Edward Trencom's Nose

by Giles Milton

  Barcley raised his hand as if to stop his friend, but Edward was in full flow and scarcely even noticed.

  ‘It had the briny tang of a chevrotin des aravis,’ he said, ‘but lacked its creamy richness. It had the saltiness of a bonde de gatine but without its lightly worn maturity. It was certainly an old smell – of that I could be certain. But it was not, I was sure, produced by any of the three thousand one hundred and twenty-six cheeses, yoghurts and fromages blancs that were being stored in the crypt.’

  Edward had been so excited and mystified by the smell that he had allowed his nose to track it down, following it down the alleys and walkways that led through the interconnecting cellars. He entered the fertile pastures of the Pas de Calais and followed the path all the way to the blue cheeses of the Jura. As he brushed past the crates of picadou, which were piled almost to the ceiling, he thought he could discern a whiff of fresh walnut.

  But the smell had pulled him onwards, southwards, towards Piedmont and Lombardy and the majestic River Po. Here, however, the trail suddenly died and Edward found himself drawn towards one of the side cellars, which was filled with the mellow cheeses of Thrace. He pushed north-eastwards, towards Wallachia, Moldova and the cheese-producing towns of Transdneiper. But the smell once again petered out and he was drawn southwards towards the olive-marinaded cheeses of Istanbul.

  ‘And here, Richard, the smell suddenly seemed to fill the air. It seemed to be pouring out from beneath the crates of cheeses we keep reserved for the Greek and Turkish restaurants of north London.

  ‘Well, you can imagine my reaction – I was desperate to locate its source. I needed to know where it came from. I was in such haste that I knocked over two boxes, spilling their cheeses onto the floor. A third crashed into a stack of whey from Anatolia. It was only when I’d unstacked the tower of Turkish feta that I noticed the crate at the very bottom had split and come apart. And this was the source of the smell. It was filtering out of the crack in the wood.’

  Edward paused for a moment, anticipating that Barcley might have some questions. When none were forthcoming, he pressed on with his story.

  ‘I crouched down to the floor and pushed my nose against the wood. And what did I smell? It was a strange concoction – leather, musty apples, vinegary cider. I detected musk and lilies, violets and myrrh. And as I unpacked the surrounding crates and shifted this one from the bottom of the pile, I realized that I had discovered something of uncommon interest.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ asked Richard. He had noticed, as Edward was speaking, that the unseasonal thunderstorm had blown itself out and that brilliant winter sunlight was now streaming through the window. It struck the chrome-dial clock on the wall opposite his desk, scattering screaming shards of light across the four corners of the room.

  ‘Ah-ha,’ said Edward. ‘That’s a most pertinent question. It was most certainly not a cheese. Not a cheese at all. It was – are you ready? – the family records, or some of the family records, of the Trencoms. Of my ancestors. Yes, I had found a great box of family papers.’

  Richard raised an eyebrow and examined his index finger minutely, as if looking at it under a microscope. He then pushed it deep into his ear in order to track down and neutralize a most persistent itch. It was a habit – a rather unpleasant one – that tended to manifest itself whenever he was intrigued or excited. And he was, indeed, somewhat intrigued by what Edward told him. He realized that it might prove interesting after all.

  ‘I had no idea what were they doing there. And I had no idea who put them there. In fact, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d found. The records seemed to be jumbled together. Whoever had placed them in the box had not sorted them into any particular order. But I soon realized that these old papers referred to my ancestors – yes, to all the Trencoms who had worked in the shop.’

  Barcley leaned forwards and tapped his pen three times on his desktop.

  ‘And?’ he said.

  ‘And what?’ asked Edward.

  ‘Well, what did you find? What was in this box?’

  ‘Birth certificates, baptismal records and notepads. There were census returns, a handful of old photographs. There was a book written by Humphrey Trencom – the founder of Trencoms – and a Victorian family Bible.’

  Edward paused for a second as he tried to remember what else he’d found.

