by Neil Rowland
“What do you care?” he bellows suddenly. Voice box cracking again.
“Pretty stuff isn’t it,” I comment, rubbing soft powder between my fingers.
He stares back at me trying to second-guess.
“Expensive shit. It could certainly be costly for you, Luke.” Does he have a life to spare?
Luke shuffles, impatient and aggravated. He has a heavy chain pulled through the loops of his jeans. Neurotically he spikes up his burnished locks: hair, eyes, complexion identical to his mother’s. I have another double vision. I falter as if he’s expressing her rebukes. My head totally screwed up, not just the beat box. There’s a battery of heavy chemicals surging around my veins - messing with my thoughts. I don’t know who and where I am.
“Where are your mates then? The ones you came to see here?” I ask him.
“Don’t know.”
“So you were just hanging around the street corner.”
“Guessed in one,” he replies.
I consider the unfamiliar irony of his response. “You were out here buying drugs?”
“No!”
“Joy riding?”
“We were just playing about and then the filth arrived, didn’t they...out of nowhere.”
“Then you ran off, did you? Where are your friends now?”
“The next I knew,” Luke explains, “they’d got ‘em into arm locks and slammed ‘em in the meat wagon, didn’t they.”
My bemused expression gains in concentration. Although the purple rings around my eyes may give me a clownish appearance. “How long have you been out here? Wandering the streets?” I wonder.
“They’re good mates of mine,” he insists.
“Why don’t you keep me up to speed?” I suggest.
He shrugs his shoulders and looks into the distance.
“Two boys were killed here tonight,” I remind him.
“I know that,” he comments.
“They don’t,” I retort.
He scowls and slumps.
I regret being such a smart arse with the young generation. “You’re messing around here, hanging out with these new mates, riding on motorcycles, chasing the bloody dragon,” I lament.
“I was just looking for the bus home,” he argues.
“D’you think your mother and I work like harnessed mules just to provide you with drugs money?” I complain.
“No, Dad, but it’s my money, isn’t it? When you hand it over to me?”
“You think you’re the Chancellor of the Exchequer? Your mother will have a blue fit if she finds out about this evening. How do you think she would react to this?” I argue. Maybe he can tell me how she would react. I need a better idea of the consequences.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t be happy,” Luke admits.
“Too right, boy, she’d go into orbit.”
Our son laughs in recognition, despite himself.
“Come on, Luke, we’re going home. We’re driving out of here.” A resource not available to everyone. I have to assume that the vintage Citroen remains in one piece and with all four tyres.
“No, Dad, I have to go back and help my mates.”
“That isn’t possible, Lukey. You can’t do anything for them now. You going to chase down the police wagon or blow off their cell door?” I suggest.
“You can’t tell me what to do. Not any more,” he objects.
“I had a call from your head teacher today,” I say, gripping his arm.
“What about it? She doesn’t know stuff.”
“You have exams to pass, revision to catch up with. You want to ditch that?”
“No, but I’m old enough to look after myself.”
“Maybe,” I tell him. “I’d like to think that. But it’s getting dark. You’re expected at your Mum’s place tomorrow evening. You up for that? Can you get yourself clean in time?” I say, only half in jest.
At this I flick open the packet of junk. I shake the package and empty it, as if mixing with the background of shouts and smoke. The shit disperses and drifts through the air. Luke’s outraged at such waste, but he isn’t an addict, thank goodness. Thank God he doesn’t offer violent resistance. He’s almost as tall as me now. And my over-boiled muscles have run out of stamina.
“You throwing money away?” he complains.
“Whose money?” I counter.
“Who told you where I was out here, anyway?” he quizzes. His voice slips down the scale like an elephant losing its footing.
“That isn’t the point,” I say. Why doesn’t he queue up at the popcorn stand at the nearest multiplex?
“Why don’t you get your fucking hand off me? Dad?”
