The Perfume Laboratory

It never occurred to me that, after 40, I would no longer be noticed or fancied by young, attractive people. I just thought life would go on indefinitely, jumping from one young man to another. How was I to know what old age would bring?

When I reached middle age, Mike left me for the loving arms of a much younger woman. At the time, I was almost excited, wondering who my next sexual encounter would be. I needn’t have bothered, because there wasn’t one.

From then until my 74th year, my life had simply existed as a single woman, whether I wanted it or not. After Mike, I had only experienced one brief sexual encounter with a neighbour. It was a disaster. He initially showed a lot of promise, and we did end up going to bed together, but it was really nothing to crow about. It wasn’t the sex; it was more his strange personality, which I had never noticed because all my attention was focused on getting him to show an interest in me. Once this had been achieved, familiarity bred contempt pretty quickly. He rapidly bored me to death whilst believing wholeheartedly in his own attractiveness.

Had I known this was to be the last golden moment in a sexually arid life, I might have held on to him.

I eventually became close friends with a much younger gay man who offered me the friendship and appreciation I had longed for.

As a mature woman who refused to accept the passage of time, I did all I could to hold on to my youth. I was good at applying make-up, tried to keep my figure trim, and bought clothes that suited all ages – but despite this, nothing really changed. I had clearly been hung out to dry since my 40s, and nothing seemed likely to change.

When COVID struck, the hope of finding relationships grew even more elusive. With government restrictions on all public meeting places, including supermarkets, and everyone hiding behind our anti-virus masks, it became increasingly unlikely that I would ever meet a handsome new acquaintance. All beauty clinics, hairdressers, and masseurs were forced to close, so we all sported strange hairstyles whilst displaying an interesting mixture of hair colours redolent of the family hamster. The streets were quiet, and none of us dressed to impress.

As Covid gradually faded, I was introduced to a co-working cafe and initially struggled to accept that I was by far the eldest. I was surprised when young people found excuses to chat with me. Most wanted to know what the hell I was doing there, sitting in a cafe with 30+-year-olds. It didn’t take long to forget that I was in my 70s, and I cheerfully made friends with the much younger cafe attendees. In my ignorance, I assumed they had also forgotten that I was in my 70s, and I began to think we had all been in our 30s or 40s together.

During COVID, I lost my appetite for long walks and exploring new parts of my town. Sitting at my desk, tapping away on my laptop, I watched my stomach slowly expand until my clothes no longer fitted. Finally, I felt I had no choice and decided to join a gym, hiring a young trainer because most of the equipment was a mystery to me.

“Have you trained a senior before?” I asked nervously.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“I’m 74,” I replied, mustering as much bravado as I could.

“No, I’ve never trained a 74-year-old before. The last person I trained was 92 year old. Look! He’s over there, lifting weights.”

I’m sure you’ll think I’m about to tell you I looked longingly at the 92-year-old – but no, this is real life. Instead, I looked longingly at the 27-year-old trainer. As they say, there’s no such thing as an old fool.

Pattawat, the trainer, and I got on well. We discussed our private lives, friends and plans. He even invited me to his wedding, but a few months later, he looked miserable, grew quiet, and neither the girlfriend nor the wedding was mentioned again.

One day, during my workout, I told him I wanted to buy an expensive, beautiful fragrance but was unsure which to choose. He told me about a perfume laboratory that offered classes in perfume-making.

“Wow. I’d love that,” I thought, and began researching the laboratory. The website showed tables and chairs, with students at each table holding vials containing a small amount of liquid. It looked good, except no one appeared to be of Western origin.

Pattawat said casually, “I’d like to go,” and we both immediately focused on the weights I was using. He began piling on extra weights, pushing me harder and harder until sweat soaked my hairline.

Unfortunately, while my body remained in the gym, my imagination had already left the building.

I looked in the mirror and convinced myself that the 74 years I carried were not really there. Looking more closely, I expected my usual criticism, but instead found myself thinking, “Not bad, not bad. Yeah, my body is in good shape after all those gym hours.”

“Go for it!” I thought.

At the next session, after a few rehearsals at home, I was ready. “Could you do me a favour?” I asked, innocently enough.

He smiled, and his body language invited questions.

“Would you like to come to the perfume laboratory with me?”

