Just Another Roof

On thousands of mornings just like this one he had climbed longer ladders on to more imposing roofs without even noticing that he was high above the ground. These were the places he lived and worked; the view from the rooftops was his view.

This time though, the instant he moved to leave the top of the main ladder he had known that something was different: his feet tingled in his boots and the palms of his hands felt hollow and cold; his fingers began to sweat.

‘Fuck!’ A curse and a deep breath didn’t shift the lightness he felt in his limbs; involuntarily his hand went back towards the ladder and worse than that he glanced down, all the way down towards the van. ‘Fuck!’

‘You’re okay’ he muttered to himself, ‘must have had too much coffee this morning that’s all.’ But the fear was rising in his chest. He turned away from the roof edge, steeled himself as best he could and made for the ridge.

Every unsteady step strengthened his conviction that he was going to fall; the open air around him pulled at his senses; he felt that the slightest breeze might lift him from the roof entirely. He wanted desperately to lie flat against the tiles, to lie still and close his eyes. Somehow at last at the ridge, the urge to cling on was too powerful to resist.

Rapid breath followed rapid breath. How ridiculous he felt hanging on there where normally he would have stood straight. He couldn’t work, he couldn’t even move, and yet, despite the paralysing vertigo and the terror of the fall, perversely another worry forced itself to the forefront of his mind. He hoped to God that Matt would not look up and see him like this.

Staying still and trying to reason with himself didn’t work. If this was the new reality he didn’t like it, not at all. He had moved all too swiftly from not understanding a fear of heights to not knowing how he had passed more than thirty years of his life slating, tiling and walking roofs. He couldn’t do it now that much was for certain.

Momentarily he noticed the warmth of the Sun on the back of his neck; he remembered that it was a lovely day. The birds were singing in the treetops, and far below in a back garden a greenhouse door opened noisily and a hose was turned on. But that world, the world down there, felt so far away, and the thought of a solitary white cloud in the vast blue sky overhead made him reel and shake at the knees.

‘I can’t stay here with my arse in the air’ he whispered into the tiles against his face. It felt like he had been there an age, but it couldn’t have been that long because there was still no sign of Matt. He raised his head just a little, experimentally at first, and resolved to turn over, so that at least he could sit down.

First his left boot slipped, sliding sickeningly down three rows of tiles that clattered as the roofer’s weight passed across them, and then the other boot went and then a knee. Somehow, he didn’t know how, in the panic he managed to turn over and land on his backside, each hand behind him a row of white knuckles stuck fast to the ridge.

‘Fuck!’ His heart pounded and his breath came in jagged fits and starts out of his control. He looked down between his knees and fought for calm.

Taking his right hand from the roof wasn’t easy; making the effort to reach inside his chest pocket and pull out his mobile was even harder. He thought about calling Matt, it would be easier than shouting down. He didn’t want to hear his voice raised weakly across the rooftops, something about that thought brought another vertiginous wave crashing down; he swallowed hard and redoubled his grip on both roof and phone.

He didn’t call Matt. He scrolled down through the numbers and came to rest on his Mum and Dad’s.

‘Hello.’
‘Hello Dad? Dad, it’s me.’
‘Well I didn’t think it was your sister. Hold on, I’ll call your Mum.’
‘No Dad, it’s you I want to talk to.’
‘Blimey, what have I done to deserve this then?’
‘What?’
‘A call in the middle of the morning and it’s not even my birthday.’
‘Dad, I’m stuck on a roof.’
‘Don’t be a silly sod Colin. What do you mean? Are you having me on?’
‘No seriously Dad, I’m stuck.’
‘What do you mean stuck? Caught up? Where’s Matt? You’re not hurt are you?’
‘No, no I’m not hurt Dad. Dad, Dad, I’m scared. I’m up here and I’m bloody terrified.’

He was near to tears now and the phone was suddenly silent. He pulled it from his ear and checked the signal and then his credit before he spoke again.

‘Dad? Are you still there Dad?’
‘I’m here mate.’

His Dad’s voice had changed, softened; there was a tone there that Colin had almost forgotten.

‘Listen mate, there’s nothing to be scared of. You’ve been going up on roofs since you were a teenager. You’ve done it nearly all your life boy. Now, tell me, how far are you from the ladder down?’
‘Three or four yards Dad.’
‘It’s not a steep roof is it?’
‘No Dad, not really.’
‘All right mate. How do you feel now? A little calmer?’
‘A little bit, yes, a little bit.’
‘Okay then, you think about how many times you’ve walked along roofs and swung down on to ladders. You’ve got nothing to be scared of.’
‘No, all right Dad, I know, I know. But I’ve been sat here shaking. What’s the matter with me?’
‘Bad day at the office mate, just a bad day at the office. Now, you’re going to go down to the ladder on your backside, all right?’
‘All right.’
‘But you’ll have to put the phone down mate. Put the phone away and then get yourself to the ladder. You call me back in a minute or two or I swear I’ll tell your Mum what’s happening and she’ll have the Fire Brigade over there in five minutes. You don’t want to come down that ladder over a fireman’s shoulder do you?’
‘No Dad. All right, I’m putting the phone away now. Talk in a minute.’

Being alone again was hard, but as he moved towards the ladder, inch-by-inch without rising at all from his sitting position, he wasn’t thinking about falling, or about this inexplicable terror; he was thinking about his Dad. Colin was fifty and his Dad was nearly eighty, but for a few moments there on the phone the years had rolled back.

Before he knew it he was on the ladder and on his way down to the ground. Standing there on the path looking up the few metres to the roof his legs were unsteady; he wiped a hot tear from his cheek. ‘Thanks Dad’ he muttered, and made for the van.

‘Dad’
‘Are you down mate?’
‘Yes Dad, I’m in the van.’
‘Well done boy. Well done.’
‘I’ll come by and see you later, okay?’
‘You do that mate, you do that.’

Colin lit a cigarette that he had rolled earlier and reached out for his flask to pour himself a coffee, decided against it and just smoked instead. He watched the cars go by on the road and enjoyed the warmth of the Sun on his face.

‘Are you okay Dad?’
‘Matt. Where the fuck have you been?’
‘I just went down to the shop. I told you I was going. Are you all right? You look as white as sheet.’

He got out of the car and stood next to his son and looked up again at the ladder and the roof. ‘I had a bit of funny turn Matt, that’s all. I expect I’ll be okay in a bit.’

* * * * * *

The old man was sitting looking out of his front window, he felt queasy and scared in a way he hadn’t for a very long time.

‘Are you all right love? Who was that on the phone?’

He hadn’t heard Pat come into the room, now he turned and smiled rather wanly at her. ‘I’m all right love, yes. It was Colin on the phone.’
‘Really? I brought you a coffee and a biscuit. So what did Colin have to say? Didn’t he want to talk to me?’
‘He’ll be around later love.’
‘Oh that’ll be nice.’

She passed him his coffee and put the biscuit tin down on the table next to his chair.

‘Do you know what love? He said in place of his customary thank you, ‘I used to hate climbing roofs. Really, I hated it.’
Pat looked at her husband surprised in equal measure perhaps by what he was saying and by how suddenly he had decided to say it.
‘I used to get really scared love. I never told anyone. When life was hard doing that job was the most difficult thing in the World. Some days, lots of days, I never knew whether I was going to be able to climb the ladder, or how I’d come down again if I did.’