Kitabı oku: «The Last Will And Testament Of Daphné Le Marche»

For my mother Joan, the ultimate Francophile.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title

Dedication

Prologue

Part 1: Spring

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Part Two: Summer

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Part 3: Autumn/Winter

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue
London, 2016

The ornate marble fireplace glowed from the fire that hissed and danced within it, as though in celebration of what was to come for Daphné Le Marche and, as she watched the flames, she imagined her final descent into hell.

Was it Mark Twain who said that you should go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company?

Daphné would always take the excellent company over a sunny day; besides, the state of the weather had never bothered her. She lived so much in her head that she often failed to notice the black clouds building on the horizon.

That was often the problem in her eighty years on Earth, she mused, as she watched the cremation dance in the distance of her bedroom.

The nurse had said it was too warm for a fire in this mild July summer, and the doctor said the smoke wasn’t good for her heart, but he had said it half-heartedly, she thought, and she smiled at her own pun.

What did they know about her frozen bones and broken heart? What did they know about being housed in an eighty-year-old body with a thirty-year-old mind?

Of course, the fire was lit as requested, and a new nurse was employed; one who didn’t sigh, and blow her fringe up with her breath when she entered Daphné’s bedroom.

She looked around her bedroom with her tired eyes. It was splendid; everything in her world was splendid. Her bedroom was perfectly appointed in every way, from the pale apricot silk curtains to the antique furniture, but the only items that gave her pleasure at that moment were her mother’s linen sheets which she lay upon, given to her on her wedding day sixty years ago.

How she wished for her mother now, tears burning her tired eyes, as the heavy oak door to her bedroom opened.

Edward Badger entered the room, standing awkwardly in the entrance, holding a leather satchel and an iPad.

‘Madame Le Marche,’ he said in a deferential yet somewhat embarrassed tone. He had probably never seen her so vulnerable and looking so old, she thought, and she took a little pleasure in still making those around her feel uncomfortable. She liked people to not feel too familiar with her. Just because they knew the stories, they didn’t know the woman, she often told those nearby, a boastful warning of who they were dealing with.

For twelve years, Edward had worked for Daphné Le Marche as her personal solicitor, starting as a junior and then working his way to her side. He was the most loyal person she had ever known, or the most stupid—she could never quite decide—but at least he stayed when everyone else had left.

‘Edward, please, sit.’ She motioned to the uncomfortable Queen Anne style chair, placed by her bedside for visitors. She had deliberately asked for this chair to be used, discouraging long stays.

Not that any of the visitors who had sat by her failing side had offered her any comfort. Who could offer her comfort now, besides the doctor and his heavy leather bag of medicines?

Edward looked handsome with the fire behind him, and Daphné wondered if he had left a woman’s bed to be in another woman’s bedroom at nearly midnight. Edward never spoke of his love life, although she was sure he wasn’t gay. Perhaps if she were younger, she might have helped him in some way to find his lover or she might have kept him for herself. She smiled to herself at the thought of her younger self in seduction mode.

‘I have decided,’ she said finally, feeling her heart beat in random triplets.

Edward nodded and sat down as she instructed. He then opened the satchel and took out a thick sheaf of papers.

‘Do you believe in heaven and hell?’ she asked.

To his credit, Edward didn’t seem perturbed by her question even though Madame Le Marche had never really engaged in small talk with him, but then again conversations about the afterlife could not be construed as small talk.

‘No,’ he answered as he shuffled the papers, finding the one page he needed to record her final wishes.

‘You seem so sure, have you already had a preview of what’s to come?’ She laughed a little.

He looked up at the old woman and smiled. ‘I deal in facts and there isn’t any evidence to suggest that such places exist outside this life.’

His eyes were kind and his voice steady and she wondered if he was as good to his own mother as he was to her.

‘Are you suggesting there exists a place within this life? That heaven is here on earth?’

Edward raised his broad shoulders and shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

Daphné felt a rare stir of interest. Age makes you not only weary but also bored, she often said.

‘Go on,’ she demanded.

Edward smiled, almost to himself, she noticed. ‘Do you know those days that are perfect? Where everything makes sense and who you are with, or your own company, feels like destiny, when everything is flowing your way, that is heavenly, isn’t it?’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, slightly imitating him.

He went on, ignoring her dusting of scorn. ‘And those days or nights, yes it’s usually night-time, when you wonder how it all could have gone so incredibly wrong, why the person you love is in pain, or how can a baby have cancer? How can people suffer so much? I think that is hell. It’s usually between the hours of two and four in the morning that the worst of those thoughts occur.’

‘Hell has a schedule? A timetable?’ She laughed again, but it sounded hollow to her ears.

She knew those hours. She knew that hell.

Edward was silent, as though he had said too much, but she didn’t have time for his guilt. She had her own to deal with.

She paused, as her long, thin fingers clutched the edge of the sheets.

She remembered her mother tucking her into bed when she was sick, the smell of lavender on the sheets, the sound of a fire in the bedroom lulling her to sleep.

When I die, I will go downstairs and my mother will be upstairs, she thought, and at that moment Daphné regretted the choices she had made in life, for only her mother was enough to cause a woman like Daphné Le Marche penitence.

Edward waited patiently for her decision to be revealed.

‘Is the formula safe?’ she asked, and Edward nodded.

‘It’s in the bank vault,’ he said.

‘And the journals?’

‘Locked in the drawer in London,’ he answered.

Daphné sighed. There was no point postponing it any longer. She knew what she had to do.

‘The girls, I leave it all to the girls,’ she said finally.

Edward blinked a few times, as though trying to process her ruling.

‘And Robert?’ He asked of her only surviving child.

‘He made his decision years ago,’ she said and Edward was silent.

The Le Marche family history was enough to fill scandal sheets for years to come, but he knew her decision to overlook her only son and heir was not made lightly.

‘They must be here in London; they must work at Le Marche for a year before they can sell and they must always have two signatures on every decision. They are each other’s conscience.’

Edward wrote notes on the iPad as she spoke, her hands now running along the edging of the top sheet. Back and forth, like practising scales on the piano as a child.

