The Perfume Collector Read online

  The Perfume Collector

  Kathleen Tessaro

  A remarkable novel about secrets, desire, memory, passion, and possibility.

  Newlywed Grace Monroe doesn’t fit anyone’s expectations of a successful 1950s London socialite, least of all her own. When she receives an unexpected inheritance from a complete stranger, Madame Eva d’Orsey, Grace is drawn to uncover the identity of her mysterious benefactor.

  Weaving through the decades, from 1920s New York to Monte Carlo, Paris, and London, the story Grace uncovers is that of an extraordinary women who inspired one of Paris’s greatest perfumers. Immortalized in three evocative perfumes, Eva d’Orsey’s history will transform Grace’s life forever, forcing her to choose between the woman she is expected to be and the person she really is.

  The Perfume Collector explores the complex and obsessive love between muse and artist, and the tremendous power of memory and scent.

  Kathleen Tessaro

  THE PERFUME COLLECTOR

  A Novel

  For my son Eddie

  Always, evermore… and then some

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following people: my agents Jonny Geller and Jennifer Joel, my editors Katie Espiner, Maya Ziv and Lorissa Sengara, as well as Cassie Browne, Jaime Frost, Louisa Joyner and Katherine Beitner. I’m especially grateful for the notes and encouragement of Jo Rodgers, the support of my husband Gregory Liberi and the editorial comments of my friend and mentor, Jill Robinson.

  Paris, Winter 1954

  Eva d’Orsey sat at the kitchen table, listening to the ticking clock, a copy of Le Figaro in front of her. This was the sound of time, moving away from her.

  Taking another drag from a cigarette, she looked out of the window, into the cold misty morning. Paris was waking now, the grey dawn, streaked with orange, seeping slowly into a navy sky. She’d been up for hours, since four. Sleep had inched away from her these past years as the pain increased, shooting up along the left side of her body.

  The doctor had given up on her months ago. His diagnosis: she was not a good patient; arrogant, refused to follow directions. The cirrhosis was spreading rapidly now, pitting her liver like a sponge. For him it was simple: she had to stop drinking.

  ‘You’re not even trying,’ he’d reprimanded her at the last appointment.

  She was buttoning her blouse, on top of the examination table. ‘I’m having difficulty sleeping.’

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised,’ he sighed. ‘Your liver is completely inflamed.’

  She caught his eye. ‘I need something to help me.’

  Shaking his head, he crossed to his desk; scribbled out a prescription. ‘I shouldn’t even give you these, you know. Take only one, they’re very strong,’ he warned, handing her the script.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Still, he couldn’t resist one last try. ‘Why don’t you at least cut down on smoking?’

  Why indeed?

  Exhaling, Eva stubbed the Gitanes cigarette out in the ashtray. They were common – too strong. Unladylike. But that suited her. She could only taste strong flavours now. Cheap chocolate, coarse pâté, black coffee. What she ate didn’t matter anyway; she had no appetite left.

  There was something naïve, sweetly arrogant about the doctor’s assumption that everyone wanted to live forever.

  Picking up a pen, she traced a ring of even circles along the border of the newspaper.

  There were still a few more details to be arranged. She’d been to the lawyer weeks ago, a diligent, rather aloof young man. And she’d left the box with the sour-faced concierge, Madame Assange, for safe keeping. But last night, when she couldn’t sleep, another idea occurred to her. There was the passage, from London to Paris. The idea of an aeroplane intrigued her. It was extravagant and unnecessary. But there were a few things a person should experience in life; air travel was definitely one of them. She smiled to herself, imagining the approach to Paris, the miles of cold, blue sea and then the first sighting of the city.

  She winced. Pain again, knife stabs, followed by numbness down the side of her body.

  She thought about the bottle of cognac. She didn’t want to drink during the day. After 6 p.m. was her new rule. At least that’s what she planned. But her hands were shaking now; her stomach lurched.

  No. She would run a bath. Dress. And go to 7.30 Mass at Eglise de la Madeleine. Of all the churches in Paris, this was her favourite. There, Mary Magdalene, that wayward, difficult daughter of the Church, ascended regally into heaven on the arms of angels all day, every day.

  Mass was like grand opera, a magic show with the most expensive props in town. And faith, a sleight of hand trick, in which one was both the magician and the audience; the deceiver and the deceived. Still, who could resist a good magic trick?

  Folding over the paper, Eva pushed out her chair and stood up.

  She would wear her best navy suit, sit in the front pew with the faithful. Together they’d listen to the young priest, Father Paul, struggle to make sense of the scripture, try with all his considerable intellect to apply it to the present day. He didn’t always succeed. He didn’t know how to justify the inconsistencies; hadn’t yet realized that they themselves were the mystery. Still, his mental adroitness pleased her, almost as much as it pleased him. Frequently he was reduced to searching through layers of various possible Hebrew translations for an unexpected verb form to finally shed light on some vast spiritual contradiction. But his heroism in trying wasn’t lost on her. And she valued those who tried, especially those whose struggles were public and obvious.

  Of course he didn’t see it that way. Only a few years out of seminary, he imagined he was imparting spiritual sustenance and guidance to his flock. What he didn’t understand was that his elderly parishioners, mostly women, were there for him, rather than the other way around. Father Paul was at the start of life. His glassy convictions needed protection. They waited patiently until he too, succumbed to the unbearable unevenness of God’s will, the sureness of his grace, the darkness of his mercy.

  These thoughts calmed her. Her mind was off, whirring again on a familiar track: the paradoxes of faith and doubt. Like a worn piece of fabric, made soft by much handling, comforting to the touch.

  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 rou
gh 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.

  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 spare a 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!’ Mallor
y 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…’

  ‘Which is remarkable because it’s only 1955, Mal.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean! She’s ahead of her time.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t have to compete with Vanessa, do I? We can’t all be trendsetters. That woman has far too much time on her hands and far too much money.’

  ‘Perhaps, but nobody wants to miss one of her parties, do they? You need to start entertaining properly too. Tonight will be a good opportunity to steal some names from Vanessa’s guest list. I’ve got a little notebook and pencil in my handbag if you need it.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Grace shuddered. ‘I can’t bear the thought of it!’

  ‘Honestly!’ Mallory rolled her eyes. ‘What did you do up in Oxford for entertainment anyway?’

  ‘My uncle is a don. We had people round for cauliflower cheese and played bridge.’

  ‘How ghastly!’ Mallory laughed. ‘You’re going to have to get over this aversion to speaking to other people if you want to be an asset to your husband. He’s not going to be promoted on his good looks alone,’ she smiled. ‘You haven’t got a light, have you? Do you like this?’ She stood up, twirling round, showing off the full skirt of the deep red off-the-shoulder dress she was wearing. ‘It’s new. From Simpson’s.’