High in the hills of Valencia, a forgotten house guards its secrets. Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years and it seems like the perfect retreat. But for her grandmother, Freya, a nurse who stayed here during Spain's devastating civil war, the house evokes terrible memories. Emma is drawn deeper into Freya's story: one of crushed idealism, lost love, and families ripped apart by war.
Release date:
May 10, 2016
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
336
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You see, Em, the trouble is they-the doctors that is-said it will give me "closure" (what a ghastly word), to leave a letter for you. I said, "Do you really think I can distill a lifetime's worth of experience into a single letter? Can I say everything I want to my daughter on a few sheets of paper?" I cannot. You know me, I never did stop rabbiting on, did I, darling?
An image of Liberty came to Emma then-her mother sitting on the kitchen table in her grandmother Freya's house. It must have been the late 1970s, because, against the morning sun, Liberty's hair was a chestnut halo of Kate Bush crimping, and Blondie was on the radio. She was flapping her arms as she talked, and Freya was doubled over laughing. Emma was curled up in the dog basket by the stove, eating toast as she cuddled Charles's new pug puppy. That's what she remembered-the certain smell of home, of coffee percolating, fresh toast, the dry biscuit smell of the dog as he pawed at the green enamel "Head Girl" badge pinned to her woolen sweater. Some people's memories lie in images or songs, but for Emma it was always fragrance. Liberty had taught her well, and even as a child she instinctively detected the harmonious notes of the scent accord that to her conjured "home."
"Emma, do get up, darling," Freya had said. "Look at you, your school uniform is covered with hair." Emma remembered the warmth of the dog, the delicious fawn belly wriggling in her small hands. She remembered how Liberty had tickled her until they were both on the floor giggling, the puppy leaping around them. As her mother hugged her, Emma breathed in the scent of her perfume. Roses-Liberty always smelled like a rose garden in full bloom to her: warm, sunlit, a pure soliflore.
As you'll see, I got a bit carried away. I've left you a whole box of letters, one for every occasion I can think of. And I've enclosed my last notebook. I like to think of you picking up where I left off, Em. Promise me you'll carry on. Use it. Fill it with wonderful things.
Emma leaned her elbow on the suitcase at her side. She had been traveling for months, but as the number 22 Routemaster bus lurched through the lunchtime traffic along the King's Road, she felt the days fall away. It was a typical cool, gray London morning, a light autumn breeze scurrying leaves along the pavements. Nothing had changed, except her. The nausea that had dogged her for months welled up again, and she rummaged through her pocket for a mint. The lining had torn, and as she read Liberty's note, she wriggled her index finger down to the hem, searching in vain.
She had turned to the last page in her mother's notebook a hundred times, pen poised, and frozen, unable to pick up where Liberty had left off. Nothing seemed wonderful enough. Emma scanned the note one last time. It was the only one she had taken with her on her travels, and she had read it so many times the paper was falling apart along the folds. The letters were waiting for her, unopened, in a black lacquer box in Liberty's studio.
After her mother's will had been read, and Joe had left, Emma had sat looking at the box for hours as dawn light filtered through the sloping glass roof. She had placed it in the middle of Liberty's desk-a specially built perfumer's "organ" surrounded by tiered shelves of bottles, each one containing a note of fragrance. That was how Liberty had taught her their craft-to think of each essence as a musical note, each bottle on the organ as a key. This was where Liberty had composed all of her masterpieces, where Emma had played as a child. It was the place she still felt her mother's presence most.
The sound of milk bottles being delivered on the street below had roused her finally, and she had lifted off the lid of the box. She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting from Liberty-an explosion of confetti, a coiled paper snake to leap out. She laughed with relief when she saw her mother had simply painted the interior bright orange-her favorite color. Her hand trembled as she lifted the loose sheet of paper on top. Beneath was a parcel of letters tied with cerise velvet ribbon, and the small black notebook. The first envelope was marked "On Family." As Emma read her mother's accompanying note, tears filled her eyes.
I love you, Em. I am so terribly proud of the woman you have become. I can't bear the thought of leaving you, but know my love goes with you, will always be with you. I know that love lives on.
Mum x
She had been tempted to rip open all the envelopes that morning, to gorge hungrily on Liberty's words. Just reading the note over and over brought her closer. But she waited. When she told Freya she had decided to leave the letters in London while she traveled, Freya had laughed.
"It's up to you, Em," she said. "You always did save your treats, even as a child. I've never known anyone who could make a bar of chocolate last so long."
* * *
Emma took a deep breath, and gazed out of the bus window. It was almost her stop. Perhaps it's time to stop saving the best till last, she thought. She folded the note and slipped it into her mother's Moleskine notebook on her lap, flicking on through the pages illuminated with Liberty's flamboyant handwriting. Words leaped out at her-"neroli," "duende," "passion." Her mother had pasted in cuttings alongside the notes and formulas for the new perfume she had been working on-pictures of orange groves, searing blue skies, a yellowed newspaper advert for a Robert Capa exhibition. It was the famous "falling soldier" picture. Emma traced her finger over the soldier's face, wondered what he was thinking at the moment when death caught him running down that hill. She wondered what he saw as he fell. As she touched the paper, she felt the contours of something beneath. She flipped to the next page and laid her hand on the smallest envelope Liberty had left in the box with the letters. On it, her mother had written an address: Villa del Valle, La Pobla, Valencia, Spain. Inside, there was just an old key. I must ask Freya if she knows anything about this, she thought. Emma had lain awake the night she opened that envelope, turning the key over in her hand, her mind full of possibilities. Typical Mum, she thought, remembering all the magical mystery tours Liberty had taken her on as a child, the trails of clues she had laid for Emma to follow to hidden presents. The chase, the anticipation, was always more fun than the present itself.
Emma turned the pages, glimpsed the melancholy, serene face of a Madonna, a photo of a whitewashed wall with flaming bougainvillea spilling over it. The notes became sparser, the hand less sure toward the end. She sensed Liberty had been looking back, as well as forward. Next to a pasted label from Chérie Farouche, the perfume Liberty had created for Emma on her eighteenth birthday, she had written: "Some perfumes are, like children, innocent, as sweet as oboes, green as meadow sward-Baudelaire." It was still Emma's signature scent. On her it smelled like rain in a garden at first, fresh and intoxicating; then as the green top notes evaporated Emma always thought of the earth, of picking flowers in a forest with her mother. The heart note of lily of the valley and jasmine melded perfectly with the base of sandalwood and musk. Liberty always said the scent was like her-shy but surprisingly fierce. A photograph of Liberty with Emma as a baby was tucked into that page. She flicked on, unbearable longing piercing her as she looked at her mother's beautiful, open smile. Emma paused at her mother's final sketch of a new Liberty Temple perfume bottle, her hurried scrawl: "Jasmine? Orange blossom, yes!"
Then came the poignant empty spaces. The blank pages her mother had left her to fill. Emma blinked quickly as she touched the gold filigree locket around her neck. She hadn't expected to feel so upset returning home. For months, she had convinced herself that she was coping as she sleepwalked through endless meetings. Countries and hotel rooms kaleidoscoped in her mind. Her hand instinctively fell to the gentle swell of her stomach.Something wonderful, she thought. She pulled a pen from her bag, smoothed her hand over the first clean page, then wrote: "Spain."
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