Forgetting Foster Read online

  ‘When who gets here?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Mum said.

  ‘Why do I have to go to my room?’

  ‘The social workers are coming, Malcolm, remember?’ Aunty asked.

  ‘I don’t want anyone in the house today,’ Dad said. He looked sullen and annoyed. ‘Why wasn’t I told about this?’

  ‘You were told,’ Aunty said. ‘They won’t stay long.’

  Mum arranged the sausage rolls on the plate, flakes of buttery pastry sticking to her fingers, delicious-smelling slivers crumbling onto the table. She was muttering, like she did a lot lately, but Foster still heard it, ‘. . . asked you to bring cake . . .’

  Foster was picking up pastry crumbs with a wet finger when there was another knock at the door.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Aunty said.

  ‘No, I’ll get it,’ Mum said. ‘Fossie, go to your room.’

  ‘Why do I have to go to my room?’ Foster demanded, somewhat soothed by the fact that Aunty was shoving three sausage rolls wrapped in a paper towel into his hands.

  ‘Foster, I have no idea,’ Aunty said. ‘But just do it. Make Mum happy, huh?’

  ‘I’m going with him,’ Dad said, reaching over and grabbing sausage rolls with both hands.

  ‘Actually, I think it’ll make her happy if you stay,’ Aunty said. They could hear fast, quiet voices in the lounge. Foster took his bounty and headed down the hall. Halfway to his room he stopped. Without thinking too much about it he walked back and stood just out of view in the foyer. With his hands full he used his mouth to manipulate one end of a sausage roll into it. Chewing slowly he peeked into the lounge room.

  There were two of them. A man and a woman. The woman was very thin and wore a skirt that stretched tight as a drum across her thighs, so tight he doubted she could have crossed her knees. She had her ankles crossed instead. She was running her palms across her lap, smoothing the skirt. The man was fat. He was fat all over in the way Foster imagined jolly people would be fat. He wore a suit and tie. The suit jacket had no chance of ever being buttoned and Foster could tell the tie was too short. Dad would never wear a tie that short. The man seemed to have bosoms as well. Foster stifled a giggle with a swallow.

  They were soon joined by Aunty and Dad. Then Mum walked in, placing cups of tea and coffee on the little table usually covered with dirty dishes and magazines, now polished to a high shine. She had to make several trips to bring in all the drinks, then the sausage rolls. She put the sausage rolls down as if she were sorry about them. Foster heard her suck her tongue into a tsk.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Mum said. ‘This is my husband, Malcolm. My sister-in-law, Linda.’

  ‘Linda,’ Fat Man said, leaning forward to shake Aunty’s hand. ‘Malcolm,’ he said, leaning forward to shake Dad’s. Fat Man’s hand was left hanging awkwardly in midair before it was retracted. That’s when Foster saw Dad still had two fists full of sausage rolls. Mum reached across to take them, but Dad pulled his hands away roughly and said, ‘Get your own! Plateful there!’

  Mum sat again, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘Don’t blame you, Malcolm,’ Fat Man said. ‘I love sausage rolls.’ With that he picked one up and took a hearty bite.

  Thin Lady said, ‘We understand you have a seven-year-old son? It would probably be useful if he sat in on this. Get some understanding of where things are going?’

  Foster didn’t want to give Mum the opportunity to make excuses for him not being there, so he stepped out of hiding straight away and said, ‘Okay.’

  Mum looked uncomfortable again, as if she was about to take a test.

  Dad smiled his happiest smile though and said, ‘Hiya, Fossie!’

  candour and contradiction

  They stayed for an hour. Foster watched the clock hands crawl around the face wishing he had gone to his room and refused to come out. His boredom for the duration of that crawling hour trumped all his previous annoyance at being left out. Dad was bored too. Foster could tell, because he got up several times without excusing himself and wandered off. Even Foster knew not to do that. Aunty would go after him and bring him back, and even though Thin Lady said it was quite all right if Malcolm wanted to go and do something else, Mum got a bit tetchy about that suggestion so the regular Dad-retrievals were put up with for her comfort. Foster thought they should just let him go take some doors off or something.