She thought of her business and she wished she could stay. Nothing was as good as working, she once told her sons. What a shame neither of them had her work ethic.

‘And the formula?’ he asked.

‘They receive it after they have worked together for one year and one day.’

Edward made a note and snapped the cover on the iPad closed as though it was an audible full stop on the moment.

‘Where are the girls now?’ she asked, tiredness creeping up on her.

‘Celeste is mostly in Paris, but is sometimes with her mother in Nice, and Sibylla is in Melbourne—she lives alone but spends a lot of time with Elisabeth.’

Daphné felt her eyes hurt again at the thought of lovely Elisabeth. How she had suffered, in some ways more than Daphné, at the loss of Henri.

‘Mothering isn’t easy, that’s why I worked,’ she said almost to herself.

Edward was silent.

He was understanding company, she thought, wishing he would come again, but she knew she wouldn’t see him again after tonight.

‘A year. I give them a year to work together, and one cannot sell without the other. If one sells, they both sell.’

‘They can’t buy each other out?’ Edward’s face was now frowning.

‘Don’t frown, it gives you lines,’ said Daphné automatically.

Edward tried to smooth his face but failed.

‘They can’t sell the company to each other?’ he asked again.

‘No,’ said Daphné. ‘I want this family to rest its quarrels. The only chance we have now is with the girls.’

‘But they haven’t seen each other since they were children,’ Edward said.

‘You’re frowning again,’ she reminded him.

The fire spat in annoyance, and he glanced at it and then back to Daphné who was speaking again.

‘I am not concerned about petty reasons of an obstacle, such as separation. They’re family, they don’t need reintroductions. They have more in common than they think.’

Edward wrote quickly and then handed the papers to Daphné, who lifted her hand.

‘Where do I sign?’ she asked with a tired sigh. Dying was exhausting, she thought. No wonder people only did it once in their lifetime.

Edward picked up a book from her bedside table for her rest the paper on.

‘The Book of Perfumes,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Still working, are you?’

‘I am always working,’ she said tiredly, as the door opened and the nurse came into the room. ‘Even on my deathbed, I am working.’

‘Can you witness this, please?’ Edward asked the woman, in a tone Daphné admired. He had grown into a confident man and she trusted him, which was as rare in business as it was in love.

The nurse watched as Daphné signed her hand and then Edward and the nurse added their signatures to the document.

‘It is done,’ said Edward, in a deferential tone, after the nurse left the room.

‘I don’t envy you,’ she said, a small smile creeping onto her face.

‘Why is that?’ he asked, as he packed his papers into his satchel.

‘What is about to come, I am sure I don’t pay you enough.’ She laughed a little, happy at the thought she could still create waves, even after her death.

‘I am capable of handling anything, I’ve been taught by the best,’ said Edward, reaching down and touching her hand.

Her skin was cold, but her grasp firm, as she held his hand.

‘Thank you,’ she said, meaning it deeply. Edward had been her greatest support over the last years and she hoped he could be the same for the girls.

‘Look after my petites-filles,’ she said, so tired now.

‘I will, and I will be back to see you again,’ he said, his thumb stroking the back of her hand.

She nodded, but she knew he wouldn’t be back while she was alive. If there was one thing Daphné Le Marche knew how to keep it was a schedule.

After Edward had gone, and the fire was dying in the grate, she saw the colour she had been chasing her entire life.

Dernières lueurs—the perfect afterglow.

And she cursed God that she could never replicate it in her lifetime. All she had ever wanted was to create a product that gave women the glow as though they had just fallen in love or made love or even both. She touched her own cheek with her hand and tried to remember when she last had that glow.

It was too long ago, she thought sadly, and she closed her eyes and slept, and between the hours of two and four, just as she had suspected she always would, Daphné Hélène Le Marche née Amyx died. She had never been late to a meeting before, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to be late for this one.

Part 1

Chapter 1
Celeste

Sometimes Celeste Le Marche wondered if she should have died instead of Camille.

If she had gone to the dance lesson with Camille instead of having a tantrum at home because she didn’t get new ballet shoes like her sister, then they would have argued over who got the front seat, and Celeste, being the more aggressive of the sisters, even though she was younger, would have won.

Camille would have been relegated to the back seat behind Papa, because that was the only seat belt in the back of the Audi that worked and it would have been Celeste that died instantly when the truck hit the car.

Then Camille would have gone to the hellhole school that was Allemagne and Celeste would have gone to heaven with Uncle Henri and Pépère, and everything would be as it should be.

She used to wonder what it was like in heaven. Every imagining changed according to her age. One year it was bowls filled with sweets on pretty little tables and talking goldfish that swam in ponds, then it was filled with every fabulous item of clothing she could imagine, and then it was champagne and cocaine and dancing without ever needing to sleep.

Now, as she wandered through the dark villa belonging to her mother, she wondered if heaven was actually being able to sleep through the night.

She could hear the sounds of the waves on the rocks below and she wondered about her uncle for a moment, and then pushed the thoughts from her head.

Why did the darkest thoughts always come when there was so little light?

She checked her phone and saw the missed messages from Paul in Paris.

Instead, there were over twenty messages from the press. News of her affair with the Minister of Trade had just been leaked by someone, probably that little shit who worked for him, she thought. He was always flouncing around wearing too much cologne and his pants too tight. Now it would be in the news tomorrow, unless Paul tried to put a stop to it by offering something in return.

A text came through from him as she peered at her phone.

Celeste, we need to talk. Now!

She snorted at her phone. He had a night free from the confines of the family home and he thought her worthy enough to give her his company, except she was in Nice and he wasn’t happy about it all, judging by the tone of his text.

He could wait for a change, she thought, as she sat on the cane chaise and covered her long legs with the cotton blanket her mother had left at the end of the lounge. The sun must be nearly up, she thought, as she peered into the darkness. On the horizon, a light glimmered, and Celeste was thankful the night was nearly over.

