by Neil Rowland
Lizzie stood next to me in that exposed crush of demonstrators, somewhere in the expanse of Hyde Park; itself the site of that famous Rolling Stones free concert. She was staring up at the kite’s cheerful stamp of colour against the dull sky. She was wearing her characteristic red duffle coat, as I recall, fronds of drenched copper hair stuck to her rosy cheeks, large mineral eyes concentrating on the heavens. Later that day we found a coffee shop in Knightsbridge... I’m not sure what it was called or what street it was in. Lizzie asked for a dubious revolutionary mix from the menu, as she was already pregnant. It was here that we agreed to push my idea. She was trying to share my vision of the future. Man, she had no idea how difficult it would be over time. But that was one of the most memorable days of my life. In the evening we went to see Sandy Denny at the 100 Club along Oxford Street.
Who knows? Who knows where the time goes?
Graduation approached for Stuart and me. Colour brochures from anarchist cells and free communes didn’t free our imaginations or turn us on. Lizzie grew visibly pregnant, exhausted by quarrels with her parents, who indicted her for sex and thought crimes. They still clung to the idea that babies were delivered by stork from Selfridges. Soon they were busy organising that white-wash of a wedding at the cathedral. They were sending her off to the dressmaker, to hide her bump in taffeta. Lizzie was the only reason I could go through with it - my feelings for her - as she was the pearl in this polluted ocean.
We put down a deposit on that first flat above a hairdressing salon. At least that fleet of energy-inefficient hair-blowers kept down our winter heating costs. We were struggling with our monthly payments and Lizzie couldn’t afford to run down for a bouffant. Getting money out of the banks was like panning for gold nuggets in the Avon. They were not throwing money at me, contrary to what Jakes may think. In the Sixties bank managers were even less utopian than today. Stuart Maybridge was the least self-conscious dandy in Bristol. His favoured style was that of Jagger at his Performance peak, including make-up. We didn’t need a large sum, but they were reluctant to dig into their pocket. I made concessions to the counting house; I was less outrageous. But I couldn’t disguise my hippie wiles under that sharp weekend suit (borrowed from a reluctant brother). I couldn’t hide long hair under an unfamiliar collar.
“Young man, what’s your experience of enterprise?”
Did the guy mean a star ship? I began to stare at my feet.
“Do you envisage any profits from making kites?”
“That’s where you will come in,” I said, unwisely.
Stuart helped us to get a loan, with strict conditions attached. The bank manager was impressed by his first class mathematics degree and his business plan.
I remember how the bank manager began to sit straighter. Stuart’s facts and figures were sinking in like fence posts. The guy put his eyebrows at a more relaxed angle. A faint smile cracked his thin lips. But we were planning to machine-gun him down, in the event of a refusal. I didn’t have to throw myself out of the window like Malcolm McDowell during O Lucky Man! We both admired If, but we didn’t know how to obtain any machine-guns; by chance we didn’t move in those circles.
Lizzie’s parents offered a loan or gift, to enable me to start up and become a respectable husband. They wouldn’t refuse their daughter anything, other than her own mind and personal freedom. Turning down their dubious money was the best type of foresight. My mother emptied her piggybank on the bedspread, god bless her. But you can’t live on next to nothing, not even during the Sixties. In the Sixties you didn’t want to - that was probably the point.
Stuart brought mathematical genius and our financial worries vanished like teaspoons in a vat of acid. The incredible fear and excitement of starting your own business! But, as Angie would remind me, you can’t live off the buzz forever.
“You have to start this business,” Liz told me. “Why of course you do, Noah. What am I going to tell our child? How am I going to explain that her father abandoned her dreams?”
Stuart’s passing was the cruellest blow. He had a condition related to MS. On the specialist’s advice he took up pottery classes, to keep his fingers nimble, swimming sessions and comprehensive physiotherapy. He was a great fan of Spike Milligan, Kurt Vonnegut, Georges Perec, Lewis Carroll - interested in Dada and surrealism. But they couldn’t find a trick in time to save him.
