‘Stop it, Artie,’ he was shouting, ‘you wretched animal. Come here!’
Horribly aware that Digger, as the pursuer, seemed to be the main aggressor in the situation, Polly judged the dog’s speed and launched herself at him on his next circuit of the room. She timed it so well she managed to down both dogs, and lay on the floor panting, holding on to them tightly.
From this inelegant position she looked up at Bill Edmonstone’s stepson.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he was saying, taking hold of his dog by its collar. ‘I’m afraid I accidentally released your dog, trying to untangle him from Artie. They’d got all muddled up somehow.’
Polly stared at him and wasn’t sure if it was her jaw that dropped or his eyebrows that went shooting up first.
‘Chum?’ she said, trying to move into a less humiliating position, whilst not letting go of Digger.
‘Hippolyta?’ he responded.
Polly nodded, getting to her feet with the help of Chum’s hand, which he’d extended to her.
‘How great to see you!’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Polly simultaneously, and they both stopped, laughing.
Bill came over, leaning heavily on his stick.
‘So you and Edward know each other?’ he said. ‘How splendid.’
‘We were at St Andrews together,’ said the man whom Polly had only ever known as Chum. ‘I haven’t seen Hippolyta since 1988, when I graduated.’
‘Now, that’s a lovely name,’ said Bill, turning towards her. ‘Rarely heard these days. But you go by Polly?’
She nodded.
‘I got called Hippo at school,’ she said, ‘which rather put me off my full name, so I became Polly, but when I got to St Andrews I wanted to be more mysterious, so I went back to Hippolyta. Then I got sick of spelling it out for people. Polly’s much easier.’
‘Well, Hippo certainly doesn’t suit you. Edward doesn’t like being called Ted either, do you?’
Polly tried not to stare at Chum. Of course he was older – nearly twenty-five years older, blimey! – but he was still so much the same. The wide mouth that split into such a schoolboy grin, teeth slightly gappy, dimples in each cheek, the slightly bemused expression. Cheekbones even her mother would approve of. Dark brown hair – now silver at the temples – that stood on end when he ran his hand through it, just as he was doing now.
He had opened his mouth to say something else when the dogs kicked off again. Digger made a sudden leap towards the lurcher, who responded with loud barking and jumping backwards and forwards.
‘Stop it, Digger!’ said Polly, pulling him back with a sharp tug. ‘I’m so sorry, he’s not very well trained. I think I’ll have to get him out of here.’
She could hear other diners starting to mutter and saw the maître d’ on his way over, with a pained expression on his face.
‘It was lovely to see you, Ch– er, Edward,’ she said, turning back to him.
‘You can still call me Chum, Polly,’ he said, emphasising her name as though it had inverted commas around it, his face split by his widest grin. ‘All my old friends do. It’s just Bill who doesn’t like it. He thinks it’s immature.’
Polly smiled back at him. He still had that same easygoing charm. The nickname – derived from his preposterous surname, Chillington-Hanley-Maugham – had always suited him. Better than the daft triple barrel. And she’d thought her full family name was a mouthful.
Then she remembered what the more socially ambitious girls at St Andrews used to call the Hon. Edward Cliddington-Hanley-Maugham: ‘Pedigree Chum’. Wasn’t there a stately home or something?
‘And you can call me Hippolyta,’ she said. ‘It’s rather nice to hear it again.’
She was glad to see that the maître d’ had been distracted en route by one of the other diners, but before she could say anything else, Digger made another determined tug on the lead and nearly pulled her over.
Chum steadied her arm and, looking down at Digger in embarrassment, Polly noticed the crested signet ring on his left pinkie and had a sudden flashback, remembering that ring from all those years ago.
‘He’s got plenty of spirit,’ said Chum, leaning down to pat Digger, who responded by jumping up at him with an enthusiasm Polly greatly feared was about to lead to some vigorous leg-humping.
