Chapter Twenty-One
The Big Push
On the day I must rummage through my dead grandfather’s belongings to find the things I hold dear, I decide to make my way to Nick’s Barber Shop. Nick’s is an old time barbers; a place my grandad used to take my brother and me when we were kids. I’m surprised to find it’s still open for business. Everything, including Nick, looks a tad worn. Nick doesn’t recognise me and as there are three other guys waiting for haircuts I don’t let on who I am. I just take a seat and grab a magazine. I start to read an article on how each cigarette you smoke takes around eleven minutes off your life and instead of reading the rest of the article to find out where they come up with these statistics and in what way they are helpful to mankind, I begin working out the maths.
“Twenty to thirty a day for the past six months, let’s call it twenty-five. Ok, that’s 175 a week, average of four weeks a month, that’s 700. Shit, times six is what? 4200 times eleven - God, I need a pen. 46,200 minutes. What the hell is that in days?” Grabbing a pen off the magazine table I start scribbling down the equation, I’m hopeless at division.
“It’s about thirty-two days.” One of the men waiting had been looking over my shoulder to see what I was up to, a fucking whizz at the figures, too.
“You’re one of Jack Summers’ boys aren’t you?”
“Yeah, he’s my grandad.”
“Sorry to hear he’s gone. My brother fought with him in the war and when my Ken became housebound your grandad would come around once a week for a chat, always brought cakes. Kept Ken’s spirits up, those visits.”
“Yeah, he did a lot for the old war veterans.”
“He was one of those old war veterans.” The man took the magazine out of my hand and tossed it back onto the table.
“Don’t pay any attention to those figures, life’s a dice roll. That Roy Castle hadn’t smoked a day in his life and he gets cancer. Read in the paper the other day, a woman died at 106 years old and smoked forty a day.”
“Yeah, I read that too, the family made the flower arrangement look like a cigarette.”
“That they did. How about that for an ‘up yours’ to the anti-smoking lot?”
“So, have we met?”
“Sure we have, your grandad used to bring you and your brother in here all the time. You boys wouldn’t notice an old man talking off your grandad’s ear, too busy jumping on the seats while you were waiting for your lolly.
“Hey, Nick, look it’s one of Jack Summers’ boys.” The man calls over to Nick and then whispers to me, “The man’s as deaf as a bat and I mean cricket bat.”
Nick turns to me, a big smile on his face, and starts ribbing me about how I only liked the green or the blue lollies. The man, who has still not given me his name, demands I be the next in the chair.
“So, what do you want?” asks Nick in a non-distinct eastern European accent. I’d guess Czech though I bet you it’s one of those countries no one’s heard of - something with U in it and one of those letters that are an O with a line down it and it ends in ‘istan’.
“He wants one of those trendy spiky haircuts,” yells out the nameless man.
“No, the usual, Nick, and how about a shave?”
The usual is a short back and sides. Barbers like Nick aren’t your high street salons; they only know five different cuts: short back and sides parted on the left, short back and sides parted on the right, short back and sides parted in the middle, short back and sides no parting and naturally they have mastered the buzz cut. I heard there was a sixth cut but no one ever asked for it and it has been lost in the passages of time, probably just a slightly thicker buzz cut.
Nick starts with the hair, spritzing me with a spray bottle like I’m a house plant, dragging the comb through my hair. A snip here and a cut there and a good chop at the back.
“BUZZZZZZZ!” - the shaver. Barbers like Nick don’t do a cut if it doesn’t end with the clippers. They recall them being invented, the invention of the electric clippers was like the creation of fire to barbers, and now they are essential like a wheel to a wheelbarrow.
“Look, Trevor, there’s a boy under all this hair. Let’s do away with the beard and see if he’s a beautiful one,” announces Nick as he dusts my brown locks off my shoulders. So, Trevor is his name. I don’t remember any Trevor.
“BUZZZZZZ!” Nick comes at me again with the clippers this time to remove the denseness from my beard.
“Hey, Nick, how about we leave the moustache?”
“Like your grandfather’s?”
“Yeah.”
The majority of my facial hair now on the floor, Nick slowly glides a straight razor across the contours of my face. It’s nice, though at first, I was a little nervous to have a doddery old guy put a razor to my face. But as soon as the blade touches my skin I know that he’s a real pro, I mean this is the guy’s livelihood.
“Ah, look at this handsome guy, Trevor. Oh, I nicked you a little there, son.”
He’d nicked me alright. I leave the shop with half a toilet roll stuck to my face. On the bright side I do get two lollies; one blue and one green.
I make my way to my grandad’s house. It looks like a free-for-all burglary by the time I arrive. The telly and the video player have already gone, along with all the white goods. My Aunt Lilith, once again can be found sitting by a table, glass of water in hand, peering at those around her. She smiles a half smile at me as our eyes meet and then she returns to watching the other family members rooting through Grandad’s things. They’ll find nothing of value as I’m sure she was here last night picking the bones dry. In Grandad’s room all the drawers are open; his undershirts, underpants and socks rifled through, and the place where he kept his rings and watches is bare. I’m not here for things of monetary value. I’m here to feel this place one last time, to smell the familiar smells of the past before they are boxed up and given away to charity. The house will be sold; the new owner will modernise this old relic, strip it of its old memories and repaint it with new ones of their own.
