by Neil Rowland
She allows herself a smile, as if the soft face is made of rock. “Why not.”
“If only there’s a spare one,” I add.
Far out thoughts. Powerful to pharaohs and medieval field-hands. Not only to contemporary computer nerds in tanks. Stonehenge wasn’t a picnic site. I don’t have a sky gazing character. I’m a sportsman, or used to be, and I recognise the world around me. We all have to battle with the forces of divine exasperation. Frank Noggins actually told me that humanity is part of a computer programme. We’re a circuit in the mind of an original creator. Reality is the consequence of a big bang in the head of that giant Geek. Frank really believes that. Right, so now he’s got his thumb on the delete key, this Geek. Mister and missus Noggins and the Geek.
We get to talk this woman and me - overcoming initial suspicion. The big music festivals gave this opportunity to interact with many people; for an exchange of contrasting thoughts and experiences. Away from the tall buildings and confined spaces, the mind can open up; dare I say ‘expand’? Even when we returned to our regular lives, to humdrum existence in conventional society, we were never quite the same. I wonder if my daughter will have similar experiences here. I couldn’t begrudge Angela that - I couldn’t deny her the chance. But, I guess, I’m just wary if she wants to open up the doors of perception.
“Yeah, I was always hanging out at the big rock festivals,” I tell her. “You know, in a younger incarnation. That was the authentic period, you know, when we turned machine guns into ploughshares.”
“What, like a youth opportunity scheme,” she retorts.
“Authority branded us a bunch of dangerous weirdoes,” I say.
“Are you a weirdo?” she wants to know.
The idea causes me thought. “We were proud to call ourselves freaks. Misfits of conventional society. Hopeless idealists,” I blab. I’ve probably got Stuart Maybridge in mind. “Sit down here next to me. We can put our heads together,” I suggest.
“I’m cool standing,” she tells me.
But it isn’t a chat up line. I’m not scheming to conjoin anything but our thoughts. “Don’t worry, that’s cool,” I assure her. “The name’s Noah.”
“Pru,” she returns.
“Great name, Pru. Excited to meet you.”
“Cool.”
“So what’s the hippie movement about in this era? Is it a lunatic fringe or merely a fashion statement?” I blurt out. Something’s happening.
“You’d better cut back on the grog,” she advises. She continues to watch me carefully. Her tender face too healthy, too ruddy from the out of doors. “Don’t we have a right to exist?” she challenges.
I shuffle on my cushioned crate. “Tolerance is essential,” I say.
“You’re tolerating us?” she wonders. She whisks back the braided hair, while adopting that firm posture. Striking looking, yet not a girl to tangle with. She reminds me of Lizzie in her youth - Amazonian.
“I don’t agree with the cops,” I assure her.
“But you’re disapproving of us,” she concludes.
“From my angle you’re trying to escape from reality.”
“Don’t you know how to enjoy yourself?” she wonders.
I furrow my pale clammy brow. “There’s nothing wrong with a few home comforts, from my...”
The girl scoffs.
“I’m just squaring up to these contemporary times,” I argue. “I can’t turn back the clock.” If only.
“My generation has the right to live how it likes,” she declares. A flush comes up through the war paint. “You’re well out of order,” she growls. The whippet turns up his eyes, nervously adoring.
“Well girl, you’re entitled to drop out of society...if that’s what you want to do.”
“There’s nothing to drop out of is there!” she argues.
“Then there’s no chance of changing things, is there?”
“Change what?” she wishes to know.
“The world, the future, society,” I reply.
“We don’t belong to society.”
“More than your hairstyle or your consumer choices. You know where I’m coming from,” I say. I take another swig of the swill. Lord knows what was in this or those burgers.
“You’re arguing to me, are you, that your generation was more political?”
True or not, I’m just trying to survive, in the current historical epoch. “We were more conscious,” I argue. Often barely.
“So what did you do to change the world?” she retorts.
“What did we do? It was more a case of what we aimed to do.”
“So you just talked about it and jumped into bed together.”
“At least we cared.” For comfort I take another slurp of radical homebrew.
“Bullshit,” she replies.
“I’ve got to admit that, you know, many of the radicals lived in suburbs.”
“You’re fucking up your image now,” she says.
“You kids are living like this, naturally, outside of conventional society,” I drawl. “Yet that isn’t a decision, a political choice...a principled choice...it’s because you don’t have any choice.”
“Bullshit. We choose to live the way we do,” she replies hotly.
My bottom tenses on the brocaded cushion. “Fair dues, girl. Straight up, it isn’t meant as a criticism.”
“There’s always been alterative people, travellers and hippies. We’re as old as the land.”
“But you’re regarded as a social problem,” I risk.
“We’re not any kind of problem. Social or otherwise.”
“Right, so you take the idea of freedom at face value?”
Pru considers the issue, shifting her elegant weight from tuft to tuft.
“I’ve never wanted to work in a factory or an office, Noah. That’s not in my nature,” she confides. “Makin’ small talk and waiting for the next tea break. And I could have had that kind of life, you know.”
“Depends on the type of office. How do you mean?” I wonder.
