It’s a Wednesday in early May when I arrive at my father’s house in North Devon. It’s been raining rabidly for the best part of the afternoon, and muddy water has pooled across the driveway. I wrestle with his newly changed locks and heave overstuffed bags from the boot of my car to his back door.
I’ve come here alone. Having received a series of texts from dad’s hospital bed, each one progressively bleaker –
Trachea STILL not been removed.
Bloody awful nurse today.
Temporary voice box, cannot make an effing sound.
Bastard lung infection.
Feeling very depressed now, can you bring me a paper please.
So, I’ve made the five-hour round trip to pick him up today’s The Telegraph, (from the WHSmith directly below his ward). It’s unclear when he’ll be discharged. But at least he has a crossword now.
Turns out he was bending the truth when he said he couldn’t make a sound. The mucus around his trachea bubbles and overflows needing constant suction, the gurgling loud and goblin-like. While his temporary tone box delivers a scratchy bark in place of words. It’s hard to decipher what he’s saying. I leave him hunched by the window believing him to be home tomorrow. But he later sends a text that suggests I misunderstood – he’s due back in theatre first thing.
I stop in Tesco to pick him up some socks. A stack of printer paper. And a razor (not the cheapest), as per his request. Then make the 40-minute drive to his small white sugar cube of a cottage that’s blackened in places by weather from the Moors. I’ll stay here until he comes home.
My father has left his house tightly ordered. Plug sockets are switched off at the wall. The bedsheets are clean. Wood has been stacked by the fire. Scissors, a small kitchen knife and a teaspoon are lined up on the countertop. No one has been inside the house since he left two weeks ago. But his distinctive smell remains.
Woodsmoke, detergent, cigarettes.
He has given me a set of fastidiously written instructions, written in capital letters on a piece of yellow paper:
Turn water back on using stopcock in cupboard under kettle. Gas cannisters are between bins outside. Valves need to be turned anticlockwise. Make sure lever is set to vertical.
When I fail to get the boiler working, he suggests over text that I “Call Leon in the morning”.
I fib to myself that I can manage without heating or hot water, while pulling bed socks over sodden feet and methodically opening kitchen drawers in the hope of matches.
Fire lighting is ordinarily my husband’s job. But rain pounds weightily and I don’t like feeling as if I’m still outside. Kneeling on the square of carpet by the wood burner I screw newspaper into balls and create a wigwam of kindling. I make three failed attempts before noticing a hoard of firelighters lined up beside the sofa. I wonder briefly which apocalypse he’s shoring himself up against, Pandemic or personal.
The house is otherwise ordered but overpacked. There is too much furniture for the volume of floor space. I find myself manoeuvring around stuff as if it were a person, placing a hand at its back to step around.
He’s kept the kitchen table and dresser from our childhood home, (back when there were five of us – me, my younger brother, elder sister, mum, and dad). As the fire begins to smoke, I drag open a draw in that same kitchen table we grew up around and find a chaos of cards and crayons I’ve not seen for over thirty years. The drawer smells the same as it did back then. A vortex opens inside me unexpectedly and for a moment I’m fooled into thinking I can reach right back and grab a different life. I push the draw shut again instinctively.
The light is dwindling now, and I want to put the lights on upstairs before it goes. I walk between rooms, pressing plugs back into sockets and reigniting sidelights before agreeing with myself that checking inside the cupboards seems a sensible thing for a fully grown adult to do.
Entering my father’s room feels something of a betrayal. But I know I won’t rest until I’ve checked that no one is crouched inside his wardrobe waiting to jump out after dark and shout boo. I tentatively pull open the doors. It’s the same wardrobe mum used to hide our Christmas presents in the foot of each year. It has floral cornicing and ridged detailing crafted into raw wood. I remember it being so much bigger than this. It’s barely taller than I am, a decisively average 5ft 2. There are no Christmas presents now, only five items on metal hangers:
A smart coat I bought him, barely worn.
A suit jacket and two shirts from Marks’, only used for weddings and funerals.
And mum’s coat. Her Paddington red duffle coat. The coat she wore every winter. The coat she came home in every evening, arms laden with Sainsbury’s bags, the dog snaking excitedly around her legs.
I’ve not seen this coat for twenty years. The sight of it accelerates a feeling of being hollowed out from inside that’s not entirely pleasant. I reach in and grip the edge of it, wondering if the rough fabric might take me somewhere that’s otherwise impossible to reach. But of course, nothing happens. I feel embarrassed at my own blind hope and urge myself to close the door, but instead plunge a hand into the deep into its pockets, one after the other, searching for something, a clue, a passageway to what I’ve no idea. But both pockets are empty.
I close the wardrobe door and look around the room:
Mum and dad’s bed.
