‘My favourite part will take a bit of time to develop,’ I said. ‘Oakwood.’

‘Oak?’

‘Think of the wood, the bark, or maybe imagine wine barrels if that’s easier.’

Jerome took a deep breath and smiled at me, ‘It’s good. It’s really good. You could sell it. Make your fortune.’

I enjoyed Jerome’s visit. To my surprise I found that, far from resenting the fact that he had a job while I was sent home with a redundancy cheque, I was genuinely pleased that he was still valued and needed, the lone representative of us, the old American studies team. I’d barely been out of my office a month and I was already thinking of myself as part of a lost tribe, a passing generation, a member of the once great humanities family.

Notes for solitude, and a life short of meaning: oak. I wonder why first oakmoss and now oak has captured my attention. I’m not familiar with Chopin’s water-oaks, or the live oaks of Louisiana’s cheniers, but the English oak presents so much in terms of scent.

From acorns to autumn leaves, it’s a broad range that includes sweet, nutty impressions through to earthy mulch. I could even add the scent of a woodpile, timber stacked and drying in a woodshed. To me, the smell of oak is rounder, less dry than the pencil-shaving smell of cedar, less resin-like than pine or birch.

If heart notes carry the main theme of a scent then oak has definite appeal. How wonderful to have a signature scent that brings to mind a species of tree that can adapt to a multitude of environments, withstand storms and live for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Oak offers the promise of stability, of continuity, and maybe for that reason it has crept back into perfumery over the past decade – it captures the present-day nostalgia for a simpler, more authentic past. The more I think about it, the more I am attracted to oak as a key ingredient in my signature scent.

I got a job interview. Not for a university position, or for anything even remotely academic, but for the perfume counter at a newly opened department store called The Corner Dairy. I’d noticed an article about the store in the lifestyle section of the newspaper some time ago. It was portrayed as the brainchild of a New Zealand-born, Sydney-based lifestyle blogger who had wanted to gather together all the things she adored – such as vintage and upcycled products ethically sourced from around the world – into one convenient, carbon-neutral location.