The Au Pair

by Janey Fraser

  ‘Sheila,’ said Angela timidly.

  ‘No, Angela, we owe them the truth.’

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ Marie-France threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. ‘This is mad house. Someone explain to me. Yes?’

  ‘Very well.’ Jilly’s dad was giving her a strange look. ‘After all, it affects you more than anyone else.’

  What did he mean?

  His voice was firm, rather like an actor’s, and when he spoke, he looked straight at her in a way that made it hard to look anywhere else. It was mesmerising. Hypnotic even. ‘I don’t know how much your mother has told you but when she was your age, she worked as an au pair in Corrywood for our friend Angela Wright.’

  Marie-France shot her mother an accusing glare. ‘So much for John Smith!’ she hissed in French. ‘Do you know how much time I wasted?’

  ‘I lied, chérie.’ Her mother shrugged as though this was perfectly acceptable.

  Jilly’s mother gave her usual snort. ‘So she still hasn’t learned to tell the truth. And before you say things you might regret, Collette, you might recall that my French is rather good.’

  ‘And I,’ flashed back Maman, ‘understand more English than you might think, even if I do not speak perfect!’

  ‘Please, both of you!’ cut in Hugh. ‘Let me continue. Angela had two sons. The older one, from her first marriage, was called Adam. He was a great friend of Jeremy’s.’

  Was? Instinctively, Marie-France’s skin began to prickle.

  ‘Tragically,’ continued Jilly’s father, ‘Adam died from an asthma attack at twenty-three. He was allergic to all kinds of things.’

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ said her mother, quietly crossing herself. Marie-France’s head was spinning. Adam was allergic? To all kinds of things? Including dogs, perhaps?

  The older man was looking directly at her now. ‘When the boys were only sixteen, Collette was babysitting Adam’s younger brother in Corrywood. Jeremy was staying with them during the summer holidays and we were due to collect him that night. But when we arrived, we found him and Collette in, let’s say, a “compromising position” upstairs.’

  ‘Dad!’ Jeremy was puce red.

  ‘Let me continue, son. But it transpired that Collette had also been intimate with Adam.’

  ‘Non!’ Marie-France whipped round to face her mother. She still couldn’t get used to the change in her appearance. What had happened to her mother’s usual chic self? ‘Please tell me this is not true?’

  ‘They were just silly boys, experimenting,’ added Angela quickly. She smoothed down her hair nervously. ‘I wish now that we hadn’t made such a fuss about it. In fact, we wouldn’t have done if…’

  Her voice tailed away but it was too late. ‘If my mother hadn’t got pregnant with me, you mean! That’s what happened, wasn’t it?’

  Collette nodded slowly.

  ‘A baby?’ Jeremy gasped. ‘You had a baby?’

  ‘We kept it from you, son,’ intercepted Hugh smoothly. ‘No point in ruining your life. Or Adam’s either.’ He sighed. ‘At least that’s what we thought at the time. Anyway, when this girl wrote to us from France about her pregnancy, she admitted she didn’t know which one of you was the father. For all we know, it could have been a third person!’

  ‘Non!’ Collette’s eyes were flashing. ‘I am no slut.’

  Jilly’s mother snorted. ‘Really?’

  ‘We paid her a sum of money every month.’ Angela took over in a subdued voice. ‘It wasn’t easy for us because we weren’t as well off as Sheila and Hugh. But the worst bit was that it destroyed our friendship. Sheila said I should have somehow stopped Collette from seducing a pair of teenagers under my roof.’ She threw Hugh a grateful glance. ‘Luckily not everyone blamed me.’

  Jeremy, pink-faced, cut in. ‘She didn’t seduce us. We … we were just as willing.’ He looked at Collette now as though seeing her for the first time. ‘She was a real stunner and, well, we’d never been that close to a girl like her before.’

  Collette pouted. ‘So you do not think I am good-looking now?’

  ‘Of course but—’

  ‘Please!’ Marie-France made to cover her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

  ‘But you must!’ thundered Collette. ‘You are all forgetting what happened to me! My parents, they said they would have nothing to do with me. I had to bring up my daughter on my own.’ She pointed at Jilly’s mother. ‘That woman, she returned the pictures I send of you as a baby. Didn’t even want to know your name. Not like Angela. She was much more gentille.’

