At Home With The Templetons (45 page)

Soon after arriving in Chicago all those years ago she’d started to keep a diary. Not filled with her thoughts or first impressions, she didn’t have the time for that, but with goals, ideas,

hopes. She’d re-read it recently. It entertained and amused her to see how much of it had come true. ‘Be my own boss.’ ‘Be independent and independently wealthy.’ Had she predicted her own future somehow? If she had written ‘Be happily married’, ‘Be in love’, would her dating life have been different? It was the only area of her life that hadn’t worked out so well.

At first there hadn’t been time. Her nanny duties included minding Ethan most evenings and on her one night off she preferred to laze in front of the television eating delicious American cookies rather than head out to Chicago’s bars and clubs with other nannies she’d met. She’d gone on a few blind dates in those early years but they’d been as unsuccessful as the ones she’d tried with her friend Celia in Melbourne. She just didn’t seem to like men her own age. One night, one of her nanny friends had got drunk and announced she had a crush on Charlotte. For a moment Charlotte had wondered whether that was where she’d been going wrong, whether it was women she should be dating, not men. But unfortunately that hadn’t turned out to be the case, either. The more she thought about it, the less interested she was in dating either sex. There was too much going on in her life career-wise. It also didn’t help that she’d seen so many failed relationships. Her own parents, for starters.

In her admittedly limited experience, marriages foundered for one of five reasons - basic incompatibility, money problems, infidelity, boredom, or all of the above. Her parents clearly came under the money problems banner. Severe money problems, from what Gracie had told her. Charlotte knew they had arrived in Australia with debts and it seemed they had left Australia the same way. All her father’s fault too, by the sounds of it. One far-fetched plan after the other, Templeton Hall the straw that broke the camel’s - or the accountant’s - back. None of it surprised Charlotte. As the oldest, she had heard plenty of their fights, even managed to see some of the crisply worded letters from various solicitors during some of her regular secret forays into her father’s office.

At least Henry hadn’t asked her to talk to Mr Giles about a possible bail-out. That would have been too much. Instead, he had seemingly embarked on an international tour of antique hotspots, dealing in everything from clocks to china to furniture in an attempt to raise as much cash as quickly as possible, assuaging his guilt about never seeing his children with a constant onslaught of postcards. Gracie had only ever seen the bright side of their father’s actions, of course. ‘He’s working so hard to try and fix everything, Charlotte,’ she’d written once. ‘He’s been travelling all over England and America. I don’t think there’s an antiques store or an old manor house in the northern hemisphere that he hasn’t visited in the past few years. Poor Dad.’

Poor Dad indeed, Charlotte thought. He’d telephoned her once when he was in Connecticut on a buying trip. ‘You could always visit instead of telephone, Dad. I’m just an airfare away. Your poor abandoned eldest daughter, so far away from home and hearth.’

‘I’d love to, Charlotte, but my time is just not my own this trip. I’ll be back, though.’

If he had come to the Midwest, he hadn’t visited her. Did she care? Sometimes. She had mixed feelings about her father. Perhaps she had done all her emotional-stepping-back from him and her mother when she first went to boarding school all those years ago in Melbourne. Certainly, the news that they had separated didn’t cause her world to tumble down or her heart to break. If anything, she was amazed they had stayed together for so long. They were so obviously ill-suited. Her father was charming, but so unreliable, so easily distracted, chasing one money-making venture after another. Her mother, by contrast, was so serious. Intellectual rather than emotional. The ‘adult’ in the relationship. On the bright side, from the little Charlotte had been able to prise out of her mother over the years, all the debts had now been cleared. Not that it meant her parents were back talking again.

Poor Gracie had been so upset about it all. Charlotte had tried to console her over the phone, trying to explain that it wasn’t Gracie’s fault, that their parents had a relationship quite separate to their roles as parents. She’d tried every approach she could, but all Gracie had ever wanted was for everyone she knew to be happy and live happily ever after. She had always been so sweet. Too sweet for her own good, possibly.

Perhaps it was no wonder that the accident with Tom and Spencer had upset her so much. Time would heal things for her eventually, Charlotte felt sure. She was only twenty-seven. Plenty of time yet.