A frame filled with pictures of us siblings kids, bare bottomed and smiley eyed.
That postcard from the canal boat holiday they went on before we were born.
I squeeze my eyes shut then leave the room. I wish I could avoid all these bastard objects and bits of furniture sitting there like dormant ghosts. I feel sick, telling myself it’s time for that Tesco ready meal. And definitely not that I feel homesick for a past I can’t return to.
I sleep fitfully, waking before the sun. The rain has petered overnight. But the garden, and window ledges, are garlanded with heavy dew. I can’t see my breath, but the house feels damp, as if I’m camping. I switch the electric blanket on and lay my clothes down on the bed to warm them, resolved to give the boiler another try. In the kitchen I drag a heavy pine dining chair over to the boiler and squint into its instructional small print:
Press the red button to reset, hold and press again to override safety failure.
I really ought to have thought about reading the manual last night, I chastise myself. But the sound of it clunking and fizzing back to life offset any feelings of idiocy. I climb down and run my hand under the hot tap until my finger’s scald, treating myself to a second cup of tea as the radiators gurgle and refill.
Today I will clean. And dust the dresser in the kitchen. Wait for the call that dad is in the recovery ward, then make the pilgrimage to see him. It feels good to have a purpose. I am a morale booster. House hoover-er. Newspaper deliver-er. A forehead kisser. Hand stroker. Boiler turner-er on-er.
I position my laptop at the kitchen table, sitting in a slice of early sunlight and sign into Teams to wait for the hospital to call. Signal here is bad, so periodically I wade upstairs to stand by the bathroom window where it’s strongest and try his ward again.
Still in theatre.
We’ll call when he is out.
Try again in an hour or so love, he’s not out yet.
This should be a short sharp operation, unlike the 15-hour one he endured two weeks ago.
Hours bleed together, and early afternoon soon becomes late. I begin to wonder if maybe I ought to just drive to the hospital and track him down myself. When unexpectedly I smell him. Strongly.
It pricks me up, meerkat like. My spine is rigid and alert. I move my head from left to right, sniffing the air in short thrusts.
Cigarettes, detergent, woodsmoke.
His scent is so distinctive, it’s as if he’s in the room. Dad. I say, hoping no one else can hear me talking to the empty space beside the sink. I glance toward the kitchen door, to check my keys still hang there, confirming it’s locked firmly from the inside. The smell remains. I take a long deep inhalation.
Cigarettes, detergent, woodsmoke.
There’s no one here. There’s clearly no one here. But I can smell him. As plainly as if he’s walked directly into the room. We’ll laugh about this later, I think. Though my body doesn’t find it funny – I’m rooted to the spot, taking shallow gulps through my nose, lapping up his familiar scent. At some point it dissipates, and I return to conversations with colleagues over Teams.
It's a good hour before my phone rings, making me jump.
I dash upstairs to the bathroom where the signal is strongest.
I’ve called a few times, but it’s gone to answerphone, dad’s surgeon tells me. I apologise. For the phone. The signal. For this being a house that lives out on a limb.
I’ve come upstairs at pace. Two stairs at a time. Without pen or paper. Without my computer. The Dr has information. News. An update. I am the main point of contact. People will need this information. I focus on logging it all for future use.
Very aggressive cancer. Have been unable to save his palette. Ok now. But. Cannot guarantee. Tonight will be critical. But. Possibly home soon. Do some things he enjoys. Say some things to people he loves.
I picture future me laughing at this last comment later when I update my aunt: “Say some things to people he loves! Obviously, he does not know dad!” We will chuckle. I know from experience there’s nothing wrong with laughter at the coal face of tragedy.
I thank the Dr. Dr McArdle. Dr Paul McArdle. Little c big A I say to self, pressing the letters into my crown.
He asks how I’m doing. It’s a kind thing to ask. I pretend to myself it’s unlikely he asks everyone. Perhaps he likes my voice I tell myself. I say I’m in shock but I’m ok. Despite his kindness, I know he does not really want or need to know the full answer. Perhaps he asked because he knew I’d lie. A mutual meeting of kindness, a deceit of generosity.
There is one more thing, he says, coughing by way of preparation.
They don’t yet know why, but as they were bringing dad round from his anaesthetic, late this afternoon, his heart rate dropped suddenly. And did not return.
Cigarettes, detergent, woodsmoke.
He doesn’t want to alarm me. But they did need to perform chest compressions. And give him ‘some special medicine’. It was touch and go. He’s stable now, but it took a while.
Given what they now know, they won’t resuscitate if the same thing happens again. A DNR sign will now be strapped to his bed. Do I understand?
Cigarettes, detergent, woodsmoke.
I nod, looking out over the garden, at everything so fully alive as I recall the passing scent of death.