The Perfume Collector. Kathleen Tessaro

Чтение книги онлайн.

      ‘May I help you find your seat, madam?’

      The air hostess was attractive and smiling, with a model’s figure. Her soft brunette hair was tucked into a neat pillbox hat and her lipstick matched exactly the shade of her smart red uniform.

      ‘Yes, please.’ Grace glanced around uneasily, taking in the layout of the main cabin, the other passengers already comfortably seated, reading magazines and chatting.

      The hostess looked at her ticket. ‘You’re just here, on the left. Allow me to hang up your coat.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      Sitting down, Grace peered out of the odd little window, at the ground staff piling the luggage into the hold, at the row of shining silver planes parked like enormous long motor cars, one after the other, in a line. She felt almost queasy with the combination of nerves and excitement.

      The hostess was back. ‘Is this your first trip to Paris?’

      ‘Yes. And I’ve never been on an aeroplane before.’

      ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ the girl reassured her. ‘May I bring you a glass of champagne to help you relax?’

      ‘Are you sure? I mean, won’t it spill?’

      The hostess laughed. ‘It’s not like that. You’ll see. The whole thing is much smoother than you imagine. Sit back and try not to think too much. We’ll be there in no time.’

      Grace watched as she slipped into the narrow galley, which appeared to be little more than a series of metal boxes and drawers. Soon the distinctive pop of a champagne cork could be heard. A little while later, she moved easily down the aisle with a tray, handing out glasses like a hostess at a dinner party.

      And it began to feel like a party, with laughing and drinking, people chatting across the aisle to one another. The pilot, handsome in his uniform, paused before climbing into the cockpit to welcome them all aboard, even joking about how strange it felt to fly across the English Channel without being shot at, which got a spontaneous round of applause.

      Then the doors were shut. The engines started and the whole plane shuddered and trembled. They rumbled along the runway, building up speed.

      Grace looked out of window trying to discern the moment when the wheels left the ground. And then, without her really feeling it, they were airborne, climbing at a steep angle before banking to the left.

      London, with its little winding rows of identical brick houses, rendered in a thousand shades of grey, receded rapidly as they flew into the dark, wet fog. Then, quite suddenly, a sparkling blue strip of horizon appeared, high above the thick cloud cover; a golden place removed from the blanket of bad weather below.

      Leaning back, Grace took a sip of the cold champagne and, opening her handbag, took out the letter.

      She’d read it many times since it first arrived but she still had the compulsion to reread it, as if this time she would finally spot something she’d missed.

      Madame Eva d’Orsey.

      Eva d’Orsey.

      The name meant nothing to her.

      But there was a kind of poetry in it, a soft, lilting rhythm that captured her imagination.

      Perhaps she’d been a friend of her parents. A fellow writer like her mother or a colleague of her father’s.

      Or maybe she would travel all the way to Paris just to discover that in fact the whole thing had been nothing but a misunderstanding after all.

      In any case, England had disappeared now entirely from view. And only a vast, empty canopy of sky lay ahead.