Wild Abandon (13 page)

“Firstly, I decide what I want to hear by looking at it. The
microphone will only pick up noises coming from that direction. Now if I
choose
to, I can hear your mother chopping wood,” he said, and he looked to the side of the house.

“I can already hear her,” Albert said.

Don aimed his forehead toward Albert’s mouth. “Say that again?”

“I said I can hear her.”

“Okay, and if I want to hear you, I look at you.”

Janet looked up, frowned, flexed her notepad, and kept on writing.

“Secondly, I get to decide whether I want to hear high- or low-pitched sounds. If I open this hand,” Don said, waving his right hand, “I can hear birdsong and whistling. If I open my left, I can hear bassy sounds like car engines. And if I open both, everything. It’s all controlled by light sensors in the palms of the gloves.”

“What it’s for?” Albert said, his voice coming to his dad clipped and thin.

The chopping sound slowed.

“It’s an example of how we sometimes take for granted the way in which the world influences us. Everything we see, hear, read, taste,
smell
even, affects us in ways we can’t fully comprehend.” The chopping stopped. “Some things are worth listening to, some things not. Think of all these
in
puts as
in
gredients
in
the recipe that will go to make you—Albert Riley—the delicious fluffy man-cake that we all hope you will rise to.”

The chopping started again, faster now. Don moved his hands around, opening and closing his palms as though practicing tai chi. Janet got up and went inside.

“ ’Kay, Dad. Can I have a go now?”

Don gave the helmet and headphones to Albert, who slipped them onto his small head. Then he put on the gloves.

“Now, tell me what happens when you have both hands shut?” Don said.

“I go deaf.”

Albert looked up at the sky and across at the workshop and down at the floor. Then he looked at his father, whose mouth was silently moving, so Albert opened both palms.

“… be careful with it, Alb, it’s valuable.”

“You said you made it yourself.”

“You don’t have to pay money for something for it to be valuable.”

Albert walked round the side of the house, choosing only to hear low frequencies as he passed his mother. Holding the ax in two hands, she turned to watch them go down the shallow, woodchipped steps through the kitchen garden. They passed the polytunnels and went into the woods, Don trailing him all the while, saying “Be delicate,” which Albert was selecting not to hear.

Down by the river, the high pitch was the wind through the trees and the low pitch was the trunks aching. Then, later, the high was a chaffinch and the low was his father: “Before you choose something, you have to ask yourself: Do I trust this source of information? How intelligent is it? What are its motives and history?”

They walked on, in stops and starts, Albert led by his ears. There was a rumbling sound. Don could hear it without the Personal Instrument on. He tapped Albert on the shoulder and pointed to where it was coming from: uphill, toward The
Bulwark. Albert turned and held his hands up, open, as though at gunpoint. He made directly for the sound, ignoring the path and clambering over brambles that snagged his jeans. The snarl of something up on the hill. Albert felt like Superman hearing danger. Tracked by his father, he hiked up to the crumbly, moss-blotched stone wall at the edge of the woods. Picking a spot where the stones had tumbled, he climbed over into the long grass at the base of Llanmadoc hill. They heard the churning of a generator or a fleet of zeppelins.

“It’s come early, Dad. End times. Marina said the date was movable.”

They picked a route through the heather, on a steady incline that led to The Bulwark: the remains of an old Iron Age fort, one of the highest points in Gower, dotted with scraggy sheep. They saw, just at the lip of the hill, a head popping into view and then dropping down. It happened again. A head appeared, disappeared. And again, along with the sound of motors rising and falling.

“Chain saws,” Albert said, and he carried on up the slope.

“We shouldn’t go too far. Most important life decisions are domestic.”

Albert kept the microphone aimed at the sound. “Combine harvesters. Modified for battle.”

Just then, three quad bikes popped up over the lip of the hill and pegged it down across the rough ground, kicking dirt behind them. They were driven by three men, their bums lifted into the air and their knees bent. Sheep turned to run. The quads’ exhausts produced sheep-shaped puffs. Albert had his right hand, his bass hand, open and held in the air, a high five awaiting completion as he walked toward them
through bracken, the noise in his headphones like the grinding of tectonic plates.

