The Nanny (18 page)

‘That’s fantastic news! Oh, Clare, I’m so relieved. What
was
it?’

‘They don’t actually know yet,’ she says awkwardly. ‘But my lawyer made it clear that unless they can prove I had anything to do with it, they’ve got no reason not
to let Poppy come home. I suppose they’re hoping I’ll be too scared of being caught to try anything again.’

Poor cow. She’s far from a perfect mother, but she doesn’t deserve to be policed like this. In future, every time one of the twins falls out of a tree or off a skateboard,
they’ll pull up Poppy’s case notes and treat Clare like a criminal. She’ll never be free of it.

As it is, she’s lucky they haven’t taken this any further. If she wasn’t Lady Eastman’s daughter, with a godfather in the House of Commons, and a big-shot lawyer,
she’d probably be slopping out with a bunch of tattooed lesbians right now, and the kids would be in care.

‘Jenna, can you come into the kitchen with me a minute?’ Clare says. ‘Marc wants to have a little party on Saturday to celebrate Poppy coming home, and I’ve got a
thousand things to organize.’

She smiles brightly, but the weariness in her eyes tells a different story. This is the last thing she fucking needs. What the hell is he playing at now?

Moments later, as the front door slams behind him, I discover his game.

‘I was hoping to get into work this afternoon, but I don’t think I’ll have time now,’ Clare confides. ‘It’s very sweet of Marc, but I wish he’d waited
until I’d got everything sorted out at the shop. It’s going to be days before I get a chance to go in now and catch up.’

‘Look, just tell me what you need me to do. I can hold the fort for a couple of hours.’

‘Oh, Jenna, that would be wonderful,’ she says gratefully. She pulls out an emerald Smythson diary – I’d kill for one of those – and flicks through it.
‘I’m not sure who’ll be able to make it at such short notice. I know Marc wants to push the boat out, but I was thinking something a little informal would be better; that pretty
black and white dress you wore to Davina’s would be perfect. Actually, we could make it a black-and-white theme – what do you think?’

I think Marc would shoot me on sight if I crash his party.

‘It’s really sweet of you, Clare, but I’ll be going home. I babysat last weekend, and—’

‘We
did
pay you overtime,’ she says, slightly huffily.

‘It’s not that. It’s just . . . I promised my boyfriend . . .’

‘I realize Saturday is your day off, but obviously you won’t have to work this time, Jenna, you’ll be our guest.’

Sure. And you’ll treat me just the same as Lady Horseface.

‘The thing is, Jamie hasn’t been well recently, and—’

‘I’m sure he’ll understand, after everything that’s happened. And it’ll give you a chance to meet our friends, and get to know everyone. We haven’t had a
party for ages.’ She smiles persuasively. ‘Go on, it’ll be fun.’

Fun?
I know exactly what it’ll be like, and ‘fun’ isn’t the word I’d choose. The women will patronize me or not speak to me at all; the men will talk to my
cleavage and pinch my bum. Halfway through the evening, Clare will forget I’m a ‘guest’ and ask me to pass round a tray of hors d’oeuvres. One of the twins will start
wailing upstairs, and I’ll spend my precious Saturday night pacing the hallway and changing shitty nappies. Sometime around midnight, after everyone’s left, she’ll decide
it’ll be much better if ‘we’ clean up now rather than wait till morning, and I’ll be on my hands and knees getting red-wine stains out of her Persian carpet at 3 a.m. Oh,
yes. It really sounds like a riot.

‘You can tell me all about it on Monday,’ I say firmly.

Not that my weekend at home is likely to be a barrel of laughs either, I think wearily on Friday. I get the Tube home and walk back from the station, my feet dragging slower with every step.
I’m exhausted from organizing Clare’s party; all I really want to do is sleep. And I still haven’t figured out what to say to Jamie. Easing out of this relationship gently is
proving harder than I thought. He keeps guilting me into promising things I don’t mean. I’m going to end up walking down the bloody aisle still wondering how to dump him.

I let myself into our flat. Every light is blazing, as usual, but I can’t hear the television, which means Jamie’s out. I hope he’s not down the pub. He can get really violent
when he drinks.

The door jams on a heap of mail. I skim it quickly for anything interesting. Oh joy: a magazine from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a special offer for a Stannah stairlift. All the others
are credit-card bills and ominous brown envelopes.

