The Nanny Part 8

"Thank you," she said. "To whom would you like to speak?"

"d.i.c.k. Is...of whom I would like to speak. To."

Jo tried to hand the phone to d.i.c.k as if it was a hot bomb, but d.i.c.k was having none of it. He shouted into the mouthpiece, "Who the h.e.l.l is disturbing my Sunday tea?" Jo took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and turned her back again.

"Who shall I say is calling?"

There was a pause.

"You shall say Josh is calling."

"And what's it about?" yelled d.i.c.k across the kitchen.

This must be a test, she decided. No wonder their nannies don't last long.

"Will he know what it's concerning?" Jo said into the phone.

"No," said the voice. "I don't even know what it's about yet," it said. "Let's just live dangerously and see what happens, shall we?"

Jo wondered how on earth she had become a figure of fun for someone who hadn't even met her yet. She felt a stab of longing for home and yearned for the chance to be the one mercilessly ridiculing others and not the other way round. Was she ridiculous to the Fitzgeralds? Were they all laughing at her? She turned to face them. They were all grinning, and d.i.c.k was stuffing his face with salad. She felt a sudden need to be back in her neighborhood pub with Shaun, getting her usual without asking. She handed the phone to d.i.c.k and, imagining Shaun, Sheila, and James were listening, found a spark of her former self and said, "It's Josh. He doesn't have a strategy for the conversation, but is willing to live dangerously if you are."

The Fitzgeralds burst into happy laughter, and all tried to grab the phone.

"Firstborn!" shouted d.i.c.k into the phone. He held the phone out to his children, who all yelled their greetings.

Jo pretended not to hear d.i.c.k repeatedly say into the phone, "Did she? Did she?" punctuated by hearty laughter.

She contented herself with the knowledge that whatever Josh was saying about her was clearly puerile, and, anyway, she felt the same about him times infinity, with k.n.o.bs on.

Josh, via the telephone, was handed round to every child, and she had to hear every single one laugh at something he said, then say, "No, she's really nice," until she wanted to scream.

"He called you Mary Poppins," explained Tallulah eventually. "And did an impersonation of your voice on the phone."

Jo was so impressed that a four-year-old knew what the word "impersonation" meant that she hardly had time to be mortally offended.

Zak and Toby laughed.

"Don't worry," Ca.s.sandra whispered. "I love Mary Poppins."

Jo smiled at Ca.s.sandra. "Thank you," she said.

"It's alright," shrugged Ca.s.sandra. "Josh is just"-she looked at her brothers-"a boy."

As the boys cheered, Jo, Ca.s.sandra, and Tallulah all shared a moment of mutual understanding.

Before tea was over, Vanessa arrived home. She wandered into the kitchen, put various shopping bags on the floor, and amid the screamed questions, "Did you get me anything?" "What's in the blue bag?" "Why's your hair a different color?" a.s.sessed the situation fairly accurately.

Hands on hips, she stared at her family until they all shut up, then said quietly, "I thought I heard a bomb while I was in Hampstead, but I had no idea it had hit my own kitchen."

The children, including d.i.c.k, laughed at this, so it was Jo alone who took in the scene through Vanessa's eyes. The kitchen was a disaster. She felt a pang of pity for Vanessa until Vanessa said to her, "I'm sure d.i.c.k'll give you a hand with this lot," when she felt a much bigger pang of pity for herself. Vanessa was still talking, "Then when you've finished, we can go through the week's schedule. Right!" She turned to her family. "I'm having a hot bath. Approach at your peril."

And before Jo had time to cry, "Wait for me!" she was gone.

By the time Jo had cleared away the mess in the kitchen, learned from d.i.c.k where everything belonged, and had just enough time to open her suitcase and look at it for a while, Vanessa felt like a new woman.

They met at the kitchen table for Jo's first Sunday evening debriefing. Vanessa was in her fluffy bathrobe, her hair in a towel, and her face cleansed. Jo was in a foul mood, her hair in a mess and her face clenched.

