The Nanny (2 page)

Sheila got the reaction she wanted, even from Shaun. Even the lads in the corner gasped. Budsie stopped drinking for a moment. They all knew Mr. Weatherspoon. Everyone in the village knew Mr. Weatherspoon, religious studies teacher, with a nice line in Aran jumpers and the hairiest forearms this side of the Midlands. Jo was horrified.

“I've only just found out,” rushed Sheila. “Maxine was just telling Sandra Jones in the shop—by the baked beans—and I overheard.”

Jo was even more horrified.

“Well done, Sheila!” congratulated Shaun.

“But Mr. Weatherspoon's three-hundred years old!” exclaimed Jo.

“Are we talking a quick snog or the full monty?” asked Shaun.

“The ‘
full monty
?'” repeated Sheila. “Is that what you builders call sexual intercourse now?”

Shaun took a deep breath. “I am
not
a builder, I
own
a construc—”

“Shouldn't we tell the police or something?” asked Jo. “Surely it's illegal.”

“Bloody should be,” said James. “Maxine Black's a heifer.”

Shaun laughed and nodded at his friend over his pint, granting him a point in their doubles match against the ladies.

“He's so
old
,” repeated Jo. “Won't it kill him?”

“I've done the math,” said Sheila. “Weatherspoon's not that old. When we started in juniors, he was only twenty-one.”

They all stopped as this sank in.

“Oh, my God,” whispered Jo eventually. “He was younger than we are now.”

“That's right,” said Sheila. “Barely grown up himself.”

“And now,” continued Jo, catapulting off her emotional trampoline and landing flat on her arse, “he's so old he needs sex with children to remind him he's alive.”

“She's seventeen,” corrected Sheila. “And been having sex—or
full monty
—as it's known in the elite world of construction—since she was twelve.”

“I think I'm going to be sick,” said Jo.

“Me too,” mumbled James. “She was like two heifers then.”

“Why are you going to be sick?” Shaun asked Jo.

“Because we're older than Mr. Weatherspoon was when he taught us!” cried Jo. “And we thought he was nearly dead then. That makes us officially old.”

“Too right, babe.” Shaun winked. “You'll be having nippers of your own soon.”

Sheila gasped dramatically. “Oh, Jo!” she cried. “I think Shaun just proposed. How
sweet
!”

“Who wants another round?” asked James.

“For the love of God!” shouted Jo. “I am having a nervous breakdown here. I am twenty-three! I have peaked! All I've got to look forward to is illness and comfortable shoes.”

There was a pause.

“Don't worry, old girl” said James. “You've still got the legs of a filly.”

“Right,” said Jo, standing up. “I'm going home.”

 

Twenty minutes later, Shaun, Sheila, and James were satisfied that they'd persuaded Jo to stay by using sensitive, cogent arguments. The fact that her only alternative was a long evening with her parents never occurred to them.

It was nearly eleven when she finally extricated herself from them by promising that she really did want to be alone. She left Sheila flirting with the lads in the corner and Shaun thrashing James at pool, and wandered slowly back to her parents' house, trying to savor the silence, the night sky, and the crisp smell of promise she usually loved about spring nights.

As a child, Jo had always been near the top of her class. Encouraged by enthusiastic teachers, she had dreamed of studying one day surrounded by spires and history, in the company of fellow enthusiasts and inspiring geniuses. She had no idea what subject she wanted to study, just that she wanted a university education.

Then at the age of thirteen, while watching a documentary with her parents one school evening, she discovered that there was a subject called anthropology. A whole subject about studying people and how they func
tioned within a society! She had instantly announced that that was what she'd study when she was a grown-up. Her mother had glanced up from her sewing, and her father had nodded before switching over to
Wogan.

