The Butler

by Danielle Steel

  “Well, it was always going to be a temporary job, and he stayed past the three months you required in the beginning. Is that still the case now?” She had her apartment for another four months, and she still hadn’t decided whether she was going back to New York, or wanted to stay for another year. She had no reason to go back, and she liked living in Paris. It was a happier life for her than in New York, and her life there still had the smell of loss and defeat to her after losing the magazine, and her mother. And her apartment in New York had looked so depressing after the two days she’d spent there when her mother’s apartment sold.

  “I’m not sure,” she told the woman at the agency. “I think I should hire someone for four to six months, with the possibility that it could become permanent. I’ll have to decide soon if I want to extend my lease. I should have finished the chateau by then if Joachim’s leaving doesn’t put us way behind schedule now.”

  “I’ll see who I can find, as quickly as I can,” she said sympathetically, but the options she sent Olivia in the ensuing days were all wrong.

  She had a twenty-one-year-old American girl who had dropped out of college. Her mother was French, and she had dual nationality, so she was legal to work in France. She wanted to be an assistant, but had never been one, she was also willing to be a nanny, but admitted that she didn’t like kids much, and she was currently working as a maid at a hotel. She would have been fine for Fatima’s job, but not Joachim’s, not by a long shot. And the woman at the agency kept warning Olivia that Joachim would be nearly impossible to replace. Olivia knew that anyway. He had spoiled her.

  She had another girl from Serbia, who was slightly older, and had been a secretary. She had followed her boyfriend to Paris, and spoke perfect English, but not a word of French, so she was useless to Olivia, whose French had become basic. But she needed someone fluent to help her.

  There was an older man who had run his own business and failed and was working as a janitor, but he seemed slow and not too bright. An Irish boy who seemed energetic and willing, and had been in a dozen different jobs, and admitted to Olivia in confidence that he was wanted by the police in Ireland for some “unfortunate incidents,” so he had come to France. And the business agency she called as well had a lineup of colorless, uninteresting girls who had worked in offices, knew nothing about construction or decorating, and thought it sounded like too big a job. Most of them wanted to work from home on their computers, which was of no use to her, and a problem she’d had in New York in recent years at the magazine too. No one seemed to want to go to an office if they could avoid it.

  The domestic agency came up with the most viable option, although it wasn’t a perfect solution, but Joachim hadn’t been an obvious fit in the beginning either, as a butler. Since his departure, she had been fending for herself, and was totally swamped. She was stuck at the chateau fifteen hours a day, meeting with subcontractors and supervising workers. She was using a car service with a driver, so she could make calls on the way there. The job hadn’t slipped but it was eating up her life and more time-consuming than before with only one person juggling everything and no one to share the responsibility with her.

  She hadn’t heard from Joachim since he left, and didn’t want to now, although she had had to text him several times to ask him for details and information she didn’t have. He answered immediately every time, and said nothing personal in his responses, nor did she in her messages. The boundaries between them had been firmly set, as they always were, and readjusted further for an ex-employer and ex-employee who had not parted on the best of terms. She didn’t ask if he’d found a job and didn’t care. She was sure it wouldn’t take him long, with his previous experience.

  The best candidate the domestic agency came up with was a man. He was thirty-five years old, had worked in an art gallery, and wanted to become a chef. He was listed with the agency because he wanted to hire out to do parties, and eventually open his own catering business. The woman who ran the agency said he was supposedly a fabulous cook, which was of no interest to Olivia. He had some background in art, so her decorating might not be totally foreign to him, but he was looking for a job as a chef, to give him a base income. He couldn’t survive so far on what he made doing parties from time to time. He was hoping to cook for a family or a business, until his catering jobs were more regular. The agency was trying to help him find both a full-time cooking job and work as a party chef when they got requests for one. But he was the only person that she could think of who could work as an assistant, after his gallery experience.

