#hence all the metal clasp things that had to be screwed in

[oflgtfol]

call me John the way i be Carpenting 💪💪

[silhouetteofacedar]

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 20: Nattduksbord

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

This means something; Mulder can feel it.

This signifies a shift in their relationship; a step forward, from platonic partners to a romantic couple. It’s a shared experience that has the potential to change their dynamic forever. Years of trust, fighting together against a common enemy, seeking the truth… it could all come crashing down today, in a shopping mall in Woodbridge, Virginia.

They’re going to IKEA.

Summer is on the rise, and the humidity is close to stifling as they buckle into his car. Scully’s wearing a little striped t-shirt, capri pants, and sandals, revealing sky blue painted toes. For a disorienting moment Mulder wonders if he’s going to develop a foot fetish. Probably not, but Dana Scully could make even the most vanilla of men want to do crazy things.

“Do you have your shopping list?” Scully asks as he starts the car.

He pulls the folded scrap of paper out of the chest pocket of his white t-shirt. “Right here,” he replies, eyes darting over to her for one more look as he holds out the list.

She takes it, catching his eyes momentarily. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?” she asks.

I want to suck your toes. “You look nice today, that’s all.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

Scully can probably tell he’s desperate for her; she can read him like a dog-eared, yellowed paperback. He’s simultaneously grateful for her sharp instincts and embarrassed by his carnal desires. He hasn’t gotten laid in four years, and he fears he’ll be too eager when the time comes. As it is, he can barely believe she’s let him have even the smallest glimpses of her as a sexual being. She’s intoxicating, and he’s dizzy with the knowledge that this beautiful, brilliant, downright edible woman actually wants him. Him, a mortal man of aliens and bad ties and a porn collection that’s gradually becoming least seventy-five percent redheads. A man without a bed.

Hence their Saturday morning pilgrimage to the shrine where all new couples journey to find furnishings, low prices, and themselves.

“So, we’re looking for one tall bookshelf, a locking filing cabinet, a bed, and two night tables,” Scully reads. She refolds the paper and reaches across him to tuck it back into his shirt pocket. “That’s clearly not all going to fit in this car,” she notes.

“I’ll get the bigger stuff delivered,” he says.

It’s only a twenty minute drive from Mulder’s place, and they have the air-conditioning on. Mulder is starting to relax; it’s been a long time since he’s had a partner, in the domestic sense, and he’d forgotten that it makes the mundane more bearable.

Scully clears her throat almost imperceptibly. “I’m proud of you, by the way.”

“Really? Why?” Mulder asks.

“You managed to get rid of a lot of stuff,” she says, turning up the dial on the car’s air conditioner. “And organization is very clearly not your strong suit, so progress should be acknowledged and celebrated.”

“Yippee,” Mulder deadpans.

“You know, it’s odd; we’ve known each other for all these years and I never asked… why don’t you have a bed, Mulder?”

There it is, the question he knew would come up at some point. He clears his throat, grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “I, uh… I lived with someone, around ‘91. Another agent, actually. We were together for a while, and then one day she took some assignment in Europe and that was that. I got rid of everything that was hers, and that, uh, included the bed.” Technically our bed, he thinks. He winces. He’s never talked to Scully about Diana before, and he wonders if she’ll be upset that he was withholding such a large piece of personal information.

Scully is quiet. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “That’s… I didn’t know.”

“I’m sorry I never mentioned it,” Mulder says. “It’s not like it’s some big painful secret. I just… don’t really think about her anymore.”

“It’s alright,” Scully says. “I think it’s best for these kinds of things to come up naturally. And… I was dating someone when we met,” Scully confesses. “We broke up as soon as I got back from Bellefleur.”

Mulder looks at her quickly. “Really? Why?”

She furrows her brow. “Multiple reasons, but primarily I realized that this job, my assignment, was bigger than I’d anticipated. And the things you and I went through together, the things I’d seen… when I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to be tied down to him. To have to go home and have this man ask me how my day was, as though he could ever understand even half of what we do.”

“So you chose the job over him,” Mulder muses.

“In essence… I chose you,” Scully points out. “Whether I knew it then or not. I’d never be able to turn my back on you.”

Mulder exhales slowly. He’s strangely moved.

“Take a left at the next light,” Scully prompts softly. “And yes, I do realize the irony in breaking things off with a man because of his normalcy, only to continue trying to date so-called ‘normal’ men.”

Mulder shrugs. “No, it makes sense. Maybe he just wasn’t right for you, but the next normal guy could be, right?”

“Right,” Scully sighs. “Einstein’s definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.”

“I’ve been led to believe that being with me is another type of insanity,” Mulder points out. “And objectively, I can’t disagree.”

“You do make me crazy,” Scully agrees, voice low. “But that’s not always a bad thing.” He feels her small hand squeeze his thigh. “And I fully intend to return the favor.”

Mulder lets out a quiet groan, hands sweaty on the steering wheel. “You planning on giving me some roadside assistance, Agent Scully? Because I’m gonna need it if you keep doing that.”

She removes her hand, tucks her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t do anything,” she says innocently.

“Uh huh.” He pulls into the IKEA parking lot. “Well, we’re here. You ready?”

“As ready as a person can be for a labyrinthian furniture store on a muggy Saturday,” she replies.

-

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Mulder says from his spot on the bedroom floor, surrounded by scattered pieces of a ‘HOLLEBY’ bedside table. “These instructions are useless and-” he flips through the booklet, “-thirty-two pages long, Jesus.”

Scully doesn’t respond; her eyes are glued to her own manual as she assembles a drawer from the second of the two nightstands. “Shh,” she hushes him softly. “I’m concentrating.”

“How have you managed to put any of these pieces together?” he asks, scooting across the floor to her. “There aren’t even words, just vague illustrations.”

She has a screw between her lips as she lines up two of the wood pieces. “I took wood shop in high school,” she says around the metal pin. She removes it and inserts it into a pre-drilled hole. “I guess that was some kind of preparation for assembling flatpack furniture?”

“That’s adorable,” Mulder says, rising to open a window. The room is stuffy with the day’s heat, and his t-shirt is glued to his back. “Do you still have any of the things you made in class?”

“The step stool in my kitchen,” she replies. “And my mom might have some things I’ve forgotten about.”

He casually strips off his sweaty t-shirt and tosses it in the laundry basket. “Remind me to look at that stool the next time we’re at your place,” he says. “Also I’m gonna order a pizza, you interested?”

