“Oh no, Celia, I am sorry to hear that, hopefully the vet will...”

She’s off again. I grip the phone harder, dig it into my ear. “Listen, Celia, sorry to interrupt, but I need your help. It’s urgent.” I’m not quite shouting, but the silence that follows has a sort of stunned quality. I rush into it.

“It’s just...well, I’m filling out paperwork for Dad and I need his passport. And, eh, mine too. No, no, nothing serious, it’s just...just some paperwork, they’re always looking for something or other, these nursing homes. You’ll find them in the middle drawer of the sideboard in the dining room. Could you... Oh that’s great. Thank you. No no, there’s no need for you to bring them to the nursing home. But you’re so kind to... I’ll... I’ve ordered a taxi to collect the passports. Yes. Yes, that’s what I’ve done, I’ll... Sorry, Celia the line is bad, I’d better go, yes, bye, bye, bye, thanks, bye, bye, thanks, bye.”

I hang up. If I stop and think about what I’m doing, I won’t do it, so I don’t stop. I don’t think. I ring a taxi company in Sutton, tell the man who answers what I need. This is not the type of service they usually provide, the man tells me. I say I wouldn’t normally ask, but this is urgent. I assure him of my ability to pay. I do my best to seem like a person who doesn’t take no for an answer. I bombard him with details. Celia’s address, my mobile number, my bank card details. “How soon can one of your drivers be here?”

4

Bumps on the road.

There are speed bumps up the ramp to the ferry.

“Oh dear,” Dad says, when I drive over one. He is a bag of bones, rattling with each jolt.

“Sorry, Dad, it’s the speed ramps,” I say.

“Where there are speed ramps, road users should take extra care and expect the unexpected,” says Dad. I put my hand on his shoulder and he smiles. I need to find his dentures when I park. I need to find Iris. My stomach muscles clench. My stomach is always the first thing to let me down. The doctor says this is where my stress lives. In my stomach.

“Will you sing me a song, Dad?”

“I used to squawk out a few numbers all right. Back in Harold’s Cross, remember?”

Harold’s Cross is where my father grew up. He lived in Baldoyle with my mother for nearly forty years and he never mentions it. But he can tell you the names of the flowers his mother grew in the long, narrow garden at the back of the house in Harold’s Cross.

“Sing ‘Summer Wind’. I love that one.” I love them all really. Dad starts to sing.

“The summer wind, came blowin’ in from across the sea

It lingered there to touch your hair and walk with me...”

He remembers all the words, and even though his voice no longer has the power and flourish of before, if I close my eyes and forget everything I know and just listen, I can hear him. The “before” version of him.