She turned to look at Daphne, engaged in tweaking her already perfect hair with the end of a tail comb. Polly put her arms around her mother’s bony frame and gave her a gentle hug.
‘Thanks, Mummy,’ she said, ‘for making a proper woman of me.’
‘You’re welcome, darling,’ said Daphne, patting her shoulder. ‘Thank you for looking after me. I’m very lucky to have you for a daughter – and your children are very lucky to have you for a mother.’
Polly was so pleased and surprised at the unexpected compliments she couldn’t think what to say, so she gave her mum another hug.
‘Look who it is, Digsy!’ said Bill, opening his front door to Polly. ‘Time for your walk.’
‘Actually, it’s time for us to go home,’ said Polly with a tinge of regret. ‘My mum’s fine now and I need to get back. This is to say a massive thank you for looking after him.’
She held out a bottle of single malt.
‘Oh, dear girl,’ said Bill, ‘you really didn’t need to do that. I loved having Digger. We’re great friends, aren’t we?’
He leaned down to pat the dog, who looked up at him, tail wagging vigorously, glancing over to Polly and then back at Bill, clearly wondering where his loyalty lay. Where his next meal was coming from, more like it, thought Polly.
‘Well, it was very kind of you to have him,’ said Polly. ‘You really got me out of a tight spot. Please take it.’
‘You’re very generous, and I would be delighted,’ said Bill, taking the bottle and looking at the label. ‘Aha, Ardbeg. A good peaty one. Lovely.’
‘My father used to drink it,’ said Polly, thinking how lucky it was she’d found it, unopened, at the back of one of her mother’s kitchen cabinets. ‘He was a Highlander and liked a lot of peat in his dram.’
‘As do I,’ said Bill.
‘I know,’ said Polly. ‘I spotted your bottle of Talisker.’
Bill laughed.
‘Will you come in and have a cup of coffee before you go?’
Polly hesitated. She didn’t want to turn him down, if it would be nice for him to have some company, but now she was able to leave, she really wanted to get going. There would be so much to see to at home after a week away.
‘Edward’s coming for lunch,’ he added, glancing at his watch. ‘He’ll be here in half an hour or so. You could say hello to him.’
Happy to be reassured that Bill wasn’t going to be lonely, Polly couldn’t resist the urge to flee another minute.
‘Oh, that would have been lovely,’ she said, ‘but I need to get off. Please say hi to, er, Edward for me. It’s been great to see him again and I’ve so enjoyed our walks.’
‘So has he, dear,’ said Bill, patting Polly’s arm. ‘A bit of stimulating company is exactly what he needs. Do let me know when you’re next visiting, because I know he’d like to see you. He can pop over any day, really.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Polly. ‘I’ve got your number, and I’m sure Digger would like to see you again too.’
Polly drove out of the gates of Rockham Park singing along with the radio, thinking what a relief it would be to be back in her own place.
It wasn’t.
From the moment she walked through the front door and inhaled its very particular smell, she felt desolate. Nowhere could make you feel lonelier, she thought, than an empty place that was once full of life.
Leaning against the front door, she closed her eyes and almost thought she could hear the kids’ voices, as they were when they were young, echoing down the hallway to her from the kitchen.
‘Mum! Mum!’
Of course it was deadly silent. She wondered if she was actually going mad.
She glanced around the hallway, noticing there wasn’t any post. Then she saw a vase of fresh lilies on the side table, with a postcard propped up against it: a nice cheerful Matisse interior. She picked it up and read it:
Hi, doll. Came by a few times while you were away, to keep the place looking lived in. I’ve put your post on your desk. I got your text about coming back and there’s milk (cow) and stuff in the fridge. Let me know when you want to start classes again and I’ll message the yogi bears.
Shirl xxx
P.S. No pressure. Well, a bit ha ha.
What a good friend Shirlee was. Polly felt quite choked up with gratitude and sent her a text to confirm there would be a class in the morning.
