The way home

When I arrive, Ken is more agitated than usual. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed and tapping his foot. He needs help with something. It’s urgent, he says. It can’t wait. So I try to calm him down. Pull up a chair and sit beside his bed. I ask Ken what’s worrying him.

Ken fiddles with his glasses. Tugs at the frayed hem of his jumper. He fixes me with an unfuckaroundable stare and says, ‘Who invented the corridor?’.

‘Sorry?’

‘The corridor. The hallway. Who invented it?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone did.’

‘Someone had to. I think his name was John.’

‘Okay.’

‘So look it up,’ Ken says. ‘Use your device.’

I do as I’m told. Pull out my phone and report my findings. ‘The inventor of the corridor was John Thorpe,’ I say. ‘In 1597, apparently.’

‘Of course it was.’ Ken picks up his favourite book, the one containing paintings from the Louvre. He opens it to a 16th-century painting of a palace interior. ‘Look,’ he says, stabbing the page with his finger. ‘Each room opens into the next. No corridors.’

I want to ask Ken why he can remember John Thorpe’s name but not mine. Every week, the same conversation: it’s Patrick, right? Yes, I say. And your name is Ken.

Ken doesn’t know why he is here. I tell him it’s not safe for him to live alone, he tells me he’s lived alone all his life, and then he asks me, again, what’s wrong with him.

‘Dementia,’ I say. ‘You have dementia.’

‘Oh.’

I began volunteering at this aged care facility six months ago. I had imagined myself sharing stories and scones with adorable women named Betsy or Pearl but found myself paired with Ken instead.

On my first visit, Ken informed me he wouldn’t be around much longer. He would either escape or starve himself to death. The former would be preferable, he conceded, as he’d tried to starve himself before and it hadn’t gone well.

‘It’s really quite difficult,’ he said. ‘Do you know how hard it is?’

‘I can’t imagine it’s easy.’

There are more efficient ways to end one’s life, Ken reckons, but he said he likes the staff and would hate to make a mess or upset them. I told him he was being very considerate. He appreciated me saying so. And just like that, we became friends.

I’m now helping Ken plan his escape from the facility. The manager confirmed she is happy for me to be involved in the planning stage, but she has prohibited me from assisting in the act itself. This, I repeatedly explain to Ken, would be illegal.

‘Bollocks.’

Ken is distracted by a knock on the door. A nurse pokes his head in and asks if everything is okay. Both Ken and I nod.

‘He’s checking I’m not dead,’ Ken says, once the nurse departs.

‘I’m sure he’s not.’

‘We’ll need to know how often they do their rounds. Record the time and all that.’

‘Like in prison?’ I ask.

‘Exactly,’ Ken says. ‘This place is prison. Remind me, now. How far is home?’

‘This is your home, Ken.’

‘It’s bloody well not. My real home – how far?’

‘It’s a long way.’

‘I think I’ll have to walk.’

‘It’s a long walk.’

Ken ignores me. Takes an envelope from his bedside table, draws a square and writes: here. ‘If this is us,’ he says, ‘where’s home?’ I point to the far end of the envelope. He draws another square and writes: home.

‘So what’s the plan, Ken?’

He confirms he’ll have to walk, given he has no money. I’ve seen him shuffle to the bathroom and though he does, on occasion, demonstrate his ability to perform high kicks with the support of a door handle, I’m unconvinced he’ll manage a 17-kilometre trek home.

‘Then I’ll break it up over multiple days,’ Ken says.

‘And where will you stay?’

‘I’ll sleep in a field.’

I remind Ken that this is metropolitan Melbourne. There haven’t been fields here since the mid-20th century.

‘What about parks?’

‘There’s a park across the road,’ I say. ‘A massive one. Remember?’ Ken flinches. I’m not supposed to ask if he remembers something. ‘Sorry. We saw it from the rooftop the other week. When we were looking at the planes?’

‘That’s right. What’s the airport called?’

‘Moorabbin.’

Ken points to his envelope. ‘And where is Moorabbin Airport?’

‘Off the map. You won’t go as far as Moorabbin.’

‘That’s good.’

Ken sips his instant coffee. Grimaces and asks me for track notes. He wants to know the lay of the land; distance, elevation, points of interest and hazards.

I try to redirect his focus by telling him about my great aunt, Olive, who led a rebellion at her own aged care facility. She broke out a rabble of residents and guided them through the bleak Irish winter with no concern for consequence. It was an expedition of Shackletonian proportions; zimmer frames zipping across black ice, hips adrift from sockets. I’m told they would’ve devoured the weakest had his body offered more than skin and bone.

‘Where did she take them?’ asks Ken.

‘KFC.’

‘Oh.’

Ken considers my story. For a moment, it appears my redirection has been successful. But he’s soon back to planning. He tells me he’ll need food for the journey. Perhaps I could smuggle in KFC?

‘I thought you were starving yourself.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

I spot a discarded book beneath Ken’s bed. I bought it for him as a Christmas gift. The book is about Belfast; about the Troubles, specifically. We’d spoken about Northern Ireland, where my family is from, in the lead up to Christmas because Ken was born on an airforce base in Scotland. His father helped build the bombers that took down Dresden.

