What the Nanny Saw

by Fiona Neill

  “There’s no such thing as a short conversation with my mother,” Ali joked, investing the relationship with a lightheartedness that didn’t really exist.

  “Tell me about it,” sympathized Izzy, before returning to the subject of Sophia.

  “She told me I hadn’t practiced enough and said that if I devoted as much energy to my music as I did to chasing boys then the third movement wouldn’t be such a mess.”

  Ali smiled because Izzy was doing a very good impersonation of the sanctimonious tone adopted by Sophia when she passed judgment on other people’s shortcomings. “At which point Martha went as red as that soup Katya makes, so I knew she was the source. Then Sophia said it was a shame that instead of my mother being around to instill discipline, I was abandoned in the third movement of my childhood to the whims of an unknown and inexperienced twenty-something nanny from the sticks.”

  Ali bristled. The curious thing about Sophia Wilbraham was that it took only the tiniest exposure for any positive feelings you might have about her to curdle. So any residual pity for her husband’s betrayal immediately evaporated.

  “How did you respond?”

  “I told her that most of my energy was devoted to sustaining my borderline eating disorder, and if Martha was anything to go by, then sexual abstinence was no prerequisite for musical flair, as demonstrated by the huge love bite she was trying to cover up on her neck.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “I’m always much more articulate when I’m angry. I think listening to Joy Division helps me to mine it more efficiently. It’s all to do with externalizing feelings rather than being passive. Loathing rather than self-loathing.”

  Jake was right. Izzy was beginning to sound a little like a self-help book.

  “Then she made Martha undo her shirt and saw the love bite. She started shouting at her, and Martha threw her violin on the floor, stomped out of the room, went upstairs, and Sophia declared the practice session over.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She said we needed to speed up the adagio. The other girl said the teacher had told us to slow it down, and she said he was completely wrong and that she’d heard way more live performances than he’d eaten hot dinners. She literally barked at us.”

  Ali’s phone rang a second time.

  “Bad use of ‘literally,’” said Ali, glancing down at the screen to see that it was her mother again. “If you say that, it means she actually did bark.”

  “Don’t be pedantic. Anyway, Sophia makes Leicester look submissive, and her voice sounds way more animal than human.”

  “Good use of ‘pedantic,’ though.”

  Again Ali ignored the phone in her bag and instead pulled out a packet of cigarettes.

  “I won’t say anything,” Izzy promised.

  “Thanks,” said Ali, as she took a deep drag and considered how to handle her parents.

  She had resolved to get in touch with them when she got back from Corfu at the end of August. But she’d held back because she still hadn’t established when she could have time off. Bryony was working almost every weekend for the next month. This Sunday she was meant to fly to the United Arab Emirates. The following weekend she would be visiting an aluminum smelter in Kazakhstan. The Saturday after that she had another meeting with the builders and the architect in Oxfordshire. It seemed incredible how she could crisscross the globe while Ali found it difficult to leave Holland Park.

  She was less certain of Nick’s movements, but even if he were around he wouldn’t want Ali to leave him alone with the children. Izzy had once let slip that he’d never looked after them alone for more than a couple of hours at a time.

  So Ali wanted to avoid her mother until she could appease her by confirming a date. She also wanted to avoid any conversation that ended with her defending the Skinners from accusations that they were taking advantage of her good nature. It had become a bit of a theme of late, as it dawned on her parents that she wasn’t going back to university this year. Just before the summer, Ali had finally told them that she was considering staying for another year, and revealed exactly how much money she was earning. Her mother had fallen silent at the other end of the phone.

  “I think actually she is a man . . . her hands are enormous, like great hams . . . She clicked her fingers at Katya . . . She said Alfie and Hector made Romulus and Remus look positively domesticated,” Izzy continued.

  “Disturbing,” said Ali, but really she was thinking about her parents.

  “Is this what happens to women if they give up work once they’ve had children?” asked Izzy. “I thought Mum was pretty controlling, but at least she has to let go when she goes to work.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Wilbraham has invested her chance at happiness in just one thing. It’s a high-risk gamble: it could reap huge benefits, but it also increases her exposure if things don’t work out. She’s overleveraged.”

  “You sound like Dad talking about his bloody job.” Izzy laughed. “What I don’t understand is why Martha’s dad married her. He’s so relaxed about everything. She should have been shelf-bound, don’t you think?” She was using Foy’s favorite phrase to describe an unattractive woman who, in his view, didn’t merit a husband.

  “She probably wasn’t like that when he married her. It’s difficult to keep perspective when you have children. They swallow you up until they’re ready to spit you out, and then you’re left wondering what remains of you.”

  “Is that what happened to your mother?”

  “My older sister, Jo, swallowed us all up.”

  “What do you mean? In a predatory way? Like a shark?”

  “She wasn’t intent on destruction, but she somehow managed to chew up everything around her. Jo had lots of problems, and that didn’t leave much room for the rest of us. Mum, Dad, and I were all focused on her.”

  “What kind of problems?” Izzy asked. Ali hesitated for a moment, weighing up whether to tell the truth.

