by Neil Rowland
James scurries angrily in my direction, intending the hairdryer treatment. Why did I fly our precious little machine in such a cavalier way? But he realises that I’m not responsible for a crass piloting error. I tumble back on to the grass, as my heart thumps like a kettle drum and my legs snap. No, not unless I take failure badly. I press down on my ribcage in an effort to stop this pain. It looks as if a sniper has put a bullet into my chest, in this posture. But if I’m apparently lying lifeless, it is more out of terror. This is a passive-aggressive strategy against the Reaper. You don’t need to drop acid to get a view on unreality.
I try to gather my thoughts, trying to understand what the hell, as I stare up into the sky. Just as I used to lie back on the sand dunes, during those family holidays. Waiting for the heart valve to break up, anticipating the flood of oblivion. This time I wasn’t day dreaming. The children were occupied making sand castles, complete with flags and moat. Liz and I had hammered in the windbreak, played a game of beach tennis, before stretching out on our towels to recover. I remembered the moment I knew that I was in love with Elizabeth; that I would make her my own and probably spend the rest of our lives together. It was as she came down the staircase between classes. She recognised the feeling from my look as she stepped towards me. This was the moment of realisation, for both of us. It was the electric moment in our relationship; a friendship that had begun when she joined my class at school. This was like God breathing life into the world.
But as far as oblivion goes, the tide was still out. This is the proof: James is kneeling at my side, holding my head from the ground, talking to me - in words that are at first badly distorted. So I must have checked out for a while. My senses gradually arrange as I tune back into station. Slowly I regain consciousness, gazing into his sharp anxious features. I’m spread out in the middle of a worried crowd. Maybe they thought this was part of our show. It’s the escapologist jumping out of his barrel of water again. But I just had another bad experience.
“We’d better call an ambulance, Noah,” my friend insists.
“No, there’s no point?” I reply. “Where’s my kite?”
“How do you mean - there’s no point?” he wonders.
“They can’t help,” I insist.
“Why not?”
I raised myself from a spread-eagled position on to my elbows. “They’ve done all they can for me, James. The doctors, the surgeons. All that and a bit extra too.”
“What’s the matter with you, Noah?” he pursues.
“Something’s gone wrong with the compressor.”
“I thought you’re feeling well again,” he says.
“They tried,” I say, forced to spit. James is perplexed at this and a few onlookers disgusted. But I’m provoked by the radiation of mortality.
“Are you all right?” he asks again.
“Just a few side effects,” I tell him, coughing and spluttering now. But really I don’t understand these side effects, or symptoms; where they come from, or where they lead. I’m still floating in some distant space, like a diver with the bends. “Sod it,” I complain. Who can prise out the invisible sniper’s bullet?
James scampers across the field to fetch my medication, like Lassie on acid. This gives more time to pull myself together, find a peaceful or reassuring expression. I sit up and fend off shocked questions from the public, incredulous at still being alive. Gradually the audience begins to disperse. Are they disappointed, or what?
James comes trundling back, carrying my personal bag, complaining about the cancelled ambulance. Which hospital are they going to take me to? What procedure are they likely to follow? I’ve tried all the hospitals. I’ve been through the ‘good hospitals guide’. Maybe I need to share my case history with other people. Not only is my secrecy dangerous and isolating, but it scares the life out of others too.
I pull out some propranolol tablets from the bag. I could swallow down the whole bottle. These are of zero medical benefit in my case. In my case they threw out the medical rule book. I wash down some pills with a nip of brandy from Granddad’s flask. It’s a beautiful object, with swans engraved into silver, rubbed black with time, taking off from water. I always thought of Elizabeth.
The sunlight has an edge, slicing across my eyes like a scalpel. Finally I attempt to defy gravity again. James puts his hands under my armpits to help. My limbs are still like over-boiled pasta. I force myself to take breaths and declare myself fit again. But there’s nothing to be given for a botched heart operation, other than a clown’s nose and the collected works of Kierkegaard.
Chapter 19
I recognise the last person I wanted to see, coming towards me: Striding, across the common towards me, with apparent purpose. Not the grim reaper, but his young and pretty assistant, his deceiving foil, like Charlie Manson’s female disciples, youthful and beautiful, yet besotted, brainwashed by evil charisma. Corrina Farlane. Surely I have to be hallucinating in this time warp. Just when you get to the end of one bad trip, you reach the beginning of another. Sometimes I want the path that’s most travelled. Does Corrina know what she’s letting herself in for? Has she noticed the hooded guy with a sickle behind her shoulder?
I need to take another look, struggling to refocus my vision after that fall, to ascertain if it really is her. It really is her. Somebody must have slipped something into my hip flask.
“See that woman coming towards us?” I tell James.
“The brassy blonde?” he observes.
“She’s my girlfriend... or my ex-girlfriend,” I say (living and breathing all the same).
“What about her?”
“Don’t mention what’s happened to me, will you? No, she mustn’t hear about this. She’d only worry herself sick.”
