The Great Migration

I'm taking mum and dad away on our first coach holiday. This could be the start of something beautiful. Or it could be the start of a bidding war over bingo dabbers.

To the casual observer it must look like we’re heading off on two separate holidays. Me, gym bag stuffed with underwear and t-shirts, Mum and Dad hovering nervously around three sturdy, leather-strapped suitcases topped with a selection of folding sticks, ponchos and scarves, as if they’re embarking on a quest to find the Northwest Passage with Fridtjof Nansen. 

In fact, we’re waiting for our coach, and the start of a six day excursion to Oban and the Western Highlands. Already I have a sense that I have come unprepared.

“Take this for the journey,” mum says, handing me a carrier bag stuffed with fruit jellies, Freddo bars and a miniature of Famous Grouse whisky.

“Don’t drink that,” she says. “It’s filled with Dettol. Just in case.”

It’s 8:30 in the morning, and the idea of chugging back a dram has never felt more appropriate.

The coach arrives and we shuffle on to meet our fellow travellers. I experience that increasingly rare thrill of being the youngest person in the group. 

“Ooh, look Maureen, a toy boy for you,” says one of the two women I will later know as the quilting knowalls, to her friend. Her friend looks up from the Daily Mail and gives me a look that is unmistakably swipe left. 

Wendy, our hostess, introduces herself – and her coach driver husband, David – over the crackling microphone.

“Oh,” Mum turns to me from her across-the-aisle seat, “the same names as you and Wendy. Isn’t that funny?”

To Mum, the fact that our hosts share mine and my sister’s names is a sign. Most things are signs to mum. Contrails in the shape of kisses, a white feather escaped from a cushion, the face of her bingo caller (before his haircut) in a crumpet.  But this… this is monumental, and is a leitmotif that mum will return to, to everyone, all week. 

“You’ll never believe this,” Mum says to Wendy as she ambles along the aisle, “Wendy and David are my children’s names. This,” she turns to grab my shoulder, “is David. Isn’t that strange,” she says, implying there is something deeply significant about this cosmic throw of the dice. 

“Isn’t it,” Wendy says, barely disguising that, to her, it signifies nothing. That there are more pressing matters that Wendy needs to share with the group. 

“Now, gents, I know you all think you’re 21, but your aim isn’t what it was, so can I ask you all to do a posh pee, and sit down,” Wendy says, giving me a wink.

“And please, no number twos til Moffat. Unless it’s an absolute emergency, of course.”

I’m more interested in this than I might otherwise have been, as my seat is directly in front of the toilet.  

“If it gets a bit whiffy, let me know,” Wendy says to me, “and I’ll bring out the big guns.”

“We’ll be on the road for around nine hours, so it usually gets a battering.” 

In truth, our journey started two months ago when I get a call from Dad.

“Dave, this is the stupidest thing, but I’m lost…” Dad laughs nervously down the phone.

“What do you mean? Where are you?” I ask.

Dad tells me that, somehow, he’d taken a wrong turn on to their regular Saturday trip to Sainsbury’s. That, with every move he makes to try and get back on course, the world seems less familiar to him. 

He puts Mum on the phone. “We’re okay,” she says. “We’re by the Cheshire Cat.” 

These places are hardwired into my dad’s internal GPS. This does not feel good to me. The oncoming storm I’d been desperately trying to ignore is breaking above all of us. I sense its headwinds, and I feel untethered. 

“Dad keeps swearing, and he’s blaming me…” Mum cries.  “I’m only trying to help.”

I can hear Dad in the background shouting about Mum only knowing her way around the Wirral via Home Bargains and Bingo Halls. That she’s useless; a distraction. This is not how Dad talks. There is a palpable, terrifying panic in that car and all three of us know why; though - right now - we all take a diversion around it. Now is not the time. 

Their Saturday trips are Mum and Dad’s route past the stations of the cross. Bread from the bakers, big shop in Sainsbury’s, shandies in Wetherspoons. This is what they do. Who they are. And now they’re lost, where do we go from here?