  She swayed as though she was going to faint and Marie-France held on to her arm. ‘I had to move into a small village where no one knew me. At first I pretend I am a widow but then the rumours start. After that, many people, they would not talk to me. And their children, they would not play with my daughter.’

  She gave Marie-France a scared look. ‘I am sorry, chérie. You must be so ashamed of your mother.’

  Yes she was! But she was also shocked by the way she had been treated by these people in front of her. ‘My mother was barely eighteen!’ Marie-France glared round the room. ‘Not much more than a child. Yet you thought you could just pay her off like that and get rid of us. Well, you can’t.’

  ‘Can’t we?’ Jilly’s mother’s eyes flashed. ‘From what my daughter has told me, you have inherited your mother’s morals. Didn’t you make a play for some woman’s husband? Phillip, wasn’t it?’

  Marie-France shot Jilly a baleful how-could-you look. Then she realised they hadn’t covered the most important point of all. ‘But who is it? Who was my father? Was it Adam?’

  Silence.

  ‘Or is it’ – she pointed a finger at Jeremy in his clerical collar and pink face – ‘you?’

  ‘That’s exactly it.’ Jilly’s mother’s voice rang out in a strangled cry. ‘We still don’t know. Your mother refused to have any tests, so she could collect two lots of money. If we didn’t, she threatened to tell the boys about you. She blackmailed us!’

  Collette shrugged. ‘It is true. But my life was ruined. How else was I to survive?’

  Marie-France wanted to shake Maman and Jilly’s stupid mother and that man with the vicar’s collar. ‘You know what?’ she yelled at them. ‘I don’t care. Because I never want to see any of you again.’

  Rushing away from her mother, she dashed past the other room with all the guests and out into the road, narrowly avoiding a car. Shaken, she walked on and on, shivering in the cold but desperate to get as far away as possible from the horrible truth behind her. Finally, breathless and damp from the fine rain that had begun to fall, she reached a town with a station sign.

  Thank God! She just had enough in her purse for the London train which was arriving right now! Leaping on before anyone could stop her, she took a seat next to a child who was scrambling over her mother’s lap, uninterested in the colour book on the table.

  ‘She’s a real pain to keep still,’ the mother said apologetically but Marie-France, who would normally have made a funny face to amuse the child, looked away, her head reeling and her feet aching as the train jolted its way further and further away from the terrible, embarrassing, toe-curling scene she had just witnessed.

  Her mother had slept with two teenage boys! How awful was that? No wonder she’d made up a name – because she didn’t know the real one! But as the train drew nearer to London and her thoughts became clearer, Marie-France realised something else. Her mother’s arrogant behaviour all these years had hidden a terrible pain and shame.

  Was it really right that she should be punished all this time later for something stupid she had done – with the encouragement, no doubt, of two randy teenage boys – at the age of eighteen?

  But where did that leave her? Who was her father? Was it Jeremy, the blond vicar with the pink face who now seemed a bit of a wimp instead of the hunk she’d originally thought he was. He should have stood up and explained the situation like a real man instead of stuttering and flushin
g and wringing his hands like that. Or was he Angela’s dead son? Tears pricked her eyes. Neither seemed particularly appealing! Neither seemed like the image of the handsome strong courageous image of her father that she had carried in her head for so many years! Maybe now this Adam was dead, she might never know. Marie-France could have wept with frustration if it were not for all the people around her. How could she have come so near but still be so far from the truth?

  At Waterloo, Marie-France stood for a while in the station, pushed in different directions by passengers who all – unlike her – had somewhere to go. She certainly didn’t feel like making her way across the tube system and returning to Matthew’s. Not yet anyway. She needed somewhere to think. Somewhere quiet.

  Even though it was nearly dusk, there were still quite a few people in the park, including a large group of teenagers, sitting on the grass, swigging out of bottles. John Smith! John Smith! She eyed the label incredulously. Was that how her mother had thought up her so-called father’s name? From a drink?

