by Neil Rowland
Ross looks shocked at my ignorance. “No, Noah, they’re St. Lucia, Trinidad, Grenada... The West Indies. Where have you been?” he teases.
“Now you come to mention it... How bloody stupid of me.”
Ross gloats politely. “We had a gorgeous little vacation in the Caribbean. Didn’t we, sugar? So why don’t you tell Noah something about your experiences there?”
“Yes, lovely, thanks!”
“Superb. You’ve never seen so much luxury in all your life,” he assures me.
Years ago he’d bike down to Weston over the weekend, to do battle with the Mods. After scattering pensioners from the sands, they’d all have fish and chips before roaring back home.
“Glad you had a nice time...there in the lap of luxury.”
“Very interesting,” Shirley says, “because most of the time I didn’t understand a word they were saying.”
“Did you say you’d been on holiday this year, Noah?”
“It’s a bit of a sore subject with me, to be honest with you.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t look very brown,” Shirley Valentine remarks. She narrows her eyes suspiciously and disapprovingly.
“Maybe he went on a skiing break, love,” Ross concludes. “Have you been on the piste?” he asks, without irony.
“Not consciously,” I admit.
He bends at the knees to relieve the clasp of new jeans. “So where have you been then?”
“At first I went to Crete.”
“They invented the first running toilets, yeah?”
“We bought ourselves a last minute ordeal,” I explain.
“Beg your pardon?” says the dumb painted stick.
“Hotel all right?”
“We hired out a villa.”
“Cheap?”
“But then I felt unwell and had to come home early.” Best to keep these memories to myself.
“I did hear rumours about you getting a massive coronary,” he says, sucking air and wincing.
“Rumours?”
“That you’d been knocking on the door, bud.”
“I had a mild heart attack while I was out there.”
“Then you will not be competing in the veterans’ championship this year?” he concludes.
“Unlikely. Next year,” I concede.
“Nobody expected you to have a massive heart attack out of the blue.”
I struggle over his heartless description. “It came as quite a shock to me as well, Ross. At least it didn’t kill me outright. My father also had coronary problems. Runs in the family. Family history,” I say.
“You poor thing,” remarks Shirley, widening her eyes alarmingly.
“Did they have to cut you open in the hospital then?” he pursues.
“That’s the long and short of it,” I admit. “I had a successful triple by-pass operation. Then they stitched me up again,” I add pointedly.
“Then I guess you’re almost back in top condition,” he replies, laughing in relief.
“Exactly. Look, good knocking into you again, Ross, but I really have to circulate.” I move away.
“It was a thrill,” Ross concludes. “Family well?”
“Very well, thanks.”
“Your little Angela’s a bit of a tearaway though, isn’t she?” he fires over.
“How do you mean?” I cut back.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Shirley adds.
“Noah, boy, where did you get that outfit from?” he winces.
“What about my outfit?” I want to know.
“No comment!”
Always the long hair, although in contemporary times Shirley Valentine could adjust her cosmetics in his smooth pate.
Ross isn’t such a bad guy. I think his heart’s in the right place.
Chapter 13
The evening is yet young and there are still sponsored walkers to meet. A lot of these chaps are growing impatient, not to say dehydrated, around the feeding tables, as beverages are slow to arrive or in short supply. It’s my task to discover the reason and look for Bob Huntingdon; our host, our innkeeper, our brewer.
I’m not reduced to lurking in shadowy corners. But the walls are more alluring than ever. I cannot predict the horrors in store for me. The idea was to go out, relax, meet old friends and enjoy myself. Trying to be at the centre of attention is no longer so appealing. They have a bead on me as the social misfit in the room. There’s no use trying to disguise the truth, that I’m divorced and solitary and making up an expedient threesome with Burke and Hare.
The soft room lighting becomes as glaring as a rock festival stage rig. My personal angst, ganged up with this party atmosphere, makes me feel intensely uncomfortable, decentred. It’s like I’ve been thrown out on stage, after losing my singing voice, without even a flying V to cover as a fig leaf. So do they expect me to shuffle off stage left?
Edging my way back to the hallway, looking for Susan, I finally catch up with Bob. I get a glimpse of his stocky, pudgy body, and of his bearded and harried countenance. He’s apparently making excuses for keeping a dry house, between the cheery guzzlers and joggers. I expected the Huntingdon couple to be more relaxed about their annual double celebration. You’d think they’ve had enough practice by now. But no, they get out their butler and maid uniforms, and turn their house into Fawlty Towers (maybe while Basil is on vacation). Apparently Bob and Sue were more relaxed in that Malaysian rain forest (before the bastards cut it all down); with sex-starved Maoist guerrillas nosing about the undergrowth, ready to kill a man for the stub of an American cigarette.
Bob vanishes from sight, but I understand he is making camp in his cellar-kitchen where he is guarding vital supplies. I wonder if Sainsbury’s could offer him an armed guard for this bulk order of alcohol? He’s so anxious that he doesn’t notice me following in his tracks down the wooden twist of stairs. Until I get his attention by putting my hand on the wall in front of him.
