The Nanny (15 page)

“I swear these people have How to Be a Bastard training weekends. There's just no point trying to fight it.”

Anthony nodded. No point indeed. He kept his eyes on Vanessa.

“Have you ever tried to create anything, Vanessa?” Tom asked quietly.

Vanessa tensed. “Three children, a happy home life, and a career path,” she said. “Besides that, nothing much.”

“I mean really
create
anything?” repeated Tom. “Something from a key thought—spun magic from a shopping list of requirements? Something unique, memorable, clever, original from nothing but your own ideas…your own imagination…your, your innards.”

Vanessa looked at him. “Ooh! Listen!” she suddenly exclaimed. Tom and Anthony listened.

“What?” whispered Anthony.

“Warning bells,” said Vanessa wryly. “Bloody deafening.”

Tom sighed loudly.

“No, Tom,” she told him. “That sort of creativity is your job. My job is to squeeze your enormous talent into the small mind of a marketing director.”

Tom's frame expanded. “It's a tough job.” He grinned. “But someone's gotta do it.”

They all smiled at each other.
Wow
, thought Anthony.
Three children, and she still has that body.

After the meeting, he hung back, fiddling with his papers while Vanessa packed up all her notes. As she left, he fell into step beside her.

“Coming for a quick drink?” he asked her. “We're only going downstairs.”

“I should get back home. I have a husband to be bitter at.”

“Oh go on.” He smiled. “It's vital to work up a good relationship with us. I think Tom would appreciate it.”

Vanessa paused. “You think I was a bit heavy with him?”

Anthony smiled, and Vanessa admitted that if you liked blonds, he really was a stunner.

“I think it wouldn't go amiss to show willing and buy him a quick drink,” Anthony confided.

Vanessa looked at her watch. Cassie would have been picked up. And it wouldn't do her career any harm to build up a relationship with these guys. If they genuinely liked her, there was more chance they'd work well for her, which meant there was more chance of a great Christmas bonus for them all. She'd be doing it for her family.

“Alright.” She smiled. “Just the one.”

Four hours later, Tom was the first to go home.

“One for the road?” Anthony asked Vanessa.

“Why? Does the road need me semiconscious?”

“You tell me,” said Anthony quietly.

Vanessa giggled and shoved him playfully on the arm. She picked up her handbag.

“I really must go,” she managed. “I have an entire family to heckle.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

With considerable messing about, they collected all their belongings and pushed their way out of the by then heaving wine bar. Outside, the fresh night air sobered them up enough to feel slightly self-conscious.

“Are you getting a cab?” asked Vanessa.

“Nah. Where you going?”

“North. Highgate. You?”

“Notting Hill. I'll catch the tube.”

A cab appeared, and Anthony waited contentedly by its door, watching Vanessa lean into the window to give her address to the driver. Before opening the door, he stepped an inch toward her. They were eye to eye. She could smell the mingled aroma of smoke and aftershave.

“Night then,” he smiled.

“Night then.”

It started off as a fairly friendly good night kiss, perhaps a tad unnecessary for a business meeting, but pleasant nonetheless. It ended up, however, as something very different. Before the cab had rung up a fiver, Anthony had mastered most of the curves that had been preoccupying him of late and Vanessa had transformed into the woman she once was. It was as much of a discovery for her as it was for him.

Eventually, they stepped apart for some air. Vanessa leaned against the cab door, catching her breath. Her legs were trembling.

“Night then,” she mumbled, turning without looking back.

“Night then,” whispered Anthony, drawing himself back into the cold.

Vanessa stumbled into the cab and sat down heavily, her lips hot and stinging, her stomach liquid acid. As the cab driver put down his sandwich and set off, she was thrown into the back of the seat and started to feel very sick indeed.

 

When she flicked on the kitchen light, Vanessa found Jo sitting at the kitchen table.

“Oh!” she jumped. “What are you doing? Spying in the dark?”

Jo gave a little smile. “Josh is showering. I thought I'd give him some privacy.”

“Oh God,” moaned Vanessa, making herself a nightcap. “I'm so sorry you've got to put up with him. It's ridiculous I know. Homeless in Highgate, living rent-free in his father's house, age twenty-five. I ask you. Dick hasn't got a clue.”

Jo's jaw dropped. “Rent-free?” she breathed.

