‘Pas possible!’ Why I react more violently to a mould infestation than a potential hidden body, I’m not quite sure. The pressure must be getting to me.
‘It’s very possible!’ JP assures me.
I throw my hands in the air. ‘Great, more mould!’ Moralistically, I would prefer no one died and got buried here, but, from a fiscal standpoint, well, it would possibly be cheaper to remove human remainsifauthorities weren’t involved. What am I evensaying? I shake the craziness away.
‘From a health and safety perspective’ – JP wiggles his hard hat – ‘we need to get on top of this first.’
‘Oui, of course.’ Renovation is clearly not for the faint of heart. By my calculations, a big chunk of the budget is going to be spent on mould removal. Will there be enough left in the coffers for furniture, beds, bedding? More importantly, books? A few Christmas decorations? Although, those beautiful vintage Christmas decorations we found in suite twenty would outshine anything we could buy. Perhaps we can set up the nativity village in the guest lounge window?
I lead him to the third floor and go through each room until we get to the last two at the end of the hallway. We’ve cleaned up the mess from the obliterated wall but we weren’t able to hide the jagged edges where the sheeting came off with Manon’s galactic-force swinging. ‘If you could tidy up this area.’ I point to the damage where the wall once was.
‘What happened here?’
‘Oh.’ I wave him away as if it’s nothing. ‘Not sure, it was like this when we arrived.’
Manon rolls her eyes.
‘And these suites? Wait. There’re twenty rooms in total?’ He checks his notes with a frown.
I managed to keep that secret for all of thirty minutes. ‘We can’t find a key for this door, so at this stage we’re just going to leave them as is. Maybe they’ll become an office or something down the track but they’re not important right now.’
JP leans down and sticks a finger on the keyhole as if it will magically open. ‘Have you called a locksmith?’
‘It’s on my list to do today.’ I’d been hoping to save the funds and find the key, but every search has proved fruitless.
‘OK, so I’ll quote to fix these edges where there must have been a dividing wall or something…’ He’s stuck frozen to the spot, running a finger along the messy join. ‘…But why would those two rooms have been blocked off?’
‘It was probably a doorway?’ I say, pivoting away in the hopes he’ll follow me. ‘The owners probably wanted some privacy from guests…’ A doorway to two more doorways doesn’t make much sense, so I let out a trilling laugh as if to say,What can you do?,but it must sound too forced because JP’s forehead furrows. ‘You know, extra sound protection, and erm?—’
‘Ignore my cousin,’ Manon says. ‘She’s imbibed a little too much, if you know what I mean.’ She gives him a salacious wink.
‘Coffee, she means coffee.Oui, I’m a little jittery from too much caffeine, but can you blame me?’
The man looks from me to Manon as if he’s landed in the twilight zone. And maybe he has. ‘Where were we?’ I’m officially losing it.
After our walkthrough is complete, JP says, ‘I’ll get the quote to you in a week or so. If you’d like to go ahead, I’ll need a deposit and then weekly progress payments.’
‘Sure. Anything we can do to cut costs will be appreciated. And anything we can do to make the process go faster would also be ideal. As mentioned, we’d like to soft launch before Christmas if we can, welcome some guests for the festive season and iron out any crinkles. And then, long term, work on renovating suites two at a time, funds depending.’
‘You and all of Paris,’ he grumbles, shaking his head. ‘We’ll do our best but old buildings like this, things crop up. Leaks, mould, electric issues, plumbing mishaps.’ That does not sound good. ‘It’s best to rectify those things fast so the damage doesn’t spread.’
I want to stick my fingers in my ears and block out all those expensive-sounding worst-case scenarios. ‘Of course, if there’s a serious issue we’ll have to fix it, but, for now, we’re just doing a gentle makeover.’
‘If you’d like things done rapidly I can hire more tradespeople, but the price will increase. How about I quote for both scenarios?’
‘Merci,I’ll crunch the numbers when I get your quote and go from there.’ The expense of paying for more tradespeople would be offset by being able to open earlier and have paying guests.
Back in the lobby we say ourau revoirsand he leaves. Once he’s out of sight, I throw a cushion at Manon. I’m thrilled she doesn’t sense the surprise attack as it hits her square in the face and springs off her nose. ‘Pourquoi…?’ she screeches.
I sit on the arm of the green sofa. ‘Nice trick with the lingerie, Manon. Seriously. The poor man didn’t know where to look.’
She gives me a sly smile and slides onto the sofa beside me. ‘Genius, wasn’t it?’
‘Not genius. He’ll probably up the quote now or never return.’
‘Orhe might lower it.’ She gives me an exaggerated wink.
I take the elastic from my hair and redo my loose ponytail. ‘Right. With that and the whole spiel about the dead guy buried under the bath?’
