Noah's Heart

by Neil Rowland

  To gain thinking time, to hit on an action plan, I occupy myself with small jobs around the house. There’s a book shelf to straighten out, some dining room carpet to tack back down, a radiator or two to bleed. Luke doesn’t return from school at the appointed hour and I’m suffering extremely bad radiation.

  Meanwhile I dine alone on his favourite dinner. I prepared the meal for him, hoping to keep him happy during our urgent conversation about drugs and truancy. Though depressed by his no-show and by eating alone, I take the attitude that he can’t stay away all night. Even if he suspects the Head Teacher has notified me, Luke has to return to our Hammer House of Horror. He’s due to stay at his mother’s this weekend. It’s very unlikely that he’ll turn up to their place early. What will Liz do if she gets any information out of him? I’m the guy who’s really on the run. Except that nobody is out searching for me.

  How does my former, very-much-living-and-breathing wife react in such a crisis? I can tell you, she goes into a terrible panic about the situation. She would have a dreadful wobbly when, all of a sudden, the accidental or the catastrophic happens; when life goes haywire. But that initial panic would quickly wear off, and then she’d turn raw energy to positive action. She’d be capable of rescuing the situation. She wouldn’t just do nothing; sit in front of the television, hoping for the best. That’s what I’m more likely to do. Mistake complacency for calm. Put my big feet up.

  There was that notorious episode when Angela was a little girl. She failed to come back one evening from playing out. Lizzie sent me tramping around the park to search for her. Despite shouting her name for hours I didn’t have any luck. On my return, a militant Lizzie decided to rouse the whole neighbourhood. Half the street went out searching by torchlight around that local park. They were yelling out and smashing the bushes like the living dead. Fortunately someone picked up faint childish cries, coming from one direction. Closing as a group into that area, we eventually located her at the bottom of an excavation ditch. She could easily have been lost and perished in that hole. Angie was miserable, wet through and bedraggled, squatting between huge exposed pipes - but safe.

  After I had pulled her back to the surface, my wife, furiously upset, slapped the back of her legs. I didn’t like that response, not at all, but didn’t feel in any position to criticise. Our daughter might have died, if it hadn’t been for her mother’s desperate actions. What was a slap on the legs compared to a miserable death in a freezing, watery ditch? Who had the high ground there?

  Angela regularly wandered off. As a kid it was her trademark trick. You’d just take some interest in the newspaper and, when you looked up again, she was gone. My wife would insist on searching the entire beach, including wooden changing huts, refreshment stands and amusement arcades. It could be a nightmare, but you can’t live without experiencing a few of them. Lizzie resembled some flame-haired Amazon as she strutted over the beach, strong and bronzed in her polka dotted bikini. Until eventually she’d drag the child back - inevitably snivelling - to the safety of our windbreak. I wouldn’t know where to look. She made me feel irresponsible and incapable. In those situations I would fight against my resentment, as if pushing back a poison that crept higher along the vein. But Lizzie wasn’t too far wrong in her opinion, and the bad feeling between us soon wore off.

  So what am I planning to do to bring our Luke back? I have to start thinking for myself. Where did he get the dope? Who was his sleazy contact? Adam Jakes looms across my thoughts, although he was only here for a few hours. Luke was upstairs asleep - there wasn’t any go-between.

  How would Bob Dylan handle this situation? He has enough children to populate the Old Testament and much of the New. Surely his eldest kids progressed through the terrible teen years. Jakob and siblings must have presented a few challenges to the great man. Even the voice of a generation has to bear contradictions, you’d assume. Even Zimmerman suffered backchat at the breakfast table from time to time. How did he respond when kids’ ideas about the world, and the right ethical code, ran contrary to his own? Did all the blood run to his head while he hid behind his broadsheet newspaper?

