The Chauffeur

A mysterious short story that explores the perspective of a typically ignored but highly observant persona.

The Chauffeur

Prologue

I always listen, but I never speak.
I'm there, but they don't notice me.
I'm necessary, but I'm not appreciated.
What am I?

I am mildly entertained by the contemplation of my life in the form of a riddle.
Feeling clever that such a concept has occurred to me, I smile wryly to myself. At this point I've learned full well to allow myself to become absorbed within the travels of my own mind. After all, what else is there to do?
I ponder the fact that this childlike riddle I've created would likely portray as despondent, or obnoxious, or a "fishing for compliments/ in desperate need of affection and attention" cry for help. Allow me to address the inaccuracy of those possible interpretations...I am a good man. A contented man. In fact, the listening, the quietness, the near invisibility that accompanies this lifestyle of mine, those qualities grace me with immense satisfaction. I feel that I have finally entered a chapter of my life within which I can truly be. Observation has become who I am. It would be futile to pretend that I don't enjoy it.

For closure...

What am I?
I am a chauffeur.

๏

"Sir?"
Silence.
Every muscle in my body chills to its core.
After fifty-eight years on this planet I feel I have the authority to identify that something is off when I have a sense that it is.
Something is off.
I push the back door of the town car all the way open, and rub my white gloves together in anxiety responding to the troublesome sight in the back seat.
Guilt gnaws at my insides. I brush it away as though it is not rightfully mine.
I numb with the frustration that the sensation spreading through my body does not involve an ounce of surprise.
You expected this, something nags within me, filling me with dread. No no no no no.
"Sir!" I shout, unthinkingly. "Sir!"
I know my efforts are to no avail.
There is a lot that I know.

1
Wednesday

It could be argued that the Barbours had become some twisted semblance of a family to me. Mostly, this was because my responsibilities were contingent upon theirs; their commands consumed my time and efforts. Additionally, however, the amount I knew about the Barbours, immense and infinitely expanding, made me feel as though I played some sort of a role in their endless upperclass affairs. The constant pressure behind Reginald's prestigious business name, Vivienne's social crises from her standpoint as a terribly anti-feminist accessory wife, Henry's picturesque profile as a star athlete with pristine marks, the little bumps in Lily-Grace's uncomplicated daily life that she inflated to what an onlooker might mistake for complex world issues, and James' very serious endeavors as a privileged second-year at primary school. It was my fascinating daily fix of what most people would fulfill with a sappy soap opera.
Funny, really, how much I knew about them juxtaposed with how little they knew about me.
On a crisp Wednesday afternoon in December, I held open the door for an expensive fur coat swallowing a fancy lady, and her son Henry.
The fur coat, whom I eventually accepted to be Vivienne Barbour, was far too deep into a babbling monologue to bid me hello. Henry looked weary and jerked his strong, handsome chin my way by means of thanks. "Berkeley Square, please," he told me.
"Of course, Sir," I replied. I closed the door after he climbed in.
"...and I know that tables are turning lately, so the blacks and the Chinese and the Mexicans and whatnot are some strange...fad at American universities, but that little trend will obviously pass eventually and Daddy's been in contact with all the most desirable schools, and also he's been loaning money for years, so I'm certain you've got nothing to worry about. Honestly, if your father were to take back all the money he's given to those American schools, they wouldn't even BE schools! Yes, hello, what," Vivienne added busily as she snapped open a beeping cell phone. "No, it wasn't a mistake, Nancy...after your drinking episode at the last Barbour event, how can you expect to be invited to this one?"
I tried not to be amused as I watched through the rearview mirror. Vivienne slammed the cell phone into her leather handbag and barked, "Gracious!" She turned to Henry, who'd let himself slump against the window and was looking pestered. "What was I saying, Henry darling?"
"Mum," Henry said, and then paused. It was the first moment of quiet since the two Barbours had entered the car.
"Oh, forgive me, Henry!" Vivienne exclaimed after the very quick moment, as she was never one to miss a beat. "Of COURSE the Unis will be impressed by your excellent marks and your rugby and whatnot. It's just very political as well...you know how these things are...don't you, love?"
"Mum," Henry repeated as I broke for a stoplight that always seems to be red. "Mum, I need to tell you something."
Vivienne ignored him. "And I know your interviews will go very smoothly. You're a people's person! That's a brilliant gift in life, you know, being a people's person. I read that in one of those American gossip magazines because I was stuck in Lisa deMarcus' sitting room while she was yelling at the boys and those magazines were all the reading material she had."
Vivienne paused for a fraction of a second to catch her breath, and Henry seized the moment to exclaim "MUM!" loudly enough for me to accelerate the car by several miles per hour.
"Good god, yes, what is it," Vivienne said, sounding slightly affronted.
Henry's voice was tight. "Mum, I like boys."
Vivienne plowed on as though she hadn't heard her son. She cleared her throat. "Can you believe that, I mean, I've always been of the opinion that the reading material you've got in your sitting room is a defining quality of the type of household you run, which is why we have all that old literature that no one really reads, but we have it because it's about the image-"
"Mum, I like boys."
Her voice became shrill enough that I knew she hadn't misheard Henry. "The image, Henry, it's about the image, and the reading material MUST be impressive so that if someone ends up in OUR sitting room alone they'll be able to see OUR image, and it'll be perfect, because it's about the IMAGE, and-"
"MUM!" roared Henry. "Mum, I'm GAY."
For the first time in my twenty-nine years driving for the Barbours, Vivienne was speechless. I'd witnessed her receive the news about the death of her father, and even then she immediately lapsed into nervous chatter about funeral arrangements. But now, Henry's remark was suspended in fragile utter silence, and the fur coat in the back seat was limp and quiet as it concealed this fancy, expensive, broken lady.
Each of the twelve minutes it took for me to arrive at Berkeley Square was equally frail and chilly and silent.