  “Drugs,” she said finally. “But don’t say anything.”

  “Weed?”

  “Everything. She wasn’t picky.”

  “So did you come here to escape all that?” Izzy asked.

  “In part,” said Ali vaguely.

  “Is that why you were so worried about me at that party?”

  “Among other things,” said Ali. “I was worried about you because you’re my responsibility and if that boy had put that clip on YouTube, then it would have happened on my watch. And even if we’d managed to get it taken down, that’s what everyone would remember about you.”

  “You really care about us, don’t you, Ali? You don’t just think we’re spoiled and worthless?” Izzy asked nervously.

  “Of course not,” said Ali cautiously. “Your life is just very different from mine.”

  “In what way?”

  “You don’t have to worry about money in the same way. You have unimaginable opportunity. You take things for granted. But I don’t think this necessarily buys you freedom. It just buys you choices and a bigger burden of expectation.”

  They had reached the steps outside the Skinners’ house. For a moment, Ali stopped and stared. By night the house looked even more imposing. Two spotlights attached to the railings reflected back onto the façade, picking out the bay windows of the drawing room on one side and a huge camellia growing in a pot on the other. Ali coolly observed the blue plaque on the side of the house, the icy surface of the chrome number on the front door, and the high-gloss black railings. It was still difficult to believe that she really lived here, cheek by jowl with this family, that she was on first-name terms with the next-door neighbors, that the car sitting outside on the off-street parking had been bought for her, that she had helped the twins plant in the wildflower window boxes sitting on the window ledges on either side of the front door. What did i
t say about someone if she could adapt so seamlessly to the rhythms of another family’s life and so quickly forget her own?

  There was a light on in every room on the first three floors. In the drawing room she could see Bryony examining invitations on the mantelpiece. In the adjacent window she thought she glimpsed Foy’s hair poking above an armchair. Downstairs in the kitchen Malea was scrubbing saucepans. Little vignettes of contented domesticity that reminded Ali of an Advent calendar. She smiled at Izzy as she got out her keys and expertly turned the lock. The Skinners were insulated from the outside world, and she was happy to take her place in their cocoon.

  “By the way, did you know Martha thinks her dad is in love with their nanny?” Izzy said as they went into the hallway. “That’s why she always whistles the theme tune to The Sound of Music when Katya comes in the room.”

  “Martha has a very fertile imagination,” said Ali a little too quickly.

  • • •

  Down in the kitchen, Ali paused for a moment to listen to her phone messages as Izzy said good night to her mother and grandfather. There were four. The first one was from Bryony, wondering when she would be home to discuss the daybook. The rest, disappointingly, were all from her mother. Rosa had stopped phoning, no doubt fed up with the way it took so long for Ali to return her calls. She hadn’t heard from Will MacDonald in more than six months.

  “Jo’s home,” the messages from Ali’s mother said. Or, more accurately, “Jo’s hum.”

  The sound of her mother’s slow, undulating accent with its elongated vowels and lilt at the end of the sentence made Ali smile. The English language was born in East Anglia, her mother had told her when she first noticed Ali’s efforts to erase her Norfolk accent. She should feel proud of it. It was a piece of advice Ali remembered, because her mother’s interventions in her life were so rare. She closed her eyes and for a moment allowed herself to be enshrouded in its familiarity.

  Any fleeting pleasure, however, was swiftly supplanted by irritation at the deadpan tone of the rest of the message. It was impossible to tell whether her mother was elated or discomfited by Jo’s return. There was no note of either triumphalism or exhaustion. Ali knew it was a ploy to force her to call back to see what was going on so that she would be drawn into another drama involving her sister. She felt guilty for feeling irritated, and further irritated that she should feel guilty. It was an old loop: Ali’s desire to be free from the shackles of family expectation, followed by the claustrophobic sense of responsibility. Something the Skinner children could also identify with. She dutifully dialed her mother’s number.

  “Hi, Mum, it’s Ali,” she said as her mother picked up the phone after just one ring.

  “Alison, is that you?” her mother responded.

  “I said it was me,” said Ali, trying to suppress her impatience. “I just picked up your message.”

  “I left more than one.”

  Outside, she could hear Leicester barking plaintively. She went to the window and saw that the sliding doors were covered in muddy paw prints. Where was Malea?

  “I can’t hear you, you’re cracking up.”

  “Breaking up.” Ali smiled. She opened the sliding doors just enough to allow Leicester in. He looked affronted, and Ali apologized, informing him she wasn’t to blame.

  “Who are you talking to?” her mother asked suspiciously.

  “The dog.”

  “Are you listening to me?” her mother asked. “You don’t call us for months, and then you give the dog more attention than me.”

  “How’s Jo?”

  “She’d love to see you.”

  “Why hasn’t she called me, then?”

  “Don’t be difficult, Ali.”

  “Can I speak to her now?”

  “She’s gone out.”

  “How does she seem?”

  “The same,” said her mother carefully.

  “The same good or the same bad?” Ali asked, knowing that she would never get a straightforward answer because her mother was permanently pitched between the desire to believe that Jo was all right and the dread that perhaps she was lurching into a new crisis.