The three quads weaved in and out of one another as they moved down the track of flattened grass. As they got closer, it became clear that they were boys, not men, and only a couple of years older than Albert. The quads were three-quarter size. The boys stopped in front of Albert and Don, skidding as though they’d been practicing it. Albert held up both hands to hear everything, but resembled someone surrendering.

One of the boys pointed at Albert and said something that couldn’t be heard over the motor noise. The boy had a kiss-curl pasted flat against his forehead. His hair was stiff with gel and shiny like an exoskeleton. He was wearing a fresh-looking green hoodie and cartoony skate trainers tied with fluffy bows, but everything was spotted with mud. The impression was of a countryside tough kid undermined by his own affluence. The other two boys had styled themselves on him, but each with a key marker of individuality. One had a Jacksonville Jaguars American football jacket, the other a rash of badges across his chest. None of them wore a helmet.

“What’s that?” the boy said again, yelling this time.

“Soviet technology,” Albert said.

“Can I have a go?”

“Yes,” Albert said.

“No, it’s very valuable,” Don said.

“You can try Quadzilla,” the boy said, and he hopped off his bike.

“The thing is, it’s antique,” Don said.

“Go on,” the boy said, stepping toward Albert with his palm out. “Giss a go.”

Don turned his back to the boys and spoke directly, quietly, into the microphone on Albert’s forehead: “Now remember what I said about choosing inputs to follow and those to reject.”

He had his bass hand closed so his father’s voice sounded unimpressive. Albert took the hat and gloves off. He stepped forward and handed over the Personal Instrument.

“There’s a few things you have to understand before you try it,” Don said. “Hold on a minute.”

The boy started putting on the gear, snapping on the gloves dramatically then doing the
Saturday Night Fever
dance. Don winced as the boy slid the red hat over his slick, reflective hair. Finally, the boy squeezed on the headphones. Don felt that he recognized these lads somehow.

“Sweet!” the boy said. “What does it do?”

“Be very careful,” Don said.

Albert stepped up to Quadzilla. He climbed on and could reach the footrests.

“Albert, step down from there right now,” Don said.

“What are these for?” the boy said, clapping his hands together. “Is it a metal detector?”

As Don moved to stop the boy damaging the light sensors in the gloves, Albert revved the quad and jerked forward, laughing. Don turned to see his son twist the throttle again and slowly move downhill.

“Okay, that’s far enough!”

Albert practiced cornering left and right. He came back up the field and did a wide loop around where his father was standing. Don turned to the boy, who was not listening, and said: “It’s an art piece about how you experience the world.”

The boy turned to his friends, still on their quads, and did an impression of a scratch DJ.

“It’s about choosing what to take in,” Don said, “rather than just being passive, absorbing whatever comes your way.”

“I can’t hear you,” the boy said, his eyes closed, raving, reaching for lasers, his mates cracking up.

Albert started picking up speed, bouncing across the meadow, leaving a dark trail of flattened flowers. Birds abandoned a phone line.

“Do you live in The Rave House?” one of the boy’s friends asked.

“We’re from the community.”

The boy wearing the Personal Instrument pointed his head toward Albert in the distance, opened his right hand, his treble hand, and could make out, above the engine noise, a long
Hoooooooo!
They watched Albert disappear over the brow of the hill, up to The Bulwark.

They waited for Albert to reappear. The sheep relaxed.

The boy mimed clay pigeon shooting. After a while, he took off the hat and gloves.

Don sat on the back of the quad, one hand around the boy’s waist and the other holding the Personal Instrument to his chest. The boy was bony beneath the hoodie, and when Don gripped on tight, he could feel his ribs. They chugged across open ground, spraying mud behind them in long arcs, taking a straight line toward the brow of the hill. Two to each quad, four of them tracking his son across the meadow.

Don smelt the gel and examined the boy’s pale scalp between the swipes of hair. The quad struggled under Don’s
weight and he kept slipping off the back of the seat so he had to half-stand, his knees bent.

