The Smell of Memory

By Marina Gerrard

Out of the blue Jodie becomes the heir of a house and a past she knew nothing of. After all, her mother had refused to acknowledge their existence. The reasons for this she took with her into the grave. Jodie's delight with the house is short-lived.

Because the house had been a witness. Of everything that went on.

It was the unwilling custodian of memories that were not its own. Ones that had soaked into the walls, into the bricks and mortar, the beams, the floors and ceilings. Ones that, to its surprise and dismay, grimly hung on and would not let go. The only way to get rid of them would be to air them and share them . . .

​The Smell of Memory is a psychological thriller. It explores the long-lasting impact bad relationships within a family can have.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marina Gerrard
• Release date: May 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223857792

Book preview

I. THE HOUSE

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The house knew. It had always known. After all, it had been a witness. Of everything that went on. Good and bad.

The house had a memory. Of course it did. Its memory went a long way back. Centuries, as a matter of fact.

Of course, there had also been memories that were not its own. Most of them had evaporated over the years. People come and people go. But there were the others. The ones that soaked into the walls, into the bricks and mortar, the beams, the floors and ceilings. The ones that, to its surprise and dismay, grimly hung on and would not let go.

They were a canker and they festered. They had spread like an invisible fungus and they had slowly but surely destroyed its peace. Not only that. They had gnawed at its bones. They had crept into every nook and cranny of its existence and they had taken over. They infected its every pore and they stunk. Of an anger and bitterness that over time had turned into rot.

The house was their unwilling custodian, their container, and it had waited. Waited for the last of the perpetrators, the cause of the evil, to die. It had hoped -expected even- that the memories would die with her. Wither away and eventually evaporate, like memories had always done. Until then there was little else it could do but watch. And wait for it to end.

But it had not happened that way. On the contrary. The memories had not gone. They clung to its soul like barnacles. Worse than that. They had set and hardened. They had crystallised into a dirty secret that just sat there and weighed it down. It was a burden that got heavier by each day, each year that passed.

So the house knew and it despaired, to the point of wanting to explode. For the only way to get rid of the secret would be to air it and share it. It had not happened. Yet.

There had never been many visitors. The odd neighbour or so, checking whether the woman was still alive. The priest. They never even crossed the threshold. The door was always firmly shut in their face. The doctor and the undertaker, of course. When she had died. Because of the stink. She had already been dead for weeks before they found her. They had spent as little time as possible. Then nothing. Silence.

For four, long years the house had been waiting, waiting for someone, anyone, it could unburden itself to. It knew that when it happened it would have to take desperate measures. It did not like it but it had to. It had prepared itself for it even, hoping against hope. But no one had come to reclaim it and fill it with life. No one at all. It had been abandoned with all its contents gathering dust. So it had become increasingly desperate. It so, so wanted to be relieved of its burden. So much so that it hurt.

It had also felt desolate. In all its long existence it had never lacked company. Now the only company it had was the secret it harboured. To be left to its own devices without being able to do anything about it was absolutely galling. If it had the ability to cry it would have shed tears.

Had it known what would happen? All those years ago? Had it? To an extent, as it had always watched and seen what was going on. Sometimes it sighed, at other times it tutted. It did not judge but it did have an avid interest. And an opinion, of sorts. Not that anyone was ever any the wiser about that but that was the way the cookie crumbled. Houses and their owners being what they were. Separate worlds, yet somehow connected.

It knew things but it would never tell. Not under normal circumstances. But this time the circumstances were not normal. Now it was more than glad to tell but it would not be able to. Not until someone came with the ears to hear and the eyes to see, and the patience to learn. One who also preferably had the nose. The nose to detect what could not be seen. There were other necessary qualities, of course, like curiosity and interest and respect for the past. And courage. Yes, courage was paramount. Under the given circumstances.

Its window of opportunity finally opened when a young woman came to view the house.

The house got extremely excited. It felt its desperate patience was awarded at long, long last. Someone was coming! After all those years of waiting someone was actually coming!

