The Last Will And Testament Of Daphné Le Marche

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.’