‘Well, that’s one word for it,’ said Polly. ‘I must remove him before he does anything else appalling. Lovely to see you, Chum. Hope to run into you here again some time.’
She turned and began to walk away with as much dignity as she could muster, dragging Digger behind her. Then she remembered Mr Mitsouko – realising she was always going to think of him as that.
‘Bye, Bill,’ she said, turning.
‘Goodbye, Hippolyta,’ he said, raising his stick in a salute. ‘Lovely to see you.’
With Digger a dead weight on the end of the lead, desperate not to leave his new canine pal, Polly got just close enough to the table where Daphne and Lucas were drinking their coffee for Lucas to be able to hear her. Daphne had her compact out and was retouching her lipstick, apparently oblivious to it all.
‘Lucas,’ she hissed, ‘I’ve got to take this bloody dog outside. Can you get Granny moving as quickly as possible? We must get going.’
He nodded and Polly picked Digger up and practically ran out of the dining room, smiling apologetically at the pursed-lipped diners as she passed, although one nice lady thanked them for the show.
Polly headed outside and while Digger ran round and round the monkey puzzle tree in the middle of the lawn, fuelled by lady-dog excitement, she leaned against her car and absent-mindedly lifted her wrist to her nose. She’d sprayed it again the night before with Guy Webber’s oddly intriguing The Darkest Hour and, as the surprisingly complex lingering notes hit her nose, she realised she’d forgotten to give Mr Mitsouko his perfume.
She took the small box out of her bag and put it in the glove box. Next time.
Then she found herself wondering if Chum might be there the next time as well. How strange it had been to see him again after so long, and in such an unexpected context. How strange, and how surprisingly lovely.
FragrantCloud.net
The scent of . . . university days
I have such happy memories of university that it can throw me into a swoon of nostalgic poignancy just to think about them. I went to St Andrews and it was a particularly romantic place to spend four years: an ancient grey stone town on the east coast of Scotland.
My years at St Andrews were a glorious whirl of parties and balls, crazy nights, handsome beaus and amazing teachers, who inspired my love of studying. And it really adds something to your appreciation of history when you spend your days among buildings dating back to the twelfth century.
But while I adored my university years, there was one thing I had to get used to, which was the large proportion of ‘Yahs’ – people so called because that was how they said ‘Yes’.
For example:
Two young men wearing dark red cords, navy-blue Guernsey sweaters, brown brogues, Barbour jackets and gold signet rings – always on the little finger of the left hand – meet on North Street. They are both nineteen years old.
‘Oh, Rupert, hi. Good man.’ They shake hands. ‘Are you going to the point to point on Saturday?’
‘Oh, yah, hi, Tarquin, yah . . .’
They were quite something.
I was already familiar with these throwback upper-class types, with their very particular codes of dress, speech and behaviour – and very loud voices – from the streets of Cambridge, where they also proliferate. (My father used to do hilarious imitations of them.)
But being thrust among this caste in my day-to-day life was another thing altogether. En masse they were quite terrifying.
They all seemed to know each other from the very small network of elite public schools they’d attended, and what I couldn’t get over was how blisteringly confident they were: a combination of the accid
ent of their privileged births and those bloody schools. What do they do teach them there?
I’d been to a very good selective girls’ day school myself, but this secret inner world of the old-school-tie brigade was new to me. As was knowing people with genuine triple-barrelled surnames.
My own double-barrelled name was completely artificial, made up by my mum, who’d wanted to hold on to her professional name – Daphne Masterson – as well as take my father’s name.
The Yahs also had very identifiable Christian names, and as an only child, very well skilled at fitting in, I immediately started introducing myself by my birth name of Hippolyta – my father’s choice, after a character in an eighteenth-century play he loved – rather than the more manageable Polly (or ‘Hippo’, as the girls at school had immediately dubbed me).
‘Hippolyta Masterson-Mackay’ slipped very nicely into that new milieu – far better than Polly Mackay might have done – and I soon found myself part of the main Yah set, which was great, because they did seem to have a much better time than anyone else.