Well, I watched a young man die of embarrassment. The embarrassment was horribly catching, and I felt my face grow hot as his feet shifted nervously. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t at all what I expected.

He stood, stuttering, trying to articulate a sentence about loyalty to his girlfriend, whilst struggling to explain that he would not be coming with me, all the while trying not to offend.

I was genuinely surprised by this turn of events. Apparently, the trainer and I had interpreted our friendship rather differently.

I rang my gay friend to tell him how things had turned out.

He wasn’t helpful.

“Try him again.”

“Don’t be stupid. If you’d seen him twisting his hands and feet trying to dampen my ardour, you’d have been embarrassed too.”

“Tell him you only wanted an interpreter.”

“Oh.”

The lie was delivered with as much aplomb as I could manage, despite feeling a fool – an old fool. To my surprise, he agreed.

A suitable date and time were agreed. Feeling relieved, I offered to meet at the gym, and again I watched him grimace and say, too quickly and far too loudly, “No, no.” Hurt, I assumed this was to avoid the other trainers seeing the old woman arrive for her “date”.

The Perfume Lab day arrived, and guess what? I received a text saying he couldn’t meet me at 10 o’clock as agreed and instead suggested 1.30. I didn’t feel annoyed at all. 10 o’clock or 1.30 made no difference to a retired woman. So 1.30 it was.

I spent the morning happily cleaning my flat, and by 1.00 I was dressed, had applied my make-up, and was just finishing my hair when my phone dinged, signalling a message. It was only 1.00.

“Wow, he must be anxious to get underway,” I thought. My heart began to thud with anxiety as I hopped around with one shoe on, trying to force my shoeless foot into the other shoe.

Upon opening the message, I read:

“I’m really sorry, but I’ve misread my schedule and can’t meet you after all.”

Everything stopped functioning except my heart, which was pounding so loudly I could almost hear it.

I stared at the message. Of course, he had cancelled. I had been fooling myself all along.

I swallowed my pride and set off for the laboratory. When I arrived, I found I was the only customer. The Thai woman was delightful, and her English was excellent. Small glass vials covered the table, each containing a different fragrance. Some smelled fresh and citrusy, others woody or floral. Under her guidance, I experimented with combinations I would never have considered and eventually created two distinct perfumes of my own.

I left the perfumier and surprised myself further by going to the cinema. In all my 74 years, this was only the second time I had found myself sitting alone in the dark, watching a film. The last time I had gone to the cinema alone, it had turned out to be one of the worst films I had ever seen. But this time, I was amazed. Despite being a CGI film about sheep solving a murder, it was delightful. I left the cinema smiling.

The next day was my regular gym session with Pattawat. I couldn’t believe it when I received a text saying, “I’m too busy for 2.00. Can you come at 3.00 instead?”

I felt my insides explode.

“How dare he?”

Cancelling me yesterday was one thing. My gym session, however, was a business transaction. I immediately returned to my insult corner and longed for a really close friend to moan to. Demanding that a thirty-year-old sit down and listen to the tale of a seventy-four-year-old woman being dumped by a twenty-seven-year-old man was simply too embarrassing to contemplate.

I got to the gym. He arrived at 3.05, and Mount Vesuvius was waiting for him.

“You do realise that changing my gym session 40 minutes before we were due to meet messed up my lunch appointment and my timings for the rest of my day at the cafe?” I said in my even, controlled, but clearly angry voice.

I was building up to sacking him when I noticed his face – fallen and distressed.

Why on earth did he look so upset? I was the one who had been cancelled from the laboratory appointment, and today my gym session had been changed minutes before the agreed time.

The light suddenly switched on.

At that point, my 74 years caught up with me.

“You poor man. I know exactly how you feel,” I thought.

“I made two perfumes yesterday. Would you like one? I can easily make more,” I said kindly.

“You went? Without me?”

“Yes, of course, I went without you. I simply invited you as a friend, but you cancelled. No problem.”

As I stood up, noticing the strength in my legs and the continued shrinking of my stomach, I realised how close I had come to ruining an excellent friendship.

“I think I didn’t honour our friendship”, he said.

“That’s OK. I didn’t honour yours either.”

We both broke into broad smiles. For the first time in weeks, everything felt simple.

My 74-year-old arms resumed happily pumping iron, as the scent of my new perfume drifted around me and life quietly returned to normal.