Opening and responding to the large pile of post on her desk pleasantly occupied most of the afternoon and really cheered Polly up, especially all the invitations to perfume events. By the time she’d sorted and replied to them all, she had a pretty full diary for the next three weeks. That was great news. The more often she could be out of this horrible empty house, the better.
But she had a problem with one of the most enticing invitations. OM Beauty were launching a new men’s fragrance, and rather than an intimate dinner for key media, or a 6 p.m. cocktail gathering, they were holding a proper big glamorous party. And the invitation was ‘plus one’. It said: ‘Polly Masterson-Mackay – and a man who loves the Great Outdoors’.
It would be so nice to be able to take someone with her, but who? David wouldn’t have gone even if he’d been around. He’d have muttered something about how perfume was a bourgeois trifle, although he did wear the Yohji Homme she’d given him because he liked its distinctive liquorice note. David loved liquorice; it was one of his little quirks.
She sat at her desk admiring her red fingernails as she tapped them against the stiff card invitation, wondering who on earth she could invite. Clemmie had come along to a few things, which had been fun, but mostly Polly just arranged to meet up at the event with other perfume bloggers she’d got to know on the circuit, who were also invited. They were mostly women, and for this she needed a bloke. Plus she wanted to go to this party with someone, not just hook up once she got there.
She put the invitation down on her desk and walked through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As she filled the kettle, the perfect candidate for ‘a man who loves the Great Outdoors’ suddenly became obvious: Chum. Although she was certain he would never call it that – ‘country’ was the word he used. But whatever you called it, she didn’t think she’d ever met anyone who was as attuned to it as he was.
She’d seen it on their walks; as soon as he got his boot soles onto the bare earth he seemed to inhabit his own body in a more complete way.
But while he was clearly the one for the real ‘Great Outdoors’, she was fairly sure he’d be mystified by the idea of trying to capture it in a bottle. ‘Why not just go for a walk?’ he’d say. Plus, she wasn’t sure he’d feel comfortable at such an event, and he lived miles outside London. And she hardly knew him well enough to ask him anyway. They’d known each other so long ago; a couple of walks didn’t make them close friends again.
So, definitely not Chum, but who else could she ask? Sitting back down at her desk with her mug of tea, she warmed her hands round it, admiring her nails from another angle, thinking.
As she looked at them, the light from her laptop screen caught her wedding ring and it made her blink.
She’d worn it for so many years she never gave it a moment’s thought these days, but suddenly she wondered about it. There she was, walking round with that potent symbol on her finger advertising her marital state when in fact she’d been living alone for weeks. What did it even mean any more?
Slowly, she slid it off her finger and put it on her desk. She held her fingers out straight and they looked so odd. They felt funny too. Her ring finger was even a bit shrivelled below the knuckle, where the ring had been all that time. Should she leave it off as a statement, until David came back?
She wanted to, but then thought of the kids. It would upset them, especially Lucas, and she didn’t want to trigger another binge from him. She and Clemmie were still monitoring him from a distance and thought he was being more sensible; she certainly didn’t want to set him off again.
She turned h
er attention back to the invitation. Who could she take?
Then, as she lifted the mug of tea to her lips, she had a strong waft of the perfume on her wrists – PM, as it so often was these days – and realised Guy Webber was the perfect person.
Wednesday, 3 February
Polly took a glass of champagne from a tray held by a strikingly handsome young man, wearing a plaid shirt unbuttoned nearly to his navel, with tight khaki cargo pants, tucked into chunky walking boots.
He was dressed for the Great Outdoors, all right – or at least a pastiche of it, as were the other waiters, clearly recruited from a model agency – but all the guests were dressed very much for Mayfair. Polly was glad she’d painted her nails again, blow-dried her hair and put on a dress and high heels. Maybe that saying that every woman turned into her mother eventually had some truth in it after all.
She took a sip from her glass and mentally toasted the idea. There was a lot about Daphne to aspire to.
