The Scent of You

by Maggie Alderson

‘Hello,’ he said, looking a little puzzled, probably wondering where they’d met.

  ‘Sorry I was staring at you earlier,’ said Polly, realising as she said it that this was a conversation she would never have had without several cocktails and a lot of champagne inside her. ‘It’s just that you look so much like a friend of mine, I thought you were him for a moment, and I wondered if you might be related.’

  ‘Well, I’m Rollo Cliddington,’ he said, putting out his hand to shake hers. ‘Does that help?’

  Polly’s champagne-addled brain tried to work out if it did. Hang on . . . Cliddington.

  ‘Well, possibly,’ she said. ‘My friend is Edward Cliddington-Hanley-Maugham, so the Cliddington bit’s the same, and you look so like him. I call him Chum.’

  Rollo grinned, but then a sad look came into his eyes.

  ‘So do I,’ he said. ‘He’s my cousin. I’m really Cliddington-Hanley-Maugham too, but I shorten it. Our dads were brothers. Poor old Chum. Have you seen him recently?’

  Poor old Chum. There it was again. Bill had said he’d had a rough time and now this from his cousin. How odd. He’d never let on that anything was badly wrong on their walks. Mind you, neither had she. That was one of the things she enjoyed about them, no deep and meaningfuls, just easy company and fun talking about old times. And as long as she didn’t go prying into his private life, it was less likely that he’d ask questions about hers.

  ‘I saw him last week,’ she said. ‘We were at St Andrews together and we ran into each other recently, because my mum lives in the same place as his stepfather, Bill.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Rollo. ‘How is Bill? Lovely chap. He’s been very good to Chum.’

  ‘He’s great,’ said Polly, rather vaguely, distracted by yet another hint that Chum needed extra emotional support for some reason.

  ‘Well, do give them both my love next time you see them,’ said Rollo. ‘I don’t get back to see that side of the family much these days. It’s difficult in the circumstances, and I’m so busy training at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Polly, wondering what these ‘circumstances’ were. ‘The dressage. Are you going to the Olympics?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rollo, with a slightly cool expression. ‘I’m Captain of the British Equestrian Team.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ said Polly. Oops. ‘Silly me, too much champagne. Well, good luck with that. Fantastic. I’ll be cheering you on. In front of the telly, of course . . .’

  She really did need to shut up.

  ‘Thank you. Good to see you,’ he said, turning away and clearly about to head off.

  Suddenly she couldn’t resist.

  ‘Just one thing, Rollo,’ she said, touching his arm. She could feel the hard muscle of his forearm even through his suit jacket. All that horse-restraining. Crikey. ‘Why do you say “poor old Chum”?’

  Rollo looked at her with slightly narrowed eyes. He clearly thought she was sensationally stupid, too nosy, or not to be trusted in some way. A gold-digger? A title-hunter?

  He hesitated for a moment before answering.

  ‘Google it,’ he said and walked off without saying another word.

  Thursday, 4 February

  Early morning Downward Dog was more of a challenge than usual with a thumping headache – especially as Polly had stayed up when she got home the night before to write a blog post about the party. She’d wanted to be the first person to do it and a strong black coffee had sobered her up enough to do a decent job.

  She’d opened her site with some trepidation that morning, in case it was an embarrassing drunken rant, but written so close to the event, while she was still on a party high, she thought it conveyed the fun of the evening rather well. She was quite pleased with herself – and delighted when she saw that the head PR for the brand had commented with lots of kisses.

  Polly’s good mood lasted right through the 8 a.m. yoga class and on to breakfast with Shirlee and Maxine.

  ‘I’m starving,’ she said, hovering over Shirlee’s shoulder as she cooked bacon simultaneously in two pans – the kosher lamb variety for herself, the classic version for Polly and Maxine. ‘Don’t turn the gas off, I’m going to fry some bread in that fat when you’ve finished.’

  ‘Good night, was it?’ asked Shirlee. ‘I thought I detected a bit of a glow around you this morning. If you weren’t a happily married woman, I’d think you’d gotten yourself laid.’

