The Nanny (16 page)

“I was being rather a dog in the manger darling, but see here …” she started to pull down the bedcovers Nanny had already pulled up … “let me take the pillow in to him, Nanny, in case he wakes. I mean since he is so
preposterously
set against you …” (and preposterous was the word for describing an accusation of murder as “set against you”!) “perhaps I better bring it in to him.”

Nanny firmly removed the hands which were pulling down the covers, laid them at her sides and drew the covers up again. “No, don't go in, Miss Pen.”

“Why ever not, Nanny?”

“If he should wake and see you it would only unsettle the child.” The old woman folded her lips.

“Oh.”

“Now Nanny's going to give you another of your sleeping pills, Miss Pen. Oh, yes! You know the doctor says you must have your sleep with your poor weak heart.” She went to the dressing case, found the bottle and took out a capsule; then she brought Mrs. Gore-Green a tumbler of water from the bathroom. “Take it, Miss Pen. Do as Nanny says.”

She swallowed obediently. “But, Nanny, pill or no pill, I simply won't sleep if you don't stop wandering around.”

“I shan't. I won't give him the pillow. Now when I put out the light you will sleep.”

Nanny's “you will sleep” was like a hypnotist's. Mrs. Gore-Green repeated it silently, using Nanny's voice. “You will sleep. I will sleep. I will sleep,” but, as always, Nanny had tucked the covers in too tight, so they pressed down on her. She sighed and heard through the closed door, the old woman going into the bedroom opposite. “I will sleep,” Mrs. Gore-Green repeated, but couldn't. There was something nagging at her. What was it? Ah, Nanny standing there with her lips folded, saying that if
she
brought the boy the pillow it would unsettle him. All Nanny ever had to do was set her lips that way and she gave in. So had Mummy, she thought, so had Mummy been obedient to those folded lips.

“Now, Miss Diana,” Nanny had said (Mummy being “Miss Diana” in the nursery and “Madam” downstairs). “Now, Miss Diana, you will unsettle the child.” Mummy always had given in and she, the child Penelope, had clearly seen this in the despairing look Mummy used to give her as she had trailed her impotent finery out of Nanny's nursery kingdom, head down, futile, empty arms hanging at her side.

So now she lay back since she, too, as well as Mummy, had always given in. It was a rule of Nannydom that whenever a mother wanted to be with her baby, except at the specified times, it would unsettle the child. “Benevolent old despot,” Mrs. Gore-Green thought, her lips automatically framing the family smile reserved for Nanny's crotchets. Nannies had been the last of the absolute monarchs, she told herself, reigning unchallenged on the third floors of all the big houses. Nanny had been the proudest title in all England. Who had said that? Queen Nanny the last. Once she had asked Nanny her name.

“Nanny, of course, Miss Pen.”

“Your real name, your real name.”

“Simpson, Miss Pen, that's Nanny's real name.”

But she had persisted in wanting to know Nanny's Christian name and Nanny said, “Come now, Miss Pen; I've forgotten.”

“But nobody can forget their Christian name, can they?”

“Nannies can.”

“Can't! Can't!”

“Now, Miss Pen!”

“Can't!” And she had remembered to ask Mummy when she went down to the drawing room that evening, and Mummy didn't know, either, and Mummy and Aunt Celia, who was visiting, giggled at this, and Aunt Celia rang up someone and whoever it was told Aunt Celia that Nanny's name was Isobelle. “Active and bold and fell,” Mrs. Gore-Green quoted. “Isobelle was active and bold and fell.” No, not Isobelle, Jezebel, she corrected. It was from Josephus's
History of The Jews
. “Jezebel was active and bold and fell,” not poor Nanny.

“Please,” Virgie said.

“Huh?”

“Please don't … you keep
looking
at me.” She wished the girl would go. She couldn't think with the girl looking at her. The doctor told her she mustn't go to Joey. Even though the doctor knew about what the girl said. The doctor had put the girl here because she had helped Joey … because Joey didn't need help. Because Joey was safest with Nanny no matter what he … The doctor wanted her to keep away from Joey, too. That was why he had her clothes taken away. He must know about her, and that she would do something wrong again. He had implied as much. “Please don't look at me,” she repeated frantically.

