The Nanny (24 page)

I hesitate, then tilt the bottle to my lips. ‘One more,’ I scowl. ‘And then we’re leaving.’

Some bastard’s riding a jackhammer in my head. I can’t even open my eyes, it hurts too much. My mouth tastes of cigarettes and puke. I don’t remember how many
times I threw up last night, but put it this way: my stomach’s still inside-out. I hate Kirsty. I am never, ever going to drink again.

A grating warble next to my ear makes my teeth rattle.

‘Yours,’ Kirsty mumbles.

I pull the pillow over my aching head.

‘For fuck’s sake, answer it!’

I snake out a hand and fumble for my phone, knocking a glass and several books off Kirsty’s bedside table. Without opening my eyes, I flip it open.

‘I think I can do another five hundred pounds a month,’ Clare says breathlessly. ‘I know it’s probably not enough, but things are terribly tight right now. If you can
wait until Christmas, I might be able to do a bit more then, it depends how things go with the—’

‘What time is it?’ I grunt.

‘What time—? Oh. About nine-thirty, I think. Yes, nine-thirty-five.’

On a Sunday? Is she fucking
insane
? ‘I don’t mean to be rude, Clare, but can’t this wait till tomorrow?’

‘Yes, of course—’

‘Great. Bye.’

‘Wait! Do you think you’ll say yes or no?’

I flop over on to my back, and wait for the room to stop tilting. I’m never going to get rid of her till I sort this out. Screw it. I didn’t want to work for that stupid Olivia bitch
anyway. And five hundred quid is five hundred quid. ‘OK. Yes.’

‘That’s fantastic! Oh, Jenna, thank you so much. You won’t regret it. I know things have been a bit, well, difficult lately, but—’

‘Forget it.’

‘Well, if you—’

I shut the phone. I need to sleep. Twelve more hours would be good. Twenty-four would be better—

‘What the fuck?’ I groan, as Kirsty peels off the covers.

‘Well, I’m awake now,’ she says crossly.

‘Well, I’m dying.’

‘Come on. You’ll feel better after a good fry-up. I make super good bacon and eggs.’

I should feel sick at the thought, but actually, I’m suddenly starving.

‘Won’t your boss mind me staying over?’

‘Fran? Nah. She’d give you her own bed if I asked her to.’

‘Dunno how you’ve got the balls. You treat her like you
own
her.’

Kirsty grabs a stained dressing gown from the hook behind the door. ‘You need to remember who’s got the power in the relationship, I keep telling you that. D’you have
any
idea how hard it is to find a decent nanny in London? One who speaks English and can drive, I mean. You could walk into a dozen jobs like
that
,’ she says, snapping her
fingers. ‘She’d be totally screwed if you left.’

I’m not so sure, but I’m in no condition to argue.

I follow Kirsty downstairs in my borrowed T-shirt, which barely covers my knickers. If you can dignify a piece of lacy dental floss with the term ‘knickers’.

‘I know this great hangover remedy,’ Kirsty says, far too loudly for my sensitive constitution. ‘Hair of the dog. It’s, like, vodka, raw eggs, tomato juice
and—’

‘Stop with the raw eggs, would you,’ I beg. ‘I don’t think—’

‘Jenna!’

Seriously
. Is there no escaping this woman?

In fairness, Clare looks just as startled to see me as I am to see her. I yank my T-shirt down. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Fran invited me for Sunday brunch. I thought you said you were going home this weekend?’

‘Can’t. Jamie put all my stuff in bin-bags and changed the locks.’ I glance warily across at Fran. ‘Kirsty said it was OK for me to stay over . . .?’

Fran waves a careless hand.

‘You look awfully tired,’ Clare presses anxiously. ‘Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?’

Kirsty snorts. ‘Nah. It all came up last night.’

‘Oh dear. You want to be careful, Jenna. Binge-drinking is very bad for you. You can do as much damage in one weekend session as—’

‘I’m not very hungry after all,’ I tell Kirsty. ‘Actually, I think getting up was a mistake. I’m going back to bed.’

‘I could bring you a cup of green tea,’ Clare calls up the stairs.

I hide under the duvet before she offers me a dandelion smoothie or some hand-churned tofu. I’m relieved I don’t have to leave Clare; I adore the twins, and I couldn’t bear to
have to say goodbye yet. But there’s something about her earnest wholesomeness that makes me want to rush out and club baby seals for breakfast.

My body aches, as if I’ve been hit by a truck. Even my toes throb. I pull the covers over my head. I don’t care what Kirsty says, I’m going on a detox tomorrow. I’m too
bloody old for this.