Scully looks up at him then and is seemingly surprised by the absence of his shirt. “It’s hot in here,” Mulder explains, almost defensive.

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Scully says, eyes shamelessly traveling his torso. “And I’m always interested.”

“Are we still talking about pizza here, or…”

“Make my half one with everything, please,” she says, attention returning to her project.

“Wait a minute,” he says, dropping to his knees next to her on the carpet. “I’m not done here.” He leans in and presses his mouth to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, tasting the salt on her skin. How she can still smell so good on a sticky June day, he doesn’t know; but he wants to lick her entire body.

“Mulder,” she sighs, putting down her screwdriver, “You’re distracting me.”

“That’s the idea,” he says, lips wandering up her neck and behind her ear. He flicks his tongue against her earlobe. “Forget the furniture, honey,” he says, all hot breath and lust. “We don’t need it for what I have in mind.”

Suddenly she’s facing him, looping her arms around his neck. “I’m doing this for you,” she purrs. “Do you think I like putting together IKEA furniture? No one likes it, Mulder. It’s like a multidimensional jigsaw puzzle.”

He pulls her onto his lap. “Oh, but I think you do,” he says, nibbling her ear. “You like being capable Doctor Scully, in charge of things… showing me what those hands can do.”

She leans in, licking his full lower lip. “Not everything is about you, Mulder,” she says, pressing a scorching kiss to his mouth. “I’m just doing my coworker a favor.”

“Is that what they call this nowadays?” he asks, hands clasping her hips as she grinds down on his lap.

She shuts him up with a kiss, the furniture and pizza forgotten.

[ukdamo]

Remembrance of Things Present

One of mine...

The gloryhole in 89 Napier Street was the repository for practical things not necessarily needed immediately to hand: the scorched and rickety ironing board (the iron standing on its heel on the shelf above); left-over rolls of wallpaper; a canopy of coats cascading untidily from too few hooks; the two books (Universal Home Doctor and Family Bible); a bashed brown tea caddy, minus its label, that held buttons, wooden cotton reels, a selection of sewing needles, hair grips, press-studs on their cards, folorn biros with bitten ends; the Ewbank (at an earlier date), the reconditioned Hoover now in its stead. And mum's handbags. Old ones bulged with insurance policies, family snaps, the one £5 Premium Bond and the the three £1 ones, grave papers, mass cards, cast-off compacts with cracked mirrors or broken clasps, and almost-but-not-quite empty jars of Pond's cold cream. And the little cylinders of fake gold that held the stumps of greasy, muted-pinky-maroon lip sticks. It was all illuminated by a bare low-wattage bulb.

The gloryhole was, basically, under-stair storage. It was accessed from a door in the corner of the living room. Once the door was opened, you faced a narrow underdrawn space that sloped upward from left to right, following the contours of the stairs. In front, where the height permitted it, a shelf ran around the space. Under it were the old, two-pronged coat hooks. Mum's discarded handbags dangled by their frayed straps from those Victorian coat hooks, smothered by coats. They made occasional forays out into the light, when documents needed consulting or prayer cards needed re-homing. To the left of the door, down one-step, the space retreated into an increasingly confined wedge, so that the smaller objects had to be shoved into the deepest part of the recess and the taller ones stood immediately adjacent. The gloryhole was seldom decorated: it always lagged behind the rest of the house by at least two or three colour-schemes. Occasionally, when its yellowing paint became too depressing, it was freshened up by left over emulsion. The gloryhole housed the left-over wallpaper from various rooms - but never enjoyed a Polycell make-over of its own.

From the vantage point of 2017, Napier Street as our family home is long-gone. So are my parents; dad in 1995, mum a decade later. Equally long-gone are those old handbags with their stash of yesteryear's oddments. But, as I beetle along towards old age, the inherent power of those distant objects to seems to grow exponentially. The handbags and their associated evocations perhaps most of all.

Pond's cold cream. I don't know if it still exists. When I was a boy, it lived in small, glass, oval jars with bakelite screw lids. It was not gloopy or waxy. It was a reassuringly viscose white fondant, and had always the imprint of mum's last finger-scoop. The texture was cool, smooth and soothing. Its fragrance was of mum. Or maybe it was the other way round. A discreet scent of jasmine with distant lilies. It was soft on the palms and immediately made skin more malleable, less friable, less care-worn, more translucent. I can sympathise with her fondness for it: less a cotton winders' hands, more of a princess's. I used to have occasional dabs of my own: less a scrawly schoolboy's hands, more of an aesthete's?

In one or other of the bags there was a ladies Ronson lighter – it still had a working flint but its petrol-infused lint had long since dried out. I used to enjoy the dry, rasping spark with electric flare. Not so much a burning smell as a mechanical one. And then there were the compacts. They were usually smudged by the old lipsticks, their hinges encrusted with their own pink-blush powder. Indeed, the insurance policies, prayer cards and the faux-satin linings of the handbags were similarly smudged. The dull gold-coloured compact, the one with the cracked mirror, had a thin flat disc in it – satin one side and mildly padded on the other. Practically all the powder was gone from the insert. Little bevels of it remained where the side and bottom of the pan met. But the pad was still redolent of dustings and pattings. The powder was an anhydrous mist, different from the silky puff of Johnson's baby powder. Matt rather than shiny, the pad gave a satisfyingly muted pat when applied to the back of your hand. It had a fragrance, too, different from the cold cream, but complementary. The aroma was a pink carnation.

Mum was a delicate creature in some respects – allergic to anything other than gold jewellery. In this, I am not her son: I can wear any base metal, though my fondness and preference is for silver. Anything other than butter on her bread made her nauseous. Wartime had been a torture for her (the chemical coarseness of margarine, you understand). She had to trade all manner of coupons to secure enough butter. I sympathise with that. Her choice of butter was always Lurpak but she'd tolerate Kerrygold or Anchor if it was demanded of her. Stork – which the adverts claimed was indistinguishable from butter – was relegated to cake-making. Rightly so. Vile. Only desperation would make a person use it on bread.

Mum's repertoire of soaps was as limited as her butter.

