Doing it for DadFamilyHe is more aggressive than I've seen him since he got ill. At one point, he even makes to push me in the face

On this visit to Dad's care home, I'm told he is "having a wander". I find him at the end of the corridor that leads to the residents' bedrooms. He is standing, muttering to himself and running his hands along the walls, as if trying to read something through his fingertips.

"Dad!" I say, arms out. This time I'm ready for the shock of his appearance, determined to be calm and cheerful.

His eyes seem to glimmer and fill. "Ah," he says. "You're back."

I sigh with relief. That's more like it; he recognises me again. Not enough to know my name or anything, but at least it isn't the terrifying blankness of the last time I visited.

But that brief flicker at the beginning of the visit is all I get. After that, Dad seems not to know me at all. Worse, he appears to actively dislike me.

All he wants to do is pace up and down the corridor, stroking the walls. His carers leave me to it and I follow him around – from the living room down, and then back up again.

I entreat him to sit down by taking his elbow, promising a cup of tea and a biscuit, but Dad shakes me off angrily. "Gettoff!" he says, threateningly, before turning his back to me and resuming his Forrest Gump routine. I feel a bit like an idiot trailing around after him. In my smart coat, blowdried hair and fixed smile, what am I doing?

As if he is aware of how redundant I am, Dad frowns angrily every time he catches sight of me. Indeed, he is more aggressive than I've seen him since he got ill. At one point, he even makes to push me in the face. It is not hard to sidestep his trembling hand, there is no real threat, but still it is unsettling.

"You all right?" asks a member of staff flatly. She is sitting and helping another old man to eat a pastry.

"Yes," I reply, with a nervous laugh, blushing as if I have committed a terrible faux pas. My demented father appears to hate me, and my reaction is to feel socially embarrassed. "You monkeynuts!" Dad growls, before turning away again. That was an expression he would use to tease us affectionately, but this time it's an insult. He wanders off to try a locked door. He is pushing at it, looking through a glass pane, when one of the nurses, Sue, arrives.

Sue is one of those people you don't meet very often in life. She radiates goodness through every pore. It has taken me a while to differentiate between the staff, to learn their names, but now I always hope to get Sue on the phone if I call. She makes you feel as if everything is going to be OK, in abundant contradiction to the evidence. "Your dad is a bit agitated isn't he?" she says.

"You might say that," I say. "Has he been like this for long?"

"Well, we have had to change his medication since just before Easter," says Sue. "They've stopped making his usual dosage of the mood stabiliser he takes, so he hasn't had it."

'That explains a lot," I say, looking at Dad's retreating form. "We're sorting it out," says Sue. She smiles, her kind eyes full of light. "So just come and find me if you've got any other questions."

"Thanks," I say. As she hurries off, I can't help but feel abandoned. There is nothing else to do but return to my father, temporarily joining him on his journey nowhere.

Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebeccahelenley

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