“It's you're a new one on me,” the girl said. “It's you're really something! Out of this world you should want to leave your kid with the maid who tried to drown him.”

“Don't be ridiculous! Joey has these … Joey's turned Nanny into the wicked mother, so I can be the good mother.”

“In the pig's eye! Who told you that, a head shrinker?”

“Nanny trying to drown—you don't know how ridiculous!”

“Not to me, it isn't. I know a lot like her. He killed his kid brother … he should get it!”

“He didn't kill … it was an accident.”

The girl said, “That ain't the way I heered it!” She walked like Nanny. “She came looking for him, you know.”

“And told you … I suppose she told you she tried to drown him, too!” The girl went into the bathroom and Virgie saw her arranging her hair before the mirror. “What did she tell you?”

“What I said.” The girl drew back her lips and examined her teeth.

Virgie saw the girl looking at her again in the mirror.

“Why do you think I took him? Why do you think I took a chance?”

“Took him where?”

“If I'd have known you wouldn't care, I wouldn't have taken a chance. I figured you to go down on your knees!”

“Where did you take Joey? You mean he isn't home with Nanny?”

“Come on, use your head! Why do you think Pa stuck me in here? Because I wouldn't tell him where the kid is! And for the simple reason that he'd have turned him over to her again. My pa is dumb, like you!”

“He said Joey is with Nanny. Your father told me …”

“Dumbo! What the hell do you think he'd say?” She jerked the nightgown loose and twisted it tight again. “Check. Go check! Go on, go on out and ask the skinny dark nurse with glasses. Atkinson. My pa told her why I'm here, so she'd keep an eye on me.” She giggled. “Go on, tell her you heard I took your kid. Never mind how you heard, she won't bother to find out, maybe she'll think—you know—
psychic
—a mother's instinct. Don't take my word for it, ask her. Go on.”

It was true, the nurse said. The girl had Joey, but it was all right now. Just take it easy. The child was safe at home with his nurse now. He had gone down to Dr. Meducca's office and that horrible girl … but now he was safe at home. Virgie hurried back to her room.

“She told you, didn't she?”

“Yes, but she said Joey's home again.”

“You nuts? What do you think she'd say? Why do you think they took your clothes away? Don't be so dumb!”

“Take me to him,” Virgie said. “If he's not with Nanny … please … I didn't understand.” She came close to the girl and because now the girl was so indifferent, Virgie stretched out her hand to touch her, to tell her by touch that if Joey wasn't home with Nanny, she must get to him. The girl grasped her outstretched hand, but when she wanted to press the girl's hand, she wouldn't let her, holding hers by the fingers, holding the fingers out stiff.

“Give me that ring, I'll take you to him.”

Virgie pulled her fingers free. “I'll give you anything else.” The girl flopped onto the chair as if she would never move again. “Money? At home I have earrings … I have a pearl ring.…”

The girl tucked her hands behind her head.

“All right. If you take me to Joey, I'll give you my ring.” When I get him I'll show her it won't come off. Tomorrow I'll give it to her. I don't care.

The girl rose from the chair, bonelessly. “First I gotta make a phone call.” She went to the bathroom and turned the taps on in the sink and called Virgie in, telling her to stay there and keep the water running so she wouldn't hear the phone call. She explained, reasonably, that if Virgie knew where Joey was, she wouldn't give up the ring to get to him, but Virgie couldn't wait reasonably. Not in a bathroom. Not with the water running.

In a few minutes, the girl slithered into the bathroom and turned the taps off. “I made the arrangements for us. Now, listen; they'll let you leave the floor. They know you wouldn't know how to get out of this place in a million years, so you have to keep them busy at the desk while I sneak out and get down by the stairs. This is what you do. You go to the desk and ask for a sedative. You're nervous now on account of the kid. They won't give it to you. They won't give you the time of day here, so then act snotty. Stamp your foot.” She illustrated. “Smootch around. Then go past the desk and ring the elevator. If you can't have a sedative, you're going to walk around the hospital is the idea. Say loud and clear, ‘Down!' They know with you it's down but not out, so they should worry. At Two you get out, and when the elevator door closes—they're all nosy here, so watch out—when the elevator door closes, turn left and you'll see a red light over a door. That's the stairs. Go down to the basement, not the sub-basement, just the basement. Turn to the left. When you come to a door that has a sign ‘Volunteer Office,' duck in. I'll have it unlocked for you. I know where they keep the key. I'll be inside. Get it?”

