The Perfume Collector(106)

Mallory was waiting. Grace’s brain spun. She could hardly remember the details of last night’s conversation; only that Roger had arrived, swallowed up all the air, taken up all the space. And after months of wishing he would touch her, now she was the one pushing him away.

In contrast, the guilty memory of Edouard Tissot’s mouth on hers ricocheted through her entire body.

‘I don’t know. I’m not sure . . . I suppose so.’ Her voice was flat, lifeless. ‘He said everything I wanted to hear. Told me it was all . . . all a lie. Only, now I don’t want to hear it any more.’



She was sitting in the park across the street, with her back to the playground, looking out across the river. Her dog, the ageing terrier with his watery eyes and moulting fur, was crouched in a neat little ball underneath the bench, hiding from the screaming children.

It was easy to spot her – the long black coat, the wool felt turban-style hat. Even from behind, her stiff bearing gave her an imperious air.

Grace didn’t want to be here; with all her heart she didn’t want to speak to Madame Zed ever again. But here she was, just the same.

When she first left the hotel, she’d gone to the Louvre. It was so enormous; her plan was to lose herself in the miles of galleries. Spend the whole day or at least until her head quietened down. But no sooner had she gone inside than the sheer scale of the palace overwhelmed her. The pale marble walls and high columns echoed with voices chattering in half a dozen languages; the incredible opulence of the gilded walls and ceiling of the Apollo Gallery dazzled too brightly; all around her on the canvases, bodies writhed, wars raged, heroic actions prevailed. The grandeur jarred rather than soothed.

So she left; wandered the streets, bought a coffee she didn’t drink. Walking into a bookshop, she stood, staring, unseeing, at the titles on the shelves.

A gentleman in glasses approached. ‘Comment puis-je vous aider?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Comment puis-je vous aider?’ he repeated slowly.

It took Grace a moment to realize she was staring at a row of anatomy journals; this was an academic bookshop.

‘Non. Non, merci.’

Soon it became clear that no place would offer the refuge she sought. Her mind stumbled and careered, tripping and falling again and again into the same unanswerable voids. One moment the taste, feel and smell of Edoaurd Tissot seemed to have taken over her body and then, equally as intense, the horrendous truth blinded her – that she could no longer trust herself; that everything she thought she was, was a lie.

Now she was back, on the Left Bank. Searching for the person who had cracked her life open like an egg.

Grace stopped in front of the bench. Hands in her pockets, she gripped her father’s old lighter, holding it tightly in the palm of her hand. ‘You must really hate me.’

Madame Zed looked up at her, surprised. Then, taking in Grace’s expression and demeanour, she shook her head. ‘No, I don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.’ Her lips hardened into a thin, taut line. ‘But I loathed her.’

Grace stared at her in shock. ‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ she shot back, her black eyes fierce. ‘He was mine. I discovered him, I trained him! My money bought him the business. He was my whole world – the child I never bore, the husband I never married, the companion I never found. And then she arrived, out of nowhere!’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you know what was so devastating about her? She truly had a unique talent. She knew how to catch the flavour of the times, how to distil it into the perfect atmosphere. She was good at it. And more than anyone else, she knew how to make him listen.’ She gripped the terrier’s lead tightly, winding it round her boney hand. ‘When I spoke, my voice disappeared like the wind. Eva knew how to bring out the best in him. When she made a suggestion, he took note. It was obviously right. Do you realize how galling that was? I was reduced to an onlooker – an antiquity from another age.’ She stared out across the choppy grey water for some time. When she spoke again, she sounded empty, hollow. ‘Even when she left, he’d become so cocksure, so independent, he didn’t need me any more.’

Grace shook her head. ‘That’s not even true! What about the correspondence I found? The letter with those strange accords you were creating with him – wet wool, hair and so on?’

Madame wound the lead even tighter. ‘That wasn’t Valmont.’

‘Then who was it?’ she demanded. ‘Who else would want your help to create a perfume?’

‘Who indeed.’ She turned, locking Grace in with her unfathomable black gaze. ‘She only made one formula. I cannot believe it, even to this day. To have such success with one’s first real attempt.’ She shook her head, laughing bitterly. ‘Unheard of!’