MORNING SERIAL

AND Nain’d just say, ‘He can’t remember, love’, in this hard voice, not looking at him, still stitching the flowers on her bit of cloth. I started to hate him more than I hated Nain.” That burning smell again, bitter and so strong I can’t breathe. There’s a silence. “What’s wrong with him?” “He was sick.” “What d’you mean?” “He was mentally sick.” Men-tal-ly. “In the head?” “Yes.” “Crazy?” “No,” she says, and then she looks at me and says, “Yes.”

Crazy is when you’re dreaming even when you’re awake. Crazy is when you can’t keep things in order, can’t hold days and nights apart. I consider it. Dad. I look outside at the wiry, stooping shapes in the garden. They were always just keeping us company, but now, looking at them, they look frightening, like zombies. Crazy. I think of the chicken meat he’d packaged up at the factory, all sucked of air. Crazy. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Efa sighs. “I don’t really know,” she says. “I didn’t want you to ever sit by that bed, with Nain and those flowers, and with him looking at you as if, perhaps, he’d seen you before.”

I don’t understand her. I don’t understand all of this story. Why not tell me? Why not? I needed him. I feel it, the big heavy thing around my ribs. Grief Nain called it. Grief. Grief is being so angry. So angry. Dad is alive, and sick and I need him. Dad was alive all this time and they knew where he was. They told me lies. They told me lies. Hot salty tears down my cheeks. Raggy, sore breathing. My shoulders are shaking. I’m shaking. Efa’s hug is like a mother. Warm. The burning turns to her Patchuli scent. “Where is he now?” I ask Efa. “He lives just outside Liverpool,” she says, “In a hostel. We can write to him. Maybe go to see him if you like?”

I stare at her. Efa. My sister, my mother, my dad, my everything. Then I look out at the shapes in the garden. The unforgettable wooden men who even the wind and rain haven’t washed away, standing still in the garden, warped and stooping, cruel.