The Smell of White

As Alban Blanchard looked up at the large, white roses falling from the dark, overcast November London skies, --- as he saw the huge, pristine bulbs tumble out of a sky the colour of concrete and the air was filled with a heady perfume --- tears started to stream down his face, much like the floral rain he was underneath. Inside him, the question that had been growing for the past year had finally reached its full bloom.

“How come Candace had never once stopped and enjoyed The Smell of White,” Alban whispered, sniffling as flowers started to soundlessly decorate the pavement.

That little seed that led to that query was planted a year ago in Alban’s White City one-bedroom flat's living area. On his snow-coloured laptop, he put the music player on shuffle as he put pencil to paper for an early morning doodle; his living space was also where his art first sprang to life, after all. This had always been his favourite way to relax and focus on the day ahead. However, that morning, the ritual had turned into anything but calming when The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” pumped through the speakers and filled the unit like an aroma.

Beauty I'd always missed

With these eyes before

Just what the truth is

I can't say anymore

A thought crept into his mind like knotweed invading a garden, slowly yet cunningly. He was, after all, already thirty-six years old --- no longer in the flower of his age --- and had never had a partner. The whites of his eyes had often times been streaked with red veins after date after date had ended in women pulling themselves out of spending another minute with Alban, like they were weeds that decided to uproot themselves.

“Why am I always missing the beauty of a woman’s company,” he sighed. “I wish I could find someone to love, someone to…”

His trip in the garden of self-pity was interrupted by an overpowering floral aroma that penetrated the small crack left open by Alban’s slightly ajar flat door. So intoxicating was the perfume that as if he was hypnotised, the artist stood up and bolted to see where the sweet scent was coming from. Standing outside his open door, he gasped as his pale green eyes focused…on her.

She was just a passer-by, really, but even in that moment Alban saw her, he knew she was the rarest, loveliest bloom. Her platinum blonde hair and large ice blue eyes stood out against the slate grey of White City in November. The frills on her currant-coloured chiffon dress made her look like a fully opened rose. 

Whilst the beautiful stranger walked past Alban, her gaze never leaving the path ahead, he felt her mesmerising smell envelope him. Like a man under the influence of a love potion made of petals, he found himself taking step after step, secretly following the rose woman. When the florist greeted her and called her by name, --- Candace --- Alban couldn’t help muttering her name and letting its jasmine tea fragrance take over his mouth. He snapped out of his reverie only when he saw Candace disappear into a brick house with a red painted door and a sign on the gate with “Recently Sold” in vermillion letters.

“Oh no! Candace! How am I ever going to…what the…?”

Alban’s jaw dropped as a large white carnation dropped into his hand seemingly out of nowhere, releasing a heady aroma that filled his lungs. He glanced up and saw that the overcast skies released a flurry of even more blooms, intensifying the fragrance. A creeping vine of a smile formed on his face the instant he realised what was happening.

“The Smell of White,” he whispered to the now-perfumed air.

No one in Alban’s family knew why it started, but for the past two generations, every time a Blanchard's heart bloomed for someone, it would rain a different white flower once a month for an entire year. Perhaps, it was a way to impress the women they fancied, inebriate them with a memorable bouquet, and bring the rose out of their cheeks. Whatever it was, it was the reason Alban’s mother was enraptured with his father when the first carnations floated from the heavens. His grandmother took a little longer to convince; it took until the next month, Camellia Month, for any romance to bud between her and his grandfather. 

Now, it was Alban’s turn to take advantage of The Smell of White….and speaking of Camellia Month, he wanted to make it count.

He dashed back to his flat and started scribbling down ideas as soon as he was sat on his desk. Crumpled-up paper filled his bin like flowers stuffed in a basket. Then, two weeks after his initial encounter with Candace, an idea finally sprouted in the soil of his mind; it was a little fleur bleue, --- a French expression he'd learnt meaning "sappy and cheesy" --- but Alban thought it was worth a shot.

