Chapter 38
NOW
‘Ta-da!’ she said, opening the door and gesturing enthusiastically with her arms.
Claudine gave her a puzzled look, which could be interpreted as ‘What is the crazy English woman doing now?’ but stepped inside the completed Superior room.
Bella was reminded of the nineties home makeover programmes where the host would show the owner into their newly decorated room and the audience would hold their breath, waiting to find out if they’d like it or burst into tears.
Claudine’s hands flew to her mouth and for a moment Bella felt more sympathy for Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen than she’d thought possible.
She’d been sure that Claudine was going to fall in love with the renewed decor as quickly as she had, but the pause was more unbearable: the kind of long silence usually reserved for judges’ verdicts on TV talent shows.
Claudine had approved the mood boards, she’d seen the linen samples and pictures of the artwork.
She’d even had a sniff of the scented candles that Bella had put on the beautifully varnished chest of drawers.
But she hadn’t seen the combination of them all together: the curtains hung, the cushions scattered, the painting adorning the wall and the candles’ flickering flames.
‘Do you like it?’ Bella asked at last, timidly, looking at her boss’s back as she toured the room, inspecting the painting, the walls, the newly acquired bed linen.
Claudine turned to her, eyes shining. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she said. ‘Oh, it’s amazing. When they see what we can offer our guests in the Superior rooms and hear our plans to roll out the design even more, I am sure they will be thrilled!’
‘Thank you.’
Claudine smiled. ‘So, what’s next? What is left to do?’
The four Hotel Club delegates would arrive in a week’s time, and be shown to the Superior rooms. They’d do a tour of the hotel as a whole, with Madame Roux squirreled away somewhere no doubt.
They’d eat at the hotel restaurant, then there’d be the meeting, the presentation and presumably some time after that, the verdict.
Bella had a fizz of excitement inside her, similar to that she’d had at school before her GCSEs.
Part of it was nerves, fear. But part was a feeling that things were going to go well, that she had finally proven that, qualifications or not, poor choices or not, she was good enough. She could succeed.
She beamed at Claudine. ‘Well, we have a photographer coming later to take some pictures of the new rooms for the presentation, so I’m going to leave them dressed like this, welcome trays and all.’
Claudine nodded.
‘Then it’s a case of rehearsal and checking on suppliers’ arrival times, that sort of thing. But I think, I think, we’re pretty much there!’
Claudine made a noise that from a more frivolous woman would have been described as a squeal, but was so out of character that they were both momentarily stunned.
Then, rather than leave the room or whip out her phone and schedule in times for a rehearsal, she sank suddenly to the bed – almost as if her legs no longer had strength to hold her.
Her hands went to her face again, this time covering her eyes, nose and mouth entirely.
It was only when her shoulders started to shake that Bella realised what was happening.
Claudine was crying. Sobbing, actually, would be more of an apt description.
‘Claudine?’ she said, floored for a moment. Claudine was not the sort of person to show much emotion, especially at work.
Bella instantly began to worry that this was a delayed reaction to her design. Perhaps she’d overdone it on the colour? The theme? Had she missed quirky and gone straight to tacky or overdone?
Nervously, she perched on the bed next to her boss and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. ‘Claudine,’ she said, feeling sick. ‘What’s wrong?’
Claudine raised her face from her hands.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks were wet.
Her hair, usually so neatly scraped back, had escaped from its chignon and some strands stuck straight out around her face.
It should have made her look awful, but somehow, she looked younger, vulnerable in a way that Bella had never seen before.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing is wrong.’
Bella looked at her, waiting for some sort of explanation.
‘Ah, I suppose I can tell you now, as we are friends as well as colleagues?’ Claudine looked at Bella for confirmation.
‘Of course.’
‘Well,’ Claudine sighed, as if she were expelling breath she’d held onto for some time. ‘OK. So, when I took you on, I wasn’t 100 per cent honest with you.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I told you that the hotel wanted to achieve Hotel Club accreditation to get to the next stage, to be a bigger player, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Yes. And… I mean, the Hotel Club people are coming… so…?’
Claudine nodded. ‘Oh, yes. It is very much something we want. But it is not so much to get the hotel to the next stage, but to save it.’
‘Oh?’
Claudine looked at her hands, turning them over as if they might hold some sort of answer. ‘When my husband left me, I had been away from work for a time,’ she said. ‘We had hoped for children but… well, never mind. That is a story for another time.’
‘OK?’
‘The hotel was one of his assets. He was quite successful in business. And I acquired it in the divorce. I think, although I didn’t know it at the time, he tricked me a little.
