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
