Jessica could wait, I decided. Before going to bed, I emailed her again and suggested she highlight her main concerns so that we could get straight down to business once I returned. As a precaution I included my cell phone number in case she needed to talk. The last thing I can remember thinking before I fell asleep was, things are going to be okay. I’d made it.
Knowing Archer couldn’t smell my perfume allowed me the freedom to spray with abandon. I had with me a container of around fifteen manufacturers’ samples, all testers that I’d bought off sellers in the United States. When I first became interested in perfume I would order all the recent releases from the niche perfume houses, justifying the expense by kidding myself that it was money saved because I hadn’t bought expensive full bottles. I would have bought even more perfume samples had it not been for the price of shipping, which, when added to the exchange rate, could bump the cost of some 4ml decants up to $50 or $60.
What I hadn’t realised was how quickly samples could multiply and take over my life; I had boxes and boxes of them. How to catalogue and arrange the vials was the difficult part. Did I arrange them by house, or was it better to organise them alphabetically by perfumer? I could categorise them by perfume notes or even by season, from spring florals through to winter orientals. It was so hard that in the end I left them unordered, jumbled like the books on my shelves, grabbing one or the other based solely on my mood or what I thought would get me through the day.
During breakfast I told Archer about Jessica’s email, and he congratulated me so warmly that my sense of optimism felt vindicated.
‘Things are looking up,’ he said.
‘It’s nothing much, really,’ I countered, waiting for him to disagree. When he merely smiled over his cup of tea, I added, ‘It’s a start, though. That’s what’s important.’ Two years ago I would never have dreamed of using the word ‘start’ in relationship to my well-established career.
‘Do you think Jessica likes perfume?’ I asked.
‘Where did that come from?’
‘I don’t know. I wish, sometimes, that I had someone to share my hobby with, that’s all.’
‘Apart from me?’
I laughed. ‘Yep. Apart from you. I was thinking of someone with a sense of smell, for a start.’
‘Jerome?’
I hesitated before responding. ‘I’m not sure what I think of Jerome at the moment.’
‘He’s okay. Ambitious, a bit of a careerist.’
‘You don’t think he took advantage of his wife’s friendship with the vice-chancellor’s husband to keep his job?’
Archer shrugged. ‘That seems a bit of a stretch, even for Jerome.’
‘But you said he’d steal the dried fruit from the muesli packet!’
‘Yeah, there’s that.’
While Archer got ready to leave I checked my inbox. Nothing. In case she’d accidentally deleted my response, I fired off another message, warning her that I might be out of range for a short while. Then, because it felt like a new start to my life, the beginnings of an upward curve, I sprayed on my most recent tester, Moon Lake, which I’d liked on first sniff for the way it summoned up all the scents of a summer’s day by the water’s edge. Archer, I noticed, was wearing the perfume I’d made for him. That seemed pretty weird, considering he couldn’t smell it.
It was a beautiful morning with mist lifting to reveal the bush and mountains glistening under a clear blue sky. After a quick stop at the supermarket we were on the road by 10 a.m., the Pontiac chugging away with Archer beaming at the wheel. The day before I’d thought the car too much of a statement, too gangster for him, but I now realised that it was a good fit. There was something old-fashioned and sturdy about it, something that gave it an air of intrepid wholesomeness; it seemed fit for a family on the move, which, in a way, we were.
Archer was the first to break the silence. ‘I used to watch I Love Lucy when I was a kid, and one of the first episodes I remember was the one where she learns to drive.’
‘Oh?’
‘She has a Pontiac in the series. A convertible, far more modern than this old faithful.’
‘Old Faithful?’ I grinned. It was the perfect name.
‘She has a driving lesson, crashes the car and then straight after teaches her friend Ethel to drive.’
‘You really like women in cars, eh?’
‘No. I like redheads in cars.’
‘Aah, so that’s it. It’s redheads: Susan, Lucille …’
‘Renate.’
‘That’s okay then.’
As we drove I kept glancing at my phone, hoping for a message from Jessica. Niggling at me was the thought that she might have approached someone else, and even though the scenery around us grew more and more spectacular, I could barely appreciate it. Eventually, the signal became patchy and I gave up, promising myself not to check again until we reached Raetihi.
I’m not sure if it was my focus on the phone, or the combination of an uneven road surface and spongy car springs, but I felt increasingly uncomfortable and asked Archer to pull over at the next rest area for a moment so I could stretch my legs. He obliged, and the minute we got out the car was surrounded by a group of tourists who insisted on taking turns photographing themselves with the Pontiac in the background. I thought Archer would hate the attention but to my surprise he seemed to love it, inviting some of the more curious to climb inside and sit behind the wheel while he took their picture. After a minute or two I walked off a short distance to breathe in the fresh air, and then, despite my promise, checked my phone: a new text message. When I opened it, a photograph appeared, framed within a small box, but because of the glare on my phone I couldn’t make it out and had to angle myself away from the sun, placing my thumb and finger on the screen to stretch out and enlarge the picture. The blurred pinkish image wasn’t immediately clear and I had to peer more closely, and then, with a jolt, I yelped and jumped backwards, and my phone fell to the ground. I made another sound, a strangled ‘eugh’ that must have been loud enough to capture Archer’s attention because he hurried over to ask what was wrong.