James looks at me sideways as he untangles lines and dismantles kites. “Then you should look after yourself better,” he urges.
My own logic has been turned upside down lately; James struggles to make head or tail of my remarks.
Corrina checks my logistics as she progresses to our flying spot. She’s definitely the last person I expected to meet here. I’m conscious of my physical shortcomings at this moment - tangled up in blue. The Earth must have hurtled millions of miles since Corrina and I collided into each other at the Huntingdon’s double celebration. Time goes so fast, like a jet plane. What thought or desire made her fly off in my direction? Hadn’t she already seen me transform into an old man? finding heart trouble in demi-paradise? What sort of catch does Noah Sheer represent any longer, to such a dynamic young woman, with her job, her looks, her energy? Man, we’ve already gone all the way to the end of the line. Can there really be another fork in the story? Another corkscrew to the heart?
I recall inviting her to join me one Sunday morning, to fly my kites on the Down. Several weeks had gone by since that evening, so I hadn’t expected her to pick up the invitation. Any roads, I was practicing my party rhetoric and like my party shirt, the suggestion was desperate and half-winded. In truth I believed we’d been separated forever in the departure lounge. I was convinced we’d said our farewells in that terminus. Nevertheless, my dodgy heart rejoices at the sight of her; skips the proverbial beat. I can’t afford to skip too many beats. What brings her out here, to take another free wheel through my life, as I get up on my last legs? As I balance on my hind-legs like that Minotaur fatally wounded?
For here she comes, kicking through the rough grass. Not exactly smiling with anticipation but certainly decided in her actions. She must have parked the bike somewhere, as she’s holding her helmet. She’s also wearing motorcycle boots. Not any other form of protective clothing. Why doesn’t she take precautions after having that serious accident in France? I thought that full leathers are requisite for the road. Sunlight hurts my eyes as it glints off her. Good fortune that she showed up at this moment. A beautiful relationship would have folded with
the kite and its pilot. Who am I kidding?
“Hi, Corrina!” I put up my hand and arm. I form this image of strength and unflappable joviality.
I put myself through breathing and stretching exercises. This is what nurse Ratchet instructed. The gentle sport of kiting has become too strenuous for me. A brisk wind might dislodge the mickey-mouse valve. I thought I was safe out on the down. But then the down was pulled out from under me. Corrina will notice how shaken or groggy I am. James shares an uneasy look, as I fight to pull myself around, to look instantly happy and healthy, as my gentle sport would suggest. In the struggle to conceal myself from Corrina, I am revealed to James. He changes his attitude. But not in the way she has.
“I decided to come to see you,” she tells me. “I saw your kites in the air.”
“The show’s over,” I explain.
“Is it? I’m really out of breath...” she explains. “Walking all that way over the down, just to meet you.”
“You’re getting out of shape?” I say.
“I need to get off the bike more often.”
She fills her lungs deeply and expels forcefully, a number of times. Her rude animal vitality shocks me. Am I so far out of touch?
“I thought I might catch you,” she adds.
My smile is troubled as I meet her look, afraid that she’s noticed the alarm signals. My hearing is partly blocked by high pressure. Heavy metals swirl around my gums. There’s a radiation of death once again, in the background, like the disturbing noise of her motorbike on a peaceful day.
“We’re packing up now,” I explain.
“You’re leaving already?” she exclaims.
“I’m afraid so.” All bets are closed.
“How unlucky,” she remarks, staring inquisitively. “Couldn’t you fly a kite just for me?” she wonders. She takes a big step towards me, hands on hips, flicking her mane, ‘filthy healthy’. The wind bellows her soft dress as if persuading me to fly again.
“My colleague here and I have completed all test flights. We have made all technical calculations to our machines...and now it’s time to go home,” I say.
“Your kites, do you mean?”
“Yes,” I retort. “My kites. What else?”
“You’ve never liked to disappoint me, have you, Noah?” she tells me outright.
“Jim and I may call into the pub for Sunday lunch. Mayn’t we, Jim? On our way back home?”
He grunts back without committing himself. James is trying hard not to hear or see what is unpleasant or confusing. It’s unlikely that my ex is going to interrogate him on the matter.
“At the Huntingdon’s party you invited me to watch you fly,” she objects.
“That must have been weeks ago now. Anyway, I’m exhausted now.”
“You can’t be tired out already. What have you been doing?” she wonders. She shakes mellow sunshine out of her hair.
“I just had another incident. You know, with the organ.”
“Which organ?” she replies.
I stare back trying to decipher her meaning. She’s stood close and I’m lost in the hypnotic ripples of her eyes, as if making a low approach across the Indian ocean.
“Around the equator or...”
“What are you talking about, Noah? There’s always something happening with you, isn’t there. I can never predict what could happen next.” She straightens her posture and gives her hair another vigorous shake.
“Another heart pain,” I admit.
“What, another one?”
“There’s been another explosion in the carburettor,” I tell her. I slipped into a language she could understand - motor mechanics. I didn’t fancy stringing up another kite to show off for her. Times had definitely changed again.
