Bad Heir Day (12 page)

Anna cleared her throat and edged away on the pretext of admiring some of the volumes.

“How fantastic,” she enthused. “You’ve got
everything
.
From
The Idylls of the King
to the complete works of Christopher Marlowe. Amazing.”

“Yeah, and what’s even
more
amazing,” yelped Jett, evidently restored after a deep drag or two, “is that they’ve got the complete goddamn works of Martin Scorsese underneath them.” He stabbed the shelf beneath the book spines with his beringed forefinger.
Tamburlaine
lurched forward, then, slowly lowering itself to the horizontal, revealed the video of
Mean Streets
fitted snugly behind the leather spine.

Anna stared. “What, they’re all
DVDs
?

Jett nodded. “There’s a button beneath each book which activates a spring at the back of the video and pushes it out,” he explained proudly. “All filed by what you might call free association. Sixteenth-century playwrights equal mobster movies—I reckoned old Marlowe had probably seen some pretty goddamn mean streets in his time—while all those repressed Victorian chicks are the porn section.” He flipped
Wuthering Heights
forward to reveal the lurid cover of
Debbie Does Dallas
.

“Yeah, I’ve read most of the classics,” he told her. Anna could see her astonished face reflected in his lenses. “Can’t beat ’em for song ideas. Wrote a great one about King Lear called ‘Bitch Daddy,’ and then of course you’ll remember the
Bloodcastle
album inspired by Macbeth. Number one both sides of the Atlantic. Nineteen seventy-eight,” he added, wistfully. “What a great goddamn year
that
was. Drove the Rolls into the goddamn swimming pool. Jagger was
furious…
” He took another long drag of his joint.

Why was it, Anna wondered, that all rock and roll anecdotes seemed to involve Mick Jagger and swimming pools?

“Specially as it was his neighbour’s goddamn swimming pool. I’d got the wrong goddamn garden. Say, let’s put some
goddamn music on
,”
Jett suddenly shouted. He threw himself into a vast, carved, throne-like chair and pressed a button apparently concealed on the left-hand inside of the red velvet-lined arm.

One of the walls of volumes on the opposite side of the room slid aside to expose a vast TV the size of a cinema screen. It instantly flicked into life to show a plump dark-haired girl, naked apart from a black leather bustier, whip, and black leather cap festooned with chains, thrusting away on top of a skinny, long-haired man wearing mirrored sunglasses and an ecstatic expression. He looked, Anna thought, vaguely familiar.

“Oops,” giggled Jett, shoving his joint between his teeth again as he stabbed at the right-hand side of the chair. “My version of
Emma
.
Not quite the same as Jane goddamn Austen’s. Let’s have some music instead.” As the screen slid away behind the rows of Fieldings and Popes, a vast stereo appeared; what had been an entire wall of Shakespeare slid from sight.

“
You
,”
said Jett, jumping about in his seat and pointing the biggest remote control Anna had ever seen in the direction of the stereo, “are the luckiest goddamn woman on
earth
.”

Anna, catching sight of the sprouts of salty growth under Jett’s armpits, doubted it.

“Because
you
,”
Jett went on, “are about to have a private world prem-eer of Solstice’s comeback album.”

Anna said nothing.

“
Featuring
,”
Jett added, still fumbling with the remote control, “thanks to the miracles of modern technology, our former bassist Dirty del Amico, the greadest axeman rock and roll has ever seen until he perished in a mysterious gardening accident twenny years ago.
Play that axe
,
dead boy
,”
Jett screamed, leaping to his feet and puffing frantically on his spliff as a head-spinning blast of the loudest music Anna had ever heard suddenly shook the library to its foundations. She tried not to look as Jett, starting to headbang frantically, set all his wobbly bits reverberating like wind chimes in a gale. Suddenly, he rushed over to the stereo and, grinding his buttocks into its buttons while still facing Anna, started to jerk wildly up and down. She swallowed, fearing the worst, until she realised he was attempting to push the volume control up with his bottom.

“
Say
,
you’re a really cool chick
,”
Jett screeched. He pulled Anna towards himself and breathed a mixture of garlic, sweat, and patchouli in her face. Something hard was pressing against her, somewhere in the region of the thong. “
I
can instinctively tell you empathise with creadive people
,”
he bawled at her. “
My wife doesn’t understand me ad all
.
Ad all
.
I’m just a money factory as far as she’s concerned
.
A goddamn trophy husband
…”

“Trophy
husband
?”

Anna was suddenly aware the sound had been turned abruptly off. A ringing silence now filled the library.

