The Nanny (31 page)

‘Maybe he’s like Superman: too busy saving the world to have a girlfriend.’

‘If he starts wearing his Y-fronts outside his trousers, I’ll let you know.’

Kirsty settles herself cross-legged on her pillow. ‘Seriously, Jen. Are you really OK about this?’

‘I’ve had better days, but I’ll get over it. I knew going in it was never going to be a long-term thing.’ I sigh. ‘To be honest, after Jamie, I’m kind of over
the whole sexy-but-damaged routine. Right now I’d settle for a nice dull teacher or policeman who’s kind to his mother and remembers my birthday.’

‘The nice ones are the worst,’ Kirsty warns.

‘Looks like it’s just going to be me and Clare, then. Isn’t that going to be cosy? Two sad cows sitting at home with our cocoa. I might even take up knitting.’

‘You just need to get back on the horse. Come out with me on Friday. There’s a new club just opened off the King’s Road. I know one of the bouncers, I bet I could get us
in—’

‘Not really in the mood. Sorry. Anyway, I don’t want to leave Clare on her own yet. She’s still really upset about Marc.’

‘Why? I thought you said she was having a fling with that American?’

‘I don’t know if it’s a fling,’ I say quickly. ‘They were only talking when I saw them.’

‘Horny cow,’ Kirsty giggles. ‘Bet they’re at it all the time.’

I shift uncomfortably. I should never have said anything to Kirsty. If she mentions it to Fran, Clare will die of embarrassment. She’s got enough on her plate right now, I think
protectively. She doesn’t need the whole Gucci set gossiping about her love life.

I unfold myself from the bed. ‘Actually, Kirsty, she’s really cut up about Marc leaving. She hasn’t stopped crying for a week. She keeps going on and on about not wanting the
twins to come from a broken home. Davina made me promise to drag her by force if necessary to her divorce lawyer tomorrow. I think she’s terrified Clare will take him back if he comes
home.’

‘You know, you’ve totally got Clare over a barrel. You should ask for another pay rise.’

‘It’s not always about money,’ I say sharply. ‘I
like
Clare. She can be a pain in the arse sometimes, but she’s really nice. She doesn’t look down
her nose at me. She
needs
me.’

Kirsty grins unrepentantly. ‘That’s exactly why it’s the time to ask.’

Our farewells are a little cool. Sometimes Kirsty can be a bit . . .
hard
. She’s my best friend and everything, but I don’t think I’d want her to look after my
children. I know she’d take care of them, and look after them properly, but if I was a mother I’d want to know my kids were
loved
.

Clare’s already in bed when I get home, even though it’s not yet ten. I lie awake in the dark, listening to her muffled sobs next door. I’m a bit more upset
about Xan than I let on to Kirsty, but what’s happened to Clare makes my romantic upset look like a toddler’s tantrum.

To my surprise, when I knock on her door at seven the next morning, she’s already up and dressed. She looks like a corpse, but at least she’s getting on with it.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ I ask. ‘I can drop the twins at the Hurlingham—’

‘I’ll be fine. Nicholas Lyon is an old friend. Anyway,’ she adds firmly, ‘I’m sure this will be sorted out soon. It was just a silly row. Marc’s probably
nursing a hangover at Hamish’s and wishing he could come back home. I wouldn’t even be bothering Nicholas if Davina hadn’t made such a fuss.’

She sweeps blusher feverishly across her cheeks.

‘I could throw some spaghetti together tonight, if you like,’ I offer. ‘It’s about the only grown-up food I can do, apart from beans on toast.’

‘Don’t you have a date tonight?’

‘Not any more,’ I say casually.

Clare puts the brush down and turns to face me.

‘Jenna,’ she says carefully, ‘I know I might not seem the best person to talk to about romance right now, but I do have eyes in my head. I can see how well you and Xan have
been getting on. If you and he . . . if the two of you . . . well, I wouldn’t mind if something happened. Not that I’d have any right to mind, of course,’ she adds hastily.
‘But please don’t let me spoil anything. You don’t get many chances to be happy. Hang on to them when they come along.’

‘Never mind about me,’ I say robustly. ‘You’ve got enough to worry about. I’ll be fine.’

She doesn’t look fine as she leaves the house. She looks fragile and pale and very, very nervous. I hope this Nicholas Lyon has a big box of tissues. He’d better not let her roll
over and give that wanker Marc everything he asks for. She’s too bloody nice for her own good.

