm.
“You’d better come inside to wait,” she relents.
Avoid neighbourly spying. She never used to care what other people thought. The front door jolts and rattles as she springs back. Or she claimed not to care; when the children ran about the garden, shoeless, naked with their hair long down their backs; Liz holding her generous bust in a flimsy halter-top, generous gourds containing the spices and substances of the east.
The hallway has a newly decorated look, with the smell of carpets and furniture polish. There is the mellow, regular beat of the new grandfather clock. The clock was a wedding present from Frank Noggins’s parents. Otherwise I could recognise Liz’s taste, in the Art Nouveau pottery and engravings. I’d learnt something about furniture and art from dating Rachael. A pair of Luke’s boots were under the stairway - a spare set for his visits. A stack of Frank’s computers were piled in a corner; obsolete props from an old science fiction movie. Like people over fifty, machines over five are judged surplus to the economy.
Mrs Noggins leads me through. She’s a tall, robust woman, with a blaze of thick copper hair. Quite Amazonian, she might have lead a Celtic tribe to chase away Roman legions. The hair colour isn’t natural any more, but she allows the ropes and coils to fall down to her waist, in a burnished mane. I remember her dashing around Bristol as a student, in a characteristic red duffle coat, burnished locks flowing from the hood. She has powerful green eyes that can turn men into columns of smoke.
“You just came here from town, did you?” she asks.
“Didn’t think you were interested in my movements.”
“Out spending your money again, are you?”
People admire her integrity and determination, albeit with a touch of steel like the doors of a high security bank vault. She doesn’t have the kind of mind that you can change back. But she loved me with the delicate poetry of an elf princess.
Unfortunately she rooted out all her happy-go-lucky ways, in favour of something harder and more chic. Her Indian cottons, silks and hand-made jewellery went on a bonfire. She wanted to up the ante, and the rot set in from there.
She argued that she was growing, moving on, leaving the past behind; implying that I wasn’t doing the same. When the roof collapsed on our marriage she didn’t appear much damaged. I get a recurring nightmare on this theme: the cathedral collapses on our heads, during our wedding ceremony, burying us in rubble. Then, finding that I have, incredibly, survived, I begin to search frantically for my new wife, throwing aside stones and masonry. There’s an arm extended from the debris, but when I reach and hold on to the hand, I only drag out a rotting corpse instead, not much more than a skeleton. Man, you don’t need to be R. D Laing.
Can any man be essential to a woman anymore? Does any intelligent woman rehearse those vows in these contemporary times? Is it any life, being a wife? We were children in the Sixties; I say children.
Liz gives clues away about her second marriage some times; at least a flavour of her life with Bristol’s version of Darth Invader. But there’s no spy in this particular house of love, to overhear their conversations, the true life drama, apart from a heavy sleeping eight year old in a strongly fortified house.
“Where’s Tim?” I say.
“He’s still upstairs getting changed,” she explains.
“Shall I go up and see how he’s getting along?” I offer.
“Look, you’re really far too early.”
I have the standard weekend contact with my youngest. Now that the football season has begun I take him to Ashton Gate for every home game. Those goal posts never move.
Elizabeth advances into her kitchen, that’s been extended to boost business; not to accommodate me. Already you can’t keep the lid on her fruit pies. Palpably she’s been in the middle of a baking session this morning. There is a warm exotic aroma and her fingers are still floury. She had no intention of shaking hands with me, so there was no need to wipe her hands. She’s making dough - lots of it.
She goes to church every Sunday now. She refuses to break anything but holy bread on the day of rest. She even goes out on weekend Christian picnics, listening to sermons and those Jesus cats twanging guitars and crooning in a high pitched evangelical style.
“Didn’t Luke want to join you for the match today?” she wonders.
“Football isn’t an exciting fixture for him,” I report.
“Then what will he be getting up to today?” She fixes her arms resolutely under those firm and separated inter-continentals.
Despite trying on a mature if genial expression, I’m pushed into the uncertainty of an awkward corner.
