The Nanny (9 page)

‘I’m just finishing with Poppy—’

She picks up my son. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort out his bottle. Everything OK?’

‘Yes, fine.’ I hesitate. ‘Well. Actually, Marc and I had words.’

‘Yeah, me and Jamie had a few over the weekend . . .’

‘He doesn’t want me to go back to work.’

She snorts. ‘I’d like to see him giving up the expense accounts and company car to change shitty nappies.’

Instantly I regret my impulsive confidence. I’ve got no right to criticize my husband in front of the nanny.

‘He’s under a lot of pressure,’ I say quickly, ‘this recession – the bank—’

‘Jamie’s the same. All macho,’ Jenna says, kissing Rowan’s bare toes.

I feel a pang of something bittersweet as I watch my son gurgle and reach for her; it hurts my chest, my breasts. I’m glad that my children love her, I
want
them to; and yet.

And yet.

She lifts his soft vest and blows a raspberry on his round belly. ‘Jamie thinks the man should be the provider, though he doesn’t mind spending my money now he’s screwed up his
business.’

‘Oh, but that’s the thing,’ I confide. ‘Marc’s never been like that. He’s always been really proud of what I do, I’ve heard him boast about it to his
friends. He’s got five older sisters, he really respects women. Although,’ I add thoughtfully, ‘none of his sisters has worked since they had kids.’

‘So you’re going to fire me and stay home after all?’

‘Heavens, no. No! I’d go mad if I couldn’t work.’

‘He’s just going to have to deal with it then, isn’t he?’

‘I suppose he is,’ I smile.

‘You need to make it clear nothing’s changed, Clare. I see it all the time: men marry a really successful woman, then she has kids, and suddenly he expects her to stay home and turn
into a perfect housewife. But if she does, he gets bored with her and fucks off with the au pair.’

Her language is a bit – well – colourful, but she does cheer me up.

‘Maybe I
should
fire you if you’re going to run off with my husband.’

‘Yeah, but then you’ll be stuck with him for ever.’

I laugh. ‘Oh, Jenna. What would I do without you?’

‘I’ll remind you of that next time I want a pay rise.’

She thinks I’m joking, but what
would
I do without her?

I listen to her chatter to Rowan as she takes him downstairs. He never laughs like that with me. Jenna is a lifesaver; my rock. Already, after just two months, she’s become the lynchpin of
the family.

That first morning, as I waited for her to arrive, I was literally sick with nerves, racing off to the lavatory twice to throw up. Maybe I shouldn’t have hired her, I panicked; maybe I
shouldn’t have hired
any
one. I’d made a dreadful mistake. What was I thinking, opening my home to a complete stranger, handing my babies over to someone I barely knew?

I’d rushed around the house with jugs of flowers and scented candles, laying out plates of hand-made biscuits, wanting her to feel welcome, pleased to be here.
Love me, love my
babies
, I pleaded with my magazines and my body creams and my Lapsang Souchong,
help us, fix us, make it better.

And then she arrived, calm and reassuring, radiating competence. I watched Rowan turn to her, like a flower towards the sun, and knew I’d made the right decision.

Jenna imposed order. She had the twins sleeping in their expensive cots in the nursery within a week (though Marc and I still lapse sometimes at weekends and put them in the pram in our room).
The nursery looks like a spread from a parenting magazine: the stuffed animals lined up with artful carelessness, babygros folded just so, cot sheets so crisp you could bounce a coin off them. No
matter how closely I try (and I took a photograph one Friday night after she’d left for the weekend, so I could copy it precisely) I can never make it look quite the same.

With Jenna in the nursery, I’ve been able to take back control of the rest of my life. I’ve had my hair cut, the leak in the roof has been fixed, I’ve fired the cleaner (who
spent all her time drinking my expensive coffee and calling Brazil on my phone) and hired someone who actually knows where the mop is. Craig biked over the accounts for PetalPushers, and I’ve
caught up with my emails, all 407 of them. I know that when I go to work this morning, the twins will be happy and cared for and organized without me.

The real surprise, though, is how much I enjoy Jenna’s company. We come from different worlds, of course. I don’t expect us to be real friends. But I’ve never had a sister, and
Davina and I are hardly close. It’s so nice to have a girl around.

Poppy disengages milkily from my breast, and I button my nightdress and take her down to the kitchen. A month ago I’d have cringed at the very idea of allowing a virtual stranger to see me
half naked and without my make-up, but it’s as if Jenna and I have signed an unspoken pact, and entered a partnership that’s already intimate. A partnership, I acknowledge, that
excludes Marc.