I’m in the kitchen drinking my tenth cup of coffee when the front door slams so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t come off its hinges.

‘The bastard!’ Clare cries, throwing her bag on the table. ‘He’s been
planning
this! He’s already filed for divorce on the grounds of
my
unreasonable behaviour! Mine!’

I nearly drop my mug in surprise. I’ve never seen her so furious.

‘He says I’m an unfit mother! He claims I tried to poison Poppy; he’s accused me of being violent and unstable and refusing to sleep with him. Well, that last bit’s true,
but the rest of it! It’s ridiculous! He wouldn’t even know which end to put the nappy on, and he’s going for custody!’

‘He’ll never win. They’re only six months old; no way will a judge give them to him.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ she seethes. ‘After everything he’s done! I’m sorry, Jenna, but this is the last straw.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Clare flips open her phone diary. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to bloody bury him.’

Clare cancels every credit card, freezes their joint account, and even takes him off the car insurance. Legally, she can do nothing about the house (though at least she
doesn’t need to change the locks) or his repeated demands, through his lawyer, for access to the twins. But she has every stitch of his clothes couriered to the hotel in London where
he’s staying, along with the books and files from his study, and the hideous mounted boar’s head she’s always hated. As Dad says when Mum goes off on one about something, ‘I
don’t know what effect she’ll have on the enemy, but by God, she terrifies me.’

I watch her pack up his boxes, amazed at how tough she’s being. Clare being Clare, she doesn’t snoop through his private files first. I know I would.

It’s as if she’s boxing up their entire marriage, I think, as she tosses in a silver-framed photograph of the two of them on their honeymoon. She’d have forgiven him almost
anything, except threatening to take her children. He crossed a line when he did that, and as far as she’s concerned there’s no going back.

A week later, a postcard arrives for me from San Francisco. I study the photograph on the front for a long time, picturing Xan standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, surrounded by gorgeous American
girls flashing their perfect white American teeth and tossing their glossy American pony-tails. I imagine them begging him to say something for them in his sexy British accent. The photograph
blurs, and I blink back tears.

‘Shall we read it?’ I ask Poppy.

She giggles, and knocks over her castle of empty yoghurt pots. I put her bowl of puréed parsnip in front of her, and step back out of range.

‘“Missing you more than you know,”’ I read. ‘We miss Uncle Xan too, don’t we? Especially at bedtime. “Look after Clare for me. Hope you enjoy your
birthday present.” Birthday present?’ I lift Poppy’s elbow out of her bowl, and wipe it. She puts it straight back in again. ‘My birthday isn’t till August.
What’s Uncle Xan up to?’

‘Blah bup,’ Poppy says.

‘My thoughts exactly.’

She woke up with a bit of a fever this morning, but she seems fine now. I don’t blame Clare for being a bit freaked out after our last medical drama, but she really didn’t need to
keep either of them home today. I’m glad I took Rowan to Baby Swim after all. It’s nice to spend time alone with Poppy. I can give her a bit more attention than I’m able to when
I’ve got both of them.

I hear the front door. ‘Mummy’s home early,’ I tell Poppy. ‘Isn’t that nice?’

Clare comes into the kitchen and goes straight to hug Poppy, heedless of the puréed parsnip smeared all over her daughter. She wouldn’t have done that a week or two ago.

‘Everything OK?’

She gives Poppy a final squeeze and brushes crumbs from her jacket. ‘It is now. Where’s Rowan? Down for a nap?’

‘Actually, after you left, he seemed much better.’ I wipe Poppy’s face and lift her out of the high chair. ‘I don’t think he had a temperature at all; it was normal
when I took it, anyway. I didn’t want him to miss out, so I took him to Baby Swim after all.’

‘No!’ Clare cries.

‘He was fine, honestly. I wouldn’t have let him go if I thought—’

‘You don’t understand. Marc’s just called me. He said he was going to the Hurlingham – I didn’t think it mattered, I thought they were safe here at home.’ She
collapses into a kitchen chair. ‘Oh God, Jenna, what am I going to do?’

It takes me a moment to clue in.

‘He’s just trying to upset you. He’s not going to do anything.’

‘He will. You don’t know how angry he is.’ She leaps up again, searching her bag for her car keys. ‘I have to get there first. I’ve got to stop
him—’

‘You don’t have time. Call the club and tell them not to let Marc near Rowan.’

