by Plum Johnson
“Thanks, Dad! That would help a lot!”
He’d smile with pride, immediately walk up to the bank, hand his debit card to the teller, and walk home with a twentydollar bill. It gave him such pleasure that I took it gratefully. Then I returned it to Victor, who re-deposited it in Dad’s account. Our fake Alzheimer’s account was working like a dream—until the bank hired a new teller.
When Dad next walked in, she looked at her computer screen and said brightly, “Sir, my records show you have two accounts—this one, which doesn’t have much money in it … and … wait a minute … yes—this second account, which has much more! It’s costing you extra to maintain the two. Wouldn’t you rather consolidate them?”
“Oh, yes!” said Dad. “Thank you very much indeed!”
About this time, Dad took me aside privately to extract a promise. I was standing by my car getting ready to drive back to Toronto when he asked me to come into the garage. After fidgeting a bit, he said quietly, “I’m going gaga, you know.”
“Yes, Dad, I know.”
He looked down at his feet. “I’ve been to visit people in those places where they put people like me,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re horrible places!”
“It’s okay, Dad, you don’t need to worry.”
“Oh, but I think I do, First Daughter … I don’t want to go into one of those.”
“You won’t, Dad. I promise you. We won’t send you anywhere.”
I reminded Dad that we were well practised in home care because of Sandy. Dad’s head jerked up and his nostrils flared—a look I knew so well—and then the subtle sucking in of breath, the sound of his pulling himself together when emotion threatened to overwhelm him.
“I promise you, Dad,” I repeated, “I promise you. You’re going to stay right here until the day you die.”
He grabbed me and hugged me for a long while and then thumped me hard on the back. “Thank you,” he whispered into my ear.
I’d always hoped that, if there were any justice in the world, Dad’s life would end in a more kindly fashion than it had begun; that instead of deprivation he’d have plenty, instead of grief and loneliness he’d be surrounded by love. I felt he had earned this. In fact, I felt he was still owed some—in God’s books—on the plus side of the ledger.
Dad was only fifteen years old when the boarding school headmaster called him into his office. “I regret to inform you that your father has died,” the headmaster said offhandedly. “To whom shall we send your bills?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What about your mother?”
“My mother is dead, sir.”
“Blast!” said the headmaster.
Dad had been born into the British ex-pat community of Oporto, Portugal, where his father was a partner in a shipping firm that exported wine to Canada. They lived in a grand villa overlooking the port on the River Douro, but when Dad was an infant his mother died and his father remarried. According to Dad, the new wife rejected the role of stepmother and issued an ultimatum—“It’s me or the children”—so Grandfather sent Dad and his older siblings to England to live in a rented house with a hired governess, Miss Penfold. Dad saw his father only twice after that, and never saw his stepmother again. Ten years later, a tsunami off the coast of Newfoundland wiped out the uninsured shipping fleet and the family was plunged into bankruptcy. The stepmother had run off with the manager and Dad’s father died of a heart attack.
Miss Penfold was the one who picked Dad up from boarding school. Creditors arrived at their rented house in England and stripped it of any furnishings worth selling. But Miss Penfold continued to make a home for Dad and his orphaned siblings, finding odd jobs to earn income. She remained a spinster and spent the rest of her life treating the children as her own. Dad carried her photograph with him everywhere.
Forced to leave school, Dad found work as an office boy in London. He bicycled to and from his rented room at a boarding house, reading discarded newspapers from trash bins and studying for insurance exams at night. His one social activity—because it was free—was joining a rowing club on the Thames, although he denied himself the drink with his mates later at the pub: he couldn’t afford it. When he was twenty he won the top prize from the Institute of London Underwriters, leading to a job with the New Zealand Insurance Company. They sent him overseas, to their Singapore office. But he wasn’t there long before World War II broke out.