Matilde was so thoughtful to her guests, thought Celeste, as she straightened out the blanket. It was just her daughter she forgot about. The only time she had been nurtured by Matilde was when she had her tonsils out when she was six, the year before Camille died. Matilde had put her daughter into clean sheets and rubbed lavender onto her temples when she had a headache. Camille had sat at the end of the bed and had read her Babar, and Papa had bought her little honey sweets to soothe her throat.

Her mother certainly hadn’t been in this mood when Celeste arrived unannounced from Paris the day before.

‘Celeste, what are you doing here?’ she had asked, surprise showing in her blue eyes. At fifty-five years old, Matilde Le Marche had retained her figure, her married name, and her love of socialising.

‘I needed to get away from Paris,’ was all Celeste had said, pushing through the door of the villa.

‘Married men make women crazy and women make married men crazy. It is better to be single,’ said Matilde as she’d picked up her tennis racquet, which was next to the front door. ‘Look at me.’

Celeste knew better than to open the door to the conversation that would start if she commented on her mother’s statement. The only thing Matilde liked to do more than gossip was to complain about the affairs her father had had while they were still married.

Of course, Matilde had learned of Celeste’s affair with Paul Le Brun from the nephew of a friend, whose ex-boyfriend was in love with Paul.

Too many visits under the guise of decorating his office had brought attention to their relationship, and since then Paul had been retreating from seeing Celeste as often.

Was it just her, or was the sex a little less intense also, or was that because he was nearing fifty?

What if he died while they were making love? She had heard of such stories, and the idea of Paul dead on top of her while still inside her made her shudder.

Celeste tried to shake her morbidity and closed her eyes, the cool air caressing her face. Her phone chimed again and she rushed to turn it down and saw a text message from her father.

Grand-Mère passed last night

So much death in this family, she thought, as she read the message.

Her father Robert was not one for extreme displays of emotion and the news of Grand-Mère Daphné’s passing was handled in his usual taciturn way.

She thought about messaging him back, but what could she say to ease her father’s relationship with his mother?

She had enough problems with Matilde. The idea of her mother was far nicer than the reality. It was the same with Grand-Mère Daphné. She was always frightening to her as a child and she hadn’t seen her in a year, not since Daphné’s heart went into failure and she had gone into hiding.

‘I’m surprised she has a heart to fail,’ her father had quipped over their quarterly lunch at La Tour d’Argent, which Celeste loathed but knew it was vital to attend if she were to keep her measly allowance from Papa.

Daphné Le Marche was never a warm person to Celeste or anyone else, but she had rescued her granddaughter from her time at the Allemagne school and that alone was worth a moment’s silence for the old woman.

She would organise the funeral, she thought. It would be an elegant event, like Daphné. God knows what it would turn into if her father was left to manage the details. If he had his way, her grandmother would be shipped out to sea in a cardboard coffin, and not even a prayer offered.

Perhaps she should have said more to her grandmother over the years, especially after that telephone call from Allemagne, made to Daphné when she was sixteen, which saved her life. Robert and Matilde were so immersed in their own grief and self-destruction that they didn’t see their surviving daughter was dying at boarding school.

It was the only time in her childhood that Celeste had had a champion. It was Daphné who had told Robert that Celeste was anorexic, and a victim of extreme bullying and that she had tried to overdose on painkillers. It was Daphné who had told Matilde to step up and be a mother or she would lose both children. It was Daphné who had organised Celeste to attend hospital and finish her final classes at home with a tutor.

And it was Daphné who had ruined the school’s reputation with Europe’s elite when it refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing and turned a blind eye to the beatings of Celeste, the urine-soaked bed, courtesy of the girls in her dormitory, which Celeste was forced to sleep in most nights, and the ostracising of her from every meal and every social event.

What were once rumours of a culture of bullying at the school soon became absolute truth once Daphné made calls to certain important families. Soon there was a removal of some of the most elite students by their families and the school never quite regained its footing among the upper classes again.

Celeste never knew why it was her who had been chosen as the victim of the bullying. Was she too tall? Too thin? Too blonde? Too something?

The only time it had been discussed was when Matilde had called her on the telephone as Celeste was being put on a drip for dehydration and a low heart rate.

‘They don’t like you because you’re too beautiful, like me. Women don’t like women like us, we’re a threat,’ Matilde had slurred down the phone.

So Celeste grew to view all women as the enemy, even her own mother.

She opened her eyes, as she heard the sound of birds stirring in the bougainvillea, scratching and fighting to wake first. I envy them, she thought, it must be easy being a bird. She looked out at the growing light in the distance, colours of sherbet orange filling the sky and, for a moment, her eyes pricked with tears for Grand-Mère. She said a little prayer for Camille to look after her when she arrived in the afterlife.

She was under no illusions though that her grandmother would have thought of her on her deathbed. The woman barely had time for Robert, let alone his daughter. All she cared about was her business.

Now Le Marche would belong to Robert, and he would sell it to the Japanese as soon as he could. She pulled the cotton blanket up to her chest and wondered about Sibylla.

Did she know? Who would tell her? Would she come to the funeral?

But Celeste had no idea how to contact her cousin in Australia.

God, that was so far away, she thought. She struggled even travelling to London. Everything she needed was in Paris, Paul was in Paris. With his family, playing the perfect husband and father. That would be all over tomorrow if the news got out about their affair.

But if that were true, she thought, why had she run to Nice?

There were too many thoughts to try to put into order, so, instead, she watched the sun rise like fire in the distance.

But her thoughts came back like the waves below the villa, crashing into the cliff.

Was Paul at home in his bed with his wife, while their children slept peacefully in their little beds? Was he watching the sunrise from his balcony? Would he think of her as he showered? Would he think of her undressing as he dressed?

Did he sip on his coffee and wonder if she was thinking of him also?

Did he love her like she loved him?

Tears burned so harshly, she squeezed her eyes shut, even though Grand-Mère had always told her to never line her face with anything other than a smile.

A half sun sat on the horizon now, and Celeste felt more at peace in the glow.

Darkness was her worst time. Nights like this were hard to bear alone.

