The Last Rose of Summer by Kate Lord Brown

Author:Kate Lord Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-12-18T16:00:00+00:00

Read on for a sneak peek of Kate Lord Brown’s debut novel, The Perfume Garden.

ONE

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

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.

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