“
Trophy
husband?” repeated the acid voice that Anna recognised, heart sinking, as Cassandra’s. Wrapped in her pashmina bathrobe, Cassandra, barefoot, silently circled the pair. Her eyes were as mean and narrow as those of a boa constrictor about to strike. “Depends what you mean by
trophy
,
I suppose,” she hissed, her glance, now mocking, sliding from Anna to Jett and back again. “If you mean a
rotting moosehead
someone shot in nineteen fifty-eight, I suppose I’d have to go along with it.
Atrophy
husband, more like. Except when it comes to getting your end away with the sodding nanny.
Bloody hell
,
you don’t waste much time
,
do you
?”
she screamed at Jett, who pressed himself back against the stereo, the contents of his thong shrinking visibly.

“And as for
you…
” As Cassandra took a step towards her, Anna recoiled. But not soon enough. As Cassandra pressed her face threateningly close, an overpowering smell of gin suddenly filled Anna’s nostrils. “I’ve been waiting,” Cassandra hissed. “Waiting and
waiting…
” Anna felt herself start to shake. Yet the fact remained—if Cassandra had been so certain Jett would try to seduce her, why hadn’t she stopped him? “And
waiting
,”
Cassandra continued. “So in the end I came downstairs.” She paused again, eyes glittering, then struck. “Where the FUCK is my fucking breakfast?”

***

“Oh no. That’s just too funny! Hope you put
that
in the diary.” As Geri spluttered her café au lait all over her nurse’s uniform, the waiters looked at them with interest.

Anna felt both irritated and gratified that someone found her ordeal amusing. Her legs still ached from the five times Cassandra had proceeded to send her tea back, and she had ironing blisters. The sheer scale of the pile Cassandra demanded she spend the day pressing had had a fairy tale quality—it had made Anna feel pretty Grimm, in any case. Still, it had been good material for the diary, whatever purpose
that
might eventually serve.

“Actually,” Geri confessed, “she accused
me
yesterday of having a fling with him.”

“What?” Fear began to grow in Anna’s heart.

“She called me on my private line and told me to fuck off and stop ringing her husband.”

“And were you?” Remembering the aftermath of Thoby’s wedding, Anna braced herself for the worst.

“
Of course not
!”
Geri looked outraged. “When I’m
that
desperate, I’ll stick my mobile up myself. It vibrates,” she explained, catching Anna’s puzzled glance. “No, Cassandra pressed one four seven one. It must have been after I’d tried to call you. When I answered she must have thought I was one of his slappers. So do I take it he
is
on the loose again, then?”

“You could say that,” said Anna, thinking of the thong. “Last night she flung an entire dinner service at him whilst yelling she was a woman who loved too much.”

“What
she
loves too much is gin,” Geri grinned. “No wonder she can’t write anymore.”

There was a silence. Then Anna remembered something.

“Did you say you had a private line?”

“Of course. Naturally the family pay for all the calls…even if my bill does sometimes look like an international phone book.” Geri grinned guiltily.

“I can’t believe it. Cassandra makes me pay whenever I use her phone. Even if I don’t get through.”

“That’s ridiculous. She should bloody well give you your own phone. Insist on a digital answerphone as well, and while you’re at it, get the stingy cow to give you a mobile. Preferably a vibrating one like mine. Hours of fun, I promise you.”

“Some hope.” The nearest she was going to get to a mobile, Anna thought miserably, was Alexander Calder in the hallway.

“So,” said Geri, a careful look creeping into her eyes. “She given you any writing lessons yet?”

Anna’s heart sank. At the back of the café she could hear Slob, Allegra, Trace, and Alice laughing with each other. No doubt because, Anna reflected jealously, they had all probably had two changes of sports car and three pay raises since yesterday. Reluctantly, she shook her head.

“Shall I tell you something?” Geri looked at her. “I think you’re wasting your time with Cassandra. Time for a change of focus. I’ve been thinking about you, and—”

Anna took a deep breath. Her measured tones, she hoped, gave no hint of the fury suddenly filling her. “As I recall, you’d been thinking about me when you encouraged me to get a writing apprenticeship in the first place. And look where
that’s
got me.”

“
Quite
,”
said Geri, not batting an eyelid. “But we need to approach it a different way. It’s obvious that you don’t want to be a nanny despite us all spelling out to you the advantages. If you still want to write books, well, fine. But you need more than a great novel to get what you want out of life.”

“I do?” How did Geri always manage to completely wrong-foot her?

“Absolutely. What you need is a great
man
. A rich one, so you don’t have to work and can write your books without having to wait hand and foot on Cassandra and rush off to Operabugs and junior Cordon Bleu every five minutes. And
I’m
going to help you find him.” She grinned broadly at Anna. “There. What about it?”