That was another empty elevator moment in my life. People said that it was a great relief in the end, but we felt terrible. Elizabeth and I could barely speak for weeks afterwards. I still miss that brilliant little guy. Sometimes the shy kid turns into the enfant terrible. One afternoon he climbed on the lecture hall roof and began to make absurd faces at us through a skylight. The profs couldn’t fathom him, inside or outside of a paper. They wanted him psychoanalysed.
“You can’t begin post-graduate work as a fresher. We have to warn you, Stuart, however brilliant you may be, that you have to conform.”
We consoled ourselves (or tried) by arguing that his mind never lost its brilliance, even as his body folded. He was making mental arabesques to the end. His mother called me to say he had slipped away. We lost some of the glue that kept us together. At the end you realise how important close friendships are to a marriage. Without good friends you become sterile, you begin to gasp and stare at each other, like a pair of goldfish in a plastic bag.
For months I was forced to sweat over our company accounts. Lizzie wanted to find time to help, but again she was hanging nappy pins from her earrings. At times I rediscovered Stuart among the figures. Obviously he took his box of tricks with him.
“I couldn’t explain what’s going on inside my head,” he would tell me. “But I try to relax and enjoy the party.”
If it had been a party it was over. I was trying to remember.
James Nairn, his eventual successor as my finance manager, was introduced to me at a conference. I couldn’t ignore the devil in the detail any longer. His approach is different to my tragic university friend’s, but it sorted out the unholy mess. Typically James will apply himself to the job all working day. Then he will take it home with him, to worry over during the evening as well. To describe him as an obsessed man wouldn’t really catch him. He enjoys living alone in that picturesque canal-side cottage with a savage cat and a pile of food cans. He can live in the woods, if he likes, because he rescued me from a financial bear trap.
“So what’s the fall out?” I ask.
“Serious,” he asserts.
“Oh?”
“It means that we have to make some hard financial decisions.”
We are holding this briefing in Nairn’s ‘office’. He insisted on having his own private space from the beginning; and he doesn’t much like to leave it. His office is no more than a husk of modern spacing within the empty cavity. The building still reveals iron accoutrements of heavy industry, such as hooks in the wall and rings on the floor, all pocked with rust.
“Go on then, Jim, spell it out.” I drag my chair closer to him and cross my legs at the ankles.
Nairn arches tensely over his metal desk, clutching his stack of figures, elbows up on the surface. He’s prepared the bad news for me, as Wickham had at the hospital.
“After I checked over these figures again I can only conclude,” he explains, “that spending is exceeding our income.”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“You have to lose five employees.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Otherwise you’re going out of business in months,” he warns, harshly.
I experience the shocked rigidity of our original bank manager. “You can’t be serious, can you?”
“Don’t I look serious?” he wonders.
“Right,” I respond.
“It would be like bleeding ourselves to death.”
“Would it?” T
here’s no answer to that.
“If we don’t drive down costs and expenditure...”
“It’s against my principles.” Nervously I play with the central button of my brushed cotton jacket. As if feeling the economic cold. The Dylan tee-shirt is showing through the gaps.
“You’ll be lucky to have any principles remaining,” he warns. “I’ve been going through these accounts, before the auditors can get hold of them.”
“Never thought I’d reach this day,” I wince.
“You have to make the decision.”
“There’s a lot more competition around,” I say.
“Now they are breathing down your neck,” he replies.
“We’re long established and respected.”
“Which makes the company more appetising for a take over.”
“We’ll survive. We always do,” I assure him.
“Not unless you act.”
“You really believe we might be taken over?” I wonder, alarmed.
“Definitely so.”
“We’re just experiencing some turbulence.”
“You have to reduce your costs. Your staffing costs are most significant.” Nairn grinds on his back teeth. “Or face a cash flow disaster.”
“Can’t we get along somehow?”
“Definitely not,” he tells me.
“You’ll have to explain this to them. To our people,” I say.