"Where's my white water soluble pencil," he muttered to himself as he searched for the colouring material. He sighed when he finally found it and saw that it was down to a tiny stub.

"Shit, what do I do," Alban exclaimed as his hydrangea-coloured eyes filled with panic.

He settled for using the maroon in his watercolour pencil set. On the pristine sheet he'd laid out on his desk, he drew an incredibly lifelike camellia that looked as if it were still attached to a bush. He then scrawled the following message in his fluid script on the side of his illustration:

Candace,

You still remain the most beautiful flower.

A.B.

Content, he put it away in his eggshell artist's portfolio. On the day the flowers pour down again from the sky, he was to place it in the red letterbox in the garden of the house he saw Candace enter.

The next two weeks crawled by slowly for Alban; it felt as if he were watching a tree grow from a seed seeing dates roll in as he glanced at his calendar.

When the blinding white rays of the sun streamed through his bedroom window after a fortnight, Alban practically leapt from the bed and ran to see the outside. As expected, milky, button-like camellias rained down from the heavens, and the air was filled with a lingering floral scent. He beamed as he went to his closet and pulled out an ivory linen shirt and dark trousers combo --- He wanted to look good in case Candace saw him, after all. --- and gently placed it on the bed. Whilst he showered, he couldn't help thinking about a different kind of shower: that of rose petals as he and Candace kiss at their nuptials.

He quickly got dressed, flew down the stairs, and practically marched over to the red brick house he last viewed his "Flower" in. Once he spotted the crimson postbox, he sneakily stuck his drawing inside, as if his arms were a pumpkin plant creeping on the ground.

"Here goes," Alban muttered, his stomach being prickled by the invisible thorns of nervousness.

He dashed back home and waited for a response from his beautiful Candace. This was it. She would see the delicate camellia on that piece of paper and affection would start to bloom inside her. All he needed to do is wait.

...and wait....and wait...and wait until he felt the whites of his eyes take over his irises. One eye was glued to the écru clock on his bedside table, which displayed "23:59" in a blinding alabaster, and the other, to his flat's door.

"Come on. Come on. Come on, Candace," he chanted to himself. "It's just one minute to..."

Midnight. On the dot, the cascade of floral beauty stopped and the skies dried up like soil being replaced by sand.

"I don't understand," stated Alban with his hands cupped across his face like ivy crawling on a building. "Does this mean I have to try again next month?"

Try again next month, he did. As the twelfths of the year kept sprouting up, so did Lily Month, Daisy Month, Peony Month, and so on. Each turn of the calendar was another session of Alban drawing the month's flower onto a sheet of paper in his red water soluble pencil, running to his "Floral Fairy's" abode, and sticking his homemade card inside the crimson letterbox. His heart started wilting away little by little as he was no closer to Candace falling for him as he was when the carnations first tumbled down for him. He even got his dad's help; he suggested that Alban should spray perfume of chryanthemums on his illustration to make it more special but, sadly, to no avail.

So, as Rose Month --- this month, the twelfth and final installment of The Smell of White --- rolled in, Alban felt the vines of desperation claw around him. No one in his family has reached this terminal phase alone. What does this mean for him? If he still didn't have Candace by the end of November, would that mean that the soil of his heart would remain barren...forever?

"What is going on? It's like a weed was choking my chances with the girl I fancy," he bemoaned over the phone to his father in his family's flower farm out in Nuthurst.

"Well, I guess it's time to put fertiliser in that soil," the old man replied.

"What does that mean?"

"Be intentional. Be direct. Only way to make sure something grows between you two."

Alban gulped, but he knew this was the only way for love to bloom between him and Candace.

"I guess it's worth a shot," he muttered whilst watching snow-coloured O'Hara roses tap his flat's window pane. "Something's got to flower."

Without even bothering to dress up, he raced out the door to the russet house that had become familiar to him. With every step, large, white roses carpeted his feet. As he ran, he thought about what to tell Candace, how to piece together all the flowery words in his mind into a coherent sentence. When he reached Candace's place, he took a deep breath of the florescence and started speaking.