‘On my phone,’ I said, pointing.
Archer picked up the phone and refreshed the screen. He said nothing, but a moment later the phone beeped again and he read aloud: ‘Hi Siân. How do you like my stripped back thesis? LOL. Jessica.’
I snatched the phone off him and deleted the text.
‘A penis?’ said Archer. ‘Was that a photo of a penis?’
Without thinking, I handed the phone back to Archer, then wiped my hands across my trousers as if that might help get rid of what I’d seen.
‘Wait,’ said Archer. ‘That’s Jessica? Your commerce student?’
I nodded. ‘I think so.’ The phone beeped again. ‘What is it now?’ I asked.
Archer read slowly, ‘Send pic of your edits to me? See what you have.’
‘Please stop it,’ I said. ‘Turn it off.’
From the corner of my eye I could see a guy leaning over the bonnet of Archer’s car, holding a phone in one hand and making a peace sign with the other. I felt sick. On the ground by my feet was a used tissue, and scattered around the rest area were bits of litter, discarded food and plastic bottles. Everything was so filthy. The fresh air was tainted. The hairs in my armpits began to prickle and bead with sweat. I felt dirty and so, so stupid.
‘Can we get out of here?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ said Archer.
‘Can you keep the phone? I don’t want it.’
‘I can do that for you.’
A burst of air, a long drawn-out whimper, escaped me. ‘I really thought I’d found a student. I honestly believed it was a job, that everything would improve. God, I’m so ashamed.’
I couldn’t get the image of the penis out of my head. It seemed to be poking out of my phone towards me, as if insisting I take hold of it. The sensation of warm, slightly damp skin against my hand. Prodding, prodding. I kept replaying her mocking words in my mind. Stupidly,
I had to keep correcting myself: him not her. There was no Jessica, only some creep with my name, email address and phone number.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Archer.
‘Yes, fine.’
‘I’m sorry this has happened to you.’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s my own fault.’
‘No. No, it’s not.’
‘Thanks.’ Tears began to well up in my eyes. ‘I thought I’d got a job. I even imagined turning my spare room into an office, a place where I could see students. Oh, my God, what if he gives my number to his friends? I was going to charge $24 an hour. That probably makes me sound like a prostitute, doesn’t it?’
‘No, not at all. It makes you sound like a tutor.’
‘What was I thinking?’
Jessica. Not a well-presented twenty-something. Not a young woman who wore jeans or leggings with sweatshirts, a woman who was often surrounded by friends, who went home to her family during the summer break, a woman who got drunk at parties but not so drunk that she’d feel sick the next day. My Jessica was the type of woman who was a little surprised and secretly proud that she’d made it through to a PhD. Jessica wore perfume and highlighted her hair and waxed her legs and would never send a photo of herself, naked, to a stranger. My Jessica didn’t have a penis.
It dawned on me for the first time that the man who’d sent the image had no pubic hair. He’d shaved himself before taking the photo. That’s why I hadn’t immediately recognised the pink blob. In my confusion I’d thought it was some kind of gelatinous dessert or a creature like an axolotl.
‘He had no pubic hair.’
‘Really? I didn’t notice.’
‘What is wrong with this world?’
I felt contaminated. My phone, too. A smell materialised. An awful sweet, musty, sweaty, cheesy smell, tacky in texture. As we drove along the smell turned acrid in my nose and I had to wind down the window to let in some fresh air. Even that didn’t get rid of it. It became stronger and stronger and I could practically taste it in my mouth.
‘Listen, do you mind pulling over for a moment? I need to get something from my bag.’
‘Sure.’
‘Sorry.’
I knew that somewhere in my travel case of perfumes was a bottle of 4711, a cologne that accompanied me everywhere. Its aromatic citrus blend reminded me of the coarse paper refresher towelettes you used to get with your in-flight meal on planes. It was the kind of fragrance that could obliterate anything, I hoped. It would have the power to make me feel clean.
My bottle wasn’t quite half full but it would do. Back in my seat, I sprayed my neck, my collar, my wrists, my forearms and inhaled. Then, while Archer watched, I sprayed the air. The initial burst of cologne caught in my throat, and seemed to fill my lungs, causing me to cough. I sprayed again. Archer sneezed.
‘How much do you need?’
‘All of it, I think.’
I breathed in and my chest hurt. I began to feel wheezy, and I coughed again and again.
‘Can you smell it?’ I asked.
Archer shook his head. ‘No, but I can taste it in the back of my throat. I think you’re going to suffocate us if you’re not careful.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I wanted to take away the smell of the photo. I wanted to disinfect my surroundings, wipe down every surface and scrub it clean. But even that wouldn’t be enough to get rid of the stench. I had to fight an urge to strip down to my underwear and rub my skin in an attempt to rid myself of the ‘Jessica’ stain.
‘Can you pass me my phone?’
Archer reached into his pocket and passed it over. ‘What are you going to do?’
I had no idea. I realised in that moment that I lacked the strength to do anything.