The other notable thing was that a lot of them were incredibly good-looking – that Eddie Redmayne look for the chaps, Cressida Bonas for the girls – which I figured was from a combo of selective breeding (rich men can choose the most beautiful wives) and all the sport they’d played at school.
I fell in love a lot.
Getting to know such a particular – and sometimes downright peculiar – strand of British society was a great adventure, although it made me feel oddly cagey about my own background, which had never given me cause for concern before. I remember I didn’t want anyone to know who my mum was. A model didn’t seem the right thing for a mother to be.
How silly we can be when we’re young.
I think that sense of ‘otherness’ might be why I haven’t stayed in close touch with many of my Yah pals, though I wouldn’t have missed my larks with them at St Andrews for anything.
My smells of university are the tarry wax on Barbour jackets and the oily wool of a Guernsey jumper. Fiendish fruity Pimms made in plastic dustbins for summer parties, with sickly sweet lemonade, fragrant with slices of apple and cucumber and handfuls of mint. The wasps were as mad for it as we were.
The chemical residue on breath tainted by the cheapest instant coffee (cappuccinos were still an exotic concept experienced only on European holidays).
Cigarettes – Marlboro specifically – scented everything. We all smoked. While we worked, while we walked, while we sat in the pub, while we danced – and after sex, of course, like we’d seen them do in French films. A lot of the time it felt like we were playing at being grown-ups in that way, which adds further poignancy to the memory of it all. We were babies.
If it wasn’t the ciggie smoke, it was ashtrays piled with fag ends. It sounds awful, but that mix of stale smoke with sweat on morning-after clothing has a surprising appeal to me now.
As a counterpoint to all the staleness, there were the salty, biting North Sea breezes, the slightly fishy sweetness of cold damp sand and the sharp grass that grows in it. In summer the manicured grass of quad lawns and night-time bonfires on the beach.
A kiss in the dunes from a dashing young chap with beer and ciggies on his breath, and a faint whiff of horse on his shirt.
My scents for university days are:
Anaïs Anaïs by Cacharel
Lily of the Valley by Yardley
Obsession by Calvin Klein
Sel Marin by Heeley
Wood Sage and Sea Salt Cologne by Jo Malone London
Bas de Soie by Serge Lutens
Cuir de Russie by Chanel
Peau de Bête by Liquides Imaginaires
COMMENTS
MissingDior: I like the sound of those dashing young men smelling of horses! But what did the girls smell like?
FragrantCloud: Anaïs Anaïs mostly. It was everywhere then. I wore Lily of the Valley, which is why I’ve included it on my list. It was so reasonably priced I could spray it on liberally every day rather than having something more expensive and saving it for special occasions, although I did sometimes steal my mum’s perfumes and take them back with me!
LuxuryGal: St Andrews is so beautiful! You were so lucky to go there. I love Scotland. Are you a golfer?
FragrantCloud: I love Scotland too, but I’m not a golfer. Too many other fun things to do up there.
Agatha F: What did you study? I studied geography.
FragrantCloud: History. A long way from perfume, I know, but the historical context of perfumes is very interesting.
ClemmieMedic: A kiss on the beach, eh? You’ll have to tell me more!
FragrantCloud: Ha, ha, only if you’ll tell me some of your uni stories! Or maybe better not . . .
PerspiringDreams: Cambridge certainly smells a lot nicer since Clemmie has started bringing back samples from you! Thanks so much xxx
FragrantCloud: You are very welcome, Talitha. I’ve got some new things for you x
EastLondonNostrils: I bet it was bloody freezing. I’m surprised you could smell anything.
FragrantCloud: Guy, is this you? I’ve just put this together . . .
Tuesday, 19 January
Polly smelled him before she saw him. As she walked into the elegant panelled function room of Connolly’s department store, with the esteemed French perfumer she was interviewing for a special event, her head snapped round to scan the audience.