Thirty years old and the mistress of a politician. Thirty years old with no discernible career, except as an occasional interior designer and stylist. Thirty years old and still taking an allowance from her father.

What a joke she was. She lived off her father’s meagre allowance and her lover’s gifts, and was given her mother’s apartment in Paris because Matilde didn’t know how to love her only surviving child properly, and the apartment went some way to absolving her guilt.

For a moment, she was envious of her father and his inheritance. He could do anything he wanted with Le Marche, but she knew he would sell it, as much to spite Daphné as to live off the proceeds.

As the sun rose, Celeste thought of Daphné and her life.

At twenty-one, her grandmother had had two children and, within ten years, she had turned a family business into a cosmetics empire.

Self-esteem hadn’t ever been a mantle that draped Celeste’s shoulders, and now, when she thought of her brilliant grandmother, her self-sufficient mother and even her estranged cousin, Sibylla, who was a scientist or something similar, according to her research online, she felt hopeless.

She kicked off the blanket, stood up and stretched, then walked to the edge of the balcony.

The waves crashed below her and she could see the white foam greedily lapping the edges of the rocks.

She put her hands on the edge of the iron balcony and peered down further, trying to hear the sounds of the sea, seeing how far down the rocks were, or how far up she was.

What was below? she wondered. She thought of Uncle Henri. Is this what he felt? Did he hear l’appel du vide? The call of the void?

That’s what her mother once said when she had asked how he had died.

Was it calling her now?

She couldn’t be sure, as she saw a gull dive into the foam and pull a writhing silver treasure from the water.

‘Well done,’ she said with a smile to the bird.

Tiredness draped its heavy arms around her now, and she let go of the iron railing and nodded to the sea below.

‘Not today,’ she said, and went inside to finally sleep.

* * *

When she woke, dusk was settling in the sky. She walked out of her room and saw her mother had left her a note on the wooden table.

Gone to drink with the Michels. Come and join us if you want.

Celeste had no idea who the Michels were, but she knew her mother would be drinking too much with people who saw too much sun, regaling them of stories and gossip of her ex-mother-in-law, as no doubt the news of Daphné’s death would be out now.

Celeste sighed and picked up a peach from the mosaic bowl her mother had made during one of her artistic retreats. Matilde was a frustrated artist with no particular talent, but she had tried every mode possible in which to express herself.

It seems the peach doesn’t fall far from the tree, Celeste mused, as she bit into the soft flesh of the fruit. As the skin brushed her tongue, she missed Paul’s touch and so she picked up her phone from the table and dialled his number.

He answered on the first ring. ‘Darling, where are you? What’s happened? Are you with your grand-mère?’

Hearing his voice, Celeste relaxed. She walked out onto the balcony.

‘No, I’m with my mother,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call you back, I’ve had some things in my head I needed to think about.’

She took another bite of the peach and then threw the rest over the edge, down into the void.

‘But I’m coming back to you now,’ she said and everything was back to how it was before, except it all felt so different and she couldn’t explain why.

* * *

Back in Paris, Paul was late, as usual. Celeste, feeling less restless than usual, thanks to a glass of wine and a few puffs on a cigarette, leafed through a copy of French Vogue.

Her phone rang.

‘Darling, I can’t get away,’ Paul complained.

Celeste took a gulp of wine.

‘But I came back from Nice for you,’ she said, hating that she sounded so whiny.

‘I know, but there is a meeting I must attend,’ he said. She could hear laughing in the background. ‘I will come to the funeral. Has your father told you the details yet?’

‘No,’ snapped Celeste. She had tried to call her father numerous times to learn of the funeral plans, but Robert wasn’t answering his phone.

‘You will let me know?’ Paul asked, sounding very formal, and Celeste hated him for a moment.

‘Perhaps,’ she said and ended the call.

She then scrolled through her phone until she found a number that made her smile.

After dialling, she waited. He would always answer her calls.

‘Hello.’ His voice sounded wary.

‘It’s Celeste,’ she said in her most seductive tone.

‘I know, your number came up on my phone.’

This wasn’t quite the greeting she had hoped for. She had left Charles for Paul and had ignored his calls and heartache for a year. Surely he wasn’t over her yet? She needed to let Paul know she also had a life outside of her bed.

‘Did you want to get a drink?’ she asked, running her finger over the rim of the wine glass.

‘No thank you, I have plans,’ Charles said.

Celeste believed him. She knew he wasn’t playing games; that was her job.

‘Are you seeing someone?’ she asked softly.

‘I’m engaged,’ came the reply.

Celeste sighed. Charles was a good man, which was why she had left him for Paul. She had terrible taste in men, Matilde had once said, not that she was the greatest connoisseur either.

‘Felicitations,’ she said and then ended the call with no further promises.

She leaned back in the chair and lifted up her long blonde hair so it spilled over the black leather.

She had dressed for Paul just the way he liked, in a black chiffon cocktail dress and no lingerie. The dress was short enough to show off her endless legs and plunged to take advantage of her décolletage.

God, men were so easy to amuse, she thought, as she kicked off her heels and then stood up, and peeled off her dress and walked naked to her room.

Pulling on sweatpants and an old T-shirt that was fraying at the edges but softer than what she imagined clouds would feel like, she went back to her chair, collecting the bottle of wine on her way through. Celeste could have been a model if she had been prepared to work hard enough, attending the castings and doing prestigious jobs for little money to build up her portfolio, but she didn’t want to work that hard, and her first two years after leaving Allemagne were spent in Amsterdam, where she got stoned every day and worked in a café, trying to recover from her schooling experience.

Her head began to hurt, so she took two of her extra strong painkillers and put her music player into speakers. Soon the soft sounds of Marvin Gaye singing accompanied her as she poured herself more wine.

She needed to do something about Paul, but she didn’t have the energy for it now.

Marvin was asking her to dance and Celeste needed to move. She felt her feet tapping and then her head bob and soon her hips moved with the rhythm. Closing her eyes, she turned up the music, put down her wine and gave her evening to Marvin, the only man who had never let her down.

