‘Let’s just run over the plan one more time,’ she said, trying not to think about how many times David had trodden this same stretch of pavement from the station to the university. Thousands.
‘We’re going to go in and find Maureen,’ said Clemmie, talking slowly as you would to a frightened child, which was exactly what Polly felt like.
‘And we’re sure she’s going to be there?’ said Polly. ‘Haven’t they finished for the Easter break like you two?’
‘No,’ said Lucas. ‘I checked online. They finish on Thursday, and she’s there. I rang the office from my mobile this morning and when she answered I pretended it was a wrong number.’
‘OK,’ said Polly, belching again.
‘We’re going to act very casual with her,’ Lucas continued, ‘like it’s a completely normal thing for us to be doing.’
‘Which is it,’ added Clemmie. ‘Then we’ll go wherever she says he is and confront him.’
‘What if she doesn’t know where he is?’ asked Polly.
‘We’ll think of something else,’ said Lucas.
‘Let’s just get in there and see what happens,’ said Clemmie. ‘It can’t be any worse than what we’ve been putting up with for the last three months, can it?’
‘Let’s do it,’ said Polly.
Maureen was sitting at the same tidy desk where she’d always sat, the same spider plant on the windowsill behind her. She smiled broadly when they came in, seeming pleasantly surprised but not shocked to see them. That was good at least, thought Polly.
‘How nice to see you, Polly,’ she said, standing up. ‘And this must be Clemmie and Lucas – all grown up and at university, I hear.’
‘How are you, Maureen?’ said Polly. ‘Good to see you too.’
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she said. ‘Can’t complain. So I presume you’re here to see David? He’s in his office.’
Polly felt her stomach lurch. He was there. Clemmie took her hand and squeezed it.
Maureen reached out towards her phone. ‘I’ll just—’ she started, but Lucas practically leaped towards her.
‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t call him, we’re here to surprise him – he doesn’t know we’re both home yet. We’re going to take him out to lunch.’
‘Well, I think he might be with a student,’ said Maureen, frowning slightly.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Lucas, and practically pushed Polly and Clemmie out of the room.
‘Let’s leg it down there sharpish,’ he whispered in the corridor. ‘We don’t want Maureen to tip him off.’
David’s office was on the same floor, just round the corner and along a bit. Polly could feel her heart drumming as they got close to it. And her belching was getting worse.
‘Shall I go in first or—’ she started to say, but all too soon they were standing outside the door.
Lucas didn’t hesitate, grabbing the handle and pushing it open. The three of them fell inside.
‘Surprise!’ he said.
David looked up at them from behind his desk, over his heavy spectacles. A young woman sitting opposite turned round to see who it was.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Lucas said to her, ‘but we’ve just come to see my dad and it’s rather urgent. I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later.’
David said nothing, pushing his chair back and starting to get to his feet, then slumping back in his chair.
Polly stood in the doorway staring at him, trying to work out what she felt. That face was so familiar; she even recognised the clothes he was wearing and, of course, the smell of coal-tar soap. It was all as familiar as her own hand, but somehow completely unknown as well. She felt dizzy.
The student was looking at David, clearly wondering what to do.
‘We’d better leave it there, Miranda,’ said David. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot they were coming today. I’ll email you the rest of my notes and you can phone me in the break if you get stuck again.’
So Miranda can phone him, thought Polly. But I can’t?
The young woman gathered her things and left the room, and Polly closed the door behind her. Lucas was standing with his arms folded, glaring at his father. Clemmie was sitting on the sofa at the back of the office, tears running down her cheeks. David hadn’t moved from his chair. He seemed frozen in shock. Polly leaned against the door, wishing someone would say something, because she knew she couldn’t.
‘Well, fancy seeing you here,’ said Lucas, sitting down in the chair Miranda had just vacated.
‘What do you want?’ said David in a completely flat tone of voice.
Polly looked at him in astonishment. What did they want? Something inside her flipped.