Somebody there was wearing the Great Eastern Fragrance Company’s Half Past Eight. There was no mistaking that burned-lemon-peel accord. As her eyes scoured the room, she saw Guy Webber’s face, grinning behind his thick black beard, clearly fully aware of what had caught her attention. He looked like a cheeky ten-year-old, waggling the fingers of one hand in greeting, his thick black eyebrows raised in mock innocence.
Polly gave him a hard stare. He knew exactly what a faux pas it was to wear a pungent scent by another house to a fragrance event – especially one featuring an eminent nose – and he’d done it anyway. In fact, he’d almost certainly done it deliberately, she thought, trying to gather her thoughts as she sat down opposite Lucien Lechêne, hoping Guy’s very particular fragrance wasn’t going to put her off her stride.
She raised her left wrist to her nostrils reflexively, trying to ground herself back in the task at hand via Monsieur Lechêne’s most famous creation. She saw the perfumer notice and smile at her. But the moment Polly put her wrist down, Half Past Eight filled her nose and her consciousness once again.
Damn Guy Webber and his tricky antics! He’d cancelled the appointment for her to interview him for the blog and had then sidestepped all her efforts to organise another one, via text and email, with lame excuses like needing to go to the dentist.
It had been so enervating she’d been torn between thinking he could stuff it and just turning up unannounced at the shop. She thought he was being very unprofessional, not to mention downright rude, but the two perfumes of his she’d smelled were so interesting she desperately wanted to find out more about them and the rest of the range – and him. She couldn’t help herself.
She lifted her wrist again.
‘One of mine?’ asked Lucien Lechêne, in his strong French accent, and Polly nodded, offering her arm to him. He took her hand very delicately in his, leaning his nose towards her skin, and smiled again. ‘Ah, La Flâneuse, an excellent choice, thank you. I caught it before and I thought it was you, but now I can smell something else very strong in this room. Is this why you are referring to your wrist?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly, sighing.
Lucien pursed his lips.
‘So we are here to talk about my two new fragrances with your readers, who have paid to come this event and have made the effort to come out on a wet winter night, and this odour . . .’ – he pronounced it in the French manner odeur, which made it sound very similar to ordure – ‘. . . while quite interesting, in its way, is very distracting. It is distracting my trained nose, so I think it will be very hard
for our guests to be able to appreciate the nuances of my work, non?’
‘I totally agree,’ said Polly, her heart sinking. Because she knew the person who had so outrageously hijacked the air with his own perfume – and strongly suspected he’d done it solely to get a rise from her, and succeeded – it made her feel somehow responsible.
‘I think I can fix it,’ she said decisively. ‘Give me a moment.’
She got up from the raised dais where they were going to do the interview and walked over to where Guy was sitting, looking even more amused than before.
‘Hello, Guy,’ she said brightly. ‘Can I have a word? Outside?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Lead on.’
Polly turned and walked out of the door of the function room, holding it open behind her to be sure Guy was following. By the time he came through it and joined her on the landing of the store’s side staircase he was shaking with laughter.
‘It’s not funny, Guy,’ said Polly. ‘The whole room reeks of Half Past Eight. How am I supposed to think about Lucien Lechêne’s sophisticated nuances with your perfume punching me in the nose? Not forgetting my readers, who have paid to come to this event – and Connolly’s, who have put it on, organised champagne and canapés and all that, done the promotion and sold the tickets and paid me to do the interview. You’ve put me in a very difficult position.’
Guy was leaning against the wall laughing.
‘I’m sorry, Polly,’ he said, ‘but I just couldn’t resist. It was pure vain curiosity. I wanted to see if you’d even notice and then if you’d recognise it.’
‘How could I not bloody notice? Did you not notice that everyone in the room was looking at you as the clear source of the all-pervading aroma? Which most of them would have known was most certainly not one of Monsieur Lechêne’s offerings? He’s known for his subtlety, a concept I’m beginning to think is entirely lost on you.’
The Scent of You Page 10