The Au Pair

by Janey Fraser

  ‘And what are you doing outside still in your pj’s?’

  Harry pointed at her. ‘What are you doing in yours?’

  She’d completely forgotten about getting dressed! What kind of mother was she?

  ‘We’re digging for worms.’

  Digging for worms?

  ‘Yes.’ Harry nodded at her. ‘We’re going to sell them to the men by the canal for bait so we can give you and Dad some money.’

  Alfie’s little face looked twisted with worry. ‘We heard you arguing cos we don’t have enough to pay the bills and we don’t want you to worry any more or get divorced like Clemmie’s mum.’

  Now she really did know she was a lousy mother. ‘Alfie, darling. And Harry too.’ She crouched next to them. ‘That’s very sweet of you but, honestly, it’s all right. Parents do argue sometimes, just like brothers. But it doesn’t mean they’re going to get divorced.’ She stopped, wondering how to phrase the next bit. ‘As for the money, well, it’s true that things are tight but we can manage. Honestly we can.’

  His face brightened. ‘Really? Then can we have a laptop each cos everyone else has got one? Tom says he’s selling his cos his mum is getting him a state-of-the-tart one.’

  ‘We’ll see. Now why don’t we all go back into the house, get dressed and have something to eat. I’ve got a bit of work to finish off and then maybe we’ll go out for the afternoon.’

  Even as she made her promise, Jilly remembered she had to interview Heidi. More importantly, she needed to find Nick to tell him it was all right. Honestly, how did working mums do it all? Returning to the kitchen, she turned on the radio for some light relief while she tidied up her files.

  ‘The body of the young woman who was found in Hyde Park earlier this week has now been formally identified as Sozzy Psuzki, a twenty-two-year-old au pair from Corrywood in Bedfordshire.’

  Jilly’s skin began to crawl.

  ‘She had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Police are appealing for witnesses or anyone who can provide any information.’

  Shaking, Jilly picked up the phone. ‘Paula? Have you heard about that au pair?’

  ‘Awful, isn’t it?’ Her friend’s voice was a mixture of excitement and shock. ‘She was meant to be working for one of the dads at school actually; you know, Matthew Evans, whose wife died. Apparently she was only there for a few hours before storming out. In fact, he’s been leaving his little girl Lottie with us while he finds another.’ She sounded embarrassed. ‘I did tell him you’d set up an agency but he wanted one that belonged to a professional organisation. Sorry.’

  Jilly was still trying to take all this in. ‘So where did this poor au pair come from?’

  ‘An agency in London.’

  ‘I mean which country?’

  ‘Let me think. It reminded me of the Wombles when I was a kid. That was it. Bulgaria! Poor Matthew’s in an awful state. He hasn’t had much luck with au pairs. After that one, he had another who went through his wife’s stuff so that’s why we said he could share Antoinette. Sorry. Must dash. I’ve got my belly-dancing class.’

  Jilly leaned for a few minutes against the kitchen counter. Supposing this had happened to her? What if her agency had been responsible for placing that poor murdered girl? She’d feel terrible about it!

  After all, she and countless other women throughout the country were finding jobs for thousands of young girls, most of whom had barely left school. They were launching them into a world where they were expected to take on huge responsibilities like looking after young children and yet, at the same time, some of them – maybe like this poor Bulgarian girl – were no more than kids themselves. What had she got herself into? And wasn’t this even more of a reason for taking in poor Fat Eema who had nowhere else to go?

  ‘Jee-lee?’

  Talk of the devil! Fat Eema, wearing one of her old navy-blue Mothercare dressing gowns, lumbered into the kitchen and sank down on the chair with a groan of relief. ‘I feel more restful today!’ She grinned, revealing that gap along with a rather black-looking side tooth.

  Mentally Jilly added ‘Ring dentist’ to her list.

  ‘I feel starvation.’ She patted her stomach, which seemed larger, if that was possible, than when she’d arrived. ‘We eat breakfast now. Yes?’

  ‘But it’s already lunchtime,’ Jilly began. Then she stopped. Forget it! There were more important things to sort out.

