The Nanny (9 page)

“Zachariah!” cried his grandma. “I don't think there's any call for that, is there?”

Jo heartily agreed with Zak, so quietly got on with making the tea.

“Sorry,” said Zak, before mumbling, “And it's ZacharIE.”

“I should think so.”

“They were just about to do their homework actually,” said Jo.

“Yes,” said Zak. “I've got lots.” And off he vanished.

“Girls,” said Jo, “After you've finished helping your nan—”

“Grandma,”
corrected Diane in her best Lady Bracknell voice.

“—you can do your homework,” finished Jo lamely. She then found the cake tins and started pouring her raw mixture in, while the girls crowded round Diane doing her nails.

The quicker I do this
, thought Jo,
the more time I'll have to call Shaun before the children's tea
. As soon as the Krispies were in the fridge, the phone rang. Jo glanced over at Diane, who waved wet nails in her direction. As Jo went to answer the phone she heard Diane say to the girls. “Let's see how good your new nanny's phone voice is, shall we, girls? It's the perfect test of a lady.” Excited, Cassandra and Tallulah watched her keenly.

Right
, thought Jo.
You asked for it
.

“Good afternoon,” she said into the phone, impersonating Eliza Doolittle's post rain-in-Spain moment. “The Fitzgerald London residence. How may I help?”

In the pause that followed, Jo caught Diane's plucked eyebrows arch toward her golden crown.

“Blimey,” came a warm male voice that Jo recognized immediately. “Do you wear a pinny and a hat, too?”

Jo stared blankly at Diane, harpooned by the woman's scrutiny. “To whom do you wish to speak?” Jo was now on automatic-pilot, paralyzed from the fringe down.

“To you.” Josh laughed. “You're priceless.”

Diane started to smile graciously at Jo, who felt encouraged enough to continue. “Would you like to speak to anyone in the Fitzgerald family?”

“God no, they're all mad.”

“The children's grandmother, Diane, is here playing with the girls.”

“Why? What have they done wrong?”

Jo controlled her smile. She managed to half turn away from Diane, which felt recklessly rebellious. “They almost ate chocolate,” she said primly.

“Oh my gosh!” mimicked Josh. “I'll call the police while you make them sick it up.”

“They're with their grandmother now,” complied Jo, “so I don't think that will be necessary.”

Josh's “Fuck me, are you for real?” spoiled the first warm feeling she'd had since she'd been there. It was one thing to be mocked, but quite another to be mocked by a moron who couldn't tell a joke when he heard one. Disappointment fueled her anger.

“Can I put you on speakerphone?” he was saying now. “The guys in the office don't believe me. Rupert wants a date if you let him use a dummy.”

Jo gritted her teeth. “I'll tell the Fitzgeralds you called,” she said, and hung up.

Slowly, she turned back to Diane who was sitting very still, her head slightly tilted, her gaze questioning. The girls were long gone, finding Jo's phone conversation almost as boring as watching nail polish dry. Instead, Diane was now flanked by the bookends Molly and Bolly, who joined her in giving Jo a superior, unflinching stare.

“It was Josh,” Jo told them.

They all looked singularly unimpressed.

“Was it?” muttered Diane.

“Between you and me,” attempted Jo, “I don't think he's a very good influence on the children.”

“Of course he isn't,” said Diane, standing up. “He's the son of Dick's first wife, Jane, who you will soon find out is a cow. In a none-too-effective disguise. Doubtless you'll meet her when she drops off her boy Toby. He is the devil.”

“Right,” said Jo, as Diane wafted past her into the hall, followed by the cats. “I'll look forward to it.”

“Good-bye darlings!” Diane called up. “Grandma's going!”

“Guys!” shouted Jo. “Say good-bye to Grandma before her bingo!”

“Bridge!”
exclaimed Diane, horrified.

“Oh, I'm so sorry. I always confuse those two.”

Diane shouted upstairs again. “No need to come down, I'm in a rush!”

“Bye!”
shouted three children from various rooms upstairs.

Jo handed Diane her coat, and Diane took a long last look at her as though Jo had just handed her a bouquet of flowers in thanks for opening a fête. Then after Jo had opened the front door for her, Diane instructed Jo to instruct Vanessa to instruct her gardener to dead-head the roses, and, followed by the silent cats as far as the front gate, wafted away.

 

“Mmm, broccoli,” lied Jo, as she took a bite.

“I hate broccoli,” said Tallulah, as the other two watched Jo, equally unconvinced.