  ‘Want to join us, gorgeous?’ One of the boys was holding out a bottle. It smelt like beer. Thierry’s favourite tipple. How often had she tasted it in his mouth when they kissed?

  ‘Merci.’ Marie-France never drank beer or lager. She didn’t like the taste. But, Mon Dieu, she had to have something after the shock of what had just happened.

  ‘Aren’t you going to sit down with us?’ called out the boy as she walked on, still clutching the bottle. But his invitation washed over her as the horrific implications whirled round and round her head. For all her defensive words, the fact remained that Maman had slept with two boys at the same time. She was no better than Antoinette.

  A man in a leather jacket and a shock of black hair walked past, giving her a quick look. Her heart did a little flip. For a minute there, the stranger had reminded her of Thierry. What was it he had said in the pub after the swimming party? That there was something else he knew about her father. ‘I cannot tell you, Marie-France. Not yet. I made a promise.’

  Well now she knew too! Maybe she’d try and ring him right now. Out of everyone, Thierry was the only one who would understand how she felt. But where was her phone? Scrabbling in her bag, she couldn’t find it. Merde! Don’t say she’d dropped it somewhere? She’d need to go back. Retrace her steps.

  But the ground in front of her seemed wobbly. Perhaps it was the drink on an empty stomach which was making her light-headed, combined with the shock of the afternoon’s revelations. Walking back unsteadily the way she had come, still clutching the John Smith bottle, she could see fireworks in the sky. Pink and silver ones like giant arcs of light. Bang! A couple of kids suddenly chucked a banger on to the grass as she walked past which made her jump. It was getting really dark now. Scary. Cold.

  Marie-France shivered. Lucky little Lottie would be at the school bonfire party by now with Matthew. He would be holding her hand; keeping her safe like any good father would. Not like her own. Whoever he was.

  ‘Got any money to spare, love?’

  The gravelly voice behind her made her jump. Looking up, she saw it was the man in the leather jacket she’d seen earlier.

  ‘Non…’

  Merde! A sudden pain shot through her shoulder. The leather jacket man was trying to pull her bag away! The bag with the taped-together photograph of Thierry inside that she hadn’t been able to throw away, despite everything. ‘Give that back!’ she shouted furiously.

  If her right arm had been free, she could have done one of the judo movements that Thierry had taught her. Instead, with her left, she brought the bottle down with all her might on to the man’s head. But as she did so, a giant firework went off above them and in the light, she could see a glint of something metallic in her attacker’s hand.

  ‘Aaagh,’ she screamed. Mon Dieu! Her stomach was on fire. Roaring with agony. Shooting with pain as though a firework was going off inside her body.

  ‘Help!’ she tried to shout but no words would come out. ‘Au secours!’ And then everything went black.

  JILLY’S AU PAIR AGENCY: GUIDELINES FOR FAMILIES

  Your au pair is entitled to stay out all night if she wishes. But she should be back for work the next morning. Ask her to let you know if she’s going to be late, so you do not worry.

  Chapter 37

  MATTHEW AND LOTTIE were at the fireworks party when his mobile rang. His daughter was oohing and aahing at the purple and silver and gold loops and circles in the sky above. He’d never been a great one for fireworks, not even as a child. So much noise! And now as a father, the potential for accidents seemed horrendous.

  ‘Did you see that one, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes,’ he managed to reply, squeezing her hand, making sure she didn’t go anywhere.

  ‘Pretty, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very.’ Matthew tried to sound as though he was taking part in the fun but it was hard to concentrate. Not when he was worried sick about how he was going to support them, now he was out of a job.

  Lottie was leaping up and down, her little hand in its woolly glove firmly in his. ‘Can we get a burger now, Daddy! I’m starving.’

  And that’s when the phone had rung in his jeans pocket. At first, he’d felt like ignoring it but the screen ID had said it was Jilly.

  ‘Hi! How’s the French contingent? Sorry. Can you speak up?’ He motioned to Lottie that they needed to move away from the noise of the fireworks.

  ‘What? No, she’s not here with us. Yes, of course I will. You will let me know, won’t you?’

