Scented

by Laurence Fearnley

  Renate made a gulping sound and her whole body quivered.

  ‘Do you think there was something wrong with it?’ she asked.

  I felt heat rise through my body and I found it difficult to look her in the eye. ‘Well, it was old, so I guess you can’t rule out the possibility that something might have gone wrong.’ Almost immediately I backtracked, adding, ‘It seemed really well maintained, though. It looked great and ran very smoothly.’

  ‘But they said it was a medical event,’ she replied. ‘An aneurysm. That’s what they told me. But do you think there was a mechanical problem? The car was relatively undamaged in the accident so that doesn’t seem right. He just nudged the bank, like he felt something was wrong and had just enough time to pull over. But you think it might have been the car?’

  A wave of relief mixed with guilt and sadness went through me. ‘I didn’t know he’d had an aneurysm,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise something had happened to Archer. Jerome said he’d lost control but I didn’t know why. I assumed it was something to do with the car, or the road conditions, or maybe that he swerved to miss something … I didn’t know the details and I didn’t like to ask. It’s so sad.’

  Renate looked confused and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d raised questions and doubts in her mind and now the only decent thing to do was reassure her. ‘I’m certain the doctors are right. They would have done scans and they can see what’s happened. If they say it was an aneurysm, it must have been that. That makes sense.’

  As I spoke I wondered who I really wanted to reassure. Renate only nodded in response, then said goodbye before hurrying off to meet Hester. I kept on my way, going over what Renate had said, trying to convince myself that Archer’s death had nothing to do with his car. I couldn’t believe that Archer had crashed because of an aneurysm. He was too full of life and too kind a person for something like that to kill him. His death felt unfair and cruel.

  As I went through the Domain, I noticed that groups of people were milling around the tropical glasshouse. Tourists probably, from a cruise ship or a bus tour.

  As I reached the main drive leading out of the Domain I began to feel nervous. I recognised the feeling in the pit of my stomach, that resident touch of self-conscious foolishness I’d experienced in the past whenever I bumped into Thora. The mixture of being pleased to see her coupled with the desire to escape as quickly as possible. That was how I felt now, and my first reflex was to reach in my bag for a reassuring spray of perfume, my constant shield and protection in awkward social situations. But there was little point because whatever I sprayed would be tainted with the residue smell of the mouth-spit scent that clung to my skin on my left arm, despite all my rubbing. I should have learnt by now not to spray untested perfumes directly onto my skin. I should have tried it on a blotter first. I should also have learnt that the perfumes I hate the most have an uncanny ability to hang around for hours, whereas the real beauties, those that make me swoon with delight, often evaporate and fade within the hour. This purple muck, I thought as I stepped through the main gates, will probably still be on my skin in the morning. And it will remain on my clothes for even longer. Like a stain.

  It was late when I reached the pharmacy, and before going in I did something I only ever did before delivering lectures: I huffed into my cupped hands and smelt my breath. It seemed fine, though I’m not sure I’d be able to tell. And I’m pretty certain it’s been disproved as a way of detecting bad breath. The same guy was at the counter and behind him, with her back to the shop, was Thora. I guessed she was filling out a prescription for a woman who sat by a water cooler with a small child curled against her. She smoothed his hair and spoke quietly: ‘Not long now, love. We’ll get you home soon.’ I couldn’t tell who was sick but they both looked tired, as if they’d had a long day and there was no immediate promise of relief. Thora came out and handed the woman a folded white bag. After going over the instructions concerning dosage, she reached into her pocket and brought out a lollipop for the child.

  Then she turned to me and said hello.

  ‘Hi.’

  There was an awkward pause, but then she smiled brightly. ‘Benzoin.’

  As she reached under the counter, she glanced at me and said, ‘I didn’t recognise you yesterday. I’m sorry.’

  I felt my mouth curl into a smile. ‘I wasn’t sure, either,’ I said. ‘But, actually, you haven’t changed much. Apart from your hair.’ I made a gesture with my hands, the type of stroking pat favoured by hairdressers when discussing a cut or style. ‘It’s the other way around. Grey and black.’

