by Neil Rowland
“You should bring back army service,” Sheila tells our party. “Martial discipline.”
This brings the liberal elements to a stop.
“They are not up to it, darling,” Rupert informs her, squeezing her long arm.
“If I was the mother to that murdered boy, then I would be forced to make a protest as well,” Susan declares. This is shaping up as an old-time shoot-out.
“That would be socially irresponsible and I would condemn you outright,” Rupert retorts. He wriggles his shoulders inside a colourful pyjama suit. Flicks his dramatic fringe, gold frosted with iron, while tackling another slice of fruit tart; it is fruit of some kind. This doesn’t feel like the moment to enquire.
“I can make up my own mind about social responsibility,” Susan tells him.
Bob offers her an uneasy look, utters an involuntary queasy noise; his pointed expression urging her to avoid further conflagration.
“You British should just flog them,” Sheila suggests helpfully. “You’re too soft in this country! My family knows how to deal with this riff-raff.”
“Many decent thinking people would agree with you,” her fiancé adds, lending moral support. “I’m afraid the leftists have made us too squeamish about justice, crime and punishment.”
Damion and Melanie, meanwhile, listen to the dispute uncomfortably. They are hearing about the behaviour of the bad people. They are among the good people and so it is difficult for them to comprehend. I know that their pink little ears are constantly tuned in to my life, so let the riot news keep them distracted.
“People in this country don’t take responsibility for children. They’re allowed to roam the streets without any control.”
“Our love is exhausted,” Melanie declares, face flushed with innocence.
“They have lost the meaning of love,” Damion adds, not wishing to be excluded. This evening he’s wearing some kind of silk blouse - maybe borrowed from his wife.
They used to be against hanging and all forms of corporal punishment, but apparently these methods only hurt the wealthy.
“Tough love at the point of a water cannon,” Farley argues, raising eyebrows above a stunned expression.
“That’s the only gesture they understand,” says his wife.
“What can parents do?” Bob says.
“What would you think they should do?” Rupert retorts.
“Hard to keep teenagers locked in doors all evening, wouldn’t you say?” he suggests, anxiously.
“What I mean, Bob, is these chavs should teach their kids civilised social behaviour.”
“They should stop ragging each other?” I add.
Rupert glares sideways for the first time this evening. “Whatever happened to the traditional family unit? Don’t people have any pride in keeping a good name?”
“Kids have a mind of their own. Didn’t you, Rupert, once have a mind of your own?” Susan argues.
Rupert focuses his thoughts irritably. Doesn’t Sue know how weak and irresponsible she is? “If these people haven’t experienced discipline or control, then they are never going to learn responsibility,” he says. This statement makes me think twice, because it’s an echo of his former views about the CIA and the Pentagon, or the Kremlin and the KGB. He was an intimidating student agitator.
“You’re talking about discipline and control. The revolutionaries must be turning in their graves. Am I hearing right? It would be like an ice pick through Trotsky’s heart,” I suggest.
“Nothing fans the flames better than a lot of bleeding heart liberalism,” Rupert argues, pointedly. Apparently we didn’t grow up with him.
“Gorgeous fruit, Rupert!” Davinia declares, in an elaborate scooping exercise.
“Do you really think so, you’re too kind,” Rupert tells her.
Damion and Melanie fidget nervously with their own desserts. Not only is the fruit unrecognisable, but these negative thoughts are playing havoc with their digestion. They didn’t come to this party expecting to talk about riots or working class insurrection. Only that full fat cream is more distressing to them. It comes from Channel Island cows - it’s very special. I should be bothered.
“The problems of parenthood must be doubled on an estate like that,” Bob considers.
“What do you mean, Bob? The problems of parenthood?”
“Well, you know...it’s very isolated and bleak there... there’s not much for these kids to do. Even the movies aren’t a cheap night out any more,” he reveals. “Sue and I were out on the town the other night, and we were really taken aback by...”
“Do you imagine that justifies yesterday’s scenes?” Rupert returns. He’s leaning back from a great height, as he once appeared on a lion in Trafalgar Square. “Because these people can’t afford to go to the pictures?” he says ironically.
He made comparable speeches about Kissenger. The city council members and MPs of the period were in fear of his opposition. He was the guest of a Parisian student committee and addressed a crowded theatre audience, in fluent fiery French, to declare that bourgeois democracy was bankrupt and had to be faced down on the boulevards. Goddard shook his hand and Rupert was an extra in the movie, reading a radical paper at a café table behind Jean Seaborg.
Bob has taken off his spectacles and is cleaning them vigorously with his handkerchief; which shows some evidence of his back garden. Bob’s easily intimidated by egocentric Europeans, which is why he travelled to meet gentler peoples around the globe. Or is it a matter of culture?
Rupert puts his elbows up on his huge mahogany dining table, risking the rough stitches of his flax suit. “If these chavs had any intelligence, or resourcefulness, they would create their own entertainment,” he suggests. “Whatever happened to their sense of community?”