  ‘Oh sure,’ said Polly, sarcastically. ‘My Wednesday night lover. Thursday’s in the gym right now, getting revved up.’

  ‘Friday’s getting his crack waxed,’ added Shirlee.

  ‘Saturday’s child works hard for his living,’ threw in Maxine.

  ‘Verrrry hard,’ said Shirlee, chuckling.

  ‘Very funny,’ said Polly, pinching Shirlee’s bottom. ‘No one got laid, but if I’ve got a glow, it was from the dancing. It was so fun. A live band – you know how that makes it even better?’

  ‘That’s great, Poll,’ said Shirlee, sitting at the table. ‘You don’t have enough fun.’

  Polly said nothing for a moment, thinking about what Shirlee had just said as she put slices of bread into the now-empty frying pans, and feeling oddly winded by it.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ she said, once she’d gathered herself. ‘I hadn’t thought about it before, but do many adults really have much fun? It gets squeezed out by real life, doesn’t it?’

  She lifted the slices of golden, crispy bread onto a plate, took them over to the table and sat down.

  ‘I think it’s why so many people drink,’ said Maxine. ‘It enables them to transcend everyday cares without making any effort – apart from opening the bottle, or ordering at a bar – and they feel like they’re having fun. Of course that can be beneficial if it’s only occasional. It’s when they start reaching for that instant distraction every day that the balance shifts and rather than easing their real-life worries, it creates more of them, which quickly becomes a downward spiral. More worries, then more drink and so on—’

  ‘Well, thank you for that uplifting thought this morning, Sigmund,’ said Shirlee, cutting her off. ‘One minute we’re talking about having more fun, then Dr Shrinkhead here starts going on about descent into alcohol dependency. Lighten up, lady. Anyway, you don’t have to drink to have fun. I find fun. I go looking for it. You can sniff it out anywhere if you try. I think having breakfast with you two is fun – except when Maxine goes off on one . . .’

  She stuck her tongue out at her and Maxine laughed.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it becomes a habit, doing what I do. Pathologising everything.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you pathologise this?’ asked Shirlee, putting a bit of bacon on the end of her fork and flicking it at her. It sailed over Maxine’s shoulder and hit the floor. Digger was over in a moment to snaffle it.

  Polly smiled at them, dropping another piece of bacon for Digger to ‘find’, but she was still thinking about what Shirlee had said. She didn’t have much fun, it was true. She hugely enjoyed all the perfume events she hosted and attended, but they stimulated her, rather than being fun.

  The night before had been different. There’d been a joyous abandonment to it that had left her feeling renewed. It was hard to think when she’d last let go like that. Not since Lucas had gone back to college, certainly. They would spontaneously dance together in the kitchen, if the right track came on. Sometimes it would turn into a full-on Dinner Time Disco, as he called it, with the two of them taking turns to choose the next track. How she missed her boy.

  ‘So how do you randomly find fun?’ she asked Shirlee.

  ‘It’s a bit like looking on the bright side, I guess,’ she replied. ‘Your glass might be half-empty or half-full, whatever – I’m wearing mine on my head, juggling it, making it into a percussion instrument. It’s not what you’re doing, or where you go, or who you’re with, but what you make it into.’

  Polly remembered being in Emergency with Shirlee that time. How Shirlee
had got chocolate bars and coffee and made jokes with the staff. Whittington Hospital Emergency Department at four in the morning was one of the grimmest places Polly could think of, but with Shirlee there, it had been fun in a bonkers kind of way.

  ‘But talking of laughs,’ said Shirlee, ‘it can’t be a load of fun being here on your own all the time, in what used to be your laughter-filled family home. Any sign of that husband coming back? Or do we need to start lining up those lovers for real?’

  Polly put her knife and fork down. She hadn’t been expecting that. Far from creating fun, with one serve too many of her over-intrusive questions, Shirlee had snuffed out Polly’s good mood in an instant. And to do it at Polly’s kitchen table, lounging back in her chair like she owned the place, wiping her fat finger along her plate to pick up the last bit of egg yolk, was the limit.