I still feel one bulb short of a sunbed when I fall out of bed again the next morning. I trudge down Cheyne Walk, trying to summon bright, Mary Poppins chirpiness as my liver waves a white flag.
I hope Clare’s out at the shop all day today. As soon as the twins go down for their nap, I’m joining them.

I pause to cross the road, and a piercing wolf whistle has me leaping out of my skin. For fuck’s sake! In my fragile condition, any shock could be terminal.

‘Jenna! Hold up!’

Xan crosses over, and looks me up and down. ‘Good night, was it?’

‘Since you ask.’

‘I’ve seen better-looking corpses. ’

‘Fuck off,’ I sigh. ‘How come you’re up this early, anyway?’

‘Haven’t been to bed yet,’ he says cheerily. ‘Came to pick up my car.’

‘It’s been sitting here a week. You’re lucky it hasn’t been towed.’

He points to the blue disabled sticker on his rear windscreen. ‘I used the crip space.’

‘Somebody in a wheelchair might have needed that,’ I reprove him.

‘My need was greater. Will you have dinner with me?’

‘Will I what?’

He folds his arms and leans against Clare’s gleaming black iron railings. ‘You know. Dinner. Main meal of the day, usually eaten in the evening. From the French word
dîner,
the chief repast of the day, ultimately from the Latin
disiunare,
which means—’

‘Yes, thank you. I know what dinner is. I just want to know why you want to have it with me.’

‘Because my conscience fought a battle with my loins, and lust won out.’

My eyes slip involuntarily towards the bulge in his jeans. Xan snorts with laughter. I scowl. I can’t help it, it’s just one of those words. When someone says loins, you can’t
help but, well,
look
.

‘Come on. A drink, then.’

‘No drinks,’ I say feelingly.

‘OK. Evian all the way, I promise.’

I waver. His turquoise eyes goad me. Oh, shit. Xan is narcissistic, untrustworthy and arrogant; which, as every woman knows, is an irresistible combination. There’s just something about a
bastard. It’s the combination of a Machiavellian ability to deceive and the thrill-seeking, callous behaviour of a psychopath. It’s so . . . I don’t know . . . so fucking
sexy
.

The front door opens. ‘Xan!’ Clare exclaims. ‘What are you doing here?’

He jangles his car keys by way of answer.

‘Jenna, if you wouldn’t mind, Poppy just spilled Ribena all down herself.’

‘Friday,’ I hiss to Xan, ‘Oriel at eight.’

‘Thank heavens you’re here early,’ Clare says, slamming the door on her brother and hustling me into the kitchen. ‘We’ve got to go to the hospital. I just had a
call from the paediatrician.’ Her voice is filled with hope for the first time in weeks. ‘They think they might know what’s wrong with Poppy.’

We’re directed up to the NICU floor and shown into a small, windowless waiting room with boxes of tissues on every table. I hate it straight away. This must be where they
tell parents their baby is going to die.

After a few minutes the door opens and a tall woman with spirals of red hair spilling down her shoulders like rusty bedsprings starts to back into the room. Her right foot is in plaster, and
she’s struggling with a pair of crutches. I leap up and hold the door for her. If she wasn’t wearing a white coat with a stethoscope draped round her neck, I’d have thought she
was a patient who’d got lost.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she pants, ‘I still haven’t quite got used to these.’

‘I was expecting Dr Bryant,’ Clare says warily.

‘Yes, I’m not supposed to be back at work yet,’ the woman says, sinking clumsily on to a chair and parking the crutches on the seat beside her, ‘but when I heard about
this case, I had to come in.’

Clare leans forward. ‘You think you know what’s wrong with Poppy?’

‘There have been a couple of similar cases over the past few years. I don’t know if you remember the Christian Blewitt case? Six or seven years ago, Angela and Ian Gay were accused
of killing their foster-child by salt poisoning. They ended up in jail, but were eventually released and their convictions were quashed. When Cooper told me about what had happened to
you—’

Clare looks nonplussed. ‘Cooper?’

She laughs. ‘I’m sorry, no wonder you’re confused. I should explain. I’m Ella Stuart, paediatric consultant here at the Princess Eugenie.’

‘
You’re
Ella Stuart?’

‘Quite recovered now, as you can see,’ Ella says, ‘and desperate to get back to work. It seems that, like most of my profession, I make a much better doctor than I do a
patient. Your flowers are beautiful, by the way,’ she adds. ‘I’ve wanted to thank you for a long time.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Clare says absently. I’ve never seen her look so thrown. ‘But what does this have to do with your fiancé?’

