The Nanny (12 page)

‘The London Eye,’ I sigh, as the huge Ferris wheel slowly turns, revealing slices of the horizon by degrees. ‘You are seriously sad.’

‘Come on. You’re loving it.’

I try, and fail, to suppress a smile. He’s right. I am.

I hold Rowan up against the curved glass so he can get a clear view of the river. He gazes owlishly at me, refusing to look anywhere but at my face.

‘Rowan, look! Look at the pretty boats! No, you dope, not at me, down
there
!’

‘I know which view I’d rather look at,’ Xan says.

Poppy squirms unhappily in his arms, and he knuckles his forefinger and rubs it gently against her pink gums. ‘Teething.’

‘What would you know about teething?’

‘You’d be surprised what I know.’ He shrugs his left shoulder. ‘Here. Reach into my back pocket.’

I slide my palm into his jeans. My pulse quickens at the intimate contact.

‘Don’t worry, I’m just going to rub it on her gums,’ he snorts as I ease the silver hip-flask out and hesitate. ‘I’m not going to get her drunk. She
is
my niece.’

Poppy screws up her eyes, splutters, then opens her mouth wide for more. Just like her uncle, in fact.

The wheel slowly brings us back down to earth. I check my watch as we leave the glass pod, shocked to see it’s already quarter to five. Shit. I made such a big deal about Clare letting me
off early today, and now I’m going to be late home myself. She’ll have a fit.

I jiggle Rowan more comfortably against my hip, and make for the bank of push-chairs and strollers parked near the ticket booth, searching for Clare’s fancy Bugaboo. If we can find a taxi,
we might not be that late—

Xan’s arm is suddenly tight around my waist. ‘Keep walking,’ he hisses.

‘
What
?’

‘Keep going. Don’t stop, and don’t turn round.’

‘What are you talking about? I need the twins’ pushchair—’

‘Christ, Jenna! Pick another one! That one,’ he says, pointing to a cheap fold-up double stroller at the end of the row. ‘Clare’s is worth ten times that,
right?’

‘Yes, but you can’t—’

Xan is already pulling it out of the stroller line-up and strapping Poppy into one of its seats. Too bemused to argue, I follow suit with Rowan.

‘Stop looking around,’ Xan mutters. ‘Shit, could you
be
more obvious?’

A Hispanic man with earrings through his eyebrow and lower lip is staring hard at Xan from a nearby doorway. For a moment, I think he’s the one we’re trying to dodge; and then I spot
the cops. Four single men in cheap business suits, heads swivelling, thread their way through the tourists and young families. They stick out like sore thumbs.

Xan ducks his head into the push-chair, hiding his face, and fusses with the twins’ blankets as I start to walk the stroller away from the crowded square.

‘Not too fast,’ he whispers tersely.

‘Did the cops
follow
you?’ I demand,
sotto voce
. ‘Fuck, Xan, what have you done?’

‘Mistaken identity. Keep walking.’

We reach a narrow side street without being spotted. Xan risks a glance over his shoulder. No one shouts or raises the alarm.

‘Jesus,’ Xan says, straightening up. I’m still too shocked to speak.

We round the corner to the main street just as a taxi with a lit sign crests the hill like the cavalry. Xan jumps recklessly into the middle of the road, his arm raised. The taxi pulls neatly in
to the kerb and switches off its light. I start to unfasten the twins from the strange push-chair, and realize my hands are trembling.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ a voice says behind us.

I can’t believe Clare doesn’t fire me on the spot.

I
so
would, if I were her. But when she finds us at the police station she doesn’t say a single word to me. She organizes a cab to take Xan back to his flat in Fulham and then
drives the twins and me home, without even glancing in my direction. I sit huddled in the passenger seat, too ashamed to speak. Technically, it’s not my fault Xan was arrested, but if someone
entrusted with my children had just wound up in a police cell for four hours, I’d want to rip them a new arsehole.

‘I am so,
so
sorry—’ I choke out as we pull into a parking bay near the house.

‘Jenna. I’m really tired. I’m sure you are too. We’ll talk about this in the morning.’

She reaches into the back of the Range Rover, releases Poppy’s car seat and carefully carries the sleeping baby up the front steps. Silently, I pick up Rowan.

The house is in darkness. Marc obviously isn’t home yet, despite the fact that it’s now well after ten.

