‘So you’re a farmer these days?’
‘Sort of. I mainly do horsey things – you were right about that. But tell me more about being a perfume blogger.’
The way he said ‘perfume’, as though it were in inverted commas, reminded her that his lot had always said ‘scent’.
She remembered how crushed she’d felt when she’d complimented a female Yah on her perfume while they were both refreshing their lipstick in the loos at a university ball.
‘Oh, you mean my scent?’ she’d said. What a cow. She was one of the girls who’d called Chum by the ‘Pedigree’ nickname behind his back.
Polly hadn’t been able to stand Anaïs Anaïs ever since. She’d only said she liked it to be nice.
Well, sod them. If Coco Chanel and Jacques Guerlain and Frédéric Malle and Lucien Lechêne called it parfum, ‘perfume’ was good enough for her. And she was sure Estée Lauder and Tom Ford would agree.
She couldn’t believe how quickly all that stuff was coming up after spending such a short time with Chum again. Surely caste divisions in the UK had moved on since she’d last seen him in 1992? Yet the class-markers of tribal clothing and specific words were still jumping out at her like booby traps in one of Lucas’s computer games. ‘Super Mario 3D Yahs’.
As she was having these thoughts, which were slightly spoiling the walk and the novelty of his company, she became aware that her feet were feeling seriously damp and cold.
Glancing at her watch, she saw they’d already been out for more than half an hour. She could easily give the excuse of needing to get back to her mother, but Digger was having such a lovely time she couldn’t bring herself to suggest they turn back yet. And she didn’t really want to. The wind was cold, but the air smelled so fresh, the rawness of the churned-up soil adding a lovely earthy layer.
Chum looked round at her.
‘Are you sniffing again, Hippolyta?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, realising she’d never answered his question about perfume blogging – or scent blogging, to use his term. ‘I can’t help it. I’ve always been obsessed with how things smell and how they make you feel, and the vivid associations between the two. I started writing a blog about smell and perfume a couple of years ago, just for fun, and it’s become a bit of a job. It’s great.’
‘How is it a job?’
‘I have a lot of subscribers who are very loyal to me and they pay to come to my perfume events – I know you call it “scent”, Chum, but in the perfume world, it’s very much known as perfume.’
‘I don’t care what you call it,’ said Chum, looking mystified.
‘OK,’ said Polly, a bit embarrassed. That was clearly her issue, not his. ‘Anyway, they come to themed events I put on, such as “Perfume and Love”, “Perfumes of the 1970s”, “The History of Perfume”, that kind of thing, and now department stores and brands are paying me to do events for them. Say a famous nose – that’s the term for someone who creates perfumes – has a new range out, I’ll do an interview with him, or her, in front of a live audience. I did one a few days ago for Connolly’s.’
‘That sounds rather jolly,’ said Chum. ‘Is there a lot to say about scent – perfume – then?’
‘You’ve no idea how much,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those worlds within worlds. The more you delve, the more you find it opens up into deeper and deeper chambers, dragging you in.’
‘Like the Daily Mail website?’ suggested Chum.
Polly laughed.
‘Just like that,’ she said. ‘So tell me more about what you do. What kinds of horsey things?’
He glanced quickly away, Polly noticed, as if looking for a distraction, then turned back to her.
‘Oh, it’s pretty dull stuff, really,’ he said, sighing deeply. ‘Looking after other people’s horses mainly. It’s not glamorous like what you do, but I like it. I just love being around the animals. I enjoy their company, which probably sounds crazy, but I do. I particularly love their smell.’
‘So do I,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the great smells, actually, and traces of it are used in perfumes. It’s called an animalic note.’
‘Gosh,’ said Chum, ‘I wouldn’t mind some of that. What’s it called – Eau de Nag?’
‘Well, it’s more of a hint deep inside a very complex blend of different smells, although one niche company does make a perfume called Stable.’
‘I wear that all the time,’ said Chum, sniffing the sleeve of his Barbour. ‘Here, have a whiff.’
