The butler

I signed and attempted to rub the smudge of paint on my nose, I was painting a portrait I had already named. “Woman in red. “Wanting to sound professional but I had gone wrong in so many ways.

1.    My face was smudged with red paint and I was meant to go to a dinner party in an hour.

2.    I had repainted the portrait three times and the paint was getting thicker than the canvas.

“Dear god Lucy we need to go now and you look like a mass murderer! “My roommate and closest friend Holly said, after walking into the room I called “my studio ”.

“It’s art!” I called from the sink.

“It’s murder, now come!” Holly said in exhaustion leaving the room.

“I guess it’s just you and me now” I said happily to my cat that purred back. After seriously considering staying home and watching Netflix, Holly forced me out the house in an uncomfortable black dress.

“You can never go wrong with a classic black dress.” Holly had said to me as I complained in the car.

“You underestimate my power.” I responded and we spent the next half an hour of the car ride in silence. Holly was the type of person who wouldn’t talk to some one wearing socks and sandals. Which brought up a heated discussion when she discovered that I wore them while I painted.

“ What are you wearing!” Holly had shouted when she walked into my “studio”

“ Uhhh…” I had responded, when we barely knew each other she would knock on my door and I would quickly take them off, knowing of her weirdly extreme hatred for them, but after becoming close friends she just barged in any time and it became a great source of stress for me. Reminded of our friendship I apologized for snapping, put on “Manic Monday” and bugged her by dancing and singing along intill she went out of her strangely bad mood.

“Remember this place is Freeench.”Holly said to me as I rung the doorbell.

“And that means…”

“That they’re fancy so don’t do anything silly.”

“Bonjour.” A man with a deeply wrinkled face and black suit said as he opened the door.

“Bonjour, Merveilleuse journee pour un meurtre.” I said happily to the man, I had always wanted to say that. The mans face went pale and he began quickly saying French to me. I can’t speak French and only know how to say

“Wonderful day for a murder.” So I felt flustered and tried to calm him down in English.

“Lucy, come here. ”Holly called from the room to the left. With one final “sorry” to the man I walked into the room.

“Was that the butler bothering you, just ignore the poor chap, he can’t speak a word of English.” Said the woman with a short black bob and a cigarette in hand.

“This is so nice to finally meet you, Holly told us so much about you." The second person in the room said, a man with a red bow tie and greasy brown hair. It felt weird to be to them; they talked more like parents than friends.

Holly stared at me, and I realized I had got lost in a train of thought.

“Oh, he was no bother, but thank you for your concern.” I said as I thought of ways to get to the chips without seeming rude.

“Such manners, and it’s reminding me of my rudeness, I am Vivian and the grumpy man is Victor.” Vivian said while handing me the chip bowl.

The butler (I had learnt) walked in and began whispering French to Victor. I couldn’t hear anything but I could see Victor give me a side-glance. Trying to convince my self they weren’t talking about me I joined Vivian and Holly’s conversation.

“ The avent garde approach Vogue is taking this season is just divine.” I heard Holly say flipping through what seemed to be the latest addition.

“I know I’m just loving the colors!” I heard Vivian reply.

Not wanting to talk about Vogue I planned ways to get out of the supper. Vivian saw my face

.“ Ahh, supper, let’s eat!” she said, linking my arm and bringing my to the dining room. A warm light came from the chandelier and the patterns of light danced across the table. The house was in an old style and the hallway of paintings I had seen intrigued me. “Grenouille.” The butler said as I poked the weird looking thing with my fork.

Vivian saw my confused look.

“Its frog legs with sautéed potatoes. ”She said, and then took the fork I was using out of my hand and replaced it with the shorter fork next to it and smiled. I wanted to try something as unique as frog legs but in the end I had to choke it down. The supper was uneventful until I saw what we were having for dessert, a four layer chocolate cake with melted chocolate dripping down the sides and Ferrero Rocher chocolates on the top.

“Delicious, is it not.” Victor said from the other side of the table with a smile. He made me uneasy, always checking on me.

After drinking a large amount of the rose colored drink I was offered, I began to feel nauseous.

“May I uhh…go to the bathroom.”? I said to Vivian quietly.

“Ooof course, its just to the left of the sitting room.” Vivian said smiling.

Despite the delicious Cake, I wanted to get out of there. The bathroom had delicate blue tiled walls with lemon yellow and pink flowers decorated on the sink. After vomiting then feeling bad for messing the pretty porcelain sink, then vomiting again. I made my way back to the dinning table, as I reached the doorway, I heard Holly and Vivian talking on the other side and despite my urges not to listen, I heard my name and pressed up against the wall.

“ She does have it, she told me and she WILL tell all of you!”

“ You idiot, I told you not to let the BUTLER do it, the moron heart is soft, he would never let us kill the girl because we will one way or another.”

“This doesn’t make sense..”

“Arrgghh, he put something in her drinks to make her throw up the poison from the food.”

“Ooh, that’s quite clever.”

“Shut up, he knows it won’t really work though because instead of making her drunk to tell us where it is we’ll just torture it out of her.”

“Then why would he make her go through the worse option.”

“He probably hoped she would leave after throwing up...Without us knowing.”

“Why?”

“The idiot probarly she got the signals he was sending to her all night, but she’s a dumb one, taking too long to see them.”

My heart thumping I tiptoed back to the bathroom and locked the door. I could see a window high up…if I could just reach it. I knew what they were talking about, the code to my fathers safe. He had left me billions and I was used to people being dodgy about it, but I had trusted Holly. I tried to push away to lingering fear of being murdered and the hurt of being betrayed as I stacked everything I could find in the bathroom to reach the window.

“You silly girl, that leads nowhere the only exit is the front door, which is locked.” I heard victor say behind me.

“Please don’t hurt me.” I whispered grabbing a toothbrush for protection.

“No promises” he said slowly walking towards me.

I was unable to move my legs trembling.

I saw the butler creep up behind Victor. My heart was thumping, Victor held a knife and I wasn’t sure if the butler was helping him or saving me. And what they were looking for was hopeless, I didn’t know where the code was for the bank, where the bank was, or to most people’s surprise who my father was.

“Arrghh” I heard the man scream. A shrill gunshot echoed through the bathroom.

“Victor!” I heard Vivian scream; she rushed into the room, closely followed by Holly. Vivian fell to the ground and held Victors dead body. Shot in the head. Holly pulled out a knife and I could see she was serious. The butler looked into my eyes for a second, then wacked Holly in the head with the gun. I felt my body filled with adrenaline, running past Vivian and the butler fighting, I leapt over Holly, but before I could get out, I fell to the floor, Holly had grabbed my leg and Vivian had noticed, pointing the gun at me. In one quick movement I pulled Holly in front of me and I could hear a shot fire. I threw Holly into Vivian and ran to the main door, finding it was locked I smashed the window in the living room and ran through the darkness to the car, which I broke into. I drove away as fast as I could hoping the butler would be fine. The “butler” I think as I write this story down in my memoirs, I never learnt his name…this story ends with me arriving at the police station and rapidly telling them everything I saw. When the police arrived they found everyone dead. I still hate myself for leaving the man I only know as “butler” but the interviews and fame helped me find my father’s identity and other children. I'm stinking rich and finally have a family, but I will always be changed.