5th November 2006 – They’ll be playing golf then.

I went on my own today. It was a Sunday and we had a lot planned for the afternoon so I went about 11 for just over an hour. I couldn’t find him when I first went in. I looked all round the day room, then the smoking room and trawled the corridors. I couldn’t see him so I went back to the day room. He was there, I just hadn’t noticed him. His picture is by my door in the house, and there’s another on my mantel piece so I think my subconscious still thinks of him like that, certainly I didn’t recognise the slight, sleeping wee soul that it finally dawned on me was him. He was nicely dressed, his trousers fitted, he had a green shirt on and a co-ordinating tie. I hadn’t seen him in a tie for ages, he looked well. His glasses were still missing – but as he says they are not likely to come back after being dropped over the side of the Queen Elizabeth into the Clyde. He’s asleep so I wake him. He doesn’t seem to recognise me so I call him Dad and there appears to be a flicker.
I ask him how he’s feeling and he starts to try and tell me. He says he was sick after breakfast, but what he threw up wasn’t sick. I ask him what he means, and he tries to find a word, tries fishing in the murk, the mush that his brain is becoming. He can’t find the word he’s looking for, he explains that it wasn’t sick, it was that thing between, before or after. He almost gets there, almost gets the words, but a carer is vacuuming under our feet and he’s thrown off again.

Bertha’s singing for all her worth – Doris Day’s Secret Love. She – Bertha – has got such a powerful voice. When you see her you can’t imagine she’s making the noise. I’ve never seen her standing but I think she’s about 4 and a half foot. Two days before I heard her from the car park as she screamed for her Daddy because the man was hurting her, screaming to get the man to stop. I find the days when she’s screaming like that so difficult – I want to comfort her, to tell the frightened wee girl that the man hurt, that everything will be fine. I can’t – she’s turn on anyone who tries to comfort her – and anyway, I can’t tell her everything will be alright, it’s not alright. But today she’s singing her heart out.
He keeps falling asleep, despite the vacuuming, despite the singing and the TV and the cacophony of mutterings, mumblings and screamings. When next he wakes I remind him it’s Guy Fawkes night and not to be alarmed at the noise in the night. He looks puzzled “Fireworks Dad. It’s Bonfire night – you’ll see them out the window tonight when it gets dark”. “Bonfire night? They’ll be playing golf then!” he answers and I haven’t the energy to try and pick the bones out of what he’s saying to try and make sense of it. “Might be, Dad. See you tomorrow”. On the way out I see Tweedledum she tells me she dressed him and I say he’s looking nice. She mouths in the Les Dawson style, accompanied by a gesture moving her hand away from her bottom, that he soiled himself after breakfast and that she – ‘Muggins here’ - had to clean him up. “Isn’t that right Moira?” she shouts across the day room “Jimmy soiled himself this morning after breakfast and it was muggins here that had to clean up the mess – as usual!”. Then to me in her whisper “Not even one of mine your Dad but I can’t help it, can’t see one of them in their own mess”. Why shout across the room that he shat himself then whisper to me ? My fixed grin stays put as I thank her for her consideration. That’s what he meant about being sick, he knew he wasn’t sick but couldn’t remember the words. I turn my head to see if he’s heard this exchange and his eyes are drooping him off to sleep, but his eyes are sparklingly wet. He heard alright.