Polly took hold of his arm and brought it up to her nose. It did smell of horse, mixed with the wax on the jacket and a hint of diesel.
‘Nice,’ she said, smiling at him.
Chum smiled back, looking genuinely gratified, and they walked on in silence for a while. Not an awkward silence, but easy and comfortable, and Polly was happy to enjoy the peace, the only sounds the breeze whistling past her ears, the squelch of her trainers in the mud, birds calling and the dogs yapping at each other.
She made a conscious decision not to think as she walked, to treat this as a form of meditation, but it was hard to stop the memories that kept jumping up unbidden, of times she’d spent with Chum before.
Images from the past kept flashing through her head like a slide show. Chum at a dinner table, roaring with laughter. Chum in black tie at a university ball. Chum’s face by the light of a bonfire. Chum’s eyes gazing into hers.
It was so odd being with someone you’d known such a long time but hadn’t seen or spoken to for years. They were strangers really and yet she felt oddly connected with him still. Maybe it was because the time they had shared together – peak youth – was such an intense period of anyone’s life. Perhaps friendships from that time never faded.
All this turning over in her head, Polly was almost relieved when the peace was suddenly broken by the sound of a pheasant flying upwards, flushed out by Digger. Chum immediately raised his arms as though he were holding a gun and swung over to the right.
‘Bang!’ he said. ‘Damn, missed it. Good gun dog you’ve got there.’
‘Is that a form of ritual killing you do go in for?’ asked Polly, feeling the cultural chasm opening up again.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s another part of my job, and I do enjoy shooting, but don’t hate me for it. I eat what I shoot, or other people do. It’s not just killing for the sake of it. You’re not vegetarian, are you?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘But my daughter is.’
‘That’s a phase they go through, isn’t it?’ said Chum. ‘How old is she?’
‘It’s not a phase with Clemmie,’ said Polly. ‘She’s twenty-three and has been a veggie since she was fourteen, so it’s not just a pose. And it seems to suit her, she’s very healthy. I’ve got a nineteen-year-old son as well. He’s a big carnivore, so they slightly cancel each other out. Do you have kids?’
‘No,’ said Chum. ‘I’ve got a nephew I adore, but I don’t see him nearly as much as I’d like to. Probably why I’m so soppy about animals. Artie is my child, and Sorrel – that’s my horse – is my wife. Not in a creepy way, but because of the importance she has in my life. No, that still sounds creepy, so you’ll just have to believe me: I’m not a pervert, I just love my horse. OK, that’s no better, I’ll shut up.’
Polly laughed, but felt a pang of sadness for him. If his horse was his wife, it sounded like he didn’t have a human partner. Single and childless? That was nuts. It was so crazy when she thought of all the women she knew who would have loved to have had kids with a guy like Chum. Not because he was posh and closely related to the large field they were walking through, but because he was nice and funny and tall and good-looking, and all those boxes women want to tick. And probably rich too, if that was your thing.
She wondered if he’d ever been married, but didn’t feel she could ask. Unlike some of her St Andrews contemporaries, she hadn’t kept up a daily patrol of the ‘Births, Deaths and Marriages’ column of the Daily Telegraph after she’d lef
t. Anaïs Anaïs probably had them all in a scrapbook. Cross-referenced.
Polly had heard about plenty of engagements over the years, but she didn’t remember hearing Chum’s name come up. Maybe the single-and-childless scenario was why Bill had said he was having a rough time.
She decided to keep the conversation on safe ground. Also, not asking him about his marital status would make it less likely he would ask about hers.
‘Sorrel is a lovely name for a horse,’ she said. ‘Did you choose it?’
‘Yes,’ said Chum. ‘I bred her, so I got to name her when she was born. Sorrel was the name of William III’s horse – as in William and Mary? The house was built in his reign, although it was King James who bestowed the title.’
