The Last Will And Testament Of Daphné Le Marche. Kate Forster

      ‘I don’t need an assistant,’ he snapped.

      ‘I think you could.’ She gestured around the space. ‘Women like other women to recommend things, it’s part of the secret women’s business,’ she said with that smile that shifted his perspective of the world.

      It had been twenty years since he had loved a woman. His existence was carved out of routine and duty, yet this girl turned his mind into a whirling dervish, spinning him back in time before responsibility and duty took over his life.

      ‘An assistant,’ he harrumphed. He was fifty years old and being manipulated by a woman. It seemed time didn’t change a thing. He liked to sleep with whores, that way there was no misunderstanding about the future.

      ‘Where are you from?’ he barked.

      ‘Calvaic,’ she answered.

      ‘And your parents?’

      ‘Only my mother is alive now, she works a small property with a few animals and vegetables. If I worked here, I would send her money to help.’

      He paused, thinking of Yves, who never asked for anything or ever offered him anything. ‘Where would you live in Paris?’

      ‘I have friends in Le Marais I could stay with until I found something more suitable.’

      He snorted. ‘Le Marais? Jews.’ He shook his head as he spoke the last word.

      Daphné raised her head proudly. ‘Yes Jews, and my friends. My mother and I hid them for a time during the war, and I would do it again for anyone, even you.’

      Giles looked up startled at the hardness that crept into her tone. ‘Of course,’ he said quickly. ‘I agree. I am just commenting on them taking my business. There are more and more pharmacies opening and a few of them are run by Jews.’ He felt ashamed as he spoke, realising his shame at not doing more during the war, in fact, avoiding it at all costs.

      The war had interrupted his routine. He’d sent his son Yves to Switzerland to finish school and stay safe with his chemistry teacher’s family from university and, since then, Yves had stayed there, much to Giles’ disappointment. A trip back to France once a year for a weekend didn’t allow them to connect as a father and son. Instead, they were polite, like cousins once removed, knowing the skin of each other’s life but not the bones.

      Yves mother, Louise, was the unspoken ghost in their lives, dying when Yves was fourteen years old.

      The conversations about Louise and her death hadn’t evolved into a respectful mourning from both of them, and then the war started in earnest and Yves was sent away.

      Daphné adjusted the belt on her teal dress, which was well made from shabby fabric. She would need clothes, he imagined, and he thought of the pharmacies on the Champs-Élysées where the women wore white shirts with little black bows tied around their necks.

      ‘I can pay you sixty-four francs a week,’ he said, waiting for her to argue. Instead, her eyes opened wide and she smiled with such radiance, he thought he might be thrown backward by the force of her happiness.

      What had happened, he thought, as she clapped her hands? How had he been so bewitched by her? He had lost his mind, he thought, and was about to rescind his offer when she leaned forward and touched his face with her soft hand. Too soft for a rural girl, he noted, as she leaned into his ear again, whispering conspiratorially.

      ‘Goat’s milk,’ she said and pulled back, and he saw amusement in her eyes. She smiled again and he inhaled sharply, as everything within him that was dormant woke.

       * * *

      Daphné went back to Calvaic to get her possessions and see her mother again, on the strict instructions from Giles she was to return in three days’ time, ready to work.

      She was all he could think about during those three days, with her absence draped around his mind and body.

      Daily he told himself off for his desire, nightly he indulged in fantasies far beyond anything he and Louise had experienced during their marriage, or even anything he had done with the occasional whore he found in the back alleys of La Marais.

      Then she walked through the door on the third morning. He could hardly concentrate all morning, waiting for her arrival, just before he set off home for Bertilde’s leek and Gruyère tart.

      ‘You’re here,’ he stated, as though she wasn’t going to come back to him.

      The girl nodded, and he saw her eyes her were red, and she was pale.

      ‘Your farewell to your mother was difficult, I imagine,’ he said, somewhat more kindly.

      She nodded, and he saw her eyes fill with tears again. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

      She shook her head and he picked up his jacket from the hook next to the dispensary and slipped it on, adding his hat and picking up his keys for lunch.

      ‘Home then,’ he said and he walked out of the shop with Daphné following him, locking the door after them.

      Bertilde had left him the tart, still warm, covered by a linen tea towel on the dining room table. A small salad but enough for two sat next to it in a glass bowl, with a vinaigrette in a little jug. It was all exactly as it was every Thursday but to Giles it felt unusual and exotic.

      Daphné stood in the middle of the room, looking around at his life and he wondered what she saw. The orderly room now looked sterile to his eyes. The darkness from the blinds being half closed felt ignorant and the closed windows suffocating.

      He threw up the shades and opened a window, letting the warm air inside.

      ‘Shall we eat?’ he said, gesturing to the table.

      Daphné sat down opposite him and watched him as he served her and then himself. He gave her more than him, and she looked up and smiled at him.

      ‘You should take the bigger piece,’ she said.

      ‘I don’t want to put on weight,’ he said, touching his flat stomach. He was in excellent shape, from his programme of walking every day and exercising self-discipline in all things.

      They ate in silence and Giles watched, as she carefully used her knife and fork. There was something so endearing about her, and he wanted to protect her, teach her, love her.

      He stood up and poured himself a glass of wine.

      ‘Wine?’ he asked Daphné who shook her head in refusal.

      He saw a flush building on her neck, and he wondered if the air from the open window was too warm on her.

      ‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

      She paused, as though finding the right words.

      ‘Do you expect me to have sex with you?’ she asked, her bluntness outweighing any shame she might feel at the honesty of her question.

      ‘What? No,’ he cried and it was true. He had long ago given up having expectations from other people.

      ‘It’s just Mother said some men hire young girls so they can have something to toy with at work, and a wife to cook for them at home.’

      Giles gestured around the room.

      ‘I have no wife, as you can see. I have a son, who I barely see who lives in Switzerland, and I have no desire for anything from you but the formula for your creams. I think we could make a very good business if we tried.’

      Her eyes were downcast and then she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, and he saw something that he imagined was disappointment in them for a moment, but then he remembered that Louise had said he had always been a fool, except now he was just an old fool.