‘What do you think we might want?’ she said in icy tones, stalking over to the desk. ‘We want an explanation. Where you’ve been for the past three months, why you haven’t been in contact with any of us – well, apart from to find out when you could come to the house without the horrible risk of seeing me – and what you plan to do next.’
‘I asked you not to contact the university,’ he said.
Polly straightened again and stared at him in disbelief.
‘What gives you the right to make conditions, David?’ she said, shaking her head slowly. ‘You’re a husband and a father, two roles that come with responsibilities – you don’t get to check out of them for a while, with absolutely no explanation. We’ve all had enough. We want to know what’s going on.’
Clemmie came over, crying harder now.
‘How could you be so cruel to Mummy?’ she asked. ‘What has she done to deserve this treatment? You can’t just leave us in the lurch like this.’
David said nothing, but got up from his chair. Polly thought he was going to come and comfort Clemmie, but instead he started putting things into his messenger bag. Then he took his jacket off the back of the chair and put it on.
Polly was so astonished she couldn’t think of anything to say.
Still not speaking, he came out from behind the desk, stepped round Clemmie and Lucas – who had his arm round his weeping sister’s shoulders – and walked out of the office door as though they weren’t there.
‘What the actual . . .?’ said Lucas, and set off after him.
Polly and Clemmie got to the door just in time to see Lucas grab his father by the shoulder and turn him round.
‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ he shouted.
He was red in the face. Polly had never seen him so angry before.
David just stared at his son as though he didn’t know who he was and started to turn away again.
‘No, you don’t!’ said Lucas, and grabbing his father’s shoulder again he landed a punch, right on his jaw. Smack.
Polly was so shocked she felt like she’d been punched herself, and started walking over to see if David was all right, but Clemmie put her hand on her arm.
‘Leave him to it,’ she said. ‘He deserved that.’
David had recovered his balance and was rubbing his chin, blinking, clearly a bit dazed, while Lucas glared at him, his body tense, as if waiting for his father to respond. Instead, David looked at them all, with the same strange blank expression he’d had when they walked into his office, turned and walked very fast down the corridor away from them.
‘That’s right,’ Lucas yelled after him. ‘Walk away from us . . . just don’t expect us to be waiting for you if you ever decide to come back. Arsewipe!’
A man coming along the corridor behind them gave them a shocked look as he passed. They weren’t used to such emotional scenes in the corridors of King’s College.
‘He’s an arsewipe,’ Lucas said to the man, with a fake polite smile, but behind his bravura Polly could see his face was pale.
She moved towards him, and as she put her arms out to embrace him, he started to wail.
‘Muuuuum,’ he said, bursting into tears and sobbing into her shoulder. ‘I punched Dad. What have I done? I’m even more of a psycho than he is.’
Polly hugged him and kissed his head and Clemmie put her arms round both of them.
‘You’re a hero, Lukie,’ she said, ‘not a psycho.’
While they were still locked in a clinch, Polly heard footsteps coming along the corridor towards them. Lifting her head, she saw Maureen, clearly on her way to find them.
‘Come into my office,’ she said. ‘I think you all need a cup of tea.’
Maureen sat them down and busied herself making strong mugs of tea – with two sugars for Lucas, who was clearly in shock. Then she handed Polly a biscuit tin, which Polly passed on to her son. He grabbed a handful of bourbons and smiled at her weakly, his eyes still red from crying. He reminded Polly so much of the emotional little boy he’d once been that she could hardly bear it.
‘I kept my door open,’ Maureen was saying, ‘because I did wonder, when you all arrived just now, if it might lead to a bit of an upset.’
Polly and Clemmie exchanged a look.
‘Why do you say that?’ asked Polly, as casually as she could, dipping a ginger nut into her tea.
An image of Chum smiling as he dunked a biscuit flashed into her head, but she pushed it away. Not now.
