by Dan Mooney
“You threatened to defecate,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Just a loaded statement.
“Yes.”
Joel felt it was a little unfair; it hadn’t been intended to be taken seriously. He just didn’t want to be fobbed off. What little dignity he felt he had left was worth clinging to, and he would certainly not throw it away by soiling himself for a dirty protest over a movie night.
“You threatened a member of staff?” she asked this time, the slight shift in her tone at the end taking the steel out of the words.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
She locked eyes with him again.
“You didn’t tell poor Angelica that you were going to scream at her?”
Poor Angelica. Joel scoffed at the idea of poor Angelica. The Rhino didn’t care a jot for “poor Angelica.” She just enjoyed having leverage on Joel.
He still struggled with the nurse, though. Nice, friendly, warm and caring she may be, but it was her hands, big against the tiny frame of Mr. Miller, that he still saw when he closed his eyes to go to sleep at night.
He said nothing, but instead tried to return the look with interest. He hoped she’d back down before he lost his nerve. He hoped the nerves weren’t showing all over his face.
“Can you understand, Mr. Monroe, why this would be a problem for us?”
“No,” he said, though he was dismayed by how reasonable she sounded. And how much sense she was making.
“You’ve been here for five years, Mr. Monroe, and while you’re not famous for your wit like Mr. Adams here…” She threw a withering look at Frank in the bed across the room. She also loaded the word “wit” to make it sound as if it was a mortifying venereal disease that someone might contract. “You were still always regarded as a polite, calm, respectful resident. In the last few weeks that seems to have changed.”
“No one was forcing me to take medication a few weeks ago,” he replied. It was a poor excuse, he knew, but he didn’t need her digging at him, he didn’t need her finding out just how unwell he really was.
“We didn’t have to force you a few weeks ago, Mr. Monroe. You were happy to take the medication then, medication, may I remind you, that you very much need to take.”
“Before I realised that noncompliance would mean I was labeled as some kind of lunatic.”
“No one thinks you’re a lunatic, Mr. Monroe.” Her reasonable tone was infuriating. She was doing it on purpose, he knew. “But the sudden death of Mr. Miller, all things considered, may have had an impact on your mental health.”
Joel thought that the relentless monotony of a pointless existence, imprisoned by his own family as he mourned the death of the love of his life may have something to do with it too, but he decided not to say that out loud. Instead he, somewhat childishly turned his face away from her, and stared out the window at the long drive down the hill to the front gate.
He had no reply. She had him cornered. He wasn’t well and she knew it, and the consequences of her knowing that might very well be a worse prison than this one. Another home, away from Frank, or a psychiatric unit. Constant surveillance. No chance to end it, no space to pull off his personal great escape. The pointlessness exacerbated by the even more tightly confined space, by having to share that space with those who had been beaten down by life, their minds destroyed by it. He’d have to kill himself before they got the chance to move him.
He looked down the driveway and racked his brain for a worthy suicide.
She remained where she was, her very presence a demand for answers.
“Probably my fault,” Frank said out of the blue.
Mr. de Selby had been awfully quiet for the start of the conversation, held in check presumably by The Rhino’s all-encompassing authority. He found his voice in Joel’s moment of need.
“Excuse me?” The Rhino said, turning her gaze on Frank.
“I must have gotten him all riled up,” Frank told her.
They hadn’t been friends long. It was almost hard to believe in a way, Joel felt he knew the other man. Knew him well. Knew his soul. In the short time of their friendship he had learned to distinguish between Adams and the de Selby mask. He had learned when the showman was preparing for his cue, and when the real man was slipping out from behind the mask to let the world see his sad face, however briefly.
Joel knew his last comment was pure de Selby, intended to be performed, not said. It came from the blue to startle a response. Joel knew precisely what his friend was looking for. A two-man show.
“You did no such thing,” he practically squawked with false indignation.
“Sure I did,” de Selby replied casually, arrogantly even. “You’re easily upset. I came in here and upset your routine. Knocked you out of kilter.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, you preening jackass,” Joel shot back. He tried to keep his performance natural, believable. Just the right level of disdain. He had enough practice at it over the years; he should know how.
“Ah, look,” Frank said, patronisingly. “It’s happening again. Getting all cranky.”
“I’ll go over there and cranky you in a minute,” Joel shot back.
If she was buying their performance she gave no sign of it, but the distraction was keeping her from bringing all of her guns to bear on Joel.
“You know what this cantankerous old so-and-so needs, Nurse Ryan?” Frank asked her grandly.
“I’m positive you’ll tell me,” she replied drily.
“He needs a bit more exercise.”
She paused, frowning. She may not have been buying the two-men-fighting routine, but this was an angle she didn’t see coming.
“Oh, you know what I need, do you?” Joel threw in, to keep her off balance.
“Certainly. Perhaps tomorrow I could take him out and show him some of my green fingers. I kept quite a garden back when I could be bothered to keep quite a garden.”
Gardening again. The old rascal had something up his sleeve, but what planting flowers and cutting the grass was going to do for them, Joel had no idea. The Rhino frowned doubly hard.
“I’m not doing any bloody gardening,” Joel said, rolling the dice.
