He looked around his mother’s small, cluttered apartment for a last time before he left, and sent all his love to her in thought. He remembered Javier sitting on the couch with his gun, only days before. He thought of Olivia, and what he’d said to her the last time he saw her.
He couldn’t wait to get to England now, and to get lost in another job, so he didn’t have to think of all of it. He had his whole life packed into two suitcases, which he carried downstairs to his station wagon. He saw the plainclothes detective, dressed as a janitor, on duty to protect his mother’s home, and her when she came back later.
He pulled away from the curb with a heavy heart, thinking of those he loved and had loved and could have loved, leaving them all behind, as he headed north for the drive to England.
* * *
—
He was in London by the end of the day and gained an hour with the time difference from Paris. He went to his small flat, which he hadn’t used in months, and called the agency to let them know he was back, had left his temporary job, and was ready to take a job in England. They said they would get back to him and would check their books. Until then, they hadn’t put much energy into it, since they knew he had a temporary job in Paris, and he had been picky about what he would interview for. Joachim said that now he was willing to look more broadly. He bought fish and chips and ate in his room that night.
When he called his mother, she sounded sad and scolded him for his uninvited housekeeping and wanted to know what he had done with her latest art magazines. He laughed at the question.
“I knew you’d accuse me of hiding something. I put them on your night table.” They talked about her day, and his drive to London, and she said she missed him. One of the things he loved about her was how normal their exchanges were. It had always been very simple, and he never doubted for an instant how much she loved him. It had fed him in the darkest times of his life. It was a shame that Javier hadn’t been able to derive the same sustenance from her, although she had loved him just as much and always told him so when he was still at home and when he called them in France. But some part of Javier had always blocked her. He preferred to believe himself unloved to justify the choices he made and the dark turns his life had taken as a result. Although they looked identical, it always shocked Joachim, and his mother, how profoundly different they were.
* * *
—
Joachim went to bed early and was woken by the agency calling him in the morning. They had four interviews set up for him. They had taken him at his word, and were putting him forward for their butler positions, although none of them were quite up to the level of what he’d had before. But he expected that.
The interviews had been set up at ninety-minute intervals at the agency in Knightsbridge. If both parties had further interest, a second interview would be set up, in their home. It seemed an efficient way to handle it and wouldn’t waste everyone’s time if it wasn’t a match, or even close.
Joachim showed up at the agency in one of his well-tailored black suits. He had always been vain about his clothes fitting well, and, with his generous salary, had his suits made by a tailor on Savile Row. He wore highly polished sober black leather shoes, a white shirt and a navy and black Hermès tie, and had a haircut before he went to the agency. He looked impeccable.
He liked the first couple more than he’d expected to. They were a young Saudi couple, and had a large house in London that was fully staffed. The wife was quite beautiful, and wasn’t veiled, although he suspected she would be in her own country. They had a house in Geneva too, and a home in Riyadh. They only wanted him for the house in London. They had six children and four nannies, and the kind of staff he was used to. The rest of the house staff was from the Philippines, the nannies were British, and a house manager and secretary were both Saudi. The way it was set up, Joachim guessed that he would have less authority and control of the staff than he was used to. The two Saudi men essentially ran the staff and made all the decisions, and Joachim got the distinct feeling that he would be window dressing, and nothing more than a British butler who would look good to their guests at dinner parties. He was used to a job with more substance than that, and a free hand with decisions. They only spent a few months a year in London, and although he liked them, he had the feeling that he would be bored most of the time, except when they were in residence, entertaining. It was made clear to him that the two Saudi men would outrank him, and he would take direction from them.
He genuinely liked the couple, who were warm and very polite to him, but he suspected that the lack of authority he’d have would rankle him. And he guessed that they were more likely to favor their own countrymen than an English butler. It was a good job, and paid well, but he didn’t think it was the right one for him. He wanted a position with more variety and broader scope now, after the diverse projects he’d handled for Olivia. He had enjoyed that more than he’d expected to. He turned the Saudi position down. The agency wasn’t surprised.
The second job he interviewed for was with an American couple. The husband was well into his sixties, his wife (his fourth one, the agency had whispered to him before the interview) was twenty-two. Her husband treated her like a teenager and she acted like one. The husband couldn’t keep his hands off her during the interview. She was wearing a miniskirt that was so short Joachim made a point of not looking in her direction for fear of what he’d see, but the interview was so amusing that he had to struggle not to laugh at their questions. They had just bought a house in London, were from Texas, and also had a home in Palm Beach, which was already fully staffed. They had been married for six months. They planned to have a cook, two or three maids, and wanted him to double as butler and chauffeur, which he wasn’t entirely opposed to, and they asked if he’d mind helping the maids with the heavy cleaning. His three grown children and eight grandchildren would be using the house occasionally, and with an adoring look at his young wife, he said he hoped they’d be having more children soon. The salary they were offering was not what he was used to, and he could easily envision himself in the midst of chaos, with the owner’s family showing up with their children, while he drove, cleaned, and played the role of butler to all of them, with nothing very interesting to do. There was nothing very creative involved, there would be no travel or entertaining, and it sounded like there would be way too many people in the parade, especially with the child bride who wanted to know if he had any experience as a trainer, and would he be willing to give massages, which sounded like dangerous ground to him.