  ‘Yep.’ Thora looked at me, as if taking in my changes. ‘Are you still a museum curator?’

  ‘No, not for a long time.’

  Thora looked surprised. ‘Oh, what do you do?’

  I was about to answer when the young assistant beckoned Thora and she excused herself. While she was gone I occupied myself looking at the flavoured lip balms displayed on the counter. Some had easy to recognise names, like vanilla bean or sour cherry, but others were obscure. Stardust. Was it a flavour, and if it was, would it taste of rock and minerals and colour your lips grey?

  Thora was soon back, presenting me with two amber-coloured bottles, one containing benzoin and the other friar’s balsam.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted the benzoin for your medical cabinet or for making perfume. Do you still make perfume?’

  She remembered. I felt a surge of pleasure. ‘Yes, I do. It’s still a hobby, though, nothing serious.’

  Thora lifted the smaller bottle, the benzoin tincture. ‘This is probably more useful, but really there’s not much difference between them in terms of concentration. It’s expensive compared to the friar’s balsam.’

  ‘Why is it called friar’s balsam? Do you know?’

  ‘No. All I know is that it’s been around for hundreds of years. People use it much in the way they’d use iodine, on wounds or blisters. It’s a bit messy because it stains the skin dirty yellow. You don’t have to take both, or either. I can put them on the shelf.’

  ‘No, I’m curious.’ As I spoke I opened the benzoin and inhaled, careful not to breathe in too deeply in case it was very strong. A shot of recognition went through me and I gasped.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Thora. ‘Did you get some up your nose?’

  I shook my head, and sniffed again. There it was, summoned from the back of my memory, the smell of my father’s doctor’s bag. The smell I’d thought was amber was now presented to me in its entirety. ‘It’s the smell of my father,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know it was benzoin, but this is it.’

  I passed the bottle to Thora, who held it up to her nose. As she sniffed she squinted, closing one eye. ‘It’s quite similar to iodine. I’m not sure I could tell the difference. Why does it remind you of him?’

  I explained. ‘His bag has a warm, sweet, resin-like scent that reminds me of amber, but now I realise it’s benzoin. This is a little bit softer, and it has leather undertones, like handbag leather, and it’s a little bit spicy too, as if there’s a hint of nutmeg or cinnamon.’ I dabbed a little of the tincture on the back of my right hand and sniffed again. ‘It will sound silly but I feel like I’ve solved a puzzle.’ I smelt my skin again, noticing that, already, the tincture had mellowed, becoming even more like the smell of the drawer within his bag containing the neatly rolled bandages and cloth tape.

  I capped the bottle and held it gently in my palm, warming the glass with my skin. ‘It’s perfect,’ I said. ‘It seems to fit.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Thora.

  ‘I mean it feels like a part of me. Sometimes you get that with perfume, a sense of belonging. It’s such a warm, skin scent. Thank you.’

  Thora began to say something, then stopped and waited a moment. ‘I think that’s how your perfume made me feel. You mightn’t remember the smell, but whenever I wore it I had the impression that it felt right. It was intuitive. I would have found it difficult to e
xpress that same feeling in words. I wore it every day until I almost drained the bottle. And then I kept a little bit back, so I could smell it once in a while. When I sniff it now, I’m reminded of Wellington.’

  ‘I put a lot of boronia in that perfume. And frankincense.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. There’s a boronia across the road from the sensory garden behind the Domain. I sometimes pass it on my way home and I can remember the first time I caught the smell of it. It’s so distinctive, like cranberries and raspberry jam.’

  ‘It was new to me,’ I said. ‘Unlike anything I knew.’

  ‘I looked it up a couple of years ago and found out it was named after an Italian botanist and plant collector who died when he leant too far out of a window while reaching for a plant. Did you know that?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I don’t remember anything else about him. Just that he was called Francesco Borone.’

  As in the old days, it seemed we’d run out of things to say, and we both fell silent, smiling awkwardly at each other, hoping either for a new topic of conversation or for some way of politely exiting the situation.

