I make sure to get every inch of my arms and legs as I rub my oat and lavender-scented body lotion all over. My elbows feel like sandpaper, so I add more. I take my favourite t-shirt out from the corner where I threw it and slip it on. The cotton has been worn into perfect buttery softness — by me, my ex-boyfriends, the occasional drunk friend sleeping over, and by whoever wore it before it wound up in the overpriced vintage shop I got it from. I remember they had the same fancy fabric fragrance I had once found in a home décor boutique and bought myself for Christmas. It smelled like sandalwood and patchouli and amber and oud. And a hint of something sweet and sensual I could never identify. I fall asleep hugging my pillow.

 

I like to use scent to map out my life. My favourite t-shirt smelled fresh, like talcum powder and musk, when I was staying with my dad. When I lived with Alain, it smelled like cheap, soapy laundry detergent. And it wasn’t as soft as usual cause it’s not like we were buying fabric softener or anything. In my college flat, it smelled like pear and aloe vera. In Tuscany, it smells like teakwood and tobacco, with a hint of lemongrass from the mosquito coils laying around the terrace, and some of the neighbour’s cigar smoke drifting by.

 

These days, when I feel like I’m losing track of myself, I like to rinse a ripe nectarine under the kitchen sink and bite into it, slowly. I like the ones that are about to go, maybe they have a little patch that’s starting to wrinkle. Those are the best. I like to feel the sweet, sticky juice dribbling down my wrists. Jo Malone has a nectarine and honey cologne, I found it in a store back in May. I really liked it. I smelled it again in the airport and it wasn’t as good. Scent used to be evocative enough, vivid enough to make me feel full. Now not so much.

 

I wake up in a mezzanine bed, custom made to fit the gnarly corners of this beautiful stone house. Previous guests have said it’s a claustrophobic space. There are other empty bedrooms, ones that have thicker mattresses and more air, but I like it here. It’s a small, hot nook carved in between two walls. I like how close together they are. I wish they would swallow me whole. I can hear the cicadas’ song and some stray dogs barking as I focus on climbing down the stairs — so many menacingly sharp corners — and I drag my feet to the kitchen. I lay my forehead on the white marble counter to cool it down, then each cheek. It’s thick, expensive; a perfect morning facial for mid-July nights, so hot your hair curls from your own sweat. I make myself coffee with the Pavoni, closing my eyes to savour the last bit of sleep leaving my body as the bitter, heady smell fills up the room.

 

I put on my workout clothes and tie my hair back. I don’t typically run, but a change in my heart rate sounds delectable. I leave through the garden gate and start running around the surrounding countryside, my shoes gathering white dust from the brittle rocks being crushed under their impact. I love the way my lungs plead for more air, forcing me to take slow, deep breaths; I respond with mouthfuls of the penetratingly sweet smell of the pink and white oleanders lining the unpaved path.

 

Today is the day I sit down and paint. An insultingly blank canvas has been laying upright in the foyer for a week now, giving me probing looks. I picked it up the last time I made the effort to walk into town. I should go today actually; I’m running out of nectarines. I have four hours left before the farmers load their tables and baskets back into their trucks and leave, but the thought of the scorching sun on my back during the forty-minute walk makes me nauseous. I’ve been feeling weak the past few days. Dizzy and jittery, as if I’d been starving myself or something, but I haven’t skipped a single meal. Cooking is very important to me in times of isolation. In the summer, my gathering instincts take over, facilitated by my long-standing vegetarianism. I like to compose elaborate salads, perfect little seasonal mosaics. Grilled nectarines, burrata, walnuts, and balsamic vinegar. Quinoa, Golden Crown tomatoes, dried raisins, avocado, and feta. I’ve made tons of preserves; I feel like the women in We’ve Always Lived in the Castle. Lemons, pickled onions with black pepper. Nectarines, obviously. I love seeing them neatly displayed in identical jars when I open the fridge in the morning. I don’t think I could do without it. Today I just want a big, soaking piece of Buffalo mozzarella dipped in black truffle oil, with some of the challah I made yesterday. I don’t like to use the oven in this heat, but I just can’t have Tuscan bread. It’s saltless and insipid. When I’m cooking, I exclusively listen to albums made in 1971: Adagio by Santo & Johnny, Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, and The Smiths’ eponymous first record. Also podcasts about Deleuze’s conception of desire, Sylvia Plath’s poem Daddy, or the lives of famous heiresses. I read the diaries of Anaïs Nin. I consume as much food and knowledge as I can, hoping it will give me a sense of satiety, of repletion. But there remains a restlessness I can’t shake.

 

I grab the canvas and set up in the living room, in front of the huge revolving window. My days of countryside domesticity make me gravitate towards a simple, atavistic subject: the landscape. The lush Tuscan country. I get started with the first layer. All I have is acrylics, so the usual breeze which smells like hay and cypress trees acquires a faint note of ammonia. I love the rush you get once you fall into a rhythm while making art, effectively articulating a feeling, giving it a physical form. I wish I could do that with smell, I wish I could give smell a physical form, and touch it, eat it. I’m afraid I’m not quite there yet. The landscape is coming together nicely, the strokes are still just a suggestion, but an acute one. I take a smaller brush for the detailing. This is the bit I find nerve-racking — I want precision, an answer to my question. Once done, I put the brush down and examine my work. My arms drop in desperation. What I’ve made is a grotesque approximation; it’s derivative, unremarkable, unsure of itself. There is an evident, juvenile urgency to it. It’s rushed.

I feel exhausted. Without my knowing, a pressing sense of lack has carved its place in my life, within me, and has become gradually more exacting. Not the kind of lack that weighs on your chest, the kind that has you turning and burning. I find myself rushing over to the neighbouring estate. I call for Cesare. He’s a butcher, the one who smokes all the cigars. I make up a premise for being there and smile until my face hurts, hoping he’ll offer me some of the delicacies he’s brought home to his family from the shop today. I gasp when he comes back out of his house and unwraps the bloody sheets of paper — it’s a kilo of Florentine steak. The second he goes back in I steal some thyme and sage from his vegetable garden. I run home firmly gripping my bounty with both hands. I grab the best pan the house offers — copper — from the pantry and cover it in extra-virgin olive oil. I throw the leaves in first to bring out the flavours, then take the steak and cook both sides with salt and pepper until it’s rare. I find the bottle of red I bought when I first arrived and pour enough wine in to cover half an inch of the steak and cook it until it’s reduced. I plate it and add a pinch of Maldon salt. I sit down. I haven’t had meat in years. Before I know it, I’ve swallowed the whole thing, barely chewing, licking the plate and what was left on the fork. My body brings me back to itself and I uneasily climb the stairs up to my room and up the mezzanine, feeling sick and lethargic. I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, without holding on to anything.

 

I wake up in a sweat, my nostrils stinging from a strong, tangy smell. I struggle to sit up, my eyes are heavy, but I catch a glimpse of bright red, forcing me to look more closely. Copious amounts of blood surround me, my nightgown ruined, a childish sense of shame arising in me even though I’m alone and unobserved. I smile. I’m not quite full, but my sense of smell is back.