‘The Yorkshire puds are first class today, Katie,’ Sue’s father said.
‘Oh, good!’ Katie enthused, clearly pleased to have the spotlight back on her. ‘I tried out a new recipe today. It called for an extra egg white and it seems to have done just the trick.’
They all nodded and mmm’d and moved their forks and knives along their plates to show their appreciation for all of Katie’s efforts. The children, who had been slightly less appreciative, had already disappeared into their rooms after Katie had deemed them impossible to contend with. Generation Alpha, she’d intoned as she’d watched them tear up the staircase. It needs a book writing. Zac had a ‘gaming date’ as play dates were apparently too babyish and Jayden said she had a book she wanted to finish but Sue knew she was watching Gilmore Girls under her duvet. (Katie didn’t ‘agree’ with Gilmore Girls. Something about false expectations and too much caffeine that seemed slightly at odds with her son’s freedom to destroy things at will in his video games, but Sue wasn’t a parent and, as such, her opinions were generally dismissed.)
After they’d all refused second helpings of Katie’s (Marks & Spencer’s) lemon tart and Dean had fussed about triple checking no one wanting a coffee or a brandy, Katie did a little dingdingding on her glass and said, ‘Announcement time!’ She rose and beamed at them all and then, quite specifically, at Sue.
‘Suey …’ she began. ‘Dear, sweet, kind, Suey who has been through soverymuch these past few weeks. We want you to know, Dean and I …’ she reached out and gave his shoulder a little fingertip squeeze, ‘… we want you to know that you have our support one hundred per cent.’
Sue’s chin quirked to the side like a curious puppy. Support? The last she’d checked they were looking for a peculiar variation on indentured servitude from her.
Katie gave a trill of a laugh. ‘Of course, when we – when I – took the step to make our offer to you to look after the children for pay, we hadn’t realised you’d already gone and got yourself a flatmate. Welcome, Raven.’ Katie pressed a flat hand to her equally flat bosom. ‘Welcome to our home. We have so enjoyed having you as our guest today, but I have to admit we were surprised to hear about you. Nothing to worry about. It only took a tiny bit of the helium out of our well-filled balloon.’ She pinched a soupçon of air between her fingers, then looked at Dean and shook her head with a frozen smile that said, this family of yours simply doesn’t know how to stick to a well-laid plan, does it?
‘Aaaaanyway …’ Katie once again fixed her glow of largesse back on Sue. ‘Enough wittering. What Dean and I were thinking, was that, with everything that must be going on with you and the stages of grief still very much in the early phases, we thought perhaps I was a bit quick off the mark to ask you about looking after the kids full-time. Well. Part-time, given that you’d still be at the call centre, but, whatever spin you put on it, you’ve been a bit hesitant in taking up our offer. I thought you’d pounce on it, but I guess it shows you there’s always room in a friendship for mystery. As such, we sat down with our business heads on … our recruitment heads …’ She gave a little helpless shrug as if she and Dean simply couldn’t help it, they were born to recruit! ‘After a serious round of brainstorming, we decided you might need a bit of a sweetener. Like your mum did.’
Sue threw her mother a confused look. What were they talking about? Katie’s mum had been paid to look after the children and Bev had only looked after Jayden and Zac for the Disneyworld trip. There had been quite a bit of mention of Duty Free gin in the lead up to that trip. Was that what they were suggesting? Giving her some gin to look after their children?? In fact, now that Sue thought of it, the last time the topic had come up, Bev had said she’d rather gnaw her arm off than revisit the ‘gory’ days of parenting.
‘As such,’ Katie’s smile grew ever brighter, ‘We were wondering if you would like to join us and the children for a week in the Canaries!’ She sang ‘The Canaries’ in the way one might sing ‘a million pounds’. Sue waited. Katie had a way of putting forward propositions then following them up with the inevitable small print. ‘You’ll be sharing bunks with Jayden in case she has one of those nightmares she’s prone to and Zac’ll get the single. There’d only be a night or two when Dean and I would be going out alone and the children would need someone, you know, you, to look after them. Other than that … it’s a free holiday! We’ve booked the first week of May. Bought and paid for and just waiting for you to say yes! What do you think Sue?’ She gave her shoulders a dramatic little shimmy. ‘Have we put the right amount of icing on a pretty nice cake?’
Of all the things Sue disliked, having the spotlight on her was definitely one of them. Particularly when she felt as though someone had already made the decision on her behalf. It was the way her life worked. Perhaps more so now that she didn’t have her husband beside her to make up something that would get her out of it. Her future rolled out before her minus the red carpet. She would say yes. Katie and Dean would have an underpaid nanny for life. Raven would most likely move out, because she’d never be home and who wanted to be home