“British Marxism comes full circle,” I observe.
“What are you talking about, Noah?” he returns.
“Would Raymond Williams, for instance, have ever argued that popular culture should be something that people made up?” I ask him.
“Except that the new underclass has no sense of community,” he counters.
“So they simply invent a sense of community and shared culture?” I say.
“The very notion of popular culture is absurd in their case,” he insists, again inspecting my mysteriously blackened eyes.
“Isn’t that because it has been degraded if not destroyed? Wouldn’t we once have argued that?” I argue.
“The working class has lost the plot of history,” he tells me.
“Ah, so you think it’s their fault, do you?” I conclude.
“Look, Noah, the fabric of British society is falling apart. There’s nothing keeping this country together. It’s disintegrated. Anarchic. Nobody’s prepared to stand up to these scoundrels and face them down. We have to hit these people hard before they attack our houses too.”
“Best pull down your shutters and make a cup of cocoa,” I suggest.
“We should make an effort to understand their problems,” Susan says, backing me. “Do you know the frustrations of being poor? The sort of anger and confusion that’s going to create in their minds? What’s happened to our old radical sympathy for the underdog?”
“You suggest that we put an arm around these people, do you?” Rupert replies.
“These scum are beyond understanding,” Farley remarks.
“They’ve all lost touch with their feminine sides,” Damion tells us.
“That would include some of the girls,” Melanie says.
“So would that include you as well?” I ask her.
“What are you talking about now, Noah?” she rounds.
“But you can’t condemn these people entirely,” Bob returns. “Not an entire section of our society. Their aspirations and, even, their self-image. Frustrated. Damaged
.”
“That’s the whole point, Bob, we should condemn them. Or their behaviour at least. There’s no excuse for it.”
“No, I believe that if you are talking about Britain, the United Kingdom, then we all have a responsibility,” Bob returns, screwing up his courage to be heard.
“They’re all our children,” Susan adds supportively.
“I can’t agree with you there,” Rupert reflects. “They are no children of mine. They’ve put themselves outside of society.”
“But you don’t have any children, Rupert, do you. Not yet awhile.”
“Rupert wants to make sure they all stay in their place,” I comment. “Even if they don’t know what their place is anymore.”
“I wouldn’t have any of these children,” Melanie insists. Not even in her crèche.
“They live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with an abundance of everything. If they knew how many people in this world live, they would feel humble,” Rupert argues. “Truly humble and ashamed, I can tell you.”
“If you want people to behave well, then don’t you need to treat them well?” Susan argues. “Don’t the poorest people in this society deserve to be treated with respect...to have their problems and frustrations addressed?”
“They make me truly ashamed of this country,” Rupert tells her. His tone is lowered to one of near silent despair. “Morality isn’t an issue to be debated,” he informs us all, his large troubled eyes swivelling around his company.
“But you’re keen to have it branded into them,” I suggest.
“Really, Noah, that’s a fine recipe for the future, I have to say. Personally I couldn’t go along with it.”
Chapter 30
After my just desserts I get a chance to put my head together with Bob. He kept an eye on my house and garden while Jekyll plugged me into a chemistry set. You need somebody to hold your suitcase while buying your ticket for the last station. Just because we suffer pain we can’t always be blamed for our injuries. The world’s a beautiful but scary place and we’d like to stop it with our finger for a while.
Raw with shame and embarrassment, I tell my friend about Luke’s involvement in an urban riot. When Bob’s boys have grown up into their teenage years, I hope that drinking lemonade and ballroom dancing may be fashionable again. Either that or society will be returning to the coliseum, for more fun and games. You just can’t predict fashion - what comes around goes around, but does the world spin that quickly?
“I wish Rupert the best with Sheila,” says Bob H. “But his views can be extremely aggravating. Why must he express himself so aggressively?” Despite an outdoors complexion he looks ruddy cheeked from Roop’s intellectual abrasions. He resembles a hardened hedgehog in a fisherman’s sweater.
“It feels like being strapped into an iron-maiden,” I concur. At this time we are safely in Lloyd’s backroom. Here we find nothing more tortuous than a pianoforte and a Meissen porcelain clock.
“You’d think the guy’d have mellowed by now,” Bob smarts.
“Rupert’s politics have changed, but they’re as red and saucy as ever,” I muse. Or maybe I just had a traumatic experience.
“Did you hear the way he rounded on Sue?” my friend says, indignantly.
“The French riot squad is more liberal these days,” I comment.
“I thought you were unusually quiet on the subject,” Bob H tells me.
“I decided to keep my head down...in the circumstances.”
“Is that where you got those two black eyes from?” he wonders. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”
“When I got caught up in the mob...there was a police charge....everybody scattered pell-mell...”
“Not to blame you. No need to be ashamed. You should make a formal complaint and bring them to book,” he argues.
“Don’t start that legal business again, Bob,” I object. It isn’t so much litigation fatigue, it’s collapse.
Bob is cautious about my riot report and doesn’t believe Lukey could have taken part. “Your son’s not one to look for trouble. The riot just happened to him, most likely.”