After the war, Ken’s family moved to Australia. He keeps a photo of his parents in his room. The only other photo is of Ken when he was eight, dressed in his Sunday best. He once told me it’s the only photo of himself he likes. He threw the rest away. He also told me about this thing his parents did when he was a kid. He said they would wake up, look at each other and feign surprise, as if waking up was unexpected.

They’d say to Ken: oh wow, we’ve got another day.

They’d ask him: what should we do with it?

I push Ken to tell me more about his life. I know he returned to Scotland as an adult and drove a car from Edinburgh to Inverness. I know he’s been to the Louvre, too. But the stories would bore me, he says. They wouldn’t interest a young person like me.

‘Why would I be here if I wasn’t interested?’

‘Court?’

‘I’m a volunteer, Ken. No court order.’

‘If you really wanted to help, you’d get me out of here.’

I give up. Today he seems adamant on planning his escape and I know better than to argue with him. I pick up the envelope and study the beginnings of his map.

‘We’ve got here and home,’ I say. ‘What else do you want to know?’

‘The park. Tell me about the park.’

And so I do.

I tell Ken about the football fields. The golf club and driving range. About the large lake in the middle and how, come late afternoon, school students row from one side to the other and back again. From the southern end of the lake, you can watch as the setting sun coats the city skyline with a tangerine ooze. Like marmalade scraped across gleaming glass.

‘What about trees?’ asks Ken.

‘There are trees, yes.’

‘What kind?’

I consider the trees I’ve seen in the park. I can name only one. ‘Eucalyptus?’

‘What kind of eucalyptus?’

‘Blue gum?’

Ken nods. He draws a small grove of trees beside a body of water.

‘There’s a walking track too,’ I say.

‘That’s useful.’

‘But you’ll have to watch out for runners. And cyclists.’

Ken’s face darkens. ‘Cyclists?’

‘There aren’t too many of them.’

Ken draws an X on his map to signify the hazard. We then turn our attention to what lies beyond. Once he crosses the park, he can follow the coastal path that hugs Port Phillip Bay. This should take him all the way home.

‘You’ll join it in St Kilda,’ I say. ‘Near the pier. Have you ever been there?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘There’s a colony of little penguins. Over a thousand of them, I think. They come in after dusk and sleep in the breakwall.’

Ken would like to see the penguins. And he’s pleased because it gives him an idea of timings. If he’s to reach the penguins by sunset, he’ll need to break out between lunch and whatever afternoon activity is planned. He won’t be missing much; the highlight of last week’s program was a guided meditation on attracting love.

‘Is it still full of homeless?’ Ken asks.

‘Huh?’

‘St Kilda. Are there homeless people everywhere?’

‘You can’t say that, Ken. They’re not homeless, they’re people experiencing homelessness.’

‘What about whores? And junkies?’

‘They’re not whores, they’re sex workers. And they’re not ju—’

‘They’re junkies,’ says Ken, tapping his nose. ‘Trust me.’

He refuses to elaborate on why I should trust him. I keep pushing but he pulls the dementia card. Says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Can’t remember what he said or did. Wasn’t I told he has dementia?

I trust him less than ever.

Still, we continue. Ken scrawls illegible notes on his envelope as I rattle off the names of the beaches, train stations and major roads he might encounter. Some spark memories; others, confusion. And though I try to make the journey sound as arduous as possible, there’s no dissuading him. After an hour of answering seemingly irrelevant questions – Colour of sand? Length of bridge? – I’m thrilled to hear Ken announce we have an adequate map. He holds up the jumble of scratchings with pride.

‘I’ll need it laminated,’ he says. ‘In case it rains.’

‘I can manage that.’

Handing over the map, Ken warns me to be vigilant. Neither staff nor residents can be trusted. I nod. Reassure him I’ll be back next week with the laminated map, at which point we can lock in a date for his escape.

Ken lies back on his bed. He seems satisfied with our progress, so I leave him to stare at the ceiling, no doubt visualising his way home. I gently close the door and stop by the office on my way out. The nurses want to know how Ken is doing today. I shrug. The same as always? I do not mention the map.

My cycle home follows the same route Ken might one day take. It’s a bluebird day and I pedal lazily, coasting between cars before linking up with the dirt path beside the lake. I tick off Ken’s waypoints as I go; the boat sheds and football fields, the driving range and tram stop. I can see Port Phillip Bay in the distance. There’s a light northeasterly and the water looks calm, inviting.

At home, I walk to the study with a newfound appreciation of my hallway. The way it separates, the way it connects. I thank John Thorpe for his vision and ingenuity. I imagine a world without corridors and don’t like what I see.

I open a desk drawer and flatten the mess of paper inside. There are napkins and envelopes. Months-old newspapers. Six months of makeshift maps, all of them marked with parks and lakes and rivers and roads. I remove a couple and spread them across the desk. Pick one up and compare it with Ken’s latest effort. There are few similarities, save for the words here and home in the margins.

Photo by Marian May on Unsplash