In 1939, at the age of twenty-four, Dad was mobilized into the Malay section of the Royal Navy Reserves. In 1942, when Singapore fell to the Japanese, he made a daring escape with fellow officers in a small native sailing vessel. From Malaya they crossed the Indian Ocean and were rescued off the coast of Ceylon. After eluding Japanese dive bombers, Dad would soon be introduced to Mum. They both believed their meeting was preordained; there were just too many coincidences.
They liked to tell the story of how, when Dad was rescued, the ship was prophetically called the Anglo-Canadian, piloted by a Captain Williams—no relation but with the same last name as Mum’s. Dad was then transferred to another ship called the Duchess of Richmond—the city where Mum was born. It was bound for New York City—where Mum was living. Dad was to have only a three-day layover before continuing to Europe, but his ship was unaccountably delayed. In a chance encounter, he met a fellow officer in an elevator who was on his way to Mum’s apartment for a date with her roommate. He invited Dad to come along. Mum didn’t want a date—she was in pyjamas and hair curlers—but when she learned that Dad had been born on her father’s birthday, she changed her mind.
Before Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he could remember all these events in great detail. Several books had been written about his famous escape across the Indian Ocean, and he took pride in correcting the authors’ accounts by making notes in the margins of his editions. But in his final years, he wasn’t sure who any of us were.
At the kitchen table, he would lean towards Mum, tap her on the elbow, and point across to Victor.
“Who is that young man?”
Irritated, she would say, “He’s my son!”
“Really? How fascinating!”
Then he’d turn to me and say, “Did you know your mother had given birth to a son? She never ceases to amaze me!”
Other times, Dad would make Mum blush. He’d lean back in his chair, point to Mum, and say to me, “Look at that woman over there … the way the light catches her hair … isn’t she beautiful?”
Then two seconds later, he’d turn to Mum and ask, “Have you seen my wife?”
As time passed, our Sibling Suppers grew more urgent. We still shared our personal concerns about Dad, and commiserated with each other about all the demanding, early-morning phone calls from Mum, but now we were entering a new phase. There were staffing requirements to consider and medical matters to understand. It wasn’t just the latest information on Alzheimer’s we had to learn and assess; now we had to worry about its effect on Mum. Living with Dad tested her patience to the limit. She craved intelligent conversation, but he was no longer capable of providing any. She worried about him all the time.
One weekend when I was staying with them, we were awakened after midnight by a commotion on the lakefront. We could hear loud voices and beer bottles being smashed on the rocks. Dad got out of bed and marched out the front door, wearing nothing but his sarong and slippers.
“For God’s sake, stop him!” Mum said to me. “It’s not like the old days—those kids could have weapons!”
I ran to the window on the second-floor landing and peered out. The loud voices had died down and I could see shadowy figures in the moonlight. Dad was quietly talking to the teenagers and I heard him say things like “clean up” and “noise” and “respect for other people.” Then I heard him raise his voice.
“It’s not ‘Whatever’—it’s ‘Yes, sir!’”
“Yes, sir!” all the teenage voices repeated.
I turned to Mum and smiled. “We don’t need to wor
ry about Dad!”
I frequently spent weekends with Dad so Mum could have a break, but by Sunday night I felt like I was losing my mind. Mum was living with this on a daily basis, so I was surprised she was still sane. Of course, this was in question.
Dad’s memory seemed to have completely lost its foothold. It slid all over the place. While he couldn’t recall an event of five minutes earlier, he could recall an event of seventy years ago, in great detail. At Sibling Suppers, I described for the boys the drives Dad and I took together. Dad told me tales of his youth as if it were yesterday, simultaneously sprinkling those memories with the slogans he was reading off billboards and storefronts as we drove by. Sometimes he’d just recite licence plate numbers. It was a curious habit. Was it his way of anchoring himself in the here and now? I didn’t know.
One Saturday, in early summer, I thought if I could engage him in gardening it might help. He used to love it so much— especially his pumpkin patch. So I put him in the car and we drove to the gardening centre.
“So, you want to plant persimmons, I understand?” asked Dad.
“No, we’re going to plant pumpkins, Dad.”
