Scented

by Laurence Fearnley

  ‘So you can taste things?’

  ‘Not as well as I used to but I think I’ve stored a lot of flavours in my memory after all my years of bartending.’

  ‘A bit like Beethoven with his music?’

  He looked uncomfortable. ‘I used to smoke sixty a day and I think that caused damage – that and being hit in the face with a baseball bat when I was young. Broken nose.’

  ‘So you have no idea what the perfume I made you actually smells like?’

  ‘Lemons and oysters,’ he replied.

  ‘But do you know what lemons and oysters smell like?’ I pressed. ‘Do you know what a lemon smells like?’

  ‘It smells yellow. And bitter.’

  ‘Oysters?’

  ‘Like a grey harbour, waves lapping against a rocky shore.’

  ‘What about Rotorua?’

  ‘Rotten eggs.’

  ‘No, it’s more complex than that, it’s mineral.’

  Archer dropped me in the gardens by the bath house, promising to collect me in an hour once he’d taken care of his business. He could barely contain the smirk that spread across his face.

  Notes from a fossil hunter: It had been many years since I’d last been to Rotorua and in the fading light of early evening I headed towards the edge of the lake, standing on the shore looking out over the dried mudflats that led to the edge of a shallow strip of water. Litter, plastic bottles and pieces of driftwood lay in front of me, rimed in yellow sulphur, a crust of pale yellow also on the mud itself.

  By my feet were several pieces of pumice, which I picked up and held to my nose. A small fragment of black, glass-like stone – obsidian – caught my attention and I stooped to take it, scraping a palm full of mud as I did so. Now my hand contained a mound of mud, the obsidian and pumice. These must surely represent some of the earliest scents of the country: volcanic ash and stone, mud, hot springs and geysers – the elemental fire and water at the beginning of any fragrance timeline.

  On perfume sites I’d seen advertisements for lava stones, dark beads of scoria. From what I could gather, these porous beads were sprayed with perfume and then worn around the wrist, the scent retained in the bracelet for days at a time. I’d never tried the beads for myself but smelling the pumice in my hand made me consider that the claims were true. Within each pebble was a complex smell of sulphur and earth, sand and limestone, an almost chalky scent. I gathered up more pebbles, rolling them in my palms to warm them before cupping my hands to my nose and inhaling.

  For minutes I made a mental scan of all the oils in my collection, wondering how on earth I would recreate the smellof pumice. And then it dawned on me that there was no need to recreate it at all. The smell was already captured within the stone, had presumably been there for many years. Could it date all the way back to the last major eruption? Could I actually smell remnants of that event? Were these stones the scent of prehistoric New Zealand?

  I felt something akin to intense hunger arise up inside me and I bent down to collect more stones, filling my pockets with pumice. Smears of mud marked my jeans, and my shoes were completely grey. At one point I turned back to face the gardens and it was as if I were suddenly caught in a time warp – the built-world of humans less than a few hundred metres from where I stood in a primordial wonderland. Had perfumer Ernest Beaux, in the Arctic Circle, experienced the same excitement I felt now, fossil hunting for scent?

  From a distance I heard a horn, followed by the sound of my name. Pockets bulging, I slowly plodded back across the mudflats, scrambling up the bank to the gardens in time to see Archer waving at me from the driver’s seat of an enormous black car.

  ‘What do you think?’ he said as we pulled onto the main highway. It was the third or fourth time he’d asked me and each time I’d said ‘amazing’ or ‘brilliant’ although a more honest response would have been ‘Why?’

  ‘This beats work and job hunting, doesn’t it?’

  He ran his hands over the surface of the steering wheel, then brought them back to the ten to two position.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I’d completely forgotten to ask you about that university job. Did you get an interview?’

  ‘Skyped a few times and I was shortlisted, which was nice of them. But in the end it went in-house, to a specialist in postmodern belief. A nice guy, actually. I’ve corresponded with him a couple of times and he’s very bright.’

  ‘But you should have got it.’

  ‘To tell the truth I’m glad I didn’t. I’m a bit old for starting over in a foreign country. And, this way,’ he said patting the dashboard, ‘I get the car of my dreams.’

