Fridays, Marsh Lane

Every Friday I take my dad to the chippy on Marsh Lane. Same one. He doesn't always know it's Friday. He always knows it's the chippy. He's seventy-nine. The diagnosis was three years ago. It goes the way it goes. Some days he calls me by my brother's name and some days he calls me by his own brother's name, who's been dead since 1994, and I answer to all of them now, it's easier. But the chippy. The chippy's solid. We go at five, before it's busy. Same table by the window. He orders the same thing, cod and chips, mushy peas, and he orders it himself, which matters. Sandra behind the counter knows. She waits. She doesn't finish his sentence for him. She's been there twenty years and I've never told her about the diagnosis and I've never had to. "Cod and chips, love?" "Cod and chips. And the peas." "Mushy?" "Mushy." Pause. Then, every week, the same joke. "Is there another kind?" Sandra laughs every week like it's the first time. I could kiss her for that. He eats slowly now. Used to be a fast eater, my dad, shovelled it in, my mum used to go on at him. Now it's slow and careful and he salts it twice because he forgets he's done it once, and I've stopped saying anything, because what's it matter, he's seventy-nine. Some weeks he's there. Really there. He'll ask about the kids and get their names right and tell me something about the cricket that's actually true. Those weeks I go home and sit in the car for a bit before I go in. Some weeks he's not. He'll eat and look out the window and I'll talk and he'll nod. Those weeks I go home and sit in the car for a bit too. Last Friday, halfway through, he put his fork down and looked at me and said, "We used to come here." "We still do, Dad." "No. Before. With your mum. Friday nights." We did. I'd forgotten. Not forgotten, but I hadn't thought about it: the three of us, this same shop, different owner, me about nine, him in his work jacket. I don't know how he got there. I don't know what's going on in there that let that through and not my name. But it came through. "Yeah," I said. "We did." "She had the fishcake." "She did." He picked the fork back up. Salted his chips. Third time. Next Friday, five o'clock. I've already told Sandra. She said, "I know, love. Where else would you be."