“Ah,” he said, “I remember when I was eighteen … in digs in London. You know what ‘digs’ are?”
“Your old boarding house in 1932?”
“Exactly. There were ten of us. I was the only one who had a room to myself. Mrs. Goldsmith ran it. She had a daughter named Puck. It was in Streatham … and I had to walk about three miles to the tube to take me into the city.”
This was the longest-running sentence I’d heard Dad make in weeks, so I tried to probe for more. With a bit of luck, he’d be on a roll.
“What was Puck like?” I asked.
“She had dark hair and I had a bit of a crush on her. Do you know Plum?”
“Who?”
“Plum … Do you know Plum?”
“I am Plum.”
“You are?” He looked at me, surprised. “Oh, of course you are! Black’s Is Photography! … Then who was that girl who was here this morning?”
“That was me.”
“No, no … that other girl who looks like you.”
“That was me!”
“Really? Does Plum have dark hair, too?”
“Yes,” I sighed, “she does.”
“Ford Econoline.”
“So …” I said, trying to get Dad back on track, “what happened to Puck?”
“Puck Goldsmith?”
“Yep.”
“She was killed … during the war … driving a truck. Shoes for Less! Did you ever marry?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And who did you marry?”
“Don.”
“Construction Ahead! … Any children?”
“Three.”
“Three … really? Good for you! And where were you born?”
“In Virginia.”
“I see … that was your mother’s idea, was it?”
We finally arrived at the gardening centre and I pulled into the parking lot.
“Can we buy persimmon seeds here?” asked Dad.
“Pumpkin seeds, Dad, pumpkins.” I unhooked Dad’s seatbelt and helped him out of the car. He stood, unsteadily.
“Now,” he said, “your mother gets back today?”
“Tomorrow.” I closed the car door and took Dad’s arm.
“Tomorrow’s Friday, right?”
“Today is Saturday.”
“And your mother comes back today?”
“Tomorrow.” I looked up at the signs, looking for seeds.
“Now let me get this straight.” Dad was scratching his head. “You say today is Sunday?”
“No, no,” I said. “Today is Saturday. Mum comes home tomorrow.”
“She comes back Saturday?”
“Sunday, Dad! Tomorrow.” I was distracted, trying to find a trolley for Dad to hold on to, and I was no longer sure what day it was or even what my own name was.
“And she’s been gone, what, about two weeks?” asked Dad.
“Two days, Dad.”
Dad took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “Now,” he said calmly, “I heard what you said, but it’s been about ten days—right?”
“I know it feels like that, Dad … it feels like that to me, too … but it’s only been two days.”
Dad looked up into the sky. “And she comes back when?”
“Shall we buy persimmons, Dad?”
“Cadillac Seville!” he said happily. “Discover Ontario!”
Watching over Dad always brought surprises. One day Robin and I had some important paperwork to attend to in the playroom, so we put Dad on the piano stool behind us where he seemed content to stack and unstack the music books. Suddenly, we heard Liszt’s “Liebestraume”—Dad’s favourite, “Dreams of Love”—filling the air. We turned, startled, thinking someone had turned on the radio. But it was Dad’s fingers racing along the keyboard, Dad’s hands crossing back and forth, Dad’s runs soaring and dipping flawlessly as if he were giving a recital—by memory. The music books were upside down on the stand. We hadn’t heard him play like that in years.
As a child, I had the bedroom directly above the playroom and would fall asleep to the sounds of this piece filtering up through the floorboards as Dad played in private with the door closed. When I was too young to understand what he meant, Dad told me that playing the piano was like making love: one should stroke the keys gently.
I raced for the tape recorder. “Play it again, Dad!” I begged. “Play it again!”
But Dad only blinked. Whatever circuit briefly sparked a reconnection in his brain had flamed out. He went back to shuffling the music books.
