The Scent of You

by Maggie Alderson

  ‘Is that why Bill lives at Rockham Park?’ asked Polly.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Chum. ‘Mummy got cancer; I really believe it was the stress of all this, on top of losing her son. Bill couldn’t really manage on his own and it was his idea to move to Rockham Park. He likes it. Is your mum happy there? She seems to be.’

  ‘Oh, she’s fine,’ said Polly. ‘But let’s not get distracted. Now you’ve started to talk about it, I need to know everything.’

  ‘Do you want to read another cutting?’ said Chum, with a lopsided smile. ‘It saves me having to spell out all the other grisly details. There is more.’

  ‘Whatever works for you,’ said Polly and he pulled another piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

  ‘This one is from Tatler,’ he said.

  Polly looked at the headline and intro:

  THE TOP TEN TRAGIC (HOT – AND SINGLE) ARISTOS

  They’re impeccably bred, entirely single, properly handsome and having a horrible time – could you be the one to comfort a tragic aristocrat?

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ she said. ‘Are they allowed to write things like that?’

  ‘At least they’ve said I’m hot,’ said Chum, laughing. ‘But look at my entry – I’m not even top five. So rude.’

  ‘I think the whole thing’s rude,’ said Polly, scrolling down until she found a picture of Chum. He was a on a horse in the full formal rig out – black tailored jacket, white stock and velvet riding hat. Hot indeed.

  6. The Hon. Edward Cliddington-Hanley-Maugham

  Thrown off the family estate (listed after Chatsworth in Country Life’s stately home rankings) by his widowed sister-in-law, who wants to sell it and everything in it, the younger brother of the late 12th Earl of Hampford, Edward CHM – Chum to his friends – knows pain on a Johnny Cash level.

  Chum has embarked on a noble legal battle to save the estate for the nation and in retaliation, the dowager Countess closed down the internationally admired glamour food empire he built up – leaving him jobless and homeless.

  Now the former model has also banned him from seeing his only nephew, the heir to the whole shebang, so Uncle Chum has started another legal suit against her about that.

  The Countess has not remarried, but has been romantically linked to several men since her husband died, including a Canadian ski instructor, her fitness trainer, and most recently night-club owner Gary Atherton, owner of the Good Times chain of lap-dancing clubs.

  ‘Lap-dancing clubs?’ said Polly, turning to Chum.

  He rolled his eyes and nodded.

  ‘That’s what I mean by easily led. She’s quite innocent, really, that’s what’s so sad about it. If only she’d fallen in with decent people, none of this would be happening, but she got picked up by the dregs and she believes everything they tell her. Can you hurry up and finish reading that? I’m getting bored with myself and my dreary problems.’

  Polly turned back to the cutting.

  And there’s more . . . all this came after this most tragic aristo lost his wife, Lady Arabella Melton, youngest daughter of the Marquess of Mowbray, in a car crash – although she had already left him for another man. Double doom.

  Could you be the one to comfort sad Chum?

  Tragic Aristo Ratings

  House: 10

  Cash: 3 (was 9, but the lawsuits are draining funds fast)

  Looks: 9

  School: Eton

  University: St Andrews

  Hobbies: Horses, shooting, fishing

  Previous liaisons: married once, widowed

  Children: none

  Polly read to the end and felt overwhelmed by sadness.

  ‘You really have had a shitty time, haven’t you?’ she said.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Chum.

  ‘How do you cope with it all?’

  ‘Just keep on keeping on, what else can I do?’ said Chum. He turned to look out of the window for a moment, then looked back at her. ‘Although I must say, the walks we’ve taken together recently have done a very great job of taking my mind off it all.’

  Polly smiled at him, wanting to tell him it was exactly the same for her, but then she’d have to explain what it was she needed distracting from and it didn’t seem the right time for that. After everything he’d just revealed, her problems seemed so petty. Her husband was having a bit of a funny turn – it wasn’t like he’d died, or left her, or thrown her out of the house. All those things had happened to Chum, and more.