Looking through the big guy’s shirts I notice there isn’t much between us size-wise these days and with him gone I suppose that makes me the big guy now. I throw off my coat and slip into one of his shirts. It’s faint green with navy blue vertical lines, and there are tiny tobacco burns on the left breast pocket from when he used to smoke the pipe. I have visions of finding it in a charity shop and breaking down.
“I’m keeping this one and the tie.” I take his dark green Burma Star tie from the wardrobe and put it around my neck. Half Windsor just like he taught me. After tucking the shirt into my black cords I grab one of his belts; nothing special about it beside that it was his. He had made new holes in the belt as the cancer ate the weight off of him. Sitting on the bed I kick my shoes off and step into his walnut brown leather slip-ons.
“You’ve cut your hair?” It’s my mum. Mothers love it when their boys tidy themselves up.
“Yeah, everyone was on at me about it.”
“And the beard, your grandad was always telling you to shave that thing off.”
“I know, ‘First thing I do in the morning is have a wash and a shave.’ Always the first thing out of his mouth, whenever I saw him. He didn’t say anything about it last time.”
“Well, he was all drugged up, Noel.”
“No, here. Last time I saw him here.”
“You know people would always say that Frank looked like a Summers and that you looked like your dad?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well, seeing you all clean shaven and in your grandad’s shirt and everything it’s hard not to see Jack Summers in your face.”
“That’s nice of you to say, but you could put Ghandi in these clothes and see a little of Grandad in him; it’s all accessories. I’m my dad’s son.” Mum sits down beside me, and putting her arm around my waist brings me close to her.
“Yes, you are your father’s son, so is Frank. He’s your father - not
much we can do about that. You’re not him, though, you hear me? You’re your own man, Noel. You’ll make mistakes but let them be your own. Stop worrying about repeating his.”
“He came to the funeral, you know.”
“He never did? Cheeky bastard.”
“He said any good in me comes from Grandad.”
“The good in you is your own, Noel. Dad was a good compass for all of us but when you start giving credit to someone else for all your good qualities is when you become the kind of person who blames all the bad ones on someone else, too.”
I see what she’s saying. You can’t make out you’re to blame for all the bad in you and credit someone else for the good, or praise yourself for being so great and then curse the world for your failings. You have to be a self-made man or a slave to the whims of others. Yeah, people guide you along but the final decisions are yours alone. I think with me, I have become a self-made slave not to the whims of others but to oppose their whims. I’m swimming against the tide inside the belly of the whale, fighting against my own reason. I’m making all the wrong choices just to make sure I’m not making the same choices as everyone else.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Who says there is anything wrong with you?”
“I pride myself on living logically yet whenever a choice comes my way, within a blink of an eye I choose the most illogical option.”
Mum doesn’t know how to take the remark. She pauses and then says, “You’re just bloody pigheaded, that’s all.”
I have to reply but haven’t got the words. I just nod my head and rub my eyes for no reason; I have neither been crying nor am I tired. Must be something to do with quitting the cigarettes - I need to do something with my hands. Mum goes to leave and then turns back to me.
“Your Aunt Lilith wants a word.”
“She wants a slap across the chops, that’s what she wants.”
“I think it’s about the car.”
“Has she had second thoughts?”
“I don’t know, but me and her did have a long chat about it last night.”
Walking at a speed somewhere between leisurely and brisk I find my Aunt Lilith. Well, found would imply me having lost her. I join her exactly where I knew she’d be - in the exact pose I saw her ten or fifteen minutes earlier - with the same expression of disappointment, pity and boredom that I have come to expect from her. Now, now, Noel, happy face, like on your thirteenth birthday when she bought you a recorder, not a tape recorder, a fucking flute. Come on, I was a teenage boy. Can you think of a lamer gift?
“Hey, Auntie Lilith?”
“Hello, Noel, I need to ask you about the car.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes, do you have the keys? It’s just I’ve got a buyer and it’ll save us on the auction fees.”
“You want the keys?”
“Yes, I can’t seem to find them and then when I was talking to your mother last night, I suddenly thought maybe you might have them.”
“That I do.”
“Marvellous. Could I have them?” My hand grasps the keys in my pocket.
“I don’t have them on me, erm they’re at the flat.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t be a dear and pop home and get them would you? This chap is coming to have a look tonight, that’s all.”
“Not a problem.”
As I begin to walk away, a new level of rage is upon me and she says, “Is that what you’re taking, the shirt and the tie?”
“Yep.”
I storm out, grabbing one of Grandad’s heavy walking sticks as I exit. Let’s see how easy it’s going to be to sell with a smashed windscreen and a few dents. I love that car but to hell with it if I’m going to let that bitch fuck me over and have the Church profit out of my misery.
