The Scent of You

by Maggie Alderson

  ‘Now I’ve just got to take this mask off. I won’t be a minute. We can chat while I do my face.’

  Daphne bustled off to the bathroom and Polly made herself some tea then sat on her mother’s sofa, staring into space and wondering what to do now.

  She’d been looking forward to spending an evening with her mum – partly to get a proper good look at her and make sure she was still eating and drinking, but also because she really couldn’t stand the prospect of another evening in her own empty house. After the tension with Shirlee and Maxine that morning, and then the problem of how to answer Lori’s email, going back there felt like some kind of prison sentence.

  The walk, and Chum’s company, had done their usual brilliant job of blocking out all her unthinkables for a few hours, but now it was all rushing back into her head. She needed people around her, she now understood, because the minute she was alone, it became unbearable.

  She got to her feet and paced up and down the room, feeling itchy inside her own skin. It wasn’t surprising she needed company. She’d never lived alone before, not in her whole life.

  Daphne very clearly hadn’t invited Polly to join her at the film – so what to do?

  She sat down again, picked up her phone and scrolled through her ‘Favourites’ list: David – yeah, right – Clemmie, Lucas, Shirlee, her dog sitter and a couple of friends she didn’t see much of any more.

  She tapped on Shirlee’s number. She’d send her a text just to make it clear there were no hard feelings over what had happened that morning. Polly needed the few friends she still felt comfortable with more than ever.

  Hi Shirlee, sorry if I was a bit short this morning. It was the hangover. I’m not used to galivanting! I’m just up at my mum’s but wondered if you fancied seeing a film later? P xxx

  She sent it off, hoping Shirlee would reply right away. If Daphne was having a film night, she might as well do the same thing.

  After ten minutes, she’d finished her tea and Shirlee hadn’t texted back. Daphne was still in the bathroom, and Polly checked the time on her phone and was pleased to see it was still only ten past six. She could be back in London by seven and in Mayfair by eight, easily.

  She tapped out another text, this one to Guy:

  Hello Fred Astaire. How are you feeling after the perfumed cocktails??? There’s a whole menu of them at the new bar in the Langton Hotel that I want to write up for the blog. I thought I might head down there later. Fancy a hair of the dog? Polly x

  She read it over again twice and then deleted it, sighing. Had she lost her mind? She was still hung over from the night before – not to forget the physical exhaustion from Chum’s uphill walk. And how did it look for a married woman to go out dancing with a younger man one night and then ask him out for drinks again the next? It looked desperate, that was what.

  Polly’s hands flew up to her face, as sobs started to wrack her body. She couldn’t hold it in another minute. The weirdness, the hurt, the anxiety, the loneliness all came surging to the surface at once.

  Daphne rushed into the room and came straight over to her, sitting on the sofa and putting her arms round her.

  ‘Oh, my poor girl!’ she cried. ‘I know what’s wrong. That rotten man has done this to you.’

  She rocked Polly in her arms, stroked her hair, kissed her head and carried on talking.

  ‘Have a good cry. You’ve every right. I’m so angry with that man, but I haven’t wanted to talk about it to you. I thought you were going through enough as it was.’

  She carried on rocking her, saying ‘Shhhhh’ over and over as you would to a baby. It was exactly what Polly needed – and such displays of physical affection were so rare from her mother she found she was crying more.

  ‘Oh my poor love,’ said Daphne. ‘I did wonder whether I should talk to you about it when we were in that hotel with Lucas, but I could see you had enough on. Has David asked for a divorce?’

  Polly managed to stop the choking sobs and pull herself back a little, using her sleeve to wipe away the tears that had soaked her face.

  Daphne fished around in the pocket of her dressing gown.

  ‘Use this, darling,’ she said, handing Polly a lace-edged hanky, ‘but gently, you know how delicate the skin around the eyes is – and tell me everything.’