He said it all so casually it was rather endearing. She liked the way he’d said ‘the house’, without feeling the need to explain further. He wasn’t showing off, or trying to put her in her bourgeois place. He was who he was and he was perfectly comfortable with it. She couldn’t remember what the title was, or what the house was called, and didn’t want to ask him. She didn’t really care.
Preoccupied with all that, Polly had hardly noticed that they’d reached the wood. The dogs disappeared into it at great speed and she heard Digger’s familiar bark in the distance – his happy bark, as she thought of it.
Even though there were no leaves on the trees, it felt wonderful to be enclosed by the canopy of branches, the huge trunks forming a kind of architecture around them. Polly closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. It was mossy and woody, with a green dampness. Glorious.
‘How’s your sniffometer?’ asked Chum, who’d clearly noticed again what she was up to.
‘My sniffometer is on ten,’ said Polly. ‘Full power. There are thickets of trees up on the Heath, but it’s not like this. They’re like cardboard trees from a stage set by comparison. This feels primal.’
Chum grinned, clearly pleased she liked it.
They walked on in silence, the dogs crashing around in the undergrowth, the odd bit of early birdsong. Polly felt calmer than she had in weeks. Being at Rockham Park was a lovely remove from the constant reminders of home, but being out in raw nature took that sense of release to another level.
Suddenly there was the blare of a klaxon. Polly jumped in surprise.
‘Sorry,’ said Chum, ‘that sound’s a bit brutal. It’s my reminder that we’ve been going for thirty-five minutes and we need to turn round. Bill arranged for that carer to stay with your mum for an hour and a half. About turn.’
He spun one hundred and eighty degrees on the spot and started walking back the way they’d come, whistling for the dogs as he did.
They came crashing out of the bracken, tongues lolling, ran round Polly and Chum a couple of times then sprinted off in the direction in which the humans were now walking.
‘That’s a good system,’ said Polly. ‘A walk-stop call, rather than a wake-up call.’
‘Yes,’ said Chum, ‘I do it every time I go out for a walk or a ride, or I’d just keep going till I fell off the end of something. I get into the zone and forget about everything, which is the whole point, of course.’
‘It has rather zonked me out,’ said Polly. ‘All this beautiful fresh air.’
Chum grinned.
‘That’s the whole point, Hippolyta,’ he said, ‘to get the brain into off mode. Do your London walks not have the same effect?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘I thought they did – well, they’re better than being stuck inside – but compared with this, they’re the low-fat version. Not fully satisfying. There is one thing that does make me feel like this, though: yoga. That’s my other occupation. I’ve been a yoga teacher for over twenty years. This gives me a similar buzz to a yoga meditation and I’m getting aerobic exercise too, so double score.’
And there was another element, thought Polly, apart from nature in all its glory, that had made this walk so enjoyable: having someone to talk to. Normally it was just her and Digger, so it made such a nice change to have someone else there she could chat with while they walked. It was also nice when they weren’t talking. Companionship, that was what it was – sharing space comfortably in silence.
‘We should do it again,’ said Chum. ‘I know lots of great walks around here. Been walking and riding this country all my life. When your mother’s better, perhaps we can set my stop-walk alarm for longer and then you’ll really feel the benefit.’
‘That would be great,’ said Polly. ‘And Digger would love it too.’
‘I have lunch with Bill every Friday, so that’s always a good day, but I don’t live far away and I can come over any time, really. I’ll give you my number and you can text me if you feel like another walk.’
‘I will,’ said Polly, and as they came out of the wood and back into the field – the Land Rover visible in the distance, the churned muddy earth shining in the low winter afternoon sun and a hawk wheeling overhead – she realised she was already looking forward to it.
‘How about Monday?’ she said.
Thursday, 28 January
Daphne was supervising as Polly did her nails.
‘Just use the emery board in one direction,’ she was saying. ‘Don’t saw at the nail, you’ll weaken it.’
She was definitely better, Polly thought. Daphne had been off the drip for a couple of days, and with Polly’s encouragement was eating more, taking various supplements and drinking two jugs of water a day. Polly had pointed out how good water was for the skin, rehydrating from the inside, which had done the trick with her mother.