  Newspaper rustled under my pants as I shifted position. The mud on my trousers had dried and was now scaling off in flakes of grey dust. ‘So, it’s a 1938 Pontiac,’ I said. ‘And you’ve really traded your car in for this?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve had it in the back of my mind for a while now. It’s a nice bit of nostalgia – my father bought one after he came back from Korea.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a thing for cars.’

  ‘I suppose I have,’ Archer replied. ‘This one’s been passed down through the members of one family and it’s only done 145,000ks. They’ve been using it for wedding parties and local tours. That’s why it’s so great.’

  ‘It smells good.’

  ‘Really? How does it smell?’

  ‘Like an old car.’ I inhaled and thought for a minute. ‘There’s a sweet smell, like almonds mixed with wallpaper paste, and then there’s a smell of engine oil and something slightly musty. It actually smells a lot like a mechanics’ garage, oil dripped on concrete but with a bit of beeswax. Lots of leather, too. It’s warm.’

  ‘Did you notice the patina on the bonnet from where it’s been polished all these years. Did you see the way the top layer of paint had worn off?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘I like the way you talk about the interior,’ said Archer. ‘Your description reminds me of the way my favourite uncle’s car smelt. He had a Pontiac, too. That’s another part of the attraction.’

  ‘I sometimes get scents stuck in my head the way other people get song lyrics and tunes in theirs. They’re my equivalent of earworms.’

  ‘I had “Big Rock Candy Mountain” playing in my head when I was negotiating with the trader. We were finalising the deal and Burl Ives started going around and around …’

  ‘Hah, you don’t have a CD player any more.’

  The sun had set and Archer switched on the lights. They weren’t nearly as bright as I was used to, even on full beam. Following vehicles formed a line behind us, flashing their lights impatiently and then shooting past as soon as we pulled over or reached an overtaking lane. Just when it seemed we were clear of the traffic, the line would form once more and though neither Archer nor I said anything we began to grow edgy, scanning the road ahead for possible shoulders. After one particularly aggressive driver sped by, horn blasting, Archer suggested we might like to look for a motel for the night and carry on with our journey in the morning.

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ I said rather too quickly. ‘I mean, you must be tired and it would be sensible because we could get more groceries in the morning before heading into the wilderness. What do you think?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ replied Archer.

  It had been so many years since I’d been on a road trip that I’d forgotten the strange ritual of searching for a motel. The first drive-by was to get an indication of what was full, and who had vacancies. The next passing was slower as each available motel was scrutinised for appearance. Did the place look inviting, run-down, gloomy? What did the make and model of cars parked in the forecourt indicate about the other guests? Were they tourists, families or itinerant workers? Did it look as if some of the utes might belong to rowdy, late-night drinkers, the type of people who slam doors and yell into the darkness, or were they the functional vehicles of choice for those who favoured quiet mornings spent fishing on the nearby r
iver?

  What did Archer’s Pontiac say about us? Was it a gangster car or a mid-life crisis car? Never having owned anything but a Toyota Corolla, I felt out of my depth trying to tally the large black sedan in which I sat with my personality, and even harder to match it to Archer’s. He was so sensible and self-effacing, so knowledgeable and modest, that the car seemed too much of a statement and far too attention-seeking for him.

  In the end we settled on a place that appealed because, from the street, it appeared old-fashioned, somewhat quirky and quiet, and it was surrounded by native bush. It was also cheap and had a two-room unit available.

  Although it was dark it wasn’t cold and we decided to eat outside at a small table in our private patio area. Cooked on the small kitchen hot plate, our meal was fairly basic: a can of chilli beans, nacho chips and grated cheese served with a tomato and avocado salsa, but because we hadn’t eaten since leaving home it tasted delicious, and if we’d had another tin of beans we would have polished it off. I’ve never been fussed about food or cooking, a fact I believe accounts for my gradual weight gain over the past ten years. I’m certain that if I were more interested in the taste and texture of food, I’d try harder to create interesting meals. But I was happy to eat whatever was easy to fix which, inevitably, meant cheese slapped between two slices of bread rather than a salad or vegetables. The only thing going for me, health-wise, was that I didn’t smoke or drink – at least, I didn’t drink alone. It took very little persuasion for me to accept a glass of wine when Archer offered it with our meal. I noticed that he held the wine to his nose before sipping it and so I did the same.