Charlotte’s thoughts turned to Spencer. Her brother at least seemed to be making up for everyone else when it came to accumulating notches on his bedpost or however people counted relationships these days. In her opinion he was too much of a chip off their father’s block, all charm and not to be trusted, but there was no denying he was great amusement value, and those hippyish, boyish looks of his certainly seemed to attract girls in droves. The latest, Irish Ciara, sounded very nice on the phone. Nicer than Spencer’s Swedish Anna or Polish Katerina had ever sounded. Ciara also sounded smart. Organised. Charlotte would bet a thousand dollars it was Ciara’s brains that were behind this ridiculous but bafflingly successful Irish surf school, too. Shark Boy, indeed. P. T. Barnum had it right. There was a sucker born every minute, and anyone who fell for Spencer’s tale deserved to be taken for all they had.

And to continue her audit of her family - what about Audrey? Charlotte thought about her sister for a moment, then decided there was nothing worth mulling over. It was a little embarrassing to admit it, but Audrey bored Charlotte. Her complete selfobsession. The whole ‘Greg saved my life’ carry-on. The ‘none of you see me for the artist I am’ business. Yawnsville, Arizona, as one of her nanny students was too fond of saying. The sooner Audrey faced up to the fact that she made her living by sticking her hand up a sock’s kabootie, the better. Enough of the artistic temperament. Save it for the real artists. Not that she would ever say that to Audrey, of course. Knowing her, there’d be every chance she’d lapse back into no-speaking and Charlotte would have to put up with hours of earnest phone conversations with Grig, who seemed perfectly nice, but God, could he get any more boring either? And to think Audrey and Grig between them were in charge of the televisual sti

mulation of thousands of children around the world. What were they creating, a generation of sock puppet-obsessed zombies? Charlotte had sat through half of one episode of It’s Bobbie Time! during one of her rare visits to London and been appalled at how backward it was, all patronising talk into the camera and ancient songs. Thank God they hadn’t managed to sell Bobbie to any of the US cable networks. That would really have damaged Charlotte’s credibility with her client base.

Families, families, Charlotte thought. What was the saying? Can’t live with them, can’t live without them? She had her own version. Can’t live with them, don’t want to live with them. In the time since she had left Melbourne to come to Chicago she’d seen her family only once a year, sometimes even less than that. Never for Christmas. Not while Hope was still coming to the Templetons for Christmas each year, even when her boyfriend was still alive. Boyfriend? It had always sounded such a juvenile word when the pair of them were so old. Meal-ticket friend might have been a better description, from what Spencer had told Charlotte about Hope’s live-in lover. Rich, dim-witted, newagey and inexplicably devoted to Hope until the day he suddenly dropped dead.

Hope or no Hope, the main reason Charlotte hadn’t returned home for turkey and tree-trimming was that Christmas time in Chicago was nanny bonus time. Mr Giles and Ethan always went away for Christmas. Charlotte spread the word around the nanny circles of Chicago that she was available for short-term work over the holiday season. She’d been inundated with highpaying offers. Those fraught Christmases hadn’t done anything to convince her of the positive aspects of marriage and love. She saw more examples of bad marriages in those years than she ever wanted to see again. Couples worse than strangers. Fathers who barely knew their children. Mothers who clearly favoured one child over another, or didn’t seem to like any of their children. Why would her luck be any different? Charlotte asked herself. If she did happen to meet a man, fall in love with him, have children, what was to stop it all falling apart within a few years? In the end, it had been an easy decision. She’d become a businesswoman instead, fulfilled every one of her goals. Not just fulfilled them, she’d surpassed them. Today’s graduation ceremony was just the latest example.

It was almost two p.m. by the time she shook the final father’s hand, kissed the last mother’s cheek and hugged the final graduate. All twenty-five of them had placements throughout the Midwest. Another successful term under her belt, and a waiting list one-hundred strong - not just for students but potential clients as well. The knowledge gave her satisfaction every day.

She turned on her phone again as she climbed into the backseat of her car, a black Mercedes-Benz S-Class. This car, and her driver, Dennis, were her one luxury in her business and personal life. It had been Mr Giles’s idea. ‘Think about all the time you spend commuting, all the work you could be doing instead of cursing the traffic and getting stuck in snarls. Your driver equals at least four extra working hours a day.’ He’d been right, of course. She sometimes managed to do more work in the car than she did in two or three days in the office, especially now she had her Blackberry.