“That’s your job, Mr Sheer. I’m your finance manager, but you’re the boss.”
“Right.”
I consider my prospects unhappily. I swing back on two legs of the chair. “How do you expect me to make these backward decisions?” I say. My chair comes back down heavily. “I’m going out on the shop floor again. There’s an urgent order to pack. Somebody has to do something constructive around here.”
“Oh, well, right,” he retorts, distractedly.
I throw his flimsy door back with zero dramatic effect. But James doesn’t look up from his print-outs for a Nano-second. He has to be deadly serious about his bad news, after all.
As I stroll back through the factory and vend myself another coffee, finding everyone cheerfully at work - who wouldn’t enjoy working here? - I feel guilty about their prospects. This is a small power over other people that I don’t enjoy. A small act of playing god that I hadn’t considered during our protest against the Vietnam War.
Chapter 27
The day soon delivers another jolt. My switchboard operator puts through the head teacher at Luke’s school. Why is she getting into personal contact? Does she fancy me after spotting me at the last parents’ evening? But if that’s the case she’s keeping her crush on ice, because she’s talking about Luke’s absences from school.
Luke’s truancy comes like a news flash to me. Her report completely shocks me, as he gives every appearance of leaving for school every morning. My first response is that something must have happened to Luke on the way. I get tuned into these unconscious archetypes. The teacher proceeds to say that Luke has been playing hooky for the entire week.
“Do you have any explanation?” she quizzes.
From the period of dead silence, which follows her question, it’s obvious I do not.
“Don’t you talk to your son about school?” she presses.
“We talk. But not every day,” I admit. Do hostile animal noises count?
“Have you any idea about his emotional condition? His attitude to study and attendance?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about his absences before?” I reply. “Certainly I talk to my son.”
The head teacher is addressing me, yet I sense Elizabeth listening behind my shoulder. I could hear her initial anxious concern. She and the Dino want to take Luke into their house on a permanent basis. To achieve that goal they have to depict me as irresponsible and unstable - a failed father. Those dreaded words ‘failed father’ that coil in a man’s guts like the creature from Alien. If the Noggins couple learn about this development they will have enough evidence. This wouldn’t look impressive in front of the magistrate would it? They’ve already worn my social graces down to a hair shirt. If they ever get the full picture on my heart condition, then they’ll be able to stick a knife into our family portrait.
“Luke’s teachers are concerned about his examination prospects. He’s a clever boy, but his work has deteriorated over recent weeks. He has been missing after-school revision classes as well. He hasn’t handed in essential assignments.”
“Now you tell me,” I remark. “Don’t worry we’ll get our heads around this. Yes, leave that with me. I will talk to Luke about these problems... whatever may be worrying him. Then I’ll get back to you. He’ll be in school on Monday.”
So what’s the not-so little devil been getting up to? Haven’t we drilled into him - into all our kids - the vital importance of qualifications? We’ve preached the virtues of knowledge. Sometimes for its own sake. These may be the dog days of his school career, yet as the school mistress told me, with exams and assignments, the most important. This is the crunch end of the season for him, to decide those issues of promotion and relegation. Though he wouldn’t appreciate the football metaphor.
Liz and I never faced so many school tests, when we were kids. There was more space and freedom for our generation. We took full advantage of that, spending the afternoons smoking and listening to music. We’d sit around at home chatting, playing Beatles, Stones and Floyd records, over a roll of finest Virginian. The school looks more oppressive under the new regime. Controlling.
Not that I mentioned these views to my son’s Head Teacher. Best to keep my individual opinions out of this. She may be one of those power-dressing curriculum robots, with a Cyber-woman’s piercing stare. Though she sounded quite pleasant on the telephone. Concerned.