  All I can do is keep my investigation open. Forlornly I begin to flick through my telephone book. Unfortunately I don’t have Dylan’s number. Lizzie would always ring around all her friends and everyone she knew, covering all bases, in an emergency. What I’m doing is punching a few numbers and hoping for the best; already anticipating a new family regime, whereby Luke spends most of his time at her place. This scandal has to leak out eventually, like the smoke from Luke’s nostrils. As I said, we live in hope, when optimism has died. Our generation could argue that drugs have the power to bring people together - the hippies said it and the ravers said it - so let’s test the theory again. Even the druggie has to share his secrets with someone. Man, it’s a beautiful but scary world out there.

  This is grimy if essential spade work, digging around in the gutters of my son’s life. Getting in touch with various Mums, Dads and mates, I certainly have a chatty hour on the blower. They’ll soon have a few more colourful stories about Noah Sheer. Naturally I have a reputation by now. I’m listening to their theories about Luke Sheer; hooking up to the grapevine of school gossip. So far I don’t have Luke’s versions of events, but I intend to.

  My son’s a popular boy at that school, when he’s there. Equally a picture develops of a kid who has become more unpredictable, in mood and behaviour. That must reflect his ugly home experience, it crosses my mind. Am I mistaking Calaban’s wild spirits? Or is he Hal? He must enjoy getting this respect off his peers. They must have a lot to recommend them - in his eyes - drugs. Jakes argued that you have to create menace in this monetarist ego trip. A self-justifying drug dealer can never be a Confucius or even a Nietzsche. Luke’s been put out on those mean streets to handle himself. Seeing the world through his eyes, it may seem as if he must. But isn’t that still my job? Wasn’t I the guy who first went missing?

  Jahinder Singh is my son’s closest mate. The Sikh lad’s considered a wizard on the computers, if you’ll excuse those mixed theologies. Jahinder isn’t used to getting calls from me, or any other Dads, so initially he doesn’t recognise my name or voice. When he’s adjusted to the idea he doesn’t want to tell me much about Luke.

  “I don’t know - haven’t seen him for days!” he says. There’s a hint of betrayed friendship in this statement.

  “So whereabouts could he be? You know?” I coax.

  “No.”

  “Didn’t he mention anything to you? Where he may hang out? Different lads he’s attached to?”

  “Lukey doesn’t say much to me anymore,” Jahinder concedes.

  “Sorry to hear about that. So when did you last see him?”

  “Oh, it must have been last week.”

  “Really? As long ago as that? Did you two fall out over something?”

  “Luke’s got another gang of friends,” he explains.

  I feel the skin on my scalp shrink. “Can you describe these lads to me?” I press, scrunching the phone into my ear.

  “Oh, well, not really,” he begins. “But they are rough and tough.”

  “Where does Luke meet them? Is it in the city centre?” I press.

  “They’re on the Heartcliff estate, you know. Lukey takes the bus out there. They buy small packets of drugs and stuff.”

  “Packets?” I say.

  The kid is opening up. “I don’t know, a dealer. They spend the day getting a buzz. They go and slap a few kids. They ride about on motorbikes.”

  Luke gets his way, after all, at dangerous speed. “Do you think he’s over the estate this evening?”

  “Could be.”

  So I thank Jahinder for the dope and hang up to dry.

  Heartcliff is a 1930s working-class estate to the south of the city. It has a tough reputation, built up by newspaper horror stories. My own e
xperiences about the district haven’t been negative. But then I’m not a post-structuralist geographer. My company employs a few people from the estate. Most of the houses are well maintained, with large gardens at the rear. There are also tower blocks there. Being situated on the edge of the city the estate has access to the countryside. A few years ago we gave a flying demonstration, at a bank holiday fete. Now my son could be running loose over there.

  Then the telephones are set off again - three contradictory tones in different spaces of Big Pink. Jahinder calling back. Something more to add?

  “Luke back yet?” he asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “You could find him over the Heartcliff estate tonight,” he tells me.

  “Right. How will I ever find him over there?”

  “He’s hanging about bus shelters with those new mates.”