  They talked a lot about Mum getting enough help and enough rest and about setting things in place now for when things began to deteriorate even more. Aunty asked about residential care, which elicited a surprisingly fervent ‘No, no, no, no’ from Mum, along with a hurried but firm explanation that that sort of thing was surely a long way off. Aunty took pamphlets anyway. Foster whiled away some of the time flicking through them, looking at pictures of well-dressed, happy old people doing craft and playing board games. It occurred to Foster that there were no people in the pictures like Dad. No one wearing a suit.

  Soon the sausage rolls were gone. Foster and Dad kept shoving them down. Foster waited for a cross word from Mum about ruined appetites, and was surprised by the fact that she didn’t seem to care. She was all high-strung, as Aunty called it, because everyone was finding talking directly to Dad hard work. When they did ask him a question he’d answer the one that was in his head, rather than the one that was in the room. So Mum did a lot of answering for him, which Foster thought was a bit rude. She wasn’t giving Dad enough time to think and she was making him look stupid. The only time Foster was really interested in what was going on was when Fat Man asked him a question. Foster was really cross when Mum started to answer for him as well.

  ‘Foster is doing just fine. He’s been very good, very understanding and—’

  Foster flicked all the pastry crumbs sticking to his clothes onto the floor and said, ‘You said I was making things more difficult.’

  ‘Oh, Fossie, I did not,’ Mum said with an embarrassed smile.

  ‘Yes, you did. Remember? You said Aunty was too. Didn’t she, Aunty?’ Foster waited for Aunty to come to his support.

  Aunty hesitated before saying, ‘Well, not exactly. That’s a bit out of context.’

  Foster didn’t know what context was but he continued anyway, speaking right at Fat Man, who had asked the question after all. Mum didn’t know how Foster was doing anyway. It’s not like she asked him.

  ‘I miss Dad’s stories. Mum is cross a lot. She never cooks really good stuff anymore. She works a lot. And I have to watch Dad when he used to watch me.’

  Foster felt a bit breathless when he finished speaking. Mum looked devastated.

  ‘That’s in context!’ Aunty said, laughing.

  ‘That can’t feel very good, Foster,’ Fat Man said.

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Do you want to talk more about that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because we can talk about that if it’s bothering you.’

  ‘Not bothered.’

  ‘Well, let’s look at it this way. What’s one of your favourite things that Mummy used to cook?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Sure you do! What’s your favourite thing to eat for dinner?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud!’ Mum said, suddenly standing up. The whole room snapped to attention. Foster had been enjoying the chat with Fat Man, had been planning on dragging it out a bit longer. He felt very visible in the spaces between each of the questions Fat Man asked. Every eye in the room had been on him, and not in the sideways way people usually looked at him lately. That sideways look that was really just a way of estimating his distance from a grownup conversation so the volume could be adjusted to exclude him. But Mum had all the attention now, and for someone who had just stood up and yelled into a quiet room she was looking as if she didn’t want it anymore.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, Malcolm. I’m just goi
ng to take these cups out.’ She quickly placed the empty cups on the platter. One fell over.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ Aunty said, leaning forward to stand the cup up.

  ‘I don’t need any help.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Foster, perhaps you could go and have a play now,’ Thin Lady said. ‘Let the grown-ups talk for a bit?’

  ‘I’m going with him,’ Dad said. ‘Who are you people, anyway? When are you leaving? I don’t want you here.’

  ‘The kitchen’s that way,’ Aunty said, pointing. Mum was still standing in the middle of the room, platter in her hands.

  They all started moving then. All at the same time. Mum to the kitchen, Aunty right behind her, Dad down the hall, Foster right behind him. In a matter of seconds Fat Man and Thin Lady were left alone in the room, everyone else having scattered as if on the tailwind of a fart. Dad used to say that whenever a room cleared quickly. Foster thought it was funny.

  ‘Are we on the tailwind of a fart, Dad?’ Foster asked, taking his dad’s hand.