“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” she smiles.
“Not for a long time,” I assure her.
I don’t have a pocket mirror, but I must look a sight, as her eyes puzzle over my remote features. “You do look pale and sticky,” she observes.
“Pale and sticky?” I return.
“You didn’t have another coronary, did you, or something like that?”
“No.”
“What do you have against me, flying one of your little kites?” she says.
I’m not flexible enough to oppose her. Better if she’s distracted until I’m fully re-oxygenated. “Fair enough then, Corrina, if you really want to,” I offer.
“Oh, how lovely.” She almost jumps up and down.
“You can fly by yourself today.”
She tosses her motorcycle helmet to the ground and prepares. She’s wearing a light summery dress and, going by exposed bra straps, lacy black lingerie. A hell of a combination. I’d have to be embedded in a tomb of frozen nitrogen, not to notice or to resist. But does she want to break my resistance?
James grumpily puts together a simple diamond kite for her and hands across the reel and line. To start her off he holds the edges of the kite and gives it a gentle push into the air. Eagerly and gracefully it takes to the sky, joining the hundreds of kites that are still being flown around the common. People have lost all interest in my demonstration. They must have thought I was some kind of showman, pulling a stunt like that. It’s frightening when it happens; when you have a coronary incident. You feel like an escape artist hammering on the inside of the fish tank, observers thinking it is a comical part of the performance; with you pulling funny faces of panic and fear; although you really are trapped and panicking. Definitely that’s a scary place to be.
Her flowing hair forms a lower tail for the kite. She lets out a squeal of delight as it ascends and circles. It beats a fistful of uppers any day. James looks between us and returns to cataloguing his equipment.
“How are you finding it?” I call to her.
“Lovely! Wonderful!” she returns.
She has confidence and control, as the simple structure moves smoothly across the heavens, with a flurry of long beribboned tail. Watching her has a calming effect. I lean back into the shadows of a beech tree to watch her and to gain time. I’m the only guy for whom kiting represents an ‘extreme’ sport now. Last year Corrina jumped off the suspension bridge on an elastic band, for charity. While we were together in Crete she tried kite surfing. She was there cruising across the sky like a bat, while I was below, sprawled on the beach; her wing span crossing over me in a chilly shadow. She wouldn’t persuade me to get up there with the kite, not even at my peak.
“Noah, can you tell me something?”
“Go ahead, what’s that?”
“Why did Bob Dylan decide to be born again?” she wonders.
“Born again?” Didn’t see this one coming.
“Yes, whatever made him?”
“Corrina, that isn’t something that you choose,” I argue. “Being born again is something that you don’t recognise or see coming.”
When she asks me these questions, she’s trying to get around me. Why is she trying to get around me?
“Don’t you know the answer to my question?”
I stay to consider. “Who does?” I retort. “Dylan received a lot of heavy criticism around the time of Slow Train,” I recall. She’s turning me into Lester Bangs, putting me aboard the Greil Marcus Mystery Train.
“So don’t you know why he was born again?” she objects, with a peevish dip of the shoulder. She’s working the line and staring up at the sky, as if for a direct answer.
I’ve never been one for the firmaments or the abysses, myself. Typically I’ve kept my eyes on the horizon; maybe not covered my back well enough.
“Who are we to judge? Because as an artist he had spiritual reach? There was always Christian imagery in his songs... though he was Jewish. As a genius he had to discover, to strive, to aspire to a higher cond
ition,” I argue.
“That’s your explanation?” she calls.
“Yes. Why not?” I scrutinise her profile for any criticism.
“You are saying it was merely an artistic choice? A type of pose?”
“As an artist he needed to exist in a spiritual state. Maybe the Christian vibe was congenial... and the spirit really did touch him,” I tell her. “Have you thought about that, Corrina? Jesus spoke to him. Why not?”
“Has Jesus ever spoken to you?” she challenges.
She goads me into laughing, dryly, out loud. “Are you serious? I might not have been listening. Who knows?”
“You must have thought about this, Noah. After your heart attack.”
“Sure, I’m a spiritual kind of guy,” I tell her. “Straight up. But I’ll never be a cash donator.”
“It would have transformed your life. Don’t you think? Being born again?”
“I can hardly imagine it. What I’d be like,” I laugh. “Unrecognisable.”
“Isn’t that the point though, Noah...of being born again? To be changed? Renewed?”
“You can get that nonsense out of your head,” I insist. Drinking a pint of beer without choking, walking to the park without gasping - that’s the point for me.
“Not even while you were lying in a hospital bed? The condition of your soul?” she calls out. “Didn’t you want to think over the big religious questions?” Without breaking her concentration on the kite.
“Never. There were other calls on my attention.” Not least of which was her. Her motives. Her whereabouts.
“Why not talk to God?”
“You try,” I suggest. “I didn’t feel the spirit.”
“So you don’t have any time for the Christians then, despite Bob Dylan?”
“I wouldn’t throw them to the lions,” I tell her.
“Isn’t Elizabeth Noggins a Christian?”