Waiting to stash her coat in the cloakroom, she looked around for Guy, who had walked into the venue with her and promptly vanished. She hoped it hadn’t been a mistake to invite him. But then he reappeared, walking slowly towards her with three lavish cocktails carefully clasped between his hands.
‘Sorry, Poll,’ he said, ‘I got distracted by the drinks options. They’ve done something rather clever and I wanted to check them all out. Ditch that champers and try one of these. Quick, before I drop them and make an arse of myself.’
Polly looked regretfully at her glass of golden bubbles and reached out and took one of his cocktail glasses.
‘Smell it first,’ Guy was saying and Polly lowered her nose to the ice-cold flute. Pine cones, thyme and a general air of greenness.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ said Guy. ‘They’ve themed the cocktails with elements from the fragrance and other notes that fit the outdoors theme – like this crazy decor.’
He nodded at a pile of what were clearly prop house papier-mâché rocks, with real flowers climbing up them.
‘Don’t spare the budget, do they?’ he said. ‘So, anyway, that one you’ve got has the strong pine accord in it, this one has an ozonic hint, so . . .’
Polly put her hand on his arm to stop him in mid-flow. She could hear a tantalising hum of talk and laughter coming from the floor above and didn’t want to hang around while he expounded on the other two mixes.
‘Come on, Guy,’ she said, ‘let’s get into the party. You can tell me about the cocktails on the way up.’
Although it was a cold February night outside, the rooms upstairs were lit with golden filters, which made it feel more like May, and the tribe of plaid-shirted hotties were circulating with platters of delicious – and suitably rugged – canapés.
Polly and Guy stood on the far side of the main room, taking in the scene.
‘You can see why I haven’t had a launch,’ said Guy, chewing on a piece of practically raw steak. ‘I could never compete with something like this.’
A major footballer who even Polly recognised had just walked in and Guy had already pointed out a Formula One driver and a famous jockey. It was the most glamorous perfume event Polly had been to yet. Checking out the crowd, she could also see a good-looking academic who presented a popular TV show about the British landscape, a well-known mountaineer, a survival expert who hosted a celebrity reality show, and one of the faces from the BBC’s most loved nature programme, which had more viewers than The X Factor. Clever call by OM Beauty, she thought.
‘I think they’ve got every man here who has ever appeared on British television in speciality outdoor footwear,’ said Guy, grabbing a mini-burger from a passing rent-a-hunk. ‘Football boots, walking boots, riding boots, whatever weird boots racing car drivers wear . . . See that tall bloke there, Rupert Everett type, sort of a flat head, like something off a Roman coin? He’s a famous dressage dude. You know, that cringey horse dancing?’
Polly glanced over to where Guy was indicating and flinched in shock. For a moment she thought it was Chum. Surely it couldn’t be? She peered, trying to see more clearly.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Guy.
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Polly. ‘It’s just the dressage bloke looks so much like a friend of mine – although this is really the last place I would expect to see him. He is a big rider, though, so perhaps it is him . . .’
The man had turned his head away but she couldn’t stop staring. From the back he looked about Chum’s height and build, but it was hard to visualise Chum in such a nice suit. Apart from his dinner jacket at St Andrews, she’d only seen him in his old tweed jacket and his Barbour.
‘Let’s swerve past,’ said Guy. ‘I’d liked to circumnavigate the room, check out the rest of the joint, see where the ack-shon is.’
He led on and Polly followed behind, finding her heels oddly easier to walk in after a couple of cocktails. She’d just finished one with a more floral tone to it, something a bit bluebell-ish.
Guy led her right past the Chum look-alike and then came to an abrupt halt, pulling her round to face him – giving her a direct sight line to Non-Chum, as she now saw he was. But still so like him it was quite uncanny.
Non-Chum noticed her staring at him. That was embarrassing. She smiled broadly, hoping he would think she was a big dressage fan recognising a hero, and he smiled back, which made him look even more like Chum. He had the same deep creases on either side of his mouth, right down to his chin, though he didn’t quite have Chum’s bemused look, or the endearing gap between his front teeth.