  ‘I did fart,’ Dad said. Foster laughed until his tummy hurt.

  signs sans wonders

  The signs went up the following day. Mum printed them on the computer in big bold lettering and all in capitals too. They said things like LAUNDRY and KITCHEN and BEDROOM and there wasn’t just one of each. One went on the door of the room and one went on the wall of the room in case Dad went in there and then forgot which room he was actually in. In the kitchen there were lots of signs. CUPS and SPOONS and PLATES and on the fridge door a sign that said MILK, BREAD, BUTTER. Mum suggested Foster do drawings on the signs. Pictures of what the signs meant, or just nice coloured borders to make them more interesting. Foster was thrilled to be included and was hunkered down at the kitchen table doing just that when Dad joined him. Foster spread the pencils out so Dad could reach them. Dad didn’t say anything, just picked up a pencil and began writing numbers all over the sign that read TOILET.

  ‘What are you doing, Dad?’ Foster asked without looking up.

  ‘Making money for other people,’ Dad replied.

  Aunty had been suggesting signs around the house for a while but Mum didn’t do it until the respite lady suggested it. Aunty was mad about that and told the respite lady that Mum was pig-headed. Foster wasn’t supposed to hear that and Mum didn’t hear that. She was at work. Respite Lady told Aunty, ‘We are all on the same side here.’ Aunty told Respite Lady she had a dog who was easier to communicate with.

  Respite Lady’s name was Sophie. There were a few different ones but Sophie came the most. There was only one respite man and Dad didn’t like him. Dad thought he was Mum’s new boyfriend.

  Foster asked Sophie what respite was. She said it meant giving Mum a break so she could go out shopping or see a movie. Foster waited and waited for Mum to take him to a movie. She didn’t. Foster felt like she was respiting from him as well. He didn’t know where she went when she had her respite time, but she was always dressed up and always seemed to come back even more tired. He assumed she was still working on her just until things.

  ‘Let me come to the accountant with you,’ Aunty said one day. ‘Let me help you get the paperwork together. What else do they need to get this thing moving?’

  ‘It’s our private financial business,’ Mum had replied.

  ‘Then talk to Sophie! Talk to anyone! Get some independent counselling on this compassionate grounds super release thing!’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘You are getting completely lost, you know that?’ Aunty said. ‘You are so desperate to be in control of everything you’re just white-knuckling with no direction at all. Being a guilt-ridden martyr doesn’t make you noble. Sure as hell won’t save Malcolm, either.’

  Mum always drank wine after Aunty had visited.

  Foster knew what a martyr was from Dad’s stories. It was someone who would rather die than give up what they believed in. In ancient times people did it a lot. Foster didn’t know whether to be fiercely proud of Mum’s allegiance to Dad or terrified that it would kill her. He wasn’t afraid of her getting lost though. She’d been lost before and clawed her way back. Foster was hoping she’d drag Dad back with her this time. Foster assumed the signs around the house were a part of that.

  Dad had been getting confused in the house quite a bit. He knew he was home but kept asking why things had been moved or changed. He became convinced that his favourite chair had been sold and replaced with another. He was sure the carpeting in the hall had been ripped up and replaced and demanded to know where Mum had found the money to do that. He could go hours and hours without speaking a word and then become really angry that all the clothes in his wardrobe had been replaced with someone else’s. Foster didn’t like this angry Dad, and Mum just seemed to make things worse. When she called him irrational Dad would slam doors and try to get away from her.

  Sophie told Mum that Dad was not being irrational, that his delusions were as real to him as they were unreal to her. She suggested distracting Dad rather than arguing with him.

  ‘Can we tell him his old chair is out for cleaning and will be back tomorrow?’ Aunty asked. ‘He’ll have forgotten about it by tomorrow, and if he hasn’t then we can just tell him the same thing again.’

  ‘I will not become a part of his delusion,’ Mum said.

  ‘You already are,’ Aunty said. ‘He thinks you’re sleeping with that bloke who comes in on Tuesdays.’ Then Sophie told Mum to pick her battles, which Foster knew would really set Mum off.