“I dunno, Liz, he might be going into town... to meet some school friends of his. You know what those lads are like about fashion these days,” I chuckle, tugging on my flowery shirt cuffs.
“I thought you told me he was coming to the football... to keep Tim company.”
The fingers of my left hand take a sweep on the brush aluminium work surface and return with a sprinkle of icing sugar.
“So you allow him to roam the city centre?” she assumes.
“Have you tried talking to him lately?” I challenge.
“Certainly I have. You bet. He’s my son.”
Liz and I haven’t had an argument for days, but the new Luke issue is breaking the peace.
“The guy’s nearly sixteen, Liz. We can’t tie a rope around his waist and haul him in, can we?”
“He would be better off living here, in a family.” This scheme is on her mind, like a poisoned tart.
“With Mr and Mrs Noggins, do you mean? Moving him here? Luke?”
“Why certainly, Noah. His behaviour is getting more unpredictable by the week. How much effort is he putting into revision?”
“He’s burning the midnight candles, I can assure you.”
“Aren’t you worried about him?”
“How is it going to help him? moving here?”
Another piece of my family was at risk.
“How does Luke behave around your place? I often wonder,” she tells me. “Shut up in that dull old place of yours, over the hill.”
I’m stunned for a few seconds by her charming depiction. “Doesn’t the boy deserve a bit of freedom?”
“Freedom? What are you talking about?”
“So you require a definition these days, do you?”
Her spotlights hold me in their cold intensity, like Walt Disney in his chest freezer. “What does your idea of freedom mean?” she asks. “It doesn’t have any significance for me.”
“We already agreed that Luke lives with me.”
“You’re self-centred.”
“If Luke agrees to hang out with me, that’s his choice,” I explain.
“Why don’t you put him first?” she fumes.
“The boy goes nowhere unless he wants to.” That’s unless medical science fails during the interim.
“You know he’d be better off with us. Consider it,” she suggests. “Luke has an aptitude for computer science. Frank is only too pleased to help him.”
“You should realise that I’m determined to keep Luke with us...at Big Pink... at any cost. That’s not negotiable.”
“We’ll see about that,” she says. She examines me from a sardonic angle. “You’re not fit.”
“In what sense are you talking about?” She’s not going to label me as a failed father.
“Luke and you are always fighting. He turns up here complaining about you.”
“Luke and I need to get our heads ar
ound a few issues,” I concede.
“He can’t do anything right, as far as you’re concerned. Just because he doesn’t enjoy kite flying, or balloon flying, like you do,” she objects. “What normal boy is interested in those ridiculous hobbies of yours?” she says fiercely.
“Why shouldn’t he be?” No mention of inheriting my business.
Elizabeth slips into resonant silence, sharpening her focus.
“Better than messing about with those computer chips,” I say. “That can’t be very healthy, can it?”
“You’re always critical of him. Why shouldn’t he be interested in computers? You are only hostile because my husband works in the IT business.”
“Remember the eight-track cartridge machine your Dad used to have in his Ford Capri?” I tell her.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Noah.”
“Trust me, I’m more in touch with the zeitgeist than most. There’s no point scoffing, because I see a massive pile of discarded boxes in the future... that nobody’s interested in anymore.”
“You’re ridiculous, Noah. I don’t want to hear this.”
“Maybe you’re thinking that he will help the dino...help Frank with the business one day. Is that what you’re scheming about with the computers?”
Plainly this scheme hadn’t yet occurred to her. I was putting brilliant ideas into her head. “You promote your set of redundant ideals. Don’t you want Luke to make a success of his life?”
“He has everything he needs at our house,” I argue.
“He doesn’t have Frank to teach him about computers.”
“I think Frank knows what he should go and do.”
“Unlikely my husband is ever going to follow your advice,” she tells me.
“That depends on the quality of the advice,” I say.
“You might as well face the truth. Leave him out of your plans, Noah.”
“That’s for me to decide,” I reply.
“Exactly,” she says. “Mug up.”
“He has more space to develop around our place.” My place that is.