“Imagine it's covered in chocolate,” said Jo. “That's what I always do.”

“Why don't you just not eat it?” asked Zak.

“Or cover it in chocolate?” asked Cassandra.

“I just like eating stuff that makes me grow,” lied Jo again.

“Why?” asked Cassandra. “You're already tall.”

“I'm going to be tall when I grow up,” said Tallulah, eating a piece of broccoli.

“I'm just going to wear high heels,” said Cassandra.

“I was a tree,” said Tallulah.

Jo had just got everything into the dishwasher and was about to bathe Tallulah when Dick arrived home. She almost sank to her knees in gratitude as the three children hurled themselves at him. As she watched him roll on the floor with them, she wondered how this “daddy bear” was the same man from her interview. As the children started using him as a trampoline and he grinned stupidly up at her, she decided first impressions could be very misleading.

She looked at her watch. 7
p.m
. She'd worked a twelve-hour day without a single break, and she still hadn't finished the ironing. Did all Londoners work these ridiculous hours or was it just the Fitzgeralds? Dick noticed her look at her watch.

“I know,” he said, from underneath a child. “Odd hour to be home.”

“Ah,” sighed Jo, relieved. “I thought it might be.”

“God yes!” he said. “But as it was your first day, I just shut up shop and came home early.”

A fortnight later, back in Niblet, Shaun reached the pub before dusk. He saw Sheila before she saw him, ducked behind the bar, and ordered himself a swift pint.

“Heard from Jo yet?” greeted the landlord.

“Yeah,” said Shaun. “She's rushed off her feet.”

“Ah, poor girl. Usual? Hello there, Sheila, what can I get for you?”

Shaun turned to Sheila, who was standing right behind him.

“Hello!” he said. “Didn't see you there.”

“Pull the other one,” said Sheila, “it's got Big Ben on it.”

They stood at the bar.

“Spoke to Jo today,” he said eventually.

Sheila smiled at him. “How long did you hold out then?”

“How d'you know she didn't phone me?”

“Because in two weeks she's only phoned me twice. And I don't care what they say about true love, there's no way she'd have phoned you more than me.”

Shaun took a swift drink.

“I'm right, aren't I?” she asked.

Shaun took his pint and went to sit on his own. Sheila got herself a drink and followed him.

“Don't take it personally, Shaunie,” she said, joining him by the fire. “I'm sure she'll be phoning much more important people than both of us now she's living in London.” Shaun downed half his pint, took a deep breath, then downed the other half.

“I bet you're really pissed off,” he said eventually. “Knowing she can cope without you.”

Sheila shrugged. “Oh, I'm fine. It's good for her to get away. Branch out.”

Shaun let out a laugh. He wiped his mouth.

“So,” said Sheila. “How are you keeping yourself busy of a Saturday night?”

“Don't look at me,” he said. “How the hell are you keeping yourself busy of a Saturday day? No all-day-long shopping expeditions to tempt her away from me.”

“I never had to tempt her actually.”

Suddenly Shaun shouted out at James, who'd just appeared in the pub doorway. James nodded and came over.

“Usual?” Shaun grunted at Sheila.

Sheila nodded. Shaun went to join James at the bar.

 

Meanwhile, miles away, in a heaving City bar, Jo's phone calls were the subject of another, rather more animated conversation.

Josh had just done his impersonation of Nanny on the phone to his mates. Sally from Accounts had joined them tonight, and it wouldn't have been arrogance on his part to claim that he knew why she was there. The more the gang laughed at his imitation, the closer Sally got, until her stockinged thigh was practically on top of his. The day was getting better and better. First a phone call from his dad for a man-to-man chat, and now Sally from Accounts practically on his lap.

“So where did they get this nanny from then?” asked Jasper.

“Fuck knows,” said Josh, growing distracted. “The Tight-Arse Nanny Academy I suppose.”

“I've got to talk to this woman,” said Rupert. “I'm getting a boner just thinking about her.”

“How much is it worth?” asked Josh.

“A tenner.”

“Hah!”

“Twenty!”

Josh laughed again.

“Fifty! But if she's not as good as my dreams, you owe me.”

“Done!” shouted Josh, and they all cheered. “Next time I talk to her I'll put her on speakerphone and when I tip you the wink, you can have a word.”

And with that, Sally slid herself onto Joshua's lap, her skirt momentarily rising so high he caught a glimpse of dappled, bronzed thigh. And for the rest of the evening, the tight-arse nanny was completely forgotten.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, the tight-arse nanny's life was reaching a new and somewhat spectacular low. By the end of her third week in the Fitzgerald household, she found herself lying on her bed, staring at her open suitcase, abandoned rucksack and still-packed box, too exhausted to move and trying not to cry.