  Polly felt a flash of hot indignation go through her.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she snapped, the words out of her mouth before she could check herself.

  Not good. She shouldn’t have said that. That was somewhere she really didn’t want to go with these two.

  They were both looking at her steadily, as though they were waiting to see what she would say next.

  Polly looked back at them, feeling cornered and not happy about it. She got up from the table and started briskly gathering up the plates.

  ‘He’s off on some boring research project, like I told you,’ she said, snatching Shirlee’s plate from under her still-scavenging finger. ‘Some of the places he goes have very poor communications, so I don’t always know exactly where he is. Academics get long study breaks and he’s researching an important new book. It takes a while.’

  That was a downright lie, she acknowledged to herself, as she noisily stacked the dishwasher. The first she’d told anyone about David’s absence. Up until then she’d relied on half-truths and evasions, but Shirlee had caught her unawares.

  Polly normally found Shirlee’s brutal forthrightness refreshing and amusing. Not this time, though.

  She glanced back over her shoulder to check if there was anything left on the table to clear, and saw Shirlee leaning across towards Maxine, mouthing something. Maxine’s eyes were open wide and she shrugged, grimacing, spreading her hands. Just at that moment Maxine noticed Polly had seen and quickly looked down. Shirlee swung round towards Polly, who whipped her head back towards the dishwasher.

  What the hell was going on, thought Polly. She stalled for time, fiddling with plates, trying to look busy, and to her great relief, when she turned back, Shirlee and Maxine were both standing up, pushing their chairs under the table.

  ‘See you tomorrow, yoga goddess,’ said Shirlee, in a slightly deflated attempt at her usual bonhomie, kissing Polly on the cheek as she moved towards the door.

  Polly gave her shoulder a squeeze, in what she hoped was a silent reassurance that it would all be fine, and followed them though to the hall. Then she blew them a kiss from the front door, closing it firmly behind them. She was already halfway to forgiving Shirlee, but for the time being she was glad to see them go.

  After a moment standing in the hall to gather her thoughts, Polly set her shoulders then headed to the study. A day of solid work was what she needed, getting stuck into researching her next event.

  It was themed on the subject of chypre, her favourite fragrance family, which had a fascinating and quite vigorously debated history; some people in the perfume world loved a bitch fight. Chypre’s origins went back to Roman times and took in Marie Antoinette’s personal perfumer, long before you got to 1919, when Jacques Guerlain launched Mitsouko, the greatest chypre of them all.

  Polly was mentally rubbing her hands with glee at the thought of getting stuck into it. Historical research examining the still undecided question of which were the true base notes of the style, combined everything she’d loved about academia with her perfume passion. Heaven.

  Before starting that, she did a quick check of her email inbox and clicked immediately on a message from Lori, which had a row of exclamation marks in the subject line.

  As she read it, Polly’s good mood evaporated for the second time that morning.

  Poll doll!!!! Get the French on ice – we’re coming over! April – so not far off. Yay!!!!

  Rich has got some research to do and this is one field trip I’m happy to tag along on.

  Can we stay? It’s just us, no kids, and he’ll be going off on loads of (boring) research missions, so it’ll mostly just be me. I’ll get back to you when I know the exact dates. So excited!!

  Lozzer xxxxxxxxxx

  Polly couldn’t think of anything she would love more than having Lori and Rich to stay – normally. But how the hell was she going to explain David’s absence to them?

  There was no fudging the details of a historian’s research trip to another historian and his wife. And if there was anyone on earth who would see through her act, it was Lori. She’d know something was going on the moment she laid eyes on Polly. That was one of the reasons Polly had been avoiding Skyping or FaceTiming her since their last call.

  Polly pushed her laptop away and put her head down on the edge of the desk in despair. How the hell was she going to handle this?

  Something like panic started to rev up in her head, closely followed by a flash of white-hot anger. There was nothing she would love more than seeing her wonderful, vibrant, life-affirming friend Lori and again – yet again – David’s crazy disappearing act had ruined it before it had even begun.