I soothe Poppy as Clare demands to be put through to the Baby Swim class. She explains three times, to three different people, that her son must not be allowed to go home with his father.
‘No,’ she snaps, ‘I don’t have a court order. Yes, I realize that – yes, Marc is his father. Look, can you please just go and
find my son
?’

She paces the kitchen, the phone clamped to her ear.

‘It’ll be OK,’ I reassure her. ‘Even if Marc’s taken him, he’s not going to do anything. Where would he go? He’ll bring him back once he’s given
you a good scare.’

‘Supposing he doesn’t? Supposing he takes him to Canada or— Yes, yes, I’m still here. Have you found him?’

I know the answer even before she drops her phone and turns to me, her eyes wide with shock.

‘What am I going to do? Jenna, what should I do?’

I don’t hesitate. ‘We have to go to the police. I’m sure he’s not going to try to leave the country or anything stupid, but they’ll know what to do, just in case.
At least it’ll stop him pulling a stunt like this again.’

Sensible, law-abiding Clare makes me abandon the car on a double-yellow – ‘Who cares about parking tickets
now
?’ – and runs into the police station, Poppy in her
arms.

‘Please,’ she cries, ‘please, my husband’s taken my baby!’

The receptionist picks up a telephone, a door opens, and we’re suddenly surrounded by people and bombarded with questions. There is a moment or two of confusion over Poppy – ‘I
thought you said your husband had taken the baby?’ ‘Her
twin
! He took her
twin
!’ – and then Clare is separated from me and ushered into a private room at
the end of the hall.

As the crowd thins, I recognize Brendan, one of the two cops who gave Xan and me a ride in their police car. ‘Jenna! What are you doing here?’

‘Clare is Xan’s sister. I’m her nanny.’

‘I need you to give me some background,’ he says, walking me briskly down a narrow corridor to an interview room. ‘First, is there a restraining order against the
father?’

‘He and Clare only split up two weeks ago. They haven’t even been to court yet.’

‘So what makes her think he’s taken the baby? For good, I mean.’

I explain about Marc, the threatening phone call, the sudden abduction of Rowan from his Baby Swim class.

‘But he
is
the child’s father?’ Brendan says again.

‘Well, obviously, but—’

‘So there’s no legal bar to his access? No reason he shouldn’t pick his son up?’

‘Look, Clare’s not overreacting!’ I cry indignantly. ‘Marc said he was going to take him somewhere she’d never find them! He means it, he’s got this whole bag
filled with money hidden under the stairs—’

‘What do you mean?’ Brendan says sharply.

‘I found a holdall under the stairs about a week before they split up,’ I admit. ‘It was filled with hundred-dollar bills. Maybe a hundred thousand dollars
altogether?’

‘Did you mention this to Clare?’

‘I didn’t think it was any of my business,’ I say awkwardly. ‘I didn’t want her thinking I’d been poking around. And then Marc walked out, and after that I
just . . . forgot.’

I suddenly realize the implications of what I’ve said. Oh, God. Marc planned this from the beginning. That cash was his fuck-you money. If I’d told Clare, none of this would have
happened.

‘It’s OK,’ Brendan says kindly. ‘It’s not your fault. This may have nothing to do with it. Let’s just take one step at a time.’

We both know that’s not true, but it’s nice of him to say so.

He leaves me alone in the interview room for what seems like hours. Voices murmur outside, and at one point a secretary comes in to take down my name and address again. Fear makes me nervous and
angry. Why are they wasting time? Marc could be getting on a plane to God knows where! Why don’t they
do
something?

Finally, the door opens to admit a senior-looking officer with lots of gold buttons and a self-important expression. Behind him, Brendan can’t quite meet my eye.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask, looking from one to the other. ‘Have you found him?’

‘I think we need to take a step back,’ the older cop says pompously. ‘I’m sure they’ve just gone for an ice-cream and forgotten the time. Why don’t you take
the mother home and put the kettle on? I’m sure they’ll be back before you know it—’

‘Put the
kettle
on?’

‘I understand the same lady was here a few months ago,’ he says, glancing at Brendan for confirmation. ‘She reported the two children missing, and it turned out they were safe
and sound with the lady’s brother and you, miss.’

‘This is different!’ I yell. ‘He’s
taken
Rowan. Why don’t you get it?’