A Rock and a High Place

by Dan Mooney

  So that’s how it was going to be. Him on his way to apologise to her, and her waiting to flatten him with a frying pan. He supposed he had earned that, too. Life lessons all ’round it seemed.

  The house his daughter shared with her two children was what some might have called “modest.” A semidetached three bed in a part of town that had never been part of the soaring house prices of economic boom times. It was, in Joel’s opinion, a wonderful neighbourhood with wonderful people, but not exactly sought after.

  Parked outside the house was Tony’s silver Primera, in the driveway Eva’s small hatchback. Joel levered himself out of the car with some work, helped by Chris’s steady arm. He swung an arm over the man’s shoulder after he was upright and was pleased to find Chris lean in to his casual embrace. When had he last really hugged his grandson? When Chris was eight? Nine? Joel couldn’t remember.

  The door to the house opened up, and Tony stood waiting to receive them. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, just shy of Chris’s height, but in tremendous shape for a man in his late forties, slim and yet muscular. His tousled brown hair was thinning a little, but he had a long way to go before age took away the handsomeness and left him withered and broken down. Like Joel often felt.

  “Mr. Monroe,” Tony said formally, by way of greeting.

  Joel had done that. Enforced it. Tony was an interloper as far as he had once been concerned, and Joel had bristled when the man used his first name.

  “Tony, please, call me Joel,” he told the younger man.

  Lily and Chris hugged the man who had sort of replaced their father. He hugged them back warmly. It was nice to see their relationship was a positive one. How had Joel managed to exclude himself from it for so long?

  “I brought wine,” Joel told Tony, holding out the bottle they had stopped to pick up en route.

  “Lovely,” Tony replied, clearly awkward and uncomfortable around a version of Joel he had never met before.

  “Dad,” Eva said, announcing her presence at the top of the hallway.

  She looked so stern, so authoritative, with a wooden spoon in her hands and the smells of cooking wafting from the kitchen. She was becoming more like her mother every day. It might have hurt Joel at another time, but now he just enjoyed seeing so much of the woman he loved in the woman he had helped to raise.

  “I brought wine,” he told her quite lamely.

  “Thank you,” she replied, grudgingly.

  “Might we have a word?” he asked, beginning to feel the first grip of nervousness. You can rehearse these things all you like, but when you’ve been raised not to talk about your feelings, the only way you can feel about deep and meaningful conversations is uncomfortable.

  She nodded at him, her face already softening. She could see his awkwardness, and he hoped, his sincerity. They sat in the living room, while the children and Tony departed for the kitchen.

  “He’s a handsome fella, isn’t he?” Joel asked, trying to delay.

  “Excuse me?” Eva asked, taken aback.

  “Tony. Handsome fella. Suppose he’d have to be. You’re a beautiful woman yourself, you know.”

  It was all delivered so inexpertly, so clumsily. Compliments were not his wheelhouse.

  “Thank you, Dad,” she replied, smiling a little at his blush.

  “And those kids of yours, they’re…” he hesitated. He tried to think about how he and Frank talked. That was usually easy. They had talked about big important things, and it had typically come quite easy to both of them. “They’re fantastic is what they are.”

  “They’re very fond of you too, Dad,” she told him, softening to him, the stern glint in her eye, the one he had earned not just in the last few weeks, but in the last few years, was beginning to vanish. He wondered if she could see the man he used to be when she was little?

  “Well, can’t say I’ve earned that,” he confessed, looking at the ground.

  She said nothing. Perhaps she didn’t want to tell a lie by correcting him, or perhaps she was just as awkward as he. Probably the former, he concluded.

  “I owe you an apology,” he told her after a long and uncomfortable silence.

  “Look, it’s fine, Dad…” she started to say.

  “No, please, let me say this…”

  He drew a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry I was a bad father,” he told her.

  “No, Dad…” she started, sitting forward in her seat.

  “Please, Eva,” he said, stopping her. She looked at him for a long moment. He thought she might be able to see it, see the need in him to get this out. She sat back.

  “I see how you are with the kids, how you always were with them. Mother and father at the same time. Did a great job. I didn’t really, you know? When it was convenient, sure, but I let your mother deal with the difficult stuff. Told myself that it wasn’t my job. Earning was my job. Told myself that I didn’t have the tools to cope with that stuff, you know? Let your mother do it all. Shouldn’t have done that. Mean on her. And mean on me, you know? I missed out. I missed out on learning about you, on learning who you were. Missed out completely. Shouldn’t have done that.”

  She had tears in her eyes. He had some in his, for that matter.

  “I miss your mother. I miss her something awful. No excuse for being an asshole. Frank says I’m a vicious bastard sometimes. He’s right. Usually is anyway. Got very lonely, you know? Very selfish. Kind of scared. And I didn’t deal with it well. Maybe… maybe if I’d known you better, if I’d done more raising, spent more time with you, then we’d have had something, you know? I guess I didn’t realise it until too late, and then I just thought I was all on my own. I’m sorry about that, too.”

  She moved from the armchair to sit next to him on the couch. She put one arm over his shoulder. He brushed away a tear that trickled down to his jaw.