The frown eased out a little; she weighed him up.
“Perhaps a little exercise is wanting for you, Mr. Monroe. I’ve often heard that exercise is good to lift one’s spirits. I’ll arrange for you to join Hilltop’s Gardening Club tomorrow. Mrs. Clarke is a friend, isn’t she? I’m sure she’ll be delighted to have the extra pair of hands.”
Joel pretended to sulk. He turned his face away from her and looked back down the garden, only this time he wasn’t looking at the gate; his eyes strayed into the corner in the southeast, where the rock waited for them.
He stared at it as she made her exit, and when she was safely away, he turned to Frank who treated him to a broad wink and a wide smile.
*
That afternoon Mighty Jim beat Joel to a stalemate again, while Frank provided commentary, to the amusement of the common room. Una greeted the news that Joel and Frank were joining the Gardening Club with a warm smile that Joel thought contained just a hint of suspicion. Joel could keep nothing a secret; his face was an open book for anyone who cared to read it, so he felt he was best off not knowing what Frank had planned, but Una Clarke, Joel was beginning to understand, was no one’s fool, and she saw the twinkle in his friend’s eye for what it was. Mischief.
Long after lunch was done, Joel was sitting in the armchair by his bedroom window when a familiar little red car drove up the hill. Sitting inside were Lily and Chris. As they wound up the long drive, his granddaughter waved at him, and his grandson shot him a weak smile.
The time when he was the favourite was long gone with both of his grandchildren. He had doted on them outrageously when they were little. He brought them into the garage and tried to teach them how to fix cars, just as he had done when their mother was little. They were too young, but he didn’t care; he just wa
nted to be in their company. By the time he had realised that there was a gulf between them, Joel found himself at first sad and upset, but increasingly ambivalent as the years rolled by him. Without Lucey it all just seemed so irrelevant. A pattern had revealed itself, but Joel was too selfish or too stupid to see it. He had allowed that gap to open up, first with Eva, then with Lily and Chris, and it would have taken so little to bridge it, but he had allowed it to grow into something huge and unfixable. He wondered if there was still time before he went.
Now, underneath all the ambivalence, and for the first time in a very long time he found himself excited to see them. Lily a little more than Chris. She had been such a willing accomplice the day before with the DVDs. He wouldn’t have known where to even start sourcing such things, and yet she had delivered in a mere afternoon. He found himself grateful to be wearing his suit, so that they’d not see him wrapped in his bed clothes, sitting morosely again. For his part, Frank seemed absolutely unmoved by the idea of spending the day in his bedclothes. Unlike Joel, he didn’t look depressed when he wore his dressing gown. He wore it with a certain panache that made him look comfortable and casual, instead of depressed and borderline suicidal.
“Have you come for the DVDs, love?” he asked Lily as she walked into the room.
“Hello, Grandad,” she said, hugging him. So many times before the hugs were perfunctory, a necessary chore to show the minimum amount of affection, but this one was real, and warm. He hugged her back.
“No, I want you two to keep those. I actually bought myself some copies. I wouldn’t mind getting them signed by Mr. de Selby?”
“Mr. Adams,” Joel corrected her lightly.
“Leave my public alone,” Frank admonished him. “I’d be delighted to sign them for you, my dear. And who’s this strapping lad?”
Chris grinned at him. Joel reckoned Frank and Chris would get on well. The same devil-may-care attitude. The same mischief and trouble twinkling in their eyes. His grandson had Joel’s height, with more growing to do, and though he still had some of the gangliness of youth, Joel thought he could see the boy filling out into a broad, imposing young man. He was already a young man really, at eighteen, but Joel had found that the older he got, the higher he raised the bar before he considered someone an adult.
“I’m Chris,” his grandson told Frank, extending his hand.
“I swear, Joel, your grandchildren hit the genetic jackpot. All of the handsome bits about you, without any of your glaring flaws. This one could be cut out of you.”
Chris and Lily beamed. Joel sniffed loudly to make his displeasure clear.
“What brings you two here?” he asked, settling back into his chair as Chris plonked himself down on the edge of Frank’s bed. It was familiar territory to the young man; he’d perched on the edge of that bed many times during their more frequent visits to see Lucey.
“Just thought we’d pop up and say hello,” Lily told him as she casually moved about the room.
“A pleasant surprise,” Joel told them.
“Yeah. Like that phone call yesterday. I think that’s the first time you’ve called me since Nana…” Lily trailed off as she realised the impact that her words would have. Joel tried not to let it show, but it stung. He forced a smile anyway, to let them know he wasn’t upset.
“Anyway,” Chris continued, trying to cover the awkwardness. “We just thought we’d swing by. See how you were getting on. Just check in, you know?”
Joel’s excitement at seeing them faded. They weren’t here to see him. They were spies. They were here to check up on him. The conversation between Liam and Eva had come to this. A “casual” visit to check on his mental well-being. Did they think he was so feebleminded that he wouldn’t see through this? Did they think so little of his intelligence? He stifled the anger, the outrage at the chicanery of it all. Their report would be immaculate. They’d return to his daughter empty-handed. He may not be a champion liar, but for this, he’d outperform de Selby.
