Pop was still a healthy man, and whatever was going on upstairs, it was still early days. ‘I don’t even reckon they’re right,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Alzheimer’s. He’s got a good memory, mostly. Except when he goes out with his jarmies on.’

‘Well, you can take yer boiled cabbage and yer pissy carpet and shove it up yer arse,’ Vicky said.

‘Excuse me, Mr Currie.’

‘Can we have prostitutes?’

‘What about me?’

‘No, decent ones. You haggard old sea dog.’

‘I go like an outboard motor.’

We laughed, rolled again, and Pop called over, ‘What’s wrong with you two?’

‘Nothing,’ I sang, sweetly.

My opinion, apparently. That’s all I’d been brought for. But maybe, he guessed, there was a good chance I’d tell Mum something he’d sworn me not to.

‘He needs to learn to listen,’ Vicky said.

‘I reckon he’s made his mind up. Mr Currie, we have a Greek fella who sings, but your grandson says you enjoy a bita that.’

‘Greek?’

‘Singing.’

She grinned at me. ‘You’re obsessed with it?’

‘What?’

‘Sex?’

‘What’d I say?’

And continued grinning. I wondered, if we hadn’t been sitting on St Margaret’s lawns …

‘Carn,’ Pop said, motioning.

We followed them inside. Fiona stopped in front of a door and said, ‘This is our wanderers’ ward.’

A nurse exited after entering a code. Fiona said, ‘You just put in one, two, three, four, but they can’t work that out.’

They, I thought. People like Pop. Inside, a few old girls in dressing-gowns wandered, stopped, talked to themselves, blew on their hands.

‘Bit depressing,’ Vicky said.

Fiona smiled. ‘It’s how you look at it.’

‘Depressing.’

Pop was watching some old man rocking to and fro. ‘Better here than Woolies, or the main road.’

Better the main road, I thought.

We continued. The Palmer wing. Double rooms, but bed-bound. Two old fellas watching car racing. One said, ‘Holdens this year,’ and the other replied, ‘Fords.’

Fiona’s pager went off, and she found a phone. I took the opportunity to say to Pop, ‘This place is horrible. What d’you reckon, Vick?’

‘You’re not seriously thinking about it, are you, Doug?’

‘My age …’

But Fiona was back.

The first man said, ‘Holdens this year,’ and his mate replied, ‘Fords,’ and I said, ‘They seem to have made their minds up,’ but Fiona just looked at me like, I reckon you’re a bit of a smart-arse.

As the girls walked ahead, I said to Pop, ‘Me and Jen and Mum’ll look after you.’

‘I know you will.’

‘Is it cosa what Mum said?’

‘Na.’

We both knew; when we’d returned from the desert. Mum, on the porch, ‘Bloody ridiculous, a man your age. If you can’t be trusted we’ll have to find somewhere to look after you.’

‘I know why,’ I said to Pop. ‘Cos Mum reckons she’ll sell the house.’

‘Bullshit.’