“But I’m a complete failure with men,” Anna wailed.

“Rubbish. You may not be in a brilliant position bookwise, but you’re certainly in one manwise.”

“
What
?”
The dreadful suspicion that Geri was encouraging her to have a fling with Jett dawned horribly on Anna. She blinked hard to eradicate the memory of his scrawny, hairy buttocks bouncing around in front of her in the hall.

“I mean that when nannies pick the family they’re going to work for, they should do it with two things in mind. One is everything we discussed last time. The other”—Geri paused, her Malteser brown eyes coyly disappearing under her lowering lashes—“is the man-meeting potential. High-profile, high-earning families, such as the one I work for, attract high-profile and high-earning men to their dinner parties. The type of men no nanny could hope to meet in normal circumstances.” Geri leant forward, eyes
glowing. “You coming to Savannah and Siena’s birthday party on Saturday?”

Anna nodded. “Cassandra bribed Zak with a digital camera to get him to go.”

“Good. Because, let me tell you, it’s a man
magnet
.
Those kids have so many godfathers, it’s not true. Kate and Julian asked practically every mover and shaker in the country to come and move and shake by the font. Establishment, high society, the arts, the lot. You can’t
fail to
score.”

“Just watch me,” said Anna miserably.

By dawn on the day of Savannah and Siena’s party, Cassandra had already been up for several hours struggling with the computerised wardrobe. Denim shirt and jeans for that wholesome, Hope-Stanley, yoghurt-ad look? Or more smart Sloane with the loafers and stand-up collar? Casual yet stylish was what she was going for; you couldn’t join in Sardines and Pass the Parcel in Givenchy couture (although some, like Shayla Reeves, would probably try to). What she wanted was something scruffy enough for games but smart enough to translate to the Number Ten dinner table, should Cherie suddenly find herself a body short of a
placement
and remember that perfectly charming writer at Kate’s children’s party.

Cassandra had prepared for the party like a military offensive. Every grooming eventuality was anticipated. By the end of the week, she had had a full-peel facial, manicure and pedicure, and even a bikini wax. Well, you never knew. It might be sunny and she didn’t want to be sprouting around the gusset of her Versace swimsuit.

The remainder of her time had been spent finding exactly the right presents. Ignoring Zak’s insistence that what Savannah and Siena really wanted was a plastic ray gun and a light sabre respectively, Cassandra had rifled the racks of Oilily, Petit Bateau, and half junior Bond Street before settling on two fabulously sequinned and frill-festooned party dresses, complete with huge net underskirts, from Please Mum. She was, Cassandra told herself as she left the shop with her bags, now ready for all eventualities. The only thing that remained out of her control was the SMSPA Promises auction to be held at the party.

Cassandra bitterly regretted her offer—well, as much as anything you were
forced into
could possibly be an offer—to cook a dinner party for eight at her home. She quailed at the thought of who might win it and, in order to prevent such ghastly eventualities as having to wait on Fenella Greatorex and friends hand and foot, almost considered bringing Jett along to outbid everyone else. Financial considerations—Jett, after all, was the man who bid ten thousand pounds for one of Eric Clapton’s guitar strings during that dreadful period when he was trying to set up a rock and roll museum—had forced her to abandon the plan. The added risk that Cherie might clap eyes
on Jett had been judged worse than Fenella Greatorex’s being the highest bidder for the dinner. If that happened, Cassandra decided philosophically, she would just have to put Liquid Paper in the sauce.

Anna too had been up for hours. Saturday was glass day—after doing all the windows, Anna had now moved on to the mirrors. She sprayed furniture polish on the hall’s vast, frameless looking-glass and rubbed it while trying not to look at her dejected reflection. It was difficult to avoid it—the sheer misery in her eyes drew the viewer. Once sparkling, they were now as flat as week-old Bellinger; her hair looked redder and lanker than ever beside the grey of her exhausted face. The only comfort was that she looked thinner—cheekbones, faint but discernible, ridged each side of her formerly shapeless cheeks. Her mouth too, though pale and dry, seemed bigger. Anna tried to smile at herself, but the lips didn’t move. I don’t do smiling anymore, she thought.

I must get out of here
, she repeated mantra-like to herself with each circle or her duster. God knows how, though. Or
where
.
I’ve no money, nowhere to live, and no skills to speak of, especially housework…
damn
this polish. Every stroke of the cloth left wild white streaks elsewhere on the mirror’s surface. Cleaning, Anna was beginning to realise, was more exacting an art than she had imagined.