Virgie began to move towards the door. “Yes, yes.”

“Wait. Give it to me. If you bollux it up we won't get another chance. Give it to me. Repeat.
Répétez s'il vous plaît
. Pa sent me to Berlitz once. Wanted to ship me off to gay Paree, but then he didn't. We got plenty of time if you don't bollux it up.”

So Virgie had to repeat the instructions; then the girl nodded that she was to go to the desk where the nurses sat and begin.

When the hospital called and told him Roberta was missing, Dr. Meducca gave them hell. Then they gave him hell. This was a general hospital. If he wanted his patients watched that carefully, he should put them in Payne Whitney. What was the good of telling them that he had tried and been told that since she wasn't violent, she would not be admitted before morning. That the best thing he could do was get her a bed in the general hospital, and then if she raised hell there …

But, of course, Roberta hadn't raised hell; she had got the hell out. Dr. Meducca apologized and asked the hospital to look in on Mrs. Fane. They reported that she was in the bathroom. Dr. Meducca thanked them and hung up. He had only wanted to make sure that there was no connection between Roberta's disappearance and Mrs. Fane.

Wearily, he got into the car and began to search for his daughter. There was no reason tonight to go to the fence to whom she brought whatever she had stolen and had a profitable arrangement to sell the stuff back to him. Tonight she had no opportunity to steal anything. He went to the pad where occasionally she smoked marijuana and to her pimp on Eighty-second Street, and then just cruised around the neighborhood with his ears peeled for disturbance of any kind. Roberta had no—no
modus operandi
; she was a jack of all trades and there was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do if it once entered her mind.

Just before he drove home, just in case she had taken something from the hospital, he tried the fence, Leo, but he didn't answer their pre-arranged signal.

The room inside the door with the “Volunteer Office” sign was empty. There were two desks, some wicker chairs, a bookcase with a few books at disconsolate angles. Virgie whispered, “Miss Meducca. Miss Meducca.”

“In here.”

Virgie walked through a passage and into a big room. This was a dressing room with long metal racks on which hung several hundred pink volunteer uniforms from hangers tagged with name cards.

“Pick one,” the girl said. “Better pick one with no buttons missing because we'll be raw underneath. You'll have to chuck the bathrobe and the angel robe. If that sticks out, we're out of luck.” She was standing in front of a long row of metal lockers; some of the doors were open and she was now going through the contents of a paper candy box, poking scornfully at the contents with a stiff index finger. “The junk some people collect!”

As Virgie watched, the girl dumped the contents of the box on the bottom of one of the opened lockers, but slowly, as if she were pouring a liquid, her eyes studying the bobby pins, hair curlers, safety pins and the elastic garter belt as they dropped out.

“Junk!” She slammed the door shut. “Some of them keep flats in their lockers. I left a couple open for you. Find a pair that fit you better than those mules.”

She was now wearing one of the pink uniforms with the belt tight, and a pair of brown moccasins, and, as Virgie watched, she unlocked and then threw the contents of the next locker on the floor. A pink sweater, a head scarf, a pair of rubber overshoes.

“Volunteers!” She slammed that door, too, and wheeled around to face Virgie, scowling. “I'm no volunteer, you got that straight, I hope. I expect to be paid.”

Virgie had just taken off the bathrobe and hospital nightgown. She reached hurriedly for the nearest pink uniform because she did not want this girl looking at her naked. “I'm going to give you my ring,” she said, and it came out sounding like, “I'm only going to give you my ring.”

As if she conceded this point, the girl shrugged and picked up the robe and nightgown which Virgie had dropped on the floor. Curiously, she pressed them over her face, breathing in. “You smell nice,” she said. “Most people stink.” She dropped the robe and nightgown again, treading on them as she moved away. “Go on, find yourself a pair of flats.”