2

Several hours later, I ushered Reginald Barbour III into the back of the town car.
He muttered his destination to me without bothering to add "please," and appeared to be extremely busy and stressed in a way that only the richest, most important gray-haired men can pull off.
The first five or so minutes of quiet in the car were rare for a trip with Reginald. Typically he would talk on the phone.
Bringggg! Bringggg!
Ah, there it is, I thought to myself. At this point the Barbours were so very predictable.
"What is it, Vivienne." Reginald addressed his wife gruffly. It was not unusual for him to be fed up with Vivienne, because Vivienne could never exist without him.
I couldn't hear Vivienne's line, which meant that I was left to puzzling out the very limited fragments of conversation that Reginald grudgingly produced from his side of the call.
"That can't be."
Pause.
"No, that's not true."
Pause.
"Vivienne, it's no more than an experiment."
Pause.
"Yes, an experiment. Teenage boys are the most confused species on this planet. They do ridiculous things in order to cry for help. What he's really trying to tell you is he's lonely, or he's stressed about school, or rugby, or he's not getting along with Lily-Grace, or that he feels smothered by the likes of you. It's obviously a cry for help."
Pause.
"Vivienne, I haven't got bloody time for this. My son is not gay. You're being ridiculous and you bloody well know it."
Pause.
"Stop TALKING about this. Henry does not want to date boys. This is preposterous."
Longer pause.
Angry, audibly ragged breathing from Reginald in the back of the car.
"I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear this from you ever again. I forbid you from ever bringing up these absurd lies ever again."
Pause.
"Good-bye."
Short pause.
"Good-BYE."
There was a beeeep as Reginald hung up the phone.
"You're going to make me late if you don't drive this bloody car fast like a proper man," he spat at me.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator a little harder even though Reginald knew as well as I did that not once in my twenty-nine years of driving the Barbours had I arrived a minute after I'd been told to.

3
Thursday

Henry and Lily-Grace were ready to be dropped off at the secondary school as they were on all mornings at 7:45.
"Good morning," I said to the pair of them.
"Good morning," they said back to me.
Once we were on the road, Lily-Grace spoke and her lack of pointless, bratty complaints truly astounded me. She said quietly, "I can't stand to hear Mum and Daddy fight like that, Henry."
"Fight like what," Henry replied emotionlessly.
"You're not really going to pretend like you haven't noticed, are you?" I watched Lily-Grace raise an eyebrow in the rearview mirror.
Henry didn't say anything.
"Just because your penis doesn't stick out around girls doesn't make you f*****g deaf, does it?" Lily-Grace snapped.
Henry put his head in his hands but still didn't speak.
"I'm sorry." Lily-Grace sighed. "That was an insensitive remark."
It was rare for Lily-Grace to acknowledge one of her own insensitive remarks, let alone apologize for them.
"Henry, you know I love you. You'll always be my big brother."
"I know," Henry said softly. "I know you do. I know I will."
"I'm only saying, it sucks having Mum and Daddy fight like this."
When Henry didn't reply, Lily-Grace began to tap back into her usual personality. "I mean really, last night they were so amazingly loud that I could barely hear Tyler Maddox over the telephone, and so I think he asked me to be his date to the Christmas Ball, but I can't be sure. But he asked me a question, and since it was so goddamned loud I just said, 'Fine,' and then he said, 'Great,' and we hung up, but if his question WAS about the Christmas Ball, then I told him I'd be his date, which has now put me in a complete fiasco because, well, being Tyler Maddox's DATE?"
She must've expected Henry to respond. When he didn't, she gave up and dramatically exclaimed, "Well, that horror speaks for itself!"

