OH

Death smells like rubbish with two sugars.
The summer after I moved in I noticed a smell I first thought was the pigeon shit on the balcony eventually - ‘Excuse me mate?’ said the man walking the dog. ‘You got the time?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, took out my phone, I said, ‘Quarter to ten, exactly.’ ‘Thanks mate,’ he said, wearing a baseball cap and a blue nylon jacket. The sound of leaves reminds me of Cornwall, she likes it there, wants to go there, ‘You like it too,’ she said, I do - cleaned by two men dressed in full rubber suits, using a shovel to scrape and a brush and metal dustbin, half full when they finished and left.
‘You’ll get red mite,’ said the last man out.
The sweet smell that got up my nose was there still.
‘You smell that smell?’ asked the caretaker on my landing one afternoon.
‘Yes,’ I said wondering what he’d say next.
‘The man in the flat next to yours died,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Yes, six weeks ago it was, only just noticed.’
‘Six weeks?’ thinking of his dead body not that far from me all this time.
‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
I thought and said, ‘No friends or family?’
‘Junky.’
‘Oh.’
‘Gets right in the walls,’ he said.
‘Oh?’
‘The smell.’
‘Oh.’