Sidings and Dead Ends

‘You must remember how Jet tried to herd the ducks, Dad. You remember that don’t you? When we first got him...Dad?’

He turned to look at me although it seemed he was still looking out of the window.
‘Eh, Dad? D’you remember Jet? When he was young?’
‘Jet,’ he said.
‘Yes, Jet. The collie. You loved him, didn’t you.’
‘He’s a clever thing, Jet. He’ll need his tablet. I haven’t given him his tablet today.’
‘Oh you don’t need to worry about that, Dad.’
‘The vet said it’d help.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t need it any more, does he. Not any more.’
Suddenly, he brightened.
‘He was a clever dog, Jet. He really was.’
He looked out the window again but seemed to be catching an image in his mind. ‘Uncle Peter gave him to me. I went over on Sunday and picked him up. Tiny thing he was then. But I knew right away he was a clever ‘un.’
Dad smiled to himself but I could see how the thought faded, the connections in his mind dissolving again. His smile sagged, lost its animation. His mouth held the shadow of it over his teeth, but the life had gone again.
‘Do you want some more tea, Dad? Shall I get you a fresh cup?’
His eyes flickered towards me.
‘Pass me your cup, Dad. I’ll pour you some more.’
I reached for the cup that sat on the table to the side of his chair. He watched my hand move and then with surprising speed he reached out and snatched the cup indignantly - as if it were his final possession.
‘I was just going to pour you some more tea, Dad. Would you like some?’
He lifted the cup to his lips and tipped the tiny drop of cold liquid into his mouth.
‘They haven’t asked me to do anything yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. You’d think they would have all that sorted out, wouldn’t you...’
‘I think they just want you to relax, Dad.’
‘What?’
I don’t think they expect you to do anything... except rest.’
‘You’d think they’d sort all that out before they got us all here, wouldn’t you...’
‘I suppose so, Dad.’
‘We won’t have much time if they don’t get it all sorted out soon, will we? It’d be a rush. A rush job. Can’t be doing a rush job.’
‘No, Dad.’
He looked out across the grounds again. The groundsman was cutting the grass with a large petrol-powered lawn mower. We watched as he guided the machine in gentle parallel sweeps around the edges of the borders. The engine chuntered across the afternoon lawns like a bumble bee in a glass jar.
‘It’s too wet to cut the grass today.’
‘I don’t think it is, Dad.’
‘After all that rain. It’ll be too wet. He shouldn’t do it today.
‘But it hasn’t rained for days, Dad. Not since...’
‘He’ll ruin the lawn with that great thing on the wet ground. On the wet grass. He’ll chew it all up.’
‘I think he knows what he’s doing, Dad.’
‘Where’s my stick? Go and tell him. Tell him to stop’
‘Dad, I really...’
‘Where’s my stick? Go on! He’ll ruin the lawn.’
He bent from his chair scraping towards the floor in search of his stick.
‘Ok, ok...’
‘Go tell him.’
‘Ok, I’ll go tell him.’
I stood up and walked behind his chair, confident that this moment would pass as rapidly as his animation had been aroused. I walked over to the trolley and filled a fresh cup with tea, dropped a splash of milk into it, one sugar cube, and stirred as I returned to my father.
‘Here you go, Dad, I’ll put it here.’
He looked at me, startled, as if I were a stranger. Here we go, I thought.
‘Where’s Sid?’
‘Sid?’ I felt a pang twist in my chest.
‘Who are you? Where’s Sid? Sid should be here.’
‘It’s his afternoon off, Dad.
‘Sid knows how I like it.’
‘Your tea? I know, too.’
‘Sid knows. Where is he?’
‘Listen, Dad. Sid’s off this afternoon. It’s me, Michael, Dad. I’ve just popped in to say hello. To see how you are.’
He craned back in his chair and looked at me.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re looking well.’
‘I’m fine.’
I’d met Sid before. Seen him dealing with my father. He was good. Treated him with respect. I liked that. His was an unsentimental gift to which my father responded well. The infrequency with which I could visit left me always on the cusp of stranger-hood. Sid was here everyday. My father could rely on him. But I felt a subtle acidic flow in my stomach.
‘Where’s Sid?’
My father continued to mutter the question, more to himself than out loud. But I doubted that he asked for me when I was not around.
Again the connections dissolved in his mind. Like points on a railway track splitting his train of thought along different lines. Sidings and dead ends. No thought lasted for much more than a minute. His mind could not navigate a pause in the momentum of an exchange. Synapses would fire and trigger each other but there was no mental network to keep them clustered together.
‘Do you remember your train set, Dad? Do you remember?’ He could usually pick up on this thread. ‘Do you remember how it folded down from the wall? On that platform you built?’
He looked at me and smiled. I could see him remembering. It was a magnificent construction. OO-gauge. Yards and yards of track looping around itself, between modelled mountain scapes. Slopes prickled with wire brush pine trees. Velveteen meadows.  Miniature stations, signals, the paraphernalia of the railway in minuscule detail. And a hole in the centre of this little world where Dad would stand as the Great Controller. He’d lower the whole thing down on Sunday afternoons and pop up through the hole, don his guard’s cap and, with a wink at me, flick a series of switches to start each little electric locomotive off on its journey, announcing each as he did so.
‘All aboard. Mind the gap between the train and the platform.’ Then he’d blow a sharp retort on his Thunderer whistle, saved from his days as a football coach.
‘Have you still got your whistle, Dad?’
Again his eyes lit up. He reached out to his table and pulled open the drawer. Pushed his hand in and stirred at the contents. But a look of panic spread across his face. He looked at me. Then back at the drawer. Started pulling things out and throwing them aside. Letters, a comb, a pot of Vaporub, a palm cross from some ancient Ash Wednesday. His agitation increased.
‘Can I help you, Dad? Shall I have a look?’
I stood and walked around the back of his chair to the table. Gently I placed a hand upon his shoulder and then softly stroked down his arm to his searching hand. He eyed me again, wondering who the stranger was.
‘Let me have a look, Dad’
I gently eased his hand back out of the drawer and placed it on the arm of his chair.  He didn't resist.  I sensed his tension relax as the thought processes behind the search evaporated in his mind again. His mind could no more sustain agitation than focus. I opened the drawer wider and spotted the whistle nestling at the back.
‘Here it is, Dad.’ I took it out and held it towards him. But he looked at it with empty eyes.
‘Here’s your whistle,’ I said again. He reached out and took it from me simply because he could tell I wanted him to but not from any point of recognition.
He studied it, then looking at me he raised it to his lips. The sensation of the metal on his lips must have triggered a muscle memory and he blew a soft stream of breath into it. The pea inside fluttered under the weak current of air. Then this soft sound seemed to trigger a further reaction. He took a deeper breath and suddenly blew a mighty blast on the whistle. It pierced the quiet of the room. A resident on the far side jolted awake.
‘Shut up! Shut up!’
Dad blew again, hard and shrill.’
‘Stop that! Stop it now, you idiot.’
The commotion brought a blue uniformed orderly through the door to investigate. She stood trying to analyse the scene but the whistle had already dropped from his mouth and Dad had drifted away into his familiar mist.




prompt: Part of his memory he did not visit