“God yes. Poor little rich boy.”

“I-I had no idea. He pays…absolutely nothing?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

Jo couldn't speak. She thought of how young she was when she'd started paying rent to her parents. She thought of how hard Shaun worked. She thought of the holidays Sheila had missed because she hadn't worked enough on weekends. It was as if someone had deflated the bright balloon that was Josh.

Vanessa went to the drinks cabinet and took a long look at Jo.

“Don't go falling for the famous Josh Fitzgerald charms,” she said kindly. “Twenty-five going on fourteen. Of course,” she added, tapping her nose with her finger and spilling some whiskey on the floor, “that's all between you and me.”

“Of course,” whispered Jo.

After a swig of whiskey, Vanessa started up again.

“I suppose Dick's been watching television all night again?”

Jo tried to think what Dick had been doing.

“Of course he has!” Vanessa answered her own question. “I'm the only one who works around here. My husband's job is to have fun. My job is to make it possible for him to have fun. And you know what the funny thing is?”

Jo shook her head, preparing herself for something very unfunny.

“The funny thing is that my husband thinks he works hard!” Vanessa came and sat at the table. She leaned forward. “I'm so sick of my job I could puke. I hate it. It's exactly the same at my office as it is in my home. My job…my
job
…a job with its own title and a salary…is to make sure that everyone else gets to have all the fun and all the kudos.”

“Oh dear.”

“
And!”
she said, “And…it's not as if I get support from my husband. Oh no! He resents me. He resents the fact that I work my arse off to support our family. Hard to believe isn't it?”

Jo nodded.

“I spend every minute of every day working, supporting our family
while Dick's doing God knows what—probably dallying with some woman for all I know, 'cos he sure as hell isn't selling any fucking records—and…” she worked herself up to a crescendo, “he
resents
me for it!”

“Oh dear.”

“You know what my title should be?”

Jo shook her head.

“Shitwork manager. That's what I do. Manage all the shitwork. At home and in the office. All the invisible, dirty, thankless shitwork. I'm the eternal housewife of the operation. I spend every minute of every day massaging the geniuses' egos while making sure they work to deadline, brief, and budget, making sure the client doesn't know how much everyone hates them, and making sure a thirty-second ad is made at the end of it. And then I come home and do exactly the same here. Except without the ad, obviously. In fact, my job, by its very nature, is totally invisible. You only notice my job when things go wrong. In
fact
,” her voice was rising, “the better I do my job, the more invisible it becomes. I
mean
,” she was now ranting, “when the cogs are well oiled everyone assumes it must be easy to oil bloody cogs. Don't they?” She was now shouting. “But it's not! It's
impossible
to oil buddy clogs.” She stopped, and said slowly and carefully, “
bloody cogs
.” She paused. “I just do it bloody well.”

In the pause that followed Vanessa drained her drink and walked precariously to the sink. “Bloody well,” she repeated, “for not enough money and absolutely no kudos.” She added her tumbler to the others in the sink.

“Oh,” she exclaimed politely, staring into the sink. “We seem to be behind on the dishwasher schedule.”

“I was just going to fill it and put it on after I'd finished my drink,” said Jo.

“Ah good,” said Vanessa, leaning against the sink and looking at the floor. “And I think I may have spilled some drink too.” She looked back up at Jo. “What would we do without dishwashers eh?” she winked, woman to woman, then gave the kitchen a once-over. “Perhaps you could give the place a little tidy while you're at it. Right then. Better get to bed. I'm knackered. No peace for the wicked eh?”

Jo smiled.

“Do you want the light off again?” asked Vanessa. “Or will you need it on to finish up?”

“On please.”

“Okay then,” Vanessa said. “Sleep well.”

Jo yawned as she watched her boss walk down the corridor and turn to go up the stairs.

When Jo heard Josh leave the bathroom and pad through her bedroom into his, shutting his door behind him, she got up, poured her unfinished drink down the sink, and started to transfer Vanessa's and Dick's evening tumblers into the dishwasher.