Depressing though it was to admit it, Geri was right. Cassandra had absolutely no intention of teaching her anything at all about writing and Zak had no intention of doing anything other than making her life a misery. The only mercy was that the library incident with Jett had thankfully not been repeated—Anna had kept well away from its Gothic portals, especially after having, during one of Cassandra’s rants about her being more useless even than her predecessors, worked out who the Emma in the video must be. Less thankfully, Jett had recently taken to squeezing past her in the corridor and, less excusably, in rooms containing sufficient space for two articulated lorries to pass each other, let alone two people. On each occasion, Anna had been aware of something large and hard in the region formerly occupied by the leopardskin thong.

“Sue him for sexual harassment,” Geri had urged her. “I would. I knew a nanny who sued her employer’s husband for coming into her bathroom by mistake. She wasn’t even in it at the time.
You’d
make a fortune.”

“And be all over the papers?” protested Anna. “Spend the rest of my life being the woman who was groped by some has-been old celebrity? At least Monica Lewinsky was groped by the president of the United States.”

“Well, he’ll be a has-been old celebrity soon,” said Geri.

“Yes, but imagine it all over the
News of the World—
The Rock Star, Me, And That Leopardskin Thong.”

“Well, it’s got more of a ring to it than that boring old blue dress. I think you should consider it.”

Anna sighed and rubbed her polish harder. The sound of the telephone ringing in the hall was a welcome diversion.

“Guest list for the party’s looking
great
,”
Geri whispered on the other end. “Two financiers, three actors, four TV executives, a lord, and a couple of national newspaper editors, and that’s just for starters.
Your
best bet is one of the financiers.
Stinking
rich and—although admittedly this
is
a drawback—
young
.”

“Why is that a drawback?”

“They’re best old, really, then they drop off the perch after the honeymoon and leave you all their money. The good news is, no emotional baggage or, worse, grabby first wife wanting tons of alimony. He’s unmarried—never has been, from what I can work out—but
seems
to be straight. Reasonable-looking, as well, apparently, although I’ve never seen him in the flesh to confirm this.”

“Sounds like a real dreamboat.”

“Hey, well, you’ve got to know what you’re dealing with in this game,” Geri said huffily. “No point me steering you towards some sex god who turns out to be penniless and as gay as New Year’s Eve into the bargain.”

“No,
absolutely
,”
said Anna, realising Geri sounded annoyed. Alienating her would not be a good idea. Not now, when, however mad her schemes sounded, they represented a better route to escape than any she could think up herself. “Thanks. Really, he sounds
wonderful
.
Just the job.”

“Good,” said Geri, mollified. “Anyway, get here as early as you can. And don’t forget—look
gorgeous
.”

***

How
amazingly
self-confident, thought Cassandra as she trotted into the entrance hall holding her invitation like a shield. How almost
show-offy
for the Tressells to have the party
in their own house
.
Only people with nothing to hide and everything to reveal dared expose their homes to the scrutiny of other St. Midas’s mothers and fathers, most of whom, when their own children’s birthdays came round, preferred to pay up the thousands demanded by Hollywood theme restaurants for a couple of burgers, a shake, and a photo opportunity with an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike.

“It’s very cutting edge,” was all Geri had said to Anna of the Tressell home and current world headquarters of her operations, a converted former prison in Islington. Well, Anna thought, entering in Cassandra’s Gucci-heeled wake, there was certainly plenty of glass. Through the transparent hall roof, the grey London sky brooded above. She wondered what the drill was when, as it occasionally must, a passing pigeon let fly a splatter or two. She glanced briefly at the shattered-blue-glass-effect floor, before realising that banging noise was Zak trying to shatter it further by removing his black patent shoes and using the heels as hammers.

“Stop that
now
.”
Geri detached herself from a milling group in the light, circular hall where, stuffed as usual into her plunging uniform, she was rounding up the arrivals and their broods with the efficiency of a sheepdog.

Among the throng, Anna spotted Allegra shepherding a child in a pink net tutu. Slobodan shuffled in behind her with a pair of basin-cut boys, looking, as usual, as if he’d just got out of bed; Anna wondered whose. A plump, dark-haired girl who confirmed Anna’s worst suspicions about Jett’s video was being clung to by a pale, frightened-looking child with noticeably scarred knees—Otto Greatorex, Anna realised. A slender and extremely handsome Japanese man was visibly buckling under the weight of a very large, pink-faced child in a—possibly real—tiara, whom he held in his arms; this, Anna realised, must be Hanuki, the first male Japanese Norlander. Well, he’d certainly got his hands full.