  “That’s useful information. But which bus shelter do you mean?” I wonder.

  “So haven’t you seen the news on teevee?” he declares.

  “What are you saying? I’m watching a Corman movie on cable. What news?”

  “There’s a riot going on over there,” he tells me, with a slight Indian accent.

  “A riot, are you crazy?” I declare.

  “Between the local kids and the police.”

  “You’re not saying Luke is involved? Or that he started this riot? Are you?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Well I haven’t heard anything about a riot. In Bristol? In these times?”

  An occupation of the Dean’s office did not constitute a riot. The Poll Tax riot was the last one I remember, but I didn’t feel comfortable with that, the anarchists who’d never read a book. It was purely a distasteful media event for us.

  The explanation strikes me that my prescribed drugs are inducing a heightened condition. Maybe these drugs are turning me jittery. My nerves jangle like Roger McGuinn’s twelve-string guitar. But not as played by McGuinn.

  As I pull on my black leather jacket, and shut off the house lights to leave, I’m highly suspicious about the side effects. There always have to be side effects. My thoughts may be affected. My judgement impaired.

  Chapter 28

  There are signs of disturbance ahead, because the traffic out of Bedminster - my brother’s homeland - is bumper to bumper. Vehicles coagulate within the narrow twisting roads of this area of the city. There are exhaust fumes enough to choke central Tokyo. I should know about that.

  During this shunting and waiting I switch on the drive-time show and listen to reports about the riot in Heartcliff. An ‘outbreak of violence’ flared up following the death of two young boys, after they’d stolen and crashed a police motorbike. They were pursued at high speed until the cops lost patience and set them a trap. There was a set of impassable metal traps and spikes on the road surface as those lads hurtled along. The boys accepted the police’s challenge but, recognising the impossible hazard in front, couldn’t skid to a halt in time. They slid across the greasy tarmac like an ice puck. Until the bike and riders smashed into a wall, the perimeter of their local school, killed on impact, crushed into a knot of metal. In a split second the kids had escaped authority forever.

  My initial reaction to this report is the most extreme. I imagine that Luke is one of the young motorcycle thieves. I’m trapped in the car, depressed into my seat, considering these terrible scenarios. How could I possibly face the future without my eldest son? Ironic given my health condition. How would I begin to explain my tragic negligence to Liz? Do I really believe that her grievances couldn’t be any more serious?

  My thoughts return to the oil on his trousers, that pile of motorcycle magazines under his bed. Chasing these motorcycle fantasies is more dangerous than merely chasing the dragon, I consider. I try not to avoid emotional meltdown, but my hands are shaking on the wheel already. If he’s one of those motorcycle thieves, I don’t want to stick around this planet any longer. I might as well snap that damaged heart valve like a cyanide pill.

  Local knowledge is useful as I take a circuit of side-streets. The estate is on the edge of the city, integral to itself, as explained. It isn’t a place that people normally visit in the evening, unless they actually live here. That is, unless they have to live here.

  I lower my speed and begin to cruise the streets. On the look-out for my son, checking both sides, with a darkness on the edge of town. Soon I glide past groups of youths - gangs and gang members. They have clustered together, teamed up individualists, like wasps; menacing, out for revenge. You can feel the crackle of bad radiation in the atmosphere around.

  I puzzle out the unfamiliar maze of this district. I’m still far away from the epicentre of reported violence. But the lower sky has an unnatural angry glare, outlining rooftops, chimney pots and side alleyways, exaggerated by a smouldering sunset. Sirens wail from indeterminate directions. Something’s definitely going down in this neighbourhood.

  As I approach a large group of youths, stood about the middle of the road, they divide slowly, reluctantly, around my car. Sullen, cold stares wish me harm through the side windows, as I chunter past in the vintage DS. One or two jaws drop in astonishment at the sight of me, as if ready to catch police helmets between their teeth. I keep them framed in the rear-view mirror, uncertain of their intentions. I don’t expect these young guys have ever seen Jean Paul Belmondo cruising their district before. They wouldn’t have encountered Alain Delon in Les Samurai, gliding through the side streets to another deadly assignation. Man, this is certain to attract curiosity in any tough neighbourhood.