  She would tell him what was going on in her life, she wanted to now, but it had to be at the right moment.

  ‘Those walks have meant a lot to me too,’ she said and very gently squeezed his hand.

  He squeezed hers back and they sat for a while, their hands linked, saying nothing, just gazing out of the window, until Polly noticed the light was changing. The sun was on the other side of the house now and the temperature in the room was dropping.

  Chum seemed to notice too. He took his hand away from hers and seemed to think for a moment before he spoke.

  ‘You know, Hippolyta, it’s about to get spectacularly cold in here and we can’t put the lights on in this wing when it gets dark, because they’d be visible from miles away. But I don’t feel like leaving yet, do you?’

  Polly shook her head.

  ‘Good,’ said Chum. ‘We’ll go somewhere a bit more cosy, where we can have a nice cup of tea before we set off for the car. There’s a quicker way back, I brought you the long way this morning to add to the drama.’

  Chum led on, carrying the picnic basket, through a door set into the painted walls that let onto a back corridor, then up a couple of staircases, down another and along several more corridors.

  ‘You could do your 10,000 steps a day just walking around this house,’ said Polly.

  ‘More,’ he said, ‘but not now, because we’re here.’

  He took her through a door into a small hallway with several doors off it, opening one of them into a delightful square room, with late afternoon sun pouring in through the windows.

  It was very comfortably furnished, with bold floral wallpaper and a comfortable chintz sofa with lots of cushions on it, in front of a fireplace, with logs and paper all set to light. On the wall opposite, set into a wall of packed bookshelves, was an elegant desk, with a pen lying on it next to a sheet of headed writing paper. The air smelled spicy from a large bowl of pot pourri.

  ‘What a lovely room,’ said Polly.

  ‘It was my grandmother’s parlour – well, that’s what she used to call it. I think the correct term is a morning room. This apartment was her special place in the house when she was the Dowager Countess. My brother didn’t want her to move out to the Dower House, so she created a little spot for herself here.’

  Polly didn’t say anything, not feeling qualified to comment on any of those topics. She walked over to the marble fireplace to look at the collection of Staffordshire figures and other intriguing things on it. There was a stack of thick card invitations propped behind a small brass pug.

  ‘That’s all Granny’s stuff,’ said Chum. ‘Even the invitations. Nothing was changed in here after she died.’

  ‘Would she mind us being in here?’ asked Polly.

  Chum grinned. ‘She’d love it. I often used to sneak in here to see her. She let me keep a pet lamb in here one spring, and when I was caught walking him round the house on a lead, Granny took all the blame.’

  Polly followed his gaze to the wall between the two windows, where there was a portrait of a smiling woman. She didn’t have the wide mouths of the ancestors in the marble hall, but her surprised-looking raised eyebrows were so like Chum’s that Polly laughed.

  ‘I take it this is her?’ she asked, and he nodded.

  ‘Right,’ said Chum, rootling around in the picnic basket. ‘I’ve got some milk in here and these . . .’

  He held up a packet of Garibaldi biscuits.

  ‘I’ll go and make the te
a. If you need the loo, follow me.’

  He showed her a door that led into a bathroom painted the prettiest sugar-pink. It was furnished with a painted armoire and a French chair with a needlepoint seat and back. The wash basin sat on a pretty white cupboard, and on the side was a large bottle of Joy.

  Polly smiled. She liked Granny more and more.

  When she got back to the sitting room, Chum had the fire lit and a tray of tea, with a teapot, was sitting on the ottoman.

  ‘You know how to live, Mr Chum,’ said Polly, taking in the scene.

  ‘Well, Granny certainly did,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t have liked the mugs, but I can’t be bothered with cups and saucers.’