  Polly started crying again, but now it was more from the relief of being able to let it go – and being reminded of all the times in her childhood when Daphne had suddenly switched like this, from being entirely self-absorbed to showing Polly that she really did care and noticed what was going on with her. She was a loving mother, really, just in her own particular way.

  ‘Tell me about it, darling,’ said Daphne, taking Polly’s hands in hers and gazing into her face. She reached up and pushed some stray hairs behind Polly’s ears, but she didn’t comment on it for once. ‘Is there another woman?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Polly. ‘He’s having some kind of a breakdown and he’s gone away. I don’t know where he is, or whether he’s ever coming back.’

  ‘Is he in touch with the children at least?’

  Polly shook her head.

  ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘He made Clemmie tell him when I’d be out, so he could come to the house and get some things. She was having lunch with me when he went there.’

  Some more tears escaped. That betrayal still got to her.

  Daphne looked appalled.

  ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘How dare he put Clemmie in that position, how dare he do that to you. The selfish pig.’

  She stopped for a moment, looking thoughtful, and Polly could tell she was making a decision. She sighed deeply and then spoke.

  ‘I’ve got to tell you something, darling.’

  Polly froze. What now?

  ‘I’ve never liked him,’ said her mother. ‘I’ve never liked David. I feel wrong saying it because he is the father of your children and I love them with all my heart, but I didn’t care for David from the moment I met him. There’s a coldness to him. I know he loves you, but it always seemed to be on his terms.’

  Polly was so surprised she didn’t know what she thought. About this, or anything else.

  ‘Do you remember your wedding?’ Daphne continued. ‘How he insisted that you had it in London and kept it very small and casual, and we weren’t allowed to invite your cousins or any family friends? It was all about him, wasn’t it? And he didn’t want you to wear a proper wedding dress, when I’d saved mine for you.’

  Polly nodded. It was true. She had always imagined she would get married in the extraordinary chapel of her father’s college, wearing her mother’s couture wedding dress, with the choir singing, and all her lovely Scottish cousins there, as well as her father’s gang of university friends who she’d known all her life. But David had been dead against it all.

  He was stupidly resentful of the whole Cambridge connection. Polly’s father could have put in a good word for him in very helpful places, but David had done his first degree at Leeds and was withering about Oxbridge privilege. The fact that her father had got into Cambridge from his state school in Scotland didn’t sway him one bit.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Polly, ‘but I didn’t mind about the wedding so much at the time, because I was young and in love . . . and while of course I’m furious with him now for what he’s done, he is still the father of my children, and up until now he’s been a wonderful husband, and I do still love him . . . and he must be really in a bad way to have left the kids like this . . .’

  She started crying again.

  ‘There, there,’ said Daphne, stroking Polly’s head. ‘Men can go very peculiar at his age. It’s the hormones.’

  After a couple more minutes, which Polly was finding very comforting, she could feel Daphne twisting her arm, and she opened her eyes to see that her mother was trying to look at her watch.

  Business as usual, then, thought Polly. A short burst of parenting and then back to the me me me. Well, at least sh
e knew what her mother was like. She was used to it and very grateful for the times when Daphne did rise to the occasion.

  ‘What time does the film start?’ asked Polly.

  ‘Not until seven-thirty,’ said Daphne, ‘but I like to get down there early to chat to people before it starts.’

  At the front, thought Polly. Where everyone can see you.

  ‘But I’m not going to leave you like this,’ said Daphne. ‘I can miss one week.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mummy,’ said Polly. ‘I’ll be fine. I feel so much better just for telling you about it.’

  ‘You could always come to the film with me,’ said Daphne, standing up and heading for the door, but Polly knew she was just being polite.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll stay here and watch TV and chill out, if that’s OK. I’m too exhausted to drive. What’s the film tonight?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Daphne, smiling brightly. ‘It’s always a nice surprise when I get there. Come and talk to me while I do my face.’

  Polly obediently followed her into the bedroom, and watched with a fascination that never lessened as Daphne stepped into the elegant grey wool sweater dress she’d chosen earlier and then stood up straight, half-turning to look at herself in the mirror.

