Acetone

The 'woosh' of the metro's sliding doors wafted in the pungent smell of acetone. I stepped out onto the platform, wondering where the odour was coming from. It was then I had my Madeleine moment.

The smell triggered memories of my mother's 60's hard core pink nails, her Cutex supply, the bottles of Chanel on the window sill, her thin brown ribbed turtle neck sweaters, the zip on calf length boots and her jet black hair.

The memories bring sadness, and a smile. Making my way up the escalators, I remind myself how everybody else knew her better than I ever did and talks about her as if she was a saint.

For the child I was all a mother ever can be, is the comfort after scraping your knee, or the slap on the wrist when you did wrong.

I remember sitting on the stairs with her, shoulder to shoulder, after being bold, and her forgiving me with a sense of embarrassment at her own anger. 'Are we friends again?' she'd say and I'd welcome it.

That's all really. That's all the memories I have. She wasn't given the time to become a real person to me. Just... 'mum'.

Gone.

At the top of the escalator I see men in white coveralls painting the walls. The acetone trigger makes way for the smell of wet white paint.

Overground the sky is bright. Work waits.