Pears (those amber ovals) she liked – but it was too pricey. Imperial Leather (“Simon, Bermuda”) was also valued but equally pricey. I don't recall it featuring anything other than rarely – probably when it was on offer. We were a family of six, with four blokes, you see: that's a lot of soap. So, the mundane soap was a Lever Brothers stand by: Sunlight. With lanolin, even. I had no idea what lanolin was – but mum could use it on that delicate skin. This was in the days before hypoallergenic was a even a word, still less a range of products. Sunlight soap came in fat, cumbersome, rectangular, pale magnolia cakes. Really, it was very unfeminine: great half-charlies that were too big for the hand, unless you were a navvy or a coal miner. They had a wide groove on their upper surface, with a cursive 'Sunlight' stamped in it. I don't know if Sunlight is still going: it had a retro makeover many years ago but I can't recall seeing it in decades. The gradual demise of the C2 working class probably doomed it to extinction. And as for lanolin, people finding out that it was the oil from sheep's fleeces no doubt undermined its appeal, somewhat. Sometimes it's best not to know: when I hear what goes into mum's old Oil of Ulay (now sans oil, and simply Olay for copyright reasons, I think), it is cringeworthy.

But lanolin. I recall coming face to face with it a few years ago on a walk to the Water Meetings and Quaker Bridge in Barrowford. Summer time. No azure flash of kingfishers racing along Pendle Water that trip, but as I forked right and headed up the road into Blacko to follow it homewards, there was the buzz of clippers in a field. A Landrover was pulled up, with trailer uncoupled. The trailer sported on- /off- ramps, a generator, and a tall pole, attached to the top of which was a flexible bendy cord. At the end of the cord was the source of the insistent buzzing – sheep shears. The trailer was adjacent to a sheep pen, in which dozens of ewes jostled half-heartedly for position, and peered blankly out. I stopped to watch proceedings and, after a minute or two, the farmer came over, opened the gate, and invited me in.

And so we stood, the three of us. Me, the farmer, and the sheep shearer. And I learned about shearing, fleeces, and sheep. The shearer travelled from farm to farm (hence the Landrover with its bespoke trailer) making his way through Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire on a pre-arranged timetable and route. He was netting £2 a fleece – and he had each of those pliable ladies, and some cantankerous ones – nabbed, shaved, and released at no more than 90 second intervals. The farmer penned the sheep ready, so there was no delay, and they contracted for a minimum number, so farmers with smaller holdings rendezvoused at the farm where the shearer was to set up. Prices for fleeces rose and fell – they weren't bad that year, as I recall, but sheep need shearing whatever the price.

The bewildered ladies were unceremoniously up-ended and plonked on their ample bottoms, whilst the young fella planted his muscular legs and gripped them, and set to work with the clippers. Mostly, they were subdued once he had them: perhaps reassured by his evident skill and no-nonsense approach. That always worked with me when I was a boy: the sound of the airplane clippers, the smell of 3-in-1 oil, and the firm purpose of the barber. Short back and sides and sparse conversation. Mind you, I don't think the barber netted £2 a scalp back in the day.

The sun shone, the sheep skittered off once fleeced, and we three chatted. Soon my eye was drawn to the large grease spot on the wooden trailer. Lanolin, live and in-person. Handy for soap making, handier still for shedding the filthiest Lancashire weather: these sheep were well set up for inclemencies. I noted, too, that the shearer was wearing moccasins. As the farmer explained, the best shearers wore moccasins. Their suede nap gave some purchase on the slippery grease and their firm pressure was kinder to sheep. Lots of younger men were sporting trainers now, he said, but he didn't rate them. They were not good. The risk of injury to sheep, and man, was increased. I found myself glad that the shearer stood fully congruent with his occupation – no flirting with any Nike or Adidas innovations. Real sheep shearers do it in moccasins.

After the family home was sold and mum and dad went to live in Lomeshaye Village, in one of the old-folks' flats, mum's predilection for Imperial Leather resurfaced. There was always a bar in the bathroom. With just the two of them (kids all gone) the economies necessary for a family of six, on a wagon driver's income, were less stringent. Imperial Leather as pensioner indulgence! One of the things that most endeared me to those lozenge-shaped bars of buttermilk hue was the little foil label that conjured up the decadence of the Romanovs. It was my understanding that the label was there to prevent the soap leaving a mess on the sink ceramics or soap dish: you stood the bar on its label. As the soap wore down, the label stood proud and the soap was no longer in contact with the sink – hence, no mess. Perhaps because we were very plebeian, the soap was never label down. You announced the fact that you were using it by having the label showing.

For me, nowadays, picking the soap up, lathering it under the tap, releases not so much a fragrance as a wave of nostalgia. Imperial Leather's fragrance has elements of sandalwood and the richness of plant oils – it's mildly exotic and suggestive of luxury. Which is, no doubt, what Cussons were aiming at. But for me, it mostly carries aromas of mum. It's powerfully evocative. Aromas are.

I recall a visit – with mum – to Gawthorpe Hall. It's one of the places we'd scoot off to for an afternoon of cultural noseyness, and cake. The cafe was lodged in the stable block and featured home-baking and pots of tea. Ideal for us. After a leisurely brew and news-swop, we were about to go and explore the lovely Elizabethan pile: I decided to make a visit to the lavatory first. The tea room was above, the toilets below, so I skittered down the stairs and found the Gents. The soap was in an old-school wall dispenser: fingers under, palm operates a rectangular squirter. One squidge was enough: the years receded and I was age six, it was dinner time, I was standing at a child-height sink in St George's RC Primary School, Vaughan Street, Nelson, washing my hands so that Mrs. Ingham (a diminutive tyrant) would not throw me out of the dinner queue. The soap dispensed in the Gawthorpe toilet was the same amber-coloured, antiseptic liquid that Lancashire County Council used in its school thirty years before. The power of scent created a wormhole in space-time and drew me through it, irresistibly. That power can be used to advantage, though. You can elect to make the journey. Fragrance can open the portal, on demand. If liquid coal-tar soap can take me to primary school, other fragrances can take me elsewhere.

4711, for instance. That eau-de-cologne can transport me to Köln, and the year 1976. It's a school exchange trip and I'm in Germany, staying with a family from Mayen: we're on a trip to Cologne. I've been up the cathedral tower and seen the Rhine bridges and I'm looking for a present for mum. On Glockenstrasse, at number 4711, stands an impressive perfume factory and shop – home to 4711. The original eau-de-cologne. Echt Kölnisch Wasser. It's still there – flagship shop of the perfume house, and it still glitters with possibility. I bought mum a bottle of the eponymous 18th CE perfume and she wore it ever after. Generally, she kept it in her current handbag (before they were, successively, relegated to the gloryhole). She'd dab it on her hanky and freshen up with it on car trips. As a perfume, 4711 has had an odd evolution over the 200 plus years of its existence; it was, originally, a men's fragrance for the prestige Houses of Europe. More latterly, it has been a women's fragrance – but 4711 indicate it as unisex. I agree. The scent is of citrus and wood that carries a fresh, sharp finish and has enduring undernotes. For me it's an everyday scent: it lives in my sports bag, for application after swims. It's also my travel fragrance and comes with me on every trip, near or far.