Meanwhile, Vanessa tiptoed up to Zak's room, hitting her forehead on the giant plastic dinosaur hanging from the door to scare robbers, and kissed him softly on his face. She sat on his bed and watched him sleep for a while. She went into Cassandra's room and found her, boiling hot, lying upside down on her bed. She swept her daughter's sweaty hair away from her face and kissed her on her unusually flushed cheek. Then she sat on her bed and watched her sleep. Finally, she entered Tallulah's room, where the little girl was breathing heavily, her eyelids flickering. She watched her sleep for a while. Eventually she crept into her own bedroom. Dick lay fast asleep, dead to the world.

She looked at him for a moment, then looked away. She got into bed and lay there, her body still reeling from Anthony's unexpected, expected kiss. Every time she closed her eyes to allow the familiar, trusty Harrison Ford to calm her anger and help her sleep, she got Anthony instead. His image seemed to be imprinted on her eyelids.

She opened her eyes and stared into the dark. Why wasn't her life simple like the rest of her family's? She lay awake for what felt like hours, reliving her secret like a naughty schoolgirl until the early hours.

Shaun was visiting that weekend, so Jo would be unable to spend her Sunday with Pippa and the girls. They'd planned to all meet up on Saturday night, but her Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday were strictly reserved for him and him only. Which meant she had to make up for it on the Thursday night.

“That's brilliant,” said Rachel. “Thursday night is ladies' night at the club.”

“Fantastic,” said Pippa. “Now all we need is to find some ladies.”

They all shrieked with stupid laughter.

As they turned up at the club, Pippa gave Jo a little nudge.

“So,” she said. “Shaun's coming tomorrow, eh?”

“Yup.”

“Does Josh know he exists yet?”

“Nope.”

“Never mind,” said Pippa. “I'm sure he won't even notice.”

“Mm. Thanks.”

It was a brilliant night. Rachel and Gabriella decided that as they got in for free, they had to make up the difference in tequila slammers. Gabriella confessed that she fancied her boss's husband and thought he fancied her and proceeded to give all the tiny sordid details, and Pippa had a shocking story about a friend of a friend who had been caught wearing her boss's clothes. For Jo's part, she made a mental effort to forget all about Shaun, Josh, and Gerry and when it didn't work, got rat-arsed.

And after that, the evening just got better and better. In fact, when Jo got home and fell over Tallulah's Barbie tricycle in the pitch-black hall, it was undoubtedly one of the funniest things that had ever happened to her in her entire life. And then, when she tried to get up but fell down again, landing on her knee because her heel was caught in the wheel, she thought she was going to asphyxiate from laughter.

Ten minutes later, she crawled into the kitchen, exhausted. She had to wash her knee. Easy. She climbed onto the kitchen worktop, turned on the tap, soaking herself in the process and then, positioned on all fours over the sink, put her knee in it. She hiccuped as her long hair cascaded over her face into the sink.

“Bugger,” she said. “Can't reachy reach. Can't reachy reach.”

She really couldn't be bothered to get all the way off the work top, so she pushed one leg off the sink and tried to put the other one further in. Good thing she had such long legs and was wearing such a short skirt. Once her knee was wet enough, she tried to get the leg it was attached to out of the sink. Slowly but surely, she lowered the leg not in the sink, until eventually she had one foot on the floor and the other leg now at an uncomfortable angle on the worktop. She stood, breathing heavily.

“Oh deary deary dear,” she said to herself. “Who's in a pick—” Hiccup. “Pardon. Who's in a pick—” Hiccup. “Pardon. Who's in a pick—” Hiccup. And then she laughed so much she almost fell over.

“Do you want any help?” someone said in the dark.

The shock of hearing Josh's voice from the kitchen table made her jump.

“No thanks,” she said in a small voice, then swiveled her leg down and fell flat on her face.

There was a pause as a wave of humiliation washed over Jo's previous hysteria. As the pause continued, certain parts of her body began to hurt. She hoped that she'd imagined Josh's voice and the increasing pause convinced her of this. In the silence, she could just make out the pitiful sound of a drunk female starting to cry.

“Are you alright?” asked Josh, with a smile in his voice Jo could detect even through the haze that was her brain. “Don't panic,” he said. “I'm coming.” She heard him heave his leg off the kitchen table. “I'll be with you any hour now.”

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,
ow
” she explained, now weeping uncontrollably.

She couldn't understand where the tears were coming from, she just knew she couldn't stop them. She didn't know how long she was there before Josh was crouched next to her.

“I'd pick you up,” he whispered, “but I can't pick up a teaspoon at the moment.”