  ‘I still have all my oils,’ I said. ‘I could try and make your perfume again, if you like.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t ask you to do that. It’s too much trouble.’

  ‘Not at all. It would give me something to do. In fact, I can probably find the original formula in one of my old notebooks.’

  Thora looked doubtful. ‘I’ll pay you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘If that makes you feel better.’

  I walked home, my brain swarming with ideas, not for Thora’s perfume but for my own signature scent. As I strolled along I took sniffs of my arm, allowing the benzoin to warm me. Once, I accidentally raised my other arm and caught the scent of the strange toothpaste camphor in my nose. Now that it had dulled it was quite nice. In fact, I wondered if I could make the camphor, wintergreen note work with the benzoin. The latter might counteract the sharpness of the purple scent; it was worth experimenting with.

  As I circled behind the museum I made a promise to sit down and begin making the perfume of myself. It was one thing to have scent notes circulating in my mind, and fragments of ideas in my head. Now I needed to organise my thoughts and work.

  Notes of my collected selves: This is what my perfume is shaping up to be. I’m a bit disappointed that my character doesn’t show through more strongly, that I can’t point to it in the way you might gesture towards a statue and say, ‘That represents me.’ My scent, I realise, has as many negative spaces as positive. It shows what I am not, as much as it tries to embody what I am.

  I am not my parents. But now that I have smelt benzoin I know I will include it for the memory it awakens of my father. And yet, if I’d asked him who he was, I’m certain he wouldn’t have replied ‘a doctor’. That was his occupation, not his identity. So, by focusing on benzoin I am, in a way, misrepresenting him.

  My mother is more difficult to reduce to a single note. I cherish the memory of our jogs by the river and will stick with willow, but I’m reminded that ‘mother’ is a more generic description than ‘doctor’. It’s the everythingness of it, the way she appeared so often to be a reflection of what we wanted or demanded. I never asked my mother, ‘Who are you?’ That wasn’t a question anyone ever asked mothers and housewives. We always assumed we knew, Carrie and I. In some ways it would have been simpler for me now if my mother had rebelled at some stage in her life and gone off to do her own thing. Then, at least, I could have summed her up in a word.

  My own identity, the one that once appeared as clear-cut as my father’s, now has softer edges, reminiscent of my mother’s. That is one of the reasons, I think, why I haven’t been able to make as much progress with my perfume: I lack hard edges.

  I’m frustrated, too, that my strongest links to scent continue to be associated with memory rather than the here and now. Truly the only place that speaks to me as strongly as the places of my youth is my home. That and Archer, and he’s gone.

  What have I really learnt about myself since being kicked out of the university? I’ve learnt that I was ashamed to have lost my job and yet believed in myself enough that I expected to land something new. I’m alone, not only in the sense that I have no one to talk to, but to the extent that the world has become quiet, and empty. And yet I still believe that something is out there. So do I continue to look inwards, defining myself by what I’m not or what I’ve lost, or do I reimagine myself as what I could be, my potential self?

  First thing the next morning, I found my old notebook with the recipe for Thora’s perfume. It took less than thirty minutes to gather together the ingredients and blend her scent. To start, I dipped a clean blotter in each of the oils and passed them slowly in front of my nose in order to reacquaint myself with each note. I decided not to alter the perfume but made it exactly as it had been, filling a 30ml bottle with the result. It was better than I remembered. If I’d been making it for the first time today I probably wouldn’t have felt the need to dress it up in the uranium glass bottle. I’d have been happy enough using a dark amber glass bottle, the type that contained most of my blends. I made a second, smaller batch of the perfume for myself. Half of this featured the original formula, but with the left-over juice I substituted my new-found love, benzoin, for the original frankincense. This instilled the perfume with a hint of caramelised-amber sweetness. The benzoin brought out the raspberry jam aspect of the boronia in a way that frankincense had not. I’d created a perfume I would wear myself.