I shove them in a kitchen drawer already overflowing with unopened mail, and dump my overnight bag in the lounge. The room is a fucking tip. The floor is carpeted with pizza boxes, balled-up
dirty socks, beer cans and empty takeaway containers. Newspapers are strewn across the couch. A copy of
Playboy
is open on the coffee table, surrounded by stiff wads of used tissues. Marc
may be a loser, but at least Clare’s got him house-trained.

I kick a pair of cheesy trainers out of the way and unhook a brand new Wii system that wasn’t here last time I came home – God knows how much
that
cost – before I trip
over the trailing cables and break my neck. There isn’t room to swing a cat in here. You could fit our entire flat into Clare’s dining room.

I turn off the lights and go to the bedroom, trying not to notice the mould in the bathroom and the black pubes stuck to the cheap supermarket soap. Funny how none of it bothered me before I
moved in with Clare. I hate this shower. You could spit faster. My power shower at home – I mean, at Clare’s – is amazing. It has jets from the side as well as the ceiling, and a
sauna setting, so you can steam yourself clean if you feel like it. The toilet flushes first time, too, and there are no turds floating in the bowl. God, men are pigs.

I’m towelling my hair in the cold bedroom when I hear a strange mewing coming from the airing cupboard.

I wrap the thin, bleach-stained towel around me and storm on to the landing. Don’t tell me he’s got a bloody cat. I love animals, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t have
time for this right now. Jamie will get bored of looking after it in a few weeks, and I’ll be the one left with the vet bills.

Where is he, anyway? It’s nearly eleven. There’s not much point me making the effort to come home if he’s not even going to be here.

I wrench open the airing cupboard, and scream.

‘But I
need
you,’ Clare protests. ‘It’s really important I go into work today. Please, Jenna. I’m sure your boyfriend can’t be
that
sick—’

‘Clare, he is. I’m sorry, but there’s no one else to look after him.’

‘Can’t you just dose him up with something and put him to bed? I’ll send a taxi to come and get you. You don’t have to stay overnight, I’ll be home by
six—’

‘I’m sorry, Clare, I really
can’t
.’

‘There must be something you can do,’ she insists.

Oh, God. I need a break; from Clare
and
Jamie.

‘There’s really nothing—’

‘You don’t understand. You can’t let me down like this. I
have
to get to work. What am I supposed to
do
?’

‘Look, I’m not doing this on purpose,’ I say tightly. ‘I didn’t
ask
him to get sick.’

She sighs. ‘Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Will you be back tomorrow? You
are
coming back, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I’m coming back,’ I mutter.

It’d be nice if, just once, she spared a thought for
me.
She hasn’t acknowledged how stressful the last few days have been for me too. For God’s sake, Poppy nearly
died, and then my employer was arrested! Obviously it was far worse for Clare, but she still managed to throw a cocktail party for fifty on Saturday. I’m sure she can deal with looking after
her own children for a day or two. Her flowers will still be there when I get back.

I promise to call her in the morning, and shut my phone. I wasn’t snowing her. If I had any choice at all, I’d much rather be looking after the twins.

Jamie’s still sitting in the armchair nearest the television, dressed in the same filthy blue sweats he’s been wearing since I found him crouched in the airing cupboard on Friday. I
was on the verge of calling an ambulance for the second time in a week, until I managed to persuade him to crawl out and get into bed. He’s been like a bloody zombie all weekend. How can I
leave him like this? I’m tempted to call his shrink, but once people get in the system, it’s a bitch to get out of it again. If he’s sent to the loony bin, it’ll be on his
medical records every time he goes for a job, or applies for a mortgage, for the rest of his life. Even after everything he’s done to me, I can’t do that to him.

The scars on my inner forearms itch, and I run my fingers down the ladder of criss-crossing fine lines. I understand exactly what Jamie’s going through.

In the months after my accident, I wanted to crawl into a dark cupboard and hide, too. One stupid woman fiddling with the car radio when she should have been concentrating on driving, a
split-second swerve into the bicycle lane, and at eighteen years old my whole life was screwed. I only started coaching at the club because I couldn’t think what else to do. I couldn’t
bear to give up the swimming life entirely; but then I found myself resenting everyone who still had what I’d lost. I hated the woman who’d ruined my life, hated the poor girl
who’d taken my place on the team, hated everyone who dared to feel sorry for me; and most of all, I hated myself for turning into such a bitch.