As I age (just clocked 56, Not Out), I seem to be developing a deepening appreciation for my past and how it has shaped who I have become. I heard once that making sense of your life is only possible when you look back over it – I recall an analogy that compared it to running your fingers over a fish's scales: they lie smoothly when stroked in one direction but are likely to tear your flesh if stroked in the wrong one. I can see connections, recognise how events and people shaped my experiences. I know I hold threads together, personally. I weave my own cloth - but on a loom I inherited. More tellingly still, some elements of the pattern, some of the aesthetics that inform the weave, some of the yarns, were given to me. I'm the child of weavers in more ways than one.

I can find, too, there's comfort in the sureties of the past. Like the familiarity of an old pair of slippers (not that I wear slippers), the quiet resonances of childhood are reassuring. I think we like continuity, as a species. We tell stories. We create in our own likeness. We look to where we came from to make sense of where we are and to decide where we want to go.

I'm conscious of my heritage. Not (I think) conditioned or stultified by it, or forever harking back to a mystical Golden Age that exists only in the warm fuzziness of a smug and delusional imagination. But I know I make choices which ensure there are tokens of continuity that I can carry with me into my everyday life. Mostly, they are mundane. And I like that, too. It's too easy to confuse what's important with what's valuable, unless you guard against that possibility. The richer you are, the more imperilled that discernment is: I've safeguarded myself against that risk very well!

My tokens are trivial. It's good that they are.

I think of the tea caddy spoon – it's in my kitchen, as it was in mum's kitchen, and as it was in her mum's kitchen before her (c/o a pre-WW II holiday to the Isle of Man): or there's my 'ice-cream' spoon – courtesy of Margaret Pepper and the Raj (well, the North Western Railway Volunteer Rifles, circa 1920). These tokens are a continuing connection with people now gone. They are stirred (if you'll forgive the pun) by everyday use.

I note, increasingly, that I am becoming my parents. I look like dad. Really: peas in a pod, chip off the old block, and so on. I look in the mirror and he smiles back at me. I look at my physignomy – and his fingerprints are all over it. My driving style evokes his. In some situations, I can sense him near. Curiously, he underpins my confidence in situations from which his natural diffidence would have disbarred him. If I stand tall, it's because he raised me. As for mum, she's around most days. Wimbledon Fortnight, she practically moves in. It was ever ‘our time’ - I’d rock up with whimberry charlottes, or strawberries, and we’d sit on the edges of chairs for hours and hours as Nastase, Connors, Becker, McEnroe, Ivanisovic, Sampras, Federer and Billie Jean King, Martina, Steffi and the Williams sisters thwacked balls back and forth. I miss her acutely then. And we both missed Dan Maskell, together. She’s at my elbow at breakfast when I make a pot of Yorkshire Tea (there's another evocation!); when the Imperial Leather is handled at shower time; twice weekly, in the men's locker room at Crow Wood, after a swim. Perhaps it's fortunate that the evocation is a personal, rather than an universal, one? (Otherwise, explanations might prove difficult).

I don't know if the trivial and potent associations that so flavour my life – 4711, Imperial Leather, and two old spoons – will evoke the same responses among my nephews and nieces and their respective kids once I'm dead. It’s open to doubt. They don't live cheek-by-jowl with them, as I do. It matters not. They will make their own. As things stand, I'm the orphan in the world, now mum and dad are long dead: the comfort blanket offered by fragrances and spoons is mine, and very probably mine alone.

There's quiet comfort in that, too.

© Damian, April 2017

[yandere-daydreams]

Some Yandere!Dabi/Reader for a lovely anonymous commissioner. I’ve gotta say, I’m a sucker for some classic possessiveness.

Word Count: 2500

Breath, your instructor would’ve told you. Be calm, stay rational. You tried to remember some of the breathing exercises Shoto’d taught you, the ones he never told the story behind. But, you weren’t as patient as your instructor, or Shoto. And seeing the villain who’d taken you walk in, barely bothering to close the door behind him, filled you with uncontrollable amounts of fiery, burning rage.

The chains that nearly covered your form didn't help, either. Your quirk (a simple manipulator, one that allowed you to influence your own gravitational pull on certain objects) could be canceled out if you didn’t have use of your hands, hence the cuffs covering everything below your elbow and chaining you to the floor. Sure, you could still technically pull this cocky asshole towards you and let him crash into the wall, but that couldn’t lead anywhere good. The shackles around your ankles, however, and the mask covering the lower half of your face, were just to make you feel... feral. A caged, declawed beast.

The villain seemed to know this just as well as you did. Carefully, he kneeled to your arched height, watching you struggle against the restraints. A smirk tugged at the edges of his lips, only making you pull against the chains more feverishly. “Those uncomfortable, dollface?” You narrowed your eyes, grunting an unintelligible response. It was the best you were capable of, considering the metal plating over your mouth. “Good. If I’m stuck on babysitting duty, then you better be suffering, too.”

You let out a growl, moving to back away from him. But, your captor didn’t seem to like that idea as much as you did. He reached down, embedding his nails in your scalp and forcing you to meet his eye while he fished something out of his pocket. 

“Do you want me to take some of those off? I have the keys, but you’ll need to wear something else for me.” Automatically, you agreed. If you got the chance to curse him out or scream for help, you could tolerate whatever creepy dress he pulled out. Instead, he took out a thin, leather collar, the spot where the clasp should’ve been replaced with a miniature deadbolt. You shock must’ve been visible, because the villain let out a laugh. “Like it?”

You stopped yourself from flinching as he slid the collar around your neck, holding still as he unlatched the gag. It fell to the ground unceremoniously, along with the cuffs around your wrists. You didn’t complain as he cupped your cheek, leaning into the touch. Biting him was certainly tempting, but you’d only have to play nice for a few more seconds. Your newly-freed fingers twitched, trying to draw anything that wasn’t pinned down into your hand. You could already picture yourself bashing this guy’s head in, breaking his nose under the weight of his own-

“It won’t work.”

Your eyes snapped towards him, your hands instantly balling into firsts. “I... What do you mean?”

