Penguin Books Australia

Hotel Metropolitain
Avenue de Friedland, Paris, France

The marble and gilt lobby of the Hotel Metropolitain is full of aimless souls looking for a little diversion. It's the devil's hour, cocktail hour, when gentlemen are known to stray from their intended paths.

Sooner or later, one of them will stray my way.

I am sitting on a sofa by an arrangement of lilies, a respectable young woman waiting . . . for an assignation, perhaps? No, it's a little late for cinq à sept, unless one is very quick, so perhaps I am waiting for my husband for an anniversary drink? A meal in the hotel's overpriced dining room followed by a night of rekindled passion amid the Frette sheets? Or else I am meeting a woman friend – or two – whereupon we will retire to the bar for a night of character assassination (husbands, bosses, other girlfriends, Olivier Martinez) and some harmless flirting.

Waiting is what I am doing – and tonight I may not have to wait so long. The lobby is full of prospects. It is check-in time for businessmen who have caught the afternoon flights from London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Milan, Dubai . . . places that have the sound of money to them. Some of them are busy with porters, others yell into phones. A few lug thick briefcases to the elevator banks, eager for the mini bar. Some will shower and come back to the lobby, the musk of their anticipation even stronger than the citrus of their over-applied cologne.

I hope one of them will be mine.

I have arranged myself so that my skirts are smoothed around me, my back propped against a firm cushion so that I don't sink into the fat sofa and disappear. I am beautifully groomed but very lightly made up. This distinguishes me from the independent contractors, a pack of € 300-an-hour hyenas in tight skirts and deep slashes of blush who lurk behind the flower arrangements, ready to pounce. I am a class act. I have an elegant crocodile vanity case at my feet, suggesting I am also a traveller, in transition, that if you blink you may find me gone. On the cushion beside me there is a very large handbag of excellent quality that gentlemen connoisseurs, who have bought for their mistresses similar bags, would know is valued at upwards of € 10,000. If the wait proves long – and it often does – I will extract from it a hardback copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, which I found at a bouquiniste along the Seine. It is the favoured read of the connoisseur. It has started conversations, saved me many times when there's nothing to say. This book, the vanity case and its contents, the handbag with my journal and a few euros tucked inside, my dress and jacket, my good shoes, a gold panther bracelet, a Cartier watch and a modest emerald ring, are all I possess in the world.

But he isn't to know that. He who is to take me away from all of this.

A handsome young Japanese nods as he walks past, but he is followed by two porters, a jumble of expensive luggage and, depressingly, a wife clutching what might be either a fluffy dog or an amusing handbag. A redhead in a pinstripe suit casts a lingering glance but his porter leads him away from me to the far bank of elevators. A black man in a nylon anorak emblazoned with slogans catches my eye but he is joined by other men in other anoraks and they go to the bar. A pair of independent contractors arise from their seats and slink after them. Bless their mercenary souls, I think, they have saved me from the football players.

A manager in a black suit is standing by a vase of delphiniums. He has been watching me for some time, as if I might be a risque pour la sécurité, as ladies who sit alone in hotels sometimes are. (He knows all the independent contractors; I am suspicious because I am new.) He strolls over to the reception desk and engages the girl in conversation. I let my eyes catch hers and smile. Don't worry, dear, I think, I won't be here much longer. No need this time to book a room and skip through in the early hours of the morning. This last thing I have done, and done, and gotten away with, or not, as the circumstances might be. I may even have done it in this hotel but all hotels meld into one stone edifice with marble floors and men in black suits and porters wielding gilded trolleys and polished tables aching with oriental lilies. (If I have skipped out on this hotel before I'd better be quick.)

The man who is approaching me now would not be my first choice. He's short, rotund, walking as if on tiptoes, his medicine ball of a stomach leading the way. He looks as if he might tumble forward at any moment, onto his face or into my arms. He is not attractive. But I have had enough of handsome men. And I have learnt not to set my heart on anyone. Not least when I'm hungry.

As he approaches, I make a show of holding out my wrist to check the time, tap the face of my watch in a display of frustration. I catch his eye immediately, a sign he is on the prowl. 'May I bother you for the time, sir? Quelle heur est-il?'

I know my pronunciation is clumsy but the old gentleman stops nevertheless, consults a handsome lump of gold and glass on a thick glossy strap, and tells me it is dix-neuf heures moins cinq.

'Oh, it's that late already?' The prettiest flush I can muster stains my cheeks. 'Je regrette . . . oh, damn, I don't know how to say it in French.'

He nods and says, in English, that he is sure my French is very good.

'You're very kind, but my accent is appalling. Will you forgive me if we speak English? I've only been in Paris a day and six years of school French doesn't get a girl very far.'

Well, that was the first lie. I've been in Paris so long I feel like the Eiffel Tower.

The gentleman continues to lean towards me, in a half bow. He tells me it is a lovely accent. Am I from London?

'Oh, I am from much further away than that!' I say enigmatically. 'Hours and hours of flying and I couldn't get a wink of sleep last night.'

I am from far away – only, not recently. And I didn't get a wink of sleep last night – I was out on the tiles . . . I remember lots of tiles.

He asks me if I will be in Paris for long.

