Bella...A French Life

by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

“Alright.”

  “We’ll go grab a bite to eat somewhere.”

  “Alright.”

  -0-

  “Bella, I missed you!” said Jean-Louis.

  We were sitting on a leafy terrace in a courtyard of a small but expensive restaurant on Rue Saint-Louis on the Ile Saint-Louis.

  He reached across the candle-lit table and stroked my arm.

  “Come on,” he said, “say you missed me too.”

  “What are you going to order for us, Jean-Louis?” I asked.

  “Oh, to hell with you woman! Be like this if you want to be like this and see if I care!”

  He asked the wine waiter to bring us a bottle of Moët et Chandon.

  “Don’t say anything about it being costly,” he said, turning to me.

  He ordered grilled steak and French fries for us.

  “I hate to wait in restaurants,” he reminded me.

  The steak was tender with a taste of garlic and herbs from Provence. The Moët et Chandon exquisite. We finished the bottle.

  Leaving the restaurant, Jean-Louis put an arm around my waist.

  “I did miss you too, Jean-Louis,” I told him.

  He drew me to him and buried his face in my hair.

  “That’s my girl!”

  We went to sit on one of the cement benches on one of the banks of the river. In front of us was Notre Dame Cathedral, dark and silent, the sky above it decorated with stars. Not far from us sat a man, obviously homeless, his legs hanging over the edge of the bank. A breeze carried the odour of his unwashed body towards us.

  “Shall we go?” I asked.

  “No. I want to talk to you.”

  “You can do so while we’re walking home. To my place, that is.”

  “No, I want to talk to you on neutral ground.”

  He touched my face, stroked my hair.

  “What do you want to talk about, Jean-Louis?”

  The homeless man got to his naked feet and hobbled off, the night’s breeze sweeping his stink into our nostrils.

  “Bella, this past week, and last weekend too, I stayed with the girls’ mother. It was to help out with the girls. At her apartment that is.”

  He inhaled deeply like a smoker who had tried to stop the habit but was capitulating.

  “And?”

  “It went well. The visit. Surprisingly well. The girls were … in their element … despite the fact that they were itching like mad. They were happy to have their dad home again. Both their dad and their mom with them.”

  A pigeon flew over our heads, his wings fluorescently white as it caught a beam from a lamp behind us on the bank. On the river, a tourist boat sailed by, rippling the water. Some of the boat’s passengers stood on the deck. They waved to us. We ignored them.

  “Shall we be off?” I asked.

  “Yes, let’s go.”

  We reached the Saint Michel Métro station, there where, on our first date, we had listened to the hippies chant Hare Krishsna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

  “I’ll take the Métro here,” said Jean-Louis.

  I nodded my agreement.

  It was after midnight. From behind the open windows in buildings around us ceiling lights threw faint circles of blue-grey light onto the pavements.

  “Come, let me hold you for a moment,” said Jean-Louis.

  -0-

  On Sunday evening my telephone rang. I had been on duty and as I had not heard from Jean-Louis, I hoped it would be him.

  “Bella, how are you?”

  It was Marion.

  “Can’t complain, Marion. And you?”

  “Can complain, but won’t. How’s Jean-Louis?”

  “I saw him last night. He’s … ”

  “How are the two of you?” she broke in.

  “We’re …”

  “No problems then, dear sister-in-law?”

  She had again interrupted me.

  “What kind of problems do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “Well, he’s married.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s not married to you, Bella.”

  “I know that too thank you, Marion.”

  “He has a wife.”

  “I’ve worked that out as well thank you, Marion.”

  “Are the two of you still on?”

  “Yes.”

  “They always return to the wife. They wander off, but they always return to the wife. The wife and the kids. I’m warning you dear sister-in-law.”

  “Thank you, Marion.”

  “Don’t say I did not warn you, Bella.”

  “I won’t, Marion.”

  I asked her if there was anything else she wanted to tell me and she said, no, there was not.