The house liked what it saw. An aura with the right kind of colour. Respect. Finally it would be able to share what it knew about what it had seen, about what had happened all those years ago. Reveal the secret. Unburden itself of those awful, stinking memories. It heaved a sigh of intense relief. It had high hopes but it also knew it would not be easy. It had to use the unusual ways it had thought of to impart what it knew. And it had to go slow, of course. It did not want to scare the woman off and be left to crumble into dust, unheard and hurting. So for the moment it watched and it bided its time.

Jodie felt the sigh pass and pulled her cardigan around her. These old places could be draughty she knew. She paused and looked around but could not detect where the draught had come from. She shrugged and continued her viewing. The house was a surprise.

She had known it was old, very old. Weatherfield was an old village and all the houses in it were centuries old. Some of them in an awful state of disrepair. She had expected this house to be more or less derelict too but it had turned out to be anything but. In fact from the outside it had looked amazingly well-kept. Apparently the house had been standing empty for the past four years. She had inherited it from a maiden aunt whom she had never known existed and who had died more or less intestate.

That in itself was strange, she thought. The whole thing was strange.

She had been miffed when the letter from the solicitor came. Her mother’s estate had been well and truly dealt with. She had paid the bills and that was that, she had thought. Until the letter came. Mind you, not from the same solicitor. That in itself was strange too. More so was the copy of the deed that was laid before her when she went to meet him. Together with two newspaper clippings. One mentioned the decease of Clara Downer in 1975. The other one briefly told the community that the house at Moorcroft Lane was now the sole abode of Jana Downer, daughter of the deceased Clara. Jodie had read the contents of the deed with eyebrows steadily rising. The message it conveyed was terse. Not a word too many.

Hereby I bequeath the house at Moorcroft Lane 5, Weatherfield (Hants) to whomsoever proves to be related to me by blood, together with the sum of 3,000 pounds sterling net for the maintenance of said property.

It was signed by Jana Downer, daughter of Clara and Eamon Downer, and the signature date was twenty-five years ago. Jodie herself had been ten years old at the time. Her father, Henry Reynolds, had no longer been around. Her memory of him was vague. As was that of the couple who came to visit once or twice and who may or may not have been his parents.

Her mother had never said a word of any kind to her about family. No mention of siblings or parents. Ever. Not a dicky bird. Not a peep.

She never spoke about her parents at all and had only once mentioned in passing they had lived ‘somewhere in the country’. She had not been talking to her, of course. Had not even known she was there, hidden by the tablecloth, playing hide-and-seek. Now her mother had gone too and she was left with questions that would probably never be answered.

She had stared at the document and the name on it. Downer, her mother’s maiden name. The one she had come across on her mother’s marriage license. The one she had never heard mentioned.

She had asked her mother about grandparents. Of course. When she was about seven or eight. Every kid she knew had grandparents. Only she did not. She had asked. Once. And once had been enough. She had been playing with Elsie, her friend, who had just spent a wonderful weekend with her grandparents and who had asked if she had been visiting hers. Which she had not. Which had been followed by the question ‘Why?’ To which she did not have an answer. So she had asked her mother that day. ‘Don’t I have grandparents?’

When she looked up, her mother’s face had lost all colour.

The answer had been ‘no’ but said in such a tone of voice that the question was never asked again. The possible existence of siblings had never occurred to her. Now it appeared there had been an aunt. Her mother’s sister and a twin sister at that!

And now this. A house. Possibly even a family home. The whole thing had left her flabbergasted.

Jodie ran her hand along the wall of the narrow hall. Dry. She inspected the skirting boards. Not an ounce of dry rot or damp in sight. She sniffed. She had expected the house to smell stale, musty, but there was no smell of any kind. If anything it smelled, she sniffed again. Lived-in, she concluded. Yes, lived-in was the word. And yet, she had been told, it had been standing empty for the past few years. Four years was what the solicitor had said. Said he had been looking for blood relatives of the deceased Jana all that time and only recently found out about her. Said it had been a fluke really. He had come across Jodie’s mother’s obituary in an old newspaper and had checked her out, as he did with everyone who carried the name Downer. He apologized for the delay but said he had had nothing to go on other than the family name. He had discovered that there had been a twin with the name Francine. None of the Downers he had come across, though, had been a Francine. Jodie’s mother had always used the name Reynolds. For some unknown reason she had wanted to erase all traces of a link with the Downer family. It was only that she herself had thought it fit to include her mother’s maiden name in the obituary. When the solicitor had spotted the date of birth and the maiden name he had known he had finally found a match and had rushed to contact her.

