by Neil Rowland
Bob emerges to repeat his refrain of the evening:
“Find yourself a beer, Noah, before they’re all downed. I never realised that these chaps would sup so much.”
“They must be rehydrating!”
I decide to follow him; the prophet of the tankard; down the characterful winding wooden stair, back down into the kitchen (or beer strong-room). There’s a cluster of revellers already gathered. Susan is entertaining friends around a large oak table at the other end.
I’m still choking on envy after meeting the new Mr and Mrs Lloyd. He’s managed to outmanoeuvre me after all these years, by jumping back on the love train. I get the idea that Rupert has enjoyed the last laugh. But how do we know when to laugh ‘last’? The other guy could sneak-in their jubilation at the last moment. No, you just can’t predict anything in this beautiful but scary world. How can you ever tell what’s going to happen next? I don’t have smoke signals or talking drums at my disposal.
The next moment, while attempting to circulate, I experience another jolt. It’s another shock at this party, as I see Corrina Farlane. She’s here. She’s been invited. She’s one of that group talking to Susan. I feel as if somebody’s just fired a champagne cork down my throat. Who’s responsible for shaking this old bottle? This could be another bad trip, and we’ve only just returned from the last. A revolution is building in my chest, even as I resist another uprising. But do I have enough determination to counter attack? Corrina has the lead role in my personal nightmare movie. She looks great, I can’t help checking her out. But how can she have the effrontery to turn up at this party?
What’s she doing here? Obviously she came to feel my pulse; to check how my health chart is coming along. She must think it’s safe to put her pretty face above the sand dunes again. Take another look at my good looking corpse. We didn’t repair our fault-lines in that smelting pot. She’s curious about my public appearance, to see if I have defected to another time dimension. You don’t need to drop any acid in this life.
“What’s she doing here? Corrina?” I stammer.
“Take it easy, Noah. Why shouldn’t she be here?”
“We just got back from purgatory together.”
“There are a lot of people here tonight,” he reminds me.
“D’you see that nail between her teeth? That’s the last one for my coffin,” I complain.
She’s a lot of woman, Corrina - whatever I think of her ethics. I need to hold on to Bob’s arm for support. She’s wearing a type of silk shift, tied at the middle with a cord, as translucently and ideally sky blue as a Greek isle is supposed to be; revealing black knickers and brassiere beneath - cups as large as coal shovels - making no concession to anyone’s feelings.
“Pull yourself together, Noah. It isn’t another heart rumour, is it?”
“She told me she was well shot,” I bitched.
“She just turned up on her motorbike a few minutes ago,” Bob said. “Susan took her helmet and leathers up into the spare bedroom.”
“Can’t you throw her out?” I declare.
My friend is disconcerted by such an idea. Not on his life. “We can’t very well do that.”
Corrina’s serpentine figure demonstrates that the sands of sexuality are running out.
“Susan did mention that you might be coming along. She thought that would put her off.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Or were they trying to revive my love life, at a minute to midnight?
Corrina looked toned, trim and healthy as healthy. She still had that golden tan from our Cretan break. No, the tan hadn’t worn off - it went with the memories. When she shook her hair it had a scintillating effect, against her diaphanous dress. The flame of bleached hair was the only reminder she would take. My second coming is of no significance to her.
What’s she doing at the Huntingdons’ hoot? This isn’t her crowd or even her generation. All right, so she made her entrance on the Triumph Trident, that has pipes like a donkey on the pull. But that’s where the sparks stop, because I’m stalled with engine failure. Why try to revive a clapped out old hippie like Noah Sheer? Why, she could take her pick from the rich handsome guys, hanging about the trendy waterfront bars and restaurants of this city. She doesn’t in any way resemble me these days, as I sit at the theatre bar alone, staring into my drink, down on my luck.
“Sure you’re all right?” Bob says.
“Cool. How do you think?”
“Don’t let her get to you. Don’t take any notice of her,” he tells me.
“Has that ever been effective advice?” I reply.
“Can I look out another beer for you?”
“Yeah, you know, I could drink another beer.”
“Join them at the table, if you’d like. You should give yourself a chance to recuperate, after all your terrible experiences.”
“That’s what they told the South Vietnamese,” I repost.
“Corrina may be here to make peace,” he suggests. “Anyway, you were stretching yourself to go on holiday with her.”
“I’m stretched now,” I agree. “Don’t be long with my beer. Don’t go and count them all again, will you?” I implore.
“Handle with care, but don’t set up a bad vibe.”
But he hasn’t rescued me from ‘Nam yet. Rotor blades are still whirring significantly above my head. Bob leaves me and makes for the fridge, searching for more liquid ammunition. But where’s Miss South Vietnam gone to?
Maybe she gave her spare crash helmet to a different guy. This other guy could be riding pillion with her tonight. Sure enough, I pick out this younger man; this dumb jock ready for the high jump. Certainly he’s less scary looking than me: less likely to plunge from the back of her bike at the first hairpin. Nevertheless, going by the body language, he isn’t sending out a message of complete confidence. The poor sap.