  At eighty-five, she still had it. If you couldn’t see her face, you’d have no idea she was in her eighties, she held herself so straight.

  ‘You look fabulous, Mummy,’ Polly said, and Daphne rewarded her with a beaming smile. Polly could almost hear shutters clicking.

  ‘Oh thank you, darling,’ said Daphne, choosing a belt from the rail inside the wardrobe door and buckling it round her neat waist. ‘I know I’m a terrible old hag these days, but I do like to make an effort. I do it for myself, not for other people, that’s what I wish I could make you understand.’

  She moved the belt up a little so it was above her waist, then loosened it so it dropped down to hip level, her eyes always on the mirror. Then she put it back on the rail.

  ‘Better without,’ she said, sitting down at her dressing table – Polly wondered how many hours she’d spent at it over the years – and opened a drawer, taking out various necklaces and holding them up against her neck, before settling on several strands of chunky beads.

  ‘I bought these in Kenya,’ said Daphne. ‘I was doing a Vogue shoot with Parkie. Before you were born. I wore a pink, orange and white one-piece and a marvellous cartwheel hat, and there were flamingos in the background. I must see if I have that issue somewhere.’

  Daphne started the ritual of her preparations, patting on her creams, then applying the layers of make-up that transformed her already beautiful face into a beacon of loveliness, without ever looking overdone.

  ‘I see you’ve got your nails painted again,’ she said, looking at Polly in the mirror. ‘They look lovely.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I do finally see the point of that. It’s fun.’

  ‘It makes you feel good, doesn’t it?’ said Daphne. ‘There’s a reason they call it nail “polish”.’

  Polly smiled at her.

  ‘I think that’s another influence David has had on you,’ Daphne continued, deftly defining her arched eyebrows with powder shadow on a small brush. ‘He loves your beauty, but he doesn’t like you to make the most of it. It’s as though he doesn’t want you to show yourself off – you’re just for him.’

  Polly pulled a face, feeling a bit got at, but there was something in what Daphne had said. She’d come to think not wearing make-up was her own choice, but perhaps it had just been easier to go along with what David preferred. Whenever she’d tried to take her mother’s advice and wear mascara, a bit of blusher and some lipstick, he’d always grizzled and she’d given up on it.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Polly, sighing deeply.

  Nearly twenty-five years she’d been with the man, and she’d thought they were happy, but now she was beginning to see there were all these little ways in which he’d undermined her – and it was so strange finding out at this late stage that her mum had never liked him. Had her father hated him too?

  ‘Tell me, Mummy,’ she said, ‘and I want the truth: did Daddy dislike David as well?’

  Daphne looked at her thoughtfully from her reflection in the mirror. For once her eyes stayed on Polly and didn’t flick straight back to her own face.

  ‘Your father respected him,’ she said, ‘for his brain and his commitment to his work, but he was concerned David was a little too earnest. He always said a great academic must also have a sense of humour or they become too separated from the human condition.’

  Polly could so imagine her father saying that, her eyes prickled again. If only he were here now, to ask for his carefully considered advice.

  She remembered how wonderful he’d been when she was deciding whether to give up her PhD. He’d sat in his office with her for a whole morning talking about it. When she’d asked David for his advice on the same subject, he’d just told her to do what felt right for her, which hadn’t been very helpful at all.

  She blinked and shook her head. She didn’t want to do any more crying.

  ‘But that wasn’t all, Polly,’ said Daphne, turning on the stool to look at her directly. She put her hand on Polly’s knee and patted it. ‘Your father told me not to say anything to you about my misgivings at the time, because it was so apparent how much in love you were with each other – and he was right, you were. Whether you still are is something for you to think about.’

  Daphne looked at Polly very tenderly, her head on one side. Polly nodded, sighing, and Daphne patted her leg again, before turning back to the mirror.

  ‘Now, which lipstick, I wonder,’ she said, opening the drawer and surveying the many options.

