Pulse

see, gardens she could no longer walk in, aromatic food she could no longer enjoy.
    I hope he didn’t imagine these last things; I hope he was convinced that in her last days she was granted only the best, the happiest thoughts.
    A month after my mother died, my father had his last appointment with the ENT specialist.
    ‘He said he could operate, but couldn’t promise more thana 60/40 success rate. I told him I didn’t want an operation. He said he was loth to give up on my case, especially since my anosmia was only partial. He thought my sense of smell was waiting there and could be brought back.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘More of the same. Antibiotics, nasal spray. Slightly different prescription. I told him thanks but no thanks.’
    ‘Right.’ I didn’t say any more. It was his decision.
    ‘You see, if your mother …’
    ‘It’s all right, Dad.’
    ‘No, it’s not all right. If she …’
    I looked at him, at the tears pent up behind the lenses of his spectacles, then released to run down his cheeks to his jaw. He let them run; he was used to them; they didn’t bother him. Nor did they bother me.
    He started again. ‘If she … Then I don’t …’
    ‘Sure, Dad.’
    ‘I think it helps, in a kind of way.’
    ‘Sure, Dad.’
    He lifted his glasses from the creases of flesh in which they sat, and the last tears ran down the sides of his nose. He wiped the back of a hand across his cheeks.
    ‘You know what that buggery specialist said to me when I told him I didn’t want an operation?’
    ‘No, Dad.’
    ‘He sat there meditating for a bit and then said, “Do you have a smoke alarm?” I told him we didn’t. He said, “You might be able to get the council to pay for it. Out of their disability funds.” I said I didn’t know about that. Then he went on, “But I suppose I’d advise a top-of-the-range number, and they might not be willing to cover the cost.”’
    ‘Sounds a pretty surreal conversation.’
    ‘It was. Then he said he didn’t like to think of me being asleep and only realising the house was on fire when I was woken by the heat.’
    ‘Did you punch him, Dad?’
    ‘No, son. I got up, shook him by the hand, and said, “That would be one solution, I suppose.”’
    I imagine my father there, not getting angry, standing up, shaking hands, turning, leaving. I imagine it.

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