Jo hid her face in the floor. “I got you maimed,” she whimpered.

“Please don't cry,” begged Josh. “I'm a bloke. I don't know how to cope.”

Jo mumbled something incoherent, which seemed to upset her even more.

Josh leaned in close and was almost intoxicated by her breath. “What's that?”

She mumbled it again.

He came in even closer. “I didn't quite catch—”

“I miss my mum and dad.”
She yelled into his ear. She started sobbing.

“Come on,” whispered Josh. “Up you get, you'll be fine. Lean on me.”

With considerable effort on both of their parts, Jo got up and leaned on him.

He flinched. “Not that hard.”

Jo jumped away and was about to lose her balance when Josh gripped her firmly round the waist. They both fell against the worktop, their faces inches apart, their hips touching. Jo could feel Josh's breath on her lips. She closed her eyes. The room spun. She opened them again.

“Alright?” he whispered.

‘Mmhmm,' she murmured, her bones softening. She let her body pour in toward his and steadied her head against his chest. Everything felt better now. She didn't dare move. Perhaps she could stay here forever. No, that was impossible, she had work tomorrow, and anyway, Shaun was coming to stay…

Her eyes opened suddenly. Shaun. Her boyfriend. Whom she had yet to tell Josh about. She was paralyzed. She was a wicked, bad person and she was paralyzed.

“Jo?” She heard his croak in her hair. His voice seemed to flow through her veins and it took every effort of willpower to pull herself away from him. Her throat was dry.

To her delicious horror, Josh's body followed her, his face leaning in toward hers.

She gasped.

He gasped.

She stared at him in the dark.

He stared back at her.

She tried to speak.

He inched toward her.

“Josh?” she whispered.

“Yes?” he whispered back.

She felt tears in her eyes. “I—”

“Yes?”

“I have a boyfriend.”

Josh stopped.

“What?”

“Shaun. He's coming to stay tomorrow, we've been together for six years, he's proposed three times, he works in the construction industry.”

Josh moved away, and she almost fell over.

“Right,” he said, all warmth gone from his voice. “Let's get you to bed.”

He guided her out of the kitchen, his had barely touching her.

“I'm so sorry, I should have told you—” the tears began again.

“Don't talk daft—”

“I just couldn't find the right time—”

“Now was perfect—”

“You hate me.” She tried to turn toward him.

“I don't hate you.” He gently moved her away.

“You do, you hate me.”

“I don't hate you.”

“You do, you hate me.”

“Shut up, Jo.”

 

Friday morning started fine and bright, which Jo could really have done without. She lay in bed torturing herself with regret. How could she have got so drunk? How could she be hungover the morning she was due to pick up Shaun? How the hell had she got into her nightshirt? She suddenly remembered what had happened when she got in last night. She cringed at the memory. The change in Josh's personality had totally unnerved her. She wondered if he would be back to normal today. Her stomach churned. Oh God. She couldn't face him. And she couldn't face Shaun. She wanted to die.

Talking of which, her body could see her point. Some breed of farmyard animal had nested in the roof of her mouth during the night, and from the feel and sound of it, her brain was escaping out of her ears. It took her a good few minutes to realize that the sound was actually Josh in the shower.

She heaved herself up, sat on the edge of her bed, and looked at her bedside clock. Mickey Mouse's long hand was nearly pointing at the twelve, which might have been why she found his smile particularly
annoying this morning. She sat there for another five minutes before deciding that she was going to have to knock on the bathroom door.

She tapped gently. Nothing. She tried again. Nothing. Then just as she was about to hammer, the door opened and Josh stood there, a towel round his waist, water dripping off his torso. Her head jerked back in shock, which made it throb. “Yes?” asked Josh and then his eyes drifted to her chest. “Nice T-shirt,” he said tightly. “Wile E. Coyote was my favourite, too.”

She looked down at her T-shirt and frowned. Her head was not impressed by either action and let her know it in no uncertain terms.

I have to get in the shower,” she croaked, “or the kids will be late for school.”

Josh opened the door wide, letting it bang against the wall. “Don't let me stop you,” he spoke loudly and walked past her. He was like a different person. To the sound of his door shutting, she stepped gingerly into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stared at the falling water, wondering what she could have possibly drunk last night to make her feel this soul-destroyed.