Technically, Jo had weekends off, unless previously arranged as paid baby-sitting. But she'd spent her first weekend catching up on sleep, the second being cajoled by Vanessa to just pass her this and just pop something into the dishwasher and just nip upstairs and bring down something. On the third weekend, she was reduced to going to the cinema on her own just to make the point that she wasn't technically meant to be working. She was surrounded by rowdy crowds of teenagers who kept staring at her and young couples who didn't; then she fell asleep at the feel-good climax, waking with a start and saying aloud, “Are the cats in?” which felt like the least humiliating two minutes of the whole evening.

She'd have loved to go home for the weekends, but she knew that if she did, she'd never come back, which would mean the end to her dreams and the beginning of a life of being reminded “I told you so” by all her loved ones. As for Shaun coming to visit, his firm was still in the first all-important month of their biggest-ever contract, so she knew he'd practically be living on-site, weekends included. If he hadn't been able to take time off to pop to the station to see her off, he would hardly be able to come and stay. Occasionally, very occasionally—and usually at night—she did find herself wondering if her parents' generation had got it right by insisting that the woman's career was to follow the career of the man who'd chosen her. Okay, in some circumstances it may not have been as pleasant for the woman, but it was certainly less complicated.

She'd contacted her parents nearly every day, and as long as she did so when there was at least one child in the car she didn't feel tempted to cry. Apart from the exhaustion and early nights giving her very little free time to make long personal calls, she simply didn't have enough energy to phone Shaun and was rarely in the right frame of mind to phone Sheila. In the rare moments of quiet, she missed her parents; in all the other moments she ached for the familiarity of Niblet.

 

On the Friday morning of her fourth week at the Fitzgeralds', Jo waited in the schoolyard, pondering on her learning curve since leaving home.
She had known that the Fitzgerald household was going to be different from her own, but she had thought the differences were only in the details. She now realized that details were what made a house a home. And the Fitzgerald house wasn't a home, it was a station for remote controls. There were so many remote controls in it that they needed a remote control to find them. There was one for each stereo in each room, one to dim the lights in each room, one for the fireplace, even one for the lounge clock—an unnerving light-effect number that you had to, of course, point your remote control at for it to work. A small mound would then rise, phoenixlike, from the coffee table and shine at the blank wall ahead. And lo, there would slowly appear, Cheshire-cat-like, a wall clock. Usually by the time it had appeared to show you the time, you were late. And of course, there was a remote control for every television in the house. If there was a robbery of their remote controls, the house would no longer function. It would just be a shell.

As for Jo's suite of rooms, television, and enormous wardrobe, it was proof, if proof were ever needed, that money does not bring happiness. Her body yearned for the easy comfort of her tiny room, its stirring view of the River Avon, and the reassuring sound of her parents' yelling from downstairs.

As she watched the queue in front of the nursery it occurred to her that she might not be strong enough for this. After only one month, she might have to go home, defeated. “Cheer up,” came a voice behind her. “You look like you've just lost a baby and found three.”

Jo assumed the voice wasn't talking to her, but took a sly glance behind her anyway.

There stood an expensive-looking, tall, blond, tanned girl about her age, holding a car seat in which dozed a baby the size of a doll.

“You're a new nanny aren't you?” the girl asked, with an amused grin. Jo nodded.

“Thought so,” the girl said. “If you were a mum, you'd just be looking bored, not brain-fucked. I'm Pippa, and this,” she said, holding the car seat forward, “is Sebastian James.”

Jo looked at Sebastian James. He must have been weeks old.

“Say hello to the nice lady, Sebastian James,” said Pippa.

Sebastian James's left eyebrow fluttered briefly. It wasn't much, thought Jo, but it was more than she was used to.

“Pleased to meet you Sebastian James,” she said, and held out her hand.

Sebastian James's bottom let out a ripple.

“The youth of today,” tutted Pippa, swinging the car seat back onto her hip. “No respect.”

“Well, they haven't lived through a war.”

“His mother's having her piles done.” Pippa grinned.

“Ooh, lovely.”

“Well, it is for the Harley Street specialist. Twelve hundred smackers for forty minutes.”

Jo whistled long and low.

“Mind you,” confided Pippa, “he does have to locate them. Probably needed a finder's fee.”

Jo discovered that Sebastian James's sister, Georgiana Anne, was in Tallulah's class.

