Noah's Heart

by Neil Rowland

  “I’ve noticed her sitting with him outside the café,” Bob says.

  “For real? I visited her at the café one Saturday myself.”

  “All under the awning.”

  “But he wasn’t with her that time. I’m quite sure about that.”

  “Angela seems to be caught up with him. She raised a hand to wave to me, but her other arm was around his shoulder and...the body language.”

  “What other choice would she have? She couldn’t get away easily. She had to distract him. She had to stall for time.”

  Bob thinks about my optimistic picture of this relationship. “I don’t know where they were going, Noah. Just for a walk maybe.”

  “He’s meant to be Peter Pan, so maybe she flew out the window with him,” I complain unhappily.

  “Do you know Pete Sparks? My friend, the accountant? He helps to fiddle Adam Jakes’ taxes. No point trying to fudge the issue. Pete says that Jakes is a player in a drugs ring. Evidence is hidden from Pete. But the police keep a watch on Jakes.”

  “Such a clean cut young guy,” I remark.

  “Jakes even has a power launch moored inside the plimsoll swing bridge. Did you notice?” Bob asks. “He has other boats in harbours around the coast. We’re not talking about the grass I smoke by the compost heap.” To disguise the aroma from Sue, he means. “That year-round tan doesn’t come out of a bottle after all. It comes from the Iberian Peninsula.”

  “Our Angie’s hooked on this character?” I declare, in revolt.

  “You’d better check her out, Noah,” he warns.

  “Don’t worry. That big boat belongs to him? There are Royal Navy vessels in that dock. I take Tim to explore the quays many Saturday afternoons. We’ve spent some time looking at them. I would never have guessed this. But if he’s selling hard drugs to Angela...or to any other member of my family.”

  “You’ve got the info on this guy’s background,” Bob tells me. “You’ve been filled in about this character...got some idea about the allegations against him.”

  “Some idea.”

  His eyes gleam encouragingly.

  I can only stare back like a moron, struggling to fill the grey gaps.

  “His business methods are less than friendly, it’s rumoured. Jakes is reckoned to have beaten up a few business rivals, if that’s how to describe them. To within an inch of the guy’s life, in one case. He’s able to draw on his contacts,” Bob suggests.

  “No need to call a lawyer in that situation,” I say. Not even Lizzie’s lawyer.

  “Then there was that ugly incident a while back...when he assaulted his girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend? Wife, don’t you mean?” I declare. “Angie’s already admitted that the punk is married.”

  “Mm, well, it wasn’t his wife. She seems to be happy in her big detached house on that new estate,” he explains. “With a couple of kids and a few fluffy dogs. No, not his wife, it was definitely one of his girlfriends, that he attacked. I mean, one of his previous girlfriends. A while ago, it would have been. A few years back, I’d reckon.”

  “Our sweet lord,” I retort.

  “This unfortunate girl’s family brought charges against Jakes...initially...for assault or grievous bodily harm...a charge of that type. She eventually took the whole story back and those charges had to be dropped. The police were frustrated, but there was no case to answer.”

  “She tripped at the top of the stairs, did she?”

  “Something like that,” he says. “Either she was intimidated or thought better of the prosecution.”

  “Angela’s impressed and she’s dating him,” I bleat.

  “Don’t panic or fear for her yet. Not until you get her version of events. Perhaps they aren’t an item. He’s got the influence to make these illegal raves happen. He’s good looking and self-made, I suppose. Young people get passionate about these confident and powerful individuals. To them he’s a kind of rock star.”

  “If he touches Angie I’m going to put him into the charts,” I promise.

  “He’s done a lot for young people. We don’t like the look of him, but is that the point?”

  The image makeover doesn’t convince me. “Flogging designer drugs to our kids?” I ask.

  “Nobody has any proof. Anyway we experimented. Are you going to prohibit?”

  This throws me to the back of my mind. “I have to catch up with Angie... she and I have to put our heads together ...I feel completely out of phase with her. You should worry about your own kids,” I argue.