‘Did you know Marc’s cheating—’

I put the twins to bed, unable to get Xan’s drunken parting shot out of my head. God knows what Clare must be going through right now. She must be devastated. Unless . . . unless she
already knew, of course. She didn’t act like someone who’d just found out her husband was screwing around. Maybe they’re one of those couples who have an open marriage.
They’re not exactly warm and fuzzy together; I know they have sex, but I never see them holding hands or kissing. Still, I can’t see Clare tolerating him having an affair. It
doesn’t seem quite her style.

‘If you wouldn’t mind making sure I don’t oversleep,’ Clare says briskly when I come downstairs. ‘I don’t do well with late nights, and I have an important
appointment with my lawyer in the morning. My
forensic
lawyer,’ she adds drily. ‘I’ll be spending the next two days at work, going over the accounts.’

I flush. I swear she can read minds.

‘And Jenna?’ She stands and turns off the light. ‘If I were you, I’d stay away from Xan,’ she says.

Two weeks later, and I
still
haven’t worked out what’s going on with Marc and Clare. She leaves for work every day looking immaculate, her blond hair
smoothed back neatly, fingers manicured into perfect pale pink ovals, not a stray hair or wrinkle marring her usual work uniform of boring grey or black trousers and pastel cashmere T-shirts. (When
Annabel first told me she was sending me for an interview with a woman who ran a flower shop, I’d pictured this hippy, earth-mother type, with mad spirals of dark hair, long flowing skirts,
wellies and broken fingernails. Clare is
so
not my idea of a green-fingered goddess.) Clare’s great at keeping up appearances, but it’s hard to hide everything when you live
with someone. I never actually hear them row, she’s far too discreet for that, but I can’t help noticing that when Marc comes home now, later than ever, she doesn’t smile or get
up to greet him like she used to. She won’t bother to cook him dinner if he gets home after we’ve eaten. There are no fresh flowers around the house any more. I can’t remember the
last time I was woken by the sound of bedsprings on the other side of the wall.

Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place. I’m not sure which is worse: weekends with Jamie, or Monday-to-Friday here. I’d go home to Mum and Dad, but they converted my old
room into an art studio for Mum about a minute after I left home. They’re always pleased to see me, of course, but after about three days on the fold-away I can tell I’ve outstayed my
welcome. It’s the way she hoovers round me.

I’m feeding the twins breakfast when Marc comes down one morning, his expression tense. Clare follows him, looking tired and distracted, as if she hasn’t slept. I can tell
they’ve had another of their ‘discussions’.

Marc pours himself a coffee. ‘Would you like one?’ he asks Clare stiffly.

‘Thank you.’

‘Milk?’

‘Black, if you don’t mind.’

They’re
polite
to each other, I realize. Like total strangers.

I spoon baby rice into the twins as fast as they can swallow, desperate to escape the atmosphere in the kitchen. The taut silence is deafening.
For God’s sake, someone
say
something
.

‘Can you sign a permission slip for the doctor?’ I ask Clare. ‘They’re due for their next lot of jabs this morning.’

She glances quickly at Marc, pretending to be absorbed in his
Financial Times
. ‘You won’t need it. I’ll come with you.’

‘I thought you had to go to work early?’

‘Nothing that won’t wait.’

Marc snaps his paper derisively, but says nothing.

Clare looks close to tears. My heart goes out to her. Whatever’s going on, I hope they sort it out soon, for the sake of the kids. And not to be mean or anything, but it’s not
exactly a picnic for me either. It’s like being at a dinner party where the couple giving it have had a screaming match seconds before you got there. Only, in my case, you get to stay behind
afterwards and live it twenty-four/seven.

Clare doesn’t speak on the way to the health clinic, except to mutter cryptically into her mobile – ‘I’ll be at the bank by eleven; no, he’s got no idea’
– and fret about the heavy traffic. I don’t know why she’s come.

As usual, the surgery is running late. Clare neurotically paces the waiting room while I try to placate Poppy, who’s uncharacteristically fretful and difficult. I think Xan’s right;
she must be teething. If Clare wasn’t here, I’d pull my usual trick and dip her dummy in a packet of sugar. I’ve never known a baby with such a sweet tooth.

We’re finally ushered into a chilly exam room, where the twins are stripped to their Pampers, weighed, measured and prodded. Finally a skinny, purse-lipped nurse takes off their nappies
and sticks a thermometer up their bums. Unsurprisingly, both babies bawl in protest.