“I found a packet of junk on him, after I got up to speed,” I explain.
He jolts backwards. “Did you really? Luke?”
“But he’s not a junkie,” I insist - backtracking from bravado.
“Where did he get the stuff from? Do you know?”
“Not exactly,” I say. “Have a few guesses though.”
“What did you do?” he wonders, shocked.
We gaze about the incongruously comfortable room, as if checking for wires.
“I gave him a lecture on the drive back home. But I was so angry I almost whacked him,” I admit, “at the time.”
He blinks hard as if fumes are smoking his vision. “What got into you, man?” he declares.
“I know, I’d lose his respect as well as my own. It was a tense moment. It was a hard call. Luckily I pulled myself together...and I didn’t do something that I’ve never believed in.” Raised my hand to one of our kids that is.
“Crises reveal our strength of mind,” he argues. “I believe that. Crack up and you begin to fall apart. Then, what kind of influence does his sister have?” he asks.
“Lukey hasn’t been himself lately. Maybe the drugs thing explains it. Not only the divorce and disruption to home life. He’s a bit unpredictable, even troubled. Something’s going on with him. Then I have to chase his tail.”
“What about Angela?” Bob persists.
“Where to start?” I admit.
“You able to keep up with her?” he presses.
“There are car loads of revellers in the small hours. Incoherent accounts of dance raves, stalks of grass in her clothes, empty plastic impressions in her pockets...”
“So you’ve got some idea,” he concludes. He zeros in on my reaction, rises on his toes, braces his short stocky legs, and bristles dark eyebrows in anticipation of more. He’s so close that I can smell the sea-proofed resin from his jumper.
“What are you driving at, man?”
“Do you know a guy called Adam Jakes?”
My hackles rise spontaneously like a toothless porcupine dropped into a snake pit.
“Ah, right, so you already know about him,” he immediately sees.
“My daughter brought him home one evening,” I remark. With an unintentional picture of family convention.
“This young guy has become a hero to the young,” Bob explains. “You can argue he’s damaged goods, but she’s at the head of a long queue.”
“We all know what’s for sale,” I comment. “He organises these raves and hands out sweeties. No surprise that he’s so popular, is it?”
“He’s a Peter Pan figure,” Bob says.
“For real? Well he definitely flew out of Big Pink the other night,” I recall. “How’s Angie ever going to straighten out her career, if she falls under the spell of this creep? No doubt she regards me as Captain Hook in this adventure,” I realise, agonising. “How am I going to explain this to Liz, if she finds out?”
I feel angst gnawing my guts like a starving shark at a metal cage. I can’t get my head around Angie’s tricks and deceptions, since all the drugs have side effects. Just as relationships do.
“His fashion sense reminds me of a born-again Christian,” I say. “He’s selling narcotics but he never takes them. Or so he claims. He could turn up at Lizzie’s place with a guitar and she’d welcome him into her church. They’d have a picnic and gather round for a singsong. She’d see him as a perfect future son-in-law and partner for our little girl.”
“Until she finds out the truth about him,” Bob H reminds me.
“If she could overlook his bling jewellery, I guess, that Angela’s been wearing lately. So,” I per
sist, “what else do you know about this creep?”
“Left school at fifteen and parked cars at the casino. Have you seen the cars he drives these days?”
Am I supposed to be impressed? I’m sure not to look it.
“He fell out with his father, who was the notorious haulier,” Huntingdon persists.
“Right, is that the same Jakes? Son of the ‘haulier’?”
“Yes, the same. You remember that drama?”
“Jakes senior turned the motorway into snipers’ alley. It was a dispute with a rival firm, wasn’t it? I definitely don’t want to bump into his father,” I say. Certainly not at a family wedding.
“No, you don’t really want Angela to be hanging about with Adam. They aren’t a pleasant family,” Bob considers. “Adam was supposed to take over the family firm, the fleet of trucks, but the pair fell out.”
“Must have been feisty, as family rows go.” Makes the Oedipal struggle resemble a pillow fight.
“I’ve seen Angela around town with him, Noah,” he informs me.
“Out socialising? A few weeks ago, but Angela promised me that she wouldn’t see him again.”
“I noticed them today.”
As if Tyson put his paw into my cheek, my expression changes. “You’re certain?”
“They were going up Park Street together. Angela works along there, doesn’t she? She was in uniform. He was... never mind, she must have been taking a break.”
“I’d put my faith in that.” Whatever faith remained.
“Well, I was strolling down on the opposite side, when I recognised her. I greeted her and waved. Reluctantly she waved back. After all I’m her god parent! But she was embarrassed...didn’t want to be seen or acknowledged.”
“What about that little criminal?” I wonder.
“He didn’t take any notice of me. He didn’t even look.”
“What did he want with her? What was he talking to her about?” I think out loud.
“I don’t know about that, Noah,” he admits
“Maybe Jakes called into the café to see her...twisted her arm and compelled her to leave with him.”