  “So then, what are you two men plotting about now?” Susan asks. She slipped into the room without us noticing. “You’re making Rupert nervous back there.”

  He isn’t the only one.

  Locked up in Big Pink next evening. Placed into solitary, again, putting down another mental track in the basement tapes. Thrown back into my own thoughts and memories; taking leaps into the dark. Lo and behold! Lo and behold! Regrets like fumes in a wine cellar.

  I recalled the week Liz and I separated and sorted our personal belongings and possessions. We were busy disentangling our life as a couple, untying that marital knot, before she lived under another roof. Roaming about the house, avoiding conversation and each other’s eyes; except when unavoidable; shifting boxes and making a final search of the attic, down into the basement, pulling our life apart like a wishbone.

  She left the complete Dylan collection to me, without a moment’s hesitation. Dylan, Cohen, Buckley, Young, even Mitchell and Baez - any artist of any significance to our youth and happiness.

  “You love completely, or you stop,” she told me.

  She intended the epitaph to burn in my mind. Sure enough it continues to smoke through my thoughts. Unerring as cupid’s arrow in the first place.

  No indication of Angie returning to Big Pink, tonight or any night. I’d happily entertain the children of the Grateful Dead. I stay up late - four in the morning at last look - slumped in front of the telly, goggling a god-awful dubbed crime movie. Following the lip movements like an idiot. I’ve lost the spirit to switch off, as if to admit that Angela is never coming back home.

  I tense with anticipation at every jerk of headlights around the room. Her Renault already has a crumpled front bumper and a taped plate. Finally I extinguish my reading lamp and recover a spilt book. Let the bats have full play in the belfry.

  She hasn’t made it back for breakfast either. Not that I was really expecting her. She may be chewing pieces of hash cake washed down by neat vodka. She could be referring to some of her mother’s old recipes. Or maybe I’m just victim of paranoia.

  Stood up over cornflakes, I slip out into the naked city. There’s no good in hanging around this lonely old castle. The obvious place to find Angie is at her job; Mike’s Café; the nerve centre of her existence. She’s due to go into work today. She has some milk to froth. If she doesn’t serve her future well, she can expect complaints. I could even have some luck - or is it luck? - and find Jakes hanging out under the café awning.

  I rediscover my DS and enjoy a magic carpet ride to the city centre. The journey will be less smooth from this point on. As I push through into the café I spot owner Mike busy with tea things. I scrutinise his movements carefully, yet he doesn’t seem a suspicious character. Obviously he doesn’t always keep track of his waitresses and waiters. But he’s not a drugs baron. Hard to keep a check on your cholesterol levels in this hideout, I note.

  “Has my daughter turned up for work this morning?”

  “She’s not turned up yet,” he replies. He’s preoccupied with his work and doesn’t look at me.

  “Any idea where she might be?”

  “No. Do you?” he retorts, organising his crockery and condiments.

  Mike can’t tell me where she’s getting her kicks. Obviously sh
e can twist this guy around her little toe. When a girl goes on a trip with Jakes you know they are going for more than a country ride. You only have to ask his wife and former girlfriends.

  “Jakes could be dangerous,” Bob H had warned. His warning reverberates like this morning’s alarm.

  Not a smart idea to discuss Angie’s movements with her boss. Must remember I am on her side. I don’t want her to lose this job. She’s saving up to pay academic fees. Or supplement them: Lizzie will cough up the lion’s share. Can’t depend on her old boy any longer, with his suspect plumbing system. Mike is too hassled to tell me more, as customers tuck into breakfast specials. So I have to chat up one of the waitresses instead. The kind of beautiful girl who makes you regret your youth is gone. This young woman is able to confirm that there’s a rave happening, this weekend. She doesn’t want to tell me the precise location, or logistics, as they keep rave details secret until the last moment, to evade the cops. The police try to move in to break up illegal festivals. That’s always been one of their traditional duties. The police commissioner gets as excited about breaking up parties as Warhol’s stars were eager to find them.

