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“Not long now, Dad,” she said in a pseudo-cheerful voice that people seemed to reserve for hospitals and small children. Her father did not so much as grunt a reply. Rachel leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed, one foot jiggling. She knew they wouldn’t get a diagnosis today; at best, there would most likely be a referral for a neurologist, and then that appointment might not be for months. If that was the case, what would she do? Come back to make sure her father attended it? Stay away the way Harriet seemed to want her to?
As much as Rachel dreaded coming up here, the thought of just leaving her dad to get on with the business of having Alzheimer’s seemed callously cruel, and wasn’t something she was willing to do. Her father might not have been all that much of a hands-on dad, but he’d visited his mother in her nursing home every week, as far as Rachel could remember, bringing her and Harriet to every other visit. Strange, she hadn’t really thought about that, about what it meant, before. She just remembered the boring Sunday afternoons, her scratchy dress, the nursing home’s smell of medicine and old age that she hadn’t liked.
If her father could do that for his mother, she could certainly do it for her dad. But maybe it wouldn’t come to that…
“Peter Mowbray?”
The nurse’s kindly voice had Rachel looking up and her father stiffening, his wide-eyed gaze trained on the nurse.
“Come on, Dad,” Rachel said gently; seeing the frozen look of fear on her father’s face had made a sudden, surprising tenderness rush through her. Then his expression returned to its usual implacable lines, and he shook off the hand she’d put on his arm to walk slowly towards the nurse by himself, in his stiff-legged, old man’s gait.
The so-called ‘memory clinic’ was actually an appointment with a specialist, a chirpy young woman with curly blonde hair and a wide, ready smile. She had a set of items on her desk that looked like they belonged in a preschool—some building blocks, a clock face with large plastic hands, the kind of thick pencil used in younger years classes, and some wide-lined paper.
Her father looked down at this assortment of objects, his mouth twisted in something like a sneer.
“I won’t be needing all that,” he said, with a nod to it, his tone dismissive, final.
“Oh, but I will,” the doctor replied in a voice that was gratingly cheerful, like she was a teacher, and her dad was a toddler. “My name’s Rebecca. Do you know why you’re here today, Mr Mowbray?”
Her father looked at this young woman—all of maybe twenty-five—with obvious disdain and Rachel tensed. This was so not going to go well.
“I’m here because my daughter thought I needed to be,” he replied, “but I bloody well don’t.”
Rebecca, to her credit, was unfazed. “Well, since you’re here,” she replied, her cheerful tone dimming not one iota, “shall we get on with it? You strike me as a man who doesn’t like to waste time.”
To Rachel’s relief the corner of her father’s mouth twitched in what could almost,almostbe called a smile. A very tiny one. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, after all, she thought. She could have given the consultant more credit. “You’re right about that.”
“Good. Then shall we get started?” She put the clock face in front of him. “Could you please move the hands to a quarter to five?”
Her dad stared at the doctor in disbelief. “Are you bloody joking?”
“I’m not,” she replied sweetly, “but as you don’t like to waste time, I’m sure we can get this over with really quickly.”
His mouth compressed, looking furious, her father pushed the hands one way and another. Rachel leaned forward in her seat, craning her neck as subtly as she could, to see if her father had got it right.
He had.
She released her breath as slowly as she could, a quiet exhalation of relief. That had to be a good sign.
The doctor looked neither impressed nor alarmed as she continued to go through her set of questions. Did he know the date? Could he say it? Who was the current reigning monarch? Could he stack these blocks on top of each other? Could he count back from one hundred by sevens?
Her father did all these, at first with an air of annoyance, and then with one of triumph. He was getting everything right, Rachel thought dazedly, with no problems at all. She felt another rush of relief, even stronger this time, making her weak, almost dizzy. She realised she really hadn’t expected this.
“Now, one of the last things,” Rebecca said with her unflaggingly bright smile. “Can you name all these objects?” She picked up a pen, brandishing it in front of him.
“A pen,” her dad bit out.
Next a stapler, then a book, then a computer mouse. Her father named them all, tersely, becoming annoyed again, probably thinking she was taking the mick.
“And this?” she asked, holding up a set of keys.
“A—” Her father frowned. Stopped. Stared at them. Rachel felt as if her heart were suspended in her chest, frozen yet beating.Keys, Dad.She willed him to hear her, some kind of father-daughter telepathy—as if—but her father remained silent, staring at the keychain, his forehead crinkled, his eyes narrowed in perplexity, his expression turning mutinous, then thunderous.
“A thing to unlock a door,” he finally burst out, as if he were out of breath.
Rebecca’s smile didn’t slip a notch as she put the keys back on the table. “Very good. Now, just a few more questions,” she continued, making a note on the form she kept angled away from any prying eyes. “You said you had headaches?”
“Yes.”
