The Butler(58)

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.”