  Heedless of threat I keep my cool and accelerate away from trouble. Wisely I keep the Bogart-like sneer away from my lower lip. But it isn’t clever to hook Ray Bans over your nose after dark. So I take them off again and place them in the glove compartment. This is no place for a middle-aged Dad, not even a cool one. Elizabeth will brand me an unfit father, if this comes back to her. Then we’ll see her next move on the legal chessboard. But I’m not going to knock over my queen yet.

  Before I can turn around, a pair of cops descend on me. One of them taps on the window to indicate that he wants an urgent word. I keep the car ticking over and up on its hydraulics, in case of a getaway.

  “Hey, officers,” I greet.

  “Where you goin’, sir?” he demands, leaning in. An experienced officer this one, who has seen many beats, going by the broken capillaries across his cheeks.

  “There aint no way through,” his young colleague adds. There’s toffee on his breath.

  “You telling me I’m not free to drive home?” I ask.

  “You’re a resident?” asks the mature policeman. He leans and peers at the interior of my car - funny frog motor written across his features.

  “No, I’m not a resident,” I admit.

  “Then I’d advise you to get out of ‘ere,” he tells me.

  Would Peter Fonda meekly assent to the intrusive questions of an aggressive cop? I don’t think so. So I decide to end our conversation by sending the window back down.

  “Do you hear me? Do you hear me!” is cut off from my ears.

  The power steering is definitely ancien regime, causing aggravation to the surgeon’s handiwork. I don’t want to come apart at the seams. While performing this manoeuvre, a fire engine hurtles across my vision in full battle cry; like a disturbed scorpion; clattering past the opposite junction ahead of me, in a heart-stopping flare of noise and lights. The effect is to reignite all my fears about Luke. The dreadful idea that he may have been killed, smashed into a wall, as one of the two juvenile joy-riders. All my fantasies of riots and rebellion are extinguished.

  The policemen were more contemptuous than suspicious. No respectable citizen should be wandering these streets tonight. Yet as a precaution I turn off the main-beams, as I nose into another road, melting into the darkness. Each street is h
ard to distinguish from the next. The estate has become a smoke-filled hall of mirrors. I can sense where the riot is happening only by trembling lights in the sky. I might be driving around the area all night, I realise, assuming I don’t land in the arms of the police. Do I want to add a set of criminal lawyers to the family ones?

  I decide to park the Citroen - its Gaullist nose rising into the air - and walk to the riot as if going to the football match. I dig my hands into my jacket pockets, keep my head down and step over the cracks. I don’t get far before I’m sharing more eye-to-eye contact with the city police. No wonder that Marlene Dietrich was such a killer with men in uniform. This time my lines are better rehearsed, as I claim to be visiting a sick relative in the area. The cops agree to let me through while warning about rampaging youngsters.

  “Hey, sir! Hey there! Not in that direction!” they shouts after me. “You’re goin’ in the wrang direction!”

  But they decide that it’s my neck. Let the idiot go where he likes, they judge, if he wants a close neck shave. Luke’s putting himself through a risky rite of passage, but I’m not far behind him.

  Are these streets ahead spookily dark or merely coloured by fear? Flashes in the sky make dangerous passages and walkways seem even darker. I sense the disturbance, feel it, like an electrical storm ahead. Respectable citizens have bolted their front doors and drawn their curtains for the night. I pick up their angry vibe against the cops. These guys are catching up with the latest news and debate their means to avenge the boys’ death. I’ve been involved in demos and marches in the past, but nothing like this. I watch this guy come out of his garden carrying a crate of empty wine bottles and a can of petrol. There’s no need to put two and two together.