“I’m not stupid, and you aren’t getting out that easily. Your quirk won’t work.” Your captor’s smirk only grew, his hold on your cheek growing tighter, hotter. Your hands flew to his wrist, attempting to rip the appendage away from you. But, his palm only got hotter, undoubtedly burning the skin underneath. “My quirk, though, definitely will.”

~

As your days in captivity turned into weeks, you became a witness to the effectiveness of Dabi’s quirk, and his willingness to use it one a breathing, living person. Whenever you fell asleep, he woke you up with a burning palm to your back, greeting you cheerfully before threatening to light your hair on fire. That was only when he was in a good mood, though.

At the moment, Dabi seemed to be a little more… gloomy.

He sat above you, arms folded on the back of a rickety, wooden chain while he straddled it. Despite his apathetic expression, he kept his eyes focused on you. You tried to keep yourself distracted, pulling your knees into your chin and biting your cheek to occupy your time. It wasn’t like Dabi ever gave you anything to do. By the time you started to taste blood, he must’ve gotten bored enough to talk to you.

“Have you figured out why you’re here, yet?” He asked, arrogance gripping from his voice. When you didn’t answer, your gaze flickering over to him before falling back to the ground, Dabi continued. “The Handyman out there wants to make you into a villain, like we tried to do with the angry kid. I think it’d be easier to cut off your head on a live-broadcast and get this over with.”

“That’s sick,” You mumbled, burying your face further into your arms. “I’ll never join your side, either. A Hero will come save me, just like they did with Bakugo.”

You could hear Dabi snicker, toying with something as he spoke. “Sure, why would you? Your friends took you so seriously, didn’t they?” You didn’t as move when he stood, or when he sat next to you, tugging on your shackles lightly. “It’s not like they have another gravity-themed slut already... oh, wait. Uraraka, right? And they definitely didn’t treat you like a glorified cheerleader, even after you beat a few of their asses in the Sports Festival.”

“My friends love me.” Your voice was stronger now, more defensive. But, something ate at you. Dabi wasn’t telling you the truth, but he wasn’t wrong, either. You tried to tell yourself that the other students in UA did appreciate you… didn’t they? If anyone was grateful for your presence, they didn’t show it. Gently, Dabi slung an arm around your shoulders, and you didn’t bother shrugging him off.

“Someone doesn’t sound so convinced, poor thing.” After a second of silence, you looked at him, finally noticing the object he was fiddling with. A cheap, cracked phone sat in his hands, but it’s condition didn’t matter. You just needed one call, then you could get out of here. You’d be free. Desperately, you jumped for it, not caring that you had to lay in Dabi’s lap to do so. He just held it out of your reach, keeping an arm around your waist to stop you from standing, not moving when you hit his chest or clawed at his neck.

“Screw off,” You hissed, gritting your teeth. His hold on your just tightened, making your efforts to climb across him seem even more pointless. He nuzzled into your neck as you embedding your nails into his forearm, ignoring how the scarred skin scratched at your hands. “Either give up, or just leave me alone and let me starve!”

“I don’t think I want to.” His voice was closer to your ear now, lips nearly touching the side of your head. But, you didn’t care, keeping your eyes focused on the black oval of the phone’s camera. “We’re going to have a lot of fun together, from now on. And all your little friends are going to be able to watch.”

You flinched at his words, pulling back as soon as you could. But, that didn’t matter. Dabi’s arm was still around your waist, still holding your smaller form in his lap. Seeing you so eager to get away from the device, Dabi laughed. Like you were some tiny, harmless pet, doing something cute. “Funny thing about Shigaraki,” He said, pressing a quick kiss into your temple. “He wouldn’t let me record your death, but he never said I couldn’t record something else. So, why don��t you smile for the camera, baby? I’m sure they’ll all be happy to see you.”

~

Time passed impossibly slowly, but you were glad it was passes at all. Every time Dabi’s blonde, knife-happy counterpart brought you breakfast, every time a new outfit was thrown at your feet or forced onto you, every time you bit someone’s hand and earned a new burn, you swore that time stopped, leaving you in that hell of a bar until you decided choking yourself with the chain around your ankles would be more tolerable. And with every second that passed, you doubted that anyone was coming a little bit more.

Today, Dabi chose to reuse your long-abandoned bindings, if only to keep your hands above your head while he used that damn camera. He’d grown fond of sitting next to you, running a hand along your legs while you squirmed and spat profanities whenever he got too touchy. You hated the position, but Dabi didn’t seem to share your sentiment.

“Why don’t you smile for me, (Y/n)?” He asked, his voice sickeningly sweet. He must’ve been recording today. He didn’t bother with questions when he just took pictures. While he spoke, he drummed white-hot fingertips against your thigh, clamping down whenever you flinched. “I’m sure everyone would love to see how cute your smile is.”

You took a deep breath, trying to keep your expression neutral. But, when a smoldering palm drove itself into your skin, you grit your teeth and tried to think of an appropriate curse. You could practically feel Dabi’s smirk as he pressed his hand into your leg. Smoke was starting to form before he thought about pulling away, but the damage was already done.

“Shoto!” You yelled, instantly shutting your mouth after it’d come out. But, Dabi didn’t forgive you. He kept his hand pressed against your skin, the heat never wavering. The pain was starting to run up your leg, filling your veins with lead and melting every tissue down to the bone. You had to shut your eyes, tears still making their way to your cheeks. “Say it again. Now.”

You didn’t think. What was he going to do with a name? “Shoto! Todoroki Shoto!”

“Who’s that? Why do you know him?!”

You shook your head, but your determination shattered when you smelled the burning flesh beneath Dabi’s hand. “He’s my friend, from UA!” You must’ve sounded desperate, because he pulled away, giving you a second to recover. With a nod, he signaled for you to continue. “We… we train together.” You paused, glaring. “He promised he’d take care of anyone who came after me.”

You could hear Dabi’s breath hitch, the phone clattering to the ground a moment later. You didn’t care. You didn’t care that he was straddling your thighs, or that his hands were cupping the side of your head. Even when he pushed his lips roughly against yours, biting your lips when you tried to pull away, you didn’t care.

“You’re mine,” He growled, pressing harsh pecks into the corners of your mouth between his words. “I never want to hear another name come out of that pretty little mouth, understand? And I never want you to think about a Todoroki.”

All you could do was nod. Maybe it was out of fear, or the knowledge that Dabi was more than willing to burn more vital parts of your body. As long as the wasn’t burning you, this was better. It had to be.

