Mind Games

by William Deverell

  “Tell Bob how you much you care for him, Lyall. It’ll feel good to get it out.”

  Lyall found his way to the back of Grundy’s recliner, where he ruffled his hair. “I do love you, you big goof.”

  Grundy jerked away, lowering the gun. “Enough of this shit. It stopped being funny.” He struggled from his chair, batted Lyall’s wrist with his free hand. “I’m getting one of my tensions.”

  “Touchy.” Lyall moved away with a sham gesture of shock. “But you can see why I adore him.” A long, despairing sigh. “I know, I’m a fool. He treats me like a stable boy. Don’t you, stallion?”

  “Stop it! What’s happening, you gone fruity on me?”

  “Problem is, does he love me? Or does he just have the hots for me?”

  Lyall may have understood that love isn’t in Grundy’s emotional vocabulary. He may also have guessed, as I know now with sureness, the secret that Dr. Barbara Loews Wiseman took to her death, the diagnosis that Grundy couldn’t bear to hear.

  “Bob, we’re at the end of the road, let’s relate, okay?” Lyall made a move toward Grundy, who stepped back, averting his eyes. “Tell me it’s not just a physical thing. Look at me, Bob.” His voice was husky.

  “Get away.”

  “Can’t we stop playing the forgetting game? Seven years ago, Bob. After the frat party. Oh, yes, you were too hammered to remember, weren’t you? But that’s kind of funny, because I drank the same amount, and I remember. I was sore for a month, stallion, but that’s not what really hurt.” He continued to advance.

  “Get away from me!”

  “You don’t have to love me, I don’t ask that, but you’re such a slut, with all your stupid little whores. Look at me, damn it!”

  “No! I got a headache!”

  As this macabre dance continued, Lyall advancing, Grundy retreating to the wall, I slipped toward the sofa, grabbed Ginger by the wrist, and pushed her to the floor, toward the landing. “Down the stairs,” I whispered, and she began descending. I hoped she could find a room with a lock.

  My route took me upwards instead, the narrow stairway to the loft. It was as defensible a position as any.

  Lyall’s voice had gone low and throaty, the words indecipherable, but the tone taunting.

  “I’m not!” Grundy screamed. “I’m not!”

  “Won’t you kiss me, Bob? Just once.”

  Grundy let out a ghastly howl of terror. The kiss was a brutal, piercing bark of a bullet, its echo bouncing from timbered walls. Grundy was roaring like a wounded bear, but it was Lyall who was the bloodied prey, staggering back, slowly slipping to his knees, his face a mask of dismay and incredulity.

  So stunned was I by this sight – of blood spurting from Lyall’s chest, streaming over his cupped hands, his body collapsing to the floor – that I became aware almost too late that Grundy was looking about frantically, for me, for Ginger. I sprinted farther up, I was a step from the top landing as he looked my way, my only protection a blanket.

  Without a thought, except to deflect his aim, I spun the blanket toward him as he fired. The bullet went harmlessly aloft, and the blanket wrapped around his head.

  I didn’t see what happened immediately thereafter – I was diving into the loft, rolling on thick carpet, yelling for Gladys and her daughter to stay down. At the same time, there came a shaft of piercing light, followed by a fusillade of glass-shattering sniper fire, then silence for a second, then another blast, and a splintering of wood, the door flying off its hinges. Then the scuffling of many boots. Shouts. “Freeze! Freeze!”

  Grundy was beyond obeying this order. From the railing, I saw his body splayed on the couch, the blanket draped over his head. Death had been relatively kind – it came fast and unseen. While flailing under the blanket, freeing himself from it, he’d staggered into the sights of the rifles outside the tall windows. Only one of five bullets missed him, the others propelling him backwards onto the couch.

  I was transfixed by the ghastly scene for a few moments, then I gathered my wits and called downstairs, announcing we were all present and safe. Gladys Moore was frantic about Ginger, but cheering broke out when she emerged up the staircase. Gladys Moore, abashed not a whit by my nudity, put her arms about me, whispering a husky “Thank you.”