‘What are you doing?’ Archer sounded worried.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’
Notes of nothing: The time I was four years old, playing by the creek. I liked the smell of the water, it was swampy, like pond water but also peppery and slightly bitter. It was a good smell. On this day, while poking a stick into the mud, a boy of around thirteen approached me and asked to see my knickers. I said nothing. He told me to go under the bridge with him, and when I hesitated he pulled down his tracksuit pants and hooked out his penis through a tear in his underpants. When I was a teenager, walking home from school, I was approached by a man on a bicycle who repeated, ‘I want to fuck you’, as he trailed after me all the way home. He was there again the next day, and the next. I took a different route, adding thirty minutes to my journey. At school camp, the instructor with breath that smelt of dog shit, lining us girls up to help buckle our waist harnesses at the top of the abseil rock. On the first day we all stood still, smiling sheepishly, while he fumbled with the buckles and webbing around our crotches. The following day a sense of dread kept us quiet as he pressed his body against ours and ran his hands around our waists, our bottoms. On the third day, half the girls complained of being sick, of having sore throats, migraines and colds to avoid his session. On a plane to Europe, the man in the seat next to mine woke me from sleep when his hand slipped under my blanket and travelled to my inner thigh. In an artist’s studio a sixty-something sculptor cornered me and ran his hands over my body while describing how he would have ‘had me’ in his younger days. The day the dentist stroked my cheek and asked for details of my sexual history while waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect. The evening a man followed me from the train station and along the deserted streets of my neighbourhood, causing me to double back into town and sit in a café until I felt it would be safe to go home. The night the proprietor of the hotel let himself into my room during the early hours of the morning to check I was ‘warm enough’. And so it goes on, year after year, all these events and many more where I’ve let myself down by doing nothing. Not quite nothing, for the one constant in all of these episodes is the smell of my sweat. Not the scent of a healthy body drenched in perspiration caused by strenuous exercise but the sickly stench of onion that arises from armpits tacky with sticky sweat, the result of anxiety and fear.
Poor Archer. He tried everything to cheer me up. ‘Did I ever tell you about my first job?’ he said, as we ventured off the main road at Horopito to stop outside the vast car wreckers made famous in the movie Smash Palace.
‘Bartending?’
‘No, my very first job.’
I shook my head.
‘When I was around sixteen I got a job in a family-owned toupee manufacturing business in New York.’
He glanced across at me and ran his hand over his smooth head. ‘I know, funny, right?’
‘Was it a good job?’
‘I found it creepy, to tell the truth. The hair came from Italy, bags and bags of it, and I had to sort it by type, length and colour. That part wasn’t so bad, but once it was attached to lace and made into hairpieces … ugh, no thank you.’
The rusting bodies of vehicles extended into the distance. Close to where we sat, Fords were lined up in rows, some stacked one on top of the other. None of the cars were whole. Most had doors or headlights missing, others lacked bonnets or bootlids. From one car to the next, there was such a variety of colour that the car-strewn paddocks took on a painterly, somewhat impressionistic appearance. It was almost beautiful.
‘Do you want to have a look around?’
Archer shook his head. ‘Not today. Maybe on the way back.’
‘Are you sure? They might have some Pontiacs …’
Archer wavered, scanned the area between us and the railway line. ‘I’m sure they do.’
I expected him to change his mind but he seemed content sitting in the car, taking in the view the way that people who park near airports watch planes land and take off.
‘Andy Warhol was a local, though I never saw him.’
‘When you made toupees?’
‘No. Later, when I was hitting on Renate.’
I waited, knowing he would continue.
‘It’s a long time ag
o. Can’t believe how long.’
In the distance we could see two men checking out a Holden station wagon, the same model my friend’s mother had driven when we delivered meals on wheels. That one had been golden, but the Holden in the scrapyard was a rusted green, faded from the sun.
‘Have you heard of the Green Guerillas?’ asked Archer.
‘No.’
‘Well, back in the early seventies a group of activists took over a vacant lot in the Bowery and turned it into a community garden, the first in New York.’
‘You’ve lost me. What’s that got to do with Andy Warhol?’
‘Nothing. But I used to walk past the restaurant where he dined, Ballato’s, on my way to the bar where I worked. After passing his restaurant I’d continue on down Houston Street, and that’s when I spotted Renate working in the garden. She wore a yellow headscarf so she was easy to spot. It took me six months to pluck up the courage to talk to her.’
‘You were shy?’
‘Guess so. She put me in charge of sunflowers.’
The windows inside the Pontiac had started to mist over and the air was cool and a little damp. I stretched and shuffled in my seat, leaning forward to wipe the glass with the cuff of my jumper. The surface smeared and streaked, making it difficult to see. ‘I think we should get out and go for a walk.’
We left the car beside the road and began walking along the perimeter fence. Mount Ruapehu, snow capped, stood monumental in the distance. We passed a line of Hillman cars and I stopped in front of an Imp, the car my mother had driven when I was still at primary school. It had a tendency to roll from side to side with every turn of the wheel. I’ve never been so sick as I was in that car. Looking at this one reminded me of the taste of vomit rising from the back of my throat and my futile attempts to swallow it back down.
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