"Right," started Vanessa, taking a big breath. "Zak goes to St. Albert's in Hampstead-I recommend beating the rush hour, otherwise, you'll be in traffic all morning. Ca.s.sie goes to St. Hilda's on the way in Highgate, doesn't mind being dropped off halfway up the hill if there's traffic. Tallulah goes to the local Montessori, but we do like her to walk, so we'd rather you drive her back home after dropping the other two off and then walk her up there please. It's wonderful exercise, one big hill! Lulah gets picked up at midday. Once a week she does Tumble Tots and once a week she does ballet, her tutu's on the back of her bedroom door, don't forget it please, she has been known to cry until she turns blue. The other two are out at twenty past three, Zak first, because Ca.s.sie's old enough to start walking home with a friend or doesn't mind waiting-always find out which in the morning, she often forgets to tell you. After school Zak does Beavers and karate and has tutors for math and English at home, in the dining room. Ca.s.sie does drama and music at school, Brownies, ballet, tap, and jazz outside school in Muswell Hill, she can change there, address on the fridge, A-Z with the cookbooks by the kitchen door.

"The two older children practice piano and recorders once a week each at least, in the dining room. (The local pharmacist has very good earplugs.) Zak needs his recorder for school on Monday, Ca.s.sie-treble and descant-on Friday.

"Their weekly schedule is on the fridge calendar-off the top of my head I can't remember which day is which. All I do know is that we had a nanny once who took Ca.s.sie to karate, Tallulah to Beavers, Zak to ballet, and she was back in the bosom of her family in Norfolk that night. Oh! And of course, whenever she can squeeze it in, my mother, Diane, pops in to see the children-they adore her. All you really need to remember is that Tuesday's the nightmare day when it's so stupid you have to make packed teas for all of them as well as lunches-oh that reminds me, Zak's packed lunches must always have cheesey straws in them, otherwise he literally doesn't eat anything else. All day. He also has every pair of pants ironed. Otherwise, he won't wear them. Tallulah's lunch box is Tweenies-Zak's is Superman-Ca.s.sie's is Buffy. Please don't mix them up or they will be bullied." Vanessa frowned suddenly. "Any questions?"

Jo's brain started curling at the edges.

"Ooh," remembered Vanessa, diving into her handbag. "Here's your new mobile phone." She handed Jo a tiny, silver mobile phone. "Needs to be recharged at least every other day-don't we all?-your number is here on this card. Please keep it on at all times and feel free to give the number to friends and family. It is yours now. You may get calls for Francesca but that won't go on for long and you'll always know because they can't speak English and don't expect her to be able to either.

"My work number is here." She handed Jo her card. "Extension 4435 if the girl on reception doesn't put you through immediately or cuts you off. d.i.c.k's work number is here." She handed Jo d.i.c.k's card. "No extension number, but sometimes he doesn't answer because there's a customer in the shop and he's out celebrating.

"Here is your set of front door keys, our home alarm code is 4577 hash or gate, under the stairs, write that down if you need to but never keep it in the same bag as the door keys, because if you lose it and we're burgled, we won't get anything back on insurance and d.i.c.k will hire someone to kill you. Please activate it whenever you go out. We don't turn it on at night just in case one of the children wanders downstairs and sets it off. Here are your car keys, you are third-party insured and a member of the AA. There are speed cameras on every road that doesn't have speed b.u.mps. The children get carsick over sixty miles an hour. Always keep spare paper bags in the glove compartment."

She frowned again. "I recommend you clean out the cats' litter tray at least every other day. Otherwise, it gets unbearable. Just feed them at lunch, cat food in the utility room, I do breakfast and d.i.c.k does dinner. It's the one job we've managed to share. Fish food is in the utility room, the children feed Homer once a week, usually Fridays, but they do need help getting him down. I don't want them climbing the work tops. And I don't want cat food in the fish tank, as the last-but-one nanny found out when it lost her her job and killed the fish."

Vanessa leaned in and whispered. "This is actually Homer I-I." She tapped her nose. "Entre nous."

They blinked at each other, Jo feeling the blood draining from her limbs.

Vanessa leaned out again. "I suppose you want to unpack now," she said brightly.

"Not really," said Jo.

"Maybe tomorrow then," said Vanessa, sympathetically.

Jo nodded without moving her head.

Vanessa stood up and walked to the fridge, took out a bottle of wine and, looking back at Jo, pointed at it, her perfect eyebrows arked in a question.

Jo shook her head. "I think I might go to bed actually, if that's alright."

Vanessa's eyes widened.

"Of course!" she exclaimed. "You must be exhausted. Just say good night to the children and you're a free agent."

Jo saying good night to the children was clearly more for Vanessa's good night's sleep than for Jo or the children's. Following Vanessa's directions, Jo popped her head round the corner of Tallulah's room. Tallulah was already in bed thumb in mouth, eyelids drooping as Daddy told her a story. Jo whispered good night to her and got a beguiling smile back. She knocked on Ca.s.sandra's door and found Ca.s.sandra sitting up on her bed, writing furiously into a furry pink diary. Jo said good night and Ca.s.sandra looked momentarily distracted, answered politely, then returned to her writing. Then Jo went upstairs to say good night to Zak.