  ‘What do you smell?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve never been very confident about picking out notes in wine.’ I swirled the dark red liquid and took a breath. ‘It’s probably not the best glass for holding the aroma, is it?’ I asked. ‘It’s called a seven, the kind of beer glass that was still common when I was a kid.’

  I watched as the wine coated the side and then sniffed. ‘Can you smell it at all?’

  Archer shook his head.

  ‘So I could say anything?’

  ‘No, because I trust you.’

  ‘Well, to me it smells like black currants, overripe grapes – almost like raisins or maybe even prunes, maybe prunes not raisins. It’s rich.’ I took another sniff. ‘It has depth. You know what it really brings to mind? Christmas cake. It smells like Christmas cake tastes. Rich and spicy, and fruity.’

  Archer nodded.

  ‘But,’ I added, ‘there’s something here that smells even better than the wine.’

  ‘My perfume?’

  I laughed. ‘No. All these ferns.’

  Our small garden area was surrounded by a fence made of ponga, and although each trunk had been cut to size, small tufts of new growth had sprouted, slowly turning the fence palings back into trees again. In front of the ponga were more ferns, and the scent that came off them was warm and dusty, earthy and surprisingly sweet.

  ‘Can you remember the last thing you smelt?’ I asked.

  Archer looked down, rolling the small tumbler between his palms. ‘Well, I guess it would be cigarettes, if I’m to be honest. But I do have scent memories that go beyond Camels. Hester, when she was a baby. That was one of the best. If she’d been fed she smelt of warm milk, richer than store-bought milk, more like fresh farm milk. If it was evening and she’d come straight from the bath, she’d smell of baby powder, but I wasn’t so keen on that. For some reason the smell stuck in my throat. I preferred how she smelt when I picked her up out of her crib in the morning: her skin was kind of warm and musky, but there’d also be a kind of underlayer of soiled nappy smell that wasn’t really stinky so much as grass-like, like something you’d expect from a horse. Have you ever smelt that?’

  ‘I remember my little sister’s smell when she was a baby. I didn’t like it because it struck me as unhealthy, like a smell belonging to a sick person – which she was at the time. She moved to England about fifteen years ago and married a guy with adult children. He didn’t want any more kids so she settled for cats, Burmese, I think. We don’t keep in touch. I don’t even have friends with kids … except Jerome, I suppose. But I didn’t get to sniff Scottie when she was a baby.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame.’

  I laughed, but realised Archer was serious.

  ‘I remember the smell of a brand of tea Renate and I used to drink in the seventies when we first met, in New York. It had a very strong smell of cinnamon and orange peel, and cloves too. Genuine hippie tea.’

  ‘I’ve never been much of a tea drinker. I prefer coffee.’

  ‘Oh, I remember the coffee we had when we honeymooned in Hawaii: it tasted like chocolate hazelnut spread. It was incredibly artificial but we thought it was so sophisticated. But I guess if I had to identify a favourite flower it would be the lilac. It’s nicely poetical, too, when you think about it. Whitman and Eliot.’

  ‘Lilacs, yes. They’re beautiful. But they don’t stick around for long. The flowers.’

  ‘Have you ever tracked the references to lilacs in Whitman and Eliot?’

  ‘Yeah, ages ago, mostly Whitman.’

  ‘What about Faulkner’s lilac poem? Do you remember it?’

  ‘Vaguely. But I believe lilacs are everywhere once you start looking. Lilacs, loss and death.’

  Archer nodded and I heard him quietly recite the opening stanza from Whitman’s ‘When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d’. He spoke well and I hoped he’d continue but he caught my eye and stopped.

  I said, ‘I sometimes come across pieces written by perfume lovers who take great care not to wear their favourite scents in stressful situations. For instance, they won’t wear a beloved fragrance to a hospital treatment or to a funeral for fear that it will become forever associated with an unhappy event.’

