‘Oui?’
The woman – or girl, really – who opened the door was dressed in a loose-fitted shirt, covered in flecks of paint. Her fingers were stained red at the tips and even her hair – auburn and pulled back into a messy ponytail – sported little dots of accidental colour. The afternoon sunlight rested on her face revealing smooth, porcelain skin, naturally arched eyebrows, a rosebud mouth. She was young – no more than twenty. Bella thought of her own skin, already starting to form fine lines around her eyes, and wished she’d never lied about being a student.
‘I’m sorry, I’m interrupting,’ she said. She should have just used the key; the agent had said she’d be free to come and go as she pleased. But it would have felt odd just letting herself into someone else’s home for the first time without any sort of introduction. They’d probably have called the police.
True, at five foot four, with her neat, shoulder-length hair, fitted jeans and wheeled suitcase, she probably didn’t look like a hardened criminal. And the young woman didn’t look the type to rugby-tackle an intruder to the ground. But you can never be too careful – and the last thing Bella wanted was to get off to a bad start. She’d had enough bad starts – and come to think of it, bad middles and endings – to last her a lifetime.
The young woman looked at her, tilting her head quizzically. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked in heavily accented English.
She was clearly trying to be helpful with her language choice, but it made Bella aware that despite her continually improving French, her accent must have given her away. ‘Sorry,’ she said automatically. She wondered whether she’d ever behaved quite so Britishly in her life. She’d said five words so far and two of them had been ‘sorry’s. ‘I’m Bella. I’m—I’ve rented the spare room.’
‘Odette,’ the girl said in response.
On autopilot, Bella held out her hand for a shake. Both of them looked down at her clean hands, her neat, manicured nails. The girl shook her head. ‘Do not be offended, Madame,’ she said, ‘but I do not want to get paint on you.’
‘Sorry.’ Bella cringed at her own word now and noticed a flicker of amusement in Odette’s expression. Odette was speaking in her second language and she’d still managed to use a wider vocabulary than Bella in this small exchange.
In all honesty, she was a little put out by the ‘madame’ part. Surely, at thirty-four, she was still ‘mademoiselle’? She knew that some younger French women found the term archaic and sexist, but ‘madame’ sounded to her like a woman of at least twice her age – someone who ran a café and wore her grey hair in a bun, chain-smoked and sported scarlet lipstick.
She was not there yet. Quite.
‘Entrez.’ Odette turned away, leaving the door open behind her.
Tentatively, Bella stepped into the hallway which was laid in parquet, something showcased in the photos she’d viewed before committing. What the photos hadn’t revealed was that the wooden floor was worn and uneven; it squeaked under her weight. But then this was student accommodation.
In the past she’d have spent ages researching before choosing somewhere to live. Or to work, for that matter. But a combination of misery and late nights meant she’d put down a deposit on this place sight unseen.
In fact, her whole life right now was sight unseen.
The hallway also sported an old-fashioned coat stand in one corner, with several mismatched garments hanging from it: a powder-blue jacket, a heavy wool coat, two hoodies and what looked like a pair of running shorts. A pile of post sat on a small table next to it, together with a couple of sets of keys and – for no apparent reason – one shoe.
There was also a painting on the wall; a large, wooden-framed seascape in oils – beautiful, confident strokes of blue and green to make up whirling waves, the abstract form of a ship being tossed on a playful ocean. The contrast between the fine art and its lacklustre surroundings made it seem almost comically incongruous – a neglected animal with a diamond collar or a battered car sporting expensive alloys.
‘Thanks,’ she said, although she knew Odette, like her, would just be renting a room. It wasn’t as if she’d offered Bella her hospitality. Still, after three ‘sorry’s in a row, at least it was a new, slightly less apologetic word.
‘Didn’t they give you a key?’
‘Oh. Yes, they did. I just—it felt too weird to just walk in.’ Bella smiled but it felt forced; unnatural. Recently, she’d felt more conscious of herself, her actions, her appearance than she had in a decade – as if she’d travelled back in time to her late teens.
She’d been with Pete for over a decade, married for eight. They’d come to France together to run the B&B and pretty much spent every day in each other’s company. For better or for worse. Latterly, obviously, for worse.
Now that she was an individual again she felt strangely vulnerable, exposed, with no Pete buffer to fall back on.
Inside, Odette gestured at the stairs. ‘The spare room is on the right at the top.’ She smiled, but almost instantly turned back towards another door, propped open with a pile of books. ‘This is mine,’ she said, looking over her shoulder before stepping through and pulling the door to, so just her face was exposed in the gap.
‘Right.’ Bella continued to smile. What was actually wrong with her? Had she literally frozen to the spot?
Odette looked amused. ‘You will be OK to find your room?’
‘Yes! Yes, of course.’
‘Well, I will get back to my painting. But come ask if you need anything. Knock first, please.’ Then, still smiling, Odette turned and disappeared like a cat slinking out of sight. The door clicked firmly into place.
‘Well, that went well,’ Bella muttered to herself before pulling her wheeled suitcase to the edge of the stairs, then adjusting it so she could carry it upwards.
As she made her way to the second floor, she could feel any hope she’d had of finding a friendly welcome, of fitting in, drain away.
8