  Polly sat down on the sofa, a wave of shyness washing over her. It had been magical sitting in the grand state bedroom, but so disconnected from anything like real life for her that it hadn’t made her feel awkward. But this felt so comfortable and domestic – so perfect – she felt almost panicky.

  Chum sat down next to her and reached over to pour the tea.

  ‘I know how you like it,’ he said, passing her a mug.

  She was happy for the distraction of the tea and the biscuits, but when that was all finished and Chum had stoked up the fire and sat back down next to her, they fell into a silence that seemed to roar in Polly’s ears. All she was aware of was Chum’s warm body next to hers and how much she wanted to crawl onto his lap and never leave it.

  They sat for a little longer until Polly couldn’t stand it and, with her head against the back of the sofa, she turned to look at him. He turned at exactly the same time, so their faces were practically touching.

  ‘Hello, beautiful,’ he said quietly, and reached up and smoothed a stray strand of hair.

  Polly felt tears fill her eyes. She looked back at the fire and blinked madly trying to stop them, but she couldn’t and felt one roll down her cheek.

  Chum reached up again and very gently turned her face back towards him, wiping away the tear with his forefinger.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, so tenderly, Polly felt two more tears escape. He wiped those away too and then pulled a white cotton handkerchief out of his jeans pocket. ‘Use this.’

  Polly wiped her eyes with it, feeling like a first class idiot.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, trying to hand it back to him.

  ‘Hold on to it,’ he said. ‘But tell me – why are you crying?’ Polly thought for a moment and then she just had to say it. The truth.

  ‘Because you make me so happy and that makes me feel guilty.’

  ‘Because you’re married,’ said Chum.

  Polly nodded, closing her eyes in shame. She felt Chum take her hand then lay his other one over the top.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I understand and I have to tell you something: I’ve never wanted to kiss someone as much as I want to kiss you right now – well, all day really, it hasn’t just come over me, and long before that, if I’m really honest. Well, ever since the first time I kissed you, which really was an awfully long time ago.’

  Polly couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘I didn’t know if you remembered that,’ she said.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he said. ‘From the moment I saw you again lying on the floor at Rockham Park with dogs all over you, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. Anyway, those were different days and, as much as I’ve wanted to, I don’t make a habit of kissing married women. It’s a fool’s game.’

  He paused for a moment.

  ‘But I must also say,’ he continued, ‘that in normal circumstances I wouldn’t have brought a married woman to this house and certainly not to sit on this particular sofa, which is very special and personal to me, but over the weeks we’ve been going on our lovely walks I’ve begun to feel, from the way you never mention your husband in conversation – well, just once – and how he never comes to see your mother with you, or features in your blog in real time . . .’

  He smiled as he said the last thing.

  ‘I just started to get the feeling he doesn’t seem to be in your life very much these days, so I had begun to wonder if perhaps one day I might feel I could chance my arm to see whether you might kiss me.’

  ‘He’s not in my life at all,’ said Polly bluntly.

  And then she told him the whole story, all the way from the email that had come out of the blue, with every detail, right up to the terrible moment when Lucas had punched David, and Maureen had come to their rescue and given them her invaluable insights into the situation.

  ‘Well, I do like the sound of Maureen and her biscuit tin,’ said Chum, ‘and I can’t help respecting Lucas for what he did. The question is, what are you going to do?’

  Polly realised she had come to a decision about that, right then. Or perhaps it had happened after that horrible visit to King’s College, but she hadn’t quite been able to voice it in her head. She could now.

  ‘I’m going to leave him,’ she said, not quite able to believe the words as they came out of her mouth. ‘Well, he’s already left me, so that’s not the right way to put it, but now I know where he is, I’m going to tell him I want a formal separation. A divorce.’

  She paused for a moment, to breathe and swallow. She had to come to terms with what she’d just said. Chum made no comment, just looked at her steadily and held her hand firmly in his.

  ‘Do you think that’s awful?’ she asked him.