  Once her make-up was finally finished, Daphne made the all-important adjustments to her hair, roughing it up a bit all round, then snapped on some chunky gold earrings, which Polly could see perfectly offset the grey of the dress and the different shades of brown in the necklaces.

  Then she ran her finger, with its French-manicured nail, along her collection of perfumes, stopping at Givenchy III and squirting it behind each ear and on her wrists, which she then rubbed together. Polly made a mental note to tell her about that some time; it was one of the few aspects of her mother’s elaborate preparations she could advise her on. One point Polly.

  Then Daphne opened one of the dressing-table drawers, took out a fresh handkerchief, sprayed it with the scent and dropped it into her handbag.

  That was something Polly could use on the blog. Game to Daphne.

  ‘There,’ she said, leaning on the dressing table to lever herself back to her feet and turning her head from side to side in the mirror, as she always did. ‘All done.’

  She padded back to the wardrobe – Polly thought there would soon be a track worn in the carpet – and took out her favourite high-heeled pumps.

  Slipping her feet into them, Daphne stepped back to check her reflection once more and staggered, starting to fall. Polly leaped over to catch her.

  ‘Mummy!’ she said. ‘Those bloody shoes! You’re not safe in them. Either wear flats or use a stick. You’re going to kill yourself in those stupid heels. You don’t even need them, you’re so lovely and tall, it’s really not worth it.’

  Daphne’s mouth set in a stubborn line.

  ‘OK,’ said Polly. ‘How about I help you down to the film now in your stupid shoes and then I’ll come back for you at the end – but only if you promise in future to make a choice between low heels or a stick.’

  ‘I promise to give it some serious consideration,’ said Daphne, pulling herself up, her swan neck seeming to lengthen as she did so. ‘And I would love you to come down with me – I can show you off – but only if you brush your hair and put on some lipstick first.’

  Polly laughed and sat at the dressing table to do as she was told. When she’d finished her face and hair – she even did her eyebrows, as she’d watched Daphne do hers – she
considered the tempting array of perfumes. She picked up Daphne’s bottle of Fracas and sprayed herself with it, liberally.

  ‘Will I do?’ she asked, coming over to her mother and putting out her arm. ‘Madame?’

  Daphne threaded her arm through Polly’s elbow and patted her hand.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Daphne. ‘I’m very proud of you, and although I may not always show it demonstrably, you know I love you very dearly. I will support you as best I can through this difficult time. You must always ring me if you’re unhappy.’

  Polly gave her mother a light hug – she didn’t want to risk spoiling her hair – and they headed out of her front door towards the lift.

  ‘And another thing,’ said Daphne, getting up a good pace along the corridor as she leaned on Polly’s arm. ‘Next time you come up, bring your highest pair of heels with you. I may have to give them up myself, but I’m going to teach you how to walk in them first.’

  Thursday, 18 February

  Polly and Clemmie were back in the Shoreditch restaurant. After that special moment of connection with her mum, Polly had felt an almost visceral need to see her own daughter, but it had been a frustrating couple of weeks before Clemmie could take time away from her studies.

  Much as she admired Clemmie’s diligence, Polly couldn’t help wishing she would loosen up a bit sometimes. She’d been incredibly busy herself over that period, with four events of her own, on top of the usual launches and showroom open days, but these weren’t normal circs. They needed each other.

  Although Clemmie was the only person Polly could talk to in depth about the David situation – it had been great to tell Daphne, but she didn’t want to go into all the details with her mother – Polly was determined to keep the conversation off David for as long as she could this time. She just wanted to enjoy her daughter’s company for a while before that subject took over.

  ‘I’ve got some jolly news,’ she said, as the waiter put their food in front of them. ‘Lori and Rich are coming over.’

  Even as she said it, Polly realised there was no escape. Her attempt to talk about something fun and upbeat was inevitably going to lead to a discussion of how to handle the visit of their closest family friends if David still hadn’t come back.