Noah's Heart , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Neil Rowland

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

199 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Noah's Heart is an exciting, humorous and moving story: a celebration of life from the view of human vulnerability. With an unusual and atmospheric setting around Bristol, England, we are invited into the unique and colourful world of Noah Sheer: keen balloonist, former student activist, ardent music fan, and a concerned father of three children. An ideal romantic getaway to Crete is cut short by a heart scare. Back home, the consultant warns him to avoid further shocks and stresses. But is that possible? He can't stop worrying about his family. He would never abandon his life's ideals and passions. These come from university days; around his love affair with ex-wife and childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth. Modern love - in the shape of feisty music executive Corrina - proves that the world really has changed. His eldest son should be finishing his exams but enjoys joyriding in an edgier part of town. Daughter Angela has taken up a rock 'n' roll lifestyle rather than her university place. She brings her father up against the local demimonde, from criminals to new hippies. Our children can test us, but he is led an unfamiliar dance. His many adventures include an urban riot and a free music festival. This father and daughter relationship has to undergo a bumpy ride, before the pair can reconcile. Noah must learn to accept her, if he's to rediscover their deep bond. The final crisis looms when Noah sets off on an emergency balloon flight to save her.

Sujets

Adventure (Guyana)

Adventure

Thriller

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	26 mars 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783336418
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Title Page
NOAH’S HEART
Neil Rowland

Publisher Information
Published in 2014 by
Acorn Books
www.acornbooks.co.uk
An imprint of
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Copyright © Neil Rowland 2014
The right of Neil Rowland to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Cover design by Alex Colbourne
www.behance.net/alexcolbourne

Dedication
To my parents John and Maureen Rowland

Acknowledgements
Thanks due to Alex Colbourne for designing the cover.
My publisher Paul Andrews for backing this title.
To Elizabeth Grainger and Janet Davis for proofing. All ‘first readers’ of the script for their advice and comments.
To all those family members, friends and fellow writers who have offered their encouragement and camaraderie. I couldn’t thank you enough.
Gratitude for the fantastic support and backing expressed by readers of The City Dealer.