~

If someone asked you how it all happened, you wouldn’t have been able to tell them. One minute, you were sitting in Dabi’s lap, listening to Shigaraki berate him for bringing an unrestrained ‘plaything’ to one of the League’s meetings. It was a stupid argument, a dispute the boy was able to just laugh off, pulling you into a kiss whenever Shigaraki got too loud. The next, your captor was on the floor, Mirko standing in the middle of a debris-filled room and calling for backup.

Of course, you took the opportunity to make a run for it, only to find a hand latched onto your wrist. Dabi bared his teeth, spouting flames towards the heroes with one hand and dragging you towards Kurogiri with the other. His eyes weren’t on you, focused on the distant fight instead. 

But, Toga’s were.

You would never know why she did it. Why she smiled, waving calmly and nodding towards one of the knives strapped to her thighs. You didn’t move, too stunned by her tranquility to do much of anything. Still, she carefully took one out, dropping it and kicking it in your general direction, before she went back to fighting the oncoming wave of heroes. The silent ‘oops’ that left her mouth was burnt into your mind, despite the frantic shouting and gun-fire going on behind you.

You didn’t hesitate, dropping into a crouch and grabbing the blade’s hilt. Hearing someone call your name, you acted as quickly as you could, jumping to your feet and driving the knife into Dabi’s side. His mouth fell open, gaze falling onto you as his flames sputtered out, but you didn’t want to see the full length of his reaction.

You spun on your heels, sprinting in the direction of police sirens and flashing lights. You could feel heat build-up behind you, a blast of fire barely missing you, but the possibility of bodily harm was the last thing on your mind.

You were going to be free, and that was all that mattered.

~

“Feeling better?” Shoto asked, smiling softly. He’d stepped in after you were rescued, quickly convincing both your parents and your instructors to let him take you to one of his many, many vacation homes. He thought some time away from everyone and everything would be good for you, and you agreed. You needed to think about something besides your months in captivity, and who better to distract you than your best friend? And you’d spent so much time without your quirk... to be honest, you weren’t even sure you had one anymore. All you wanted to do was focus on your therapy, recover, and convince yourself that this weakened state was temporary. 

You just nodded, humming contently as he took a seat on your bed, sitting in front of you. “I could get you some tea, or change the bandages on your leg. Does it still hurt?”

“I’m fine, Todoroki. You don’t have to keep babying me.” You tried to sound serious, but it was difficult. Especially with Shoto so close, worrying over every little detail of your comfort. But, you couldn’t let him make you soft. “Actually, I think I’m ready to start using my quirk again!” You could see him flinch, leaning forward with a concerned frown. You tried not to pay it any mind, gently laying your hand over his. “I want to train, and get stronger! The League wasn’t captured, and I can’t just let them hurt someone else.”

You let yourself relax when Shoto laughed, not letting it bother you when his free hand came to rest over the burn-scar on your thigh. “You’re too sweet.” His voice was lower than you would’ve liked, but that didn’t matter. You didn’t protest as he moved closer, his hand never leaving the bandages covering your injury. “But, that’s not going to happen. You’re going to pull out of the Hero-Course, and I’m going to take care of you.”

Not hiding your discontent, you tried to pull away, biting back a scream when his nails dug into the sensitive skin. “You don’t get to make that decision for me,” You spat, your fondness for the boy quickly fading. “Let me go, and we can pretend you never said something so selfish.”

You didn’t have time to retaliate before Shoto’s hand started to heat up, not burning you, but just enough to serve as a warning. You weren’t sure when he put his hand on your shoulder, but the timing didn’t matter, not as much as his ironclad grip did. “No. Do you know how much it hurt me to watch the footage? How painful it was to watch someone so vile touch you like that?” His tone was desperate, making your response more hesitant. Still, you tried to say something, only for Shoto to cut you off before the words even left your mouth. “You screamed for me. You wanted me to help you, so that’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to be so fucking safe, and I’m going to hunt down every single one of those villains and slaughter them. You don’t get to put yourself in danger again.” 

You wanted to yell at him, to fight back with all the strength you had left, but… it might’ve just been the fear, or your remaining helplessness, but your desire to fight drained out of you as quickly as it’d formed. Maybe a part of you wanted to feel safe, or maybe you were just going crazy. Either way, you pulled Shoto closer, shoving your head into his chest and whimpering out a quiet ‘please don’t hurt me’.

His arms wrapped around you, letting you lean onto him as you started to cry. Shoto just ran a hand through your hair, the tension draining out of his shoulders. “I won’t, (Y/n). You don’t have to be scared.” All the anger seemed to leave him, too. And he was holding you so delicately… “We can make the call tomorrow, but you should get some rest. I don’t want anyone to think I’m threatening you, or something like that.”

You dared to glance up, if only for a moment. In the low light, with shadows covering most of his face and his heterochromatic eyes nearly glowing, the resemblance was uncanny. It might’ve just been your imagination, but… he looked so much like Dabi.

[ukdamo]

Remembrance of Things Present

one of mine.. 

The gloryhole in 89 Napier Street was the repository for practical things not necessarily needed immediately to hand: the scorched and rickety ironing board (the iron standing on its heel on the shelf above); left-over rolls of wallpaper; a canopy of coats cascading untidily from too few hooks; the two books (Universal Home Doctor and Family Bible); a bashed brown tea caddy, minus its label, that held buttons, wooden cotton reels, a selection of sewing needles, hair grips, press-studs on their cards, folorn biros with bitten ends; the Ewbank (at an ealier date), the reconditioned Hoover now in its stead. And mum's handbags. Old ones bulged with insurance policies, family snaps, the one £5 Premuim Bond and the the three £1 ones, grave papers, mass cards, cast-off compacts with cracked mirrors or broken clasps, and almost-but-not-quite empty jars of Pond's cold cream. And the little cylinders of fake gold that held the stumps of greasy, muted-pinky-maroon lip sticks. It was all illuminated by a bare low-wattage bulb.

The gloryhole was, basically, under-stair storage. It was accessed from a door in the corner of the living room. Once the door was opened, you faced a narrow underdrawn space that sloped upward from left to right, following the contours of the stairs. In front, where the height permitted it, a shelf ran around the space. Under it were the old, two-pronged coat hooks. Mum's discarded handbags dangled by their frayed straps from those Victorian coat hooks, smothered by coats. They made occasional forays out into the light, when documents needed consulting or prayer cards needed re-homing.To the left of the door, down one-step, the space retreated into an increasingly confined wedge, so that the smaller objects had to be shoved into the deepest part of the recess and the taller ones stood immediately adjacent. The gloryhole was seldom decorated: it always lagged behind the rest of the house by at least two or three colour-schemes. Occasionally, when its yellowing paint became too depressing, it was freshened up by left over emulsion. The gloryhole housed the left-over wallpaper from various rooms - but never enjoyed a Polycell make-over of its own.