Chapter 16
I just stand there swallowing more champagne corks. I gawp like a moron as if waiting for the Über-organ to kick-in again. My fellow party animals are too preoccupied to notice any strange behaviour. I too lose track of present company and surroundings. Not only am I staring at Corrina: My mind has refocused on her and our vacation adventures. My dream girl has returned, despite our trip to hell. Maybe the other revellers believe that I am going mad - something has got into me. I’ve had a reputation for strange and unpredictable behaviour following my divorce. This may be the kind of thing they’re talking about.
I assumed that Corrina would avoid me, to the ends of the earth. Or she thought that I would do everything to avoid her as well, even as far as to snub my best friends’ celebration. There was a careless double invitation to take into account. Susan told her that I could make a surprise guest appearance; there was a warning out. So what kind of game is Corrina playing with us? How does she think I fit into her life at all, in contemporary times?
I don’t do the wise thing; I don’t just walk away, keeping a feel on my pulse. She sits at the table making small talk, pretending that she hasn’t noticed me. But she must have done by this stage. She has 20/20 vision: she can read off an optician’s chart from the reverse side. On holiday I had to wear my glasses down to the beach (as grit is not helpful for contact lenses) while she rattled off Greek alphabet in small print to show off. You can immediately tell the charm of this April to September romance.
Bob gestures for me to sit down, so I try to lighten my load. My legs turn to spaghetti; my palms are melting and I have lost sensation up to my armpits. She doesn’t look at me, but her colour has risen. I can feel the indignant beat of her resentment against me, as if it is her heart that’s pushing my blood around. She shakes out her burnt blonde hair, as a mountain torrent.
Where did you show up from? Why are you looking at me like that? What are you trying to pull this time? I’ve got
nothing to be ashamed about!
“Fancy meeting you here, Corrina,” I comment.
“Not really,” she retorts. “No, I didn’t, actually.”
There’s mixed radiation between us.
“You look well,” I tell her. Like great.
“I’m going to Canada this Christmas, with a boyfriend.”
“I didn’t think you liked the cold,” I say.
“More than you can imagine.”
“Don’t want to think of you alone...at that special time of the year.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I’ve moved into a more solitary period of my life...when I enjoy my own company.” I make myself sound like Jack Kerouac at his mountain retreat.
“Glad you are at a happy place,” she replies.
“I wouldn’t be that positive, at this phase of existence.”
“That’s your problem, Noah.” Her facial expressions take account of other people around the table. I believe they are desperately filtering us out; all except her new boyfriend.
“I’m a more reflective kind of guy now,” I argue.
“Glad you manage to get out and about,” she observes.
“Into the back garden, mostly.”
She closes up and I have to compose myself.
I haven’t seen nor heard from her since I was packaged back like a skewed kebab. Gossip was her way of discovering if I was dead or alive: and she didn’t want me either way. She turned up to this double-hoot to verify the facts for herself. She’s cutting another back-wheel groove into my imagination. I didn’t expect to see her again for dust.
Elizabeth revised her ideas about me, when I first hooked up with this girl. I could still pull and Lizzie had better watch out. I was rejuvenated, despite the risk of this new relationship coming apart like an old bone shaker.
I have that memory of encountering Corrina Farlane for the first time; meeting her at the reception of Whig Wham Music. I still hold that picture in my mind, like a delicate flame in the cup of my hand - the flame of life. My future was clarified in those moments - or so I fooled myself. There’s still a flame between us; if not an idealistic type. I hope she hasn’t deleted that memorable day from her organiser.
Who do you think you’re looking at? Do you really think I’m interested in you any longer? How dare you get so close to me again?
She keeps up a sheet of cold detachment, but she’s surprised too, going by the sunset glow spreading around her neck. We didn’t see anything like that on holiday.
She’s talking to our fellow guests with too much emphasis. She refuses to meet my gaze or acknowledge me directly. Midnight blue, the colour of her eyes, almost black sometimes, as if the lights are going out. I hadn’t forgotten them, but I couldn’t exactly remember them either. She came here to prove something. I can sense her physical excitement running under the surface with mine. You have to take the bitter with the sweet, or buttery skin with a sharp tongue.
Corrina’s new squeeze is desperate to regain her attention. Her attention wanders back to him for a split second, but then her mind gets away at a hundred miles an hour. Ashley her boyfriend is called. A square shouldered, Aga-jawed kind of guy; only relaxed in contact sports. Put him into a ruck with fifteen thugs and he’s more socially at ease. He’s solidly handsome, but he has to be handsome if anybody is going to pay him any attention. He’s taking a public flogging right now; serving up his spineless back to Corrina like a real trooper.
“All my cousins go to the same school together, that my father and I went to,” he is telling us. “They are all right tough little buggers, I can assure you. They’re constantly getting into punch ups on the school team. Each and every one returned home with shiners this summer,” he brags.
Sadly for him his girlfriend doesn’t take the slightest interest in his pugnacious cousins. The delights of childhood interest her as much as the antics of pot-bellied Vietnamese pigs. The poor sap. Although I’ve been there. The village stocks, rotten fruit, ritual romantic humiliation that is, not ‘Nam.
