‘You came to take my things?’
‘No! No. Of course not! Well… I was just going to borrow something. You’ve been so generous with your clothes, and I thought you wouldn’t mind. I didn’t want to wake you and…’
‘You came into my room!’
‘Well. Yes.’ There didn’t seem to be much point in denying this obvious fact.
‘And you know that I hate people doing this!’
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were just?—’
‘Justwhat?’Odette’s eyes narrowed.
Bella took a breath. ‘I thought you were probably just a bit messy. That maybe you didn’t want me to see your room because you were embarrassed. I didn’t realise—’ She gestured vaguely at the stacked canvases, the pure chaos with which Odette had surrounded herself.
Odette took a step forward. Despite her tiny frame, Bella found herself trying to step back. But there was a pile of canvases behind her: she was trapped.
‘You didn’t realisewhat?’ Odette’s voice was louder than before, her eyes flashing. ‘That I am mad? That I live in a room full of pictures that nobody wants? That I am not messy but crazy?’
‘No. No! Not at all.’ Bella waved her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Just?—’
Odette took another step and for a moment Bella worried that her housemate was going to lunge forward and hit her. But then, as if someone had clicked a switch, Odette’s shoulders slumped, and the life seemed to drain out of her. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Now you know my secret. I can paint, I can produce work. But I cannot let people see it. I cannot bring myself to show anyone.’
‘I don’t understand. They’re beautiful, you should?—’
Odette looked at her, her eyes dull. ‘Yes, perhaps. But are they good enough for a Parisian gallery? Curators, they can be very exacting. I cannot bear?—’
‘They’re—’
Odette’s expression seemed to harden. ‘What do you know of art? And in any case, you should not have come into my room. Perhaps you think I am strange, that I am living strangely. But you had no right.’ It was hard to tell whether the moisture shining in Odette’s eyes was the result of sadness or anger.
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
Odette sat on the floor, folding herself seamlessly into a cross-legged position like a child in a school assembly. ‘Just go. Please.’
‘But you’re not— We can talk… and?—’
‘No. Please. Please just go.’
Bella looked at Odette, at her little crumpled form, and felt a strong urge to go over and hug her. But instead, she nodded. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
Odette shrugged as if it no longer mattered.
‘I really am,’ Bella added as she reached the door and turned. ‘And you know, if you need some help with… with this, or just someone to talk to, I’m here.’
Odette nodded almost imperceptibly.
There was nothing else for it but to leave. Bella twisted the handle and let herself into the cool hallway. For a moment, she rested her back on the door, head looking to the heavens, wondering if she should go back in; should talk more.
In the end, instead, she climbed the stairs and steeling herself, slipped into the scarlet blouse.
Feeling a little shaken up from an unexpected early morning argument, she decided to pop into Henri’s room for a little sleepy sympathy before she left for work – and maybe an opinion on her attire. She knocked lightly on the door, then, not waiting for a response, turned the handle.
Inside, in the half-light, she could just make out a tousled duvet, a pillow on the floor. His leg sticking out on the left-hand side. She traced the outline of his body then gently lifted the duvet from his sleeping face. ‘Wakey-wakey!’ she said.
Only it wasn’t Henri under the duvet. Instead, she saw the face of a sleeping woman, the remnants of lipstick still smudged across her face.
She let the duvet fall back into place and, without a sound, turned from the room.