Maureen sat at her desk with her hands clasped in front of her and sighed, clearly not sure how to answer her.
‘Well, how can I put this?’ she said at last. ‘Dr Goodwin hasn’t been quite himself recently.’
Polly took another bite of the biscuit and said nothing, hoping Maureen would elaborate.
Clemmie jumped in. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, I hope you won’t find this intrusive,’ said Maureen, ‘but I rather had the feeling he’s not living at home. I arrive about the same time as him each morning and I’ve noticed recently he always comes from the Kingsway direction. It always used to be along the Strand. I come across Waterloo Bridge myself. The Thames is different every day, I do so enjoy that.’
She paused and smiled at them.
‘Also, one time there was a heavy parcel that needed to be forwarded to his home address, so I wrote the usual one on it, and I just happened to go down to the post room later that afternoon and saw the address had been changed. I asked one of the chaps down there about it and he told me Dr Goodwin had come in and done it himself.’
‘What was the new address?’ asked Polly, an idea forming.
‘Judging by the postcode, not far from here. Somewhere in Holborn, or Bloomsbury. It was WC1. Does he have another office he writes in or something?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ said Polly quickly, an extraordinary thought dawning on her. WC1 had been the postcode of David’s old flat, the one they’d lived in together before they bought the house.
Could he be back there somehow?
‘Can I ask you something else?’ said Polly. ‘Has my husband been away on any research trips recently? He was talking about going to Nepal . . . or Turkey.’
‘No,’ said Maureen. ‘Well, a couple of days here and there visiting archives in regimental headquarters, but no big trips. Most of his research at the moment is in the Imperial War Museum.’
Clemmie looked outraged at this revelation, but Polly was glad Lucas seemed too preoccupied with inspecting the biscuit tin to pay attention.
‘Have you noticed anything else different about my husband, apart from where he seems to be living?’ asked Polly.
‘Yes,’ said Maureen. ‘He’s much quieter than usual. He’s a very discreet man, as you know, but recently he seems to have gone into himself more. He doesn’t come to any of the department’s social events, and he doesn’t have lunch or drinks with his colleagues any more.’
Polly smiled at her. ‘You’re really across this department, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Well, after thirty-five years you do get a feeling for things,’ said Maureen. ‘So when you arrived just now, I did wonder if things were going to come to a head.’
‘Thank you, Maureen,’ said Polly, ‘for being so open with us. I can’t tell you what a comfort it is to me to know that you’ve noticed things weren’t quite right with him. It’s been a very confusing time for us.’
‘I tell you what,’ said Maureen, ‘why don’t you give me your mobile number and email address, and if anything else crops up, I’ll let you know.’
Polly gave her a card, and as the three of them got up to leave, Maureen came to the door with them. As Clemmie and Lucas were walking away, Maureen put her hand on Polly’s sleeve.
‘You’ve got my number, dear,’ she said. ‘You can always ring me. I’ll keep a close eye on him for you now. You were always the nicest of the wives and partners.’
Polly gave her a small spontaneous hug and set off after her children, who were walking down the corridor with their heads hanging low.
The traumatic events had clearly taken their toll on them, but Polly suddenly felt much stronger.
FragrantCloud.net
The scent of . . . a son
I have two children, a daughter and a son. I think I was alive before they were born, but I can’t remember what it felt like not to have somebody else’s – two elses’, in my case – best interests always at the front of my mind. It shifts your whole world on its axis, in a way I had never understood until I first looked into my baby daughter’s face.
Four years later I was looking down at another little stranger, my son. He’s nineteen now and I’m still sometimes taken aback when I see a great big hairy leg sticking out from under his bedclothes, remembering the little sprite he used to be.
The particular poignancy of loving a son is knowing that the physical change in him will be so exponential. Obviously, it’s a huge deal when your little girl starts to turn into a woman, but the change has a gently fluidity, so it seems to happen like time-lapse photography of a flower blooming.