Tomorrow could wait, she decided and she wondered what, if anything, was going to change now that Grand-Mère was gone.

Chapter 2
Billie, Melbourne

The laboratory was empty when Billie March arrived at work. She turned on the lights and breathed in the cleanliness, and then put her bag away. After donning her white coat, she shoved her phone into her pocket and placed ear buds into her ears and turned on the music.

This was her favourite time of day—when her co-workers were exhausted at the end of the week and they struggled into work one by one, talking about their plans for the weekend.

Billie wouldn’t have a weekend if she could help it, but this weekend she had promised to help her mother and stepfather move into their new house.

Marvin Gaye sang about his Inner City Blues, which had seemed appropriate on the tram ride to the university, but now she needed something other than her father’s favourite singer and she settled on Florence and the Machine.

She moved through the scheduled work, testing new deodorants, and then onto a brand of soap powder that claimed to reduce all stains.

The sound of the door clicked and Nick Miller walked into the laboratory.

‘Morning, Billie,’ he said cheerfully. He was still wearing his bicycle helmet and had one leg of his jeans tucked into an unevenly pink-coloured sock, but neither of these facts took away from his happy face.

Billie smiled at him. ‘You look cheerful,’ she said. Nick was her work crush. He was what made it lovely to come in every day. With his good looks and his pleasant banter, she couldn’t wait to see him each day.

‘I got every green light on the ride to work today, do you know the odds of that happening?’

‘I have no idea but I’m sure you can work it out,’ she said, as she went back to her soap powder paste, which she was smearing on lipstick-stained cloth.

Nick had put away his knapsack and taken off his helmet and was walking back to Billie when she pointed down at his sock.

‘Untuck,’ she said.

‘Gee, thanks, Bill,’ he said gratefully.

When Nick had first starting working at the lab, his forgetfulness became an office joke and once, when Billie had taken a rare sick day, Nick had worn his helmet all morning, including in a meeting, and no one had told him because they thought it was so hilarious.

Nick had said it was funny also, but Billie saw the flash of shame on his face when he was teased and she took it upon herself to socialise him, or at least remind him to take off his helmet and untuck his jeans from his socks. Then they began to know each other more and Billie’s friendliness turned into friendship, and then a crush.

Not that she would do anything about it. Billie was as awkward around men as she was around make-up and fashion.

‘You’re in early,’ he said glancing up at the clock. ‘I wouldn’t have got here so fast if it weren’t for the green lights.’

‘I need to leave early to help my mum move house,’ said Billie, ‘so I thought I’d get a head start. God knows it’s going to be a bloody disaster with the amount of stuff Mum has hoarded over the years. The woman finds it impossible to throw out anything.’

‘I’m the same,’ said Nick with a sigh. ‘Thankfully, I live alone, so I don’t have to worry about anyone throwing anything out.’

At thirty-three, Nick was the epitome of a nerd bachelor, living in his little house in Northcote, where he would heat up something frozen for dinner and watch documentaries and reruns of QI for a little light relief—he liked to regale Billie with the highlights of Stephen Fry’s humour.

She knew some people in the lab thought him odd, even weird, but Billie saw through that and noticed his handsome face, and his patience in explaining things to others or when they teased him.

Billie often wondered if he even thought about women, but he hadn’t even tried to ask her out on a date, so she presumed it was safe to say he just wasn’t interested in women at all.

Not that Billie had pretentions about herself, but as a rare female in a science laboratory, who was pretty and had a slight resemblance to a popular character from Game of Thrones, she was nerd candy. Everyone, from the lab technicians to the top scientists, had asked her out, and even some of the married ones gave her the eye. It was exhausting, but slowly they realised she wasn’t there to play, she was there to work.

She glanced at Nick as he pulled on his white coat. He had a slim, well-built frame from bike riding, and his pants sat extremely well on his hips. She always looked at the way a man’s pants sat on his hips. They needed to hang, not cling and for a moment she wondered what was under his pants and then admonished herself for thinking in such a base manner.

‘Are you doing the soap powder tests?’ he asked, walking towards her.

‘Yes, working on lipstick stains,’ she said, wishing she had a solution for dissolving blushes.

‘What sort of lipstick?’ he asked.

‘Just lipstick,’ said Billie frowning. ‘I just went to the pharmacy down the road and bought one.’

Nick rolled his eyes. ‘Is it pearl, gloss, matte, long-wearing?’

Billie felt herself redden. ‘I don’t know, I don’t really wear make-up,’ she admitted.

‘You don’t need it,’ said Nick casually.

She reached up and touched her face, knowing she was blushing, but Nick was looking at the lipstick.

‘This is a Maybelline gloss. This has a lot of lanolin in it, so it will be more greasy than some.’

He smeared the pale pink lipstick over the back of his hand.

‘It’s a bit sickly, needs more depth,’ he said.

Billie watched him with interest. ‘How do you know so much about lipstick?’

‘I worked in a make-up lab before here, but they went bust,’ he said. ‘I actually enjoy the different compounds and ancient recipes. Some ingredients stay the same, regardless of the century.’

‘Like what?’ she asked, noting how excited he looked as he spoke.

‘Beeswax. In Victorian times, they used beeswax with spermaceti . . .’

‘What’s that?’ asked Billie, screwing up her nose.

‘It’s an organ from inside the sperm whale’s head,’ he said. ‘They would mix it with sweet almond oil and rose water and this became known as Crème Céleste or cold cream, as we know it now.’

Billie laughed. ‘I have a cousin called Celeste in France. I’m sure she’d love to know she was named after something that came from inside a sperm whale’s head.’

Nick shook his head and smiled. ‘Are you going to tell her?’

‘Oh God, no. I haven’t spoken to her in twenty-odd years,’ Billie said, as she held the lipstick up to her face. ‘I can’t even remember her.

‘Is it my colour?’ she asked, surprised at her coquettish tone.

She wasn’t usually a flirt, but something about Nick being so knowledgeable, and his compliment with no expectation attached, had her head in a little whirl. However, she took comfort in knowing she would never do anything about this work crush. Her life was simple, and love would only make it complicated. The surety of science made up for any brief love affair she might have, when she knew it was most likely destined to break her heart.

