Read Memory Scents for Free Online Page A

out for hours on end and left him with the housekeeper, Dora. She would put him in the cellar because he was being a nuisance. This was where Tim heightened his sense of smell. Dora would turn up the wireless to drown out his cries, leaving him unable to hear or see anything in the pitch black cellar. However much he strained his eyes to adjust to the light, hoping and waiting for shadows to become apparent, nothing happened. It was thick, damp and dark blackness all around him, so Tim improved the only sense he had left because there was nothing else to do. If he closed his eyes and imagined hard enough he could pretend he was somewhere else. He got so good at it that sometimes he fell asleep. He used smelling as a guessing game and would see what he got right when Dora deemed it necessary for him to come out of the dark. He would guess what they were having for dinner, which perfume from her dressing table his mother was wearing, whether his father was on his way home or not. All this he achieved from his sense of smell.
                  It was no good telling his mother that Dora made his life a misery when she went out; he just ended up being punished again for telling tales.
     
                  Tim wandered down the corridor carrying the white carnations that he took her every week. Daphne glanced at him as he walked into her private bedroom. She turned back to the window that she was sat next to. Tim kissed her on the cheek, smelling stale perfume with undertones of decay and laid the flowers on her portable table.
                  “Hello Mother, how are you today? Shall I put your flowers in a vase?”
    “You ask me that every bloody week that you come here. Have you got nothing else to say to me?”
                  “Having a bad day, Mother?” he said, putting his arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze. She shrugged him off; a look of repulsion streaking her thickly made up face. Daphne never passed a day without her makeup. She put on lashings of powder that made her look ghostly white, black liquid eyeliner that crumbled once dry on her tissue paper eyelids, along with her lumpy mascara. A bold layer of cerise pink lipstick was put on last, which always leaked into her stained, lined lips. The headband that she used to keep her hair out of the way of this ritual was replaced with a turban. Her makeup routine was the only time she didn’t wear it. She thought this gave her the look and air of a movie star but it just made her look freakish and harsh.
                  “And how’s that lovely wife of yours doing; still too busy to come and see her Mother-in-law?” Sarcasm dripped from her mouth.
                  “Don’t start that again. You know how busy she is and she always sends her love. Anyway she thinks it’s nice for us to spend some time on our own. I don’t want to share you with anyone.”
                  “Yes, yes, yes! Can you go and sit on the bed; I don’t want you smothering me.” She said, swatting him away like a dirty germ ridden fly.
                  Tim sat down on the edge of the bed and watched her as she scowled out of the window. It was to be one of those visits again. The ones that made him feel like he did as a child. Only, the difference was, he was an adult and it made him feel like strangling her.
     
    *
     
     
                  James banged on Chrissie’s bathroom door, startling her and causing her to spill water over the edge of the bath.
                  “Come on Mother, hurry up, you know what the water does to your wrinkly skin!”
                  “I was just getting out. And don’t call me Mother, it makes me feel old!”
                  “You are old!” said James wandering downstairs to make a cup of tea.
                  “What time did Kate say her train was coming in?” Chrissie called down to