Solar [excerpt]

By Louisa Carter

Why Finland, I’m still not sure. I often think I was misguided, that I was confused by its Nordic nature, when in fact it’s harsher and sharper-edged than the other Scandinavian countries. I knew little about it but felt compelled to learn more. This was in the early weeks of my smell disappearing, so that I could no longer earn a living making coffees, not only unable to smell, but even to taste properly. I couldn’t detect if the coffee was over or under-extracted, the milk turning, the water taking on a mineral edge. The subtle but essential notes of cherry, caramel, stone fruits and leather escaped me entirely, leaving me untethered, as if I was part-removed from the world around me.

I was employed for the very skills that I had lost, and so, overnight, I also became unemployable. There were cups to be washed, tables to be wiped, and other menial tasks I could have done instead, but not enough to justify a full wage. Anyway, I felt too disorientated in the café that had lost its smells and, therefore, its very substance. I can only compare it to walking in total darkness, so I felt as if I were bumping into things that weren’t even there, whilst missing the things that were. It induced a sense of panic, and I would have to run outside, to the small, paved area by the bins, to feel the cold air on my face.

Perhaps it was the idea of the coldness of Finland that had appealed to me most, a grating wind chill, swimming in ice-crusted lakes, as if this would somehow slap my senses awake. But in truth I’d thought, for no logical reason, that Finland would have the answer. Not that I had the question at that time, only a vague sense of trying to find something that I felt certain I’d misplaced at some point in my existence. I knew that this sense of emptiness, of longing, was familiar to most humans, but my need seemed somehow more compelling, more complicated, than anyone else I knew. It was as if I came from another planet altogether, and that by going to Finland, I could find somewhere I belonged. Or perhaps I did have the question and it was as simple as who am I? or, more accurately, why am I the way I am?

What preceded the abruptness of my decision to travel to Finland, to the wooden cottage with a chimney and a glimpse of the brutal grey of the Baltic, was clearer. Even so, there were two threads, and I was still trying to unpick the one from the other, to understand which was cause and which was effect.

There had been the morning I woke up feeling disorientated and unsure. It had taken a minute or two to understand it was because I couldn’t smell anything. I realised in that moment how animal-like I was, how I used my nose to understand what the weather was doing before I even looked out the window, to the crows circling and to the sky behind them. How my sense of smell told me that everything was the same as when I’d gone to sleep, that no one had passed through my room, that there was no fire smouldering or gas leaking, or any number of other dangers that are imperceptible to those who can’t smell. It was how I knew I was safe.

I’d seen the doctor later that day, the fear of some neurological disaster prompting me to insist on an emergency same-day appointment. There had been simple blood tests and a wait-and-see approach and then, two weeks later, I found myself back there.

‘So, you mean the fact I can’t smell is in my mind?’ I had asked, irritated by this diagnosis with its undertones of Victorian hysterics and female neuroticism.

‘Yes and no,’ he replied. ‘It is not in the mind, it is very much in the body, and it is very real. But whereas one person might experience this as a result of, say, a brain trauma or an autoimmune condition, you have lost your sense of smell because of psychological distress.’

‘But I don’t have any psychological distress.’

He had leaned back into his chair at this point, looked at me, eyes narrowing, and I couldn’t tell if he thought I was slow and moronic not to spot my subconscious’ ruse, or if there was truth in what I was saying, and he had maybe missed something important.

‘My mum had a really strong sense of smell,’ I told him, hoping this would explain some genetic predisposition to olfactory disorders.

‘How old is your mother now?’

‘She’s dead.’

Nodding slowly, he had looked away and typed something lengthy into my notes.

He went on to warn me there would be a wait of several months on the NHS for my six sessions of CBT. The fact that my job depended on me being able to smell seemed irrelevant to him, and he handed me a leaflet on depression.

‘We could try you on a course of antidepressants. Or anti-anxiety medication, in the meantime.’

‘But I’m not depressed,’ I tried again. “And I wasn’t anxious until I lost my smell.’

‘Somatisation is a form of mental illness. Have a think about it and we can book a follow-up in, say, a month’s time?’

I’d asked him about going private, not that I could afford it, but nor could I afford to be unemployed. He had scribbled a website on a piece of paper and handed it to me, a local charity offering reduced-rate therapy. And it was this small piece of off-white paper, with its roughly torn edge and near-illegible doctor’s scrawl, that had led me to the second, possibly more significant thread: Bob Clarke - psychotherapist, magician, everything.