“Excuse me, would you mind not...!”
“Hey, Bob!”
“Noah. Glad to see you, mate!”
“You going to kill all this beer on your own?”
The stress overcomes him like a sudden waterfall. “Ah, yes, it’s a massive responsibility. At this rate of consumption its going to...”
“You’ve got enough booze here to keep the army going over Christmas...overseas,” I tell him.
“Do you reckon? Anyway, thrilled you made it. We wanted to leave the decision to you.”
“Couldn’t let you down,” I say.
“Well, great, glad to see you,” he grins.
“Wouldn’t miss your party for the world.”
“Great get up,” he remarks, casting a gaze over my threads.
“Cheers, Bob. I haven’t compromised yet.”
“No, so it would appear... Glad somebody’s holding the torch for our generation.”
“In safe hands,” I reply, ignoring reality.
“Your wardrobe’s your own choice,” he assures me.
“May I ask for a beer? Or is that too forward?” I suggest.
“Certainly mate, you can, but at the present rate of consumption... the house will be dry in two hours...if those guys don’t stop throwing back the booze as they are.”
“What do you expect, most of them are athletes,” I say. “They’re not satisfied with half a shandy.”
“Sponsored runners,” he corrects.
“All right, but they’re going to be thirsty, given those daily training routines.”
Bob’s perplexed. “You may be right. Do I have enough?”
“Will you let me join in myself?” I urge.
“These all have to be shared,” he insists.
“Anarchism is complete fr
oth. It’s complete Kropotkin. I’m sure that beer is excluded from duty,” I banter.
“Noah, I’m amazingly occupied at this moment.”
“You can’t let those marathon men suffer, Bob. You invited them after all.”
“What was I thinking?”
“Cool down, man. Let the people serve their own juice. Look, I’m going to help myself to one of these beauties,” I comment, picking myself a Czech brand. “What can be so stressful about something so lovely?” Brewed from the purest mountain water to replenish a man’s well spring.
“How many guys are there upstairs?” he urges. “Can you help me to make that simple calculation? How many beers will it take to satisfy them?” he stresses.
“How deep is the ocean?”
“Go on, help yourself to a beer, Noah. When it’s gone it’s gone,” he relents.
“That’s a wise attitude,” I tell him. “You are liberated. What are you doing here in the kitchen anyway? Isn’t this your anniversary? You’ve got to get yourself away from the sink.”
“What the hell’s going on here?” He colours beneath his bristles. Maybe he’s plugged into his memories of Donovan.
“Keep your cool, Bob.”
“Susan is chatting away to people up there, without a care in the world. It’s left to me to keep a watch on the booze and organise everything.”
“You should be up there mixing and enjoying yourself too,” I remind him. Where was his tuxedo? He had one for our wedding.
“So you decided to accept our invitation,” he remarks, cutting back to cool down.
“Thanks for the warm welcome,” I say.
“It’s great to see you,” he emphasises, breaking out into a grin.
Like a GI with the last two hand-grenades in each hand, he’s still holding on to his imported lagers. He does bear a certain resemblance to Che Guevara, if he wasn’t a stocky bearded pacifist instead. Then there’s his work as a skilled horticulturalist. Rather than hunting down capitalists in the jungle Bob is more taken with new orchid specimens. Flower power went to his head, as Brigitte Bardot to Roger Vadim.
“You planning to stay the course this evening?” he wonders.
“You bet, Robert. Until the fat lady sings,” I assure him. “In fact I am the fat lady this evening.”
His dark bristly eyebrows rise, as he takes note of my drawn features and pudgy belly, these classic hallmarks of the coronary patient.
“You look a lot better than you did,” he tells me quickly. “As you did after you returned after your surgery? Better to put on a little weight, than to be as skinny as a rake, like...”
“Yeah, like Keith Richards,” I say. “Do you think this is anything to worry about? My body has changed so much over the past year.” I’m dysmorphic man. “One time I’m fat, the next I’m losing weight again.”
“Don’t worry too much about it, Noah. Only about getting well again.”
“I’m dysmorphic man,” I tell him.
“You were practically a skeleton,” he recalls.
“Almost as thin as a model. Though I doubt they’d take me for the slimming industry,” I conclude.
“Maybe so. You were unable to catch your breath. You couldn’t take the stairs or leave the house at all. You were house bound.”
“I’m glad to be back on the roustabout. Man, it’s just like old times. I’m freewheelin’ again.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Thanks for looking after the garden for me. While I was away,” I tell him. “I plan to start gardening again soon.”
“Did you notice I put some hardy plants in your front borders?” he presses.
“Unless our son’s rabbit died, then I noticed.”
“You wanted perennials to come back for the spring.”
“Everything looks a lot better, thanks Bob.”
“Any time, mate. And you should cut your fruit trees back next year.”