The garage doors are flung open at such force the gathering dust inside rises into a fog in the momentary vacuum. With the stick held high, ready to crash down my vengeance, I see my reflection in the windscreen; I see the damage I wish to create, to destroy something he loved, that I still love and to do it with his walking stick. I rest on the hood of the car and take a good look at my weapon. Dark wood with a white resin handle crafted to look like the head of a dog, a Labrador.
“Hey, Bruce, how’s the big guy?” Out of the corner of my eye I see one of my grandad’s jackets hanging on the wall; his hat, a tapered trilby made of grey corduroy; and beside it Bruce’s old lead and collar.
“He’s looking at me. You want to go out boy? Ok, just once around the block.”
The hat is snug to the roof of the Anglia; I place my substitute Bruce in the passenger seat and twist the key in the ignition. The engine turns over but doesn’t start. I try again and again nothing.
“Fuck the unholy ghost and his whore of a mother. What was I thinking? The car’s been sitting for God knows how long.” I’m aware that I’m talking to myself. However, I do turn my head to say these words directly to the Labrador handle of the walking stick.
“Let’s go give the keys to Auntie Bitchy Bitch and hope I don’t end up jamming them in her eye as I hand them over.”
As I go to take them out I instead turn them once more. The engine still doesn’t start but it gives off a sound as though it’s now ready. Trying the ignition for the fourth time and, hail Satan, the bastard starts - and so does my mixed tape still in the tape deck from New Year’s Eve. I ease the Ford Anglia out of its storage tomb: the ground is plagued with potholes and the suspension of the ancient automobile squeaks as it’s jostled around.
As the tyres feel the tarmac I add pressure to the accelerator. The top speed for this baby is 70mph and I’ve got it right up to 45mph. I bang it into fourth gear and the car stalls bringing me to a standstill halfway down the road from the ‘Ramree’ homestead, where I had intended to fly past shouting, “Up your arse, Lilith,” at the top of my voice.
“Damn, gears, gears. Ok, I remember, Grandad. You got to feel it clicking into place.”
I put it back into drive and I’m away. I shoot past the house forgetting to shout out my profanities. I fly down into country roads; passing fields and dales or just fields - not quite sure what a dale is.
“I’m doing it, I’m driving, my mate. I’m driving my car, the car that has been mine since birth.”
I notice the lights before I hear the sirens. I don’t think this is a ‘light is faster than sound’ issue more a matter that the ditzy fool behind the wheel is in a world of his own, letting the music wash over him, the words an unfocused mess. Let God’s voice be the static serenade of playing a rock and roll record backwards.
“Fuck you, coppers!”
Thinking of myself as a drag racing resurrection of Jimmy Dean, A Rebel Without a plot, I careen towards the padlocked gates of the disused clay pit. This is the end. What punishments will the courts lay upon me? Stealing a car that should have been mine, speeding, reckless driving and trying to evade the police - is this prison time or are we talking fines? The Anglia, proving that it’s the little white car that could, crashes through the gates; its lights shattered, its hood crushed but it does not falter in its forward propulsion. Its speed hits that 70mph, heading towards the man-made reservoir in the centre of the quarry; the clay pit itself, now a water-filled canyon.
I could swerve. There’s still time. That is the logical option.
The wheels spin, no ground below them; time slows down. Am I looking for death or am I looking for any way out of having to explain myself? From inside the car it feels less like I’m falling more that the water is rising. This is an incorrect analysis of the situation and is quickly rectified when the lower front of the car smacks into the surface of the icy cold water, not unlike hitting concrete, not that I’ve tried it, I just think it would be a fairly good comparison. The brunt of the impact shoots me forward, my seatbelt preventing me the displeasure of being bludgeoned to death on the steering wheel. However, in doing so it dislocates my shoulder. The pain in my shoulder does nothing to les
sen the snapping pain I feel in my ankle, which also occurs on impact. Tremendous, though the pain in my ankle is, it is speedily numbed by the freezing water that’s filling the car. So this is the end, alone, in pain and cold. Wait, did someone just swim past the window?
A policeman has come to save me; one of the policemen who was chasing me - the policemen I had only moments ago shouted, “Fuck you, coppers!” at. Now I know he wouldn’t have heard, but it doesn’t change the fact that I shouted it.
This guy having already radioed for help, then knowing I’d be dead before anyone could have got here, has dived into the cold, murky waters. He pulls me from the car and then keeps me afloat until help arrives. I can’t move, never mind swim.
The car sinks out of sight; a treasure to be found if they ever get around to doing anything with this place.
And here is where it ends, the hero of the tale not even being the main character. The main character is me, Noel Winters, whose life nearly concluded without a conclusion, but don’t all lives?
An ambulance rushes through red lights to get me to the hospital, halfway across town. And halfway across town a young boy wakes to see a mother’s tears burst from sorrow into joy like winter into spring. Welcome back, Jonathan, not much has changed. Just like a play; characters appear and vanish and the backdrops may vary but in the end we are still looking at the same stage, and listening to the same lines.
Y diwedd
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