Chapter 15
NOW
She’d intended to say no to any invitations out this evening, but her housemates proved very persuasive and managed to drag her out for a few drinks.
The bar a few streets away was lively and vibrant, but Bella’s eyelids had started to feel heavy after an hour.
‘I’m going to head off soon,’ she said, glancing at her watch.
Odette checked the time on her phone. ‘But it’s only eleven!’ she said, seemingly confused.
‘Work tomorrow!’ Bella finished the last of her wine and made to grab her jacket.
‘It is just a temp job,’ Henri said, looking at her. ‘Does it matter if you are a little tired? It’s so early!’
Early for a twenty-year-old, maybe, she thought.
Although her own twenties hadn’t looked like this at all.
She’d lost her mother at sixteen, her final teen years to grief.
Then married young, started a business young.
Skipped the years in her twenties that were meant to be about being free and having fun.
Maybe this could be her chance to reclaim something she’d thought was long gone?
Odette laughed, filled her glass from the bottle they were sharing. ‘Stay a little longer,’ she said. ‘You are only young once.’
Bella took a breath. ‘OK. Actually, I need to tell you something.’
Odette and Henri, perhaps detecting the seriousness of her tone, both looked up from their drinks.
This was the moment. ‘I’m actually a thirty-four-year-old divorcee,’ she said.
They were silent and the noise of the bar around them seemed to grow to emphasise this.
Bella instantly wanted to take the words back.
She’d heard what they thought about the ‘ancient’ landlord, Brad.
She’d started to feel as if she might be making friends, real friends; she’d started to feel less alone.
Then Odette glanced at Henri and both turned back to her, grinning.
Henri laughed and raised his glass. ‘You are hilarious!’
‘Yes, this is what they call the British humour, yes?’ Odette said, smiling. ‘Where you say something completely ridiculous.’
‘I— um…’
But they had clearly decided.
‘Imagine!’ Odette said, shaking her head as if the idea were completely insane.
Bella remembered being that way when she was twenty. Everyone had seemed old to her then. People turning thirty had seemed utterly decrepit. ‘It’s true,’ she added, sending them into a renewed burst of laughter.
‘No, I—’ But it was no use. And as they laughed – perhaps not entirely getting the ‘joke’ but wanting to indulge her quirky British ways – she started to feel glad that they hadn’t taken her seriously.
Right now, she needed friends. And these were the only people she had.
She took a large gulp from her glass and moved the conversation on.
‘I’ll stay for a bit longer,’ she said.
An hour on, the place was buzzing with life and there was a feeling of fun and excitement in the air that seemed to surround the small groups of youngsters getting ready to head on to the clubs to continue their night out.
She had been worried about seeing Henri again, but he hadn’t mentioned a thing about the previous night and was acting as if the whole awkward encounter had never happened. She was more than happy to go along with the charade.
‘I’m sorry I can’t buy a round,’ she said as Henri signalled to the waiter to bring another bottle. ‘As soon as I get paid, I’ll—’
But Henri waved his hand as if batting away the suggestion. ‘Non, it is all on my father in any case. He is pressuring me to help with his business. He says I should be representing the family. I have agreed to involve myself more but,’ he shrugged, ‘I am not very happy about it.’
‘Does he know that, though?’ Bella asked. ‘I mean, he can’t force you, surely.’
‘Ha. You haven’t met my father.’
‘No, but…’
Henri shook his head sadly. ‘My father has so much money, and it gives him power. As long as I toe the line, I get to use the credit card,’ and he waved the gold plastic card at her. ‘If I refuse…’ He drew his hand across his throat meaningfully.
‘Oh là là!’ Odette exclaimed in mock horror. ‘Your father will kill you!’
‘Non. Worse. He will cut me off financially, and then I will be working a terrible job at some hotel with Bella.’ He tipped his glass at Bella. ‘Sorry.’
Bella opened her mouth to correct him, to say that actually, she was a project manager. But it was all too complicated to explain.
‘When work is a pleasure, life is a joy. When work is duty, life is slavery,’ Henri said dramatically.
‘Oh no,’ Odette shook her head. ‘Please. He is starting to use literary quotes again. It always happens when he drinks.’
Bella laughed. ‘Well, he’s not wrong.’
‘Exactly. So I am a good boy for my father, and it means I keep my money and can continue my studies. But I have to exact my revenge in some ways.’
‘And you’re doing it by—’
‘I have given myself a raise,’ Henri said. ‘Which means the drinks will always be on me.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a small revenge; my dad is a multimillionaire. But it is something.’
Odette laughed, clinked her glass against Henri’s brandished bottle.
‘I still don’t understand why you don’t take the job with your father, though.
’ She turned to Bella. ‘Henri could be an executive, with very little responsibility and lots and lots of money. But he wants to be a professor instead and try to get students to understand Shakespeare and Molière.’
Henri looked serious. ‘Money doesn’t mean so much to me.’
‘That’s because you have it.’
‘Touché,’ he nodded. ‘Perhaps. But, Odette, I think you are more like me than you imagine. Because working in a bar is not your dream. Your dream is to sell your art, to paint for a living, n’est-ce pas? So you too prefer to stay away from the “career ladder” and pass time until that happens.’
Odette flushed. ‘Maybe.’
‘And so I want to live a life with books, to help other people understand and love literature as I do. Sure, there is no money in it and as my father always tells me, it is not a business. But it is important. “A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart”.’
‘Oh God,’ Odette said quietly. ‘Another quote.’
‘I haven’t seen much of your art yet.’ Bella turned to Odette, changing the subject. ‘I adore the seascape in the hall. I’d love to see what you do.’
Odette flushed. ‘It is not ready yet. I will show you one day.’