Jo didn't mind her parents' indifference to her ambitions. Like any teenager, she firmly believed that her parents' opinions had little relevance to her grand plans. But then, gradually—so gradually she didn't feel it inching its way into her mind-set—she came to see how ridiculous a dream it was. In both her inner circle of friends and her outer circle of vague acquaintances, she only knew people who had studied vocational subjects. Even Billy Smith, two years ahead of her and a towering genius who'd gone to Oxford, had studied medicine, a subject with an obvious reward. And anyway, everyone knew he had no friends and his parents were Jehovah's Witnesses. And seven years' study! Seven years of salary—three hundred sixty-four weeks of paychecks—squandered! While paying for the privilege! It was a mug's game. Anyway, they'd always thought they were above everyone, the Smiths.

And so Jo got used to the idea that spending three whole years studying merely for the sake of studying was a self-indulgence. She was a pragmatist and proud of it.

And pragmatism pointed her in the useful direction of choosing to train as a nanny. She loved children, they seemed to like her, why not use that to earn a decent wage? And so it was that Jo disappointed her teachers, satisfied her parents, and kept her dream safely locked away as a dream by applying to the local college. There she earned herself letters that did not go after her name, but went straight on her CV and got her a good wage within a matter of weeks. After paying her parents a decent rent and helping them with the weekly food budget, the rest was hers. And for the first four years out of college, she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

It was only recently that certain fundamental questions about nannying were beginning to concern her. Such as, why there was already no prospect of
more
money. And why she worked long hours, had no career prospects, and was stuck banging her head on a salary glass ceiling so low she could limbo it.

And why her employers—who had less common sense than she and no emotional intelligence to speak of—worked fewer hours than she yet were able to pay her a fraction of their own salaries?

Every morning, she would stand at the bus stop in the freezing cold dark, then squeeze onto the heaving bus into town. She'd walk to her
boss's house, who would still be having her breakfast when she arrived. While Jo started clearing away the breakfast things and taking charge of the children, the mother in question would then invariably climb into a people wagon and drive off to a brightly lit, cleaned, and tidied office, leaving Jo's workspace looking like a war zone. Then, at any time between six and eight in the evening, said mother would return home, tell Jo how exhausting her day had been, then conduct a catch-up meeting with her of everything little Joey or Jack had said, done, and crapped. Only then was Jo allowed the privilege of walking to the bus stop, waiting in the frozen cold dark for her bus, and walking back home.

Now, how could that be right? How could such obedient realism, taken on at the tender age of sixteen, be so little rewarded? She felt like she'd missed the right turning and ended up in a dead-end street before she'd even taken her driving test. Worse, the job offers were coming from younger and younger mothers, and the thought of being paid a pittance by women only a couple of years older than her made her feel less than whole. On top of all that, she was growing concerned that if she and Shaun didn't make an announcement soon, her parents would propose to him themselves. She'd never told them that he'd stopped asking two years ago after she'd refused him for the third time with no more reason than the time not feeling right.

It amazed Jo that if a couple had been together for a while without making an announcement, people always assumed it was because the girl was still waiting for the boy to ask. Even in the twenty-first century, even when people should know better, even when the girl was their own daughter—there sat that ugly, insulting, outdated assumption, chip chip chipping away at her reputation, attractiveness, and intelligence.

The truth was that each time Shaun had sat opposite her in a crowded restaurant, gone pale and proposed, she'd had to hide her dismay. How could he have been with her this long and not realized that with a life decision this important, she'd put rationality over some outdated, controlling notion of romance? Did he really think it was a decision she'd want him to have kept secret from her? Did he really think she'd want to start their married life feeling like his role was to make the decisions, hers to agree or disagree with them? Or that she'd be able to make up her mind in a crowded restaurant when she couldn't even decide what to have for an appetizer? And anyway, it had the nasty taste of sacking someone in a public place to avoid a fuss. Sometimes she wondered if they would now have been married for years if Shaun had actually dared to discuss the
subject with her instead of presenting it to her like a multichoice fait accompli.

She reached the top of the hill, pausing a moment to glance at the velvety black shades of hills in the distance, her usual comfort. With a deadening weight in her belly she realized that for the first time in her life the hills seemed to be blocking her view instead of being it.