  Heidi, who arrived dead on time for the interview, was virtually perfect. She was slightly older than most of the girls on her books and her English was excellent. Her references were glowing. In fact, there was only one drawback. She was stunning. Absolutely stunning with naturally blond hair, or so it seemed, china-blue eyes and a lovely smile. Exactly what the wives of Corrywood wouldn’t want.

  ‘I am fed up with waitressing in London and I want to look after children now,’ Heidi told Jilly as they sat in the sitting room, which she’d hastily cleared up a few minutes earlier, shoving stuff behind cushions. ‘I do not want to find a job from the internet because I think it is better to have the personal contact like this. Ja?’ She beamed, showing flawless teeth. ‘Then if anything goes wrong, I have a person to go back to and not an email address which does not answer. Ja?’

  ‘I am sure we can find you a family,’ Jilly assured her. ‘In fact, I have a waiting list. But we need to find the right one for you. If you leave it with me, I will be in touch.’ A thought came to her. ‘Where are you living at the moment?’

  The girl’s smile wavered slightly. ‘In a hostel in London. There are six girls to one bathroom.’ She made a face. ‘Some are not very clean.’

  Jilly bit her lip. The news item about that poor Bulgarian au pair had been haunting her all day. Supposing something happened to Heidi before she got a placement? ‘Then we will make sure that we find you someone quickly,’ she said.

  The beaming smile returned. ‘Thank you.’ She extended her hand.

  As she showed Heidi out, Nick and a couple of friends walked up the path in soaking wet jeans, suggesting they’d been swimming in the canal again. She hadn’t seen him since the bedroom incident this morning and he was refusing, she noticed, to meet her eyes. Poor kid!

  ‘Heidi, this is Nick my son and some of his friends. Boys, this is Heidi, who is looking for a job as an au pair.’

  Three adolescent jaws dropped in front of her. Heidi flashed them another of her smiles. ‘Very pleased to join with you, ja?’

  It should be “meet you”, Jilly wanted to say but somehow that would have sounded rude.

  Then to Jilly’s amazement, she shook hands with each boy. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, ‘I do hope I will see you soon.’

  There was a short silence after she left and then one of Nick’s friends spoke. ‘She’s a real babe.’ He looked down at his hand. ‘I’m never going to wash this hand again. Never.’

  Nick was bright red. ‘Mum,’ he said.

  ‘Mmmm?’ Jilly was trying not to laugh.

  ‘I was thinking. Do you think we could get an au pair? Um, like that one?’

  Jilly shook her head. ‘Sorry. That’s why I work from home. So we don’t need any extra help.’

  ‘But we’ve got Fat Eema.’

  ‘Is that the munter you were telling us about, Nick?’

  ‘Boys!’ Thank heavens Fatima was asleep again. ‘That’s rude. Now if you lot are hungry, there’s some quiche in the fridge. Help yourself. I’ve got to make some calls. OK?’

  The first two families on her list had already found an au pair through other agencies. However, the third name – Mrs Parks – sounded interested and Jilly arranged for Heidi to visit the following day for an interview. Please may it work out, she thought, catching sight of the unpaid electricity bill. The final reminder would be here shortly.

  Then the phone rang. ‘Is that Jilly’s Au Pair Agency? This is Kitty Banks. One of my friends has just rung to say that you offered her a Swiss-German au pair but that she’d already got one. I’m on your book
s and I wondered why you hadn’t called me.’

  Kitty Banks … Jilly ran her finger down her list, propped under the milk that someone hadn’t put back in the fridge. She was near the bottom. ‘I’m afraid I have to take people in order but—’

  ‘I’ll pay extra! I’m quite happy to do that for the right person. I’m absolutely desperate. We can offer someone a very nice standard of living and I promise you that I will make it worth your while. ’

  Jilly’s mind flashed back to the Bankses’ house from her home visit. Not too flashy but definitely comfortable and Kitty Banks, she now recalled, was an intelligent if slightly pushy woman with just one child. Quite why she wanted another pair of hands wasn’t really any of her business.

  ‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way—’

  ‘I’ll pay you five hundred pounds as a placement fee instead of the original hundred and fifty,’ she cut in.