“Do you know where heroin comes from?” I ask him. I lean forward, placing my hands protectively on his shoulders, looking into his soul.
“What does it matter? Who cares?” he retorts, with an anguished expression.
“On our drive home I will explain everything. You’ll be a wiser young man when you return.”
“No, Dad, no talks.”
“That will give you something to brag about to your mates. Your real friends that is.” The one who grassed him up, for his own salvation.
Alternatively, he could ask his mother, if you see where I’m coming from.
But hindsight’s like a successful career in show business.
To my considerable relief, we set off and head for the car, away from the fires and violence. Luke smells of smoke himself. This doesn’t prove anything, although it doesn’t dampen my suspicions either. Why does he hang around this neighbourhood at all, coming from a comfortable and loving home, as he does? I’m not trying to play the angry old man, but Liz and her legal team will rebrand me as a failed father.
Her chief lawyer is a broody guy in nylon shirts, who reads popular novels by his American counterparts, I noticed. He sought me out at the adjournment: “I’ve been watching you carefully, Mr Sheer,” he told me, shiftily. “I’ve listened to all your statements. Watched the way you conduct yourself. I have to say that I’ve really been admiring your guts.” He offered a quick ambiguous smile before hustling away from the building.
But I fought him all the way and will continue in that battle. I’ve always tried to do my best for the kids. Suddenly your best is not good enough. Times may change, but attitudes shift even more alarmingly.
Luke and I leave the temporary stage of history. I suspect that he’s secretly grateful to escape this scene. We had a few problems trying to find where I left my car. Neither of us has a good mental map of the area. Just a few mental scars.
Chapter 29
The following evening I drop Luke at his mother’s second-home as scheduled. Our son is scrubbed, changed and perfumed, with no whiff of street disturbances about him; just a few scratches and bruises which he has to keep to himself. Since that notorious evening his gaze has clarified and balanced, broken capillaries erased. Opiate alkaloids are water dissoluble. He was pulling glass after glass of fresh grapefruit today.
“Remember what I told you, Lukey,” I say, on the drive over. “Play your tarot cards close to your chest. Nothing about your off-the-rails doings?”
“Or-right Dad. I heard you, didn’t I?” he grumbles.
That way we both keep our heads on our shoulders. Like a couple of airmen in Colditz we’ve discussed the dangers of his stay; we’re rehearsed all his lines and moves. Even in an open prison you can’t do exactly what you please. I’m all in favour of personal liberty but loose talk will cost custody - not just my private life.
I’m not negative about putting Luke into captivity this weekend. The way I figure, allow him to reconsider his actions on the estate; let him meditate about his behaviour while hanging at the Dino’s mausoleum. He’ll be lucky if they allow him to pop out t
o the newsagents.
I pull up on the opposite side of their lair, with a sharp view up their driveway. There’s Liz’s dinky red convertible under the port. I’m cast into the role of seedy private detective again. I’m the marriage killer as divorce victim. Luke and I allow ourselves to sink down into the cracked Gallic upholstery, overhearing our own thoughts and expectations. He’s hanging loose for a minute, taking advantage of the whining heating system, as the engine turns over.
We’ve been more relaxed with each other post-riot. Companionably we listen to the Beatles’ greatest hits in another repackaged shuffle. The tape whines to a halt during Love Me Do, requires a pencil shift, but you can fast-forward to the more interesting tracks. The lad doesn’t express any approval of the Mop Tops but he can tolerate them. Even his mother hasn’t repudiated the nostalgic power of the Mersey sound. She and I both listen to their lyrics with some bitter irony, in the contemporary era.
No need to let the Noggins’ imagination run riot. Such as it is. Don’t blab too much about hurling missiles at the police and escaping arrest. Even if they bring the topic up, having followed all the media reports. We don’t want to give bad impressions. All those solicitors’ fees must be a drain even on Frank’s pockets, be they as deep as the coalman’s (who came to our little house in the old days). I don’t want that sweaty little lawyer of hers, with his pencil moustache and nylon shirt, insinuating himself, while clutching on my sleeve, again.
