by Jane Fallon
‘I thought we might go on the wheel today. That might be fun.’ She hates herself for sounding like a primary-school teacher. Tara and Megan look at her blankly.
‘We’ve been on it before,’ Megan says.
‘It’s lame,’ Tara adds. ‘It’s what tourists do.’
‘Well, I am a tourist,’ Abi says. If she is going to be forced to be Mary Poppins, she certainly isn’t taking any more crap from her charges. ‘We’ll leave in an hour, OK?’ She gives the girls a look that says she is not to be messed with. They take absolutely no notice.
Tara yawns and stretches. ‘Mum said we could go shopping. I need to get a dress for Tamsin’s party …’
‘Yes, well, your mum says a lot of things.’ Most of them bullshit, Abi nearly adds, but she stops herself. Cleo is their mother, after all. ‘We can go shopping another day, OK? Now, this is my first whole day in London and so it’s either the Eye or the Tower, you choose.’
6
In the end Abi doesn’t have a bad day, as days go, where you stand in a queue for two and a half hours while your precocious niece complains loudly that anyone who was anyone would have booked VIP tickets in advance to avoid queuing, where you are unable to enjoy the sights because of the seething resentment bubbling just under your surface and your feet hurt. It costs her a fortune too, because, of course, she has to pay for everyone and provide lunch on top of that, somewhere sitting down because Tara refuses to eat a sandwich in the street (‘too chavvy’). While she is very happy to treat her nieces in theory, in practice she’s flat broke so, while she would never accept Cleo paying her way, she hadn’t anticipated having to fork out for the three of them. If this keeps up, she’ll actually go home at the end of the summer worse off. She briefly wonders if she should bill Cleo for her nannying services. No. Definitely not. That would officially make her the hired help.
Despite being only ten years old, Tara, it seems, lives in hope of being spotted just as her mother was. She’s obviously heard the story of Cleo’s discovery many times so being out and about is one big showcase to her, because apparently you never know who might be watching. She doesn’t relax all day, sitting up straight, standing rigid like a ballet dancer, practised pout on her lips. And actually Abi finds herself feeling a bit sorry for her. She’s a beautiful girl, there’s no doubt about that, but somewhere along the line Cleo’s feline features, so unique, have been rendered more ordinary by having been blended with Jonty’s perfect symmetry. Tara is stunning, but she’s not her mother. Maybe she will get work as a model one day if that’s what she really wants to do. She has the height, the natural skinniness. But she’s never going to reach the dizzy heights of Cleo at her peak. She’s never going to be a household name. And sadly, it seems, that is all she aspires to.
Megan on the other hand has plans to be a nurse and to get married and have three children and a large dog. Tara rolls her eyes as Megan tells Abi this, so Abi makes a big show of admiring her choices.
‘Just because you know you couldn’t be a model even if you wanted to be,’ Tara says, and Abi says, ‘Tara …’ and gives her what she hopes is a warning look, which she follows by making apologetic faces at the horrified mothers with their well-behaved children who are sharing the pod with them. She wants to say, ‘She’s not my child and I have had nothing to do with her upbringing,’ but there’s no easy way to use that as a conversation opener so she tries to change the subject. Megan’s having none of it, though.
‘Well, I don’t want to be, do I? So it doesn’t matter if I could or not, does it, stupid?’
Although Megan is clearly in awe of her big sister, Abi is pleased to see that she is able to stand up for herself when she needs to. She’s blessed with a lot more confidence than Abi had at her age. Not that Abigail had had to stand up to Caroline. In fact, she relied on Caroline to stand up for her. She used to hide behind her confident older sister, secure in the knowledge that Caroline had her back. She can clearly remember that summer when she was thirteen when some of Caroline’s more catty friends were laughing at her attempt to look trendy in her stone-washed jeans and a jacket with shoulder pads the size of Big Macs. Caroline had given them a piece of her mind and then taken Megan aside and they had shopped in Miss Selfridge for matching leggings, leg warmers and stretchy tube dresses. Caroline had crimped Abigail’s hair the way she was currently doing her own and lent her a pair of big hooped earrings. It wasn’t so much the outfit that had made Abigail so happy – if the truth be told she felt a little uncomfortable in it, a bit like a sausage bursting its skin – it was the fact that Caroline was willing to go to these lengths for her, to be seen to be dressed near identically, surely potential social death for a sixteen-year-old, just to make her sister feel better. To be fair, it didn’t really seem to stop the other girls sniggering at her, but Abigail felt that if she was being poked fun at then so was Caroline, and knowing how popular her sister was, how much she was the envy of their friends now she had been singled out for greater things, that had made all the difference. She finds herself hoping that, when pushed, Tara would go to the same lengths for Megan.
