The Butler(35)
It made serious relationships seem dangerous to Olivia. They could ruin your life if you let them.
Joachim had always had the same feeling, although his mother wasn’t bitter. She was vibrant and alive, and refused to be defeated by poverty or solitude, or her losses, and things had turned out well for her in the end. It made Joachim feel that he had his whole lifetime to meet the right woman. He had never had a strong desire to have children, and he didn’t have biology to contend with, as women did.
Olivia’s childhood felt like a long span of gray years to her, tainted by her mother’s constant depression, and later her drinking and dementia. She had no desire to inflict that on a child, although she couldn’t conceive of a life like her mother’s. She preferred her freedom to being tied down to anyone or anything, except her work. Being alone left her free to work as hard as she wanted, with no one to complain to her about it. It was when she wasn’t working that she didn’t know what to do. The free time she had in Paris was unusual for her, and she kept busy with the apartment. But she needed to meet people and find things to do. She went to museums and galleries and liked going to movies. She knew Joachim did too, but she would never have invited him to go with her. It seemed too forward. She never asked him what he did on the weekends, and he didn’t say.
So she was startled after the following weekend, when he said he had been to London for two days.
“To see old friends?” she inquired, which seemed nosy even to her, but she was curious why he had gone, and suddenly worried. She had conveniently forgotten that he was still looking for a job. She had hired him for three months, and four weeks of it had already rushed by.
He was open with her about it. “I had an interview and stopped by to see the new marquess. He’s expecting a bid on the Sussex estate soon. He and his wife want to buy a house in the South of France. They seem to be enjoying themselves.” He had just commissioned a yacht and a sailboat in Italy. He liked living well, just not in the same way as his father had, who preferred staying on home turf.
“How did the interview go?” Olivia asked with a knot in her stomach. Quite wrongly, she knew, she felt as though she owned him now, and interviewing for another job felt like an infidelity to her. She was well aware that she had no right to feel that way. He could see how anxious she was.
“The interview went well, but it’s not a job I want. It’s an American film star who just bought a big manor house in England, but the lifestyle’s not for me.” The actor was well-known for his drug use and wild parties. He wanted a fancy English butler, and was already planning to give house parties every weekend. Joachim could easily imagine the mess that would be, with staff either dragged into it, or expected to turn a blind eye to inappropriate behavior. It was everything Joachim was determined to avoid. He was hoping to find an older couple, whose pastimes were similar to the Cheshires’, but then there was always the risk that the job would be short-term if they died. What he’d had with the Cheshires had been ideal, had suited him perfectly, and the agency had already told him it would be hard to replicate.
In the meantime, he wanted to reassure Olivia. She looked panicked as soon as he’d said he had gone on an interview. “I feel obliged to at least go on some interviews,” he told her, “or the agency won’t take me seriously and will forget about me. But I’m very happy here, working for you.” He hadn’t missed living in Paris for almost twenty years, but now he was enjoying being back again, ferreting out interesting shops and galleries to take her to, and working on the apartment, which had taken shape nicely so far. “I won’t surprise you, Ms. White,” he said formally. “If I find a serious possibility, I’ll give you plenty of warning, and I won’t leave before the time we agreed on. If they want me, they’ll have to wait until I complete my commitment to you.” She was terrified that someone would snatch him up and hire him for a long-term job. If they had any idea how efficient he was, they would hire him immediately, and give him whatever he wanted. She had no idea what his requirements were, or his salary, for a full-time head butler’s job.
“Would you consider extending your time with me, if we still have work to do?” she asked him.
“I would, but I think another two months will do it, as we planned. I think you estimated it very correctly. We might even finish before that. And I don’t want to waste your money or time.”
“You don’t. You help me with so many things, Joachim. I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you, when you leave.” She was genuinely sad about it, and it hadn’t happened yet. And she didn’t want it to. She had grown more dependent on him than she expected to. Language was part of it, since she didn’t speak French, and had only learned a few words. But more than that, he was so resourceful and intelligent, it was easy to rely on him, and they worked together so smoothly. There was never tension or dissent between them. He was so professional that even after the night he had made dinner for her and they had talked about their fathers, when he came to work on Monday, it was as though they had never spoken of them. He returned to work in his usual professional form, with no sign or mention of the confidences they had shared. He retreated back behind the lines of his boundaries.
Two days later, after his weekend in London, she came back to him and asked him to stay for three additional months, for a total of six months in her employ, and offered him a raise. He answered her on the spot.