  From a futon in the loft, I took a sheet, a bright coral colour, and wrapped myself in it. I looked like a Buddhist priest. Do not fight the river, let the river take you.

  Many lives might have been spared had Grundy been emotionally capable of following that advice. His was a case of homosexual dread so severe, so pathological, so morbid, that no narcotic but murder could relieve the pain.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Date of Interview: Friday, November 14, 2003.

  Aside from the occasional sniffle, Tim appeared in good health, substantially recovered from the flu that struck him down on the weekend. I assured him it wasn’t intended as my parting gift, and thanked him for his – the two dozen roses he’d couriered to me, along with a potted dieffenbachia.

  He was emotionally more stable than I would have expected, given that he had perhaps five hours of sleep in the last two days. His face was lined with exhaustion.

  He was so spent that, after telling me about his frightful encounter in the mountains, he fell asleep. I covered him with a blanket and let him rest. When he woke, two hours later, he seemed restored – so much that he was able to speak with enthusiasm about the positive signals Sally has been sending. She has made a significant first step toward their reconciliation.1

  One pressing concern remains unresolved, relating to the father he’s never known. There may always remain an emptiness, but I believe he is strong enough to cope with it. In fact, if one of his dreams spoke true, he is ready to rise above his fears, to fly.

  He has met his mother’s suitor. “I’ll let it take its course, see if it really flowers,” he said – as if he were the arbiter of that prospect. His qualm that the man has a history of broken marriages led to a dialogue about Tim’s antipathy toward divorce in general. The relevant discussion is transcribed below.

  They came by on Saturday, Victoria and her guy. I wasn’t up for any visitors, but James let them through – he’s has been like a bull terrier, especially with the reporters, standing them off at the gate. Victoria’s boyfriend is good-looking, tall, fit. A health nut, that’s fine. Well-spoken. I don’t know, maybe it’s his urge to climb mountains that makes me nervous. He’s going to try to get Victoria off cigarettes, so credit to him there. But two divorces? He’s not a survivor. And he has two kids, teenagers.

  Why does this bother you so much?

  Well, don’t you feel … All right, I suppose he could have been the wronged party each time, but … I have your point: you’re about to be divorced. That’s different, it’s not your fault.

  Fault?

  I’m flailing.

  Have you considered it may be the mere concept of divorce that causes you discomfort?

  A long pause for reflection.

  Another syndrome of the fatherless child. Okay, you’re right, let me save you the trouble, here’s the personality profile: the patient is in need of permanency, of lifelong commitment. He suffers separation anxiety, he’s afraid to be alone, he doesn’t think fathers should disappear. People should be like geese, mate for life. He grew up jealous of the other kids, even the ones from split families-at least they got to visit their fathers on weekends. On top of all this, he’s been abandoned by his wife of many years. He abhors divorce, is frightened of it. Compounding the problem, he’s anxious about his mother, fears she’ll suffer romantic failure, a pain he, too, will feel, a pain he knows. Throw this into the pot: a desperate hope that his father will miraculously reappear.

  Very impressive.

  As a corollary, he runs away from other possible relationships, beggared by a similar fear of failure.

  Or does he run away because he won’t take second best? Because there’s no one who can make up for his loss, no one wh
o can compare …

  Our parting made for some sadness. He claimed to have become “addicted” to our Friday sessions, and wanted them to continue. Our afternoon concluded thus:

  Let me put this as flatly as I can. Professionally, you don’t need me any more. And I feel that the doctor-patient relationship is interfering with something else.

  Another kind of relationship …

  Well … friendship, of course.

  We’ll always be friends, Allis.

  At the end, Allis, we both seemed at a loss for words, and things that needed to be said remained unsaid. Just before we parted, as we came into each other’s arms, I struggled to find a phrase of thanks, some loving words. But you pressed a finger to my lips and said with a smile, “Catch you later, Dr. Dare.” And you led me out, and all I could do was wave while blowing into a handkerchief as the elevator doors closed between us.

  This is what I might have said:

  Thank you for your wisdom, patience, and affection. For your skill, your deep understanding, your fine hearing for unconscious processes, your ability to explore the netherworld of the human soul.