It’s a glorious day and London is looking its best, sprawled out glinting provocatively in the sun. It’s overwhelming how many recognizable landmarks there are. Everywhere Abi turns there’s an icon looking back up at her, waiting to be admired. She points out the obvious – Hyde Park, St Paul’s, the Gherkin – and the less obvious – the Thames Barrier, the NatWest Tower, the rapidly rising skeleton of the Shard. Most of these buildings she’s never even seen in the flesh before, but they’re as familiar to her from photographs as if she walked past them every day. Megan at least pretends to pay attention, oohing and aahing in all the right places while Tara strikes a nonchalant couldn’t-care-less pose that she almost certainly learned from America’s Next Top Model and, perversely, looks anywhere but where Abi is pointing in her best tour-guide fashion.
By the time they get home Jonty is already there, sleeves rolled up, doing something delicious-smelling in the kitchen. The girls go off upstairs, Abi assumes to their separate rooms because they had a fight about something or other on the way home and there’s definitely still a frosty air. She herself is desperate for a cup of tea, but she doesn’t really want to have to hang around in the kitchen while the kettle boils, so she just flops on one of the sofas, exhausted. Her legs ache. The three of them walked back from the South Bank, all the way to Primrose Hill, which was a mistake probably, because it was twice as far as Abi had anticipated, but she couldn’t work out the buses and Tara flat out refused to get back on the tube. Plus they got lost in Soho somewhere and doubled back on themselves several times. And then again trying to find the entrance to Regent’s Park so that they could enjoy the scenic route home rather than the somewhat frightening depths of Somers Town that they ended up experiencing. All in all it took nearly two hours. Two hours of whinging and complaining about sore feet and blisters and that was just Abi. She knows she should go upstairs and change, but she can’t quite face it at the moment. She leans back, eyes closed, feet propped up on the arm of the settee.
‘You look like you had a hard day.’
Abi jumps and sits up straight hurriedly. Visions of teachers asking if she’d sit like that in her own home flash through her head. Her answer to that one was always yes, by the way. Yes, she did sit at home with her elbows on the table/feet up/shoes on and no one ever seemed to mind that much.
Jonty is standing over her, mug in hand.
‘What? Oh … yes …’
‘I thought you might like a cup of tea. You look shattered.’
She almost bites his hand off for it. ‘I’d love one, thank you.’ There’s no way she can deny that was thoughtful of him.
‘Did you have a good time at least?’ he asks, and Abi nods.
‘Lovely. Well, me and Megan did. I’m not so sure about Tara.’
They haven’t really got their small talk worked out yet, so Jonty just stands there for a second then s
ays, ‘Well, I’d better get on. Dinner.’
‘Oh. Right. Do you need any help?’ She crosses her fingers and hopes that he says no.
‘No. It’s fine. Thanks, though. Cleo should be back any minute.’
Abi thinks about saying something about the nanny situation – she assumes it must have been Jonty’s idea as much as Cleo’s, but it seems mean-spirited to raise it when he’s in the middle of cooking dinner for everyone.
‘Do you cook every night?’ It seems so unlikely somehow.
‘Perk of having your own business,’ he says. ‘There’s no one to tell me I can’t leave early.’
‘Well, I’ll do my share, obviously, while I’m here. I mean if that’s OK …’
‘Great,’ he says, and another scintillating exchange draws to a close. She makes a mental note that she really must go on a social-skills course.