  It was close to ten when I made my way towards the museum, intending to spend the day in the reference library. During my sleepless night of Googling ‘Taylor’ I’d discovered that his journals from the 1830s to the 1870s were held in the museum, and I believed that one of them contained the recipe for the grand Māori perfume. As I was still a few minutes early, I passed some time in the small sensory garden, which contained many common herbs as well as some plants I didn’t recognise. Fennel was the most prolific. I picked a few strands of its feathery leaves and crushed them in my fingers, enjoying the aniseed sweetness on my skin. A peppermint-scented geranium caught my attention, and after smelling it I stuffed a palm-full of leaves into the pocket of my trousers to return to later. In fact, I might have paid closer attention to the geranium, a smell I enjoy for its bitter green, stalky note, had I not already spotted the plant next to it: wormwood.

  I’d always imagined wormwood would be twiggy and scraggly, like a bush rather than a plant. This specimen, however, was low to the ground with downy grey-green leaves that were closer in appearance to a geranium or daisy than the plant carried in my head. I read the label, Artemisia absinthium, which gave the clue to its link to absinthe, the drink Archer had prepared for me during our happy cocktail evening. Mugwort was the name preferred by most of my American suppliers of wormwood oil, even though the mugwort variety of Artemisia differs from the stronger absinthe version. Plants with ‘wort’ in their name had medicinal properties, whereas those ending in ‘bane’ – ratbane, witchbane or wolfbane – were toxic.

  I bent down to the wormwood to sneak a few leaves, pressed them gently into my palm and then inhaled. The smell was very faint. My brain told me it should smell like absinthe, but I wasn’t picking up on that note so I assumed the fault lay with my nose. When I tried again I detected the scent of faded canvas, or the sun-baked cotton cloth of the old inflatable lilos we slept on whenever guests came to stay and use our beds. ‘It is just like a lilo.’ I said the words softly, intending them for Archer, though I knew he wouldn’t hear. ‘I thought it would smell more like absinthe,’ I continued. ‘I’m a bit disappointed. It’s hardly loucheable.’

  I tried the leaves once more, but it was difficult to gain a clear impression because the smell was so fleeting. I crushed the stems between my fingers until the slightest smear of juice appeared. This time I could clearly detect an aroma of licorice. This was minty, but as I continued to smell a
touch of celery leaf surfaced, and then a slight hint of cumin. I inhaled more deeply, the smell caught in the back of my nose and I sneezed.

  Again, I squashed some leaves hard in my palm, bruising them, and sniffed. A searing pain went through my nose, as if I’d inadvertently inhaled soap or shampoo. It burnt the back of my throat and made it feel raw, as though I’d just vomited. The burning sensation grew stronger, boring a hole in the back of my nose. I cleared my throat but the rawness grew worse. I could clearly taste the wormwood now. It was like the clear nail product I was given as a child to discourage nail biting. Every time I breathed it felt like a hot flame burning my sinuses, and I kept sneezing. I was still snuffling when I finally reached the museum.

  The library was empty when I arrived, and after signing in I made my way to a long table that faced a curved wall with windows looking down onto the atrium below. The table was similar to the one I worked at when I was making my perfumes, but instead of oils and blotters there were containers of sharpened pencils and neatly trimmed squares of recycled paper. At my back were dark stained shelves filled with books about New Zealand history and culture, natural history and the arts.

  I sat quietly, my notebook open, while I waited for the librarian to fetch the Taylor material. Had it not been so cold in the room I might have enjoyed the peacefulness. Instead, my thoughts lingered on whether I’d caused permanent damage to my still burning nose and throat, and how misleading the suffix ‘wort’ was. No wonder it was attached to ‘mug’.

  After ten minutes, I heard a low jangle of keys and the librarian reappeared, pushing a trolley containing several large volumes. She walked right past me and went back to her computer, where she started typing.

  ‘Are you sure this is the correct reference?’ she asked.

  ‘It should be. I saw it in a book containing Taylor’s recipe for the grand Māori perfume.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘There’s a bit of a hiccup.’