‘No, you’d look better with reds, but with a navy base,’ he said, peering at her. ‘It’s the dark hair and blue eyes combination, just like Snow White.’ He beamed at her. Then he moved and started smearing soap powder over the stains, as the door opened and the rest of the staff arrived for their day’s work.

And Billie spent the rest of the day wondering who exactly Nick Miller was and did he have a girlfriend and then Googling pictures of Snow White.

* * *

‘Mum?’

Billie stepped over the bubble wrap and packing tape that lay across the doorway of her childhood home in Carlton. It was a long terrace house, with a hallway the length of two cricket pitches, currently lined with boxes, art leaning against the wall, and ephemera from Elisabeth and Gordon’s attempt at moving fifteen years of their life.

The problem was that Elisabeth and Gordon found themselves easily distracted. Elisabeth would drop whatever she was doing to write down a poem that swam through her mind, and Gordon would find an old book that he claimed to have been looking for ‘since for ever’ and would then settle down in that exact spot to read some old volume on the history of an ancient civilisation of a far-flung country. Billie knew the only way she would get her mother and stepfather moved was if she marshalled them and assigned them tasks, overseeing the project with extreme bossiness, something she knew her mother hated.

No reply came to her call and Billie sighed, as she put her bag down on an empty armchair.

Assessing the living room, she saw plastic boxes of photographs from the shed had managed to make their way inside, but the lid had been lifted and now snapshots of Billie’s childhood lay sprawled across the wooden floors. Photos of her and her father, and her mother, photos with her and her mother’s parents, family friends, parties, but no one else. She knew nothing of her father’s past, or his family, and loyalty to her mother meant she didn’t pry into the past.

‘Billie.’ She heard her mother say her name and she pulled herself away from the photos.

Dropping the photographs back onto the table, she looked up to see her mother standing in the room, phone in hand.

‘How’s it all going?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.

‘Henri’s mother has died,’ came Elisabeth’s reply; her face went its usual shade of ivory whenever she mentioned Billie’s father’s side of the family.

‘Oh, shit. I guess she was pretty old,’ said Billie casually.

‘Don’t swear when you learn of someone’s death,’ admonished Elisabeth.

‘Why not? I didn’t know the woman,’ said Billie with a careless shrug. ‘It’s not like she made any effort to see us after Papa died.’

Billie never asked about her any more. When she was younger, she had asked a few questions, but Elisabeth’s answers were short and angry, using words such as ‘toxic’ and ‘corrupt’, and Billie, who grieved her father deeply, needed someone to blame, so her father’s family from France seemed a likely reason. She trusted her mother’s opinion and so she joined her in hating them and getting on with their lives as a form of revenge.

‘I know, but she was still your father’s mother. That accounts for some respect,’ said Elisabeth. ‘That was her lawyer on the phone. A lovely man, very kind and discreet. He didn’t ask me about Henri at all; I assume he knows what happened.’

‘OK,’ she said slowly, trying to read her mother’s face. Elisabeth seemed stressed and worried, as though things were all out of place, which they were, thought Billie, but this was more than just moving house.

‘He wants you to go to London for the reading of the will,’ she said, surprise showing on her face.

‘London? Me? You also?’ asked Billie, aware she was speaking in staccato but unable to piece together the thoughts jumbling in her mind.

‘Just you, not me. He said it’s vital,’ Elisabeth stated, clearly saddled with the importance of the message.

‘I don’t want anything of hers,’ said Billie, bending over and picking up the photographs and stuffing them back into the plastic box they had escaped from.

‘He said it was vital,’ her mother repeated, her eyes widening at the last word.

‘I doubt it. Probably some old relic she wants to be passed to me,’ said Billie. ‘I’m not interested in anything they want to give me or you.’

Elisabeth paused as though about to speak and then deciding against it.

‘Go on, say what you were thinking,’ said Billie, crossing her arms.

The house felt cold, and the dust was making her eyes itchy.

‘Billie, the thing is, you father . . .’ Her voice trailed away.

‘What about him?’

‘He was from a good family in France, they have money.’

‘I don’t need money,’ said Billie.

‘No, I know, it’s just that, well, when your father died, I changed our names to March, to try to take away the legacy of his family.’

‘So what is his name?’ Now Billie felt that everything was out of place. She was Billie March. All her documents said so, and it was her mother’s name. She had just assumed they were Marches.

‘Le Marche,’ said Elisabeth, looking ashamed.

‘OK, Le Marche. And what else do I need to know that you might have omitted from my past?’ Billie felt her arms cross and she tried to uncross them, but she felt like everything was coming at her at once.

‘The Le Marches own a successful skincare company across Europe.’

Billie stared at her mother, trying to understand.

‘They are very, very wealthy, and I think your father would like you to have what Daphné has left to you.’

‘You told me my entire life that they were next to evil in terms of family, and now you’re telling me to go there and take whatever trinket or cash they have left me? Do you realise what a hypocrite you sound like?’

‘I thought it would be good to find out what it is. It might have something to do with Henri,’ Elisabeth said in a flat voice.

Billie knew her mother wasn’t a manipulative woman, but she was also not without demands. While Elisabeth would never ask Billie to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with, there was always something around her husband’s death that made her lose all sense of herself.

But she was as selfless as she was generous, which now made Billie now feel terrible.

Since her father’s death, Billie had watched Elisabeth try to get on to the best of her ability without her beloved Henri and, to the outsider, she had succeeded. As a well-respected professor of French poetry, and a poet with a few volumes of her work published, a new husband and a daughter who had a degree in chemistry, she had done well as far as the benchmark of success indicated.

What others didn’t see was the toll that came from coping with a death she didn’t see coming, and one that she wondered every day if she might have prevented. The anniversaries of Henri’s death where Elisabeth wouldn’t get out of bed. The man missing in the photos at Billie’s birthdays and at Christmas that caused Elisabeth to shed a tear in the kitchen, where Billie had found her many times, weeping over the sink.