  “It’s hard for me,” he continued, “it’s hard for me to be so alone, to feel so useless, to feel like I’m just waiting to die.”

  He drew a breath.

  “That’s what I feel like. I feel like I’m just waiting to die. And I’m sick of waiting. I’m sick of looking over my shoulder for it. A cough that turns into pneumonia, a lump that turns out to be cancer, a headache that might be a brain tumor, this stroke they keep shoving all these pills at me for, or I could go like your mother, just one minute the switch is hit and I’m gone. And all the while I feel like I’ve no reason to be here, no reason to keep on bothering.”

  She looked at him differently now. Profoundly differently. Like she could see something she had missed before.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad,” she whispered.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s mine, but it’s okay. I want you to know that I’m going to be better. There’s a therapist involved… I’ll talk it out. I’ve got Frank now, and Una, and those kids of yours, and I want to have you back, too. If it’s not too late? But you have to trust me. You have to trust that I know what’s best for me. That I can make my own decisions and that I still have a life to live. Can you do that for me? Can we do that together?”

  She cried and hugged him, and he cried and let himself be hugged.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Joel returned to Hilltop refreshed. The sense of feeling something, really feeling it after many years in the doldrums of his own life was empowering, invigourating, and yet Hilltop still felt like a prison to him. The wide gates swinging open to admit him seemed as ominous as ever, and the sense of regret saying goodbye to his daughter was tangible. She looked different to him now, fresher, younger somehow. The memory of the little girl he had once known seemed to shine through her, and her smile as she waved him goodbye was genuine and heartfelt. He desperately wanted to ask her to just sit a while in the car, just to chat about nothing, just to spend some time in her company feeling out the edges of their newfound relationship.

  Back in his room Frank sat up in his bed, sipping from a hot mug, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

  �
�What’s made you so happy?” Joel asked.

  “I could ask you the same question, old boy.”

  “Nice Sunday dinner with the family. Hardly fought with anyone at all.”

  “The wonders never cease.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ve Irished up this coffee,” he said, clearly delighted.

  Joel laughed out loud.

  “Had many of those, have you?”

  “Probably more than I should. Want one?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Joel called for coffee, was served decaf, but decided not to make a point about it. He was behaving himself now, and if the staff decided that he was too old to be drinking caffeine after seven in the evening, well at least he could take satisfaction in the fact that they had no idea he was going to be drunk in no time.

  The two of them sat in their beds and sipped whiskey in decaffeinated instant coffee and watched game shows. Joel still felt the distance between them. It was the same discomfort that would remain between them as long as Frank feared for his friend’s life. There was no way he’d speak on any subject larger than television in case he touched a nerve, or sent Joel down a dark road.

  The distance between them, Joel decided, was unacceptable.

  “I’m going to see the therapist,” he told Frank.

  For a moment, nothing was said as Frank absorbed the news.

  “Why?” he asked eventually.

  That took Joel by surprise. He had been expecting congratulations, a warm and enthusiastic round of applause for his healthy and very grown-up decision-making.

  “What do you mean why?”

  “I would have thought that question was self-explanatory.”

  “Well, it’s not. What do you mean why?”

  “I want to know why you’re doing it. Why now? What’s changed?”

  Joel heard the questions Frank was asking, but more importantly, the questions he wasn’t asking.

  “You want to know if I still want to kill myself?”

  “You’re only two-thirds as thick as I think you are,” Frank told him with a broad smile.

  “I’m going to see the damn therapist,” Joel said indignantly. “Shouldn’t that tell you enough?”

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  “Well, I won’t.”

  “Hahahaha. You’re a mule of a man. You know that?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s simultaneously your most infuriating and your most endearing quality.”

  “Look…”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to. Sort of.”

  “Give it a shot then.”

  “I still want to kill myself,” Joel confessed. “I just don’t want to want to kill myself.”

  “That’s a start,” Frank told him, climbing from the bed and wobbling on unsteady feet across the room. He clearly had a massive head start on Joel. When he reached the bed he planted a kiss on Joel’s forehead.

  “I’d hate for anything bad to happen to you, old man. I really would.”

  “You’re getting sentimental in your old age.”

  “Only for you, you grumpy old bastard.”

  He said the words with such affection that Joel worried he might start crying again. Frank toddled back to his bed, and his coffee with a smile. Joel’s melancholy lifted. They were back. His friend was back. There was reason to keep going.

  His idea returned to him as the two of them sat in contented silence.

  “One last hurrah before I take the plunge?”

  “Go on,” Frank urged him with a sly smile beginning to creep across his face.

  “It’s this new leaf I’m turning over, the new me and all that. I saw the therapist already. Pretended to be you and got away with it.”

  “Pretended to be me?”

  “Well, I just acted like you.”

  “And what exactly does that look like?”

  “You know, smarmy and overconfident.”

  “Point to you.”

  “But when I see him on Tuesday I’m going to have to tell him the truth.”

  “Sooner, the better if you ask me.”

  “All right, all right, steady on,” Joel admonished him. “So what about one last bash before the new me starts, and I’m no fun anymore. What about we take those VIP passes and go have ourselves some fun?”