4
Friday

"Everybody's yelling lately, Mummy," James informed his mother on the way to primary at 10 am.
Vivienne and James were the only Barbours who regularly rode in the town car at such a relaxed hour of the morning. James, because the primary school did not yet have full days. Vivienne, because she had "a flexible schedule." (It is fair to translate "a flexible schedule" to "lack of commitment in my life," "nothing to do all day," or "very important affairs that involve pissing off my high profile friends, unnecessarily rearranging guest lists too many months in advance, and doing a lot of shopping mostly for myself.")
"What do you mean, dear," Vivienne asked her small son. Even at seven, he was a strikingly handsome boy: He had lovely olive skin that came out of nowhere amongst the purest white family imaginable, accompanied by shockingly bright green eyes.
"You and Daddy and Lil," James explained. "Yelling all the time. And Henry's all quiet. What's going on, Mummy?"
"Well, you certainly seem to think you're quite the observant little child there, don't you, Jamesy," Vivienne cooed, although she didn't sound very lighthearted beneath her layer of cheer.
"What's going on?" James repeated. "Mum?"
"Darling, Henry's been...making up some things. Things that are pretend, but bad to make jokes about."
"Saying what?"
Vivienne sighed with resignation. "He's been saying that he's in love with boys, not girls like he should be."
"Gay," James supplied. "So he's gay."
"No!" snapped Vivienne.
James looked startled. Vivienne threw her arms around her son. "I'm so sorry, Jamesy, I didn't mean to yell. It's only that, you know, Henry isn't actually...erm...gay. He's just saying he is, even though he knows that it's not okay. Daddy and I are going to figure out what to do about it."
James paused. "What is there that you can do, Mum?"
What a wise little bloke, I thought to myself. Easily the rare gem of the Barbour family.
"Well...there are a lot of things, Jamesy. We just have to pick one. And then it'll all be alright," Vivienne explained.
"I don't think there's anything that you can do, Mum," James said simply.
"There is, Jamesy," said Vivienne through clenched teeth. "We will fix this."
It was painfully obvious that James wasn't the one she was trying to convince.

5

Reginald was in a very fancy suit, and Vivienne wore a sparkly gold dress that was tragically young for her. One would imagine that with all the spare time she had, she'd be able to find an nice, age-appropriate dress.
Friday night date nights were an impressively steady weekly routine. It was one of the small windows that allowed me to understand that Reginald and Vivienne's marriage was rock solid despite their day-to-day bickering.
"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Barbour." I bowed my head as I opened the town car door.
"Thanks," Reginald replied distractedly, sliding into the town car after his wife.
He gave me the name of the astonishingly fancy restaurant that would be our destination and I pulled out of the driveway.
"You look nice tonight, Vivienne," said Reginald, clearing his throat.
"And you, Reg," Vivienne bowed her head and unnecessarily touched up her flawless lipstick.
It was quiet for a few minutes.
"Reginald...can we please address what we know we need to-"
"No," snapped Reginald.
"Reg, please."
"There is nothing. To. Address. Thank you, Vivienne," he said very tightly through crisply clenched teeth."
"James keeps on asking me so many questions, and I don't know how to answer them."
"He's seven. I bloody hope you can figure out how to put on a smile, tell him a lie, and change the subject."
"He's very wise, you know." Her voice was becoming increasingly higher, teetering on the verge of hysteria.
"Well, great."
"Reg..."
"I don't know what you expect me to say."
"Reg, we can't change Henry. We can't just...change who he is."
Reginald didn't feel the need to dignify this with a response.
"He's gay, Reg, and that's not going to change."
"Are you saying you want to accept him?" Reginald's voice was pure ice.
There was a long pause.
Finally, Vivienne spoke in a tone so shockingly confident and simple that I became momentarily confused about whether it was really her. "No."
Reginald was quiet, so Vivienne kept talking in that strange, confident, simple manner that was so unlike her. "I think we have other...options."
"Options?"
Vivienne swallowed hard. "Yes." She paused. "Options."

