Henri nodded. ‘Well,Iam. 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 amaturestudent,’ 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’thisage. 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 anaméricain. 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.’