'Well, I don't know, really,' I say. 'It's difficult to get suitable accommodation. I arrived yesterday and hoped to spend the week at the Hotel de Charme. You know it? Oh, I see you are familiar with hotels of quality! But it wasn't to my taste, not at all. Yes, exact. You can't swing a chat. Not even room to put my shoes under my bed.'

Half true. I'd been to the Hotel de Charme a year ago. The room cost € 400 a night and you couldn't swing a mouse. It is charming, though. When my gentleman flew off to Kinshasa they let me have the room for the whole day before they turfed me out.

The old fox dips his head and says that under my bed must be a hotly contested place. Or something like that. His English syntax isn't all that good.

I run with it anyway. 'Well, thank you, but aren't you flirting with me? Just a little? I'm not in the habit of putting the shoes of strange men under my bed.' He chuckles at that. Am I intending to stay here at the Metropolitain?

'Yes,' I say. (I am, but I expect someone else to pay for it. Like you, monsieur.) 'But I'm still waiting for my room. The manager promises it won't be long.'

The gentleman says he recommends this hotel. It is discret.

'I certainly hope so! I prefer big hotels for that reason, don't you? I do love an elegant lobby. And this one isn't bad, although the location seems a bit dull.'

Ah, but the Lido is only a short walk away, he smiles.

'Really? That close? I should check it out then. I'm looking for a diversion.' In that case, the gentleman says, I must buy you a drink. Bingo. The gentleman sits so that his body is a proper distance from mine. But his sharp knees in pinstriped cloth form >< with mine across an expanse of cherubic tapestry.

'Shall I call the waiter?' I ask. 'You don't have to be anywhere special? That's very sweet of you. I don't suppose a drink will take long and then my room will be ready and I can slip out of this rumpled dress. I absolutely agree! When you're sitting in a hotel lobby you must drink champagne, it doesn't matter what time of day it is. Just a glass, a bottle's too much.'

No, no. He insists on a bottle.

'That's very agreeable of you.'

An attendant is called, a very nice champagne is ordered.

'You know your champagnes, monsieur. Is that so? Then I'm speaking to an expert! Don't be modest. Here am I, sitting in the lobby of a big, glamorous Paris hotel, being offered champagne by a man who owns a wine distribution company! I'm starting to think 2005 is going to be a very good year.'

He shrugs, waves a jewelled finger in the air.

'But tell me, your accent, now that I hear it, isn't French at all, is it? I'm not very good with accents, but I'm sure it's – Belgian! Like Hercule Poirot! Plastic Bertrand! Jacques Brel! I've played that game, you know. Name ten famous Belgians. No one ever gets past five . . .'

. . . All the while my mind is off somewhere else, a small café in a more intriguing part of town, perhaps, sucking a Gauloise and sipping on a crème.

The gentleman – this fine, rather elderly, gentleman with a yellow silk handkerchief in his pocket, who wears on his pinkie a bolt of gold stuck with a red stone the size of a drawing pin – this substantial gentleman has told me he is on his way back to his room to collect his papers for a conference of Le Comité Interprofessionel du vin de Bordeaux or something like that. But he has a moment for me. It might turn into an hour or two, now or later, and then, perhaps, a day or a week. He doesn't know that yet, but I can see the signs, those beautiful signs so full of possibility. I don't even have to hold his eyes in mine to know that he is watching the way I watch his lips. (The bottom one is moist and slightly loose, as if a hinge has broken.) When I catch his look I see his eyeballs are rheumy but his expression is remote. It's just an act. His right hand is hovering over his thigh, now so close to mine I can feel its nervous vibration. The hairs in his nostrils are vibrating, too, as he takes in the scent of the world's most expensive perfume wafting from unseen wads of tissue folded into my bra. He has noticed my good bag and the hand-embroidered lace of my underskirts as they froth about me. I make sure he notices my excellent shoes, too, by stretching out a leg and jiggling the foot a little. When his eyes come back to me they alight on my hands, the way my sugar-tipped fingers are twining themselves around the cool stem of my misty champagne flute. He is not listening to the words.

My fine gentleman says he is désolé but he must go to his room now and prepare. He hopes that I might be shown to my own room very soon. The delay is unconscionable. He stands stiffly and holds my right hand between his dry ones as if thinking about kissing it. I wait. Of course, he adds, if I find myself unexpectedly free tonight – which is unimaginable, a beautiful young woman like myself – would I consider accompanying him to dinner? He has a reservation at the Carré de Feuillants, which has two Michelin stars but deserves three. (A reservation for two no doubt, the sly old dog.) I would be delighted, I say, but it all depends . . . Naturally, he says. Shall I meet you here in une demi-heure?

And so it begins. As always, I don't know where it will lead. It may start in Paris but end in Lisbon. Santiago. Cape Town. Places I am yet to go. (Where do wine merchants travel? Timbuctu?) Or it may stop right here in this lobby. There are negotiations. He might be shocked. He might be intrigued. He may have complications, which he can't speak of: a wife who checks all his credit card bills, a (very) old mother living at home, a temporary liquidity problem, a leaky bladder. Or he may be a widower, the children long gone, a fortune sitting in the bank waiting to be lavished upon a young(ish) woman in Leslie Caron petticoats like me. I don't know and I want to enjoy not knowing, at least for a while, until this bottle of champagne is finished and the rumble of my empty stomach makes a commitment from this gentleman – or another – a necessity.