“Check in. Of course. Well, as you can see, all’s perfectly well with the world.”
Considering Joel’s track record of cranky reticence, this was practically revelatory. Positive. They were sure to be shocked by it. Joel took a small delight in the idea. He could hoodwink all of them. He’d show them all.
“So,” Lily tried. “DVD night last night? That must have been good?”
“It was marvelous, Lily, my dear,” Frank told her, while Joel fixed his smile on to his face. “I was in my pomp in season four. The writing team, the other cast, the good directors. Honestly, it’s a wonder I ended up here and not in some Beverly Hills mansion.”
“And you organised it all, Grandad?” Lily asked, not distracted by Frank’s efforts.
“With a little help,” Joel told her, still smiling politely.
“Lovely,” she said, though he reckoned it was more for something to say.
“Cards?” Frank asked. Clearly he had read the room; he knew Joel was shutting them out.
They settled in, made themselves comfortable, covered up their real reason for being there with friendly chitchat. Nightclubs, bars, college work, shopping, football. Banal conversation disguising a deeper motive. It rankled with Joel that he should have so many people prying into his life. That he could have nothing for himself, not even his own misery. He played a hand too, Forty-Five. He wasn’t a bad player, though he should have guessed that Frank would be the supremo of the foursome. He played to hide from them, to keep them from knowing what he had no intention of giving away, until eventually they called it quits.
Frank was busy grinning through his victory as they began to gather their belongings.
“Grandad,” Lily told him seriously, as she put on her coat. “It’s nice to see you coming out of your shell a bit.”
He nodded at her with his polite smile in the most paternal manner that he could. A poker-faced smile.
“Nice to see you, love,” he told her.
“Must come up for a game again,” Chris told Frank, in his confident, easy manner. If there wasn’t fifty plus years between them, they could have been friends.
“And, Grandad,” Lily added as she stepped in for a hug. “Please, please give me a call anytime you need it. For anything. Okay?”
Maybe she meant it. Maybe somewhere in her she wanted to reach the man whom her grandfather had been. Maybe she had felt the same spark of recognition that he had felt the day before. A connection between family, long lost but not forgotten. But all Joel could see was more interference. More policing by his daughter. More intrusion into his head.
As he hugged his granddaughter he found himself thinking that it would be tough to leave her behind, to leave all of his family behind. Tougher still, he thought, to have to stay here with them.
*
After they had left, their casual probing done for the day, Joel stretched himself out on his bed. Frank remained suspiciously quiet beside him. Not normal for the gregarious performer.
“Something wrong”? Joel asked.
“Thought it was nice of them to visit. You didn’t have to go all cold on them.”
“I did no such thing,” Joel lied.
“Don’t pull that crap with me. I saw it. As soon as she mentioned your wife, you clammed up.”
“Actually, I clammed up when they told me they were here to spy on me.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
Joel thought about it. There was a chance, a slight one, that they had really come to spend some time in his company, but it wasn’t enough. It was too much like the control that had been exerted over him in recent years. Too much like the control he had lost of his own life for him to be comfortable with it.
“Maybe I am, Frank,” he sighed. “Maybe I am, but it doesn’t matter. If I am, then it’s because I can’t trust anyone to treat me like a grown man anymore. I can’t trust anyone to let me be. To make my own way, to not live day-to-day in this pleasant little hellhole.”
Frank was silent
beside him, absorbing. It was a philosophical moment for them both.
“I can trust you, can’t I, Frank?”
It was a galling kind of question to ask. More because in the moment of asking it, Joel knew he needed to be able to trust his friend. To have one person who would let him live, or die as he pleased. Who would help him if he wanted it, and leave him alone if he didn’t.
“You can trust me, Joel. I promise.”
The relief for Joel was almost palpable. He sighed with it.
Before he could thank Frank, Nurse Liam bustled in.
“Have I interrupted a moment?” he asked.
“Not at all, old boy,” Frank told him, slipping into de Selby mode quickly. “We’re contemplating mortality.”
“Morbid,” Liam admonished them, though he had the sense not to poke at it. Silly to tell two elderly men in a nursing home not to talk about death, really.
“I understand Nurse Ryan spoke to you this morning, Joel?”
“She did,” Joel replied. He still hadn’t entirely forgiven Nurse Liam for the chin-wagging behind his back, but in that moment of relief, of knowing he had someone, an important someone to help him, Joel was not in the mood to take it out on the young nurse.
“I hope you’re not mad at me. I’m just worried about you.”
“I know you are, and I appreciate it. Can you appreciate that your concern, all of your concern is suffocating me?”
Liam looked at him for a moment. A long moment. Joel could see the young man trying to reach a conclusion, stretching out to put himself in Joel’s shoes, to understand what this elderly, cranky man was feeling.
“I think I can,” he said finally.
“Then me and you will do fine, Nurse Liam. Sometimes I just want to be allowed to paddle my own canoe.”
“I get that. You…” He hesitated for a moment, uncomfortable, in new and unfamiliar water. “I know what it’s like to have people try to force something on you that’s not you.”