Eventually Luke drops out of my old Citroen. Tosses back the machine’s deep clunky door with a practised parry. After scrutinising top and bottom, slinging kit bag over a shoulder, like little orphan anarchist, he skulks off over the road: Pretends that he’s not conscious that I watch over him. I follow his reluctant lanky progress along their driveway. Luke takes a moment to admire her Merc. He rides an imaginary wave on a surf board, stubs a thumb into the brass bell and lurks around the porch with bored anxiety. He gets in a surreptitious parting shot of me, checking that I am still there waiting and not about to dash off immediately. I’m heartened and touched by this hesitation and solidarity on his part. You’d suspect that such a delicate feeling would perish in that bonfire. I’m the guy who needs reassurance. It’s a beautiful and scary world out here.
A brief delay until the hallway light comes on. As the front door opens this light falls on one side of Liz’s face, the plump healthy cheeks, on chemically metallic curls. A smile, a kiss and a hug and she pulls him inside after her; half raises a hand in my direction - to the assassin in the banger - but there’s no need for chat or even eye contact. She won’t be asking me inside for a beer this evening - one of her new hubby’s stack of iced lagers. It’s strictly hello, thank you and goodbye, tonight.
Deal done, as I build revs and begin to pull away, who should approach but Frank in his tank. Their street is already choked with parked four-wheel drives and family saloons, compelling us to nudge carefully through the gap. Therefore we are forced to cross precious vehicles with extreme care. We both have a vested interest in avoiding any nasty scrapes. It wouldn’t be accurate to describe a car insurance dispute as a cherry on any cake. Consequently we both stare ahead, rigidly concentrating on our driving skills, struggling to trundle to safety. I do notice that his jowls turn a succulent red, his neck creasing down into a tight office collar, as he exercises a misguided but compelling curiosity. Hello, it’s Noah.
He may believe that I’m more accepting of his domestic arrangements lately. He thinks that the past and the future are consigned to their places. That a broken heart is now coming before an ex-wife. That I must have lost all my ambitions.
Think again, Frank. Some people have their heart in a different place. Mine should be dropped into a preservation tank at the university, for future generations to splice and study. But if you’re looking for my opinion the seat of our emotions can be traced to the appendix. They should put a picture of an appendix on Valentine’s Day cards, all greetings cards, and the like. Appropriately I don’t know what shape the appendix may be. I’ve never handled one, have you?
Having left Luke to his Mum’s - and possible interrogation - I head off to Rupert Lloyd’s dinner party. I’ve been sitting on the invitation card for weeks and the expectation to see Corrina again. I want to express my desire to mix. Here’s further evidence that human feelings can be found in the appendix. Or maybe I’ve just had a bad experience.
Apart from Rupert and his fiancée, there are three couples at the gig, and one gooseberry. That’s right, Corrina Farlane doesn’t show, but merely has her excuse broadcast to the company, where it falls on my ears: she’s been called to an emergency meeting on Pacific instruments. I have to leave that one open to interpretation, but it defeats me and I’m eating my heart out again. Once again I’m hearing that door slam in the middle of Cage’s silent piece. Man, it’s like an old steam train pulling in to Waterloo, as all the passengers alight to the platform.
Nursing the centre of my hurt like a hot cannonball, I’m left tongue-tied, humiliated; as well as sporting bruises around each eye, where that lout smashed an elbow into my face. Just as well that Lizzie didn’t invite me indoors this evening, forcing me to explain. They all ask where I got these black eyes from (or really a pair of purple spectacles by now). Swallowing disappointment I describe a trip in the garage that brings frail flesh to hard surfaces. They may think that these black eyes are another sign of cardiac arrest. Everything else is pure paranoia.