Cleo, when she breezes through the door, is full of the great meeting she’s had with someone or other who is clearly desperate to work with her, and how much they loved her at the casting and she’s almost certain to get the job because they told her she was looking incredible. Abi waits for her to finish, for Cleo to ask her how her day has been. She waits quite a long time and the longer it goes on the more irritated she becomes. Cleo it seems is like an unstoppable train when she is telling a story about herself. Eventually she apparently feels the need to take a breath so Abi says, ‘Caroline,’ because she knows that will get her sister’s attention. It does the trick – Cleo practically double takes. It’s doubtful anyone has called her Caroline for a few years. Even Philippa and Andrew, so resistant to ‘Abi’, got used to ‘Cleo’ almost immediately, because they knew their eldest would have made their lives hell if they didn’t. Abi hesitates for a moment, unsure what to say. Does she really want to start a fight?
‘It’s just … well, I was a bit surprised that …’ She stops because she realizes that what she is about to say actually sounds a bit stupid, a bit too needy. You didn’t come out with us today. I resent the fact that I had to take your two daughters, my nieces, out for the day without you. Why won’t you play with me?
‘Is everything OK?’
‘Yes … no, actually. Well, the girls mentioned something about the nanny leaving suddenly and that being why you’d invited me and, well, I just wondered if that was true?’ Abi finds she can hardly look her sister in the eye it sounds so pitiful spoken out loud.
Cleo laughs. ‘Well, it’s true the nanny left, but that’s not why I asked you to stay for the summer. God, Abigail, you must really think I’m an awful person if you believe that. I asked you up because I wanted to spend time with you. It was just coincidence that idiot girl walked out without giving any notice, but did I get you here to replace her? No. Of course not.’
Abi colours, feels stupid. Thirteen years old and scared of being abandoned all over again. ‘I suppose it’s just that I was hoping we would do stuff together, you and I …’
‘Of course we will. But I can’t just drop everything I have in my diary. I’ve got a few meetings this week and next, but I’ll be here in the evenings. I’ve been really looking forward to us spending some time together. Reconnecting. I just won’t be around during the days, that’s all. And if you don’t want to have to amuse the girls – and, believe me, I’d understand if you didn’t – then Jonty can take some time off work. It’s really not a problem.’
Now Abi just feels like a fool. ‘No. I’m really happy to keep an eye on them. I just got the wrong end of the stick, that’s all. You do what you have to do. Forget I even said anything.’
‘You analyse things too much,’ Cleo says. ‘You always did.’ She gives Abi a quick hug, disarming her completely. ‘I need to get changed. And then we can chat over dinner. I’m starving.’
She goes off and Abi slumps in her chair feeling like an idiot. Cleo’s right. That’s always been Abi’s problem, over-thinking things. She was the family worrier. Well, she figured someone had to be. Philippa and Andrew were just too naive, too parochial, to ever really realize there was anything in the world to worry about. Abigail was the one saying maybe Caroline shouldn’t just leave school and move up to London, that she could still live at home and pursue a modelling career from there, but she was always regarded as the family killjoy.
Abi tells herself she needs to just try to relax and enjoy the summer and, if she and Cleo emerge closer than they have been, then all to the good, but if they don’t then that will have to be OK too. You can’t force a relationship with someone just because they share your DNA. She decides to wait and see how things develop naturally, although that totally goes against her nature. She’s a planner, a list maker, a what-if type of person. It’s one of those qualities that it’s good to have in small amounts, but when every decision you make is preceded by days of analysis of the pros and cons it can become a bit of a handicap. Going with the flow means nothing to Abi, but she determines to give it a try.
7
She spends the next few days in a haze of sightseeing, moaning reluctant pre-teenage girls and home-cooked dinners round the kitchen table in the evenings. Cleo is busy every day with either go sees, meetings or some kind of grooming or other, which takes up an inordinate amount of time. She is getting everything extended it seems to Abi – hair, eyelashes, fingernails. Every time she comes home there is a little bit more of her. It’s like the world’s slowest takeover bid. She returns in time for dinner and regales the assembled family with tales of her day. Abi can only assume from the lack of any information to the contrary that she’s not getting any of the jobs she’s going for. She seems a little hyper, a little too desperate to have them all believe how well it’s working out.
