The Nanny (7 page)

Virgie's symptoms were the same, the blinding nausea, the chills, and then, at the kitchen sink, with Nanny's soft hand pressed firmly to her forehead, the vomiting.

Joey, thrust out of the bathroom by his father, ordered out of the kitchen quietly by Nanny, sat in the big chair by the window and began to suck his thumb. He was frightened.

“Madam,” Nanny said, “I had better ring a doctor.”

“Dr. Fox,” Virgie said. “In the book.”

“No, Madam. I'm going to call in the doctor from downstairs. He's right here and he's a fine doctor. I went to him, Madam, with that bad leg I had.”

“Hurry, Nanny,” Virgie groaned. “Hurry … oh …”

After he had telephoned for the ambulance, Dr. Meducca told Nanny to give him what was left of the tunafish for analysis, since he suspected it was another of those poisonings they'd been hearing about. The kid, by the grace of God, hadn't touched his but he looked scared to death, poor kid, when he told him that he was taking Mommy and Daddy to the hospital to get them better.

“I want to go,” Joey said. “I want to go with you. I want to go with you.”

“Now … what's your name? What is your name, young man?”

“I want to go with you.”

“That's about the funniest name I ever heard. Well, ‘I-want-to-go-with-you,' you better stay home with your nice nurse. I bet she'll let you watch all the TV you want to tonight.”

“I want to go …” Joey began, but was interrupted by the arrival of the two ambulance attendants. Until his mother and father, each on a stretcher, were carried out no one paid any attention to the child, but when they were in the hall outside waiting for the elevator, he eluded the nurse who tried to hold him back and ran out. “I want to go!” he screamed. “I want to go!”

Virgie raised her head and feebly asked the doctor, please, could he? Dr. Meducca was going to remind her that a stomach pump was no sight for a kid but, these damned indulgent mothers, he thought, frowning; she'd only insist. “Okay, then, but not in the ambulance.” They'd be vomiting their guts out all the way. “You come with me, son.” He signaled the elevator operator to take them down. “You come along in my car with me, son.” He called out to the old woman standing with her hands folded over her belly … had her for a patient recently … what was her name now? “I'll bring the young man back with me.”

“I'll tell the new servant, sir.”

“New servant? You leaving?
Tonight?
Oh, hell. Okay, tell the new one.”

She waited until the elevator came up and took Joey and the doctor down, then went back to the apartment. Methodically she cleared the table and washed and dried all the dishes, glasses and silverware, and put them in their proper places. In twenty minutes it was impossible to guess that a dinner had been served, and when she flung the kitchen window open, even the odor of food disappeared. Then, rocking from side to side, her feet heavy, her movements deliberate, she picked the figure of the boy off the table and carried it carefully down the steps of the living room and set it on the bookcase. Then she removed all traces of recent occupancy in the living room. Victor's paper was folded and smoothed, the cushion against which he had leaned his head, the arm on which Joey had sat, were smoothed. It was as if she wanted to wipe away what had been. Then the old woman picked up the Joey figure and, shaking her head at it, carried it up the stairs to the bedroom and set it on Virgie's dressing table.

In the room across the hall, her old leather bags were packed and ready. She reached into the closet in which Ralphie's minute suits had hung and took out her brown cloth coat and brown squashed toque. Without a glance in the mirror, the old woman removed the hat pins, set the hat on her head, skewering it on firmly; then she calmly rocked in her chair, waiting.

At seven-thirty the doorbell rang, the front doorbell, and the nanny even now was outraged by this liberty, her lips folding. She picked up both of her bags and, her broad feet treading, walked to the door, setting the bags down just inside where they would be seen; then she opened the door. “Yes?”

“This apartment 8A? This the Fane residence?” In the face of the old woman's immense coldness, she collected herself. “I'm the new help.” Then she saw the two suitcases and believed she understood why the old bag was mad at her.

“The new servant, yes.” The old woman made the correction although she knew “they” hated the word. Right was right. A servant was a servant.

“I'm supposed to start tonight. Kin I speak to the madam, please?”