She was going home that afternoon, but was so pleased to see her mother back to her old self, her former dottiness greatly reduced, that she’d been happy to indulge her by agreeing to this beauty-care tutorial before she left.
‘Can I take this mud mask off now?’ she asked. ‘It’s making my face itch.’
She washed it off and then rejoined Daphne at her dressing table as she demonstrated her facial massage techniques and Polly tried to copy the moves.
‘Always up, darling,’ Daphne said, elevating her extraordinarily long neck like a well-coiffed ET, and patting the cream onto it in little sweeping upwards movements, using the fingers of both hands like stiff little flippers. ‘Round to one side, up to the jaw, along, then repeat on the other side.’
‘How often do you do this?’ asked Polly.
‘Every morning and every night,’ said Daphne, as though it were a ridiculous question. ‘I’ve done it all your life, so I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.’
‘Well, I do remember you doing all your patting,’ said Polly, ‘but I didn’t realise it was twice a day. My neck’s tingling now, is that all right?’
‘That’s exactly what you want!’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘It means you’re stimulating the blood flow, moving it around, carrying away impurities, refreshing the cells.’
Polly didn’t think that statement would stand up to too much scientific examination, but said nothing. Daphne did have wonderful skin and a very firm jawline for her age, so maybe there was something in it.
With that done, they moved on to another ritual involving a serum that was smoothed on, followed by another cream, which had to be lightly pressed on over the top. Polly had hummed the Hokey Cokey as she did it.
‘In out, in out, rub it all about,’ she sang.
‘Even after the serum, your skin is very dry,’ Daphne said, peering at Polly’s forehead through a magnifying glass she kept on her dressing table. ‘It’s quite papery. What products are you using?’
Polly struggled to remember. It was something Clemmie had left behind. Before that she’d had a nice pot of cream a beauty PR had given her at an open day, but she couldn’t remember what the brand was. Sometimes she just used coconut oil.
‘Oh, this and that,’ she said, taking the magnifying glass from Daphne and looking at herself through it in the mirror. Her cheeks were bright red, probably an allergic reaction to the mud mask, she thought, although the s
econd walk she’d taken with Chum on Monday had been pretty bracing. It had started sleeting before they’d got back to the Land Rover and her cheeks had felt frozen. That couldn’t have been great for the complexion.
‘You need to take your skin more seriously, Polly,’ said Daphne. ‘You’ve been lucky so far, good genes, but you’re at the age now when it will suddenly deteriorate beyond repair unless you start looking after it. I use Sisley, as you know. You should go and have a consultation at one of their counters.’
Polly didn’t know, although the white and grey pots did look familiar.
‘They send it to me, of course,’ said Daphne, regarding her reflection with satisfaction. ‘Because I did all those campaigns for them. I’ll ask them to send me some products for you, see what they have for premature aging.’
After that there’d been a make-up lesson, involving way too much powder and that awful coral lipstick again, then finally Daphne wanted to supervise Polly painting her freshly filed nails.
Daphne’s hands weren’t steady enough to paint her own nails now – she had them done every week at the on-site beauty salon – but she showed Polly how much varnish to load onto the brush and how to press it down lightly at the base to release it and then pull it up the nail. She also told Polly to do her right hand first, with her left, to reduce the chance of clumsy left-hand slips at the end.
‘There,’ said Daphne, when Polly had carefully done the final layer of top coat. ‘Don’t they look lovely? Now you look finished.’
Polly couldn’t stop admiring her fingers. On her older hands, the polished nails looked very sophisticated, not overdone as they could look on young women.
It wasn’t the first time in her life she’d painted her nails, she just hadn’t done it for years because David loathed it, as he did all make-up, and she hadn’t cared enough to spend time debating it. Now she thought she might start wearing nail varnish all the time. She could see it would look better at events when she was holding up perfume bottles and handing round blotters to the audience. She might even have a proper manicure once in a while; that would please her mum.
The Scent of You Page 16