“Stay there, I’ll come and meet you,” I say.

“Thanks son. I’m sorry. It’s so stupid…”

Dad’s doctor orders an MRI scan. The results come back a couple of days later. Wendy and I sit with him as his GP reads out the radiologist’s report.

“You’ve had a transient global amnesia attack,” his GP says. “It’s like your computer suddenly shut down.”

“What does that mean?” Wendy asks.

“Your dad’s brain isn’t getting enough oxygen,” the GP says. “The scan shows that you have moderate to severe restriction in blood flow, Mr Lloyd. We’ll need to do further tests…”

“Is this for vascular dementia?” I ask. His GP nods, “that sort of thing,” he says. “While we’re investigating, I’m afraid you won’t be able to drive.”

This is the sucker punch. Talk of blood and brains and scans fails to snare Dad’s attention; but suddenly he is back in the room. 

“Oh,” says Dad. “Forever?”“Let’s just take it one day at a time,” his GP says, looking at me and Wendy.

Wendy doesn’t want Dad to drive. She’s not wanted him to drive for a while now. We both know it’s the right thing to do. But I can’t bring myself to snatch his keys away from him. Their world is small enough. These little breaks for freedom are all that’s left. 

”They don’t go far,” I say.

“They don’t need to,” Wendy says.

“I’ve got an idea,” I say to Mum and Dad the following weekend. “Let’s go on a coach trip! That means we can all have a drink and no-one has to drive.” I can hear myself frantically overselling it; pretending it’s the best idea in the world. That I’ve always, always wanted to go on a coach trip, and they’d be really doing me a favour if they came with me. 

“We were going to go to Devon,” Mum says. “Dad will be able to drive by then.”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit far?” I say.

“Probably,” Dad says. “You’re probably right.” He turns to my Mum. “Joan, those days have gone.”

So here I am. Staring at the toilet. And there’s eight hours to go. 

In truth, it’s more tomb than toilet. I’ve seen Debbie McGee crawl into bigger spaces, ready to contort herself around husband Paul’s incoming swords. How anyone could fail to hit the target the first time is beyond me. 

Back at her front-of-coach perch, Wendy continues with the housekeeping. We’re told that timekeeping is everything. To Dave, dawdling is a deadly sin. Even more so than the careless splashing of a toilet seat at 60 miles per hour.

“Dave will wait five minutes and then he’s off,” Wendy says: “even if you’re on a rowing boat in Loch Ness,” she looks at Dave, “remember, Dave? We all waved at that couple as we left the car park.”

Dave rolls his eyes. “They were always late.”

None of us are quite sure if this is apocryphal or a tale of genuine abandonment, but it hits home. A chill runs through the passengers, half of whom have come on holiday with an array of strollers and buggies. 

“…and there’s bingo on Thursday!” Wendy says, trying to lighten the mood.  “Don’t panic. I’ve got dabbers. They’re £2 each. I’ll be taking orders later.”

I see mum rummaging in one of her handbags. She’s whispering – or she thinks she’s whispering, she’s actually just talking at a normal volume with a raspy voice – “I’ve got lots of dabbers. They’re only a pound at B&M Bargains.” 

She cranes her neck to speak to the couple behind her (the retired teachers, I’ve decided. They’re doing sudoku and Wordle). “Would you like a dabber? I’ve got plenty of spare ones.”

Mum plunges her hand into the bag and, like a party version of Edward Scissorhands, pulls it out brandishing a dabber between every digit. But something is not right. Her hand has turned crimson. There has either been a bloodbath in seat 14B, or one of mum’s knock-off dabbers has leaked.

“Oh Mal,” she cries, “Look at me! Dave, pass me your Dettol.”

We have not yet reached Charnock Richard services. There is a bloody splatter pattern on mum’s tray table, she’s trying to undercut the hostess's extra revenue stream, and I’m facing the ticking time bomb of a fun sized toilet. 

The holiday has started.