The whole setup made him very uneasy. Sitting through the interviews was like speed dating, but it was one way to rule out the ineligible households quickly. He got a good view of the young American wife’s legs, seen from the rear, when they left the room, and he had to admit, she had fabulous legs and an incredible figure. The back of her leather miniskirt barely reached her thighs, and he felt panicked just watching her, as her husband patted her bottom on the way out. She gave Joachim a killer smile coyly over her shoulder before she left the room, which he did not return. He could just imagine the awkward situations that might arise if he worked for them, a headache he did not want or need. For an instant, he wished he could have described the interviews to Olivia. He knew she would have seen the humor in them, as he did. But he was straight-faced and candid when he expressed his concerns to the agency representative who checked in with him after each interview. He could understand Joachim’s concerns, but reminded him that in today’s employment scene, he would have to be flexible. And he thought the last two jobs they had set up interviews for would be more to his liking. The couples were more typically English and were offering more traditional butler’s jobs.
For the third interview, a touchingly old, incredibly sweet couple walked in. Joachim had in the notes he’d been given that Lord Hallbrook was ninety-two, and Lady Hallbrook had just turned ninety. They appeared fragile, but seemed to be
managing. They looked at each other lovingly throughout the interview. They said they seldom came to London anymore, and lived on their estate in Norfolk. They no longer lived in the main house, but in the dower house, and their son occupied the manor house and had his own staff. They had a cook and a maid, and their butler had recently passed away. They said they didn’t need much, and lived a quiet country life, and would be grateful if the butler would drive them as well. What Joachim could see was what the job with the Cheshires would have become if they had lived even longer and relinquished their properties to their children during their lifetimes. With the Hallbrooks, Joachim would have been one of a staff of three, in a tiny country house, for a very elderly couple who might not even live much longer, and he would be out of a job again, with nothing to do. It touched him to see them together, and they admitted that the dower house was quite small, the two women who worked for them were quite old as well, sisters who had worked for them for almost fifty years. It wasn’t likely to be a long-term job, given the age of the employers. They were lovely people, exquisitely well-mannered and very distinguished, but Joachim felt claustrophobic just thinking about it. The job with the Cheshires had been more interesting because he had a large staff and two big houses to run. Lord and Lady Hallbrook were adorable, but it was another strikeout for Joachim. He was beginning to lose hope that the fourth position would be any better.
The man who marched into the room ten minutes later was like a gust of wind, full of energy. He was slightly younger than Joachim and full of good humor. Halsey Mount-Williams was almost a caricature of the British aristocracy. He commented that he’d had three wives already, one worse than the other, and all dreadfully greedy. One of them, a Russian girl, had stolen some of the silver. He made a joke of it. He divided his time between his club in London and his family estate in Sussex, having lost his London house to his first wife. He admitted that some of it was in quite bad shape, but they were managing to hold it together with spit and baling wire, and he and his sister had come up with a clever plan to offer paying tours of the Sussex house, so they kept that part of the house and grounds in quite good order. The rest really didn’t matter. He said they kept up the front gardens for the same reason, but the park and back gardens were sadly overgrown. He added that they made quite good money with the tours, and the house was listed in all the guidebooks of England. He said that he put all his money into the stables and the Thoroughbreds he bred. He had a fairly large staff in the stables, and some excellent horseflesh according to him, people to run the tours, and they kept two maids, a cook, and a butler. “Rather a poor man’s Downton Abbey,” he said jovially, which reminded Joachim of Olivia’s comments about Carson the butler. He couldn’t see himself in that role, but it sounded as though the job had potential. He could perhaps refurbish the house a little, and get things back in good order, and oversee the gardeners. He was familiar with the name of the estate, but had never seen it, Pembroke Manor.