Is Luke getting freaked out by his final exams? The big wide world’s waiting for him around the corner, like the bully from the rival school. But he isn’t the anxious type of kid. He’s always completed his work confidently, comfortably above average, particularly in Maths and sciences. Takes after his mother in that regard. All right, he fritters away hours on those pointless computers. He doesn’t have to sweat about finding a career. One day he will come into my company. That’s a chance that any kid has the right to envy. We’ll encourage him. With a degree of application and wit he’ll make a success of his life. He’s assured of my complete support. Even posthumously. Especially posthumously.
What’s he doing while he’s playing hooky? I’ve bumped into him around the city centre, hanging with a skateboard gang. They give every impression of enjoying illegal time in transitory places. The kids believe they are menacing, as they make noise and clatter around; hiding under long black fringes, presenting a rebellious image of ripped clothing and metal accessories; tee-shirts and sweats that ally them to rock groups fresh from the morgue. In truth I find something touching and comical about their teen and pre-teen desire to shock and disturb: it reminds me of being a kid myself and I’m sure many other grown-ups feel the same, when they pass by. The other day I was strolling along Colston Avenue and Luke came flashing past on a board, flying off the pavement and dodging between traffic on the road. Was he trying to copy my driving style or what?
Letting myself back into Big Pink, I feel the place’s ghostly atmosphere and pick up its many echoes: that needle bumping around the grooves of our past. The house is extremely eerie at this afternoon hour, with no humanity to speak about. It’s hard for me to even imagine that we shared a family life together in this place. The dream home is now the haunted mansion - a museum.
Then I plod upstairs and, after a moment’s pause, decide to enter Luke’s bedroom to investigate. There’s a chance that he may be hiding out in his room, waiting for me to leave again. Otherwise I don’t like to invade his personal space. I want to be close to his s
oul and to protect him. But once I let myself inside, I merely experience the exact weight of his absence.
He’s started to vacuum his room, as a protest against the slipshod condition of Big Pink. Angela treats her space as would a Beat poet at an artists’ rural retreat. Luke’s reacted against his sister’s untidy attitude. His bedroom is a games centre and computer laboratory. Our son passes a lot of relative time here. I meet the gazes of mean-ass rappers, new rock zombies and big-breasted babes, all pinned helplessly to the walls. The blind eye of the computer awaits his miracle touch. The set of mixing desks, that I got him under duress last Christmas, are not in their spinning mode. Carefully I begin to explore the bedroom, poking, lifting, and rummaging into every corner; as afternoon sunshine catches me through slatted black blinds, streaking across his Formula One continental quilt.
Not immediately finding anything, I get down on my knees and look under the bed. There I find motorcycle and soft porn magazines. Nothing sinister or unexpected there, you have to conclude. I will speak to him about them, if I can, the girly mags, but normally I wouldn’t fret. They indicate that the sexual energies of adulthood are beginning to race through the veins of my son. I know all about the influence of sexual energies. They get us into all kinds of trouble. Sometimes it’s like sliding down a ski jump with rockets strapped to your back.
Luke and I both enjoy the Star Wars series of movies and spin-offs. At least this shared popular-culture enthusiasm helps us to inhabit the same universe. For most of the space time. May some kind of force be with us now. May good triumph over evil.
Am I to blame for his truancy, by telling him to get out of the house? Has he taken up the challenge and gone on the quest for reality? What exactly might he be doing in that big wide world?
As I am about to leave his room, taking a final scan over the floor, I notice some glinting silver material on the carpet. These turn out to be several sheets of foil, which show narrow scorch marks and a gritty residue on the surface. What the hell? My heart inflates and pulsates, like a stiff hand that’s been working a punch bag. My son’s dropped these bits of silver paper carelessly behind him, under the windowsill behind his bed. Bad luck for Luke that he didn’t retrieve them after cleaning his room; or that he became so slack after consuming the junk. What should I do with this stuff, this evidence? Simply scrunch it up and throw it away? It’s very hard to come to terms with. Our son experimenting in this way. What’s my ex (but litigiously alert) wife going to say and do about this, if she ever discovers the truth? How quickly is that magistrate going to get Luke out of Big Pink and into the Noggins’ techno lair? Faster than you can chase the dragon.