Check competitors’ performance — perhaps theirs even worse? Conference call with Japanese office to discuss stocks. Sandals for Emily — or will be questioned by NSPCC over foot cruelty. Sugar Puffs, Panadol Extra. Cancel spa day.
31 Nanny Crisis
6:27 A.M. It’s still very early, but sitting out here in the garden I can tell it’s going to be a hot day. The air is glassy with the promise of heat. When I was away in the States, no one took care of the plants, so the snails have hoovered up my hosta and the pansies in the terra-cotta pots are practically desiccated. If you touch one it turns to purple ash. I planted that kind especially, too; it’s called heartsease. One day, when I have time, the garden will be beautiful. I am going to grow lobelias and camellias and bay and jasmine, and there will be carved stone troughs overflowing with heartsease.
I hear a yelp escape from a window high up the house. Like me, the children are finding it hard to sleep these warm nights. Ben already woke screaming around five when I was in the middle of some awful dream. You even dream differently in summer: fevered, tentacular dreams that pull you down towards thoughts you’d rather stayed buried. Anyway, when I went into his room, he was slithery with sweat, poor baby: slid through my arms like a seal pup. Took him into the bathroom, sponged him down — he’s suddenly afraid of his Piglet flannel for some reason — then changed him. Offered him a beaker of water and he was furious. “App-ul,” he demanded. “App- ul!”
How many times have I told Paula that he’s not allowed juice? In my mind, composed a major nanny bollocking, but Paula has been complaining of “women’s trouble” lately so could easily pull a sickie and the holidays are the worst possible time to find cover. Damn. Damn.
7:32 A.M. I could tell right away from Paula’s voice that she wasn’t coming in. And me chairing the Global Asset Allocation Committee today because Robin Cooper-Clark’s away with his boys and Emily and Ben with no school or nursery to occupy them and the nanny’s not coming in. Great.
Traditionally a period of pleasure and relaxation, the summer holidays are the very worst time of the year for a working mother. Warm weather and careless days act as a constant rebuke. There are outings you wish you could join, cool paddling pools you would like to slip off your shoes and step into, ice-cream cones whose vanilla tributaries you would be more than happy to lick.
Paula exhales a long complicated sigh. Says she’s not been feeling that well for a while and the rat thing, of course, has been very upsetting. But she didn’t want to worry me because I Know You’re Busy, Kate. A classic nanny tactic, this: landing a preemptive strike before your own more powerful grievance has a chance to leave the ground. Even as I murmur mmm’s of sympathy, I am riffling through my mental Rolodex searching for someone who can take the children just for today (Richard is away presenting plans for a Sunderland crafts yurt).
First thought: Angela Brunt, my neighbor and leader of local Muffia. I start dialing her number but suddenly picture Angela’s Ford Anglia face, headlamps on full gleam, when it becomes clear that the “high flyer” across the road is emerging from the burning fuselage of her own selfishness to beg for help. No. Can’t possibly give her the satisfaction. Instead, I call Alice, my TV producer friend, and ask a favor. Could her nanny Jo possibly have Emily and Ben? I wouldn’t ask only I have this big meeting, and taking time off from EMF is practically illegal, and—
Alice cuts me off with a raucous I’ve-been-there yelp. Says it’s fine so long as I have no objections to Jo taking the kids swimming with her boys. At this point, I have no objection to Ben and Emily going parascending in Borneo, so long as I can get into the City and start preparing for my meeting.
7:43 A.M. Call Pegasus. Winston answers the phone. Why? Doesn’t Pegasus have any other drivers? I’m starting to wonder what kind of racket he’s running.
Winston says he’ll be fifteen minutes; I tell him I need him in four.
“See what I can do,” he says coolly.
I have a sudden and impossible longing to climb onto the lap of a large comforting person and be held there for — oh, twenty-five years should probably do the trick.
“Mummy?”
“What is it, Em?”
“Heaven’s a nice place, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Heaven’s a very nice place.”
“Is there a McDonald’s?”
“Where?”
“In Heaven?”
“God, no. I need to pack Ben’s wings.”
“For Heaven?”
“What? No. Water wings. You’re going swimming. You remember Nat and Jacob, don’t you?”
“Why doesn’t Heaven have McDonald’s, Mum?”
“Because. I’ve no idea. Because dead people don’t need to eat anything.”
“Why don’t dead people eat anything?”
“Ben, no. No, Benjamin.
“Mummy, can I have my next birthday party in Heaven?”
“Emily,
7:44 A.M. Winston has pulled up outside the house in a new chariot — new to him, practically fossilized to the rest of us. The Nissan Primera is hidden behind a cloud of its own dirt, but at least when you open the door it doesn’t rain rust on your clothes. I load the children into the back, clasp Ben on my knee, and with the free hand call a nanny agency on the mobile. A Sloaney girl, her voice designed to carry across stag-rich moors, says she would really like to help, but it’s a particularly bad time for temps.
“It’s the school holidays, you know.”
Yes, I know.
Everyone’s been snapped up ages ago, only she does have this new girl on the books. Croatian. Eighteen. English not her best thing, but really keen. Likes children.
Well, that’s a start. Rack brain trying to remember which side Croatia was on in Balkan massacres. Think they sided with the Nazis in the war and are the good guys now; maybe it’s the other way round. I say OK, I’ll interview her tonight. What’s her name?
“Ratka.”
Of course it is. Must remember to call rat man. Why didn’t he show up? Emily pats my leg urgently. She has been deep in conversation with our driver.
“Mummy, Winston says the nice thing about being in Heaven is if you’re hungry you can lean over and bite off a bit of cloud. Like candy floss. The angels make it.” She looks far happier with this explanation than any I have managed to come up with.
Alice lives in a gentrified house on the edge of Queen’s Park: she bought in the area before a four-bedroom terraced cost more than Colorado. Once inside, my daughter wanders off happily to play with Nat and Jake, but Ben takes one look at the unfamiliar Brio set and clings to my right leg like a sailor lashing himself to the mast in a Force 10. I need to get out of here fast, but I have to spend a few minutes humbling myself before Jo the nanny. Can see her eyeing the hysterical toddler and wondering what she’s got herself into. I end up having to shake him off me and run out of the room with his screams at my back.
Sitting in the back of Pegasus, I try to read the
