Chapter 10
NOW
Half an hour later, Bella ventured downstairs, changed into a simple white summer dress.
The idea of apéros sounded quite sophisticated – the tiny nibbles and drinks served before an evening meal had been something she and Pete had sometimes offered guests.
But they’d rarely had the chance to have any themselves.
In fact the more she thought about it, the more she realised how many of the dreams they’d had had fallen by the wayside – there had been no trips to Paris, no weekend jaunts to the Riviera.
They hadn’t visited the lakes in the Loire or gone on a wine tasting tour.
They’d stayed, for the most part, in Peyrat and although their world seemed expansive to those they’d left in England, in many ways it had shrunk.
Before arriving in Versailles, she’d been determined to keep herself to herself – to work the three months until her house finally sold, then disappear.
Only when Odette had asked her to have a drink with them, it had seemed impossible to say no.
Perhaps because of her embarrassment over Henri.
Or perhaps just because, if she were honest, she’d never felt so alone.
As she reached the bottom of the stairs, for the first time in a couple of tumultuous months, she felt a lift – as if something were holding her upright. Hope.
It was kind of nice to be living in student accommodation; her own uni days existed only in her imagination.
She’d wanted to go once, but after she’d failed her A levels and taken a job in a pharmacy, it hadn’t seemed to matter.
She hadn’t cared back then, at a time when life had seemed to pass at a snail’s pace, every moment drenched in grief.
But she sometimes liked to imagine what it might have been like, living vicariously through Kitty’s stories of wild nights out and exhausted days in lectures.
When she entered the kitchen, Odette had already opened a bottle of cherry wine, and placed it next to a bowl of tortilla chips and an open pot of dip. Two little glasses were set out on the table.
It wasn’t quite the decadent spread Bella had pictured. But it was a start.
‘Voilà!’ Odette passed her a glass and she took a sip.
‘Oof!’ she gasped involuntarily after the thick, syrupy liquid burned down her throat. It took all the willpower she had not to spit the whole mouthful out.
‘You do not like?’
‘Oh no. It’s lovely, just… strong.’ ‘Strong’ was an understatement. In fact, it reminded her of the cough syrup her mother used to force down her when she had the flu, but with a shot of turpentine in it for good measure. ‘Yummy.’
‘It is good, yes?’ Odette asked with a sideways glance, refilling her own drink.
‘Yes. Lovely.’ Bella grabbed a few tortilla chips, but it was going to take a lot more carbs to soak up something this strong.
She hadn’t got anything in the cupboards, no plans.
Her stomach grumbled reproachfully. ‘What do you usually do for dinner?’ she asked.
‘Is there somewhere local you like to go?’
Odette shrugged. ‘Sometimes we eat, sometimes we forget.’
‘Oh.’ Her stomach grumbled again in protest.
There was a creak on the stairs and she turned, aghast, remembering suddenly that there was a third person in the house.
Before she could prepare herself properly (if that was even possible), Henri strolled casually in, wearing a short-sleeved black shirt and jeans, with the casual air of one who hasn’t had his genitals on display to an unexpected stranger.
‘Bonsoir,’ he said, giving her a nod and reaching out to accept a glass of wine from Odette.
He really was handsome. She hadn’t noticed his face much before – her eyes had been drawn elsewhere.
She’d noticed he was brown-haired and slim but hadn’t got as far as studying his features.
His eyes were kind, his expression amused, and she felt herself relax.
He looked, she thought, a little like a hero from a period drama, a nineties Mr Darcy, or a modern Colin Bridgerton.
She could just imagine him riding up on horseback, or arriving in a carriage, that dark, thick hair blowing in the breeze, his—
With a start she realised he was talking to her.
‘…university?’ he finished, eyeing her over the top of his glass.
‘Well, no. I’m working, actually. Just a temporary thing,’ she said, trying to keep things vague.
‘Like a gap year from your degree or an internship?’ Odette chipped in.
‘Well…’
‘It must be hard for you to be so far from family?’
‘Yes, in some ways. But…’ She shrugged in a way she hoped would indicate things were not straightforward when it came to her family situation. ‘So you’re both at uni?’ she prompted, trying to shift the conversation away from herself.
Henri nodded. ‘Well, I am. Odette lived here throughout her degree, but she graduated last year.’
Odette nudged Henri: ‘She is probably only asking because you look so old!’
‘I’m really not— I—’
‘Henri is a mature student,’ Odette confided.