Polly turned on her heel and walked off fast, Guy appearing immediately at her side, laughing.
‘Not your mate, then?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Polly, ‘and he saw me staring like a freak. Oh, never mind.’
She stopped a passing lumberjack and grabbed a glass of champagne. She’d had enough of the scented cocktails. Her mouth was starting to feel like she’d eaten too many cheap sweets. She loved wearing perfume, but wasn’t so keen on the idea of drinking it, although it occurred to her Guy would probably think nothing of swilling it down neat.
She leaned in closer to him and sniffed.
‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘you smell lovely tonight, Guy. It’s quite subtle for you. Is it one of yours?’
He laughed.
‘Dammit,’ he said, ‘rumbled. No, after that stupid stunt I pulled on our last outing, I thought it would be polite if I wore someone else’s work tonight. Can you recognise it?’
Polly put her nose close to his shirt collar and breathed in again.
‘Something with a lot of lovely iris root,’ she said. ‘Gotta love that earthy “orris”, as you probably call it, being a poncy perfumer . . . It’s not Miller Harris and I don’t think you’d wear Crabtree & Evelyn. It’s not Prada . . .’
‘You say iris, I say orris,’ said Guy. ‘Potato, pot-art-o . . . Do you give up?
‘No,’ said Polly, closing her eyes and concentrating on what she could smell apart from the glorious powdery waves of iris root – which she so loved. Then she got it. There was a metallic edge to it.
‘Iris Silver Mist,’ she said, smiling at Guy. ‘Serge Lutens.’
‘Damn right,’ said Guy, putting out his hand to shake hers.
‘Good call. I’m glad you like, what I call orris. It’s what I want to work with next, so I’m studying around it.’
‘Stepping even further away from the power orientals, then?’ she asked. ‘First the chypre, now iris . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Guy, smiling. ‘I’ve got the message. It was very nice of you to wear PM tonight, by the way.’
‘I’m wearing it a lot,’ she said. ‘I’d probably be wearing it even if you weren’t here. I love it, it’s fascinating.’
Guy looked delighted.
‘Well, I did make it for you, so I’m glad you like it, and I’m very grateful that you set me on that course, because it’s flying out of my shop. Doesn’t scare them off like the others.’
‘You
mean to tell me you’re selling it to other people?’ said Polly in a mock outraged voice. ‘I thought it was exclusively for me.’
‘Well, I did name it after you, Polly, but I’m afraid it is still a commercial venture.’
Polly smiled. ‘I’m very touched you’ve named a perfume after me, and especially one I adore so much – but you’d better not let some other blogger write about it before I do. When are we going do that interview, Guy? I know I was away for a bit, but you keep dodging the subject and it’s driving me nuts. I want to blog about you before someone else stumbles across you.’
‘Soon,’ he said, ‘really soon. I just want to build up a little more critical mass through the word-of-mouth thing, and I promise I won’t talk to any other bloggers before you. Ooh, listen, there’s a band playing in the next room, let’s go and see what they’re like.’
Polly was certain he was changing the subject, but wasn’t in the mood to push it. She was loving the party. It was the best time she’d had for ages and she wanted to revel in the fun of it.
The band were great, and after spotting a beauty magazine editor she knew on the dance floor, Polly went and joined her. Guy came too and soon there was a little gang of them in the centre of the mêlée, getting down to the great cover versions the band were playing of American rock bands, mostly from the 1970s.
It was great fun dancing to the endearingly cheesy tracks, and Guy turned out to be one of those people who could be hilarious through dance moves. His interpretative shapes during the slow part of ‘Hotel California’ made Polly laugh so much she thought she might wet herself.
She left the dance floor to find the loo and on her way back made a detour to grab a glass of water. As she turned away from the bar, Non-Chum walked up.
‘Oh, hello,’ she heard herself saying, as if she knew him. He looked so much like Chum she felt as though she did.
The Scent of You Page 17