  ‘Definitely not awful,’ he said. ‘Of course I can’t offer any impartial comment because – while I don’t want to be tactless – I’m absolutely thrilled he’s out of the picture. But I do have my own experience of being left. As you will have read in that charming Tatler article, my wife left me and it was just as sudden and unexpected as your husband’s departure. I came home one day to find a note. She’d run off with a bloke we knew a bit from horsey circles. I didn’t realise she’d got to know him rather too well while I was busy building the food business. So I do know what it’s like having to deal with hurt and anger simultaneously. It’s impossibly confusing.’

  He paused for a moment, looking into the fire, before continuing. ‘Then it got even more mixed up for me when they were both killed in that terrible car crash, with grief and even a weird sense of guilt that if I hadn’t been away so much for work, she might not have felt the need for another man and she’d still be alive. After that I felt like some kind of whack-a-mole. Every time I came to terms with one element of it, I got hit over the head by other one.’

  Polly blinked at him for a moment, taking in what he’d said.

  ‘That’s exactly it,’ she said, ‘that’s why I’ve been so muddle-headed. I didn’t know whether to be broken-hearted or furious, and somehow it doesn’t seem possible to feel both of those things at once.’

  She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

  ‘I do understand there must be some reason David is behaving like this.’ She felt she had to say his name out loud, to make him a real person, not a vague concept of a ‘husband’.

  ‘Knowing David,’ it felt good to say it, ‘I don’t think it’s another woman. His other woman is his work. But he was acting so strangely when we saw him at the university, I can’t help thinking he might be clinically depressed, or something awful like that, and I’m very sorry if that’s the case, but – putting myself aside – I can’t forgive him for the way he’s treated the kids.’

  She paused again. Now she’d started talking about it, she couldn’t stop. ‘Am I going on too much?’ she asked Chum.

  He shook his head. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I know how much better I feel for telling you my story. Let it out.’

  ‘Well, it was my mum of all people who made me start to understand this,’ she said. ‘But since he’s been absent I’ve come to realise just how controlling David has been throughout our relationship. It was great when I was younger, because he seemed to know everything and I looked up to him so much, but I see now he didn’t want me to grow up from that. He’s been very pa
tronising about the blog, for example. And what you said about not coming to see my mum with me – apart from when we moved her in, he’s never been there and he makes me feel I’m being unreasonable if I ask him to come with me. And our wedding . . .’

  Now she was really in her stride.

  ‘This is what my mum reminded me about – I’d always thought I’d get married in the chapel at my father’s college, it’s so beautiful, but David insisted on a London registry office and minimum guests. He didn’t even want me to wear a long dress and I’d always dreamed of wearing my mum’s wedding dress, which was made for her in the 1950s by Christian Dior. But I just accepted it, because I was so infatuated I thought everything he wanted must be right. But looking back, that wasn’t fair, and that’s just one of many examples . . .’

  She came to a stop, suddenly feeling exhausted by it all. She sighed heavily.

  ‘Phew,’ she said, ‘that turned into a bit of a marathon.’

  Chum said nothing, just put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him, so her head was resting against his shoulder. It felt like the most comforting place on earth to be, especially as she could smell him so well. She breathed in deeply, wondering if she would ever tire of that smell, with the hint of horse and . . ..

  ‘Equipage,’ she said suddenly, pulling back to look at him and then going in for another sniff. ‘That’s what it is. You wear Hermès Equipage. Of course you do. An aftershave by a company that started as a saddlemaker and has a horse on its logo. What else would you wear?’

  Chum laughed.

  ‘I don’t wear it often, but I did put some on this morning for you. I thought it might make me more alluring.’

  ‘You don’t need any help with that,’ said Polly and then, without thinking about it, she leaned towards him and put her lips on his. Very softly at first and then more insistently, until he took the lead, his tongue pushing gently into her mouth, entwining with hers – just as it had been all those years before, and just as wonderful.