“I'm afraid not. Madam and Mr. Fane have been taken to hospital. They were taken bad—ill—sick,” she said, knowing that was the word “they” used. “Master Joey is there, too, but he'll be back. Come in, please.”

“Both of them sick? And the little boy—the little boy will be back?”

“He's not sick. He just went along in the car with the doctor. Master Joey will be back.” She went to pick up her suitcases.

“Hey … hold up! You saying it'll be just me and that little boy?” The place looked like nobody lived here. “The mister interviewed me. He told me you got to do this, not do that. He told me … look, hey, I never laid eyes on that little boy, I better not—you can stay tonight,” she said. “You can stay, can't you? You know how it is—that little boy …”

“I can stay,” Nanny said. “I wish it understood that you will explain that you wouldn't stay.”

“Sure I will. I will. Listen, if they don't like it, they know what they can do. Sure I will!”

When the old woman heard the elevator come up and then start down with its passenger, she took her bags back to her room. She undid the straps on the smaller bag and unwrapped her photographs, which she set in their places on top of the white chest which had been Ralphie's, exactly as they had always stood, with the big one of Madam in front. Just after she had hung back her coat and replaced her hat in the closet, the telephone rang.

Dr. Meducca wheeled his car into a space which left the front of it too close to the hydrant. He thought of his M.D. license, shrugged, then got out and held the door open for Joey. As they crossed the sidewalk, he threw an arm across Joey's narrow shoulders and showed him the brass plate which had his name on it: Franklin Meducca, M.D. “That's me, son. That's my office, and the ground floor, across the lobby, on the front, is where I live, so I'll be right here. Now, I explained. Your mommy and your daddy aren't going to die. What an idea! They're going to be right as rain. Why do they say rain is right, hey? When is rain right I ask you?” The kid knew that this was a joke, but his smile was so tremulous, so small compared to the immensity of anxiety in his big, big eyes, that Dr. Meducca felt his throat tighten up. “Now I'll take you upstairs.” He felt the boy's shoulder quiver. “You don't mind if it's a new girl, do you?” Shame. New girl tonight of all nights.

“No,” Joey said. “I don't mind.”

Mrs. Gore-Green frowned into the telephone because Nanny had told her about this sudden illness of Mr. and Mrs. Fane only after
she
had told Nanny all
her
troubles. “I waited for you there over half an hour, Nanny!” She heard her complaining voice, high and thin. “I couldn't imagine what had happened to you, or rather I imagined all sorts of things when you weren't there. Nanny, you
know
how bad that is for me! And there's no phone in your place yet, so there I was. You must have one installed
immediately
. I mustn't be
worried
this way! And then I came all the way home because I decided I
must
have arranged to meet you at the flat after all.… And, Nanny. Althea is the
most
unsympathetic child! Althea had an
appointment
, obviously with that man, and couldn't even
wait
until I had found out whether you were alive or dead!” The accent of self-pity rang in her ears because only when she finished did Nanny inform her about the Fanes. Oh, it did make one feel cheap! “But, Nanny, how dreadful!”

“I'm sorry to have worried you, Miss Pen.”

“How could you have helped it? Is there anything I can do, Nanny?”

There was a long pause and then Nanny said, “Yes, Miss Pen, there is something, if you will.”

Mrs. Gore-Green found herself genuinely startled and realized that she had been expecting to be told to have a nice lie-down after her fright.

Nanny was telling her about the new servant walking out because she was afraid to be left in charge of that boy.

“Master Joey is in hospital with the doctor, but he'll be back soon. I told you, Miss Pen, that Mr. Fane doesn't wish me to be in charge of Master Joey.”

“I never heard anything so …”

“Mr. Fane has the right to say who shall look after his own little boy, so I'd be easier in my mind if I weren't alone with the child on his first night home. I can make you up a fresh bed in Madam's room. It is very comfortable, Miss Pen,
reely.”

“Idiotic! I never heard such idiocy! Never mind. Of course I'll come if you want me, Nanny.” But she couldn't help sighing. She never could sleep well in a strange bed, however comfortable. Nanny understood, of course.

“I do hate having to put you out, Miss Pen, and if there were someone else … but there isn't. Now, I want you to be sure to bring your sleeping pills.”

