A Rock and a High Place

by Dan Mooney

  “Stop looking around, you dolt, you’re making us look guilty,” Frank snapped.

  “Well, we sort of are guilty,” Joel hissed back as he opened the door.

  “Well, try not to look like we are,” Frank ordered him before sighing. “Amateurs. I hate amateurs.”

  They sat into the back with Joel staring directly forward, his false smile cramping his face.

  “Just reverse out, will you?” Frank asked. “The last thing we need is them getting a look at that face you’re pulling, old man.”

  The driver smiled at them in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t have known what they were up to, but he knew shenanigans when he saw them.

  “Mind if I crack a window?” Joel asked, now practically tingling with nerves and excitement.

  “Be my guest,” the driver told him.

  Joel sat in the back of the car letting the mild May breeze ruffle his hair as they swept away from Hilltop and into the city.

  Chapter Eight

  On the busy street corner where their driver had left them out, Joel heaved a great sigh. The sidewalk was packed with people, busier than most Sundays he could remember. He found the crowds intimidating and oppressive. Frank, on the other hand, seemed to love it. He was shrugging his shoulders excitedly and rubbing his hands together. Joel guessed that most of the source of his anxiety was the fear of getting caught. Their alibi was tight, though what if Eva decided to go back to the nursing home for some reason? Or called to check in on him? Or wanted to have another chat about his changing mood?

  He looked anxiously at Frank.

  “Pint?” Frank asked.

  “You buying?” he asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The last time I had money was 1993, I think it was a Saturday, and I spent it all on cider.”

  “I paid for the cab,” Joel complained.

  “I arranged it, so we’re even on that front.”

  “Fine,” Joel grumbled, forgetting his anxiety in his irritation.

  Money was a problem for Joel, not a significant one, but a problem nonetheless. Had been for some time. Owning the garage that he had worked in since childhood had been fulfilling in many ways. Financial reward was not one of them. Eva’s wanton husband had ruined more than Joel’s daughter’s marriage; he had broken their entire family financially. Selling the house was the only means of addressing that. He didn’t mind it really; he wanted the best for her, and a retirement in a home wasn’t a jail sentence if Lucey was there. With Lucey, everything was glorious. Without her, everything was garbage.

  He didn’t regret their decision for a minute, but the idea of spending hours toiling and saving and pinching pennies, taking mediocre holidays and tightening his purse strings year on year to end up locked inside a bedroom at night with no more authority than a small child rankled with him. He had envisioned a retirement with Lucey on a beach somewhere, or on a cruise ship. Not that he would ever get onboard a cruise ship; it was too full of asinine morons and faith-healing believers. He also hated crowds. But they had been nice daydreams, payoff for a life of sacrifice. He fished around his pockets for his wallet.

  “F…” he almost swore. “I mean, blast.”

  “Problem?”

  “My cards are all back at Hilltop.”

  Frank treated him to a long unfriendly expression.

  “Do you have cash?”

  “Just the change that the taxi man gave us.”

  “How much?”

  “Ten.”

  “That’s enough for two anyway.”

  “Barely. How will we get home?”

  “Ah,” Frank exclaimed happily. “That’s Future Frank and Joel’s problem.”

  “Not exactly solid financial planning.”

  “Well, look where all your millions got you? We’re standing on a street corner, and you’ve barely a penny to your name.”

  “That’s barely a penny more than you have.”

  Frank shrugged.

  “What do you fancy doing with your newfound freedom?” he asked Joel.

  It struck Joel as something quite sad that for all his complaining about freedom, the second he had it he had no idea what to do with it. He looked blankly at Frank.

  “See, this is your problem,” Frank told him pompously as he began to walk, “your imagination is underutilised. It’s been allowed to atrophy to the point of uselessness”

  “Can you even hear yourself talk?” Joel asked, following.

  “And of course your attitude stinks, but I suppose that’s your lot in life.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Joel asked, rather than arguing.

  “See, you’re a glass half empty kind of guy, my old flower,” Frank continued as he moved. “You fail to see the opportunities.”

  “What opportunities?”

  “There are certain things available to the fine men and women of our age that are denied to the younger generation. We’re supposed to be a generation of thinkers, of innovators. Without the internet we relied on our wits and our imaginations to take us places, to find chances to take, to think, as they tell us in business, outside the box. Sadly for you, I’m concerned that you’re unaware that there even is an outside the box, and so you never consider what things we might be denying ourselves, when we have a chance to do something we might fancy doing.”

  “Like?”

  They rounded the corner at the end of a busy street, bringing the river into view just on time for Frank to point dramatically.

  “Like that,” he said gesturing at the castle. The old fortress sat on the riverbank overlooking the oldest quarter of the city. It was huge and dominated an entire bank of the river. Two bridges ran across it, heaving with traffic and propelling people in and out of the city.

  An ancient reminder of what the city once was, flanked on all sides by modernity and progress, and yet the castle itself stood resolute against those changes. Proud. Strong. Respected. And absolutely packed with tourists. If there was one thing Joel disliked more than crowds of people, it was crowds of tourists.

  “We’re going to take the castle?”

