‘Eh?’ Dad says.
‘FROM THE GP!’
‘Yeah,’ Dad says. ‘She sent me to a hearing specialist and everything.’
Taxpayers kindly covered the cost of a new-fangled set of hearing aids, barely visible to the naked eye, fitted precisely for his ears, the volume set expertly at the level he required.
I remember the day he walked in the door wearing them. ‘It’s incredible!’ he said. ‘Speak, Skeet. Speak softly.’
‘I know I’m your favourite son,’ I whispered.
‘Ha ha!’ Dad said. ‘But you know I don’t have favourites.’
It was a miracle! While he went into the bathroom to view them in the mirror, I took Mum by the hands and we circled about the living room, jumping up and down, giggling.
‘He can hear! He can hear!’ we chimed together.
‘No more repetition!’
‘No more yelling!’
‘No more headaches!’
‘No more dirty looks!’
Dad returned from the bathroom. ‘They really start to hurt after a while, though.’
‘You’ll get used to them,’ I suggested.
‘Eh?’
‘It’s just time and patience,’ I said again.
‘What?’
I looked at Mum. I turned to Dad. ‘Dad, where are your hearing aids?’ I both signed and mouthed clearly.
To my knowledge the $3000 pair were never worn again.
My memory of the short-lived armistice is promptly brought back to the here and now as Dad says with a shrug, ‘They were killing my ears!’
I make another turn.
‘I said, “They really killed my ears”!’ he repeats for my benefit.
‘I know, Dad. I know.’
‘Skeet?’ he asks, and I know what’s coming next. ‘I can’t hear my phone when it rings,’ he says.
I resist the urge to tell him about the $3000 hearing aids’ Bluetooth functionality.
‘Pass it over, Pete, give us a look,’ Jeff says from the back.
Jeff turns up the ringer volume and gives it a test. Cars in front of us pull to the side of the road, thinking the blaring ringing must be the wailing siren of an ambulance.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ Dad says turning around. ‘I can just hear that.’
‘Sorry, but that’s as loud as it goes,’ Jeff explains. ‘I’ll switch on vibrate for you too, so you can feel it buzzing when it rings.’
‘Thanks, mate. And I can’t get to it in time, either. It only rings twice and then I miss it.’
‘No problem,’ Jeff says.
I silently apologise to their entire suburb as Jeff adjusts Dad’s phone to ring for one whole minute before going through to voicemail.
‘Here, let’s give it a try,’ Jeff says.
He passes the phone back to Dad and proceeds to dial the number from his own.
Dad’s phone starts tolling like Big Ben. The sound waves emanating from our car cause children on the side of the road to convulse, dropping into the fetal position, rocking back and forth with their fingers in their ears. Dad stares at the device, pondering which button he should press. It’s like a Hollywood movie and he only has sixty seconds to defuse the bomb that will destroy the world. The clock ticks, the music rises to a crescendo. Dad’s finger hovers over the phone. Should he press the enticing red button or the safer green one?
‘No . . . Wait a minute,’ he mumbles.
Three seconds left on the clock. Two . . . One . . .
He presses the red button. The planet disintegrates.
‘Hello?’
