I couldn’t rid myself of the thought, either, that after reading more than five volumes of his journals, all rich in observations relating to his natural surroundings, it was a single paragraph describing a missionary garden that spoke most directly to me. My scent imagination had been activated by the descriptions of mimosa, nectar-rich honeysuckle, gorse and briar rose. These were the smells that had a place in my own memory and experience. I could summon up the smell of that garden in a way that I hadn’t been able to smell the bush. So, did that make me ‘foreign’?

I left the museum feeling deeply troubled and disconcerted. I was born in New Zealand, had lived here all my life and valued notions of the unspoilt landscape, the bush and sea, and yet, when tested, my instincts and preferences sent me sniffing back to Britain. I felt as if my nose had betrayed me, as if in some way it was challenging me with the old taunt, ‘Pommy, go home’. The realisation that I was somehow perhaps not of this land filled me with a sadness I hadn’t expected.

I’d intended to take Thora’s perfume to her that evening but I wanted to spend some time alone, studying my notes and planning what to do next. I was pulling out all the oils related to the plants in Taylor’s missionary garden, comparing them with the wintergreen and rose blend I’d made earlier for my own imaginary ‘missionary wife’ perfume, when the phone rang. I was so deep in thought that the sound startled me and it took a second before I could identify its source. I barely got out my greeting before the real estate agent began talking, checking that I was happy for her to visit so that my home could be photographed for the website and print listings. She sounded confident, assuring me that the market was in the seller’s favour, that she’d already contacted potential buyers and that my loft would be snapped up in no time – days rather than weeks. ‘We’ll have you cashed up and out of there in no time,’ she said, as if doing me a favour. ‘I doubt we’ll even go to auction.’

I listened in silence, fighting back the urge to explain that I didn’t want to sell. Couldn’t she understand that the very idea caused me pain, and that I could barely bring myself to think about moving? Inside I was shouting, ‘Leave me alone, it’s the only thing I’ve got left. I don’t want to turn over a new leaf or start a new chapter in my life. I want to stay here!’ I anticipated the language of her advertising copy, with its clichés about the vendor being ‘ready to move on’ with ‘new adventures on the horizon’, and wished I could substitute my own version: ‘After years of contentment, the vendor’s life has turned to shit. Her loss is your gain, but try not to rub it in. She loved this apartment, it meant everything to her.’ That’s what I wanted to say, but of course I kept silent.