Because it was not in as good a state as he said.
There were problems with the building, things that needed to be corrected. ’
Bella nodded, encouraging Claudine to continue.
‘I think he thought in any case that I would just sell it. But I had worked in hospitality some years before, and I had no other skills. So I decided to run it, to try to make it work.’
‘Right.’
‘This was five years ago. And it has been a difficult time. There are many things in this industry that I was not aware of. Difficulties, overheads. Staff. And of course we had to close for a time for some renovations. There was damp.’
‘So…?’
‘Since then, we have done OK. Better than OK, perhaps. Especially with a novice leading the way. But because of the costs of the renovations, because of the time we spent closed… the hotel has lost a lot of money, and we are not making enough to correct the balance.’ She looked at Bella, her eyes wide.
‘I can tell you this now that we are nearly there, but without this accreditation, the extra money and custom it will bring, I was afraid I would have to close.’
Bella felt sick. So much had been resting on her doing a good job.
In some ways she was glad she hadn’t realised that before.
All I’d thought about was myself, how I was going to manage, she thought.
She’d assumed that Claudine was experienced, that if she had done a bad job her boss would have picked up on it.
But it seemed, actually, that they were both a little in the dark – only Claudine, as the owner, had the right to be.
But it was OK, she reassured herself. They’d made it. She’d made it. The job she’d done for Claudine may have started off being a bit rudimentary, but she’d learned along the way and now they were ready to impress the executives. It would be OK.
Claudine wiped her eyes then decisively slapped her hands on her legs before standing up. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Enough of that. Time to be the big boss again.’ She gave Bella a little wink.
‘Your secret is safe with me.’
When she was gone, Bella plumped the pillows and straightened the bedding. She went to stand in the doorway as she had before to take in the whole of the room. Surely it would be enough. It had to be.
Quietly she closed the door and made her way to her office. She had two hours to kill before the photographer arrived and wanted more than ever to be sure she was ready for the presentation.
At her desk, she answered a few emails before checking her spam. There was a note from an unknown email address that she would have left alone had it not been for the title ‘Urgent.’
She opened it, and realised that it was from Pete. She’d blocked his email address but he’d written it from a second one.
Bella, my messages don’t seem to be getting through.
Are you OK? I told you that I need to speak to you, and I know you said you’re busy, but I really think that you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.
Please reply to this urgently so I know you’re all right.
I’m at the Peyrat house for a day or so more, but I can be with you in a few hours, whenever you’re ready. Pete.
She simply couldn’t deal with this now. She’d had an update from the agent immobilier and knew that the house sale was due to complete in three weeks’ time, so it couldn’t be anything about that.
She’d yet to speak to a solicitor about their divorce, but it was early days in their separation, and she wasn’t in a rush to get that particular ball rolling.
Not until she’d sorted everything here at work. One crisis at a time.
He must have suspected she’d blocked him; otherwise, why use the separate address?
If she replied to this email, she’d just be confirming the fact.
Better, surely, to give it a couple of days, wait until the Hotel Club executives had left and then reply to his original email, citing problems with her PC.
She closed the email and left it in spam.
Back in her inbox, there was a new email. This one from an address she did recognise. Juliette’s.
Hello,
You mentioned you had an important event at work, and I am at a loose end this week, so I thought I could come and stay in your hotel and offer you moral support. What do you think?
J
Hi Juliette,
That would be amazing. I’d love to see you. Maybe we can go out after to celebrate (fingers crossed). I’ll book you a room with my staff discount. It won’t be one of the Superior rooms I’m afraid (the ones I’ve worked on the most) but I’m getting some photos taken this afternoon and…
Before she could write more, an almost deafening sound began to reverberate around the building. Seconds later her door flew open and Yves burst in. ‘It’s the fire alarm!’ he said. ‘We need to evacuate!’
‘Oh my God, is there a fire?’
‘It might be one of the guests activating it in error,’ he admitted as they jogged down the stairs. ‘Sometimes it happens. But it’s important we get everyone out safely. You need to assemble in the car park – can you get there OK? I’m going to check the rooms for guests.’
‘Are you sure I can’t help?’
He shook his head. ‘It is protocol,’ he said, ‘don’t worry.’
She nodded. At least she had some time before the photographer arrived and work wasn’t too hectic, or she’d have cursed being away from her desk like this.
She wondered whether the fire alarm had been set off deliberately, or whether someone had stumbled against one of the red fire points or something.
Yves was right, it was more than likely a false alarm.
It was only when she passed the entrance to the second floor that she was sure for a moment that she could smell smoke.