I put Poppy in her pink Bumbo seat and pour myself a glass of orange juice.

‘Jenna!’ I exclaim suddenly, noticing her bruised cheek. ‘How did you get that?’

‘Cupboard door swung back and caught me,’ she says, too quickly.

I watch as she takes apart Rowan’s bottle and puts it in the sterilizer. Last week, she caught her hand in the car door. The week before, she burned her arm on the iron.

‘You seem very accident-prone,’ I say carefully, ‘when you go home.’

She laughs. ‘Too many vodkas, that’s all.’

‘Jenna—’

‘Better get going. The twins need their bath.’

I can’t force her to confide in me. And I could be wrong, of course. Maybe she
is
just partying hard at weekends, getting drunk, falling over. She knows so much about my life, but
I still know next to nothing about hers.

You’ve never asked
.

I suddenly feel ashamed. For the past few weeks, Marc’s worked late at the office most evenings, so Jenna and I have fallen into a comfortable routine. She goes through my cookery books
for a recipe she fancies, and washes and chops everything ready for when I get home. I throw it together – she can’t cook, it seems, apart from nursery food – while she opens a
cheap bottle of wine for the two of us. It’s so nice chatting over dinner. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed having someone to talk to.

But I haven’t given a second thought to what
she
might have to say. Guiltily, I resolve to make more effort to draw her out in future. I want her to feel she can tell me anything.
I want us to be friends.

Before I leave for work, I run upstairs to kiss the twins goodbye.

‘I haven’t seen these outfits before,’ I say, surprised. ‘Where did they come from?’

She looks pleased. ‘I went shopping at the weekend, and saw them. I couldn’t resist.’

Oh dear. I rather wish she had. She’s dressed Poppy in a hideous outfit emblazoned with Hannah Montana stencils, and Rowan in some sort of faux-tartan waistcoat and black jeans. I hope she
doesn’t take them out anywhere. People might think I’d dressed them like this.

Don’t be such a snob
, I tell myself.
You’re as bad as Davina. It was a lovely gesture.

‘You shouldn’t have,’ I scold, ‘you must let me pay you back—’

‘No, please. I wanted to. I like buying them things.’

‘As long as you don’t make a habit of it.’

She turns away. ‘I like buying things,’ she says again.

‘
Sex and the City
is on in two minutes,’ Jenna calls from the sitting room.

I put the roasting tin into the sink to soak, and load the dishwasher. ‘Would you like a cup of rooibos tea?’

‘Why don’t we just finish the Pinot?’

Help. I’m not used to drinking this much, but I don’t like to say no.

‘Marc hates this programme,’ I say, curling up on the sofa.

‘So does every straight man on the planet. That’s the whole point.’

A key rattles in the front door. There’s a thump as Marc flings his briefcase on to the hall table. ‘Christ,’ he exclaims. ‘I’ve had the most fucked-up
day.’

I listen as he walks through to the kitchen and mixes his usual (whisky, a dash of water, no ice). ‘This credit crunch is killing us,’ he calls. ‘Another two of the big US
banks just wrote down huge losses. We can forget about bonuses again this— Oh. Jenna. I didn’t realize you were here.’

‘Hi, Marc.’

I swing my legs down to make room for him next to me on the settee. He doesn’t sit down.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he says curtly.

‘What about?’

‘Do you mind if we go upstairs and discuss it?’

‘We’re watching
Sex and the City
,’ Jenna says.

Marc scowls. I put down my glass. ‘It’s OK, Jenna. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘Doesn’t she know to take a hint?’ Marc hisses furiously as we go upstairs. ‘It’s after ten o’clock! When do we get to spend any time alone?’

‘Sssh! She’ll hear you. Be fair, Marc. You’ve only just got home. She was keeping me company.’

‘Well, she needs to learn when to give us some privacy.’

Emboldened by the wine, I slide my arms round his waist. ‘Why,’ I murmur, ‘would we need privacy?’

He stiffens. I’m quite sure he’s about to push me away; and then, suddenly, the tension leaches out of him and he pulls me close. ‘Mrs Elias,’ he whispers thickly into my
hair, ‘you’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you.’

I’ve missed you too
.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, the warm haziness of the wine gives way to a sharp, greedy hunger. I grab his face between my palms and kiss him: a hot, grinding kiss that crushes his lips against his
teeth.
I want my husband inside me
, that kiss says.
I want him to fuck me
now.