My foot taps her shin by accident. This startles her, but she calms the reflex, despite hectic splashes across her cheeks. Ashley knocks my shin as he attempts to get nearer to her. I presume it is then Ashley’s knee, going by his shocked jump. No wonder she can wind this guy around her little finger like a money spider. He’ll be down on all fours cleaning out the barrels of her Triumph soon.
Bob returns holding a beer for us both. He’s out of breath and grimacing as if having unloaded barrels off the lorry. He hands a foamy tankard to me as if beer can restore my powers. It’s certainly worth a try. He plunges back into a chair in relief.
“Here you are at last,” Susan chastises.
“What do you expect me to do?” he says, recovering his breath. “There must be near to a hundred people here tonight.”
“They are all your invitations, and you’d better look after them,” she suggests.
“I’m aware of that, Suze.”
“Everybody’s having a great hoot this year,” I assure them.
“There could be a riot before the end of the night,” Bob warned.
“You would prefer to do some gardening, wouldn’t you,” Susan objected.
“You’re just as shy as I am,” he tells her.
“Some shy people enjoy throwing a party,” Corrina said.
“Do you think so?” Susan returned.
“You may overcome your inhibitions at a party.”
“Are you talking about yourself, Corrina?” I wonder.
“You’d put anybody off going to a party,” she answers coolly.
“I don’t think of you as being shy,” I insist.
“There you are, Noah, you’ve learnt something about her,” Susan argues.
“Birthdays are just numbers to me,” Ross contributes.
“Just too big these days,” Susan laughs.
“When you’re in top condition, you’re in top condition,” Ross beams.
Everyone treats him to a quick examination. Like an iguana in a bottle of Jamaican Rum, he is very well preserved. Shirley Valentine keeps him in trim as well.
“You hired a cruise ship for your last birthday, didn’t you, Ross?” Bob recalls.
“Only to please the girlfriend’s relatives,” Ross admits. The pair of new jeans pinches his scrotum suddenly.
“You don’t suffer any melancholy thoughts at all,” Susan wonders, “as you approach the autumn of your years?”
He holds an overwhelming grin. “None of those, whatsoever, Sue, love.”
“I don’t want to get a day older than now,” Corrina discloses.
“Are you afraid of ageing already?” Bob says.
“I’m terrified of wrinkles.”
“Anywhere in particular?” I wonder.
“Most of us around this table should be terrified then,” Bob remarks, easing his shoulders.
I don’t know if ‘wrinkles’ is a reference to me.
“Why should a beautiful young woman worry about wrinkles yet?” Susan says. “We used to be lovely too. I have to warn you there.”
“You’re always lovely to me, Susan,” her husband says. “I wouldn’t have named that rose after you, otherwise.”
“What’s your attitude to ageing, Noah?” Corrina quizzes.
“Me? My attitude?” The thousand year old man with a shot of eternal youth? “I’m not so very old, am I?”
“What does everyone think?” she asks.
“What is this?” I complain.
“Do you look far into the future?”
“No more last minute deals,” I tell her.
“You’re a pessimist then,” she concludes.
“I don’t presume that I will live to a ripe old age,” I say
. “I can’t make any assumptions about my future...how it is going to shape up...or who with.”
“Yet who can really tell,” Bob comes back, “what they should expect in the future?”
“I’m just grateful to wake up in the morning,” I tell them.
“You can thank the medics for that,” Corrina reminds me. For my second coming in life, she means.
“Live fast, die young. That’s always been my motto,” Ross explains. His pebbly eyes sink into contented laughter lines.
“I’m glad you’re only speaking for yourself,” Susan says.
“Fast and dangerous is the only way,” Corrina argues.
“I don’t mind the idea of fading away,” I admit.
“You don’t do so badly. You have a good life. From what I can see. Why are you always complaining?” asks the caring bike girl.
“Thanks for you undying concern,” I return.
“Fading away sounds reasonable to me,” Bob admits
“Wouldn’t you like all the clocks to stop, Noah? Now... For time to stop at precisely this moment?” Corrina challenges. She exposes me to the shimmering surface of her swimming pools. Either I drown or I dive in.
“I don’t have an overwhelming desire to race ahead,” I concede. A lap of honour is better than the last lap maybe.
Bob Huntingdon scratches his bristled chin and squints questioningly.
“You’re in a more positive frame of mind, Noah,” Susan tells me. “You only needed to get out of the house to enjoy our party. Do you see?”
“Your party has worked wonders for Noah,” Corrina remarks.
“What are you talking about?” Bob asks, turning to her directly.
“Why look at the little smile on his face,” Corrina suggests. This chick is a strange cookie. “It’s as if something’s turned up.”
“Shirley and I always enjoy a good knees up,” Ross asserts.
Which remark provokes further puzzlement and stifled laughter around the table.
“You’re a remarkably positive man,” Susan praises, to rescue everyone. “We’re thrilled that Noah could make it this evening as well. He definitely seems more like his old self.”
