earned that partnership, she really has, and then Anka, the nanny she’s had since Felix was one, has been stealing from her. Had she mentioned the stealing?
No, she hadn’t.
Well, if she’s honest, she’s known about it since last summer but not allowed herself to know, not wanting to know. First, it was just small amounts of cash she thought she’d left around the house and couldn’t put her hands on. After that, other stuff went missing — a Walkman, a silver picture frame, that dinky digital camera Jim brought back from Singapore. The whole family — well, they’d just joked about their pilfering poltergeist and Deb had some better locks put on the doors. Because you never know. And then, just before Christmas, she mislaid her leather jacket, the lovely buttery one from Nicole Farhi she couldn’t possibly justify buying, and she could swear she hadn’t left it anywhere. Called all the restaurants she’d been to, emptied her wardrobe: nothing. Joked bitterly to Anka that she probably had early-onset Alzheimer’s, and Anka made her a cup of tea with three sugars — no wonder Slovakians have no teeth — and said sweetly, “You are a little tired only, I think. Not mad.”
So Debra would never have found out if she hadn’t popped home one afternoon between client meetings. Fiddling with her keys at the front door, she turned and saw Anka walking down the street pushing her daughter in her buggy and wearing her leather jacket. Said she felt so weak she could hardly move, but managed to get behind the dustbins and hide so Anka didn’t spot her.
Then, last Saturday, when Anka was away, Deb had gone into her room, like a burglar in her own home. And there in the cupboard, not even hidden at the back, was the jacket and a couple of Deb’s better sweaters. In a drawer, she found the camera and her grandmother’s watch, the one with the silver fish for a long hand.
“So what did you say to her?”
“Nothing.”
“But, Deb, you have to say something.”
“Anka’s been with us for four years. She brought Felix to the hospital the day Ruby was born. She’s a member of the family.”
“Members of your family don’t generally nick your stuff and then sympathize with you about it.”
I’m shocked at the flatness of my friend’s voice: all the fight ironed out of it.
“I’ve thought about this, Kate. Felix is anxious enough already, with me being away all the time. His eczema gets so bad. And he loves Anka, he really does.”
“Come off it, she’s a thief and you’re her boss. You wouldn’t put up with it at work for a minute.”
“I can live with her stealing from me, Kate. I can’t live with the children being unhappy. Anyway, that’s enough of me. How are you?”
I take a deep breath and then I stop myself. “I’m fine.”
Debra rings off, but not before we’ve made another lunch appointment we won’t keep. I put her name in my diary anyway, and around it I draw the dumb smiley face Deb always drew in the margin next to mentions of Joseph Stalin in our mutual European history notes in 1983. (One of us got to go to the lecture; the other got the lie-in.)
What is the cost when you pay someone else to be a mother to your children? Has anyone calculated it? I’m not talking about money. The money’s a lot, but how much is the other thing?
THURSDAY, 4:05 A.M. Emily wakes me to tell me she can’t sleep, so now that makes two of us. I check her forehead, but the fever turns out to be excitement over Disneyland Paris, where we are all heading later today, if I can get my jobs done in time. My daughter has wanted to go to Disneyland ever since she figured out that the Sleeping Beauty castle at the end of all her videos was a real place.
Now she climbs into bed beside me and whispers, “Will Minnie Mouse know my name, Mummy?” I say, Of course she will! and my daughter burrows marsupially into the small of my back and drifts off, while I lie here, more awake by the second, trying to remember everything I need to remember: passports, tickets, money, raincoats (obviously, it will be raining, it’s a holiday), jigsaws/crayons/paper in case we get stuck in Channel Tunnel, dried apricots for nourishing snack, Jelly Babies for bribes, chocolate buttons for total meltdowns.
Didn’t Mrs. Pankhurst say something about women needing to stop being a servant class for men? Well, we tried, Emmeline; boy, did we try. Women do the same jobs now as men and do them equally well. But all the time, women are carrying around the information. The information that won’t leave them alone. I reckon that inside a working mother’s head, every day, is the control tower at Gatwick. MMR vaccinations (to jab or not to jab), reading schemes, shoe sizes, holiday packing, child care — cunningly assembled from wings and prayers — all circling and awaiting further instruction from air traffic control. If women didn’t bring them safely in to land — well, the whole world would crash, wouldn’t it?
12:27 P.M. The pigeon has laid two eggs. Elliptical in profile, they are startlingly white with a faint blue tinge. The mother and father appear to be taking it in turns to sit on them. Watching them reminds me of the shifts Rich and I do with the kids when one of them is sick.
By the end of today, I need to have written four client reports, sold a vast number of shares (with the markets melting down, company policy is to have more cash) and bought a flock of chocolate ducklings from Thorntons. Plus Momo and I are working on another pitch for an ethical account in Italy. And I haven’t even heard from Jack this morning and I long to see the little envelope appear in the top right-hand corner of the screen that tells me he’s out there thinking of me as I am thinking of him.
(What did it feel like before? Before I was waiting for his messages. Waiting and waiting. Either waiting or reading his last message or composing my reply and then waiting again. No longer in a state of living but in a constant state of waiting. The impatience like a hunger. Staring at the screen to summon the words into existence, willing him to speak.)
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
Jack, are you there?
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? Speak, dammit!!
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
Did I say something wrong?
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
Hello?
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
What could you POSSIBLY be doing that’s more important than talking to me? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: Kate Reddy
From: Jack Abelhammer
To: Jack Abelhammer
From: Kate Reddy
OK, you’re forgiven. That’s lovely. Sonnet by Bill Gatespeare, right? But let’s get one thing clear: any more