  Frank barked a laugh.

  “First of all, you’ve never been fun. You’re too cranky, but now I think you might actually be crazy.”

  “Come on,” Joel urged him. “One more night on the town. I’ve never been a VIP before. I wasn’t a famous actor. I don’t think I’ve ever even been an IP before.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “They won’t be expecting it.”

  “We’ll need a reasonably good escape plan?”

  “So you’re in?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  It felt wrong, a little, to be scheming again, but this time he’d write a note, or ten, or he’d call his daughter and tell her it was happening, or he’d do something to offset the damage, but he wanted it too much. He wanted one more chance to be a man on his own steam. He hoped, he hoped to the bottom of his toes that the therapist wasn’t going to drug him, or lock him up, but it might happen. He might never have the chance again. He could be dead tomorrow.

  They planned, drunkenly, until the nurses came to turn out the lights.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Mighty Jim’s birthday was a considerably more conspicuous occasion at Hilltop than Frank de Selby’s had been. In the afternoon the former mayor was brought out, whether he was aware of the date or not, and a forlorn-looking hat was placed on his head. The other residents gathered around in the afternoon to partake of the various treats and drinks that were served in little plastic bowls and cups trotted out for just such occasions. Joel knew his was coming, six days until his birthday, and they’d get to go through all this again. He wouldn’t object this time, nor would he have a temper tantrum. Instead, he hoped, he’d have Eva and Lily and Chris and even Tony come to visit, and they’d sit around with him and Una and Frank, and Joel thought it might even be a passably good time. As long as he kept his end of the bargain.

  He tried not to worry about the possibility that he’d be heavily sedated, or that he’d be moved to a psychiatric establishment for his own good. He tried to tell himself that the chances of it were slim, but the niggling doubt played in his head, stayed in his head and refused to leave. He refocused, and remembered that he had a job to do.

  When the cake emerged, surprisingly ornate and delicious-looking, it was placed delicately on top of Mighty Jim’s chessboard, to his immense confusion, and he was sat in front of it to blow out the candles. By the time he realised what was going on, the confusion was replaced by happiness, a pure and unadulterated joy that seemed to shine out of him. He clapped enthusiastically. Joel had remembered pitying Jim for that ignorance many times; now he envied it.

  As the singing began, Joel took the opportunity to slide out of the room, nodding at Frank as he passed. He carefully watched all angles, checking the corridors. Scanning for a sign of sentries. Finding none, he proceeded through the corridors of Hilltop. “Happy birthday to you…” echoed off the walls behind him as he carefully picked his way to the nurses’ station.

  The station itself was set in a small cubby, barely large enough for three people, though it was typically only occupied by one at a time. The front of it was a small glass window panel that slid back and forth. Just large enough, he had surmised, to fit his frame through the glass.

  Nurse Liam was waiting at the station.

  “Can I help you, Joel?” he asked.

  Joel couldn’t be certain, he was way too paranoid to be certain, but he thought that Nurse Liam looked like a man who knew that Joel was up to no good.

  “I don’t think Frank is feeling terribly well,” Joel told him. It wasn’t a complete lie. Frank had a touch of hangover abou
t him, a queasiness in his stomach and a throbbing pain in his head.

  “Oh?” Liam asked blandly. He suspected something. Joel guessed that whatever he and Frank did for the rest of their lives together, someone would be suspecting something.

  “Might have been something he ate?” Joel suggested.

  “I see,” Liam said and he didn’t move.

  What Joel wanted was in reach. He was sure of it, just inside the sliding panel, but Liam wasn’t budging. He couldn’t tell him to leave; that would only confirm Liam’s suspicion that Joel was up to something, which he was.

  “So…” Joel said lamely. “Just thought I’d let you know.”

  “Keep me up to date,” Liam told him casually.

  Oh, he was sharp all right.

  Joel made his way back into the common room and stood next to Frank.

  “Get sick,” he told his friend.

  “What?”

  “I need you to actually get sick. Like, throw up.”

  “Here?”

  “Here, our room, wherever.”

  “Why am I getting sick now?”

  “Liam’s wise to us. Told him you weren’t well. He wasn’t buying it. You get sick and he’ll come running.”

  Frank looked at Joel with a long, flat, unfriendly stare.

  “Only one shot at this, pal. It’s got to be while they’re here.”

  The singing at the party had started to die out; the staff had begun to mill a little. In a moment or two they’d be heading back to their various tasks. Frank grimaced. It was way too late to come up with a new plan.

  “For he’s a jolly good fellow…” he began to sing.

  The staff and residents joined in. The end of the celebration delayed, and then, without warning, Frank stuck a finger back his throat and threw up the treats he’d been nibbling at. Some of the vomit landed on Joel’s shoes. He was fairly sure that was intentional.

  Without waiting he slipped out of the common room and back to the nurses’ station. Liam was still there, scribbling on various forms and leafing through clipboards.

  “He threw up,” Joel told him.

  The rather bland look Liam had been wearing vanished in a most satisfactory manner, and he was moving immediately.