6
Saturday

The entire family was in the back of the town car on the way to brunch with Reginald's parents, Reginald II and his wife, Kathy, at their home in Bath, which was outside of the city.
Like so many of these strange days in the past week, the car ride began with uncomfortable silence.
It had been miles before anyone spoke, and we were already almost to Bath. But Henry's voice was crisp and clear and his words were unmistakable.
"So what are you going to tell Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Reg about me, huh?"
"There's nothing to tell, darling," Vivienne replied through her smile.
"Oh, haven't you heard? I'm gay, Mum," Henry said loudly. "G-A-Y."
"Don't use that kind of language in my presence," spat Reginald. "Please."
"Can you please stop denying it so that I can have some sort of indication of what you're going to do to me? You can't keep pretending like you don't hear me, or that I'm crazy. For God's sake, stop denying it."
"Who are YOU to talk about God?" Reginald snarled suddenly. He was a typically serious man, but never had I witnessed him angry. This made it all the more astounding. "Who are YOU," he screamed again, "to talk about GOD?"
It was quiet again for several seconds.
"So you're going to send me away? Pretend I don't exist? Tell your friends I'm at a special school for rugby? Huh, Mum? Dad? What are you going to do?" Henry's voice was wild.
Silence.
"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, DAD?"
Silence.
"DA-"
Reginald's voice cut Henry off sharply. His tone was terrifyingly hushed and quivering. "You want to know what I think?" He inhaled.
"Please," Henry yelled, an astonishing contrast to his father's quietness.
"I think that if you're really this monster that you say you are," Reginald said slowly, "then there is no place for you on this earth."
"Reginald," warned Vivienne.
"THERE IS NO PLACE FOR HIM ON THIS EARTH."
"Dad, what the f**k are you trying to say?" Lily-Grace spoke up.
"Don't," Reginald seethed, "use language in front of me, Lily-Grace, you're a child."
"What are you trying to say, Dad?" repeated Lily-Grace.
Reginald was shaking with rage. I had never witnessed more terrifying emotions.
When he spoke again, it was using the same hushed, quivering tone as before. He took a slow breath and said, "What I am trying to say, is that he's better off dead than as a monster on this earth."
The next silence was nothing short of terrifying.
Finally Vivienne said, "Paul."
Silence.
"PAUL!"
"Yes?" I responded.
"You. Didn't. Hear. Anything," Vivienne whispered.
My hands shook as we pulled up to Kathy and Reginald II's address. "I'll be waiting here for whenever you're finished with your brunch," I told them softly.
But I didn't get out to open the doors.
If they were capable of speaking in the way they just had, they were certainly capable of opening their own goddamn doors.

7

I pull into their driveway by late afternoon. It is raining heavily.
The return from Bath had been entirely without talking. The sound of rain and of Lily-Grace's suppressed tears carried them home.
One by one, this terribly ruined family climbs out of the car and no one looks back.
Only one remains in the car.
He won't get out.
I try to call for his attention. "Sir?"
Silence.
Every muscle in my body chills to its core.
After fifty-eight years on this planet I feel I have the authority to identify that something is off when I have a sense that it is.
Something is off.
I push the back door of the town car all the way open, and rub my white gloves together in anxiety responding to the troublesome sight in the back seat.
Guilt gnaws at my insides. I brush it away as though it is not rightfully mine.
I numb with the frustration that the sensation spreading through my body does not involve an ounce of surprise.
You expected this, something nags within me, filling me with dread. No no no no no.
"Sir!" I shout, unthinkingly. "Sir!"
I know my efforts are to no avail.
There is a lot that I know.

I know that Reginald Barbour III is dead.
I know that his daughter, Lily-Grace Barbour, poisoned him on the way home.
I know that Vivienne Barbour could never exist without him.
I know that James Barbour watched Lily-Grace the entire time, and didn't stop her.
I know that Henry Barbour, a boy who likes boys, will run while he can.
I don't know if Lily-Grace destroyed her family, or saved it.
I know that I witnessed absolutely everything.
I know that the way these four people live the rest of their lives is up to me.
I know that I am a good man. A contented man.
I know what would be considered the right thing to do.
But I also know that at the end of the day, I always listen, and I never speak.

Author's Note

This is a rough draft, so constructive criticism is very welcome. What do you think of the story structure? Character development? Is the ending satisfying? Does it provoke any thought? Thanks so much! :-)