Occasionally a brand will tout something that makes me look over my shoulder with a humid fear that they are watching me and marketing accordingly. In a move that I’m sure will feel curiously personal for many, Ikea has announced plans to release its own fragrance. It makes perfect sense that a company that has carved such an important place in our lives would attempt a move into this – the memories industry. The essence of Ikea itself should be preserved, along with every place where our lives change.
Ikea. What’s the smell of moving house for the third time in two years? Dust and plastic, and the sore inevitability of it all, the smell of pennies. But excitement too, in waves of cheap chocolate and the quiet thought that this shelving unit might hold up the rest of your life. Tea lights, because you plan to have dinner parties in this flat, and romance, which reminds you, you’ll need another plate. Rugs. Do we like “rugs”? This is where taste is made, in the slow-moving perambulation towards the tills. Do we like “things”, do we want “children”? The smell of hotdogs eaten in silence.
Big school. A lasagne of smells layered carefully one on top of the other, the most potent being lasagne, but only at midday. Then the smell of teenage feet and, suffocating that, Body Shop Dewberry body spray, which instead of covering them, somehow elevates the individual dynamics of the scent. The sweat, sure, but within that sweat a hundred little anxieties, about periods, parents, Sonya whispering about you in assembly. You’ve never even seen a dewberry.
Waitrose. Here I am, Monsieur Fancy, doop de doo, I got an ISA, smell me. There is a citric softness to the air, top notes of monogamy. A scent for the person with aspirations of a live-work space, but who is making do with a laptop on his knee in his shared-house loo. Apple juice, cloudy, cured fish, the calm of an aeroplane just taking off for Madrid. Here I am, an indisputable human being, splashing out on carbonated water because I can.
Hospital. People have been drinking the hand sanitiser, that’s why it’s in that little locked box. You stand and gaze on it, while rubbing the alcohol into your palms and smelling its aggressive hygiene – while you’re here, you’re not there, by the bed, behind the curtain, near the window that looks out on to a flat roof strewn with Ribena cartons and wet fags. The smell of microwaved meat which so quickly became indistinct from that of death, and which sent you vegetarian in a single afternoon. The barbarity of flowers being banned. This is what you shout at the doctor, that there should have been flowers.
Topshop. The smell of £15 saved over two months, and breath, and the idea of a “going out top” that seemed to arrive fully formed on your 14th birthday. Your best friend, no, your two best friends, strawberry lip balm, doing a virtual bleep test through the shoe bit and a milkshake later which you dip your chips in. The smell of the fantasy of a party to wear this to, and there’ll be boys there and this top will reflect off your skin so they will see the “real you”, and then maybe show her to you.
Bank. You’re sorry, you don’t understand. You’re offering them your income, every month for the next 30 years, and they’re saying you’re not good enough? For the third time in your life you are told you’re not “attractive”, and so now it’s true. You unclench your hands from the seat handles, leaving glossy fingerprints and the smell of all your plans turning to ash. So.
Bus. Why have you never noticed the way the light hits the seat there before? You’ve taken this journey twice a day for four years and never noticed the way it looks like a map. And everything else is the same, but with this new stab of clarity – the smell of stale weed, waterproof plasters, and you concentrate on these to give yourself a second away from what your girlfriend’s telling you, she’s met someone and she owes it to herself etc. But a map of what? Not the UK, not the world. There’s a central road from which smaller paths lead to the sea, and all around is a beach, and it’s a map of an island, and the bus goes over a speedbump and suddenly you smell the seaweed, and the salt, and from this moment on this map of that island will be imprinted on you, like a long way home.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @EvaWiseman