  Olivia agreed to meet him, and he seemed pleasant, polite, and shy. His face lit up whenever he talked about cooking. He was particularly interested in Asian cooking, anything organic, said he could prepare vegan and vegetarian meals, and had bookings for two small weddings and a bar mitzvah in the coming months, and he often had catering jobs on weekends. But he lived in the city and said he didn’t mind late hours. He was very disappointed to hear that she wasn’t interested in his cooking skills, and fended for herself, usually with a salad. He was so gentle that she couldn’t imagine him arguing with their stoneworkers, carpenters, glaziers, and other workmen that she had to deal with every day at the chateau. He seemed very precise and had arrived punctually, but he looked like he might cry or run if one of their workmen shouted at him or insulted him. Joachim had gone toe to toe with them every day, and he did it a lot better than she would have. Anatole, the young chef, didn’t seem equal to the task, and said he hoped she would try his chocolate soufflé one day.

  She didn’t know what to do after she saw him, discussed it with the agency at length, and finally decided to hire him and give it a try. For the time being, the job was only temporary, and he might tide her over for a while. No one else had turned up, and there were days when she hated Joachim for leaving her in the lurch. She was holding her own at the chateau, but she felt like she was fighting for her life, and they were slipping backward in the schedule. The workmen she had to deal with didn’t respect a woman the way they did a man, and they tried to pull all kinds of stunts on her, left early, didn’t show up, left work undone, lied to her when they thought they could get away with it, or padded their bills. She was trying to be tough with them, which was the only thing they respected, but she knew she was no match for them, and they were going to eat Anatole alive.

  Chapter 15

  Liese took the news that Joachim was leaving even harder than Olivia had, when he told her the same night he’d told Olivia that he was going back to England the next day. He didn’t want to frighten her, but explained that because he and Javier were identical, for those who didn’t know Javier had a twin, any sighting of Joachim, and his ongoing presence at his mother’s home, might convince the wrong people that Javier’s death was a fraud, and inadvertently bring danger to his mother’s doorstep. For her safety, he wanted to stay away from her, at least for a while. Living with her and having a regular job in Paris seemed fraught with danger to him. Liese didn’t like his theory, but she could see his point.

  “I’m not afraid, Joachim,” she said quietly. “He was associated with the wrong people for years, they never showed up here.”

  “They didn’t need to. They knew where he was. He kept his activities limited to South America. For some reason, he seems to have branched out recently. So, they’ll be looking for him here if they don’t believe he’s dead. And I’m sure he faked his death many times before, to get his enemies and the authorities off his scent. The authorities know he’s dead. The bad guys don’t and might not believe it, even if they were told. Eventually, when time passes, they’ll figure it out. But probably not for a while. We need to give it some time.” But at eighty-one, even in good health, who knew how much time she had? Every moment she could spend with her only surviving son was precious. She had no one else, no other children, no grandchildren, no spouse, and few friends. Many of her friends had already died. She had her work, but
nothing else, except Joachim, and she had loved having him near her once he took the job with Olivia. Knowing he would come home every night, and she would see him in the morning before they both left for work, or for a meal on the weekend, added immeasurable joy to her life. And now he was taking that away from her.

  “I’m willing to take the risk of your being here,” she said, with tears in her eyes, but she would not allow herself to cry. She wanted to be stronger than that. “But I don’t want you at risk. What happened to Javier and who he became is bad enough, for both of us, but I don’t want it to kill you too. The price is too high. I want you to be safe. I’ve lived my life. You haven’t yet. The rest of your story is not yet written. Mine is almost complete. If they kill me, they will only steal these last years from me.”

  “And from me,” he said sadly. He didn’t want to lose her, at any time, it would be the greatest heartbreak of his life, even if she died at a hundred.

  “But you have many, many years ahead of you. I will not bury a second son.” And when she said it, the tears spilled onto her cheeks, and he put his arms around her and hugged her tight. Leaving her was unbearably hard, even more than he thought it would be, now that he was living with her again, which he hadn’t done since his early twenties. He enjoyed her company, and how smart and sensible and sharp-witted she was. She was clever and interested in life, and wise. He was going to miss her terribly, much more even than his job with Olivia, which he had hated to leave too.