 

“Right,” said Vanessa, smiling brightly at the pretty young thing in her kitchen while Dick glanced at the girl's CV. “We've just got a few questions.”

“Fire away. The girl said, smiling.”

Vanessa took the CV out of Dick's hand. “How would you recognize meningitis?”

The girl shuffled in her seat.

“I'd look for a rash.”

Vanessa and Dick nodded, staring at the girl.

“Ask the child how they felt…” continued the girl, “and if they felt bad, phone the doctor. Or—” she gave them a big smile, “I'd phone my boyfriend. He's a doctor. At King's. We'd be looking for a place together, but he has to live in for now.”

Vanessa put down the CV, and Dick took over quickly.

“Do you smoke?” he asked.

“Only outside,” she said keenly, her big green eyes fixed on him.

“Only outside? What? You mean you…”

“Well, I check that the child is busy, watching telly or something, and nip outside. I don't think it's good for them to see me smoke.”

“Well, thank you—” started Vanessa.

“So,” said Dick quickly. “What do you like cooking for a child?”

“The same things I like, really. I feel children should start eating adult food as soon as possible. I don't always think it's healthy for them to eat children's food. It makes them spoiled.”

Aha. They both leaned forward.

“And what sort of food do you like?” asked Vanessa.

“Fish fingers. Burgers. I love chips. And of course Tommy K.”

“Thank you so much for coming,” said Vanessa. “I don't think there are further—”

“Do you have any questions?” Dick asked the girl.

“Ooh yes, actually,” she said. “What brand of mobile phone would I have?”

Ten minutes later, they sat waiting for the next nanny to turn up.

“That's two full weeks and ten girls we've seen,” said Dick. “This is ridiculous.”

“It's two full weeks and ten girls
I've
seen,” said Vanessa. “You've seen three. And I'm not doing another Saturday on my own, I'm telling you now.”

“Fine,” said Dick. “But we're getting nowhere.”

“Well what do you suggest?” asked Vanessa.

“I just think maybe we're being a bit harsh.”

“Harsh? This is the person who'll be bringing up our children! Of course we're harsh!”

“Well, I just think perhaps you're—
we're
not being realistic.”

“Of course I'm not being realistic!” cried Vanessa. “I'm emotional, subjective, demanding, and full of
hope
.” She slumped. “Why do you think it's so depressing?”

“Maybe the pick of the crop is just out of our financial range.”

“Noo,” moaned Vanessa. “It can't be. We work so hard. We deserve the best.”

“But they're only human, Ness.”

“I know.” Vanessa sighed. “The person who patents a robot nanny will die rich.”

“Is that what we're looking for?” asked Dick. “A robot?”

“No, I'll tell you what we're looking for.” Vanessa sat up straight. “We're looking for a nice youngish girl from a nice, stable family background who has absolutely no social life, a boyfriend who lives a long way away, no hobbies, and definitely no phobias. She mustn't smoke, she mustn't watch daytime TV. She must be able to drive and be obsessed with our children—they must be her
life
—until we come home and then she must back off and sit in her room all evening, watching her walls. She must be health-conscious for them, but not for herself. She must be soft-spoken but firm, NNEB trained, bright and full of common sense, she must be selfless, tidy, warm, good at art, imaginative, and clean, with a high boredom threshold. And she must look worse than me in a bikini.”

There was a pause.

“Well,” ventured Dick. “I think maybe you're being a tad unreasonable.”

“Of course I'm being unreasonable!” Vanessa cried. “I'm a
mother
! Honestly, Dick, sometimes I wonder if you've been listening at all.”

“Ah, dear,” breathed Dick. “No wonder this process takes so long. Any other requirements I need to know about? Is there an ideal shoe size?”

“And I must like her,” remembered Vanessa. “Not as a friend, I don't want a friend, I want an employee. But she'll be living in my house—”