‘No!’ Henri gave a mock scowl. ‘I am not an old man who wants to study in his retirement,’ he said. ‘I am just someone who is keeping his options open.’
‘This is his second degree,’ Odette said. ‘And he will soon start his Master’s. But he is old – twenty-five!’
‘Oh!’ Bella found herself saying. ‘Your second degree?’
Odette laughed. ‘Henri is an eternal scholar. He plans never to enter the real world if possible.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Bella said. She opened her mouth to say that she’d kill just to have one chance to go to uni, live that life, but remembered just in time.
‘And you. Your job. What are you going to do?’ Odette asked her.
She flushed. ‘I’ve got a job in a hotel. It’s not really a proper job. I mean, it is a job, of course. But not a career. I’m basically making ends meet until…’ She trailed off, unable to bring herself to mention her divorce, the house sale, the reason for her temporary cash flow situation.
‘I understand,’ Odette says. ‘It is not what you want to do forever.’
Bella nodded. This, at least, was true.
‘I am the same. I work in a bar, but painting is my passion.’ She looked a little sad. ‘Perhaps one day it will pay.’
Henri laughed – a rich, indulgent sound. ‘Look at us!’ he said. ‘Let’s not be miserable. I think at our age it is normal to be a bit lost, non? We can make the most of this time. We are only in our twenties!’
Bella opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t his age. But something stopped her.
Why not be in her twenties, at least for just one night?
Her own twenties had been spent in a haze of depression, before she’d met Pete and they’d – as he put it – run away to France on a whim.
Perhaps life was giving her a second chance.
So instead, she raised her glass with them, then took a deep gulp of the cough-mixture wine.
‘So, welcome to Versailles,’ Odette said. ‘To student life! à la France!’
‘Ha. Yes,’ Bella managed.
‘And you’re single?’ Henri asked.
‘Henri! I apologise for my friend, he is not subtle,’ Odette said, giving Henri a small punch. ‘Clearly, he wants to ask you on a date.’
‘Not at all. I was wondering because I might be able to introduce her to my single friends.’
‘What single friends do you mean? I don’t think you have any, except perhaps Brad.’
‘Oh, bon Dieu, non! Not Brad! He is too old for sex! I cannot think about it.’ Henri laughed.
‘Who’s Brad?’
‘Oh, the proprietor! Of course, you came through the agency, n’est-ce pas? Brad is an américain. He lives in Bordeaux but comes to Versailles sometimes for business. The house was his grandmother’s.’
‘He is grumpy, but then he is old. Perhaps even forty,’ Henri added as if this explained everything. ‘He cannot help it.’
‘Forty?’ Bella couldn’t help her surprised interjection.
‘But that’s—’ Was forty old to these people?
She tried to think back to when she was in her early twenties.
Life hadn’t kicked in, or kicked her in the shins at that stage, and the idea of forty had been both terrifying and reassuringly distant.
‘Oui, he could be our father.’
Bella took another long slug of wine and nodded. ‘Hmm hmm.’
An hour later they were in the living room, a pizza box and two bottles open on the table between them.
Everything had become pleasantly soft-focused and wibbly in the early evening light.
She’d learned that Odette poured wine at a local bar most afternoons and that Henri was studying classical literature.
‘It is completely useless in the modern world of course. But it doesn’t matter,’ Odette confided in her, ‘he is rich, and his parents could pay for him to study his whole life if he wishes to.’
‘Ah, but they have other plans for me,’ Henri said darkly. ‘They pay for me, so they feel they own me.’
Odette laughed. ‘See? Too much literature. Henri, you are becoming quite dramatic!’
Bella was no longer feeling awful about her lies. Everything was mashed up in a state of blurry contentment. No need to tell people about ex-husbands, or B & Bs, mortgages or bank accounts with scarily small balances.
So they thought she was twenty-something, and on some sort of work experience or gap year?
She leant back against the buttoned leather of the chesterfield.
Perhaps this was one of those times when she was allowed to be a little loose with the truth, when she could be – for once – whomever she wanted to be without having to live up to anyone’s expectations.
She’d thought back to that final exchange and hated herself.
Nobody here could compare her to Kitty. Nobody knew that she had just 200 euros left in her bank account and would have to make it stretch. Nobody knew that she’d accepted a job without fully knowing what it would entail.
So maybe it would be fun to be twenty again she thought, allowing her eyes to meet Henri’s and feeling a shiver of something long forgotten. If only for a little while.