  -0-

  Children recover from chicken pox. Charissa and Carmen just could not recover from their bout with it.

  “I … in fact Col … thinks the doctor should have a good look at them. Do some tests,” said Jean-Louis on the telephone.

  “Yes, do tests,” I agreed.

  “Bella, the girls are really in a bad way. Especially Carmen.”

  He was spending, he said, each free moment with the two.

  I had not seen him since that Saturday night’s dinner.

  He phoned again. Charissa and Carmen had undergone some tests and it was found Carmen suffered from Type 1 diabetes.

  “I am so sorry to hear this,” I told Jean-Louis. “Poor girl to have this for the rest of her life.”

  “Maybe I could bring her over and you could show her how to inject. She’s rather got a problem with that and her mother … Col … and I, are very worried about it.”

  “Her GP has surely shown her how to and he would not like another doctor to interfere.”

  “He need not know.”

  Three weeks passed and I did not see Jean-Louis. He phoned every evening and every evening I listened to him giving me an update on Carmen’s condition.

  “I’ll be there again this weekend,” he said on the eve of the end of the third week.

  I wondered what he meant by that: had he been spending the weekends with his wife and children in her apartment. I did not dare ask him because … I knew … knowing that he had been, would be upsetting.

  They always return to the wife, to the wife and the kids.

  -0-

  It was Thursday morning. My shift was to end at two in the afternoon. I was called to the staff room. There was a call for me.

  “Bella … my belle belle girl.”

  It was Jean-Louis.

  He had a plan. We were going to spend the coming weekend in Rome. He was to meet a client in the Italian capital the following morning but from six in the evening he would be free. He was to fly out in a couple of hours because he wanted to meet with a colleague before he was to see the client. I was to meet him in Rome the following day.

  “How does this grab you, Bella?”

  He had already booked a suite in a hotel close to the Spanish Steps.

  “Mr and Mrs,” he said.

  “Do you also want to know how that grabs me?” I asked.

  “We’re going,” he replied. “No discussion will be tolerated.”

  That was Jean-Louis!

  -0-

  He was waiting in the arrival lounge at Fiumicino Airport. He wore a beige suit and a pink tie, and he was impossible not to see, yet he lifted himself onto his toes and waved.

  “Bella! Over here!”

  The beloved voice was music to my ears.

  Demurely, he kissed me on my forehead. His breath revealed he had had a drink or rather a couple of drinks at his meeting.

  “To hell with this formality,” he said.

  He wrapped his arms around me and I pressed against him for a moment. I was still holding my overnight bag and it fell to the floor.

  “Hello, Jean-Louis.”

  “It’s just good … so good to see you, Bella. I so bloody missed you.”

  Rome’s rush hour traff
ic was dense and chaotic. The driver of our taxi turned down the window on his side and, swerving around cars and dodging in and out of traffic lanes, he banged on the side of the car each time a scooter or motorcycle tried to overtake us, and blew a kiss to the rider when, on admitting defeat, the latter slowed down to allow us to speed forward.

  The liveried reception clerks smiled at me when I nodded confirmation I was the signor’s wife. They must have wondered what the bird looked like this businessman was going to spend a dirty weekend with. One of the clerks took my overnight bag and accompanied us in the elevator to our suite. He had looked disapprovingly at the bag on taking it from me: there were no designer logos on it.

  The suite was on the sixth floor, the hotel’s top floor, and its walls were the blue of the Roman sky beyond the potted palm trees on the huge terrace. The padded bedspread on the king-size bed was blue satin. On the brocaded blue upholstery of the settee and chairs in the lounge area, white winged horses galloped beside a silver lake.

  Jean-Louis had been spending money: bags from Via Condotti’s boutiques lay on the bed.

  “Before we do anything else, this is for you,” he said.

  He handed me one of the bags, and I remembered what my mother had said about never saying ‘you should not have’.

  “Come on, Bella, open it,” he urged. “I want to see your face when you see what’s inside.”