  Jilly paused. Five hundred pounds! That would more than pay the electricity and gas bill! But on the other hand, she’d just lined up an interview between Heidi and the other family. No. No. This wouldn’t be right. But then again, if they fell behind with the electricity, they’d be in trouble.

  ‘Can you hold on a minute?’ Jilly dialled Heidi’s number on the mobile. ‘Heidi, have you caught the train yet? No? Great. I wonder, could you possibly come back? There’s a family who wants to meet you for an interview. Yes. This afternoon if that’s all right with you.’

  The following day, there was a repeat plea on the radio about that poor murdered au pair. No one, it seemed, had come forward with any useful information. It worried her so much that she resolved to take some time out and visit the girls she’d already placed, in order to make sure they were all right. First on her list was Marie-France. Sure, the girl had said, when she’d called. She would be in although Dawn was out having colonic irrigation.

  ‘Is everything going all right?’ she asked as they sat by the pool watching Tom and Tatty Arna (as Marie-France called her) chuck water at each other. She’d had to bring the twins with her and they’d dived right in before she could stop them. Oh dear. It wasn’t as though they’d been invited round to play.

  ‘Fine.’ Marie-France nodded uncertainly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Marie-France sighed. ‘Dawn has accused me of stealing Tom’s mini-TV. He lost it and then – or so she says – he found it in my bedroom.’

  The old Jilly would have been instantly sympathetic but she was learning now. There were usually two sides to a story. ‘And did you take it?’

  Marie-France’s eyes flashed. ‘No! Dawn, she say that she will not eject me this time if I cook for her next dinner party. But if it happens again, I am out on my ears.’

  Jilly hesitated. During her years in HR, she’d developed what she thought was an intuition for knowing if people were genuine or not. Part of her felt Marie-France was telling the truth but there was also something that wasn’t quite right …

  ‘Is there anything else?’ She looked at the kids, who were now shrieking at each other at the tops of their voices. Tom had a reputation at school for being ‘a live wire’.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ The girl flushed. ‘I need some assistance for a research project I am doing.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  The girl carried on talking without taking her eyes off Tom and Tatty Arna as they splashed water at each other furiously. That was good, noted Jilly. It showed the girl was responsible. ‘It is about the lives of English people about twenty years ago. Do you know anyone who lived in Corrywood then?’

  ‘No.’ Jilly was slightly taken aback by the question. She’d expected something about the standard of her room or the kids but not this. Still, Marie-France was one of the more intelligent au pairs. She vaguely remembered from her form that she was going to read psychology at the Sorbonne when she went back. ‘I don’t. Sorry. We only moved out here five years ago.’

  She nodded disappointedly. ‘OK. It doesn’t matter. Tom, please don’t fire that water gun straight at Tatty Arna’s face like that. You might destroy her.’

  Jilly was impressed. The girl seemed to have the right balance of firmness and kindness. She only hoped the ‘theft’ incident was a misunderstanding.

  ‘Madame Jilly, there is one more thing I like to tell you. It is about your friend Paula’s au pair. Antoinette. She is not one of your girls, no?’

  ‘No. Paula found her through an agency before I’d set mine up. How do you know her?’

  ‘Through school. I do not think she looks after her family very well. The other day, we went back to her house and the little girl, she is in the garden on her own. Antoinette leaves her while she goes to language school. The other day, she left her for two hours when we all went shopping in Knights Bridge.’

  Jilly was astounded. ‘You are sure of this?’

  Marie-France nodded. ‘Absolument.’

  That was awful! ‘Thank you for telling me. Paula has gone on holiday for a fortnight – without Antoinette – but I’ll have a word when she gets back.’ Jilly got to her feet. ‘And do be careful when you go up to London. It can be a busy place. ’

  Marie-France smiled. ‘Do not worry. I can look after myself.’

  She hoped so. After all, she was eighteen. But as she drove back, with the twins scrapping in the back of the car, she couldn’t help thinking again about that poor Bulgarian au pair.

  ‘Tom says that the French word for mother is mare but that’s a horse, isn’t it?’ demanded Harry, interrupting her thoughts.

  There was an audible dig in the ribs from behind. ‘No, it’s not, stupid. Mare means poo, doesn’t it, Mum? William’s au pair is always saying it.’

