The Scent of Wine and Roses

Well-Meaning Minnie. That’s what I nickname her, and I don’t delude myself I’m the only one. I also don’t delude myself that she doesn’t have some idea, because in most matters, she isn’t stupid, and I even fancy she’d take it as a compliment, though probably only as a representative of the Wellbeing Service, rather than a personal one. Even if it doesn’t get a red squiggle, I still maintain that wellbeing as one word is a linguistic abomination, but this isn’t the time to get onto that particular soapbox. 

     To give her her full handle, Wilhelmina Patton-Jones. I can never quite decide if her image is more jolly hockeysticks or happy hippie, but another H-word, heartiness encompasses both. And I don’t doubt that she is a good person, and genuinely does want the best for her hapless clients (I’ve never heard her use the H-word word hapless, but I can imagine her thinking it or using it to an equally well-meaning colleague). 

     Yes, that’s us. The clients of the local Wellbeing Service. The ones who have fallen by the wayside, and ended up in temporary accommodation, and claiming benefit, and a variety of other things. 

     Minnie, at intermittent intervals,  calls in on us. She expects to call in on us and be greeted with open arms. Or at least a show of suitable gratitude at her ministering presence. Now let’s be honest here. So far as I know, we’re not legally obliged to receive her, and cancelling an odd appointment here and there and now and then is no big deal. But there is a benignly obdurate persistence about Minnie and, probably, her colleagues too. That famous dripping tap (which, in its non-figurative sense, Minnie would think should be attended to at once). That more in sorrow than anger. Or any other cliché of choice. 

     Minnie doesn’t criticise. Not overtly. I wonder if she has a needle in her brain exactly tuned to the point at which clutter turns into hoarding, and facing a situation realistically turns into negative thoughts. 

     But she makes a great show of being non-judgemental. Sometimes it’s so convincing I almost believe her, but not often.

     She rarely comments on how we choose to spend our money, even if it is provided by the state. To give her credit, so far as I know, she has never surreptitiously opened a cupboard, but suppose that if she found a bottle of wine she would either pretend to ignore it or make some comment about an odd tipple doing nobody any harm. 

     So if I occasionally decide it’s worth having a couple of days on instant noodles to offset a bottle of discounter plonk, I make sure said plonk is secreted out of Minnie-Range. Just in case. But it didn’t occur to me to do that with the candle. And Minnie-Radar honed in on the candle. To be fair, although of course it wasn’t lit at the time, the scent was still pretty obvious, even if she hadn’t seen it sitting there on the mantelpiece (though so far as I know there’s not been an open fire in this ground floor flat for decades, there’s still a mantelpiece, and it comes in handy too). “Oh, how lovely, Samantha!” she exclaimed, going over to have a closer look, and admiring (at least, I think she was) the delicate filigree candle holder as she breathed in the scent of wine and roses. I’m not deluding myself I’m any kind of mindreader, but I have an inkling she bit her tongue to avoid saying, with the tiniest element of involuntary reproach, “I bet that didn’t come from Poundland.” 

     She’d be right, of course. It didn’t come from Poundland. Now I have no snobbish aversion to Poundland Candles. I can’t say I’ve ever taken to their Clean Linen – it smells more like Wet Washing in my opinion, and their sickly Lavender one gave me a headache. But some of them are fine for a quick, superficial fix and for making a house I don’t even want to be home seem more like home. But this is one instance when the ads and infomercials are right, and there’s a distinct difference between the cheapo ones and the quality ones.

     I was in the little shopping precinct in town, The Halyards, which I’d been as astonished as anyone else to discover was 30 years old. I had only meant to go down to the Home Bargains store at the far end of it, where there are special offers on the boring but necessary stuff like loo roll and kitchen scrubbers and big bottles of water. You may say that’s hardly an essential for someone on their uppers but you wouldn’t have tasted the tapwater here on one of its bad days. Oh, it’s perfectly safe, but obdurately cloudy with a chemical tinge. Boiled, it’s palatable. But there’s still something about that cloudiness and that chemical tinge that’s decidedly off-putting.

     I made myself determinedly trudge past the posh cheese shop (though my mouth was watering – I’d once tried some of their stuff when they were giving away free samples!) and the book shop (what were libraries for?) and kept on towards the joys of cheap loo rolls and kitchen scrubbers and big bottles of water.