Marc falls backwards on to the bed, pulling me on top of him. His answering erection presses into my stomach. He yanks up my skirt and tugs aside my knickers, fingers probing roughly between my
legs. I grope for his belt buckle, freeing his penis. He’s pulling my T-shirt over my head, scooping my heavy breasts from my bra. My nipples tingle, and a few drops of milk leak on to his
chest. He catches one swaying breast, sucking hungrily.

Slipperiness gushes between my thighs. I guide him inside me and ride him hard, rearing back to take him in even deeper.

Moments later, Marc flips me abruptly over on to my back, and thrusts furiously. My orgasm breaks over me with such speed, I’m gasping for air. He comes within seconds and collapses
against my chest. He hasn’t even taken off his shirt.

By the time I remember to ask what he wanted to talk about, he’s already asleep.

I smile secretively as I go downstairs for breakfast, raw and throbbing in all the right places.

Jenna is feeding the twins their morning gruel: baby rice mixed with expressed breast milk. She glances up as I come into the kitchen, but doesn’t smile. She looks tired and rather fed
up.

I put on a pot of coffee, as Jenna seems to have forgotten this morning. ‘You’re up early.’

‘It’s eight-fifteen,’ Jenna says tightly.

I flush guiltily. ‘I didn’t realize. Marc must have turned the baby monitor off when he got up for work. Jenna, I’m really, really sorry.’ I reach for the breakfast bowl.
‘Let me do that—’

She snatches it away. ‘We’re up now.’

‘I’ll pay you overtime,’ I promise. ‘Or you can take some time off instead if you like?’

She finishes feeding the twins and makes a big production out of scraping the bowl into the waste disposal. She’s really annoyed with me. It can’t just be the early start, can it?
Oh, God. I don’t want her to take it out on the twins. Or supposing she quits and hands in her notice? I can’t manage without her, I can’t go back to—

‘Actually, Clare,’ Jenna says suddenly, turning round, ‘I’m going out tonight, so I will finish early and take some time off, if that’s OK. About five? It’ll
give me time to get ready and do my hair.’

I’d meant to stay late at PetalPushers, to go over the books with Craig and see if we can get to the bottom of the discrepancies.

For heaven’s sake.
You offered her the extra time off, even if you didn’t mean her to take you up on it
quite
so soon. But that’s not her fault. She wasn’t
to know. And she can’t be expected to work morning, noon and night, can she?

‘Yes, yes, of course, that’s fine. Are you going anywhere nice?’

‘There’s a new club opened in Stockwell, thought I’d give it a go.’

‘Sounds . . . fun.’

‘I’ll be back to start at seven tomorrow, usual time. Don’t worry if I don’t come home before then, though.’

I smile awkwardly. ‘I don’t know how you can stay up all night and then work all day. I don’t think I could do it.’

‘Guess it’s easier when you’re young,’ Jenna shrugs. ‘Right, I’d better get on. I don’t want to end up behind today.’

Ouch. I’ve been thinking of myself as more or less Jenna’s age, but of course she doesn’t. I suppose thirty-seven seems ancient to her.

Davina is right, as usual. We’re never going to be friends.

‘Do I look old to you?’ I ask Craig.

He hefts a bucket of early pink cherry blossom out of the way of the fire door. ‘Darling girl, when you get to my age, Elizabeth Taylor seems young.’

‘That’s not terribly helpful,’ I sigh.

‘Sweets, you’re ageless. Helen of Troy. If I didn’t bat for the other side, I’d have put the moves on you long ago. Why the mirror-mirror soul-searching now?’

I’ve never quite figured out why Craig affects an outrageously camp persona at work, when he’s actually happily married with three gorgeous daughters and another baby on the way.
Perhaps he thinks it’s expected of a man who works with flowers, like hairdressers.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I say disconsolately. ‘Just feeling a bit sorry for myself.’

‘You saw Davina last week?’

‘Well, yes—’

‘And your nanny is young, free and single?’

‘Not quite single, but yes—’

‘There you are, then. Asked and answered.’

I’ve never been a great one for nightclubs and parties. I’m not very good at dancing, and I hate getting drunk and out of control. I can’t think of anything worse than
schlepping across London to some cold warehouse playing music that makes my head hurt, and then having to get up the next day to work. I’d hate to be back in the dating pond, kissing toads. I
love being married, being settled. There’s absolutely no reason to feel jealous of Jenna—