  Inside was a Valentino handbag. I held it up towards the French windows to see it better as if the light from the overhead chandeliers was not sufficiently bright.

  “Come on, try it,” urged Jean-Louis. “Let’s see what you look like.”

  The bag’s brown and white python leather perfectly matched my beige suit, the suit which Marion thought was drab. Bella, you are a doctor, hell! Not a waitress. You can afford to dress in a much more chic and fashionable style.

  I emptied the contents of my Prisunic plastic handbag onto the bed and repacked everything into the new bag, carefully sliding in each item, watchful not to cut or tear the silk lining, the designer’s logo running across it and allowing me no doubt that my lover had spent a small fortune on this gift for me.

  He sat on the edge of the bed smilingly watching.

  “I will thank you later,” I told him.

  “Can’t wait,” he replied.

  -0-

  He had ordered a pizza dinner for us. We cannot be in Rome and not eat pizza, Bella. A waiter, dressed all in white - even his soft shoes were white - and reminding me of Chartreux Hospital’s nurses, pushed a trolley set with porcelain, silver and crystal out onto our terrace. The door bell sounded and another waiter, also all in white, pushed another trolley out to the terrace. On this trolley were a large margherita pizza on a black earthenware plate and a variety of green salads in a wooden bowl. The door bell sounded yet again and a third waiter, not in white but in red and black, pushed a third trolley onto the terrace. On that trolley a bottle of Dom Perignon rested in a silver bucket filled with crushed ice. Jean-Louis signalled to the three to leave us and yet again sly smiles were shot in my direction. Lucky girl, they must have thought: he’s obviously loaded.

  Jean-Louis cut two slices from the pizza and motioned for me to take one. A scent of basil rose from small leaves, forming a circle on the melted mozzarella on top of the pizza.

  The cork shot from the bottle without Jean-Louis even having had to put pressure on the cork.

  “I’ll have that,” I said of the cork.

  Jean-Louis smiled.

  “To keep with the sugar lump wrappers and the conkers and pine cones, Bella?”

  I nodded and he rose and went to stand behind me and kissed my neck, there where my hair line ended.

  “You smell nice,” he said. “As always. I just adore the smell of you. And … the feel of you.”

  We finished our dinner and Jean-Louis rang for the waiters to clear up. They arrived within a couple of minutes as if they had stood outside in the corridor waiting.

  -0-

  I just adore the smell of you.

  My heart filled on hearing those words.

  The waiters gone, Jean-Louis went into the bedroom to change. I stayed on the terrace. I had thought of something and I was contemplating its wisdom. Did I dare? Dare do what was on my mind?

  I decided to give free reign to my idea.

  “Jean-Louis, I’m just popping down to the lobby. I won’t be a minute. No need for you to join me. I’ll be right back. I want to ask the guys at reception something. We’ve not had all of the champagne, so pour yourself another glass. Finish the bottle because I will bring another one up with me,” I called out from the lounge area.

  He called out from the bedroom that he did not like the look of the receptionists so he would certainly not want to go near them again.

  Downstairs, I walked over to the bar, which I had seen when we were booking in.

  The barman, tall, slim, and with a bushy moustache and eyebrows, greeted me with a broad smile. I asked for a bottle of Moët et Chandon. Iced, but not on ice: it would be simpler carrying just the bottle upstairs to the suite.

  “Signora, woom number please?” asked the barman.

  I did not know the number of our suite, but one of the receptionists just then walked into the bar and said it was in order for him to let me have the champagne because I was a guest of the man from Paris.

  Off the lobby there was a corridor lined with luxury boutiques. I popped into the first one I came to which sold clothes. I noticed a beige raincoat draped over a mannequin. I told the salesgirl I wanted the raincoat: I had not even tried it on. I told her I was in the suite on the sixth floor and to charge my purchase to it.

  “A bag, Signora?” she asked.

  “No grazie,” I said.

  Immediately, I changed my mind.