Nanny sounded so dispirited that it startled Mrs. Gore-Green. “Yes, and I'm going to give
you
one of them, Nanny. I have hundreds! Oh yes, I insist. This is being very difficult for you.” What a blow to the poor darling's pride. “I
insist
, Nanny!” Her voice plumped out remarkably and she felt quite
exalté
because, for once, it was she who was telling Nanny what to do for
her
good. “They're just Nembutals and won't do you a bit of harm.”

“I know what they are, Miss Pen.”

She was amazed that Nanny made no protest. She'd never taken a sleeping pill in her life. Lo, how the mighty are fallen, Mrs. Gore-Green thought. “I'll just pop my nightgown and toothbrush into a bag and come right over.”

“Bless you, Miss Pen.”

Because for once the “bless you” wasn't didactic, to teach an invisible child how to show gratitude, but seemed genuine, Mrs. Gore-Green had her third shock, but, as she reminded herself ruefully, when had Nanny had anything to
be
grateful to her for? She put down the phone and, walking through the sitting room, admiring, as she always did, the Sheraton sofa and Adam chairs, it occurred to her that Althea when she did get back wouldn't know what had happened. “But I simply do not have the time to leave Althea a note,” Mrs. Gore-Green said to the empty room, hurrying. “I really must dash. Poor old Nanny.” She moved more briskly than was her habit, since she thought of herself as a vase so delicate that any clumsiness could break it and spill her life. She put her robe, nightgown and soft morocco slippers into a bag, dropped her comb and brush and her bedside Jane Austen in, and then, to illustrate what a tearing hurry she was in, simply swept her maquillage off her dressing table into the bag.

Only after she had closed the bag did she remember the sleeping pills. Heavens, if she had forgotten!

If for once, she told herself waiting for the doorman to whistle up a taxi, if for once Althea should show concern about her mother, it should occur to her to call Nanny. But wouldn't Althea assume that Nanny would be in the new place? Mrs. Gore-Green tossed her head the way she used to before life had broken her. If Althea was old enough to become involved with a married man, she was old enough to try telephoning the Fane flat on an off-chance. That will show Althea, Mrs. Gore-Green thought, pressing a half dollar rather than her usual quarter into the doorman's palm, that will show her how I feel when she makes
me
anxious about her! “Four-thirty East Eighty-sixth Street,” she told the cabby. “Hurry, please.”

Nanny opened the door and asked Dr. Meducca how the patients were.

“Mrs. Fane is fine. Mr. Fane … well, we'll see, we'll see when the analysis comes in.” He lowered his voice but there was no need. Joey had dashed past the old nurse into the apartment; now he came out looking terrified. “What gives, Joey?”

“I think Master Joey was looking for the new servant. She wouldn't stay on tonight, sir, so she asked me to … and, as Master Joey couldn't be left alone …”

Joey stepped to the doctor's side. He said, “I feel sick. I don't feel good.”

“Oh, Master Joey!”

She knew as well as he did that the boy wasn't sick. “Come on now, son!” The boy just looked up at him with those enormous eyes. “Stick out your tongue then.”

But Joey knew it wouldn't do. “I'm not going to stay,” he said. “I won't stay.” He pulled himself as tall as possible. “If you'll lend me eight dollars, I'll go to the Fenton Hotel. It's on Fifty-eighth Street. I know a kid who went to the Fenton Hotel. They let him. He gave them eight dollars and said to telephone his mother and she'd tell them it was okay. So I'll say go telephone you. So if you lend me eight dollars, it will be okay. My mom and daddy will pay you back.”

“Whoa!” Dr. Meducca said.

Joey swallowed, then repeated, “My mom and daddy will pay you back.”

Behind Dr. Meducca's knee, where it couldn't be seen, Joey's bony fingers had suddenly clamped down. (It hurt.) “Whoa, son, what's the trouble here? You got sick awfully sudden-like, didn't you? You went off on this hotel kick very sudden-like, didn't you?” He smiled at the big old woman standing there with her hands folded to show her that he knew how unreasonable kids could be. “Now, let's get this straight! You were okay just so long as you thought there was going to be a new girl here to take care of you. So what's the matter with this lady here?”