  Why did they constantly ask tricky questions when she was trying to concentrate on the road? ‘Well, mère and, er, merde are spelt differently although they sound sort of similar.’

  Alfie gasped. ‘So that means the French have the same word for poo and mother?’

  ‘Well, phonetically speaking, you could say that.’

  ‘What does phone etic mean?’

  Jilly sighed. ‘It’s how things sound.’

  ‘Like Tom’s mini-TV? That makes a really cool noise.’

  ‘Can we have one for Christmas if we’re really, really good?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is it cos we might do what Tom did?’

  Jilly was only half listening. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Hid it in the oh pear’s bedroom so everyone would think she’d nicked it.’

  What?

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘So he can get another, silly. A bigger one.’

  Really? So Marie-France wasn’t a thief after all! Thank goodness for that. Oh heck, that meant telling Dawn she was wrong. Something that probably wouldn’t go down well. And she also had to warn Paula about Antoinette …

  That evening, after leaving a message for Paula on her answerphone, Jilly resisted the temptation to sort out her paperwork and cooked a huge shepherd’s pie instead.

  Unusually, David was back early enough for them all to eat together. Hastily, she put out two extra chairs to accommodate him and Fat Eema, who started tucking in before the rest of them, as if she hadn’t just had a huge lunch three hours earlier.

  ‘That’s rude!’ said Harry in a shocked voice but Fat Eema just ploughed on through her meal, regardless.

  ‘Can’t we eat in front of the telly like we usually do?’ whined Alfie.

  David shot her a look. ‘No. We’re going to talk together.’

  Nick groaned. ‘Boring. Anyway, we can’t all talk together because someone here can hardly speak English so that means we can say whatever we want!’

  ‘Now come on,’ said Jilly briskly, about to dish up another portion. ‘Let’s just …’

  Not the phone. Again!

  ‘Leave it,’ said David sharply.

  The voice on the answerphone was so loud that they could hear it from the hall. ‘Jilly, this is
Dawn. What the hell do you think you were doing, coming round to my house – uninvited – and letting your kids play in our pool? If I’d checked you out on Google, I wouldn’t have used you in the first place.’

  David frowned. ‘What was that all about?’

  Jilly jumped up to turn on her laptop. ‘The twins came with me on a home visit, that’s all, but I don’t know what she meant by Google … Oh my God!’

  ‘What is it?’ David was behind her now.

  ‘Look! On the comment section right under the reference to my website.’

  Feeling sick, she read it out loud. ‘WARNING! DO NOT USE THIS AGENCY. I have just been gazumped! Jilly’s Au Pair Agency promised me I was next on the list for an au pair but then I found out that she placed her with another family who were prepared to pay more. YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD!’

  MORE USEFUL PHRASES FOR AU PAIRS

  I have lost my front door key

  I have missed the last train back

  I am homesick

  I think I have caught nits from your kids

  I am eight weeks late

  I have blocked the shower

  I have put the cat back in the bag

  Chapter 11

  DAWN, THOUGHT MARIE-FRANCE gratefully, hadn’t been too bad since Tom had grudgingly admitted – thanks to Jilly’s intervention – that he had planted the mini-television in her room.

  ‘You will lose your allowance for the month,’ Phillip had thundered in the horrific row that had ensued. Just as well he hadn’t seen the rude face that Tom had made behind his back.

  Marie-France had felt both angry and deeply embarrassed. She hadn’t come to England to get embroiled in family squabbles or be accused of petty theft. The only reason she was here was to find her father!

  The next step, she decided, was to go back through all those Smiths in the telephone directory, and write each one a little note. They might respond to that better than a phone call. But there were seventeen Smiths altogether and even though only a handful had ‘J’ as an initial, she ought to check them all out just in case.

  So she’d pedalled round to every one of them on the expensive eighteen-gear flashy silver bike which Dawn had lent her (‘No one else uses it so you might as well’). In her note, she explained she was trying to get in touch with a Mr John Smith but didn’t say why, just in case it scared them off. So far, not one person had come back to her even though she’d left Madame Green’s landline number and her own mobile.