Boys, on the other hand, go through a sudden transformation of werewolf intensity. From Dr Jekyll into the hairy, hormonally crazed Mr Hyde. When this hulking creature slopes into the kitchen in his size-twelve trainers, roaring, and eats the entire contents of the fridge, it can be really hard to associate it with the little boy who used to climb onto your lap and twiddle your hair while sucking his thumb.
It can be hard to deal with while the change is happening because boys seem to test their parents in ways that involve putting themselves at risk of serious physical harm, whether it’s driving too fast – or drinking way too much.
There’s also that revolting stage they go through, when somehow searching for an idea of masculinity, they seem to be attracted to everything nasty and vulgar in the world, from foul horror films, to horrendous music and even the terrible body sprays they all seem to use.
After these, at times, very testing years, it’s a very thrilling moment when you realise that your boy really has become – in the best possible way – a man. Confident in his own giant, hairy skin.
Especially as every now and again, the little boy will suddenly reappear for a moment, in a grin, or a giggle, and your mother’s heart will clench in poignant adoration.
My smells of a son are gummy sweeties, Play-Doh, Pritt Stick, poster paint and wax crayons. Earthy mud on polyester football kit. The sweet antiseptic of sticking plasters. Fruity bubble gum and the minty tang of chong – as he and his friends called chewing gum. Bicycle chain oil and rubber inner tubes. The chemical overload of Lynx sprayed profusely over sweat, hair gel and toxic trainers. Fried onions and meat on the breath. Tomato ketchup.
My scents for a son are:
I am Juicy Couture by Juicy Couture
Black by Bvlgari
L’Air de Rien by Miller Harris
Serge Noire by Serge Lutens
Rocker Femme by Britney Spears
Dirty by Lush
Africa by Lynx
COMMENTS
LuxuryGal: We don’t have any sons but our pups are like sons to us and they are so naughty!
AgathaF: This is funny. I have three brothers and it was their bad smell which made me like perfum
e.
FragrantCloud: That’s a very good reason!
NoseFirst: I don’t think this is really about perfume, I prefer it when you write properly about perfume. How can perfume smell of fried onions?
PerfumedWorld: What exactly qualifies you to say that NoseFirst? I think it’s beautiful, there’s more to perfume writing than just copying what you’ve read on Fragrantica, which is what you seem to do on your so-called ‘blog’. Think first is my advice to you.
FragrantCloud: Come on, you two, this is only supposed to be a bit of fun.
WhirlyShirlee: Love that boy.
AnnaBandana: I love this.
FragrantCloud: Thanks so much x
EastLondonNostrils: Lynx ha ha ha.
Wednesday, 23 March
Polly was walking very tentatively, one hand out in front of her, a red-and-white spotted bandana tied around her eyes. Her other hand was in Chum’s, and she wasn’t sure what was occupying more of her attention – walking blindfolded or the feel of his hand around hers.
They’d walked normally for a couple of miles, along the edge of fields, until they’d come to a thick stand of trees and Chum had insisted she put the blindfold on. She’d agreed, thinking it was a lark, but this game of blind man’s buff was going on a bit longer than she’d expected.
And it wasn’t the only odd thing about this walk: they didn’t have the dogs with them either. When Chum had rung her the day before to firm up the loose arrangement they’d made at Rockham Park, he’d asked if she wouldn’t mind leaving Digger behind for this one. It had seemed peculiar, but Polly had agreed, because after what had happened just a couple of days before at David’s office, she needed the balm of one of Chum’s walks more than ever.
‘How much further?’ she asked.
‘Not far,’ he said, ‘don’t be a wimp.’
With her sight shut off, all Polly’s other senses felt heightened. It seemed as though the birds were singing louder than usual, and she could feel the glow of the spring sunshine more keenly on her cheeks. Most of all, she could feel the warmth of Chum’s hand, and she could smell him.
The Scent of You Page 29