  “Sì, grazie, per favore.”

  She wrapped the coat gently in tissue paper and put the neat parcel she had made into the bag: it bore the name of the boutique - Molto Chic.

  I made my way past the reception desk and to the toilets: I did not even shoot a glance at the horrible receptionists.

  Already a bit heady from the champagne we had with the pizza, and my courage fired up, once in the ‘ladies’ I stepped into the largest of the cubicles and I began to undress.

  I stripped right down.

  Standing in my stilettos I ripped the labels off the raincoat and washed those down the toilet. I held my breath waiting to see whether the coat fitted me. It did. I put my clothes and the bottle of champagne in the bag. I fastened the raincoat’s buttons: I did not want to risk the coat falling open when I walked through reception to the elevator and me looking like a hooker on her way to a client.

  I stabbed at the button for the top floor and the elevator opened almost immediately: one thing about high-class hotels was that one never needed to wait for one to come, and the elevators seemed to be wrapped in cotton wool so silent were they.

  Outside the door of our suite, I listened for sounds from inside. There were none. But no. I could hear music. I knew the voice. It was Pavarotti’s. I stood still. Nessun dorma … Nessun dorma … Tu pire, o. Principessa … nella tua fredda stanza …. guardi le stelle … che tremano d’amore … e di speranza …

  I have always wanted to make love with the voice of Pavarotti in my ears.

  Nobody shall sleep …nobody shall sleep …

  Indeed.

  I placed the bag on the floor to the left of the door and I began to undo the raincoat’s buttons, my fingers agilely moving down from my neck to my thighs. I took the bottle of champagne from the bag and the bag I dropped onto the floor.

  I had brought a set of the suite’s keys, but, like a chambermaid, I rang the bell.

  I heard Jean-Louis’ footsteps.

  I held my breath. I counted: one … two… three … The door opened. Jean-Louis stared at me with pink, sleepy eyes. He must have returned to the terrace and had dozed off because his face too was pink, obviously from the sun.
<
br />   What did he see in front of him?

  I had let the raincoat fall open.

  He continued to stare at me. Perhaps, in his state of somewhere between being asleep and being awake, he saw just a half-naked woman.

  I loosened the coat further: it dropped to the floor.

  Someone coughed behind the closed door of the suite next door.

  “Jesus … Bella!” Jean-Louis gasped.

  It was a gasp filled with desire and not with apprehension that the closed door would be flung open.

  He grabbed me by a shoulder and yanked me into the suite. At the same time he grabbed the champagne bottle with one hand and, crouching, he retrieved the raincoat and so too the bag from the floor. He slammed the door behind us and almost threw me across the lounge area and into the bedroom.

  “Stand with your back to me,” he murmured.

  He pointed to the white and gilded wardrobe in the bedroom. I did as I was told, my naked thighs against the cold of the wardrobe’s full-length central mirror. I looked in the mirror to see what he was doing behind me. He was walking to the bathroom. I heard the champagne cork pop. It hit the ceiling of the bathroom. He walked back into the bedroom. He held the open bottle with one hand and with the other, two water glasses: the flutes must have remained out on the terrace.

  He was naked and he was fully aroused.

  “What a very naughty girl you are walking around naked. But I like it. I love it,” he said.

  He gave a laugh, an almost manic laugh.

  “Jean-Louis …”

  “Spread your legs, darling,” he said.

  My head was spinning, spinning with the champagne of earlier, and with desire, but I did as he had ordered me to do.

  “I’m thirsty,” I said. “May I have a mouthful of the champagne, please, honey-bunch?”

  “Of course, sweetheart.”

  He put the two glasses down on the floor and, as I bent forward to pick one up, he mouthed ‘no’ and pointed to the open bottle: I was watching him in the mirror. He held the bottle up above me, tilted it over, and let the champagne run slowly, almost drop by drop, over my head and my naked body.

  “Lap it up,” he said. “Quench your thirst.”