     But outside Mon Petit Boutique I came to a halt. I had never even had much time for it – quite aside from the incredibly pretentious name, the knick-knacks it sold could be found for a quarter of the price in Poundland or Home Bargains. If you were turned on by little models of simpering angels resting on cotton wool beds in what look like little matchboxes, or hanging platitudes (some complete with their own little plastic hook) so that your wall could proclaim:

Friends

are

the

Flowers

in

the

Garden

of

Life

That day though, and probably in mild defiance of health and safety rules, they had actually lit one of the candles they sold. And I breathed it in, and all the things I had persuaded myself it was best not to think about flooded over me in a wonderful and painful onrush.

     I was no longer standing outside a somewhat pretentious little shop in a rather run down little shopping precinct in a slightly shabby little seaside town, making my way to the Home Bargains shop. 

     I was with Mark. On the last evening together that, of course, we didn’t know was our last evening together. Some say I wish I had known when such thoughts wash over them. I thought no such thing. And I never shall. Because if I had known, I would not have savoured the moment more, I would have been terrified and desolate. 

     People hadn’t actively disapproved of Mark. Or of me. Or of Mark and me. At least they hadn’t said so. But we knew. And it came from both families, and from friends, too. He was too old for me. I was too young for him. He was too taciturn. I was too garrulous (though I suspect that the words were sometimes less polite than taciturn or garrulous). He was tidy. I was messy. And of course we hadn’t known each other long enough. People thought it was typical of me to be so impetuous. People thought it wasn’t typical of him to be so impetuous, and if anything, that was more worrying. Most of them, at least, were every bit as well-meaning as Minnie.

     Even the way we met raised eyebrows. Now of course some holiday romances go horribly wrong, or, perhaps more to the point, people aren’t realistic enough to accept that they were just holiday romances. But the notion that if you meet someone when you’re on holiday it’s sure to end in tears is way too simplistic. 

     But we didn’t meet gazing out at a glorious sunset or contemplating the marvels of a mighty cathedral. We were on a city break to a city that was, we didn’t doubt for one minute, fascinating, but to say that we didn’t choose our time sensibly would be an understatement. The cathedral was closed for building works. The main museum was also closed because of a suspected electrical fault, and after that awful fire at the museum in Brazil, I suppose they wanted to take no chances. It would have been nice to stroll in its famous parks, if it hadn’t been for the fact that it rained non-stop, and not even an interesting rain, just that day-long drizzle. I’ve heard others sing the praises of the restaurants there, but we just seemed to choose wrong. He got a tummy upset, mercifully mild and brief, but such things don’t improve a holiday that’s going badly to start with, and I chipped a tooth, which didn’t give me a violent raging toothache but niggled in a manner that reminded me of the rain. 

     Our hotel, at least, was okay. Not wonderful; neither gloriously quaint nor a model of modern luxury, but acceptable. And it did have a cosy little lounge that we both found refuge in, grateful for it, but at the same time, reflecting that we could have read books in comfortable armchairs for free at home. It wouldn’t have been an overpowering coincidence to discover that we lived “within each others’ ambit” as he put it, but we discovered that we only lived two streets apart, yet to the best of our knowledge had never met, though there was a fair chance our paths had crossed. 

     Should I talk of love at first sight? Actually, yes, I should. Not the dramatic staring besottedly into each others’ eyes sort, the being convinced that it was written in the stars sort, but a warmth and chemistry that didn’t make us forget we were in a city where everything seemed to have closed down and it never seemed to stop raining, and we were both victims of the food, but made it stop mattering and be worth it. 

     We had both had prior romantic involvements, and made no secret of it – that was the thing about our relationship, we were totally honest from the start, and it was no effort, and no risk, and no hardship. Within three months of the holiday ending (and being in contact nearly every day, together almost every day) we were engaged. And we had both, as my Mum put it, come over all traditional. We had slept together by now, but had no intention of living together until we were married. My engagement ring was a break with tradition, though. It was an opal. They’ve always been my favourite stone, and Mark said the way the colours shifted and glistened reminded him of my eyes. Though a deeply kind man, he wasn’t one for extravagant compliments, so his compliments meant something.

     We made our vows outside, in the garden of a local stately home that was registered for weddings. It was springtime and we were surrounded by bright tulips and trees newly green. We didn’t have bridesmaids or pageboys or anything like that, but I asked my Aunt Sandra to walk me down the aisle – as we called the green walkway leading to the flower beds. I suppose that was a break with tradition, too. But she and Uncle Martin had been happily married for over 50 years, and though they never claimed it had all been unalloyed bliss, I thought that if ever there was a good omen for a long and happy marriage, then that was it. She said herself, and she wasn’t a fanciful woman, that she had the feeling Uncle Martin was looking down on us and approving.