  “I just want you to be safe, Mama. I don’t want to put you in danger. It would be different if I didn’t look exactly like him. But no one will be able to tell the difference. They will think I’m him, if they’re looking for him.”

  “I know they will,” she agreed. It made perfect sense. It was a cruel turn of fate. She had always loved the fact that they were twins, and identical, but it had slowly turned to a heartbreak over the years. And she had been shocked to see that even with time and distance, and very different lives, they still remained completely identical when she saw them together the night before Javier died. Joachim had noticed it too. They were the same weight and build. There were little wisps of gray in their hair now in the same places. Their faces were identically lined in spite of Javier’s beard and their different lifestyles. Javier hadn’t led a good life, and Joachim had, but time had marked them identically, and no one could have told them apart, even at the end, except their mother. Their enemies certainly couldn’t.

  “Did you tell Olivia?” she asked him, and he nodded.

  “This morning.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She wasn’t pleased. I’ve never done that in my life, left a job with no notice. It leaves her badly stuck with the construction at the chateau, but I can’t do anything about it. I don’t want to put her at risk either, or increase the danger to you, by staying longer in the job until she finds someone. And the police have promised me that they will protect you, they’ll have a man downstairs night and day, no one will get in the building without their notice, so I feel safe leaving you here. Safer than if I was here with you, luring the bad men toward you.” But she wouldn’t even have the protection or comfort of her son. “I have to leave, I have no other choice. For a while anyway. And Olivia is a casualty of our situation. I can’t let the job color my decision.”

  “Is it just about the job or is it more than that?” she asked him gently, and he didn’t answer her for a minute.

  “I told her it’s only a job,” he said in a raw voice.

  “That must have been hard to hear. And is it true?”

  “Not entirely,” he admitted. “Of course, it’s not just a job. No job is. I care about the Cheshire offspring too, although some of them annoyed me severely, for their lack of care for their parents in their final years, but I had no voice in it.

  “Olivia is a woman alone. She’s strong but vulnerable. She’s had her share of disappointments and losses, like all of us. She just lost her mother, and the magazine she put her heart and soul into for ten years. She’s lost her anchor, and I told her that we’re very much alike.

  “Because of what’s happened in our lives, neither of us seems able to attach to anyone. I’ve chosen a career that makes it impossible. There’s a reason why old-fashioned butlers never married in the old days, and people in service rarely did. It leaves you neither the time nor the energy to give to anyone if you do it right. You belong to the job and the family you work for, you are the job. I wonder now if I chose it because of that. It gave me an excuse never to get attached to anyone or tied down, except to my work. It would be a constant tug-of-war to be a married butler, or one with children. I know some people do it now, and live out, but they probably don’t do as good a job as the old butlers used to. Head housekeepers, head cooks, butlers, great nannies were always spinsters and bachelors. The ones who weren’t were giddy young girls sleeping with the footmen.”

  “It’s an antiquated lifestyle, Joachim, from another century. I grew up in a house like that. It doesn’t exist anymore, and it probably shouldn’t. You can’t give up your life for a job, or your employer. It sounds like she did it for a magazine, not even a family.”

  “She did it for the same reason I did. So she wouldn’t get hurt. Her magazine must have been a place to hide from having a life. Her mother was a married man’s mistress, and it sounds like he destroyed her life and she let him. He was Olivia’s father and she never knew it. Her mother never told her until after he died. She’s been hurt, so she protects herself, and doesn’t trust anyone.