Guests get through initial drinks and introductory chatter. We’re all gathered by candlelight around Rupert’s dining table. Not sure if the dimmed romantic lighting does anything for my eyes: it hadn’t been Rupert’s intention. The atmosphere does nothing to soften my divorcee status among these hitched people. The room is large and high-ceilinged, decorated with East African artefacts, against huge bookcases and whitewashed walls. We pick our way through a menu of unidentifiable courses and zinging sauces. I know that it includes a few animals and birds that I haven’t tried before. Not to consume, to eat that is, though I may have visited a few of these creatures in the zoo before now. Cuisine is the only way I get to travel the world really. And this is ‘white water’ cookery.
Ostrich was one of the courses. If somebody was quick enough to kill one of those birds, you have to pay tribute to them and ask how Rupert prepared the dish, attentive to the herbs and sauces that have been added: Unless of course it was burying its head under the sand at the time.
A smart cosmopolitan guy, Rupert Lloyd, except something went sour in his mind, if you’re looking for my opinion. Despite falling in love and planning to marry, somehow that idyll only confirms his past mistakes. I’d describe this as his equivalent of the coronary, even if his pulmonary muscle is going harder than ever. Like Jimi.
Sheila and he have been talking about their time in Kenya and their experiences around the globe. Bob and Susan are able to participate in this subject and discuss travel writers and writing. I’ll never follow in anyone’s footsteps except my own, even if I do own hot air balloons. Rupert avoids talking about our past, our youthful passions. For him those days are a smelly-cigarette mirage of headstrong fantasies. Yet the topic of those riots on the left bank of Bristol soon comes up. Even more reason to keep my head down at this party, hoping that they don’t notice my embarrassment; or, in recognition of that pair of shiners, connect a past radical with current events.
“British people are disgustingly greedy and selfish,” Rupert argues. Again his disillusionment is revealed like a metric measure hanging in an empty reservoir. But his rhetoric always had a hollow ring.
“No, they’re certainly not grateful,” his friend, Farley, concurs.
“And an edgy district of the city like that,” his wife Daphne says. Where did this girl come from?
“As far as I understand,” Sue recalls, “Thursday night’s trouble was caused by the deaths of two boys. They were knocked off their motorcyc
les by a roadblock.” She is stung by the uncharitable opinions of the neo-conservative consensus.
“The motorcycles didn’t belong to them,” Farley corrects.
“What were those youths doing on the streets to begin with?” Rupert wonders.
Enjoying a free country?
“It was just awful...that they were killed,” Susan declares. She turns to her husband for support.
“Awful,” Bob echoes.
“What are their poor parents going through?” she says, inviting us to sympathise.
“Who can possibly imagine?” Bob contributes. “Shocking. Hard to bear.”
“Think of the poor police,” Farley suggests, piqued.
“Those children were running wild... out of control,” Daphne says.
“Serves them absolutely damn well right,” Rupert tells us. “What do they honestly expect?”
“They were somebody’s sons,” Susan objects.
“To older hooligans, do you mean?” Rupert counters, with a dry smile.
“Come on, Rupert, have a little human sympathy, will you,” she suggests.
“Do they?” he muses. “Do these hooligans have any decent humanity?”
“Does anyone know what a police car costs these days?” declares Farley. “We’re the guys paying police salaries with our taxes,” he states. He’s a fair haired, trim chap, with darker moustaches and a constantly amazed expression. I don’t know what’s so amazing to him. His own stupidity maybe.
“No child deserves to die in such a horrible way,” Susan continues.
There is a kind of triumphant ironic laughter between Rupert, fiancée and friends.
“What are the parents doing?” Daphne asks, throwing her shiny fringe across consulted cosmetics.
“Giving birth to more screaming brats, most likely,” Rupert suggests to her. Bitterness and resentment takes away any mirth.
“Scum,” Farley observes.
“You’re a charitable guy, aren’t you?” Susan tells him.