Josh stood in his room, his body tense as he listened to Jo's shower. He lowered himself onto his futon. Then very slowly, he inched himself down so that he was lying on it. He was absolutely knackered. He'd hardly slept a wink all night. It wasn't so much the physical pain, which was making sleep hard enough, as the return of old prepubescent anxieties. He'd thought he was stronger than this. Everything, was so much easier when you had distance. He touched his forehead with his hand, then quickly moved it away again as soon as it made contact with the bruise between his eyes. He shifted into a more comfortable position.

But layered finely on top of those deep, familiar anxieties was a whole new set of fresh ones. He felt a strange, sick sense of confusion whenever he thought about last night. Jo turned out to be exactly the opposite of what he'd dared hope she was. And then, while a pattern of hateful, reassuring thoughts had made themselves at home in his head, he'd had to soothe her as she poured out her heart to him: She was terrified that her dad would die of a heart attack and her mum would die of loneliness. Oh yes, and by the way, she'd forgotten to mention she had a boyfriend. So could they just pretend that all the flirting and teasing and long lingering looks and that full-body hug and come-to-bed look and neck-nuzzling hadn't happened, because by the way, that boyfriend she'd just mentioned? He was coming to stay. And then she'd instructed him to turn his back
and wait for her to change, which took another half an hour because for some bizarre reason she was all fingers and thumbs.

It had been three before he'd got to bed. And once he lay there in the dark—on his own, out of Jo's presence—everything became clearer. It was much easier to see the harsh truth when it wasn't couched in a honey-limbed, aqua-eyed package.

After a night of not much sleep, he'd woken with a start at six this morning, and had had an immediate sensation of gut rot. It would pass, he told himself. It was a necessary stage, and it would pass. In too much discomfort to toss and turn, he'd had no choice but to walk through her room to the bathroom. He'd cracked open the door between them and sidled into her room. All was still. He'd tiptoed slowly across the floor, keeping his eye on the sleeping form in bed to check that it didn't wake and do anything untoward like call six policemen to beat him to a pulp.

His eyes were accustomed to the dark by the time he reached Jo's bed, and he stopped midtrack as he looked down at her.

Her long dark hair was fanned out against the pillow, her skin flushed with sleep, her lips parted in a half smile, and although those wide, almond-shaped blue eyes were shut, he noticed that the thick black lashes were gently fluttering. Soft sleep noises whispered out of her mouth, and before he knew it his mind had escaped and was wondering what she was dreaming of.

His gaze moved slowly downward. The duvet was twisted round those endless legs, and the mischievous face of Wile E. Coyote, lying snugly between her gently rising and falling breasts, winked up at him, man to man. He took one last glance at her innocent-looking face and proceeded into the bathroom, where he had a considerably colder shower than usual.

By the time Jo was out of the shower, he had dried, dressed, and made it into the kitchen. The children were all there with Vanessa and Dick, Dick cajoling Zak to eat his cereal, Cassie tying Tallulah's shoelaces instead of eating breakfast, while Tallulah waved her pink glittery wand over the proceedings and Vanessa jotting down notes for Jo, issuing orders for all. Josh hardened himself to the image.

“Morning all!” he greeted them. “Who wants coffee?”

“Josh!” greeted Zak. “Will you play Batman with me after school? You can be the Joker.”

“Zak!”
yelled Dick. “Sit down and eat your cereal. I'm not going to tell you again.”

“Good,” said Zak. Parents were so thick sometimes.

Josh started putting the coffee on, hardly limping, but still moving slowly. When Jo finally came into the kitchen, he ignored the fact that she was paler than usual. Holding her head, she edged her way into the kitchen and apologized profusely for waking up so late. No one answered, and Vanessa, without looking at her, started giving her notes for the day. Jo nodded at them all, her eyes on the floor.

“Oh and I've got another meeting this afternoon,” continued Vanessa, “and I don't know when it's going to end, so can you pick up Cassie from her extra drama class? You haven't got anything on have you?”

Jo's face fell.

“Oh God,” she said. “I'm so sorry but I can't. Shaun's coming up today, don't you remember? I told you last week.”

Josh leaned against the counter and started eating his cereal.

“Shit,” muttered Vanessa.

“Shit,” said Tallulah, waving her pink glittery wand over Zak's head.

“I'm really sorry,” said Jo.