  “I’m no different. I was hurt by Javier, and the father who abandoned us, and even the grandfather who hurt you so badly and I never knew. It’s all connected, and it leaves some of us unwilling to risk our hearts. Olivia is like that too. It created a kind of unspoken bond between us. We are similarly flawed, and we respect or even admire each other. She’s a very smart, honorable, intelligent, kind woman. So, we became friends, no more than that. We feel safe with each other. But now the risks are too great. The price to pay would be too high if she got hurt, or you did. So, it’s time to move away from each other again. Olivia and I never attached, or allowed ourselves to, so there’s no torn flesh, no bleeding wounds. That’s the advantage of never getting too close,” he said in a tone that was almost bitter. “So, it becomes just a job, which is what I told her. And the friendship was a perk of the job, so that’s over too.” He said it matter-of-factly, as his mother watched him closely.

  “The friendship was not a ‘perk of the job.’ It was a gift to both of you, and maybe the only form of love that either of you can tolerate. For the moment, at any rate. You’re both wounded people, but that doesn’t mean you will never attach to anyone, to her or someone else. I was wounded too when I met Francois. I did everything I could to discourage him and chase him away. He persisted for two years and refused to listen to me. He was my soul mate and he became the love of my life. Don’t cheat yourself of that one day, when it comes along. Don’t be a coward, Joachim.

  “The reasons you list for being friends with her are the same reasons why people marry, and in many cases they marry for far less than that. You trust and admire each other. It’s a wonderful foundation for a friendship and could grow to be more one day. And you can’t just cancel the friendship when you leave the job, like a membership to a club or a library. You are scarred by your losses. So am I. So are we all. Francois loved me anyway, and I learned to love again. You are marked by your losses, and wounded, and losing Javier now is just one more loss for both of us. But you are not irreparably damaged. Don’t hide behind that. I don’t know this woman, but seen through your eyes, she appears to be a good person. Don’t run away too far, or too harshly, or you’ll regret it one day. It is never a good thing to leave people unkindly or even cruelly.”

  He felt guilty now because he knew he had been unkind to Olivia, maybe even cruel when he told her it was jus
t a job to him, which wasn’t true. But what else could he say? What point was there to staying linked to each other in some way when he had to leave now, and their lives were headed in opposite directions? All he was for her now was a danger, and a handicap. He disagreed with his mother on one thing. He knew that he was damaged, but he believed he was irreparably so. And perhaps Olivia was too. He was not willing to take the risk of caring about anyone, or no more than he had with Olivia. He hadn’t wanted more than that and he was convinced that she didn’t either, despite his mother’s romantic notions. Whatever he had said to her, it was too late to fix it now. Olivia had become another casualty, part of the rubble left in the wake of his twisted, misguided, evil brother. And Joachim was convinced that no matter what the reason for their friendship, Olivia would be better off now without him. It was the last and only gift he could give her, to remove himself entirely from her life, no matter how he had to do it.

  * * *

  —

  His parting from his mother was bittersweet and painful. He made her breakfast before she left for work, fighting bravely not to cry after she hugged and kissed him. He tidied up the apartment for a last time after she left and made it neat as a pin for her. He laughed softly after he did it, realizing that it would annoy her and she would claim that he had made something disappear or misplaced it.

  He had the strange sensation as he was doing it that Javier was going to appear at any moment. It seemed inconceivable to him that his twin was finally gone forever, and nowhere on the planet. He kept expecting the doorbell to ring, or the intercom to buzz from downstairs, or a frantic pounding on the door, and Javier would be standing there, desperate, angry, broken, still rebellious, perhaps injured and bleeding, as he had been the last time Joachim had seen him. He wondered if he should have looked at his bullet-riddled body at the morgue to make sure he was dead but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t have borne it. It would have been one blow too many. But if he had, maybe he would believe his twin was dead now. He still didn’t. Some part of him was still linked to Javier and always would be. Perhaps the tie that bound them even transcended death, which would be a terrible life sentence for Joachim. He could even imagine opening the door to Javier, and having him shoot him, or stab him, which was why he wanted to put distance between himself and their mother. If his associates believed that Javier was still alive, and they injured Joachim instead, he wanted his mother nowhere near that. The only way to protect her was to remove himself, since he was what would attract them. It was a curse now to be an identical twin. Maybe it always was, and he just hadn’t seen it.