  Sophie also suggested a name tag, something that could be worn by Dad on the off-chance that he wandered away while they were out or left the house without their knowledge. Mum did her ‘No, no, no, no’ thing again, assuring Sophie that the need for a name tag was a long way off. Aunty got mad again because she’d been suggesting that for a while herself. Mum suggested a card placed discreetly in his wallet until Sophie pointed out that a stranger would be reluctant about going through Dad’s wallet, especially if Dad was already in a distressed state. Something more immediately and visually apparent would assist in the police being called promptly. So Sophie suggested a nice piece of jewellery, a bracelet or pendant, with Dad’s name and a couple of phone numbers on it.

  ‘Malcolm doesn’t wear jewellery,’ Mum said.

  ‘Teachers at school wear a plastic thing around their necks when we go on excursions,’ Foster said.

  ‘I’m with Fossie on the lanyard,’ Aunty said.

  ‘Fossie, this is nothing for you to worry about,’ Mum said.

  ‘I think he is worried,’ Sophie said. ‘I think he should be encouraged to contribute and to understand what’s happening.’

  ‘I don’t think a child should have to deal with adult issues,’ Mum replied.

  ‘I think you might be forgetting that he is already dealing with it,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Mum replied.

  ‘But you did!’ Foster yelled. He’d had a yell in him for a while, just sitting there festering, a yell he’d done in his head, a yell his peg-basket captives had done for him, a big yell about missed lunches and silent dinners and all the crossness that hid under even the nice things that were said around here lately. ‘You forgot everything! Dad told me. But you got everything back after you were cleaned up! And now Dad’s been cleaned up too and you’re just mean about it and everyone’s always mad! And if he runs away again I’m going with him and we won’t wear lemon yards!’

  ‘Lemon . . . yards,’ Aunty said slowly.

  ‘Lanyards?’ Sophie offered.

  Foster ran out of the kitchen and down the hall to his room, trying to make his feet really loud. He heard Mum call after him, pleadingly. He heard her sorry-voice following him. He didn’t care. He stood on the threshold of his bedroom and yelled, ‘Pick your battles!’

  Then he slammed the door.

  dog collars
and day care

  Foster hadn’t felt really scared until Dad forgot Geraldine. It wasn’t that Dad sometimes forgot her and then reconnected when she shoved a wet snout into the palm of his hand. Dad just suddenly stopped recognising her altogether and started shoving her out onto the street as if she were a stray who had somehow managed to get into their back garden. Geraldine started hiding right down the back by the jacaranda tree as if she somehow knew that Dad wouldn’t venture that far. But there was always that random moment when sunning herself on the bricks by the back door that would be interrupted by Dad’s furious conviction that she did not belong to them. If Dad could completely forget the years of burying his face into her prickly muzzle and holding her like a baby on his lap, how long would it be before Dad tried shoving Foster out through the side gate? Geraldine had been around longer than Foster too.

  Mum put a padlock on the side gate but that just meant Dad started dragging Geraldine by the scruff through the house and pushing her out the front door.

  ‘No, Dad!’ Foster would say.

  ‘Stay back, Fossie. We don’t know if it’s trained to attack or not.’

  The problem was made worse by the fact that they could never keep a collar on Geraldine. Twice she’d been picked up by the dog pound man. Mum was dumbfounded by how Dad managed to get Geraldine out of the house so often without her knowledge. A neighbour would bring her back, or once the ranger brought her back, and neither Mum nor Foster had even realised she was gone.

  Mum tried showing Dad photographs of Geraldine, photographs of Dad with Geraldine. Dad enjoyed that and talked affectionately about her. But when confronted by the living beast Dad could not connect the dots. She was no longer his Geraldine.

  Sophie suggested trying to introduce Geraldine as a new dog, a devoted companion for Dad. The problem was by the time they had decided to try this plan Geraldine had acquired some new behaviours of her own. She would see Dad and run for it. She even stopped coming inside the house when invited by Mum, something she ordinarily loved to do, clearly associating it with being dragged across the floor, legs akimbo, and unceremoniously booted onto the street. Geraldine got wise and Mum got desperate.