She never saw the light saber coming and didn't stand a chance. At the sound of it hitting her skull, Zak bounced out of bed squealing with delight. His plan had worked! No burglar would see it coming! He was an Action Hero! He clutched his w.i.l.l.y in excitement.

Vanessa was very sympathetic. "Little s.h.i.+t," she confided to Jo, while rubbing arnica in her forehead. "One day I'm going to stick that light saber where the instructions specifically tell you not to."

As way of an apology for her son's behavior, Vanessa insisted Jo join her and d.i.c.k for a welcome toast, which had the fortunate side effect of putting off their Monday morning's approach even further.

"Sunday evenings are the pits, aren't they?" murmured Vanessa as she poured her a generous gla.s.s of wine.

"Mm," agreed Jo. "They can be."

"Not for everyone, darling," said d.i.c.k. "Maybe, unlike us, Jo enjoys her job."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Vanessa. "No one enjoys their job."

"I do," said d.i.c.k.

"That's because it's not a job," countered his wife. "It's a hobby."

"A hobby that pays for the children's education, all our holidays, half the bills, and luxuries like a full-time nanny," said d.i.c.k quietly.

Vanessa turned to Jo.

"d.i.c.k's daddy left him a trust fund in his will," she told her. "So he bought a record shop to play with. For the three people left in the country who haven't taken to those newfangled, one-night-wonders CDs."

"Now, now," said d.i.c.k, before turning to Jo. "CDs are a pa.s.sing phase. Records are imbued with memories."

"Which is why people never got rid of them in the first place and don't need to buy new ones, darling."

"There's a flat above the shop," d.i.c.k continued to confide in Jo, "which I did up myself at great personal cost and rent out at spectacular rates." He sighed. "It's not easy being a landlord. Big responsibility. Which is how we never have to worry about a single bill and my wife can enjoy all the latest fas.h.i.+ons and an extensive beauty regime."

"With what's left over from the mortgage and children's clothes, school equipment and toys, obviously," finished Vanessa. "It was before he met me, of course," she continued to Jo, as if d.i.c.k hadn't spoken. "Otherwise, he'd have got a proper job and invested it in something that would have been of some use to his family, like shares or a villa in Nice or a yacht. But boys will have their toys."

"Not all of their toys, darling."

Vanessa responded to this under the pretext of filling Jo in on vital background information.

"I insisted on a dining room table in the dining room instead of a train set," she explained. "Poor d.i.c.k. He'll never get over the disappointment."

"But it's alright," he added to Jo, their new couples' counselor, "because we've now got the ugliest dining room table in the world."

"To match your first wife," said his second into her Pinot Grigio.

"More wine?" d.i.c.k asked Jo.

"Yes, please," she replied.

Jo found herself in her new bedroom suite, completely on her own, with the entire evening at her disposal, at precisely midnight. She tripped briefly over her open suitcase and discarded rucksack and lay on her bed too exhausted to cry. After a few moments, she hauled her clothes off her body and got straight under the duvet, where she suddenly became wide-awake. There she lay, blinking in the dark for four hours. By 4 a.m., she hated London, hated the Fitzgeralds, hated children, and hated her life. By 4:01 a.m. she fell into a heavy sleep. And just two-and-a-half short hours later, she was very rudely awakened.

Chapter 5.

Jo could probably have coped with the wake-up call of a pneumatic drill thundering through her skull had she not just been dreaming about chancing upon a mute, sh.e.l.l-shocked, virgin Ben Affleck skinny-dipping through her private lagoon. No time is good to wake up to the sound of a pneumatic drill thundering through one's skull, but this really did feel like an all-time low.

She opened her eyes and waited for the familiar sounds of the not-so-distant River Avon to emerge from the clamor inside her head. She kept on waiting. Eventually, she poked her head out from beneath the duvet. She was most disoriented to discover that she was not in her bedroom, but in some ikea nightmare. And then suddenly, it all came back to her. She was in h.e.l.l, north London.

She lay in her bed, staring at nothing and hoping for a quick, painless end when, as suddenly as it had started, the pneumatic drill stopped. Bliss. Utter silence. She treated herself to a flashback of a mute, sh.e.l.l-shocked, virgin Ben Affleck discovering her private lagoon's hidden waterfall when she was disturbed by the sound of an avalanche outside her window. She screamed and leaped out of bed.