"Candace, I..."

"Yes, how may I help you?"

A burly man with a hard hat the colour of tiger liles came face-to-face with Alban, his verdant eyes filled with curiosity.

"Yes, I'm looking for Candace. I want to...

"Oh, but of course! You must be here for....," replied the construction worker, a smile blooming on his face. "Candace is at the church already."

"Ch...."

"Our Lady of Fatima is the red brick church straight ahead. You won't miss it."

As if intoxicated by a scent, Alban nodded his head to say thank you to the man in the safety hat as he dashed down the road to the district's parish. It felt as if weeds choked his mind as he thought of every terrible, heartbreaking reason why his beloved Candace was in a church. Could it be that Candace was feeling very guilty and was confessing to the priest that she was having dreams of, well, Alban's busy bee partaking of her sweet nectar? Or perhaps, he'd find her sitting in a pew as a flower-lined casket containing a loved one's remains lay in state.

No one could have prepared Alban, though, for the heartbreak to be his own.

Across the street from the church, as the fragrance of roses falling from the sky filled the atmosphere, Alban noticed his beloved Candace carrying a bouquet of the red version of the very same flowers, her lithe body clothed in a dreamy white lace gown and her pale blue eyes behind a veil. Beside her was her ginger-haired groom with a similar merlot-hued bloom in the lapel of his black suit. Their eyes were lost in each other, as if the two of them were the only inhabitants of Eden.

Indeed, love's blossom had borne fruit for Candace...and another man.

"No, I don't understand," Alban whispered to the scented wind. “How come Candace had never once stopped and enjoyed The Smell of White?"

As if intoxicated by the floral perfume, Alban was helpless as the couple climbed into their bridal car and into the Land of Flowers-themed reception they had planned. That was that. As certain as flowers bloomed in springtime, he would never find the answer to his question.

***************************

Saturday, 9 March 2024

To: ruby.redbridge@gmail.com

From: csnowdon@gmail.com

SUBJECT: Maid of honour !

Ruby!

Thank you so much for saying yes to being my maid of honour! Of course, I can't have my wedding without my best mate. I'm just happy you'll be there to share mine and Adam's special day.

Can you believe it; I'm getting married! It seems like only yesterday when Adam first handed me that first bouquet of red tulips and told me he fancies me. (Sometimes, I still can't believe it's been six years already. Everyday feels like spring with him.) Soon, I'll be Mrs. Russell! Isn't it cute?

By the way, did I tell you what Adam has been doing since we first got engaged four months ago? My wonderful fiancé has been counting down the months until we are wed with a bouquet of flowers --- red, of course, my favourite colour --- for me every month on the dot. He even got an artist to make me a card with what kind of flowers he's giving for the month and the dedication "Candace, You still remain the most beautiful flower. -A.B. " (Obviously, the "A.B." stands for "Adam Baby". What else!) Cute, right? I don't know why he keeps leaving it in the postbox of the house we just bought and are trying to renovate, but I suppose he wants it to be an extra surprise? Adorable! I haven't really told him I've discovered this supplementary gift yet. You know him and his elaborate surprises; I don't want to spoil his fun planting them. Hahaha !

Anyway, again, thanks for accepting being the maid of honour. See you next week for our meeting with the florist. Adam was able to take a leave from the BBC meteorologist job for the day, so he'll be there. We're so grateful you're helping us plan our nuptials. Love you, Rubes!

Love lots,

Candace

P.S.: I know. The weather in London's been pretty weird. It even rains FLOWERS sometimes (but white ones. They're...okay, I suppose.). Funnily enough, it's on those days when Adam gives me those bouquets I mentioned above. Kind of strange, right? Anyway, it's not like it's dangerous; no one's going to get hurt with a rain shower of blossoms. I like to joke that it's Mother Nature giving me a premonition of what's to come from my fiancé. LOL !