The Perfume Collector

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.

Grace leaned her head against the window frame.

It must be nice to have a job. A neatly arranged desk. A well-organized filing cabinet. And most of all, purpose.

Now that she was married, her days had a weary open-endedness about them; she floated like a balloon from one social obligation to another.

Roger took each engagement very seriously. ‘Did you speak to anyone at the Conservative Ladies Club luncheon? Whom did you sit next to? Tell me who was there.’

He was uncannily skilled at dissecting hidden meaning behind every interaction.

‘They put you at the first table, near the front. That’s good. Make certain you write to Mona Riley and thank her for the invitation. Perhaps you could arrange an informal dinner? Or better yet, invite her for tea somewhere and see if you can wangle a dinner party out of her. It would be better if they asked us first. One doesn’t want to seem eager.’

He was counting on her to grease the wheels, only Grace wasn’t much of a social mechanic. And she lacked any pleasure in the game.

Still, she needed to hurry, she reminded herself, if she didn’t want to keep Mallory waiting.

Opening the bedroom door, she called down the steps to the housekeeper, who was cleaning downstairs. ‘Mrs Deller!’

‘Yes?’ came a voice from the kitchen, two flights below.

‘Would you mind terribly bringing me a cup of tea, please?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Grace hurried into the bathroom, splashed her face with cold water and dabbed it dry, examining her features in the mirror. She really should make more of an effort – buy some blue eyeshadow and black liquid eyeliner; learn to pencil in her eyebrows with the bold, stylized make-up that was all the rage. Instead, she patted her nose and cheeks with a bit of face powder and applied a fresh coat of red lipstick. Her hair was long, just below her shoulders. Without bothering to brush it out, and with the deftness of much practice, she arranged it into a chignon, pinning it back with hairpins. Downstairs the doorbell rang.

‘Damn!’

Of all the times for Mallory to actually be on time!

Flinging open the wardrobe doors, Grace grabbed a blue shantung silk cocktail dress and tossed it on the bed. She stepped out of her tweed skirt and pulled her blouse up over her head without undoing the buttons.

Where were the matching navy shoes?

She scanned the bottom of the wardrobe. Bending down, she felt the heel of her stocking begin to ladder up the back of her calf.

‘Oh, bugger!’

Unfastening her suspenders, she could hear Mrs Deller answering the door; the soft inflections of women’s voices as she took Mallory’s coat. And then the steps of the old Georgian staircase creaking in protest as Mallory made her way upstairs.

Grace yanked a fresh pair of stockings from her chest of drawers and sat down on the edge of the bed to put them on.

There was a knock. ‘It’s only me. Are you decent?’

‘If you consider a petticoat decent.’

Mallory poked her head round the door. Her deep auburn hair was arranged in low curls and a string of pearls set off her pale skin. ‘Haven’t you changed yet? It’s already started, Grace!’

Grace hooked the tops of her stockings and stood up. ‘Isn’t it fashionable to be late?’

‘Since when are you concerned with what’s fashionable?’

Grace pivoted round. ‘Are my seams straight?’

‘Yes. Here.’ Mallory handed her the cup of tea she was carrying. ‘Your housekeeper asked me to give you this.’

‘Thank you.’ Grace took a sip as Mallory rustled across the room in her full-skirted evening dress, perching delicately on the edge of the armchair, so as not to crease the fabric.

‘What have you been doing all afternoon, anyway?’ Mallory chided.

‘Oh, nothing.’ Grace didn’t like to admit to sleeping during the day; it felt like the thin edge of the wedge. ‘And what about you? What did you do?’

‘I’ve only just got back from the hairdresser’s an hour ago.’ Mallory turned her head, showcasing both her lovely profile and the result of their handiwork. ‘I swear, Mr Hugo is the only person in London I’ll let touch my hair. You should go to him. He’s a miracle worker. Have you got a spare ciggie?’

‘Just there.’ Grace nodded to a silver cigarette box on the table. She took another gulp of tea and put it down on the dresser.

Mallory took one out. ‘What are you wearing tonight?’

‘The blue taffeta.’

‘Old faithful!’ Mallory smiled, shaking her head. ‘We have to take you shopping, my dear. There are such beautiful things out at the moment.’

At thirty, Mallory was only three years older than Grace but already established on the London social scene as one of the fashionable young women. Married to Grace’s cousin, Geoffrey, she tried to take Grace under her wing. However, Grace proved frustratingly immune to her instruction.

‘You don’t like this dress?’ Grace asked.

Mallory shrugged. ‘It’s perfectly fine.’

Grace held it up again. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s just, oh, I don’t know. You know what Vanessa’s like. Everything’s always cutting edge, up to the minute. The very latest look of 1956 …’