“How did you find where I live?” she asks me. Her voice rumbles warmly through my chest.
Words, form words.
“Bella,” I say. “Everyone has that friend who can find out almost anything.”
“Indeed,” she says and laughs. “What brought you here?”
I almost blurted out Bella, too, but I catch me last minute.
“I wanted to return the book,” I say. “It was an illuminating read.” I hold out the box with the book in it for her to take.
“That was fast,” she says. “Feel free to keep it longer.”
“I’d rather not. It seems important to you, and I don’t want a cat or anything to accidentally chew on it.”
“I am certain I could get a replacement in case that unlikely event happens,” she says with a laugh.
“But you said it’s borrowed, so I thought you wanted it back because it’s important?—“
“No, dearest, I wrote that because otherwise you never would’ve accepted it, wouldn’t you?”
My mouth opens and closes again, as if steered by an external force.
“Would you like some tea?” she asks me. “I just got up after yesterday’s event. I am famished.”
“I—I don’t know, I really have to get back home—“ I say and mumble, “Have to feed my cats?—“
“Your cats will survive being fed a little later, I am certain. If not, I might order Henry to do so for you.”
“Alright, alright,” I say. Nothing would be worse than having an unknown human being in the flat.
“Please,” she says and walks me to a room with double doors. I am flabbergasted the moment the doors open. I feel as if I stepped into a different century in a mansion of royal calibre.
I enter what is best described as a drawing room, which is held in yellow-gold. A flower-pattern tapestry, golden curtains jump aggressively into my eyes. To my left is a massive fireplace, with yellowish, golden-corded sofas and armchairs set around it. To the right, bookshelves and a table set for tea.
I feel like I stepped into the nest of a canary. A very wealthy one.
“Please, sit down,” says Victoria, but I am distracted as I gaze outside through Victorian windows into a tiled, closed courtyard with ornamental grilles, trees and bushes. A house of this size, with a courtyard like this, in Belgravia of all places, must be worth millions and millions of pounds.
And I am in here. I shouldn’t. This is not my world. This is the world that made my mother the way she is now.
“It is lovely, isn’t it?” says Victoria. “You should see it in spring when the first sun warms the tiles and awakens the flowers.”
“I love nature,” I say like an idiot. “I tend a small plot in a community garden.” How awkward that sounds in comparison.
“What are your favourite flowers?” she asks me.
“Daisies,” I say. “They are beautifully subtle.”
Victoria chuckles before she walks to the table and sits down. I glance at her feet; they somehow draw my attention because she wears no shoes. I glance at my feet because I am still wearing shoes—how impolite of me!
I attempt to slip out of them?—
“Not necessary,” she says.
“But you are wearing none, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think.”
“As I said, it's not necessary to put them off. Everyone wears shoes down here. I don’t wear any, because I just got out of bed.”