  ‘Oh yes, there was an edition of Byron’s poems that contained several handwritten letters and any number of maps of the Ottoman Empire. There was even an old icon in the box, along with four or five books written in Greek.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Richard, wondering where Edward’s discovery was leading.

  ‘And it dawned on me there and then,’ continued Edward, ‘that the contents of this box might well provide me with the opportunity to discover the truth about my nose.’

  Here, his voice dropped almost to a whisper.

  ‘For more than three decades I’ve wondered who first bequeathed us this family heirloom. I could never ask my father, for he died when I was a boy. And I never met my grandfather. When, many years ago, I tried to ask my uncle about the Trencom nose, he forbade me from ever again mentioning the subject.

  ‘Ever since I was a child, Richard, I’ve pondered over the strange shape and structure of my nose. I’ve wondered about its extraordinary sensitivity. All my life I’ve wanted to know how it entered the family.

  ‘And now that I’ve unearthed these papers, well, I’m sure I’ll be able to find out a great deal more. I’ll be able to discover where we come from, Richard – and who I really am.’

  There was a long pause before Barcley spoke.

  ‘Well,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’d caution you against getting too excited. You never know what you might find. My old father researched our family tree in the hope he’d find we were descended from Sir Launcelot Barkleigh, one of King Henry VIII’s chancellors. He’d quite convinced himself that we were a branch of the same family and even began claiming that it was us Barcleys who’d instigated proceedings against Anne of Cleves.

  ‘And do you know what he discovered? That we came from nothing more interesting than a long line of solicitors.’

  Barcley let slip a little snort and was surprised to see that Edward didn’t share the joke. Indeed, his friend seemed suddenly agitated and had got up from his chair and walked over to the window.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ said Edward as he looked out across the street. ‘Something that you may be able to help me answer. That building over there – to whom does it belong? Is it an office? Or does someone live there?’

  ‘What, Number 14?’ asked Barcley, who got up from his desk in order to join his friend at the window. ‘Well, now – why do you ask about that all of a sudden? You’re not going to tell me that it’s got something to do with your family?’

  Edward shook his head.

  ‘That building has long been something of a mystery to Mrs Clarke and I. We’ve never quite discovered what goes on there. There are always people coming and going from there. Always a lot of activity.’

  ‘Activity?’ queried Edward.

  ‘Yes. Cars pulling up. Parcels being delivered. That sort of thing. And Mrs Clarke drove past late one evening, when Queen Street is always deserted, and noticed that all the lights in that building were still on.’

  ‘But whose offices are they? The plaque on the door suggests that it’s some sort of family business from Piraeus.’

  ‘Yes, indeed – you have been doing your research. As far as I’m aware, it’s a shipping company. Some sort of import-export business. But, tell me, why are you getting so worked up about Number Fourteen, Queen Street? I’m beginning to think it has got something to do with your family’.

  ‘No,’ said Edward. ‘Not at all. But—’

  He stopped speaking for a moment as he wondered whether or not to tell his friend about the strange encounter he’d had with the man from the tour group. But he was concerned that it would all sound too odd. He didn’t
want Richard to think he’d lost his marbles.

  He weighed up his options and then, with considerable reluctance, decided to spell out exactly what had happened over the previous two days. ‘It’s like this,’ he said. ‘You may not believe me, Richard, but I have the distinct impression that I’m being watched. Indeed, it’s more than an impression. I know that I’m being watched.’

  Edward told Barcley how the man on Mrs Williamson’s tour had approached him and told him that his life was in danger.

  ‘I’m not sure if I should believe him,’ continued Edward, ‘or dismiss him as somebody who’s deranged. But one thing is sure, Richard. When he said I was being watched, he was indeed telling the truth. Someone was observing me – and that someone, whoever he is, has got something to do with this building here.’

  The two men looked back across the street towards Number 14. And as they did so, something happened that caused a chill to run through both men’s spines. The curtains of the first floor window – which had been closed throughout the morning – momentarily parted. In the seconds that followed, Edward realized that he was being spied on by the very same man whom he had followed through the streets just two days earlier.

  ‘Good God, Richard,’ said Edward. ‘That’s him. That’s him there. And he’s looking straight at me.’