And no, he did not know anything about the circumstances. And no, he knew nothing about the history of the house. Just that it was there and that it had been uninhabited for the past four years. It was hers to have, if she wanted it. Which she did. She had been looking for a place just like this when the letter fell on her doormat. She had fallen in love with it at first sight.

The strange way she had come by it had added to its appeal. The solicitor had handed her the keys, signed the house over and that was it. It looked to all intents and purposes that he was mighty glad to have it off his hands and his books. She sighed and continued her inspection.

The house followed her progress with avid interest. It could feel that the young woman’s curiosity had been aroused. When the woman sniffed the air it had a brief moment of worry. Had crystallization of the memories been enough to neutralise the smell of evil? It did not know. But the woman had continued on her way. The house had let go of a breath it did not know it had held. The desire to relieve itself of its burden burned within it, though, but it could not risk the consequences of being too eager too soon. So it curbed its enthusiasm. It was early days. Maybe wait until the woman had settled in and felt comfortable. After all, it had waited so many years already, a few more months would do no harm. Surely it would not take any longer than that. So the house put itself and its plans on the back burner. Only for now, though. Only for a few months. Surely.

In the meantime Jodie enjoyed herself. The house itself was lovely. It had charm and it had potential, she thought. The corridor led into a spacious kitchen with a gorgeous antique cast iron wood burning stove. It gave access to a huge garden through a door on the side. She left the garden until later and went back to check out the first door to the left of the corridor. The front room had clearly been used as the living room. It was rather large. It had two windows and a fireplace. And a spy glass, which provided a view of anyone who was passing. All the furniture was still there, covered in cobwebs. There were layers and layers of dust. Every step she took left a footprint. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with it. Stained glass sliding doors led to the back room. The house tapered slightly so the back room was wider than the front room. It too had a fireplace. It also had doors that led into the garden. How lovely!

Jodie went inside and looked around. The back room had been used as the bedroom. A cast iron double bed complete with stiles and brass knobs was the main feature. Chairs, bedside cabinets, a wardrobe and dust everywhere. She sneezed and watched some of the dust swirl up and settle again.

Both rooms had the same air of being lived-in, well-used. It felt, she thought, as if her aunt had just stepped out for a friendly chat in the little corner shop she had seen down the road. It felt as if she could come back any time. Which she could not, of course. But still she looked over her shoulder to make sure, berating herself at the same time for being silly. Her steps suddenly sounded very loud on the wooden floor. It made her feel she was intruding. She quickly went back into the corridor and closed the door behind her. She opened one of the two doors she had seen on the right. It housed a very old-fashioned toilet with an elevated cistern and a pull chain. The other one had a small set of steps which she assumed went down into a cellar. The smell from there was rank and damp. There was a light switch but it did not work. She left the cellar for another time and turned to the steep and narrow staircase which skirted the wall on the right. It was carpeted, unlike the floor in the two rooms. She peered upward and detected a vague source of light. From the top windows at the front of the house, she assumed.

She carefully took the first steps. For some reason she expected the carpet to crumble and the wood to give way. Neither happened. The carpet was soft and it did not shift. The stairs were solid and they did not creak. There was a wooden banister on the right that she was happy to hang on to. As she went up she felt the atmosphere change. Not unpleasantly so but still. It held a tinge of -she sniffed- was it sadness? She stood still for a moment to try and determine what it was but the impression had already evaporated. She did notice, though, that the air was a fraction colder. Maybe that was just it. A tiny worm of unease wriggled for a moment. She shrugged it off and after a moment continued up the stairs.

The house breathed a sigh of relief. It had been alerted by a change in the young woman’s aura. It was afraid the secret had blown of its own accord and begun to infect the air with dire memories. Before the house had had the chance to get the setting right. But no, thank heaven for that! It had not been worried about the rank smell in the cellar. That was just damp. The old girl never went down there anyway. Never had. Well, not since she got locked inside down there once as a little girl. She had screamed the place down! Hadn’t she just! The house smirked. Served her right. She’d been a right package even then.