“I spend most of my time in the stables, with the horses,” the employer readily admitted. “The house would be your job, and making sure the tours go smoothly, that none of them wind up in my bedroom by mistake, and making sure that my current girlfriend, a very sweet Czech girl, doesn’t sell what’s left of the silver. Both of my parents are dead, thank God, so there’s none of that to worry about. And my sister hates the place. She lives in Italy, married to an Italian, and only shows up to make sure she gets her share of the money from the tours.” It sounded like chaos to Joachim, but a kind of chaos he understood, of British aristocrats who had run out of money, were trying to find resourceful ways to hang on to their estates and still run them, and keep the place looking decent. He knew of several homes that had turned into tourist attractions and managed to survive that way. He wasn’t opposed to it, and he thought it might be fun to be involved in it. And it was obvious that the only thing the owner cared about were his horses, and possibly his girlfriends. But Joachim thought that the many hats he was now able to wear, especially after working on the chateau, might be useful to this employer. It wasn’t a formal, elegant job like he’d had with the Cheshires, but more like working for one of their profligate sons, if they’d had one, which they didn’t. The Cheshire heirs were all quite nice and well behaved, even if they didn’t want to live as grandly as their parents. Joachim had the distinct impression that this man had run through whatever he’d inherited, or was working on it, and shoring up the estate wherever possible.
Of all the jobs he’d just interviewed for, the last one seemed the most interesting, and possibly even amusing. At least it would be different. The potential employer seemed like fun. And it was just different enough to be intriguing.
“I’d be happy to come to Sussex, sir, to have a look, if that would be all right with you.”
“Fine, whenever you like. Very decent butler’s quarters. My parents were always very good to the staff. You’d have your own cottage on the grounds.” He quoted a salary, which was less than the Cheshires had paid, but more than the Texans had offered, and the job seemed like it was worth a look. “I’m master of the local hunt, so we do hunt breakfasts in the season. Something for the tourists to look at. We serve them breakfast if they like too, at quite a jolly price.” He winked at Joachim, who laughed. They seemed to be commercializing everything they could, without embarrassment.
They agreed that Joachim would come for a visit before the end of the week and shook hands on it. Halsey Mount-Williams left, and Joachim told the agency he was interested in the position, but still willing to interview for others. He thought the job in Sussex would give him the most latitude to run things as he wanted, with a fairly relaxed employer, and it was also well enough out of sight not to draw attention from Javier’s cohorts, if any of them showed up in England.
Joachim told his mother about it that night, and she said it sounded like a bit of a mess to her, and very English.
“It probably is a mess. I think that’s what I like about it. It’ll give me something to do. I would have been bored with the others I saw, and the Texan child bride would probably have raped me, which might not have been an unpleasant experience, but then her husband would have killed me.”
His mother laughed. “Aren’t there any proper jobs left, with respectable employers in decent houses?”
“Apparently not. I suppose there are some, but no one ever leaves those jobs until their employers die or they do.”
“Well, go to see the one in Sussex. He sounds like a black sheep to me.”
“Probably. And he’s horse mad. He sounds like he spends all his money on his horses. But he doesn’t look like a bad guy.” She was happy that he had found something, but still sad that he had left Paris.
* * *
—
Joachim went to see about the job at Pembroke Manor in Sussex two days later, and it was even more disorganized than he had imagined. The front of the house was in relatively good order. Two very attractive young women were running the tours, and they had set up several bedrooms to look the way they must have originally, along with a drawing room, and a dining room with a formally set table, which was quite dusty. They had managed to keep an aura of grandeur and dignity at the front of the house, with some very handsome family paintings, and heirlooms. The back of the house where Mount-Williams lived was a mess and didn’t look as though it had been cleaned in a decade. The first order of business if Joachim took the job would be to clean it up. You could see that a bachelor lived there. The furniture was threadbare and the once-beautiful curtains in shreds from age and sunlight. The gardens were in total disarray. Even those the tourists saw needed attention. The entire aura of the place was of decaying aristocracy and the thin remains of days of grandeur. Everything around the place was in need of cleaning and repair, and in some cases replacement. It wasn’t impossible to do, if the owner was willing to spend the money. And Joachim was willing to put the time and energy into making it shine ag
ain.
The stables were far better tended and in better shape, and the horses were magnificent. The park was almost completely overgrown. The butler’s cottage was very comfortable, under an inch of dust that made Joachim cough when he visited it.
The main house was quite large, though not enormous. There was a very old maid and her granddaughter from the village. Two very lazy gardeners, who were lounging about doing nothing, and that would have to change. And the cook was a jolly heavyset woman who said she had been there for thirty years, and Joachim could smell alcohol on her breath when he approached her. The three women’s uniforms were frayed and dirty, and they needed a good polishing too. The challenge appealed to him, after the work he had done on the chateau with Olivia. This was a much smaller scale venture, with potentially good results, but the chateau had prepared him for it. He wished he could talk to Olivia about it, but they hadn’t parted well, and he didn’t feel comfortable calling or writing to her. He realized now that his mother was right, and it was a mistake to leave people badly. As far as he knew, he had burned his bridges with her, and he wondered how she was doing with the chateau. He hoped things were going as smoothly as possible and she had found someone to help her.
The Butler Page 20