It had made her decision to move out of Chicago to the small, historic town of Woodstock, just over an hour away, an easy one. She actually liked the life of a commuter. Now and then she took the train from Woodstock to Chicago and back, especially in the warmer months when she didn’t mind the walk to the station, but she usually started work so early and stayed in her office so late that getting stuck in rush-hour traffic wasn’t a factor for her - or for Dennis, at least. She occasionally stayed in one of Mr Giles’s investment apartments in Chicago - he always made sure one was available for her use, for the nights she worked back especially late - but she preferred the small-town life of Woodstock on weekends. She liked the feeling she got as she passed the ‘Welcome to Woodstock: A distinctive destination’ sign each evening. She liked the fact that the town had an unusual claim to fame, having been used as a location for the film Groundhog Day. She loved her house, especially. It had taken her only two weekends of touring available properties with a local realtor to find it: a two-storey, two-bedroom wooden stand-alone on the main road into the historic square, with a porch, stained-glass windows and a garden filled with flowers and fruit trees. It was warm in winter, cool in summer, light-filled all year around and just the right size, enough space but easy to keep tidy. It also, very importantly, had a large, modern kitchen. She loved to cook. She loved to eat too, far too much, unfortunately. On the bright side, her excess weight was surprisingly good for business. People liked fat nannies and fat nanny trainers, she’d discovered. Fat nanny trainers with English accents

even more. Her voice gave her authority, her width gave her the cuddle factor.

She mostly kept herself to herself in Woodstock, venturing into the bookshop or one of the cafes or restaurants on the square on weekends if she was in the mood, occasionally attending a concert or play in the old Opera House, talking to her neighbours enough to be polite, but beyond that, happy to keep her own company. She did enough talking at work. She had the best of both worlds this way, she decided. A successful career, a peaceful home life.

In the back of the car now, she took a sip from the bottle of chilled water Dennis had thoughtfully placed in the leather holder and checked her Blackberry. Fifteen work calls to return and six personal messages waiting for her, as expected - two each from Audrey, Spencer and Gracie. She did like it when they jumped to her bidding like that. Sending quick text messages back to each of them, she arranged a conference call for noon the next day, then turned her attention back to her working life.

suppose we should begin this with a catch-up,’ Charlotte said at the agreed time the next day, putting herself in charge, because, well, she was in charge, wasn’t she? ‘Audrey, how’s Grig? Bibbie?’ ‘It’s Greg and Bobbie, Charlotte.’

‘Sorry. I just can’t seem to master that New Zealand accent.’ ‘They’re both fine, thank you.’ Audrey’s voice was frosty. ‘Spencer? Sorry, Shark Boy, I mean,’ Charlotte said. ‘How’s the surf? And those scars? Shark’s teeth are so full of venom, I suppose.’ ‘You’re thinking of snakes, Charlotte,’ Spencer said in an unruffled voice. ‘And we don’t have those in Ireland. Couldn’t be happier, thank you for asking.’

‘All that sea air and Irish mist, I suppose. Gracie, are you still there? And don’t just nod. We can’t hear you, remember.’ ‘I’m here.’

‘Gracie was in Yorkshire this week for a job interview with the Captain Cook Museum, weren’t you, Gracie?’ Charlotte said. ‘There’s a Captain Cook Museum?’ Spencer said. ‘Are we in

it?’

‘What was the job, Gracie?’ Audrey asked.

‘I don’t know if we’re in it and it doesn’t matter what the job was. I didn’t get it,’ Gracie said.

‘Good,’ Charlotte said cheerily. ‘Now you have to come and work for me instead. My evil plan worked. I rang deliberately to distract you, you know.’ ‘I actually wanted that job, Charlotte.’ ‘No you didn’t.’

‘What happened, Gracie?’ Audrey asked.

‘They were worried about my work record,’ Gracie said briefly.

‘You deserve an award for your work record, in my opinion,’ Charlotte said breezily. ‘So young, so many jobs.’

‘Stuff them,’ Spencer said. ‘If they didn’t have the brains to hire you, I hope they all get attacked by islanders and die. That was an excellent allusion to the real Captain Cook story, by the way, in case none of you got it.’ ‘Got it, Spencer, thanks,’ Gracie said.