  Lottie was standing there, both hands on her hips as though she was an adult. Since Sally had died, his daughter always needed to know what was going on, however small the detail. Maybe, as Christina had said sometimes, it was because she was afraid of more shocks.

  ‘Let who know what, Daddy? ‘What’s happened?’

  He put his hand round her shoulders and moved her towards the burger bar, hoping to divert her. There was no reason for her to get upset. Not yet.

  ‘That was Jilly from the agency.’ He tried to sound casual.

  ‘I could tell that!’

  ‘Marie-France is meant to be working for her today at a family party in Sussex.’

  ‘Dad, I’m not a baby. I know that as well.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘She went for a walk.’

  ‘Like Mummy did when she needed space?’

  Sometimes her maturity made him want to laugh and weep at the same time. ‘Exactly. And now … well she hasn’t come back yet.’

  Lottie stared up at him, her face bright in the glow of the bonfire. ‘Maybe she’s at our house!’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping. Do you mind if we leave after we get your burger?’

  Lottie was already yanking him towards the car park. ‘I don’t want it now. Come on, Dad. What are you waiting for? If we find her fast, we can bring her back to the display. Marie-France would love fireworks. I know she would.’

  It took nearly half an hour to drive back through the traffic. There weren’t any lights on, realised Matthew with a sinking heart as he pulled up outside the house.

  ‘Marie-France!’ called out Lottie, charging in through the front door. There was silence. ‘She’s not here.’ Lottie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I want my Marie-France!’

  My Marie-France! Matthew couldn’t help feeling a bit jealous.

  ‘Find her,’ she demanded bossily. ‘Ring Paula to see if she’s with Antoinette.’

  So he did but no, she wasn’t, Paula told him in a rather cheesed-off tone. Jilly had already called. She wasn’t with her Swiss friend Heidi either.

  ‘Lottie,’ said Matthew, kneeling down quietly next to her, ‘did Marie-France ever tell you where she went at weekends?’

  His daughter raised her tear-stained face. ‘She used to look for her daddy.’

  ‘Her father?’

  Lottie wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone, Daddy. It’s a secret.’

  Was that so? ‘Wher
e exactly did she look for her daddy?’

  Lottie looked scared. ‘In a big park. In London. She said you could hide there.’

  It wasn’t much to go on but it was better than nothing. ‘Tell you what, princess. Why don’t you watch this DVD for a bit. I just need to make some phone calls.’

  After he’d rung the police (‘I don’t know if the park detail is relevant, but I thought I ought to tell you about it’) he went and sat down beside Lottie who was watching the cartoon he’d picked out for her. It was daft, but seemed to do the trick. His daughter appeared to have forgotten about Marie-France, for the time being at least.

  Meanwhile, his own imagination was running riot. Jilly had explained there’d been some kind of family argument involving the French mother and Marie-France had run off. It was like Sozzy all over again.

  Creeping out into the kitchen while Lottie was still laughing at the television – how could children forget so easily? – he rang Jilly’s mobile. She picked it up immediately, answering it in the kind of tone that sounded as though she was hoping for news. ‘Have you heard from her?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Her voice sounded strangled. ‘We’re going to report her as missing.’

  He could hear noises in the background. Arguments. Someone with a foreign voice. ‘We’re back home now,’ said Jilly. ‘Her mother is staying with us for the night and my Turkish au pair has had another false alarm. I’d better go but I’ll ring if there’s any news.’

  It didn’t feel good. Not good at all.

  ‘Daddy,’ called out Lottie. ‘I’m hungry.’

  Of course she was! They’d never got that burger, had they? What kind of father was he, forgetting to feed his child? It was nearly her bedtime, for goodness’ sake!

  ‘Can we get a pizza? Please. Pretty please! We might see Marie-France in town. She might be watching the fireworks there!’

  It was a possibility, he supposed, and at least it would be a distraction. Tucking her little hand in his, they walked down the hill towards the takeaway shops. Outside was a crowd of foreign girls with their harsh continental accents and short skirts with leggings or jeans but he didn’t recognise any of them. Then, while they were waiting for their order, he felt a tap on his shoulder.