Part One
All Tomorrow’s Parties
Chapter 1
Bristol, England.
I’m Noah Sheer, just shy of forty nine. I’m a kite maker, a champion balloonist, a former student radical, a devoted father and, contrary to all rumours, still in love with my wife. It’s public knowledge that my private life is in bad shape.
But these details lost impact when my damaged heart put me into a grip. I believe that my own version of Bob Dylan’s “Never ending tour” may be finally rumbling to a halt. My wife and I used to enjoy talking about individual destiny, yet lately I’ve just been riding my luck. You could say I’ve been struggling to keep myself to myself.
The other week I was going about my business, when there was a further heart incident. I hardly dared to breathe another. I collapsed against a wall holding my chest. I could feel moisture beginning to come out, bubbling up into each pore of my skin. My limbs turned to ice and began to break apart. My heart was sending out warnings about a complete meltdown. The novel of my life was coming to an end. There’s something wrong with the pump again, I chastised myself; something lethally amiss, despite an allegedly successful major heart operation.
“You look much better. An amazing transformation,” my best buddy had remarked, merely echoing the general reception of family and friends. “We can hardly recognise you,” they said.
“From now or from then?” I enquired.
At the time of my hospital release I might have agreed with them. But my x-ray will soon be slapped back on to the lighted backdrop, after a relapse. I’m no more than a salacious image under the radiologist’s red light.
I’d set off for town this morning to get a new pair of jeans: Which is the kind of optimistic freedom a guy in my position attempts to enjoy. The sun was bowling across the morning sky and the birds were whooping it up like Martha and the Vandellas circa 1967.
Our kids had apparently gone away for the weekend. They hadn’t left any messages, or clues, behind. After getting back into the groove of life my idea was to get fixed for some new sounds, as well as find a party shirt to match my new pair of Levi’s. When I say “new music” I mean the latest albums from Young and Dylan (note the importance of that ‘and’). To quote Charles Mingus, mercurial jazz genius, it was time to let my children hear some music. They resist the idea of good taste but the terrible truth is hard to face.
Then, as I strolled along Broadgate, the breeze began to whip up, the sky blackened like the interior of a biker’s jacket. To escape a drenching from a violent downpour I scrambled into the Old Galleries, one of our covered shopping malls here in Bristol.
The heart squeeze came on unexpectedly. When the symptoms began I became rigid with fear and shock. It forced me back against the shiny marble wall between shop fronts. I clutched my heart like Buster Keaton spotting the marshmallow face of his heroine. Shoppers continued to bustle along their course, perfectly in step with the rhythm-free shopping-mall musak. The tinkling melodies of the suburban Seventies amplified between my ears, in a jingle at the mouth of hell. No power on earth was capable of saving me.
“Are you all right, love?” trembled a female voice.
I just stared ahead, locked into a grimace.
“Are you sure?” asked the elderly lady.
“Don’t worry,” I wheezed.
“You poor boy, you look dreadful,” she observed.
“Only need to catch my breath,” I replied.
She examined me with sympathetic scepticism. “Can’t I do anything for you?”
I groaned imploringly.
“Anything at all?” she urged.
“That’s kind, but no.” Everything was rocking and rolling; the final encore.
“Do you want me to call an ambulance?” she asked, pressing my arm.
“They can’t help me,” I replied.
“Then can I get you a cup of tea?” she wondered.
“ A cup of tea ?” I replied.
“Yes, there’s a cafeteria next door.”
Scrap the National Health Service, I thought, build a tea-urn the size of St Paul’s Cathedral. Cure all.
Reluctantly the kindly lady left me. She thought that I was ungrateful and ignoring her. She took a grip of her deep handbag, gave me a hard critical look for rudeness and shuffled off. The other shoppers barely spared me a second look. I probably gave the impression of being a middle aged and middle class alcoholic, or even a drug addict. They had no intention of getting mixed up with a deranged idiot, slumped to the side. They didn’t know there was a counter revolution going on in my beat box.
But thank god, I didn’t pop my clogs. The squeezing grip began to slacken, the radiation of death to recede. Then I levered myself away from the marble surface that resembled an unaffordable gravestone. I was released again, even if I didn’t know for what purpose. There was no desire for a cup of tea or anything stronger as, recuperating, I staggered away. I swallowed down the bitter oily residue of mortality and struggled to walk upright. I could feel mercury slowly withdrawing from my veins. I took out a wrinkled grey handkerchief and wiped my face.
Nevertheless my heart was gyrating like a cocktail shaker, shifting a mixture too bitter to drink. I was shaking; my legs wobbled; my head was scrambled. No doubt I didn’t present such a wholesome sight to fellow citizens: even less the well-honed guy who used to bounce out of the gym every week.
How terrible the prospect of kicking the bucket in a shopping centre. Wounded pride didn’t enter my thoughts at the time; just massive, overwhelming relief at having survived. So what the hell had gone wrong? What had triggered the latest malfunction? I had some leisure to consider these critical questions as I escaped the mall - my near final resting place. It couldn’t have been the dash for cover out of the rain. I was supposed to be making a good recovery. Surely more than a jog was required to plunge me over the abyss, they’d insisted. Death had taken me to match point but I’d managed to fight back into the tie-break. To endure a heart attack at the age of forty-something had been the worst trip imaginable. You have to create some powerfully positive karma to survive that one. You can’t afford to be negative and look back on terrible experiences. Therefore I was determined to encourage positive radiation.
The internal cardiology unit was all working quietly again, as I stepped off an escalator back to ground level. But there had been another coronary incident. The involuntary muscle had thrown another tantrum. That’s a dangerous place to hesitate. So how close had I got to complete silence?
I drew the deep breaths of an escapologist who’d misjudged by a few seconds. I was bloody relieved, but I’d been terrifyingly close to a complete blackout, yet again. And according to the wise men and women, this was never supposed to happen. There was plenty of angst as I battled against the crowds, trying to find my car. My cheerful future evaporated like a drop of whiskey on the salt flats outside of Utah.
But maybe I’d just had another bad experience.
Chapter 2
I’m not ready to talk about my life in the past tense.
Trouble with my heart first erupted while I was away on a last-minute break. My dream girl Corrina accompanied me on that anticipated holiday to Crete. The island had been already been devastated by a legendary earthquake tsunami in ancient times. That antique catastrophe, passed down through generations, should have served as a precautionary warning. Instead we surrendered deliriously to our romantic lust and visited the nearest branch of ‘Cooked’ holidays for a rapid getaway. In hindsight I know that something was bound to go wrong with the trip. But hindsight’s like a successful career in show business.
After everything I’ve been through, I know that the ocean of my manhood is very different to the gentler sea of my youth, as far as I recall - at least by comparing the snaps.
“I need to blow out of town for a while,” I told her. “Get some breathing space. What do you say?”
“Not sure if I have that much free time, Noah,” she admitted.
“Come along, Corrina, we can make the time,” I pe