‘They’re very fussy,’ she sniffs.

‘You try having a pole stuck up your arse,’ I mutter. ‘Oh, I see you already have.’

Clare stifles a smile.

Moments later a fit, clean-shaven doctor of about fifty bounces excitedly into the room.

‘Wonderful lungs!’ he shouts over the screams. ‘Good job, Mum!’

‘Thank you,’ Clare says faintly.

‘So, are we weaned? Eating solids?’

He addresses Clare, but she turns helplessly to me.

‘We started them off a few weeks ago,’ I say. ‘They’re eating most things now, but they still like their milk in the morning and at bedtime.’

‘How many dirty nappies a day?’

Again, he looks at Clare. Again, she looks at me.

‘About six each, I think.’

‘Sleeping through the night?’

‘Yes,’ I say, feeling like a ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘Rowan’s over the colic now.’

‘Good, good. Well, Mum, you’ve done an excellent job. Love and care, that’s all most babies need. They don’t want Mum in the boardroom or running the country, do they?
They want her at home, isn’t that right?’

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

‘Do you have children, doctor?’ I ask sweetly.

‘Yes, four.’

‘How lovely. You must be very proud. Tell me,’ I add, ‘you must work such long hours here. Weekends and evenings too. It must take a lot of commitment.’

‘Always on call,’ he says brightly.

I stop smiling. ‘So how many bloody sports days did
you
turn up to?’ I demand. ‘Or was Daddy always too busy saving the world? I’m sure your kids must have found
that a
great
consolation.’

‘Jenna,’ Clare says quietly.

‘Well, don’t talk to me about love and care,’ I say defiantly. ‘No one could love these babies more than Clare does.’

She shoots me a grateful look. The doctor coughs, and picks up his syringe.

Poppy doesn’t put up any resistance, but Rowan’s already arching and squirming when I pick him up. The doctor preps his arm with a Medi-swab, but as he gives him the injection, Rowan
moves. The needle jabs deeper than the doctor intended, and Rowan screams in pain.

In a second, Clare has crossed the room and pulled him from my arms, her eyes dark with distress. She paces up and down, rubbing his tiny back and murmuring gently in his ear.

As he gradually stops hiccuping, she turns and looks at me, an expression of surprise and delight on her face so genuine it makes my heart turn over. ‘I can’t bear him to be
hurt,’ she whispers.

‘I know,’ I murmur back.

It isn’t that Clare didn’t love Rowan; she just didn’t
know
it. I’ve watched her pick up Poppy and experience a glorious rush of natural, uncomplicated love; and
then seen that smile falter and fade, drowned by her guilt at not feeling the same for Rowan. She was convinced she was going to turn into another Davina. I kept telling her mothers often take time
to bond with their babies; people talk a load of shit about it, but the truth is, motherhood’s different for every woman. Clare wouldn’t listen. She’s been beating herself up for
months.

But in one single, simple moment, everything’s changed. She could no more choose between the twins now than split the moon in two. I can see it in her eyes.

There’s an unexpected lump in my throat. Lost for words, I give Clare a clumsy hug, trying to let her know: I get it. ‘You’re going to be fine,’ I tell her. ‘You
and Rowan and Poppy.’

We leave the surgery with the bashful, tearful-but-happy expressions you see on women as they walk out of tearjerker chick-flicks.
We had A Moment
, I think. I wish I was close enough to
Mum to ring and tell her.

As we struggle down the steps to the street, two grannies step aside and wait for us to manoeuvre the pushchair past them.

‘Oh, twins!’ one exclaims. ‘Look, Joan. Aren’t they beautiful?’

The other peers into the stroller, and then smiles at Clare, instantly identifying her as their mother, even though I’m the one pushing the pram. ‘You must be so proud!’

Clare pinks with pleasure, and squeezes my shoulder. ‘We are.’

Tears threaten again. She didn’t have to include me like that. The old biddies probably think we’re a couple of dykes, but I don’t care. For the first time, I realize Clare
actually means it when she says we’re a team.

Except . . . except the twins still aren’t mine, are they?

I feed them, I wipe up their shit and vomit, I play mind-numbing games with soft balls and sing them endless dumb nursery rhymes. I schlep around in hideous sweats and trainers so it
doesn’t matter if they’re sick on me, and have short, stubby nails so I don’t scratch them by mistake. I’m putting in all the hard work, and at the end of the day I’ll
have nothing to show for it.