Free A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff Page B

the veins standing out like blue wires. As she smiled at me her still-attractive face folded into a myriad creases which here and there had trapped particles of pink powder. Her periwinkle eyes were patched with pale grey.
    ‘You must wish there was a lift,’ I said as we began to climb the wide stone staircase to the third floor. My voice echoed up the stairwell.
    ‘A lift would be extremely desirable,’ said Mrs Bell as she gripped the iron handrail. She paused for a moment to hitch up the waist of her caramel wool skirt. ‘But it’s only lately that the stairs have bothered me.’ We stopped again on the first landing so that she could rest. ‘However,I may be going elsewhere quite soon, so I will no longer have to climb this mountain – which would be a distinct advantage,’ she added as we carried on upwards.
    ‘Will you be going far?’ Mrs Bell didn’t seem to hear so I concluded that in addition to her general frailty she must be hard of hearing.
    She pushed on her door. ‘ Et voilà …’
    The interior of her flat, like its owner, was attractive but faded. There were pretty pictures on the walls, including a luminous little oil painting of a lavender field; there were Aubusson rugs on the parquet floor and fringed silk lampshades hanging from the ceiling of the corridor along which I now followed Mrs Bell. She stopped halfway and stepped down into the kitchen. It was small, square and time-warped, with its red Formica-topped table and its hooded gas stove upon which stood an aluminium kettle and a single white-enamelled saucepan. On the laminate worktop was a tea tray set out with a blue china teapot, two matching cups and saucers, and a little white milk jug over which she’d put a dainty white muslin cover fringed with blue beads.
    ‘Can I offer you a cup of tea, Phoebe?’
    ‘No thank you – really.’
    ‘But I have everything ready, and though I may be French I know how to make a nice cup of English Darjeeling,’ Mrs Bell added wryly.
    ‘Well …’ I smiled. ‘If it’s no trouble.’
    ‘None at all. I have only to re-heat the water.’ She took a box of matches off the shelf, struck one then held it to the gas ring with a shaky hand. As she did so I noticed that her waistband was secured with a largesafety pin. ‘Please, take a seat in the sitting room,’ she said. ‘It’s just there – on the left.’
    The room was large, with a big bow window, and was papered in a light green slubbed silk which was curling at the seams in places. A small gas fire was alight despite the warmth of the day. On the mantelshelf above it a silver carriage clock was flanked by a pair of snooty-looking Staffordshire spaniels.
    As I heard the kettle begin to whistle I went over to the window and looked down on to the communal garden. As a child I’d been unable to appreciate its size. The lawn swept the entire length of the crescent, like a river of grass, and was fringed by a screen of magnificent trees. There was a huge cedar that cascaded to the ground in tiers, like a green crinoline: there were two or three enormous oaks. There were three copper beeches and a sweet chestnut in the throes of a half-hearted second flowering. To the right, two young girls were running through the skirts of a weeping willow, shrieking and laughing. I stood there for a few moments, watching them …
    ‘Here we are …’ I heard Mrs Bell say. I went to help her with the tray.
    ‘No – thank you,’ she said, almost fiercely, as I tried to take it from her. ‘I may be somewhat antique , but I can still manage quite well. Now, how do you take your tea?’ I told her. ‘Black with no sugar?’ She picked up the silver tea strainer. ‘That’s easy then …’
    She handed me my tea then lowered herself on to a little brocade chair by the fire while I sat on the sofa opposite her.
    ‘Have you lived here long, Mrs Bell?’
    ‘Long enough.’ She sighed. ‘Eighteen years.’
    ‘So are you hoping to move to ground-floor