But now Billie was furious. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who Dad’s family are?’

Elisabeth swallowed a few times. ‘I didn’t want you to leave me for them,’ she said. ‘The lure of money can be very enticing.’

‘Did you think I would do that? God, Mum, you don’t know me at all.’

‘I’m sorry, I just hate them,’ said Elisabeth passionately, and then she burst into tears.

‘Mum, I don’t want anything from them, even if it is Papa’s. He’s gone, we’ve all got lives now that are successful away from the Le Marches.’

Elisabeth looked down at the phone in her hand and slowly nodded. ‘Of course, you’re right, I will let the man know that they can send you anything via mail, or ship it, whatever it is.’

Billie saw the disappointment in her mother’s face and she knew the real reason she wanted her daughter to attend the will reading was to see if there was a final clue to Henri’s death. Something, anything, to tell her why it ended the way it did.

‘It will be an old painting or something, Mum, honestly, they’re not going to give me anything valuable. No doubt the family would have got their hands on anything worth money by now.’

Elisabeth raised her dark eyebrows and rolled her eyes a little.

Billie felt better seeing her mother’s scorn replacing her bewilderment.

‘You’re right,’ she said, looking relieved.

‘Of course I’m right, I’m a realist,’ said Billie. ‘You can try so many different ways to get a different result but often end up with the same outcome. That family is exactly the same. No matter what you do, they will always be self-interested, selfish and toxic, the best thing you ever did was move us to Australia. I feel sorry for them all stuck in the past. Now let’s get you moved, I’m feeling very organised.’

‘God help me,’ laughed Elisabeth, as Billie picked up a flat carton and started to assemble it.

But, as Billie worked through the rest of the day, packing and sorting, labeling and lifting, she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth Grand-Mère had left her and would it be worth something. If it was, she would give the money to her mother; that was the least of what she deserved after what she had been through. Losing a husband so young, starting a new life with a young child.

Her mother was the bravest person Billie knew and there wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let her mother get caught in the Le Marche web again since she spoke so badly of them. She always said her heart was broken after Henri died, and Billie knew they were somehow to blame. Why else had her mother cut all ties?

That night, when she lay in bed in her own little apartment, Billie looked at the framed picture of Elisabeth and her father from their wedding day in Paris.

Her mother was wearing a white shift dress with daisies in her hair, and her father a broad grin. They looked so happy, she thought, so why then did he decide to take his own life?

Chapter 3
Daphné, 1956

Daphné Amyx was eighteen and had two options available to her. Marriage or work. Marriage was possible in the village of Calvaic, but she didn’t want a pig farmer with his rough hands and crude tongue. She wanted a man like Jean Gabin, or the American actor, Jimmy Stewart who she saw in the movies at Saint Cere; and she knew that wasn’t someone she wasn’t going to find in the village.

Not that she had met the man yet, she just knew there wasn’t anything for her in the village any more and, as much as she regretted leaving her beloved mother Chantal, she knew it would be better for them both if she earned money in Paris while looking for a husband.

The day she had chosen for her reconnaissance to Paris was going to be beautiful and, as the light rose with the dawn, the garden had never looked as pretty in the growing kaleidoscope from the sunrise. Daphné felt the rising sun on her shoulders as she hung the washing on the makeshift clothesline in their back garden. Her mother’s sunflowers were facing east and sweet peas were climbing up the fence, as though greedily trying to get as much of the light as possible.

The morning and evening light was the best, she thought, as the kids danced next to their mothers in the field next to them, their little goat antics never failing to make Daphné giggle.

For a moment, Daphné felt almost nostalgic and then noted the beautifully mended holes in the nightgown she pegged to the line and let go of her sentimentality.

Rural life was hard enough, let alone for a mother and daughter who made a living from the land and making handmade soap from goat’s milk and selling it on the side of the road to the occasional tourist. Lately business had been good with the Americans who passed by. They liked the sweet little labels that Daphné had made and pasted onto the jars. She had even added some pretty linen over the lids and tied them with pink ribbon to really appeal to the customers. But then Daphné, ever the realist, pulled herself from her musing and focused on the day ahead. There was no time to be pondering the light when food needed to be put on the table.

She finished her task and walked back inside the small stone cottage, where her mother sat mending a linen sheet. The cottage was neat as a pin, and everything was polished and folded in perfect order, thanks to Chantal, Daphné’s mother.

The bus to Paris would be arriving soon, and Daphné checked her small case of soaps and lotions she and Chantal had made. If she couldn’t find a job, then she would sell the stock on the streets of Paris and return next week to try again.

She had a small overnight bag of a change of clothes and a coat belonging to her mother and would stay with the Karpinskis, who had fled Poland and had hidden in their village during the war, finding themselves unable to make their way to London.

The couple now had children and a small jewellery store in Le Marais, which they lived above and where Daphné would stay.

She picked up her case and smoothed her dark hair. ‘Mama, I’m going,’ she said to the back of her mother who stood at the kitchen sink.

Her mother turned and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Be safe,’ she said and Daphné could see the worry in her sad eyes. Losing her husband in the war meant she had little faith in the world to care for her beloved daughter. If Chantal had her way, Daphné would stay at home for ever.

‘I will be fine, Maman,’ said Daphné sincerely. She was smart, resourceful and brave and a two-day trip to Paris alone didn’t worry her like it did her mother.

‘You look very pretty,’ said her mother, admiring Daphné’s figure in the peacock blue dress which Chantal had made from fabric she had saved from before the war. Nipped at the waist, with a full skirt, the shape showed off her tiny waist and the colour complemented her sultry looks.

While Daphné wasn’t a beauty, she had an appeal that seemed to make men look twice at her. At seventeen, she knew it was sex appeal but was too shy and far too inexperienced to know its power.

She picked up her case, and kissed her mother on her weather-beaten cheek. Years of being in the garden and tending the animals had created lines on her skin yet it was soft from the goat’s milk soap and cream that she made and used.

‘I will see you on Thursday,’ she said and she smiled brightly as she went to the door. ‘Wish me luck.’