  “No, we have an access that the kids don’t.”

  “Castles are denied to young people?” Joel asked, unimpressed.

  “No, you bitter old goat,” Frank told him witheringly. “Entry for OAPs—we old age pensioners—is free. We’re going to go visit the castle. Won’t that be nice?”

  The last question he asked in the simpering voice used by some of the younger nurses at Hilltop. Used once and once only. After seeing Joel’s reaction to the voice, it was seldom used a second time.

  Joel shook his head at his friend as they made their way along the riverbank through the throngs of tourists taking photos of the river or the ancient old building or each other. Couples that walked arm in arm. Young and full of energy and enthusiasm for the years ahead of them. Not suicidal.

  Joel’s eyes strayed occasionally to the river and the bridges. To slip off and into the waters would be easy. So easy. Instead he walked alongside Frank, who positively beamed to be part of the crowd.

  At the visitor’s centre entrance Joel somehow expected to be stopped. Irrationally he thought that maybe the staff might send him back to Hilltop, that they knew he was on the lam, and they would act on the nurses’ behalf and send him packing, but in the outside world, beyond the tree-lined nursing home, no one seemed aware of the indignity of his living situation. The receptionist smiled at them and waved them through. Joel tried to pretend he had every right to be here. Frank sauntered casually. Frank did most things casually.

  In the courtyard of the castle sat an array of old weaponry—canons, catapults, ballistae, as well as a score of attractions for visitors. A mock-up smithy and tannery, staffed by bored-looking students in costumes, rattling off their learned lines at the small huddles of interested guests.

  Frank tsked at them as he walked by, shaking his head.

  “No love for their art,” Frank told Joel disappointedly.

  �
�Well, would you love it if you had to do that all day?” Joel asked

  “I would, and I did.”

  “You did?”

  “Worked here for several tourist seasons.”

  “When you were young?”

  “Nope. About ten years ago, I’d say. I was younger, but I don’t think any of those kids would have considered me young.”

  “Why? I thought all you actors were rich?”

  “Exactly how many actors have you met, Joel?” Frank asked drily.

  “Well, just you so far, but Lucey used to read about them all the time. She read the Sunday papers from cover to cover every week. Even the bloody financial pages. I just assumed when they give you a TV show you get to be a millionaire.”

  “Sadly not. I didn’t do badly, did quite well for a time actually. Had a fancy little car. Used to drive it around London when I was on the West End.”

  “Let me guess, a convertible?”

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re the type,” Joel sighed.

  If Frank took it for the dig it was intended to be, he showed no signs; if anything, he seemed to puff up at the idea of being the type.

  “What happened?” Joel asked him.

  “Runs out eventually. Get a little older, starts getting harder to get parts. Fall in love with the wrong boy, spend too much money, move out of the apartment you can’t afford, take smaller and smaller roles. Before you know it you’re an old man living in a nursing home paid for by the state sleeping next to the snoringest, crankiest donkey that ever wore human clothes.”

  He delivered his speech without even the faintest hint of regret. He mentioned his decline as if he had been talking about what he ate for lunch. With his hands stuffed in the pockets of his old suit and his longish hair he still managed to look quite grand, a stark contrast to his reality, but Joel guessed that was important to the man. Appearances had to mean something.

  “Sad,” Joel said out loud in summary of his thoughts.

  “Not really,” Frank disagreed. “Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. I enjoyed myself when I was on top, and now I’m down here with you peasants, I’m having a fine time of it, too.”

  He smiled as he spoke the words to take the sting away. Joel resisted the urge to cuff him across the back of the head.

  “Aren’t you ever sad that you let all that money go on nothing?”

  “It wasn’t on nothing. It was on a convertible and a selfish young man and about fifty other things that I thoroughly enjoyed spending it on.”

  “But now you have to live in a nursing home,” Joel told him, incredulous at the cavalier attitude.

  “And aren’t I having a wonderful time while I’m at it. Making new friends, listening to a wild animal snore all night long?”

  They stood there in that moment, with Frank beaming at Joel as he rocked back and forth slightly on his heels, a man at ease, entirely comfortable with himself despite being practically destitute. Joel wanted to tell him he was a fool, but he couldn’t think of an argument that could trump Frank’s easy comfort at his situation. So he just gaped.

  “By the way,” Frank continued, “I’m hugely impressed that you managed to not even flinch when I mentioned falling in love with a boy. I was sure that one would rattle you.”

  Joel was surprised at himself for even missing it.

  “You underestimate me,” he lied, but gave it away by turning a bright shade of red and squirming on the spot.

  “It’s pretty up here, isn’t it?” Frank rescued him as he wandered over toward the high wall that overlooked the river.

  “I think the catapult looks nifty,” Joel replied clumsily, unsure of himself, unsure of the protocol.

  “It’s not a catapult. It’s a trebuchet,” Frank insisted with exaggerated patience.

  “I know that,” Joel snapped at him, promising himself to look up the word “trebuchet” at the next available chance.

  Frank just laughed at him.