Cutting was my way of making it feel better. I still don’t know why I started, really. I’d seen this movie:
Girl, Interrupted
. Only Angelina Jolie could make being psychotic
seem sexy. I don’t suppose the filmmakers meant to inspire me, but I was curious. And when I drew the paring knife across my arm and watched lovely scarlet ribbons appear, somehow it
did
make the knot of pain and misery inside me dissolve, for a while.

Anna Martindale, the mother of the youngest swimmer on the team, found me one evening. I’d forgotten to lock the changing-room door and didn’t cover my arms in time. She didn’t
say anything at first; she just sat down on the bench next to me.

‘I have leukaemia,’ she said quietly. She waited while I took that in. ‘Cancer of the blood,’ she added.

I think she meant to make me feel guilty for being so careless with mine.

‘Anna—’

‘I’m only telling you because I need someone to look after Maeve,’ she said. ‘She’s only eight. The chemo is going to be pretty tough, and I’m not going to be
able to give her the care and attention she needs.’

I couldn’t say anything. I just stared at my feet.

She squeezed my fingers. ‘Maeve loves you. You’d be perfect. And I think you need a change of scene,’ she added gently, ‘till you feel yourself again.’

If Anna hadn’t rescued me, I don’t know where I’d have ended up. She didn’t have to take a chance on me, especially with her own life thrown into chaos, literally hanging
in the balance. But she cast me a lifeline. Maeve needed me, and I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. It just takes one person.

I reach out and touch Jamie’s shoulder. ‘Please. Come upstairs. You can have a shower, put on some clean clothes. We’ll spend the day together, just you and
me—’

He shakes me off, burying his head in his chest with a sullen growl.

I sigh. I don’t want this responsibility, but there’s no one else. If only he had some family in this country. His father’s dead, and God only knows where his mother is. He
does have an older brother in New Zealand, but—

The phone rings, and without thinking I answer it.

‘Jenna Kemeny?’

‘Yes—’

‘Ms Kemeny, we act for GE Capital Credit. We’d like to talk to you about an outstanding debt of seven thousand four hundred and—’

‘You want my mother,’ I fib quickly.

‘This
is
Jenna Kemeny?’

‘We, um, have the same name.’

‘I see. Well, do you happen to know when
Mrs
Kemeny will be back?’

‘She’s gone on holiday,’ I gabble. ‘To Argentina. She won’t be back for three months.’

I say a quick prayer that my eminently prudent and sensible mother, who has never been in debt in her life and is happily running a wine bar with my father in Barnes, never finds out about this
conversation, and hang up.

Shit
. Seven grand! How did that happen? I had no idea it was so much. Mind you, I haven’t actually opened a statement for months. It’s too depressing. Seven hundred, seven
thousand: I haven’t got a hope in hell of paying it either way. If they can’t get hold of me, they’ll just give up in the end, won’t they? I mean, seven thousand is nothing
to Visa. They’ll just write it off.

Still. It’s not very nice, having people chasing you for money. Clare never has debt collectors ringing
her
. Marc could embezzle millions from her company, and she’d never
even—

I scream as a dead weight slams into me, knocking me to the floor. An iron band tightens round my throat. Within seconds, I’m struggling for breath. I claw at my neck, gasping and
choking.

‘Who is he?’ Jamie hisses in my ear.

I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. My vision blurs.

‘Who was on the phone?’

He’s twisting the phone cord round my neck like a garrotte.
Should have got the hands-free, Jenna.

‘No . . . one,’ I pant. ‘Just the . . . bank . . .’

His grip relaxes slightly. I suck in oxygen, spluttering like a landed fish. Jamie kneels astride me, crushing me, the cord still wrapped around my windpipe. ‘You love me,’ he
repeats. ‘Say it.’

‘I love . . . you.’

‘Promise you’ll never leave me.’

‘Promise.’

Suddenly, the pressure’s gone. Jamie slumps down against the wall, pulling me into his arms and stroking my hair. Tears stream down my cheeks and snot bubbles from my nose. ‘I
can’t cope without you, you know that,’ he murmurs into my hair. ‘Why do you make me do these things to you? Why do you make me so jealous?’