‘Good luck and give my love to the Karpinskis,’ said Chantal, and then Daphné was on her way.

* * *

The bus journey to Paris was long and slow, frequently interrupted by roaming sheep, goats, and even a family of ducks, who insisted on crossing the road in single file.

Everyone on the bus thought it charming, but Daphné just wanted to get to Paris. She knew there was something waiting for her there, but what it was, she wasn’t sure.

The only highlight was a women’s magazine that a woman had left on her seat after she had departed the bus. Such a luxury wasn’t in Daphné’s budget and the trip went quickly while she read every article and studied every picture.

When the bus arrived in Paris, it was after lunch and Daphné was tired, grimy and hungry, but she knew she didn’t have time to waste. Work was hard to come by in Paris and, as Anna Karpinski had said in her letter to Daphné, only the tenacious survived, but Daphné didn’t plan on just surviving, she wanted to thrive in the city.

Of course Anna and her husband Max were tenacious enough to have survived the war in hiding and make a life in Paris, but when Daphné arrived at their tiny shop, and she saw shabby state of their establishment and how rough the neighbourhood was, she wondered if life in Paris was as wonderful as the magazines she read at the village store claimed.

‘Daphné,’ cried Max, as she opened the door to the store, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.

‘Max,’ she said warmly and let him embrace her like her father would have.

Anna and Max had moved from house to house for three years during the war and often slept in barns or cellars. They never complained, and always worried for those who were protecting them.

It was Anna who comforted Chantal when the telegram arrived informing them that Daphné’s father had died.

It was Max who suggested goats to Chantal, and Anna who taught Chantal how to milk them and make the soap. The oil they needed was hard to come by at the end of the war, so they improvised with lard but it worked, and with some sweet lavender from Chantal’s own garden, they had something she could sell on the side of road.

‘Anna, Anna,’ Max cried up the slim staircase, and Daphné looked around the store.

Dark and dreary, filled with a few cabinets of stock, and a curtain behind to separate the back room from the store, Daphné thought this was no place she would want to buy jewellery, yet she knew Max’s work and it was beautiful.

‘How is the business?’ she asked when Max turned from the stairwell.

‘You know, hard, I do what I can with what I have,’ he answered vaguely, but Daphné read his face and knew the answer.

Her thoughts were pushed aside when Anna came down the stairs in a rush and held Daphné for a long time, occasionally pulling away to touch her face.

‘And Maman?’ she asked of Chantal, who was Anna’s mother figure as her own mother had never been heard of after the invasion of Poland.

‘She is fine, worried about me and you and if the world is going to keep turning,’ laughed Daphné.

‘Of course, she is a mother,’ said Anna and her hands gestured to her children.

Daphné had met them once when they were younger, but now she saw a smaller version of Anna and Max, with the same proud face of their mother and the ingenious twinkle in their eye from their father.

‘Peter, Marina, this is Daphné,’ said Anna gently to the boy and girl who stepped forward politely to shake Daphné’s hand.

Upstairs, Anna had created a makeshift bed on the sagging sofa, but it was warm and clean and much more appealing than the shop.

The children had been sent outside to play, and Anna warmed up some vegetable and barley soup and placed it in front of Daphné with a large chunk of rye bread.

She ate it hungrily, savouring the flavours of the sour bread and the sweet broth.

‘How is the business?’ she asked as she dipped the bread into the soup.

Anna shrugged. ‘It’s hard,’ she said and Daphné thought she looked older than her thirty years.

As Daphné wiped the remnants of soup up with her last piece of bread, she thought about the store.

‘It needs to be lighter,’ she said. ‘To show of Max’s work.’

‘But there is no way,’ said Anna. ‘The only light is from the front windows, and the street is so closed in.’

‘Then you must paint it,’ said Daphné, thinking of the light that rose over the horizon on the farm.

‘Paint it? What colour?’ asked Anna, her face bewildered.

Daphné looked around at the utilitarian space. Anna didn’t have the time or money to think beyond the practical and everyday survival. ‘Why?’

Daphné picked up her bowl and plate and took them to the small tin tub that Anna used as a sink and put them in the water to soak.

‘Blush,’ she said, ‘The colour of make-up powder you see in the magazine.’

She took went to her bag and took out a magazine, flicking to a page and finding an advertisement, showing Anna.

It was a drawing of a woman holding a glass of pink champagne, her face beautifully contoured in shades of pink.

‘Pink lightens the skin, it takes away the age lines,’ read Daphné and she looked up at Anna and smiled. ‘And it’s pretty,’ she said.

‘What sort of pink?’ asked Anna suspiciously.

‘The sort of pink you see in a woman’s face when she’s happy, when she’s been outside in the sun, but she’s not sunburned or hot, she’s warm, inside and out,’ said Daphné thinking of Chantal. Her mind wandered as she kept speaking. ‘The rose in the sky at the end of the day, that looks like old paintings of heaven.’

Anna smiled and touched Daphné’s face. ‘You mean the afterglow,’ she said.

‘Is that what it’s called?’ asked Daphné, surprised there was a name for what she was describing.

‘It’s also the colour in a woman’s face when she falls in love,’ said Anna with a smile and Daphné bit her lip in anticipation. She was ready to fall in love, have an adventure, and to bathe in the afterglow of the world.

But first a job, she thought, as she washed her hands and combed her hair, and applied a little goat’s cream to her face.

‘I am off to find work,’ she said to Anna and, after picking up her bag, she headed out the door, waving to Max as she left the shop.

Paris wasn’t so hard to navigate. She and her mother had been there before, but this was her first time alone.

She paused and thought out the arrondissements in her head and got her bearings. She needed to cross the river to get to Montparnasse, where the cafés were. She could become a waitress, she thought, as she walked with purpose across the bridge and through Saint-Germain.

Jazz musicians busked on the streets, and tourists wandered with cameras about their necks. American accents mingled with the French and Daphné wondered why on earth she thought she could have stayed in the village. Paris was the only place for her, she could feel it in her soul, and she started her job-hunting in earnest.