“I was engaged to this guy, see. More’n three years ago. It was difficult to turn him down, because he was a real sweetheart. But he had this really horrible idea. Which was, that I was gonna stay at home. It was me who would look after our kids. Yes, and I would be having them too,” she agrees. “When they came along. He was talented see. And he was going to have the fascinating career. He was going to achieve and discover. I was going to tag along and applaud. Only I wasn’t gonna do that,” she explains, puffing clouds of ice.
“You couldn’t put your trust in another human being? To bring kids into the world?” What have I been dragging on? I pull my jacket tighter around me. The shadows are long.
“I’m gonna have a tribe of kids, and they’re gonna be as free as I am,” she insists. She runs her hand up an ear of long grass, while scratching an itchy calf with her boot.
“Why does straight society hate you so much?” I consider.
“I don’t know, we just get on with it, to tell you the truth.”
“What you represent is a danger,” I say. “The danger that there could be something else out there for people...if only we had the guts to follow.”
“We don’t want to get too popular,” she says.
This could be more proof that reality is getting away from me. We’d better summon a magistrate to find out.
“They persecute you, not to mention prosecute,” I say.
“Then they can sleep peacefully at night,” Pru agrees.
“We say we believe in freedom, but when radical politicians ever get into power, what do they do? They create extra police powers and knock people around their heads,” I argue.
“Why don’t they leave everyone in peace?” she says. Frozen air billows from
her delicate nostrils. Revolution is in the air.
“That’s right, leave people in peace. Live and let live.”
“This land doesn’t belong to anyone.”
“Doesn’t it?” I reply, bewildered.
“No mate, why should we be pushed off the land? I was raised on this land and it’s always belonged to everyone.”
“If only,” I say.
“If the ‘cream crackers’ lose their rights, then so does everybody else.”
“Sorry, what’s that?” I reply, leaning forward, fearing the influence.
“We’re making a stand just by being here. There’s a new type of enclosure going on in this land. Know what enclosure is?” she asks.
“’Course I do, girl. I took a minor in History.”
“If we lose our freedom then the rest of you do. Do you get me? We’re a thorn in their side. Otherwise there’s no point to any of this.” She spreads her arms to embrace the horizon, where the ashes of the sun are going out. “We might as well run about topping each other,” she continues, “stealing and robbin’, d’you see?”
“Which is exactly what’s going down,” I concur. “When my generation was young we aspired to Woodstock ideals. In this contemporary era my son aspires to being a hoodlum in downtown Los Angeles or wherever.” What did I know?
“There are millions of egos colliding, looking for the advantage, refusing to take any notice of each other,” she tells me.
It’s music to my ears. “I see where you’re coming from.”
“It’s a gi-normous fuck-up on the grandest of scales,” she concludes.
“Right. Now we have the job of repairing the damage,” I philosophise. “We’ve got to straighten out this twisted planet, before it’s too late.”
“It’s all about get rich quick, find the perfect partner. Absolutely fucking bonkers,” she offers, in her fruity tones. “They think a soul is something you sell.”
I think about the idea and like it.
“There’s no valuing people’s true spirits. It’s more about how much money we can screw out of them,” she says, animatedly.
“Right, we’re in the same place,” I say. “You and I.”
Mind expanding stuff. At least it was expanding mine. The girl and I drop into companionable thought. Sid the whippet - as he’s named - continues to shift his weight nervously between delicate toes. I get to the bottom of my brew, without finding any interpretation to the dregs and believing that Angie is lost. Lost from me at least.
Chapter 34
Prudence observes me warily at her distance. A flow of lumpen humanity passes beyond us, resembling the citizens of Blake’s London taking the poet’s advice. It isn’t hard to interpret this chick’s thought patterns - ‘so you think we are weird!’
I definitely have the smack of a worried parent, even if I could be a maverick pot-holer with a taste for radical rhetoric.
Uneasy curiosity gets the better of her. “What are you doing here anyway? For the music?” she enquires.
“Do you call that music? Aren’t I allowed to enjoy myself?” I counter. “I was one of the original hippies. I’ve got all the Dylan bootlegs,” I brag.
“This isn’t a bootleg, this is our way of life,” she insists. If she had her bow and arrow she’d run me through.
“I’ve come out here to rescue my daughter. If you want to know,” I say. “She ran off with some dodgy druggie bloke.”
“Wouldn’t that describe most of them? So how old is this daughter of yours?” Her alarm bells are synchronising.
“Does that matter? She’s still only young. In her twenties.”
“Ha, ha, that’s a laugh,” she cracks. “I thought you meant she was like twelve or something like that.”
I stare ahead, blankly disillusioned. “She’s still putting herself at risk,” I argue. “Even if you believe that twenty-something is mature.” Maybe it’s old enough to drop out of society.
“She’ll be really pleased to see you,” Pru remarks cuttingly. She tilts back her warm rosy face and treats me to a filthy cackle. She’s got a sense of humour this girl. “What a lovely surprise your little girl’s gonna have. Hello Daddy!” Her laughter goes on a long run like Art Tatum in a joyous mood.