From the vantage point of 2017, Napier Street as our family home is long-gone. So are my parents; dad in 1995, mum a decade later. Equally, long-gone are those old handbags with their stash of yesteryear's oddments. But, as I beetle along towards old age, the inherent power of those distant objects to seems to grow exponentially. The handbags and their associated evocations perhaps most of all.

Pond's cold cream. I don't know if it still exists. When I was a boy, it lived in small, glass, oval jars with bakelite screw lids. It was not gloopy or waxy. It was a reassuringly viscose white fondant, and had always the imprint of mum's last finger-scoop. The texture was cool, smooth and soothing. Its fragrance was of mum. Or maybe it was the other way round. A discreet scent of jasmine with distant lilies. It was soft on the palms and immediately made skin more malleable, less friable, less care-worn, more transluscent. I can sympathise with her fondness for it: less a cotton winders' hands, more of a princess's. I used to have occasional dabs of my own: less a scrawly schoolboy's hands, more of an aesthete's?

In one or other of the bags there was a ladies Ronson lighter – it still had a working flint but its petrol-infused lint had long since dried out. I used to enjoy the dry, rasping spark with electric flare. Not so much a burning smell as a mechanical one. And then there were the compacts. They were usually smudged by the old lipsticks, their hinges encrusted with their own pink-blush powder. Indeed, the insurance policies, prayer cards and the faux-satin linings of the handbags were similarly smudged. The dull gold-coloured compact, the one with the cracked mirror, had a thin flat disc in it – satin one side and mildly padded on the other. Practically all the powder was gone from the insert. Little bevels of it remained where the side and bottom of the pan met. But the pad was still redolent of dustings and pattings. The powder was an anhydrous mist, different from the silky puff of Johnson's baby powder. Matt, rather than shiny, the pad gave a satisfyingly muted pat when applied to the back of your hand. It had a fragrance, too, different from the cold cream, but complementary. The aroma was a pink carnation.

Mum was a delicate creature in some respects – allergic to anything other than gold jewellery, In this, I am not her son: I can wear any base metal, though my fondness and preference is for silver. Anything other than butter on her bread made her nauseous. Wartime had been a torture for her (the chemical coarseness of margarine, you understand). She had to trade all manner of coupons to secure enough butter. I sympathise with that. Her choice of butter was always Lurpak but she'd tolerate Kerrygold or Anchor if it was demanded of her. Stork – which the adverts claimed was indistinguishable from butter – was relegated to cake-making. Rightly so. Vile. Only desperation would make a person use it on bread.

Mum's repertoire of soaps was as limited as her butter.

Pears (those amber ovals) she liked – but it was too pricey. Imperial Leather (“Simon, Bermuda”) was also valued but equally pricey. I don't recall it featuring anything other than rarely – probably when it was on offer. We were a family of six, with four blokes, you see: that's a lot of soap. So, the mundane soap was a Lever Brothers stand by: Sunlight. With lanolin, even. I had no idea what lanolin was – but mum could use it on that delicate skin. This was in the days before hypoallergenic was a even a word, still less a range of products. Sunlight soap came in fat, cumbersome, rectangular, pale magnolia cakes. Really, it was very unfeminine: great half-charlies that were too big for the hand, unless you were a navvy or a coal miner. They had a wide groove on their upper surface, with a cursive 'Sunlight' stamped in it. I don't know if Sunlight is still going: it had a retro makeover many years ago but I can't recall seeing it in decades. The gradual demise of the C2 working class probably doomed it to extinction. And as for lanolin, people finding out that it was the oil from sheeps' fleeces no doubt undermined its appeal, somewhat. Sometimes it's best not to know: when I hear what goes into mum's old Oil of Ulay (now sans oil, and simply Olay for copyright reasons, I think), it is cringeworthy.

But lanolin. I recall coming face to face with it a few years ago on a walk to the Water Meetings and Quaker Bridge in Barrowford. Summer time. No azure flash of kingfishers racing along Pendle Water that trip, but as I forked right and headed up the road into Blacko to follow it homewards, there was the buzz of clippers in a field. A Landrover was pulled up, with trailer uncoupled. The trailer sported  on- /off- ramps, a generator, and a tall pole, attached to the top of which was a flexible bendy cord. At the end of the cord was the source of the insistent buzzing – sheep shears. The trailer was adjacent to a sheep pen, in which dozens of ewes jostled half-heartedly for position, and peered blankly out. I stopped to watch proceedings and, after a minute or two, the farmer came over, opened the gate, and invited me in.

And so we stood, the three of us. Me, the farmer, and the sheep shearer. And I learned about shearing, fleeces, and sheep. The shearer travelled from farm to farm (hence the Landrover with its bespoke trailer) making his way through Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire on a pre-arranged timetable and route. He was netting £2 a fleece – and he had each of those pliable ladies, and some cantankerous ones – nabbed, shaved, and released at no more than 90 second intervals. The farmer penned the sheep ready, so there was no delay, and they contracted for a minimum number, so farmers with smaller holdings rendezvoused at the farm where the shearer was to set up. Prices for fleeces rose and fell – they weren't bad that year, as I recall, but sheep need shearing whatever the price.

The bewildered ladies were unceremoniously up-ended and plonked on their ample bottoms, whilst the young fella planted his muscular legs and gripped them, and set to work with the clippers. Mostly, they were subdued once he had them: perhaps reassured by his evident skill and no-nonsense approach. That always worked with me when I was a boy: the sound of the airplane clippers, the smell of 3-in-1 oil, and the firm purpose of the barber. Short back and sides and sparse conversation. Mind you, I don't think the barber netted £2 a scalp back in the day.

The sun shone, the sheep skittered off once fleeced, and we three chatted. Soon my eye was drawn to the large grease spot on the wooden trailer. Lanolin, live and in-person. Handy for soap making,  handier still for shedding the filthiest Lancashire weather: these sheep were well set up for inclemencies. I noted, too, that the shearer was wearing moccasins. As the farmer explained, the best shearers wore moccasins. Their suede nap gave some purchase on the slippery grease and their firm pressure was kinder to sheep. Lots of younger men were sporting trainers now, he said, but he didn't rate them. They were not good. The risk of injury to sheep, and man, was increased. I found myself glad that the shearer stood fully congruent with his occupation – no flirting with any Nike or Adidas innovations. Real sheep shearers do it in moccasins.

