The Perfume Collector(2)

Mass and then, yes, the travel agent.

Taking the ashtray to the sink, she emptied it, rinsed it out. Below, in the alleyway, something moved . . . a looming shadow – shifting, cutting. Black wings beating, wheeling as one, until they filled the entire wall opposite, blotting out the pale rays of the winter sun.

Suddenly another memory took hold. A breathless, stumbling terror; the smell of green fields and damp woodland – and a massive flock of ravens, reeling across the open sky, wings glistening like ebony, beaks like razors – crying, shrieking.

Eva grasped the counter, pressed her eyes closed. The ashtray dropped, clattering into the porcelain sink.

It shattered.

‘Damn!’

Eva peered warily out the window, her heart still pounding. The shadow was gone. A flock of common city pigeons most likely.

Picking up the pieces, she lined them up on the counter top. It was an old, inexpensive object. But it reminded her of another time, when life was full of beginnings.

The clock ticked loudly.

She wavered only a moment.

Reaching for a glass, Eva took down the bottle of cheap cognac and poured with unsteady hands, gulping it down. Instantly the alcohol warmed her, radiating out through her limbs; taking the edge off.

That doctor understood nothing.

He didn’t know what it was like to live between memory and regret with nothing to numb it.

Pouring another, Eva ran her finger over the rough edge of the broken porcelain.

She would glue it.

Bathe.

Wear her navy suit.

Tilting her head back, she took another swallow.

It didn’t matter anymore if the cracks showed.





London, Spring 1955

Grace Munroe woke up with a start, gasping for breath.

She’d been running, stumbling, over uneven ground, in a thick, dense forest; searching, calling out. But the harder she ran the more impenetrable the woodland became. Vines grew, twisting beneath her feet, branches whipped against her face, arms and legs. And there was the panicky feeling that time was running out. She was chasing someone or something. But it was always just ahead, out of reach. Suddenly she lost her footing, tumbling head over heels into a deep, rocky ravine.

Heart pounding in her chest, Grace took a moment, blinking in the dusky half-light, to realize that she was in her own bedroom, lying on top of her bed.

It was a dream.

Only a dream.

Reaching across, she turned on the bedside lamp, falling back against the pillows. Her heart was still galloping, hands trembling. It was an old nightmare, from her childhood. She thought she’d grown out of it. But now, after years, it was back.

How long had she been asleep anyway? She looked across at the alarm clock. Nearly 6.30. Damn.

She’d only meant to take fifteen minutes. But it had been nearly an hour.

Mallory would be here any minute and she still had to dress. Grace didn’t want to go tonight, only she’d promised her friend.

Going to the window overlooking Woburn Square below, Grace pulled back the heavy curtains.

It was late afternoon in April, the time of year when the daylight hours stretched eagerly towards summer and the early evening light was a delicate Wedgwood blue, gilded with the promise of future warmth. The plane trees lining the square bore the very beginnings of tender, bright green buds on their branches that in the summer would form a thick emerald canopy. Only now they were just twigs, shaking violently with each gust of icy wind.

The central garden had been dug and planted with produce during the war; its railings had been melted down and had yet to be restored. The buildings that survived in the area were blackened by smoke and pitted from shrapnel.

There was a sense of quickening in the air, the change of seasons, of hope tempered by the impending nightfall. Outside, the birds sang, green shoots of hyacinth and narcissus swayed in the wind. Warm in the sun, freezing in the shade, it was a season of extremes.

Grace had a fondness for the sharpness of this time of year; for the muted, shifting light that played tricks on her eyes. It was a time of mysterious, yet dramatic metamorphosis. One minute there was nothing but storms and rain; a moment later a field of daffodils appeared, exploding triumphantly into a fanfare of colour.

Grace pressed her fingertips against the cold glass of the window. This was not, as her husband Roger put it, their real house. He had more ambitious plans for something grander, closer to Belgravia. But Grace liked it here; being in the centre of Bloomsbury, close to London University and King’s College, it reminded her of Oxford, where she’d lived with her uncle until only a few years ago. It was filled with activity; businesses and offices, and students rushing to class. In the street below, a current of office workers, wrapped in raincoats, heads bent against the wind, moved in a steady stream towards the Underground station after work.