     We also broke with tradition on not having a honeymoon straightaway. It was our first priority to get settled in our own home – and it wasn’t a question of being sensible, or anything like that, it was what we wanted. It was on the outskirts of town, near the park – a modern bungalow, yet not too modern, and with tulips of its own in the garden. 

     Our belated honeymoon, in France, was at that lovely time of year that seems like a fifth season sometimes – when August yields to September with all the brightness and mildness of one and all the colours and mellowness of the other.

     The kind-hearted owner of the Pension Aube (we insisted we hadn’t just chosen it because its name meant the dawn, but we thought it lovely and appropriate) Madame Laurent, had jumped to the entirely reasonable conclusion that we were on honeymoon straight from our wedding, and we didn’t correct her. In fact, though the intervening months had been more happy and fulfilled than any I’d known in my life, in some ways it did feel as if we had stepped straight from the tulip garden at our wedding to the rose garden at the Pension Aube. They were not big, burgeoning floribunda roses, but the little, delicate ones that might seem unassuming but filled the air with sweetness. Though we did explore the area, of course, we were also happy just to sit in that rose garden and breathe in their fragrance, and sip the local red wine. Madame Laurent’s brother had a little vineyard of his own. An honest woman, she said it would never “Be a rival to Bordeaux or Burgundy, but no matter, it is our secret that we are more than happy to share.” Some would have found it slightly too sweet, but there was a spiciness to it, and it seemed to blend perfectly with the scent of the briar roses. We couldn’t help thinking of that song – The Days of Wine and Roses. I once joked that if we developed too much of a taste it would be more like the Daze of wine and roses, and Mark groaned and said he had never been much of a fan of puns – adding, “Unless you make them!” “Flatterer,” I accused, and we clinked glasses, not toasting anything in particular, but toasting everything that mattered. As we sipped the wine and smelt the roses, we sometimes wrote good, old-fashioned postcards to our friends and family, and made a fuss of Madame Laurent’s adorable Bichon Frise Lulu when she honoured us with her presence. 

     The day after the most perfect evening of all, as we were sitting drinking café au lait in one of the lovely little cafes on the Place Georges Sand in the tree-lined square of the nearby town, Mark let out a little cry, clutched his chest, and slumped to the ground. A massive heart attack, and he stood no chance.

     Madame Laurent was wonderful. She saw to everything with the local authorities and looked after me like a mother, but I barely registered it at the time. I got through the journey home and the funeral in a tranquiliser induced haze, and then I could stand being in our own little haven no longer and I fled. Left my job, left my friends and what Well Meaning Minnie would call my support network, and fled. Only fled from things, not to anything. I could settle nowhere, moved from impersonal hotel to impersonal hotel, made polite conversation and if folk talked about me at all, I was the guest who kept herself to herself and left her room immaculate. It was an arid half-life, but I was afraid of any other. I was afraid of talking about Mark, afraid of seeing anything he had seen and talking to anyone he had known. If I could have afforded it I would have carried on living that life ad infinitum, not because I “wanted” to – in my mind all words like “want” and “hope” and “enjoy” came with quote marks round them now. But it was more tolerable than the alternatives. 

     But I couldn’t carry on living like that ad infinitum. In fact, not for much more than 18 months. It’s chastening to realise how quickly you can get through money in a life like that. I stopped checking my balance, but that didn’t stop the screen on the ATM telling me I had both run out of money and exceeded my overdraft.

     And that’s how I ended up back in the area I didn’t “want” ever to see again, but that had a duty of care to me, and how I found out that the bungalow had had squatters in and had gone to rack and ruin, and how I ended up on benefit and in temporary accommodation and with Well-Meaning Minnie attending to me.

     As I stood outside Mon Petit Boutique, at first I thought that scent of wine and roses was unbearable and then suddenly it became beautiful and took me back to a perfect evening. I could not afford the candle, but I bought it anyway. I only light it sparingly because I know a candle’s light and fragrance are limited, but I don’t regret one penny I spent on it.

     And I feel no need to explain or excuse myself to Well-Meaning Minnie.

     But the odd thing is – her expression has changed. It has softened, become more pensive. And when she speaks, it isn’t to say that she bets it didn’t come from Poundland, but just to say, quietly and sincerely, “Candles can be very special, can’t they?”