NOW
Somehow, she’d made it to the train, but she was still filled with indignant adrenaline, her hands shaking.
So she’d left him alone for what – an hour? – in the club and he’d managed to pull someone else. And he’d had the audacity to bring her home. Bella’s horror at what she’d seen had given way to sadness, but even that had very soon been jostled aside by anger.
‘Good night?’ she texted him pointedly, then slipped her phone back into her bag.
She stepped off the train into the May sunshine, feeling the warm rays caress her skin; she loved this time of year when the spring weather brought with it the possibility of summer. But today it was as if the sun was mocking her. Far too upbeat and jaunty for her liking.
Reaching Hôtel Benjamin, she pushed open the glass door and said a cheery hello to Mélodie, before pressing the button for the lift. As she waited, she felt a sudden presence at her side and glancing over, realised that Madame Roux was standing beside her, Coco waiting patiently on a lead at her feet.
The old woman had excelled herself today – was dressed in a buttercup-yellow suit, with matching shoes. No hat, but her hair was tied up in a yellow scarf. The only thing about her that wasn’t all sunshine and happiness was her face, which remained pinched; her eyes darting and sharp.
‘Bonjour, Madame Roux,’ Bella said, trying to smile.
Madame Roux nodded and as the lift doors opened, stepped in first, leaving Bella to slip through the doors before they closed, with no offer of holding them open.
A silence descended over them as the lift doors whirred. But next to her, Bella felt Madame Roux turn, sensed that she was being looked at with sharp eyes. ‘Better,’ Madame Roux said at last.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Better.’ Madame Roux nodded sharply in the direction of Bella’s blouse. ‘The colour. It brings out your eyes.’
‘Oh! Thank you. Actually, it’s been in my wardrobe for a few weeks, but I haven’t felt brave enough to wear it!’
Madame Roux snorted. ‘But you were brave enough to leave the house looking like a rag doll?’ she asked. ‘I do not understand this. What about looking good requires one to be brave?’
She had a point, Bella supposed. Although she wasn’t too flattered by the rag doll analogy.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, at last. ‘I suppose I just don’t like attention.’
This also seemed to confuse Madame Roux. ‘You are in the prime of life!’ she said. ‘If you do not make the most of yourself now, then when? When you are old like me? No. You must express yourself however you want.’
‘Thank you.’
The old woman nodded almost curtly, as if to signal the end of the conversation.
On the second floor, the doors slid open and Madame Roux hobbled out, Coco at her heels. They began to whirr back into place, but suddenly the old woman put out a foot adorned in bright yellow leather and stopped them.
‘You know,’ she said, looking at Bella with interest, ‘not many people listen to me. Not since I—’ she shrugged, unable to put what she meant into words. ‘But you did!’
‘Yes,’ said Bella, too embarrassed to admit the blouse was more a result of spilled coffee and late laundry.
‘I wasn’t always old, invisible. Did you know that when I was young, I used to work for Gaultier?’
‘Jean-Paul Gaultier?’ Bella said, impressed.
‘Do you know any other Gaultiers?’
‘Well, no. Wow. That’s amazing.’
‘Yes, perhaps. My point is that I know one or two things about fashion. And colour. And hotels, for that matter.’
‘Oh, yes. Of course.’
‘In my heyday, I would travel often to shows. And I have stayed in many, many hotels. Some were terrible, but others were fabulous. And I learned to recognise the difference.’
‘Right.’ Bella nodded.