  My near-breakdown must have presented, four months ago, a daunting challenge. Here was a blathering, wild-eyed creature in your office, reeking of anxious sweat, playing smart-aleck games: competition, control, avoidance. How well you hid your exasperation.

  On our walk in Stanley Park, after you lost a patient to suicide, you let your vulnerability show raw and exposed. I learned from that, learned to trust, learned to give myself up to you. And I gave. And you gave more. And in the process, something happened, an event of the heart that isn’t without precedent in this hazardous profession.

  This is why therapy must end: you can’t allow yourself to do it any more. Parameters have shifted. Ah, Allis, I’ve fantasized about taking a leap with you. But how could you be happy, even content, with the incompletely parented, self-flagellating Timothy Jason Dare?

  Still, there’s the unalterable fact of love. For I do love you (though not in the ways of which the poets sing), and I desire you, so much that I’ve quaked at the thought of engaging you in that ultimate pas de deux. And maybe such a dance might last a worthwhile time … but I ask myself: Why do so many ballets end unhappily? And could you bear to live with one who tends, on inappropriate occasions, to blurt another’s name?

  Today, again, you struck home – though “second best” isn’t my preferred phrase. I can’t say Sally’s artistic gift is any greater than yours (though I’ve given up hoping to understand the creative impulse).

  The answer is more mundane. I had happiness with Sally, the greatest happiness I’ve known. Not perfect joy, but enough to deter me from gambling elsewhere – as long as hope hadn’t given up its last gasp. On reflection, I probably even felt that hope, unconsciously, when my competition turned out to be Ellery Cousineau.

  Sally phoned on Saturday, as I was in bed on the Altered Ego, hoarse and clogged. James had described my condition before putting her through, and her words were tender. She didn’t want to be the last person on earth to congratulate me for my recent heroics, and she went on about them with the kind of bubbly melody of words that I haven’t heard for many months. Miriam Finds an Unlikely Hero.

  “When you’re better, let’s do something,” she said. (Wherever she wants. Whatever she wants to do. A two-star movie? A Diana Krall concert? I’ll convince her I’m capable of abdicating my dictatorship. I’ll pick up my socks. If I can find them.)

  No mention was made of Cousineau in that conversation. I think I can fairly assume her interest in taking trips in his Cessna has abated. Meanwhile, pouting on the sidelines was a subject of renewed interest, the bad habit who had deprived her of room to grow. Despite all my will and effort to reconcile with Sally, ironically it was a series of violent events, of danger, and my own haphazard heroics that rekindled her interest.

  It’s odd how I missed the cues from Grundy and Lyall. The threesome with Jossie finally nudged me in the right direction: a rare instance of not one, but two men blinded by the homosexual dread they shared. Lyall protected himself with a subterranean existence that rarely surfaced. Grundy simply buried everything.

  Bit by bit, his patterns came together for me. His desperate brief affairs with women. His boasts about his virility – for example, with the Edmonton hairdresser when, in fact, he failed to rise to the occasion. His unwillingness to make male friends when young – he was afraid of them, of what he felt, he’d grown up in a culture in which homosexuality was an unthinkable concept, a disgrace, an insult to God. What an indescribably powerful denial it was that propelled him to the ultimate extreme of murder. Stop those damned headaches, those tensions. Make it all go away.

  Enough. (How odd it is that the events of last Friday have prompted no nightmares. It is as if I have confronted my demons.)

  Victoria was in a contemplative mood when she came to see me – a settlement has been reached in Huff versus Dare and New Millennium Press. She has accepted that the spunky English teacher outduelled the lawyer with the oversized testicles. Clint has agreed to accept compensation for his costs, a concession that will save Victoria’s budding career. Desirée will come out in hardback next year. But Victoria and New Millennium are also required to make florid apology.

  I assume that Brovak, in typical fashion, left his scruples parked outside in his car while he delivered a set of prints to the pseudo-Dodi, and promised silence if Huff would let dead dogs lie. The grovelling apology will give Huff enough boasting rights to save face.