After the family home was sold and mum and dad went to live in Lomeshaye Village, in one of the old-folks' flats, mum's prediliction for Imperial Leather resurfaced. There was always a bar in the bathroom. With just the two of them (kids all gone) the economies necessary for a family of six, on a wagon driver's income, were less stringent. Imperial Leather was a pensioner indulgence! One of the things that most endeared me to those lozenge-shaped bars of buttermilk hue was the little foil label that conjured up the decadence of the Romanovs. It was my understanding that the label was there to prevent the soap leaving a mess on the sink ceramics or soap dish: you stood the bar on its label. As the soap wore down, the label stood proud and the soap was no longer in contact with the sink – hence, no mess. Perhaps because we were very plebean, the soap was never label down. You announced the fact that you were using it by having the label showing.

For me, nowadays, picking the soap up, lathering it under the tap, releases not so much a fragrance as a wave of nostalgia. Imperial Leather's fragrance has elements of  sandalwood and the richness of plant oils – it's mildly exotic and suggestive of luxury. Which is, no doubt, what Cussons were aiming at. But for me, it mostly carries aromas of mum. It's powerfully evocative. Aromas are.

I can recall a visit – with mum – to Gawthorpe Hall. It's one of the places we'd scoot off to for an afternoon of cultural noseyness, and cake. The cafe was lodged in the stable block and featured home-baking and pots of tea. Ideal for us. After a leisurely brew and news-swop, we were about to go and explore the lovely Elizabethan pile: I decided to make a visit to the lavatory first. The tea room was above, the toilets below, so I skittered down the stairs and found the Gents. The soap was in an old-school wall dispenser: fingers under, palm operates a rectangular squirter. One squidge was enough: the years receded and I was age six, it was dinner time, I was standing at a child-height sink in St George's RC Primary School, Vaughan Street, Nelson, washing my hands so that Mrs. Ingham (a diminutive tyrant) would not throw me out of the dinner queue. The soap dispensed in the Gawthorpe toilet was the same amber-coloured, antiseptic liquid that Lancashire County Council used in its school thirty years before. The power of scent created a wormhole in space-time and drew me through it, irresistably.

That power can be used to advantage, though. You can elect to make the journey. Fragrance can open the portal, on demand. If liquid coal-tar soap can take me to primary school, other fragrances can take me elsewhere.

4711, for instance. That eau-de-cologne can transport me to Köln, and the year 1976. It's a school exchange trip and I'm in Germany, staying with a family from Mayen: we're on a trip to Cologne. I've been up the cathedral tower and seen the Rhine bridges and I'm looking for a present for mum. On Glockenstrasse, at number 4711, stands an impressive perfume factory and shop – home to 4711. The original eau-de-cologne. Echtisch Kölnisch Wasser. It's still there – flagship shop of the perfume house, and it still glitters with possibility. I bought mum a bottle of the eponymous 18th CE perfume and she wore it ever after. Generally, she kept it in her current handbag (before the were, successively, relgated to the gloryhole). She'd dab it on her hanky and freshen up with it on car trips. As a perfume, 4711 has had an odd evoloution over the 200 plus years of its existence; it was, originally, a men's fragrance for the prestige Houses of Europe. More latterly, it has been a women's fragrance – but 4711 indicate it as unisex. I agree. The scent is of citrus and wood that carries a fresh, sharp finish and has enduring undernotes. For me it's an everyday scent: it lives in my sports bag, for application after swims. It's also my travel fragrance and comes with me on every trip, near or far.

As I age (just clocked 56, Not Out), I have a deeper appreciation for my past and how it has shaped who I have become. I heard once that making sense of your life is only possible when you look back over it – I recall an analogy that compared it to running your fingers over a fish's scales: they lie smoothly when stroked in one direction but are likely to tear your flesh if stroked in the wrong one.  I can see connections, recognise how events and people shaped my experiences. I know I hold threads together, personally. I weave my own cloth and a loom I inherited. But some of the aesthetics, some of the yarns, were given to me. I'm the child of weavers in more ways than one.

I can find, too, there's comfort in the sureties of the past. Like the familiarity of an old pair of slippers (not that I wear slippers), the quiet resonances of childhood are reassuring. I think we like continuity, as a species. We tell stories. We create in our own likeness. We look to where we came from to make sense of where we are and to decide where we want to go.

I'm conscious of my heritage. Not (I think) conditioned or stultified by it, or forever harking back to a mystic Golden Age that exists only in the warm fuzziness of a smug and delusional imagination. But I know I make choices that ensure there are tokens of continuity that I can carry with me into my everyday life. Mostly, they are mundane. And I like that, too. It's too easy to confuse what's important with what's vaulable, unless you guard against that possibility. The richer you are, the more imperilled that discernment is. (I've safeguarded myself against that risk very well!).

My tokens are trivial. It's good that they are.

I think of the tea caddy spoon – it's in my kitchen, as it was in mum's kitchen, and as it was in her mum's before her (c/o a pre-WW II holiday to the Isle of Man): or there's my 'ice-cream' spoon – courtesy of Margaret Pepper and the Raj (well, the North Western Railway Volunteer Rifles, circa 1920). These tokens are a continuing connection with people now gone. They are stirred (if you'll forgive the pun) by everyday use.

I note, increasingly, that I am becoming my parents. I look like dad. Really: peas in a pod, chip off the old block, and so on. I look in the mirror and he smiles back at me. I look at my physignomy – and his fingerprints are all over it. My driving style evokes his. In some situations, I can sense him near. Curiously, he underpins my confidence in situations from which his natural diffidence would have disbarred him. If I stand tall, it's because he raised me. As for mum, she's around most days. At breakfast when I make a pot of Yorkshire Tea (there's another evocation!); when the Imperial Leather is handled at shower time; twice weekly, in the men's locker room at Crow Wood, after a swim. Perhaps it's fortunate that it's a personal evocation rather than an universal one?

I don't know if the trivial and potent associations that so flavour my life – 4711, Imperial Leather, and two old spoons – will evoke the same responses among my nephews and nieces and their respective kids once I'm dead. I'm doubtful. They don't live cheek-by-jowl with them, as I do. It matters not. I'm the orphan in the world, now mum and dad are long dead: the comfort blanket offered by fragrances and spoons is mine, and very probably mine alone.

There's quiet comfort in that, too.