‘I’ll bring croissants and coffee and we can have a chat about dressing your place for the open homes,’ she said before hanging up.

Would my home really sell in a matter of days? It sounded like a death sentence with benefits. If only I could be listed as a chattel and allowed to stay. ‘Don’t think about it,’ I told myself. ‘Go out, get some fresh air and calm down. The situation will seem less bleak when you come back.’ I doubted it. I could already visualise the fast-approaching day when I would pack away all my books and perfumes and rest my head against the wooden posts and beams one last time, in a futile attempt to collect and hold the smell of my wool-store loft for future comfort.

I decided to go and see Thora. Again there was a line of people in front of the conservatory but I didn’t detour from my path to the pharmacy. I wasn’t sure if she’d be pleased or merely bemused to see me again so soon, but attempted to make myself feel less self-conscious by promising to just drop off her perfume. I couldn’t face the thought that she might already be talking about me to her partner or family, joking about the strange woman from her past who’d suddenly turned up: a perfume addict not so very different from her customers on the methadone programme.

I looked through the window before going in. The shop was empty and Thora was alone, standing at the counter, staring into space. To my relief, she looked pleased to see me.

‘You’ve made it already,’ she said as I handed her the bottle.

She unscrewed the cap and held the bottle up to her nose. ‘That’s incredible,’ she said. ‘That smell takes me straight back to my bedroom in Aro Valley. I can see it so clearly, the purple tie-dyed sheet I made into a bed cover, the mobiles I made from driftwood, shell and coloured glass, the posters and pin holes in the walls, the bedside table made from a beer crate covered in tapa. It’s amazing.’ She dabbed the oil onto her skin. ‘It’s just the same. Thank you.’

In all the time I’d known Thora I think I only went to her flat once or twice, and the smells that stood out were cat pee and onion. I particularly recall the small white flowers of the onion-weed that grew on the damp bank behind the kitchen, and how the smell was so strong it used to distract me from conversation.

‘I like the boronia in it,’ I said. ‘Whenever I smell it I wonder why I haven’t used it again in perfume.’ As the words came out I knew exactly why I hadn’t used it again. In my mind I associated the smell with Thora, and the truth was I wanted to maintain its special meaning.

‘Raspberry.’

I nodded. ‘Do you remember the Nina Simone concert?’