  ‘And you? Do you avoid perfumes? Do you have a perfume that triggers a “management for change” memory?’

  ‘No, I don’t tend to kill off perfumes in that way. And also, my memory’s not as good as yours. For example, I’m not sure what I was wearing when we lost our jobs. It was probably something unobtrusive as I’d been warned about perfume allergies. I can’t even remember what perfume I was wearing to my father’s funeral. It could have been something I made myself. But some people would definitely recall those fragrances. Scent’s very powerful. It creates sensory flashbacks.’

  As we talked I became aware of the sound of frogs chirping in the undergrowth, and, further away, voices of men and bursts of laughter. To my surprise I realised that most of the day had passed without my thinking about my house or finding work. In fact, I felt calmer and lighter than I’d felt for a long time.

  ‘When I went through Whitman’s poems looking for scent references I came across a line that stuck in my mind. It was about body odour, and the smell of his armpits being “finer than prayer”.’

  ‘And speaking of sweat,’ said Archer, ‘I need a shower.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest anything.’

  When Archer excused himself, I stayed outside. I’d let him finish in the bathroom and get settled in bed before going inside myself. I thought he’d like the additional privacy.

  As I waited, I checked my phone for emails and was surprised to see a new message from a woman named Jessica Lee. I didn’t know a Jessica and was about to delete the message when the subject, ‘Thesis Edit and Proofread’, stopped me. Immediately I sat up straighter and read the mail, a brief request from a commerce student seeking help to ‘strip back’ her thesis. She’d seen my advertisement in the university bulletin and asked if I could contact her, as I sounded perfect for her needs. I guessed she was having trouble ordering her material. It was a fairly common problem among students. Some had trouble communicating in full sentences while others were unsure of how to organise their research into a piece of tidy writing. I could help with that.

  I sat back in my chair and the relief at being useful once more hit m
e with unexpected force. Although it was late, I replied to Jessica’s email straight away, explaining that I would be happy to meet her when I got home. In the meantime, if she wanted to send through her thesis I would glance over it. For months everything had gone wrong and the word ‘failure’ had attached itself to me like a limpet. But now, I dared to hope that that would change. Jessica Lee – I could have hugged her.

  With renewed confidence I even fired off an email to my old real estate agent, thanking her for her letter but letting her know that I wasn’t interested in selling my home. Then, feeling wide awake and unable to settle down, I decided to go for a quick walk around the bush track behind the motel.

  As soon as I got away from the units I realised how dark the night really was. At home the night sky was orange and the street lamps cast their pale light over everything, so even in the dead of night there were shadows and often seagulls flying above buildings. But here the sky was dark and close, overcast with misty drizzle. At the edge of the bush tiny bulbs placed every few metres illuminated the gravel path and sections of greasy boardwalk, and in places where the ferns hung low over the track, beads of water caught the light and glistened. A few minutes into the walk I came across a sign announcing a glow worm grotto, where it seemed as if all the glittering drops from the ferns had been gathered up into one place, sparkling in the night. I checked my phone, hoping that Jessica might have replied, but my inbox was empty. It was late, however. To compensate for my disappointment, I attempted to take a photo of the glow worms. The image was blurry, like lights from sparklers during fireworks, but I didn’t mind. I was far more interested in the smell of the damp and mossy scoop in the rock wall, surrounded by ponga and thick growth. If Archer had been there and wanted me to describe the smell, I think I’d have told him to imagine the feel of damp, cool stone tunnels and walls of an ancient catacomb or crypt.

  As I wandered back to the unit I wondered if I should cut my trip short and head home in the morning. Jessica might get someone else if I didn’t return immediately. Students could be impatient, demanding to be seen at a moment’s notice, so different from my day when I spent months at a time trying to avoid any encounter with my supervisor. And when meetings did take place, they were brief and awkward, as if neither of us knew how to broach the subject of my thesis. My research progress was painfully slow because the books I had to inter-loan from American universities took weeks and months to reach New Zealand by sea. The bibliography in my master’s thesis was so short compared with those of my students, yet the amount of time and effort that went into hunting down those meagre sources was far greater.