“Their parents are nanny virgins,” explained Pippa. “I'm their first, bless them. And I've been with them for three years, so I'm now technically their boss. I have three aerobics classes a week and a facial on them, they're so terrified of losing me. And the guilt! It's amazing. There are people out there murdering children and all this couple do is work every hour God sends to earn enough money to bring up a small family and go private, and you'd think they'd committed genocide. Poor sods. Mind you, very useful. Got my own attic flat in Highgate, with separate front door and a south-facing terrace garden. And I've just come back from a prebaby ‘work' holiday with them all in the Bahamas. They wanted to do Antibes, but I said it had to be the Caribbean. Do yours work?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

Sebastian James belched. Pippa and Jo looked at him.

“Men,” tutted Pippa. “Time for a coffee?”

Jo's eyes went round.

“Actually,” she said, “I haven't got time for a crap.”

“Oh dear, that's not good.”

“No,” agreed Jo. “It's not good.”

“I wondered why you were standing like that.”

Jo's laugh was sudden and loud, as if she'd forgotten how to do it. “Oh, that's just how I stay upright after walking up Highgate Hill.”

“What have you been doing weekends?”

“Oh you know, odd jobs for my boss, weeping in my room, falling asleep in cinemas, that sort of thing.”

“What are you doing this Sunday?”

“Resigning and going home to marry my boyfriend.”

Pippa squeezed Jo's arm. “Meet me for coffee this weekend,” she urged. “Costa Coffee, Highgate High Street, 11
a.m
. Lesson number one, if you don't have set plans at the weekend, they treat you like you're working. But never make it too early in the morning, because then they'll act like it's a weekday.”

“Oh,” said Jo, eyes even wider.

Pippa beamed at her. “You have much to learn, Grasshopper,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Jo.

The nursery door opened, and one by one, ten eager little bunnies came out, blinking in the sun. Behind them wandered Tallulah.

Georgiana Anne approached Pippa, kissed her baby brother hard on his forehead, her teeth leaving marks in his crepe-paper skin, handed Pippa a papier-mâché objet d'art that looked like a penis in a wig, hitched up her tights, and announced, “It's for Mummy.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Pippa. “Lucky Mummy!”

“I want chicken nuggets for lunch.”

Jo knelt to Tallulah's height to hear her better. Tallulah looked her straight in the eye.

“Hello,” said Tallulah.

“Hello, did you have a good day?”

“Yes, thank you. Georgiana's my friend.”

“That's nice.”

Tallulah looked over at Georgiana.

“Sometimes,” she allowed.

Halfway home, Tallulah looked up at Jo.

“Can I skip?” she asked.

“Of course you can, poppet. Just wait for me at the curb.”

“I like your hair,” said Tallulah, before focusing her mind on more important things. She had skipping to do.

 

Back at home, while Cassie and Zak were busy with their homework, Tallulah needed occupying after a busy day of tumbling like a tot.

“What would you like to do?” asked Jo, hoping the little girl would say “Find you a new job while you call your boyfriend and make him the happiest man in the world.”

“I'd like to paint,” announced Tallulah.

“Right,” said Jo. “What would you like to paint?”

“A Kandinsky.”

Jo smiled. She was talking funny again. “A Kan-
what
sky?”

Tallulah giggled. “Kand
in
sky, silly.” With that, the little girl took Jo by the hand and led her into the living room and pointed at the brightly colored picture over the fireplace that had clearly been painted by a four-year-old. “That's a Kandinsky. Not a real one, obviously, a copy,” explained Tallulah.

Jo knelt “Do you know,” she confided. “I only understand every third word you say.”

Tallulah nodded and sighed. “I know how you feel,” she said quietly.

Half an hour later, with Kandinsky Technicolors sprayed delicately all over her, Jo answered an insistent ring on the doorbell. She heard the buffalo horde racing down the stairs, and braced herself for the one remaining experience yet to be savored at her new household. She was almost looking forward to it. As yet, she had missed meeting Toby's mother, the notorious Mrs. Fitzgerald the First. Two Fridays ago, Jane Fitzgerald had been in such a rush to get away for a spa break that all Jo saw of her was the back of her Peugeot, and the previous Friday Jo had been busy with Tallulah in the toilet at the precise moment Jane had arrived, so Zak had let Toby in. Jo opened the door. There stood a scowling Toby and a concave-woman in shades that must have weighed more than her body. Toby rushed past Jo without a word, where he was greeted noisily by Zak in the hall.