‘And are you going to exhibit somewhere? Maybe in a Paris gallery? I’m sure there are lots of opportunities…’
Odette’s skin turned almost purple. She sipped her wine and Bella detected a small tremor in her fingers as they gripped the glass. ‘Oui. I am not ready for them though. It is a very private thing.’
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Henri laughed. ‘Don’t be sorry, Bella. Odette is simply teasing us. She graduated from her art degree with mention très bien – she was top of her class. And I visited her display even though she told me I must not. It was truly exceptional.’
‘Oh wow. Well done!’ Bella flashed a smile at Odette who tried to return it but still looked deeply uncomfortable.
‘I even bought her painting – the beautiful seascape in the hallway.’
Odette seemed to shrink in her seat.
‘Oh, I love that picture!’
‘Yes, me too,’ Henri said. ‘She hates that I display it, but it belongs to me, and I think she should be proud to have it on the wall.’
‘Definitely.’
‘Then since a year – nothing. I have not seen any more works, there have been no exhibitions.’
‘Well, I’m sure good art takes time,’ Bella said, trying desperately to relieve Odette’s embarrassment. ‘I wouldn’t know how to start.’
‘Thank you,’ Odette said softly, nodding at her. ‘Yes, it is hard at the moment.’
There was a silence, amplified somehow by the noisy, happy chatter from the other tables. Bella racked her brain for something interesting to share. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘at least neither of you have to compare yourselves to Kitty.’
Henri looked at her, his face creased with confusion. ‘You compare yourself to a cat?’
She laughed. ‘No. My sister, Kitty. She’s four years older than me and she’s one of those people who do everything perfectly.’
‘You do not get along?’ Odette asked.
‘Oh, we do. She’s great. It’s just, it’s hard growing up in someone’s shadow like that. Every failure I had seemed… worse somehow.’
‘But have you failed?’ Henri asked, confused. ‘Of course, right now you are an intern but it is only temporary. You will have your degree soon. And you are improving your French which is already very good. You live in Versailles! She should be jealous of you!’
Bella smiled. She couldn’t explain about the almost decade she’d lived in France already; about the failed marriage, the closed-down business.
It was hard, too, to put into words the sense of being less that she’d carried with her all her life.
‘Maybe,’ she said instead, wishing she’d never brought it up.
* * *
She was not drunk two hours later when they started to walk home, but pleasantly tipsy. Not a fan of red wine, she’d been able to pace herself and although she knew she would be tired tomorrow morning, without the addition of a hangover she’d probably be OK.
They walked from the town, with its old, square-windowed buildings with their flat, white stone fronts, across a cobbled street where the properties seemed less stiff and poised; older, but quainter too.
The cobbles were a nightmare with the slight heels on her shoes but just as she stumbled, Henri reached a hand out to grab her arm and steadied her in the nick of time.
‘Thank you!’ she said, rolling her eyes and embarrassed. ‘It’s not the wine, it’s the cobbles.’
‘They take some getting used to,’ he said, and held his hand towards her. ‘Do you want—?’
She put her hand into his, feeling the soft warmth of his fingers as they closed around hers. Her mind helpfully pulled up a picture of Henri in the shower at this moment, just to ensure that she didn’t enjoy this simple offer of help but charged it instead with sexual tension.
Looking up at him smiling at her, she felt a shiver of pleasure. But of course, it was just the red wine and the fact that she hadn’t had sex for over a month, she decided, as they turned the corner onto more sensible paving and her hand was dropped.
She saw Odette looking at her, an eyebrow raised quizzically.
‘What?’
‘Henri is being quite the gentleman with you,’ her new friend said. ‘I think he would let me fall onto my face on these stones before he offered me his hand.’
‘Oh!’
Odette laughed. ‘You have gone quite red.’
Henri turned at this point and looked at them quizzically. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Bella was just telling me about life in England,’ Odette lied, giving Bella a small wink.
Finally home, Odette once again disappeared to her room, clicking the door shut behind her.
Bella realised that she hadn’t asked her about last night – the crying she’d heard coming from somewhere in the house.
But then, had she heard anything? Her head had been spinning, her mind, active; it had been late – and she’d had a bit to drink.
Enough to cloud her judgement at least. Perhaps it had been nothing but her imagination.
She looked at Henri. ‘Last night,’ she said, then realised her mistake.
Because the most memorable thing about that to him would probably be the moment they’d shared.
‘I am sorry,’ he said, stepping towards her. He smelled of wine and expensive cologne, of shampoo and fabric conditioner. ‘You had had too much alcohol for me to…’ he trailed off, allowing a single finger to trace a line from her shoulder to her elbow.
‘Oh. No. Don’t worry,’ she gabbled. ‘I completely… I’m so embarrassed that I—’
‘But you have not had so much tonight?’ he said, the last word raised in an inflexion.
‘No,’ she said, looking at him, feeling her skin tingle a little at his touch.
Before she could say anything more, he leant down and brushed his lips against hers. It was a gentle, inquisitive kiss; a question wrapped in an action.
There was a part of her which couldn’t believe that this young, ridiculously handsome man was kissing her. But another part of her that wanted to break off and confess that she was actually in the middle of a divorce, that she hadn’t exactly been honest with him.
‘Henri,’ she said, moving her head slightly. ‘There are things you don’t know. About me. I think you should—’
‘Non,’ he said softly, smoothing back her hair. ‘I know everything that I need to know. I can feel you, your spirit. You don’t need to say anything.’
‘But—’
Then he leant in and kissed her again. And she felt suddenly swept up and desirable and, if she were honest, downright sexy. To be together with someone, even for one night, felt impossible to resist.