  “If you’re worried about me because I’m broke, don’t be. If you’re horrified at me for wasting my money, don’t be. I’m sure you were a proper bean counter when you were making your money, and the two of us ended up in the exact same place. Except I’m not constantly stressed about it. You should try it. It’s fun. Just stop worrying about everything for five minutes and enjoy the feeling of being outside, of freedom to choose, the fresh air, all of it.”

  He gestured vaguely around him, at the walls of the castle and the sky above them, the excited babbling tourists posing for photos with one another, crowding the fake smith and photographing themselves with him. It all seemed to hum with a positivity that Joel was certain had abandoned Hilltop decades before. He smiled at it all, feeling the casual easiness of the people around him, an easiness he coveted but lacked. He smiled at Frank too, urging him to relax, to live a little.

  “Now what would you like to do?” Frank asked eventually.

  Joel looked about at the crowds of people and the bored-looking actors and the trebuchet.

  The fake smith had a little printing machine with him, and he was churning out little coins. His very own personal mint. The coins looked like the shoddiest tin, and the printing machine was doing all the work so that the tiny pieces lacked any form of artistry, and yet the tourists and day visitors crowded the little hut and collected their pennies with pleased smiles, displaying them proudly to one another.

  Such a tiny thing to be happy about. A cheap knockoff thing. A thing without skill or craft work to it. And yet, they all smiled as they received their toys from the “smith.”

  “I’d like to get one of them,” he told Frank.

  “What? One of the coins?”

  One of the coins. As if owning that thing that made other people smile might somehow make Joel himself happy, to boot.

  “Yes, please,” Joel told him. “And then I want to go to the pub.”

  “An excellent choice,” Frank told him, “Though I don’t think they accept fake coins for pints.”

  *

  The walk back into the city centre from the castle was a study in theatricality by Frank de Selby. Even on a bustling street corner in a packed city centre he performed for his crowd, his walk much more of a swagger than anything else, his scarf cast rakishly over his shoulder. He moved confidently, comfortably, as if all the world was his, and even though Joel knew that there was a part of this man that was broken and frail and vulnerable, he still believed the performance, and drew strength from it. What could be gained by worrying about Hilltop? Why should he worry? This was his life, his to control, and he would walk it every bit as coolly as Frank did. Feeling a surge of giddiness brought on by his newly discovered freedom, Joel powered up the street behind his friend idly playing with his new coin as he turned it over in his fingers. So far it had failed to make him any happier.

  They wound their way confidently down one long street, crossing over and turning down a narrower one before turning again on to yet a smaller street and taking the first available left. It was only when they ended up back on another wide busy main street that Joel realised Frank had no idea where he was going.

  “Where on earth are you taking us?”

  “I’m getting a feel for the place,” Frank replied loftily.

  “Get a feel quicker. I’m not built for swaggering around the town like some damn peacock.”

  Joel’s exuberant sense of freedom was inhibited by his joints, which creaked and ached unfortunately.

  “You have no sense of place, Joel. That’s your problem.”

  “My first problem is that I don’t even know what that means, and I’m not certain it means anything at all.”

  “Of course you don’t, you have the soul of a potato.”

  Joel admitted to himself that his soul was more potato-like than he would have wished for it, but life’s like that sometimes.

  Eventually they wound up sitting at the bar of a small pokey pub midway up a small pokey alley off the main street.
It was old; it must have been. The walls, in dire need of a lick of paint, were still stained with cigarette smoke, and the tiny windows offered little in the way of natural light. The low ceiling, with its thick beams, seemed within easy touching distance for Joel, less so for Frank. Other than its smoky walls, the place was in good nick, tidy and clean. The barman was young, though not insultingly so.

  Joel had never been much of a drinker. He had enjoyed a beer or two at home while watching football, with the occasional drop of whiskey when the mood took him. He had nothing against the drink, but had seen its grip on others, seen the effect of that vice-like hold on employees and friends and their families, and he had swerved to avoid such a trap. Every time he had indulged he had found Lucey a more than enthusiastic supporter. When Eva was still young Lucey had practically pushed him out the door on Friday nights to have a drink with friends. He would, at her encouragement, head off to the local bar, picking up a neighbour or two as he walked. They were easy with him, and he with them. Friendly, but not friends. Enjoyable enough company, but temporary. It wasn’t until after she had died that Joel realised that, all those years ago, she had been trying to make friends for him. He had once thought her enthusiasm for his rare drink was because she liked having some bonding time with their small daughter, but as the years passed he concluded it was because his wife was worried that he wasn’t having any fun. What Lucey had missed was that he was having all the fun he wanted. The terrible lack in his life was that he didn’t want more. He had never succumbed to fun or to booze.

  He grimaced at the thought as he played with his coin, and then grimaced again when Frank stuck a finger into his ribs.

  “What?” he snapped irritably.

  “The man asked you a question.”

  Joel looked embarrassingly at the barman.

  “Two pints of stout, please,” he told him and sat himself down to prop up the bar.

  “Senior moment?” the young barman asked impishly.

  It was never intended to be anything more than playful ribbing, the kind of casual barroom banter served up by impudent barmen all over the globe, but Joel found it insulting.