The Butler(29)
“If it’s not rude to ask, how did you end up a butler?”
“By accident. I finished high school when we came from Argentina. I got my baccalauréat degree and went to the Sorbonne. I was studying art and literature, and feeling lost. I have a brother I was very close to, and he stayed in Argentina. Nothing made sense or was fun without him, so I dropped out of school and did odd jobs for a while. I saw an ad for a butler school in London and signed up for six months on a lark. And much to my surprise, I liked it and found my calling. I could use a variety of skills and learned many new ones. Being a butler is both hands-on and a managerial job. I like the combination. It requires precision and perfectionism, which is a constant challenge. And resourcefulness. I took a job with an earl, who lost everything a year later, and then I got the job with the Marquess of Cheshire. I thought I’d stay a year or two and go back to Paris. Fast-forward the film, sixteen years later, I’d wound up as the head butler within a few years and stayed until they both died. It became addictive. I liked my job, and I loved them. I never saw the time fly by. And now here I am, starting over, or I will be when I go back. I would have stayed if they hadn’t died, and the houses weren’t up for sale. It won’t be easy to start again,” he said with a wistful look. “This is a nice change of pace in the meantime. I’m enjoying it,” he said, and she nodded.
“I am too. It’s been a good week. I’m in the same boat you are. I’m not quite sure what I’m going back to when I go back to work. I put my heart and soul into my decorating magazine for ten years, all for nothing. I don’t know whether to go to work for someone else, another magazine, or start something of my own again. It was a beautiful magazine, but this isn’t a good time for magazines. The Internet is putting them out of business. Mine was too high-quality and too elitist.”
“I’m not so sure it’s a good time for butlers either. The great houses are all being sold to people who don’t know how to run them or what a butler is, and don’t want one, or they’re being run as commercial ventures, for tourists or conventions, or rented out for TV shows. There are only a handful of great houses left, and no one gives those jobs up. They stay there until they keel over. I slowly became obsolete while I was working for the Cheshires. It’s a very special kind of life. It doesn’t suit most people. And you give up your personal life to do it. The two aren’t really compatible.”
“A lot of jobs are like that,” she said thoughtfully. “I gave up my personal life for work too. I thought it was worth it. Now I wonder. One day you wake up, years have gone by, and you’re alone. And if the business fails, then what do you have? Not much.” Or nothing at all, in her case. That was how she felt now.
“It sounds like you did the right thing coming here and doing something different for a while.” She nodded agreement.
“And in a year, then what? I have absolutely no idea what I’ll do after this,” she said seriously.
“You’ll find something. Or it will find you. My mother is very philosophical about those things. She’s had a remarkable life. She fell into the job she has now, and loves it. She’s been doing it for twenty-five years, and she works as hard at eighty-one as she did at forty or fifty. I think caring about it as much as she does keeps her young. I loved my job too.”
“So did I.” She smiled at him as they both stood up, ready to explore the antiques stalls again. “I try to think of it as chapters in my life. Or maybe it’s a trilogy of some kind. A ten-year chapter is now over. Now I’ll just have to see what the chapters are about in future. I agree with your mother. It will find you.”
“And in the meantime, thank you for the job, Ms. White. I mean that sincerely. I was driving my mother crazy, reorganizing her closets. She’s grateful to you.” Olivia laughed as they walked into the next stall, where she found another painting. It was a graceful ballerina that looked like a Degas, and she bought it for her bedroom. It made her think of the work his mother did, which touched her profoundly.
She asked him about his brother in Argentina on the drive back to the city. “Did you see your brother on your recent trip to Buenos Aires?”
He took a long time to answer. He kept his eyes on the road when he did. “I haven’t seen him in twenty-five years,” he said in an even tone, and she didn’t press him about it. She could see that it was a painful subject. He was a man of many facets and contradictions. His choice of working as a butler seemed like an odd one, but he seemed to like it. And he was good at what he did. He was fast, bright, resourceful, and efficient, and he seemed to have a wealth of knowledge on many subjects. She wondered what the story was with his brother but didn’t ask him. It was clearly off-limits, and she had no desire to pry. She had her own taboo subjects and painful family secrets.
They rode back to Paris in comfortable silence, with her new acquisitions in the van. They dropped them off at the new apartment on the way back to the quai Voltaire.
“Do you have enough food for tonight?” he asked her, and she smiled and said she did.
“Thank you for a fun afternoon, and for giving up your Saturday. Have a nice day off tomorrow,” she said, and closed the door of the van. She waved as he drove away, and went upstairs to make more lists of things she needed for the apartment. They were installing her new kitchen on Monday. They were moving ahead at full speed. She was well aware that she couldn’t have done it without Joachim. Their respective needs had dovetailed nicely. She was filling a gap for him, and he was helping her set up her new life in Paris. The timing for each of them was perfect, and just what they needed. In a way, it was almost too good to be true. And very exciting to have a beautiful new apartment in Paris.