The Memory of Scent Read Online Free

wedded to his left hand, he reached for the cat with his right hand and closed his fist around its neck, carrying it swinging and spitting to the top of the stairs. He must have flung it down because I could hear a few thuds and pitiful mewing. It actually didn’t take anything out of him as he just slowly closed the door and resumed painting. I was almost afraid to breathe. How safe was I really? What about the patchouli girl … is she safe?
    * * *
    The air always seems fresher here in the Bois de Boulogne than in most other parts of Paris, apart, of course, from the clean air of the Butte at the height of Montmartre. I havebeen promising Maria that I would come with her out here to the circus where once she spent time as an acrobat. She has left many old friends behind and the odd time I take a day trip out here, there seems to be a certain grace, a casual respectability where ladies with parasols and impeccable men with their walking sticks mingle and casually appraise the red-coated riders as they canter their horses through complicated routines. We pick our way behind the tiered stands, trying to avoid the still steaming clumps of horse manure. Maria looks sublimely happy, as if caught up in a mystical thrall.
    ‘Is that not the most wonderful smell in the entire world?’ I smile meekly because my only concern is to swat away the flies and to try and ignore the discomfort I am feeling as sullen groups of men work in industrious hives, some pulling ropes, others painting large planks of wood, while all around, calloused hands savagely groom glossy horse flesh with coarse bristled brushes.
    ‘Uncle.’ I turn in time to see Maria clasping her hat to her head and running towards a large man perched on a very small wooden stool and tending to a horse’s hoof. I watch, charmed, as a broad grin creases his weather-worn face the minute he realises it is Maria. He releases the horse’s hoof from between his knees and stands up, his bulky, scarred forearms gripping Maria in the briefest of hugs. This man, whom one second ago I looked on with misgivings and suspicion, tentatively stepping around him as if proximity would bring me harm, is now bathed in benevolence and awkward charm.
    ‘My little Marie-Clémentine, look at you. You don’t look like a girl who has come to do some tumbling.’
    ‘This is my good friend Fleur, and this is my uncle.’
    I know he is not really her uncle, but she always speaks so fondly of him because he took care of her. Everyone should have at least one person to look out for them.
    ‘This little creature was the most fearless acrobat ever to climb up on a horse’s back. There were plenty bigger, but none bolder. And your trapeze work …’
    ‘Yes, well, my boldness cost me months in bed and my future in the circus.’
    ‘Oh that was a nasty fall you took, but look at you now, haven’t you grown into the proper young lady.’
    I am intruding on this affectionate reunion so I decide to take a look around. I don’t even like circuses. They always seem pompous and artificial and I hate being condescended to, all that manipulation of the audiences’ reactions. All that, ‘Oooooh, he almost fell to his death there.’ ‘Ahhhhh, that elephant nearly crushed his body there.’ Leave me in peace to look at a painting, or walk in a beautiful garden, or eat an exquisitely cooked meal. I much prefer to be a passive observer, than a sawdust-caked participant.
    Maria was very happy here so I am happy for her. As I stroll around, I can see how a very strong bond would form between all those involved in this little capsule of existence. They must have to truly trust each other. They must learn to read each others rhythms when their very life could depend on something as tenuous as another’s wrist clasp as they fly through the air. They must know what ropes to haul, what animals to soothe, what smiles to flash, what has to be hammered here and fastened there. It must all come as second nature, as