Nervously, she tweaked the curtain aside and came face-to-face with three burly builders, one wheelbarrow, and a builders' chute down the side of the neighboring house. The builders all spotted her and as one, grinned the male grin, a highly efficient communication shortcut, specific to their gender, that makes their minds transparent. She pushed the curtain back and leaned against the wall.

After her power shower, Jo picked the first outfit from her suitcase that didn't look like it had been through a wringer, dressed quickly, and appeared in the kitchen. It was empty. She put the kettle on and tried to remember where the tea bags were kept, while keeping an ear out for upstairs. When the pneumatic drill started up again, she decided to venture up to the children. Perhaps she could ask them to hide her.

No one was awake. She looked at her watch. It was late. The children had to be in school soon. She knocked gently on Vanessa and d.i.c.k's bedroom door, then on Tallulah's and Ca.s.sandra's.

Within seconds, there was grand-scale panic in the Fitzgerald household.

"We've overslept!" Vanessa yelled to the world, putting up an impressive contest with the drill. "Get up now! Jo will be taking you in ten minutes flat."

Jo decided it would be a good time to work out where the schools were, so ran downstairs to get the A-Z.

"Where are you going?" cried Vanessa.

"Downstai-"

"d.i.c.k needs help getting the kids up while I shower!"

d.i.c.k did indeed need help. Tickling children in their half sleep until they accidentally punch you in the face has never proved to be the fastest way of waking them up.

Starting to feel panicky herself now, Jo opened their curtains and told them that if they were down in ten minutes, she'd make them a surprise treat for dinner. And the first one down could have the biggest helping. It worked wonders as they had yet to sample her cooking.

Jo hardly noticed that when she left for school with the children neither d.i.c.k nor Vanessa had left their home, and d.i.c.k was not even dressed. All she did notice was that she hit a traffic jam almost immediately and her car had a much lower clutch than she'd imagined. She spent most of her first school run moving her car seat backward and forward, pretending she knew what she was cooking that night and taking a wrong turn. There simply wasn't time for them to drive home and walk Tallulah to school, so Jo made an executive decision. "If Mummy and Daddy can't wake her up in time, I can't walk her to school," she self-justified. "Maybe it will teach them not to do it again."

As she and Tallulah drove down Highgate Hill, Jo saw with increasing trepidation just how steep it was. She had visions of her crawling up it in future. She told herself that within weeks her legs would be shapely as well as slim, and her heart would be at its peak of good health. Either that or she'd be dead from exhaustion.

When she got home after dropping Tallulah off, she had to clean the kitchen and finish the ironing. She also wanted to phone Shaun. She a.s.sumed the kitchen would be an easy job, but discovered that it couldn't possibly have been cleaned properly since the nanny before Francesca. Afterward she was exhausted and made herself a quick cuppa, stretching her back out while the kettle boiled. With a mug of tea to fortify her, she started the ironing. She made another interesting discovery. Everything was in the ironing pile. Jo was just about to take her first swig of tea and call Shaun when she realized that if she had to walk up the hill to Tallulah's school, she would be late if she didn't leave five minutes ago. She picked up the keys and left the house, remembering to set the alarm first.

Her calf muscles were trembling and sweat was clinging to her back by the time she turned into the little side street where Tallulah's Montessori nursery was. She saw the single-file line of parents queueing outside the school. She stood, at the back of it, wondering how Tallulah would feel about carrying her home.

Vanessa had mentioned that for security reasons each child was pa.s.sed individually to his or her "carer of choice" by the teacher, rather than allowing anyone to wander in off the street and take any child away with them. She had expected to have to explain who she was and give everyone a potted history of her CV, as any new nanny in Niblet would have had to do. But not here.

After a few moments a woman arrived behind her, and Jo thought that at last someone friendly had come to save her.

"h.e.l.lo," came a voice behind her.

She whipped round and was about to answer when she heard the woman in front of her start up a conversation with her would-be companion. And then to her disbelief, the two women continued a wholehearted conversation around her as if she was invisible. As they spoke about the merits of Hatha yoga compared to Iyengar, Jo tried very hard not to think of her parents.

By the time Tallulah sprang out at Jo, smiling and waving her little hand, Jo wanted to hug her till she cried. Luckily, Tallulah was too interested in what was for dinner to notice anything amiss. The two of them walked down the hill, making conversation about the surprise treat.