Jodie meanwhile had reached the top of the stairs. The last three steps veered to the left onto a narrow landing which gave access to two more rooms. The door to the front room was open. The two windows there were indeed the source of the meagre light that had lit the stairs. She peered inside. There was a small wash basin in it but nothing else. She then opened the door to the room at the back. It too was bare. Both rooms had an air of abandonment about them, unlike the rooms downstairs. Perhaps they had once been bedrooms for a larger family. Her aunt probably did not get up here very much. No reason to, she supposed. Downstairs would have been more than enough for a single person. Her aunt had never married and there had been no children in or out of wedlock. According to the solicitor who, she had to admit, had done his homework there. She wondered briefly why a single person would choose to live in a house this big. No accounting for taste, was there.

She let her eyes roam around. Both rooms were as wide as the ones on the ground floor, in spite of having been built under a sloping roof. The back one, however, was shorter by about a metre. She puzzled over how that could be. There was a small inglenook fireplace by the dividing wall but the size of that could in no way account for the loss of space. The fireplace itself did not look as if it had ever been used. She knocked on the wall beside it. Solid brick. She peered inside. It turned out to be just for décor. She puzzled over that too. The other room had had no fireplace whatsoever. How on earth had they kept this floor warm in winter! But maybe they didn’t. Her aunt obviously hadn’t.

Her eye was caught by the single sash window. It afforded a view of the garden. She loved what she saw and decided it was time for a little tour outside. There was nothing else to be seen on this floor. No furniture, no wardrobes, no nothing. It made the job of clearing the house a hell of a lot easier, she mused, considering how packed the rooms downstairs were.

The garden was a joy. The mid afternoon sun slanted over a majestic gnarly apple tree. It warmed a roughly cemented south-facing wall which was covered by the blossoms of what she recognized as plum trees. There were flowers everywhere. She walked down the path along the wall. After a few metres the plum trees gave way to budding grapevines. She foresaw a glorious harvest of plums and grapes later in the year. Her mouth watered at the thought. She wondered about the apple tree, though. Its leaves were green and there were blossoms but if they would produce edible fruit remained to be seen.

At the bottom of the garden, half hidden by bushes, was a canal and a gate that gave access to the water. The path veered to the right there. It ended in a tiny patio with a small stone shed. She opened the door with difficulty. The wood was swollen with damp and the hinges creaked with old age. There were some rusty gardening tools hanging on the wall and there was a box with blocks of wood. Otherwise the shed was empty and it stank of stagnant water. She quickly closed the door on it and walked back to the house.

All the while the dimensions of the backroom had stayed on her mind. Her eyes strayed to the tiny sash window on the first floor. She stopped in her tracks. The fact that it was there was no surprise, of course. What did surprise her, though, was the evidence of what must be another floor above the first one. Under the top of the pointed, tiled roof sat a tiny window. She went and had another look at the front of the house. She saw what she had missed before, a shutter at the top of the sculpted wooden gable. The gable itself rose a good bit over the top of the roof and had thereby hidden the presence of the second floor. The extra floor could not be very high. It had to be an attic or a loft of some description, she concluded. She frowned. There had been no evidence in the rooms or on the landing of any access to an upper floor. And yet that is where it had to be. Had to. She decided to go back up and check it out.

The tap in the kitchen was dripping. She tightened it in passing. She let her hand run along the cast iron stove. There was a small pile of logs sitting beside it. She opened the door and peered inside. Preparing a meal must have been a cumbersome affair for an elderly lady.

The house looked over her shoulder, curious to see what had piqued her interest. In doing so it must have shifted something in the air because the woman looked up and frowned. The house instantly backed off. It was surprised but also delighted. It had been right about her. She was the one to share the secret with.

Jodie went to the stairs with a pensive look on her face. Something had caught her attention in the kitchen. She was sure of that. Like a brief sense of presence perhaps. Perhaps she should go back to check if someone was actually there but she brushed the thought