The parents and godparents, distinguishable by their un-hassled expressions, brimming glasses of champagne, and complete absence of any children near them, stood chatting in one group while the nannies and children formed a loose collective at the other end of the vast hall. The pink-faced child, Anna noticed, had already thrown up something purple and sticky down the front of Hanuki’s white shirt. Beside her, Zak was banging on the floor again.

“Children and nannies in there,” Geri shouted above the chaos, pointing at a room in which serried ranks of forms and tables could be glimpsed. “Parents and godparents this way.” She pointed to where a waitress stood by a door bearing a tray with yet more champagne glasses.

“Not so fast,” Geri murmured as Anna headed automatically after Slobodan, Alice, Trace, and the rest of them. “You’re helping me with the nibbles. Best way for you to meet people. I’ve OK’d it with Kate, so Cassandra can’t object. Leave Zak with Trace.”

Zak looked mutinous as the massive Trace, her face set, clasped his fat wrist in her strong grip and whisked him off into the children’s room.

“You look very smart, by the way,” Geri said. “Lost weight, haven’t you?”

Anna nodded and grinned. “All thanks to dish soap.”

Geri stared. Then her face relaxed. “Oh, I see, that old Fairy Liquid trick. Do that, do you?”

“No, not me,” said Anna. “
Cassandra
.”

Although the housework workout had no doubt helped, it had been Cassandra’s habit of obliterating temptation by squeezing dish soap over Zak’s leftovers and any other cooked food she found in the kitchen that had really made the difference. A pizza and several sandwiches Anna had made for her own supper had, several times, been rendered inedible this way. She had been furious at the time, but now, given that her trousers hung slackly from her waist and she’d managed to tuck her shirt in, she felt almost grateful to Cassandra. Almost.

“The idea,” Geri was explaining, “is that the grown-ups have their party while the children have their tea, their games, and the party entertainer. Then we all get together for the Promises auction and the disco.” Gingerly, she touched the skin beneath her eyes, careful not to smudge any of her precisely applied makeup. “I’m
knackered
.
I was up more or less all night wrapping forty Pass the Parcels in recycled paper containing Third World–friendly items. Did you realise that these days you have to have a present between
every layer?
”

As yet more sleek parents and sleeker offspring arrived, Geri hustled Anna into a vast kitchen off the main hall in which a production line of chefs was busy making faces from basil, mozzarella, anchovies, and olives on a collection of mini pizzas. “Olives!” whispered Anna. “I didn’t think children liked olives.”

“Well, these ones do,” said Geri. “What’s more, they can distinguish between about ten different types. Olive oil as well—they spend so much time in Tuscany they think ‘Like A Virgin’ is a song about first cold pressings.”

Anna giggled. “They’re very glamorous, these chefs,” she muttered. Male and female, each one had the heavy eyebrows, lithe limbs, and bee-stung lips of a supermodel. They smouldered at each other as they arranged the anchovies into smiles.

“They’re from some screamingly expensive Italian restaurant by the river, apparently,” Geri hissed. “But I’ve got better things lined up for you than them. Take these.” She thrust a plateful of perfect miniature bacon sandwiches at Anna, each complete with tiny rind, baby crusts, and heart-shaped dab of tomato ketchup beside it. Each bore a plastic skewer bearing the initials SS. “Make sure you eavesdrop on all the conversations,” Geri warned, as they sailed forth through a sliding aluminium side door that led from the kitchen to a large, light, glass-walled reception room. “They’re hilarious. I once overheard three women talking for hours about vaginal sprays and how much their husbands earned.”

Giggling, they swept into the crowd.

“Why
do
people in England despise success so much?” a woman in violently coloured clothes was saying to a toned, tanned man with close-cropped white hair as Anna and Geri started to circle the room.

“
Who’s
that?” Anna mouthed.

“Julian, of course,” said Geri, her eyes fixed longingly on her employer’s face. “Oh, the woman? Son at St. Midas’s. He’s got the concentration span of a gnat. They’re hoping he’s autistic, I believe.
She’s
a happening fashion editor.”

“Looks more like a what’s happened fashion editor,” observed Anna, taking in the pink hair, yellow dress, and orange tights, topped off with a large black fedora. She looked with interest at Julian Tressell, short-cropped, sandalled, and dressed from head to foot in white linen, his only decoration a CCCP Soviet–era Lenin badge in deep red enamel and gold.

“Yes, she is rather post-nuclear.”

“And who’s that?” Anna slid her eyes
meaningfully at Kate Tressell talking to a pneumatic blonde in a tight white dress and hot pink heels that added at least a foot to her height. Beside her exuberant beauty, Kate’s hemp suit, though doubtless eye-wideningly expensive, looked drab and monastic.