Albert’s track ran in a winding sine wave, occasionally scuffed to mud where he’d turned too sharply. The boys yelled directions at one another. “Take the gap road!”

“Cut him off!” They were excited.

The land rose and fell in concentric circles. When Don walked here he liked to acknowledge each peak and trough of the original Iron Age fort: escarpment, moat, ramparts, ward, inner wall, inner courtyard, and, finally, the principal stronghold: the donjon. They passed a National Trust sign that Don had read many times:
Off-road vehicles are causing damage to these ancient earthworks
.

Clinging to the back of the quad bike, the engine over-revving as the wheels came off the ground, Don did not consider the donjon. He had only the image of his son’s broken body, the wheels of an overturned off-road vehicle spinning in sunlight. He thought of these three lads saying he’d got what he deserved and the phrase
be active, Albert, make choices
rotating in his head.

There were many more tracks along The Bulwark and it became difficult to tell which one was his son’s. They came to a stop on the donjon. A pile of stones marked the highest point. It was a clear day and they could see the Worm’s Head rearing in the west and a jigsaw of wetland to the north. They waited. The sun started to dip behind Rhossili Downs. They felt the air get colder.

“What’s his mobile number?”

“He doesn’t have one. We use a landline.”

Just then there was the sound from somewhere of Albert’s
horn bleating and getting replies from the sheep. They revved and started off, following a walkers’ path that cut across the side of the hill. They found Albert on a steep camber, driving carefully over the knots of molehills and heather. He glanced back at them, then accelerated.

“
Albert Riley!
” Don yelled.

“It’s okay,” the boy said.

They kept following. When they got out on to open ground, Albert started winding back and forth across the field. The other quads caught up and plaited in and out as well. Albert was a natural.

“Stop right now, Albert!”

The boy with the hair slowed to a stop. “You’re too heavy,” he said, and waited for Don to step off.

Don watched them disappear out of sight and a few minutes later come back round, having swapped drivers. Albert was now riding on the back, his arms round the boy’s Jaguars jacket. Don watched as they did long loops.

He listened for the sound of his son’s screams. He thought about putting the Personal Instrument back on, but didn’t. Eventually, when the quads were going back up the incline for the fifth time, one of them ran out of gas and rolled to a stop. They stepped off the bikes and stood in a circle, talking. Albert was in the middle. Only then did Don recall once being in the car with Patrick, stopping off in Parkmill to score weed. These lads were the delivery boys.

He started running.

“What is it like living in The Rave House?”

“Pretty amazing.”

“What stuff have you seen?”

“Like what?”

“Like clusterfucks,” the boy in the Jaguars jacket said.

“And space docking,” the boy with the badges said.

“Um, I once saw a cow giving birth. There was a man with his arm in a cow, up to the shoulder. When the calf came out it couldn’t walk and it kept falling over like a
goddamn
drunk.”

They laughed for a bit, their breath making clouds. Albert felt glad. He looked across at his dad, who was small and out of breath, burrs attached to his trousers, stomping uphill toward them.

“Okay. What else?”

“Sometimes people walk around with tops off, even women,” Albert said.

“Alright.”

“What are they like?”

“The tits?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re like … um … they’re like when a balloon has been behind the sofa for a few weeks.”

“Yug!” the main boy said, and clutched his throat.

The other two boys laughed. They really liked that.

“What about hypnosis?”

“Oh yeah—that happens. Last night a man lost his mind so we chased him.”

“What about the parties?”

“And have you seen people shagging?”

“Yeah, there was a couple doing it in my bed.”

“Were you in it?”

“
Oui.
”

“Man!”

“Holy! Did you do her?”

“I just watched.”

“Holy shit.”

“Fucking,” said Badges.

“What school are you in?” Albert asked.

“Bishopston.”

Albert took note. Then he said: “I can also kill goats. It’s easy. My mum taught me. If you come round to mine, you can try it.”

“To The Rave House? I won’t be allowed,” Jaguars said.

“Your dad said you ’aven’t got your own phone?”

“I know,” Albert said. “Lame.”

“Oh man.”