  I get in customers way, as the waitress abandons me. She’s considering her options, anxious and preoccupied by my questions, as she serves around the café. She squeezes her box trying to understand why I need all this dope. Is she getting Angela into more trouble or rescuing her? Obviously this girl doesn’t know Jakes well enough either. She may be in his fan club too.

  “Will you excuse me, Mr Sheer,” Mike says. He pushes past and glares. When am I going to order or leave? But I’m resisting the fresh pastries on principle. Liz is the bread-maker, recently, but I refuse to wake up and smell the coffee.

  At last this gorgeous young woman, friend of my daughter, tracks back to where I stand (like an incongruous lemon). She relieves this misery, while continuing to wipe at the table and gather plates into a pile. Her ethereal face has a tragic and distant look. Ophelia. Is she ever going to open her trap?

  “The rave’s going on near Bath,” she informs me. “At the hippie festival this weekend.” She avoids my eyes and speaks softly, as if encountering a ghost. At the sharp end of contemporary culture I hardly count. “I don’t know the exact place, sorry, but it’s happening. Is Angela there?”

  The information comes without commitment, as if giving a stale cheese scone to a vagrant intruder. This is what it feels like to fill those boots of old Spanish leather, in the contemporary era.

  Part Three

  Free Festival

  Chapter 31

  I knew what to expect long before I reached any ‘alternative dance tent’. Driving out of the city I soon encountered traffic jams. A rainbow of anarchy is spreading across the land.

  The first encounter with hippies is on the A39, as they follow a yellow brick road out of Bath. The whole snaking charabanc is smoking down the slow lane. That’s in the sense of thick dirty fumes from exhaust pipes, not so much Californian slang. There’s no hint of Tim Leary or Ken Kesey, spreading the word from the acid love bus. At this end of the line the cuckoo is extinct and hippies are an afterthought written in smoke.

  These are the stragglers of the convoy, trying to bully and bluster their jalopies into movement. These scruffy outsiders are desperate to reach the festival before a police swoop, as if fleeing towards Kyiv after Chernobyl went up. Like a monster irradiated snail meeting a wall, my inflated French motor bumps against their rear. Not sure if it’s good or bad radiation. Angela’s got herself into an evil atmosphere. Jakes’ malevolent magic. Right now she needs a snake charmer. Not a father. Not even a concerned father. She’s a caring person irresponsible to herself. That’s how I’m trying to figure her out, fighting the lonely road.

  Tempers are warming up in the sunshine, between respectable people and refuse-niks. Tax paying motorists are involved in shouting matches with drop out hippies. For sure they’re not comparing map references. I decide to put an elbow out and remain detached. But for how long may I keep a laid-back attitude?

  This year the hippies have outsmarted the cops, capturing some land for the festival, after feeding them false information. A convoy has already gathered at a spiritually important site known as Old Lime Hill. According to ancient legend a Mercian magician was beheaded by Celtic warriors, after the sage was mistaken for a Viking spy. Celtic crosses at the top of Lime Hill mark the junction of lay lines that intersect three counties.

  Stalled vehicles have made the route impassable. After a lot of revving and blanking, rolling car wheels into ditches, scraping chassis over bumpy ground, I forge my helter-skelter way. You’d think that my vintage car is a part of the procession. Already there’s another dent in the front side panel, which I’ll have to knock out later. The adventure encourages nostalgia about my own exploits as a young man. I think of this, dream on the festivals and concerts that we attended. For a while I sit back with one hand off the steering, enjoying my memories. The body’s engaged in a sit-down protest these days. My hair follicles are committing suicide in public. Why should I worry about gravity or the speed of flight?

  What am I going to achieve by chasing Angela? I should give pause to consider my motives. She’s in danger but does she want to be rescued? By her father? Not a handsome prince or a rock singer. I’m struggling to recover, but my life already went over a cliff. Am I trying to get back to Elizabeth? Is this an attempt to put our marital mistakes behind us, like poor quality service stations along the motorway?