Dad loved long walks, and despite the extra locks we put on the doors, his wandering became a chronic worry. For Dad, the local landscape was deeply ingrained. Like his piano playing, once he started on a familiar route, he rarely got lost. It helped if he had the dog on a leash: Sambo knew the way home. But despite Mum’s vigilance, Dad began to elude her. Often he managed to take a train—we have no idea how— and find his way to my house in Toronto. This became an untenable situation for me because I ran a publishing business from home. Dad would show up in the middle of a deadline and I’d be forced to cancel meetings, drop everything, and drive him back home—a two-hour round trip. This was when we hired Pelmo to help with Dad during the day; she and her husband, Tashi, moved into the back of the house and Tashi commuted to his day job from there.
Occasionally, Dad got angry and lashed out, but we learned to exploit his long-term memory, resurrecting his navy days during the war when discipline was key. Any time he’d try to raise his arm in anger, we’d say, “Sir! Do you have written permission from headquarters to do this?”
“No, sir!” he’d say.
“Then lower your arm, sir, if you don’t have permission!” And like a dutiful officer he’d obey.
As we passed the twelve-year mark, Dad became more and more depressed. With arthritic hips he could no longer take his lengthy walks, and without his fitness regime his spirits sagged: he described seeing heavy storm clouds where there were none. Even on sunny days the fog of what we now know to be Alzheimer’s came rolling in relentlessly. Sometimes, Dad thought he saw crowds of people whispering in the bushes. “Who are they?” he’d ask.
It was clear that Mum was at her wits’ end. Frankly, I don’t know how she stood it for so long. I reported to the boys that at a recent church rummage sale Dad had plunked himself down in an antique rocker and gone to sleep. Mum couldn’t rouse him, so in the end she just bought the chair for five dollars and left him there.
Unable to engage Dad in the arguments and lively political discussions that had been a staple of their marriage, Mum was now living with his repetitive, wistful bleats to go somewhere warm. Every day, Dad kept asking, “Bluebells, where are the bluebells?”—remembering, I suppose, the spring flowering of his English youth. We investigated respite facilities to give Mum a break
, but they were expensive, so at one of our Sibling Suppers we cooked up a more creative plan. Instead of the $1200 per week the respite facility was charging for a locked ward, we could send Dad on a week-long Caribbean cruise— flight to Miami included! We reasoned that, on a ship, Dad could wander in a circle all day and never get completely lost. Of course, one of us would need to accompany him, so we drew straws: Victor got the short one.
I went shopping and bought Dad new clothes for the trip—a new swimsuit, two new shirts, a lightweight navy blazer, and pale linen trousers. We packed his silk cravats and gold cufflinks, and one of his long, cotton sarongs that he’d worn to bed every night since his days in the Orient. I wanted to pack his traditional English straw boater, but Victor nixed that idea and packed a cotton baseball cap—something Dad would have never knowingly put on his head.
Midway through the cruise, Victor called Mum from a payphone in the Virgin Islands.
“How’s your father?” she asked anxiously.
“I’ll let him tell you himself,” Victor said. “He’s right here.” Dad got on the phone. Mum asked if he was having a good time.
“Oh, indeed!” he said happily. “We’ve seen Hong Kong, Singapore, and all of South America. Right now we’re flying over Brazil … we should be landing in London any minute!”
When he got back, Dad’s eyes were dancing. “I guess you heard about the trip I had to Europe?”
“Yes!” I said. “Did you have a good time?”
“Marvellous! We saw all of Austria … went right the way round the Mediterranean … then shot through Gibraltar … and arrived back in Florida!”
“Really?”
“Oh yes!” He paused. “Of course, I was left alone for a bit in Israel.”
“You were?”
“It seems your brother wanted to see Greece … but we managed to find each other again, so it worked out just fine.”
The following week, we held a Sibling Supper at a large Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town. We’d booked a quiet private table in the corner, but by the time Victor finished regaling us with stories about his trip we’d become so raucous that the maître d’ had moved the four of us outside to a table in the courtyard. I asked Victor how he dealt with Dad in the cabin at night, to stop his wandering.