“Right, have your fun, girl, but she scrammed to this festival, you know, and I don’t have a clue where she might be,” I bleat.
“Can’t she look after herself?” Pru tells me. Mixing satire with a statement of the obvious is devastating.
“That would depend on the company,” I say.
“Is she a hippie? your daughter?” A free spirit in common?
I consider. “No, she isn’t a hippie. She just came here to enjoy herself. There’s a rave going on.”
“She’s a cheesy quaver!”
“She’s a wotsit?” I ask.
“A cheesy quaver. A raver. Stinks of perfume and she wouldn’t be seen dead without a slap of Number 7.”
This character sketch takes some while to decipher. “No, you haven’t caught my Angie very accurately there,” I conclude.
“You said she’s not a hippie or a traveller, didn’t you?”
But my life went electric years ago and I’ve learnt to withstand audience jibes.
“Well, I’m not going to find her in this crowd,” I lament. “What hope is there?”
“Why don’t we go and find her? If you want,” Pru tells me.
My glance returns sceptically. “Just like that? That’s hardly likely,” I say.
“Trust me because I know my way around,” she insists. “Come on.”
“Oh yes? You sure about that?” Blood rushes to my extremities, as I struggle to my feet.
“Don’t worry. Follow me,” she says, waving me towards her.
“You’ve got my daughter all wrong. She’s just mixed up in her beliefs.”
“Who really understands themselves?” Pru remarks. “We just limit our potential, when we think we have.” Potential, or meaning? “We have to remain open to everything. See what’s around the next corner,” she argues. Not too many corners about this place.
“If there’s anything there to be found,” I suggest. The more you love life the greater your sense of loss.
Angela struggles to find purpose or direction to her life. Sometimes I worry if that isn’t related to her upbringing. That’s complete rubbish of course, yet this concern plays on my mind.
“So are we setting off to find this sweet little girl of yours?” Pru calls to me. “Come on, we’ll follow the trail of puppy dog tails, sugar and spice.”
Pru’s invitation couldn’t be turned down. This lost balloonist needed a festival guide. She leads me around the makeshift lanes and paths between hippie home-from-homes. She cuts a tall and striking figure in the twilight - as if it is Lizzie walking ahead of me; guiding the way, taking command. My mind should be focusing on the search for Angie - my errant daughter - but it’s wandering towards Mount Venus again, if you catch my drift.
The girl’s lithe waist becomes traced into my senses, like a lost comfort - the lost Lizzie. She’s tangled in the lush beauty of this landscape, provoking fantasies of permanence. I thought about sticking with Pru and her friends in the convoy. What if I spent the rest of my limited life-span travelling with them? Going from town to town, hedgerow to hedgerow? Super Tramp rides again.
The travelling people are tough to endure these privations. Yet they don’t have strict residential qualifications. Anybody is welcome. Life has ruined my reputation and these are tolerant people. I can pitch a tent with Pru and adopt the easy riding freedom of the open road again. What do I have to lose? More to the point, what do I have to gain?
If this has the ring of ridiculous fantasy, nothing was holding me back. I was convinced that their way of life could m
ake me happy and forgetful. I could make this radical gesture to obliterate the question “why me?” This question came up regularly in the small hours of every night and my brain never found an answer. This question left me soaked through with terror and confusion. How many cold sweats can you get through in a single night?
For months I’ve been dicing with death - shaking under his bony grip and cruel glare - and now I prefer human company and spiritual fulfilment. You may say that I just seek escape - don’t we all? To know there’s something out there greater than we are. It’s the comfort of knowing that we’re something more than just the passengers of random chaos. You’ve got to serve somebody, in the great man’s words. If the surgeon had taken this attitude he would never have fitted the faulty heart valve to my existential pump. He sliced me open, pulled my ribs apart and inserted something alien and lethal inside me, likely to split into infinity at any second. Call me squeamish or ungrateful, but I don’t regard that as the gift of life.
Shack up with this sexy child-of-nature woman, my inner voice urged. Snuggle down under a patchwork quilt in front of an open caravan fire. Share a hearty breakfast with her on the step between an open door. Maybe she wouldn’t be freaked by my operation scars and slack muscles. What bliss that could be, I thought. She’d help me to feel young again, with the past reimbursed. This beautiful hippie girl would be my companion. She’d prompt me to drop out of society again, just shy of my forty ninth birthday.
This fantasy lasted for a few minutes, as I stumbled after her. What caused the alien to drop down to Earth? When did reality check me out? It could have been the look of our neighbours, the quality of living quarters, or the packs of dogs and uncool clothes. In truth it was Angela’s likely reaction to any decision to drop out - as well as the urgent need to find her. I couldn’t insist that she go to university, if I went to live in a gypsy caravan with a chick half my age. Man, it would be a hard sell. You can only fit so many crazy daydreams into a single lifetime.
On the other hand it was a beautiful daydream.
Pru serviced as agent provocateur. If she was sexy she was also incredibly high. At this point I saw myself as an ageing rambler, trudging back to dull suburbia. She could never guess the ideas percolating in my brain; arguably the dregs from a bygone era. Then I came out with the dumbest chat up line of the festival.