“Right, thanks for the advice. I’ll get around to that. Man, you’re smarter than my GP.”
He narrows an eye and rubs his luxuriant chin. “Then how’s your health, Noah? Sue and I put the mower over your back lawn as well. You should get one of the kids to do that next time,” he suggests. “Until you heal up.”
“You’re joking, aren’t you?” I reply.
“Getting back to regular now?” Bob enquires. “As fast as you can?”
“I’m getting into yoga,” I say. “Yes, I picked up all the literature from the leisure centre. It’s a new world of contemplation and peace, both physical and spiritual. No more whacking balls or smashing the concrete,” I argue. “After my experiences I have to adapt to a new life. Only gentle physical stuff.” Perhaps I was thinking about sex again, after an absence.
“Sounds as if you’re back on firmer footing,” he returns.
While I consider this image, Bob casts another anxious glance at his alcohol collection. He’s thinking about the soon-to-be dry party above our heads. There could be a riot among the charity workers before long. He’s like a guerrilla who loves his weapons so much he’s too upset to fire them.
“Do you know how much this drink cost me? Do they appreciate what they are drinking?”
Then, as he returns his gaze, he picks up an alarming vibe from my face. A feeling about my general disposition disconcerts him. I have offered him an accidental insight into my psyche; I offer him the idea that I’m really not well yet or getting better; and that my crazy sorrow continues. His shock is just enough to crack my façade, my party features, like a fissure opening up across Frankenstein’s forehead. A perceptive guy, Bob, I should have been warned.
“Sure everything’s cool, Noah?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. But I can feel my cheeks sagging.
“Something’s up,” he observes.
“It’s just the old ticker again,” I concede.
“I thought you’d healed up, man.”
“Yes, well I was, but they called me back into hospital.”
“Yes?”
“There’s been some kind of cock up following surgery.”
“You’re kidding!” Suddenly conscious of the two beers he puts them back down.
“They’d taken out my stitches, I didn’t feel so sore, but there’s been a mistake.”
“But you got here this evening,” he says.
“To the best of my knowledge,” I tell him.
“You were like a ghost, Noah.”
“The thousand year old man. But I do feel a lot better. I feel much better.”
“Then what’s the problem...the mistake?”
“Where should I begin? How far back should I go?”
“Take your time,” he reassures. What would his thirsty guests say to that idea?
We can hear muffled conversations and footballs going above our heads; signs of the restless drinkers, shuffling like Van Gogh’s convicts around the prison yard. Bob’s staring at me, craning forward eagerly for my health info: dark brown eyes rounded, shoulders squared, bristling for the absolute truth.
So I describe that painful episode in the shopping mall, about the second consultation in the smoke, and of the damaged plastic valve lodged in my chest cavity. But I don’t offer him the manufacturer’s trademark or product history. I confess that there’s been a serious setback to my rehabilitation, without saying that my child support payments are under threat.
“I didn’t see this coming,” I tell him.
“You don’t deserve this,” he states.
Bob’s shocked when he gets all the dope. If I’m prepared to admit that my life is at risk, what must the whole truth be? “What were the medics doing with you? I know that it’s legitimate to interfere with nature, to cure and heal... but this looks like an intervention too fa
r,” he argues.
“Don’t ask me.”
“Did they inform you about potential risks?” he wonders.
“You have to put your faith into the future, I guess.”
“They shouldn’t experiment on people.”
“It wasn’t an experiment; at least not on their side,” I say.
“There’s only so much that’s acceptable. Did they explain fully? The risks? The likely outcomes? Why don’t they take more care?” he agonises. But it isn’t his ticker.
Now that Bob has the low-down on my heart, I’m afraid to have ruined his party. I can tell people about my predicament, but I shouldn’t spread anxiety like a bush fire. Scaring people isn’t going to make me better. I have to sit down with Angela, and the others, and tell her the exact truth. When? How can I do that, when it’s hard to accept and to explain to myself? Talk about a bad trip - this truly is.
Is it better to cut them out of the loop? This dilemma rattles around my head all the time, like the cocktail of tablets I am daily obliged to swallow. Wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about illegal drugs, had I known about the lethal legals ones, which I must take, to give a chance to survive. Not self-destructive tendencies, but self-preserving necessities. Glad we couldn’t look into the future that belonged to us.
“Take care, Noah. Take life easy from now on,” Bob implores.
“It’s a beautiful but scary world, Bob.”
“Give yourself enough time, Noah.”
“I’m getting into the garden when I can. Taking on a few modest home improvements, you know. I’ve even subscribed to an oriental art.”
“Noah Sheer? There couldn’t be a healthier or happier guy. We thought there had to be some mistake. Now you’re having some more bad luck,” he laments.
“Looks like I used up all my luck,” I suggest.
“No, you can always turn luck around,” he insists.
“How can I make my own luck? Do you know the secret formula?”
Robert may be right with his notion of luck. It’s as convincing as any explanation. More attractive than thoughts about fate, destiny or foul play.