  PART TWO

  JULY 1942

  Peregrine Trencom is clutching a wrinkled goatskin and trying to solve a most difficult conundrum. He is wondering if the creamy curd inside the skin is the most aromatic goat’s cheese he has ever tasted. Or is it, perhaps, just a little too pungent? Although his nose is – sniff, sniff – thoroughly enjoying the salty tang of wild flowers, his brain is less convinced by the acrid stench of goats.

  When Peregrine first held a piece of touloumotyri to his nose, he found it distinctly unpleasant. It had smelled very strongly of goats. But, after sniffing and eating it almost every day for eighteen months, the smell has started to grow on him. If he is ever to leave this remote mountain – and he has begun to have his doubts – he feels sure that he would soon start to pine for its overpowering smell.

  ‘What a marvellous addition to Trencoms this would be,’ he thinks to himself. ‘Oh, yes – I could sell it in its goatskin.’ He lets out a little chuckle as he imagines one of his most loyal customers, Mrs Browning, collecting her daily skin of touloumotyri. ‘Here you are, madam,’ he would say to her in a clear voice, ‘your goatskin awaits.’

  Peregrine sighs gently as he thinks about Trencoms and then looks at his current home – a makeshift wooden shack perched six thousand feet above the Aegean. How his life has changed. He left London in the middle of the Blitz, having entrusted the running of the cheese shop to his younger brother, Harry. His departure had come as an unwelcome surprise to the family and was met with tears by his son, the nine-year-old Edward Trencom. ‘Why are you leaving, Papa?’ the young lad had asked his father. ‘Why do you have to go now, when they’re bombing us?’

  Young Edward’s sentiments had been shared by Peregrine’s wife, Emily. She’d pleaded with him not to go and begged him to rethink. When this had had no effect, she’d snuggled close to him in bed and cooked him samsoe on toast for his breakfast. Why was he taking himself to Greece? she repeatedly asked herself. Why, oh why? He was following a whim – and a most selfish and dangerous one at that. She reminded him that it was just such a whim that had sent his father to an early grave. Oh, yes. Peregrine’s own father had met with his death in pursuit of the selfsame obsession. Could he not see? Could he really be blind to the fact that history might repeat itself?

  Peregrine had refused to listen to Emily’s entreaties. ‘You don’t understand the importance of my mission,’ he’d told her in an uncharacteristically pompous tone. ‘Can’t you see, my dearest? The fate of an entire country rests upon my nose.’ He had paused for a moment at this point in the conversation in order to frot his moustache, a habit that manifested itself whenever he was nervous. Then, no less instinctively, he had pulled out a handkerchief and begun to polish his appendage. ‘Oh, yes, yes, darling – an entire country is awaiting this nose.’

  Emily had shrugged and scowled. The pink blotches on her cheeks betrayed her anger. ‘You Trencom men are all the same,’ she’d told him with weary resignation. ‘You’re stubborn – and selfish. Your blasted nose, Perry, will be your downfall. And you’ll leave me a widow.’

  Peregrine’s voyage to Greece had been undertaken in the greatest secrecy. He’d switched ships on three occasions before being met as arranged in the bay of Theodoroi. From here, he had been ferried in a local fishing skiff to the secluded port of Dhafni, on the Athos peninsula, where his arrival was anxiously awaited by the National Byzantine Liberation Army.

  This band of resistance fighters, known locally as the Eagle Brigade, had established themselves as protectors of Mount Athos in the spring of 1940. Their self-appointed role was to safeguard the twenty monasteries that were dotted around the peninsula and stall any attempt on the part of the German army to ransack their treasures. With the arrival of Peregrine Trencom, they had a new and most important duty to perform. They had become guardians of the hereditary Trencom nose.

  The Eagle Brigade’s leader was a loose-limbed bandit who answered to the name of Demetrios. He had spent so long living outside on the mountain that his face and hands had come to resemble Athos’s crags and rock faces. Though not yet thirty, his eyes were lined with ravines and his chin was littered with the protruding boulders of weals and scabs. Even his clothes were at one with the elements. His patchwork jacket was within a whisker of becoming a living organism and in spring, if conditions were right, seedlings had been known to germinate in the seams of the cuffs and collar.