  “Your dad tried to get her to go out on the boat with him, but she wanted to stay in bed.” This was bad news. Ali slumped down on the sofa, and Leicester jumped up to sit beside her. She was used to these vague answers, and over the years had come to appreciate that perhaps they contained a more essential truth than a simple black-and-white response. Her father believed, as did Ali, that the sea had a curative effect on the soul. Ali loved watching the lights of Cromer fade and the soft pink tones of dawn emerge on the horizon, as they headed away from shore to check the crab pots. When Jo was well, she agreed with them. When things were bad she saw the sea as her tormentor, which it could be after five hours in a boat when it was blowing up rough.

  “She’s thinking about another clinic. It’s expensive. We’re not sure whether it’s the right place, Ali. We can take out more money against the mortgage, but it’s a stretch.”

  “Do you want me to come home?”

  “Yes,” said her mother emphatically.

  • • •

  Ali took a deep breath and gently pushed open the drawing room door. Foy peered around the top of his seat by the fireplace and squinted at her.

  “It’s the Sparrow,” he boomed. “What news do you bring from the kingdom of birds? What’s your tweet of the day?”

  “Hello, Mr. Chesterton,” said Ali, coming into the room.

  “Call me Foy, for God’s sake, otherwise you make me feel old,” he shouted through stained teeth. Ali noticed an almost empty bottle of red wine on the table beside him.

  “One thing about sparrows that you should know, Ali. They mate for life. Although the odd single sparrow has been known to try and steal someone else’s mate.”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Ali.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” Bryony asked, nodding vigorously at Ali to indicate she should say yes. Bryony filled the glass until the bottle was empty.

  “I was wondering if I could have a quick word with you, Bryony,” said Ali.

  “It’s time we went home,” said Tita, whom Ali had just noticed standing by the window, staring out into the street. She turned her head slowly and smiled enigmatically.

  “Where have you come from?” Foy asked. Ali explained about the music practice at Sophia Wilbraham’s house, going into more detail than necessary about the technical challenges of the third movement without revealing any hint of the drama that had just taken place, in the hope of boring him into silence.

  “How that woman ended up marrying Ned Wilbraham I cannot understand,” said Foy, shaking his head. “I’ve never met a more shelf-bound female. Of course, she thoroughly disapproves of me. I think I once made a pass at her mother when I was drunk. She was all right. Less agricultural.”

  “Dad,” Bryony reprimanded him.

  “I’m saying nothing your mother doesn’t know already,” Foy said petulantly. “Am I, Tita?” Tita didn’t respond.

  “It’s all in the arse with Sophia, isn’t it? I saw her on the beach in Corfu. She practically blocked out the sun with her backside. It’s like a planet that the rest of her body orbits around. It’s funny how women get like that while old men struggle to hold a pencil between their buttocks. Not Tita, of course.” He glanced over at his wife, hoping his approval met with her approval.

  “You can’t talk about Sophia like that. You’ll end up saying something in front of Izzy,” Bryony chastised him.

  “How can you compare Izzy to that woman?” Foy exploded.

  “I’m not,” explained Bryony. “I’m just trying to tell you that we don’t talk about weight issues in this house. It’s one of the things the anorexia counselor has recommended. We talk about healthy eating
.”

  “God, you’re all in thrall to bloody self-help gurus,” Foy said. “If Winston Churchill was alive now, they’d have sent him to Alcoholics Anonymous and got someone else to run the war. Then we’d be having this conversation in German.”

  “It might have made life easier for his wife, though,” murmured Tita. She turned to Bryony. “He’ll fall asleep in a minute. It’s always the storm then the calm with Foy.”

  “But then he’ll end up spending the night here,” said Bryony. “Nick’s tolerance levels are not very high at the moment. He’s under a lot of stress at work.”

  “Stress,” said Foy, repeating the word in disbelief at least a couple of times. “He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. When I set up Freithshire Fisheries, I woke up every night for five years worrying about how I was going to pay back my bank loan. That’s creative. He’s just investing other people’s money. Mine, probably.”

  “That’s why it’s called investment banking,” said Bryony tartly. “He’s very worried about the Lehman’s board steering the bank in the wrong direction.” She was trying to impress her father by underlining Nick’s seniority in the bank and his courage in swimming against the tide of opinion. Ali was struck that everything Bryony had just said ran counter to what she had told Nick earlier in the evening. “He’s trying to get them to write down more debt. You saw what happened with Northern Rock. There’s a problem with liquidity at the moment. Markets are jittery. People want credit and they can’t get it. The cost of borrowing is rising.”

  “He’ll find a way of making money out of everyone else’s misery,” said Foy. “That’s his specialty. Ali, have I ever told you how I set up my smoked-salmon business? Now, that’s an interesting tale. It’s a love story and a thriller packed into one.”

  “This isn’t the moment,” pleaded Bryony.

  “You know, I think they’re trying to force me out completely,” Foy announced suddenly. He slumped back into the chair, his energy sapped, like Hector after a tantrum. “After everything I’ve done to build up the company.”