‘Cooper’s not my fiancé! He’s my brother-in-law.’ Her smile fades. ‘My husband died in February. Cooper came to England to collect some of his
things.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Clare says softly.

Ella collects herself with an effort. ‘Jackson – my husband – wasn’t the kind of man to stand by if he thought someone was being treated unfairly, and Cooper’s the
same. He asked me to look at the case again. He didn’t want this haunting you for the next eighteen years.’

‘That’s . . . that’s so kind of him,’ Clare whispers. She looks close to tears.

‘In the case of little Christian Blewitt, it seems he had a rare medical condition which allows sodium to build up in the body,’ Ella says. ‘I think Poppy could have something
similar.’

‘Will she be OK?’ Clare asks anxiously.

Her first instinct is to worry about Poppy, rather than be relieved she’s off the hook herself. How can she think she’s a bad mother? She’s more committed to her children than
any of the mothers I know.

‘If she has what I think she does, then yes, it’s perfectly treatable. I don’t know if you’ve heard of diabetes insipidus?’ Wincing, she straightens out her broken
foot, and rubs her calf. ‘It’s sometimes known as water diabetes, but it has nothing to do with sugar diabetes, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. DI is caused by the
kidney’s inability to concentrate urine properly, due to the deficiency of a hormone called vasopressin. It’s quite rare, which is probably why it wasn’t picked up when she was
first brought in.’

‘But you can treat it?’ Clare says. ‘She’ll get better?’

‘It can’t be cured,’ Ella says gently, ‘but the symptoms can be almost eliminated. Poppy will need to take a modified form of vasopressin, and you’ll have to stay
very aware of her hydration levels. But if she does have DI, she should be fine.’

Shit, I feel terrible now. I knew Clare hadn’t done anything to hurt Poppy; I kept telling Marc that. But other than call Davina, what have I done to help? Threaten to quit, and try to get
off with her brother. Meanwhile, some guy who barely even knows her has gone off and got a top paediatrician to look into the case and find out what’s
really
wrong with Poppy. Poor
Clare. She must have been going through hell. Worried sick about Poppy, and then dragged off in the middle of the night and accused of trying to poison her own baby! What are a few credit-card
debts and a crazy ex-boyfriend compared to what she’s had to cope with?

Clare gulps out a half-laugh, half-sob. ‘I kept telling them I didn’t give her salt, but they wouldn’t believe me.’

‘You’d have had to force-feed her four spoons of salt to get the sodium levels in her body they recorded,’ Ella says crisply. ‘Trust me, even diluted in a pint of water,
an adult would vomit that amount of salt, never mind a child. They should have had the good sense to check for an underlying medical cause, instead of jumping to sinister conclusions.’

Clare’s eyes shine. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

As we leave, Ella murmurs something to Clare that I can’t quite catch, but I notice it has the interesting effect of making her blush scarlet. I crane after the doctor curiously, wondering
what I’m missing.

I load the baby carriers into the rear of the Range Rover. ‘I’ll drop you all at Baby Swim,’ Clare says, starting the car. ‘I have to go and sort out some problems at the
Fulham shop. I’ll pick you up afterwards.’

‘Don’t worry, we can walk back. It’s a gorgeous day.’

Clare twists round in her seat, and smiles at the twins. ‘I wish I could come with you. You’re right, it’s a beautiful day. It’ll be lovely in that open-air
pool.’

‘Why don’t you come too?’

She hesitates, clearly tempted. ‘I can’t. Craig and Molly are both sick. Someone has to be there when the delivery arrives.’

‘I could wait for the delivery, and you could take the twins to Baby Swim,’ I suggest.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll take them another time.’

‘Take them now,’ I press. ‘Go on. You can borrow my cozzie. They’d really love it if you took them. And they’ll be in the full-care class from next month, so you
won’t be able to stay.’

‘I should get going. You’ll be late—’

‘Clare,’ I say softly. ‘You trust me with your children. Are you telling me you can’t trust me for an hour or two with your flowers?’

She jerks, and for a moment I think I’ve gone too far.

‘You really think you could manage?’ she says finally.

‘After dealing with these two horrors twenty-four/seven? Walk in the park.’

‘You’ll need to check the stock against the delivery inventory. Make sure you go through every tray; don’t just assume that because the one on top is fine, the others will be.
Anything even slightly damaged, you send back.
Don’t
sign for it. And don’t take any substitutes. That’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.’ She looks doubtful.
‘Are you sure you can do this, Jenna? You don’t know anything about flowers. Maybe I should just—’