It was then that I thought of my grandmother’s uranium bottle. I found it in my jewellery box and placed it on the table next to the boronia blend. I hadn’t looked closely at the bottle since Lange’s speech and I’d forgotten how lovely it was. The strange yellow-green glass was faceted, designed to resemble the surface of a scallop, though its overall shape was more like a flattened pine cone. It was more beautiful than I remembered and I spent a few minutes holding it up to the sun, tilting it this way and that to capture the light. Where the sun hit the bottle the glass was pale yellow, but where it was thickest it was the colour of unripe lemons. It was the only thing I owned from my grandmother and I’d kept it with me whenever I’d moved flats or cities. The brown gunk was still in the bottom of the bowl and I enjoyed it for one last time before carefully transferring the juice of Thora’s perfume blend from its plain, dark-brown, screw-capped bottle to the rare green bottle in my hand.

I carefully carried Thora’s perfume around in my pocket for two weeks before I saw her again. I grew used to the feel of its cool ribbed glass against my fingers every time I reached for my hanky or change. The perfume had started to develop in the short time since I’d created it. The individual oils were becoming less harsh and more rounded as they settled into one another. The ambrette, which had threatened to overpower the boronia, had slipped into the background, and the boronia itself was becoming more jam-like, its berry richness edging towards damask rose.

I can’t recollect what I said to Thora when I handed her the perfume. I know she was very reluctant to accept my gift because she felt it was too valuable, too precious, and I had to work hard to convince her to take the bottle. I remember that I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest and that I could smell her L’Eau d’Issey, and that I took an unexpected, sudden dislike to the perfume that has stayed with me ever since. I recall the hollow, sickening sense of loss that gripped me as I comprehended the irrevocability of what I had done. More than anything, I remember how empty my pocket felt on the slow walk home.

Notes of introversion, lost friendship and regret: petrichor, boronia, ambrette, frankincense and gunk.

I stayed on at the art museum until Charles retired and then, feeling restless one day, I gave in my notice and bought a ticket to Australia. When I eventually returned, I discovered the art world had moved on without me. I took whatever part-time and contract work I could find, but my professional profile never really recovered and with every passing month I became more and more tainted by failure. With little money to my name, I had to move back home to Christchurch and, until my father’s death, I was largely dependent on my parents for support. I suppose that returning to university to begin a PhD in American literature, focusing on Louisiana women writers, was part of a last-ditch attempt to save face and restore my self-esteem.