  Huff has no doubt concluded that I was the agent of his undoing – the word must be all through the cove that I was recently in his neighbourhood. I expect he’ll stop harassing me, however, now that he’s aware that I know his fetishistic secret. (I pray that neither he nor the public will ever learn that When Comes the Darkness was a recipe for murder.)

  On Tuesday, when I was finally up and about, Celestine Post came by with her usual bag of mischief. She’s gone beyond the bounds of duty, is continuing to see Ellery Cousineau, in whom she has finally met her erotic match. “I like the games.” I didn’t ask her to elaborate. “He’s an artist in his own way.”

  This reference to his bedroom skills may not have been intended as a thrust, but it hurt. I may not be a stunt flier, but I don’t play Mr. Dressup. Still, the thought of playing second fiddle to this virtuoso galled, as did my concern that Sally, should we ever reconcile, might compare us, remembering him, perhaps regretting …

  Sally and I settled on Thursday for our dinner date, and I let her choose the locale, of course, and she picked the Pondicherry, a good sign.

  Nataraja greeted us with a puzzled look: his valued customer had been playing the field, gorgeous women falling all over him, and here he is with a flame that was supposed to have burned out. (Nataraja, by the way, has got to know Vivian from her visits to the restaurant and has been a faithful visitor at her home; she’s healing rapidly under his soothing nostrums. Word has it that Dr. Lalonde is now seeing a shrink.)

  “The mind,” Nataraja purred, “clouds the eyes with the dust of desire.”

  Sally and I tried to work that one through, a game we often played. “Maybe desire does confuse your thinking,” she said after other possibilities were eliminated. She fell silent, looked sad, but then smiled. “It’s okay, Tim, read my mind. I got tired of it. It was like he was performing.”

  Nothing more was said on the subject, but I was almost giddy with relief and elation. Though it was not yet her birthday, I presented her with the twenty-five-year-old photo that had been sitting in my desk drawer, now framed: Arm in arm, beside a cake with ten candles, are Sally, in false lips, and Timmy, in a false nose. We began to laugh at shared memories: aged seven, getting lost together, ending up at the police station sucking Popsicles, our parents furious with concern; aged twelve, when I defended her for drawing caricatures of the school principal and got suspended too. Aged twenty-one, at a wedding reception, when we discove
red my fly was open.

  As much as we talked about the past, neither of us mentioned the future. It didn’t seem the time do so. Let matters take their course, I decided. I have another date with her tomorrow: on Creelman Street, where I’ll prepare stir-fried shrimp and baby peas, my first venture into Chinese cooking.

  Meanwhile, I’ve been talking to a travel agent. Yes, I am summoning the courage to invite Sally on a tropical holiday. Yes, I’m damn nervous about it. (I’ve joined a fear-of-flying group, alternate Tuesday nights.)

  By the way, Sally mentioned that you shared a bottle of wine on the weekend, and I was a little surprised you didn’t mention that. I gather you recommended some useful techniques in dealing with my imperfections.

  What else? Oh, I’ve retained Dotty, set her on the trail of my missing begetter. If she can’t find him, he doesn’t exist. (Freud once wrote that the death of a father is the most important event in a man’s life. But can it be more compelling than never having known him?)

  I had only one bizarre dream this week. I was on Mount Olympus, standing in snow up to my hips, and in front of me the gods were gathered in the Parthenon. They were leaderless: no bearded Zeus-like figure, just a laughing, raucous group of Ovidian figures in flowing robes. I was demanding my freedom: hadn’t they tortured me enough?

  The gods debated my future hotly, shouting. A scuffle broke out involving snowballs. “Let’s put this thing to rest,” one shouted. “He’s not guilty.” Several of opposing view flounced off, and the meeting disintegrated amid shouted points of order. They were acting in a very clownish way, and I had a sense I was at a Punch and Judy show, perhaps from the way they moved as if pulled by strings.

  Suddenly, I was rising, soaring above them, and I realized it was I who was holding the strings.

  I awoke laughing.

  1 I had a helpful discussion with her on the weekend.

  Copyright © 2003 by William Deverell