  Polly got up, feeling charged with furious energy. She felt like punching the wall, but knew it would hurt, if not actually break her hand. She tried to calm herself down, to breath through it, as she usually did, but it was hopeless. This visceral anger needed to be vented.

  She glanced round the room and her gaze fell on David’s badminton racket in the corner. Remembering what Shirlee had done with the wooden spoon that time in the kitchen, she picked it up and brought it down onto the cushioned seat of the nearest armchair. It was surprisingly satisfying and she did it again – harder.

  ‘That’s for leaving the kids!’ she shouted. Thwhack. ‘That’s for leaving me!’ Thwack. ‘And making me lie to my friends and my mother! And this is for turning our beautiful son into a lush! And for making Clemmie collude with you! And for deserting Digger! And this is for being the most selfish man on earth!’ She banged the armchair repeatedly, until the clouds of dust made her cough and she had to stop.

  She stood for a moment, her chest heaving, feeling almost dizzy from the violence of her hits, but there was still a bit more to let go. She threw the racket onto the ground, jumped up and down on it a few times, until she heard a satisfying crack, and then kicked it into the corner.

  Sod him and his namby-pamby arsehole badminton racket. Bugger his selfish bastarding shittiness. In fact, basically, fuck him. Polly had had enough.

  Without bothering to close it down properly, she slammed the lid of her laptop down. She’d answer Lori’s email when she was feeling calmer – and had some idea how she was going to handle the situation.

  Meanwhile, she had to get out of the house.

  She needed some proper head space to digest this latest complication – and that meant one thing. A walk.

  Chum was waiting for her in his Land Rover when she pulled up outside Rockham Park. Digger immediately started barking and whining, his paws up against the car windows. Could he smell Artemis through the glass? Probably.

  Polly turned off the engine and leaned down for a moment, pretending to grovel around in her handbag on the passenger seat. She felt momentarily shy. It had been pure impulse texting Chum to ask whether he had time for a walk with her that day, and she’d been quite surprised to get his immediate reply saying he’d love to.

  Another text had followed right after it: Long walk or short?

  Loooooooong, Polly had replied, and here she was, having jumped straight into the car, not even showered.

  She was still p
retending to grope around in her bag when the car door opened. She turned to see Chum’s smiling face and was glad when Digger seized his opportunity to make a break for freedom, jumping heavily onto her lap and then out of the car door.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Chum, stepping back and laughing. ‘Looks like you’re not the only one who needs some exercise. You said a long walk, Polly – did you mean that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, pulling out her lip salve and holding it in the air, as though that was what she’d been looking for all the time. She slicked some on for good measure.

  ‘Have you got some proper footwear with you this time?’ asked Chum, looking at her trainers as she got out of the car. ‘This is going to be serious walking. The other two we did were nursery slopes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polly, and then leaning against the side of the car as she pulled her boots on, she couldn’t help smiling when she saw how suspiciously Chum was looking at them.

  They were black, with biker-style straps around the ankle and top.

  ‘I know they look like city boots,’ she said, ‘but they really are waterproof. I’ve waded into ponds in these to drag Digger out. Boots don’t have to be green to be waterproof.’

  Chum laughed.

  ‘Got it,’ he said, ‘and I’ve already learned Barbours don’t have to be green either, when you’re wearing one.’

  ‘I’ve got a hat too,’ she said, pulling a brown corduroy butcher-boy cap out of her pocket and putting it on. ‘So I won’t need to borrow your tweed number.’

  ‘Very fetching,’ said Chum. ‘I even approve of the material. It might be related to my trousers.’

  Polly laughed, climbing into the Land Rover, and they set off at Chum’s customary terrifying speed down the country lanes.

  ‘It’s a bit of a longer drive to the start today,’ said Chum, ‘but it’ll be worth it and we’ve got a few hours, which is great. It’s only just after twelve and it won’t get dark until five. Have you eaten anything?’

  ‘I had a big breakfast . . . bit of a hangover.’