Abi finds herself wondering if all the beauty treatments are in response to less than entirely positive comments Cleo’s been receiving. She knows that the modelling world is a harsh one. If you look less than perfect, someone is bound to remind you of your faults sooner or later. Personally she’s not sure she could spend all day with someone pointing out her spots or her cellulite. She can do that perfectly well herself in front of the bathroom mirror, thank you very much. Cleo is barely eating anything either. For all she’s always claiming to be starving, she only ever picks at the food that Jonty cooks. She pushes it around her plate as she talks. No one else seems to notice or, if they do, they don’t comment on it.
Abi has settled into a routine without really intending to. She tried getting up ridiculously early so she could help herself to three cups of coffee and some toast in an Elena-free kitchen, but on the second morning Elena caught her and gave her such a long and heartfelt lecture – not that Abi could understand any of it, but she could swear Elena’s eyes filled with tears at one point – that she gave that strategy up pretty quickly. But she’s never been any good at sleeping in. As soon as she’s awake, she has to get up no matter how little sleep she’s had. Otherwise she just lies there and broods on all the things she has to do and the time she’s wasting by lying in bed. Not that she does have anything at all to do at the moment. Elena won’t even let her wash a glass. So she still rises early, but she takes her time lying in the bath, pottering around her private domain before she heads downstairs.
The days are starting to feel quite long and Abi knows she could do with losing a few more hours to sleep in the mornings, but she’s still usually heading for the coffee machine just as Jonty is hurtling out of the door. Most days he leaves for work at seven forty-five, which seems needlessly early, but he says he likes to be in the office by eight fifteen because then he doesn’t feel so bad leaving at half five to get home and cook. So they have a brief exchange as he goes – bye, have a nice day at work, that thrilling – and that’s usually all the human interaction Abi has until either Cleo or the girls deign to rise at about half past nine. Cleo no doubt will have been up for a couple of hours, beautifying in the enormous dressing room off the master suite. Abi can hear Elena taking coffee up to her sometimes although it’s a mystery how she know
s when the right time is to do so. Maybe Cleo calls her on her mobile or perhaps there’s a bell she can ring like they used to in Upstairs, Downstairs. By the time Cleo comes down she’s dressed, made-up and ready to go out after a hurried bowl of cereal, berries and yoghurt, barking out orders to Elena – ‘The kitchen cupboards need cleaning out. They’re filthy,’ or, ‘Make sure you put the duvet on the bed the right way round, will you? I kept getting tangled up in the buttons all night.’ – that Abi then feels she has to try to interpret, because otherwise Elena won’t have a clue and will undoubtedly just get shouted at again later on – and generally leaving Abi and the girls to fend for themselves.
Tara and Megan have a convoluted and not-up-for-negotiation social life that means that, most days, sightseeing or doing something fun as a family is out: Abi is reduced to ferrying them around from one engagement to the next. Cleo is letting Abi use her car since the walking home from the Eye debacle, so basically she has become the chauffeur. She tries to do something fun in between dropping Megan at her piano lesson and Tara at Carluccio’s in Hampstead for lunch with her friend’s family and picking them up again, but time is tight. This is hardly turning out to be the summer she’d promised herself.
Abi and Elena have come to enough of an understanding now so that Abi feels she can go out in the mornings before anyone else has surfaced, safe in the knowledge that Elena will let her in again. She still hasn’t got a key to the house, something that makes her feel even more like one of the staff. Tara and Megan have a set each and Abi believes that Cleo just assumes that because she will always be running about after them she doesn’t need one of her own. She has taken to going for a long walk just for the sake of it, just for a bit of me time.
If it’s a nice day – which it often seems to be, it’s turned out to be a lovely summer, which feels a little wasted on London; Kent would appreciate it so much better – then she walks across the hill, or down past the canal into Regent’s Park. If it’s not so nice, then she potters around the local shops, which have lived up to her first impression and are surprisingly charming. One of the last bastions of the small independent outfits in the city, probably because everyone around here is hideously rich and can afford to pay £28.75 for half a litre of hand-pressed virgin olive oil in a fancy bottle rather than give Waitrose £5.50 for something that tastes the same. There’s a baker’s; a candle shop; several vintage-furniture outfits that almost make Abi cry with frustration, so badly does she want to own their contents; a few clothes stores with beautiful one-off pieces that cost the same as her whole wardrobe; and a little independent bookshop where she can happily kill half an hour if it’s not so sunny outside. In truth, she could kill the whole day there if she had to. It’s tempting.