  Demetrios had met Peregrine at Dhafni and escorted him, under the cover of darkness, up the steep slopes of Agion Oros, the Holy Mountain. As the two men had neared the summit, and Demetrios called out the password, Peregrine found himself being hailed by five other members of the brigade. They had been expecting him for almost a week and were overjoyed that he had at long last arrived in safety. ‘In Christ’s name and in the name of Greece,’ said Artemios, one of the five, ‘you are welcome!’

  It is almost noon on a torrid July day. On the islands far below, goats, farmers and fishermen are all moving at half speed. But up here, halfway between heaven and earth, there is a satisfying coolness to the air. Peregrine is seated among little clumps of wild smilax and staring at the scintillant Aegean, keeping watch for passing tugs and warships.

  ‘Hmm,’ he says to himself as he holds another lump of touloumotyri up to his left nostril. ‘Funny – it doesn’t smell as good today. Less goaty and more …’ And for the first time in almost eighteen months, Peregrine Trencom is unable to say of what, exactly, the cheese smelled.

  He summons Artemios and is about to ask him to sniff the cheese when he suddenly becomes aware of something happening in the bay directly below. ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ he says, and points downwards. Both men watch as a little landing craft is drawn up onto the shingle beach. It has eight men on board – all German soldiers – who appear to be heavily armed.

  Artemios notices with alarm that they are making no secret of landing their weaponry. ‘You see,’ he says to Peregrine, ‘they know that we’re watching them.’ It quickly becomes apparent that these intruders are intending to scale the peak, but instead of ascending the eastern flank, the easiest route, they appear to be double-backing around the furthest side of the mountain and taking the more treacherous western slope.

  This causes considerable alarm among Peregrine’s comrades-in-arms. The western flank offers numerous possibilities of shelter for anyone ascending the mountain and they all know that its rocky overhangs will make it hard for them to launch a counter-attack.

  ‘Lord Jesus,’ whistles Konstantios to Demetrios. ‘They must have discovered he’s here.’ He points to Peregrine. ‘Yes, yes, I have a terrible sense that they’re coming after him.’


  ‘But how can they know?’ asks Peregrine. ‘I could swear that no one saw me when I arrived.’

  ‘Possible,’ says Iannis. ‘But the swine have been keeping an eye on us up here. Father Panteleimon told me. And they’ve interrogated the monks at Grand Lavra. They’ve even been quizzing the Abbot of Stavronikita.’

  Peregrine shivers into the warm breeze and rubs his nose. It feels cold and damp. ‘Just as it should be,’ he thinks. ‘Just like a cat. And yet – how strange that the touloumotyri doesn’t have any smell.’

  This thought for some reason reminds him of his wife and son and he wonders how they are getting on without him. What’s young Edward doing right now? Perhaps he’s helping in the shop? Peregrine is not a sentimental person, but he has been thinking about his son a great deal in recent weeks.

  ‘Maybe I should have stayed at home. Perhaps I should have remained at Trencoms.’ He closes his eyes for a moment and dreams of samsoe on toast; of cauliflower cheese and gratin dauphinois. ‘No, no,’ he says to himself as he chews on his saliva. ‘Quite impossible.’ He thinks about all the extraordinary things he has been shown over the last four months and decides that he has been right to come to Athos.

  ‘Besides,’ he says, ‘there’s no going back now. Not after all the things that I’ve discovered. After all, this mountain is the only true home we have. Oh, yes indeed. This is where we Trencoms belong.’

  Peregrine’s reverie is broken by Demetrios, who stokes the fire with his rifle butt before addressing his men. He orders them to fan out across the mountain, avoiding the gullies in the rock. ‘It will take them a good four hours to reach us,’ he says, ‘longer if they come up the ridge-back. If they follow the western scree, which is possible, they won’t be here until nightfall. In the name of Christ, we’ll kill them.’