In the cool mornings I wear Dad's old dressing gown.

Even now I think I can smell the pungency of his pipe tobacco

in its fine Scottish wool, but that's not likely.

After he died Mum washed the curtains, the walls and even the carpet.

 

In their closing years Mum and Dad had separate bedrooms.

Dad at last smoked privately: the fumes bothered my mum so much.

This was a major conjugal compromise

fifty years late and almost useless.

You can't confine secondary smoke to one room 

but Dad couldn't stop.

He just couldn't.

 

So we all coughed and wheezed

dripped and drained, rubbed our aching sinuses

and said nothing

because to see my father without a pipe

would be like finding a naked leprechaun.

Unthinkable!

 

It's too bad you can't buy cologne tobacco-scented

or sachets of choice leaves for your linens

indubitably the best of both worlds.