  I can’t enjoy these reveries much longer, since I notice hippies indulging in fist fights with cops by the hedgerows. They’re taking swings at each other between truncheon blows and rolls in the hay. How much do they understand about our generation anyway? Do they know we were almost incinerated in our push-chairs? In our state of terminal decline can we be of any interest? Is there anything creative and progressive in our place? We’re in the dustbin of history; we’re the flowers of protest, dry and faded on the compost heap.

  I struggle to bump and jump the car up this damn lane. Leafy shadows dance on a dusty track, unravelling over farmland ahead. Dark blue uniforms tussle with tie-dye in fields around me. Sylph maidens, with rich braided hair and smooth bare bellies, swig from jugs of cider. Machete wielding Morris Dancers are turning up in troop carriers, I fancy. This is a typical rustic scene from our West Country.

  I lose tree cover as I run out at the top of the lane. I’ve avoided fights and kept my head on my shoulders. Gaining in confidence, gaining on the festival, getting back in touch with my daughter. I spot a settlement ahead, temporary structures, that must form a festival village. Soon I’ll be writing postcards and sending them back home to my mother.

  Before I can find a suitable place to park - intending to continue on foot - I rattle into another battalion of Somerset and Avon coppers. My wheels are up on the bank and they see my old car ploughing a field. Consequently they pour around me from their roadblock. Some of them are carrying firearms. If I want to reach Angela I must volunteer the truth. Sharing the truth has become painful.

  “Do you live around here?” the policeman asks.

  “I’m here to find my daughter. To bring her home,” I explain.

  The officer examines the interior features of my vehicle and considers his response. “Your daughter, do you say?”

  “What’s your daughter doing around here, with these drop outs?” demands another.

  “She ran away from home,” I dramatise.

  A cop with sergeant stripes takes his own viewing.

  “I’d say that these kids are all somebeddy’s sons or daughters,” he eventually remarks, in our lingo.

  “Only one of them is my daughter,” I insist.

  “Thank God none of ‘em belongs to me,” he comments. He coldly weighs me. “You took it in your head to find her, did you?”

  “Haven’t your kids e
ver got into trouble?” I ask.

  “When their father is a policeman?” he replies. “I’m asking you to turn around and leave this area. Immediately, sir. Do you hear me right? In the direction you was headed from.”

  “What were you intending to do here, sir?” asks his constable.

  “Put yourself in my place. Do you want me to leave her?” I plead.

  The look of my car, and my attitude, is not appealing. I’m old enough to know better and I’m suspicious in this garb. But the coppers are reassured by my comparatively respectable appearance. I may qualify as a bit of a crank.

  “You’re wasting our time. Police time.”

  “I really have to find my girl,” I tell them.

  “We can’t allow that. Turn this boat around.”

  “I’ve got proper reasons to be anxious about her.”

  “I wouldn’t have any fears,” the Sergeant says, chuckling.

  “She’s mixed up in a bad scene,” I argue.

  “All of ’em’s in trouble!” he guffaws.

  “You must leave this area immediately,” warns his colleague.

  The group of police is gathering tightly around me in the car, like a range of blue mountains, blocking out my view.

  “I’d advise you to turn around and drive home again,” a young policeman tells me. “Between you and me there’s going to be a disturbance here today.”

  Tension builds as I consider my options, unable to break my resolve to find Angie. In the background there’s a harangue between a knot of hippies and the police. The guys are bare chested, drinking and smoking, carrying supplies, like outtakes from the Woodstock festival.

  Eventually I press the button to send my side-window back up. I stare contemptuously ahead, refusing to recognise my opponents, like Fonda dealing with a traffic cop. I have calculated the risks: I realise there’s little chance of breaking their lines. Silver bracelets never suited me. Not wise to play Easy Rider in this situation. They already have my name down, on record somewhere. In court they don’t accept stage names. I don’t want to get too far out.