by Ali Gardner
A week later, Dad announced that he would be interviewing four women who had applied for the job as a childminder for the girls. Libby had slowly accepted the inevitability of having a new childminder and decided that she would fully involve herself in the process – firstly so that she could have some influence in choosing the right one, and secondly so that she could make it clear to any new childminder that she was very capable and that she would not accept being told what to do or treated like a baby. Dad welcomed her support and reassured Libby that she most certainly was capable, and that he agreed that the childminder should know that. Dad asked Libby to help him with the interviews. He suggested that Libby would be responsible for answering the door, inviting them in and offering them a drink and biscuit.
“Yes, yes,” enthused Libby, “and I will make sandwiches and lots of different cakes so that they will know just how able I am.” “Well, perhaps just some scones, Libby; there won’t be time for a full buffet.”
Libby grudgingly agreed, and set about finding a recipe for scones.
“What about me, Dad? What will I do?” asked Janey.
“Your job, Janey, is not to get too excited, to stand on your feet rather than your head, and to smile your lovely smile.”
”Oh, is that all? That’s a bit easy.” “Believe me, Janey,” joked Dad, “If you manage to do that for three hours, I will join in the headstands and you can even teach me to clap my feet together, when they all go home.”
“It’s a deal,” said Janey, and she high- fived her Dad.
Dad always organised everything using a spreadsheet. It didn’t matter if it was planning a camping weekend or arranging Weekly activities; he always detailed the plan with several columns and rows outlining timings, what was needed and who would be responsible. The girls were therefore not surprised to see that Dad had prepared a spreadsheet on the computer with the names of each of the candidates in each row. Along the columns, Dad had inserted the skills and attributes he was looking for, including friendly, experienced, flexible, fun and trustworthy. Dad had introduced a grading system whereby he would mark each candidate from 1-5, 1 equating to poor and 5 equating to excellent for each skill. In the final column, Dad had a space for the total score so that he could add up the marks across all skills, and he had also created a space for further comments.
Dad had prepared a number of questions to ask each candidate, and had placed the marking sheet and the list of questions on the arm of his chair in the lounge, ready for the first candidate. Whilst Dad was having a last scoop of all the bits and bobs –including odd socks, hair bobbles, topless felt tip pens and sweet wrappers littered around the house – Libby quickly copied Dad’s spreadsheet on to a piece of paper so that she could make her own assessment of the candidates. As she heard Dad coming back downstairs, she quickly put his papers back and stuffed her own spreadsheet in the front pocket of the apron that she was wearing. Libby never wore an apron when baking and had actually finished baking three hours earlier, but she had decided that this was a good look for the potential childminder to see and that it would convey an image of the capable homemaker that she was.
Libby fussed around in the kitchen, arranging and rearranging the eight scones that she had made and re-boiling the kettle for the tenth time to make sure it was ready as soon as she needed it. Janey seemed to have a lot of nervous energy and, knowing that she had promised to remain on her feet for the next few hours, she decided to squeeze in one last headstand before Dad came back into the room. It always made her head a bit fuzzy and she liked that feeling of blood rushing to her brain. It somehow relaxed her in a way she could never explain. As Dad came into the room, she quickly sat backwards on the big green velvety chair so that she could look out of the front window and see the candidates as they arrived. Dad agreed that the girls could meet each candidate briefly and then he would interview them on his own. If he thought they might be a possibility, he would invite the girls back into the room.
This, he said, was his secret sign to them that he liked them. He assured the girls, however, that he would not make a final decision without discussing it with them first.
Suddenly, Janey started bouncing on the chair and shouting “Ahhhhhh!”, in that way that children often do when they see something cute.
“Daddy, look at this little dog, he is so cute!”, she squealed, as she pushed past Libby and ran right out of the front door and down the path to meet the dog. He was the cutest little miniature Yorkshire terrier Janey had ever seen. He had a beautiful little red ribbon at the top of his head, holding in a few wisps of his hair, and a sparkly collar matching what Janey imagined to be a diamond lead. Slowly, Janey registered the lady holding the lead, and apologised for ignoring her.
The lady was as glamorous and as appealing to Janey as her little dog, and Janey felt like it took her a whole minute to lift her gaze from the floor to the lady’s beautifully made- up face and long, curly jet- black hair. For a start, her heels were actually taller than the dog, and her legs seemed to go on for miles. “Wow, you’re tall,” said Janey without thinking.
The lady laughed and said, “Well, to be fair, anyone would be in these heels. Can you help me? I am looking for 8 Stoneyhurst Avenue; I have an interview.”
Janey could not believe her luck; she was going to have this little dog to play with every day. Janey needed to ask no further questions; she had found her new childminder. Janey ushered the lady into the house and shouted, “Dad, the first lady is here and she is soooooo nice.” As Janey nudged the lady into the house, she grabbed the lead from her hand to bring the dog into the kitchen to show Dad and Libby.
“Janey!” said Dad, in his teacher voice that he tended to use in public to warn the girls that what they were doing was unacceptable whilst at the same time trying not to cause a scene in front of others. In her state of excitement, it took Janey longer than usual to notice Dad’s eyes widening and starting to pop out slightly, followed by the tightening of his lips. She knew this look only too well, and it quickly jolted her back down to earth as she remembered the rules of the day. Meanwhile, the lady was taking the dog back outside and apologising profusely. She tied the dog to the fence and followed Libby’s instructions to come into the lounge.
Dad, who seemed a little flustered by the initial introduction, offered his hand and said, “You must be Stella?”
Stella smiled, brushing her hair from her shoulder like a film star might, and said, “I certainly am, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She seemed to hold onto Dad’s hand for a little longer than one normally would in this situation, and you could see that Dad was awkwardly trying to release himself from this hold. Dad invited Stella to sit down and introduced Libby and Janey, but he seemed very nervous, which just wasn’t like Dad.
He struggled to get his words out;
“Would you like a dress... er, sorry, I mean a drink, Stella?”
“A dress, Daddy, Stella has a dress and it’s beautiful,” giggled Janey, unaware of how embarrassing she was making this for Dad. As Stella sat down, her dress, which was admittedly already very short, seemed to rise further up her long legs; and Janey started to think to herself that perhaps it was no wonder that Dad had asked her if she wanted a dress, as it was now hard to see that she actually had one on at all from the waist down.
As Stella sat down, she took off her black diamond-studded leather jacket. The dress she had on really did now look like it was just a top. It was red and silky, matching her glossy lipstick, and had two little straps slung over Stella’s shoulders. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, and Janey wondered why Stella had taken her jacket off at all as she was sure that she must now be quite cold. Libby brought Stella a cup of tea and offered her a scone. Stella thanked her for the tea but declined the scone on the basis of “watching my weight,” which she said as she patted what could only be described as a completely flat stomach. There really was not
an inch of fat on her. As Stella crossed one of her long legs over the other, it swung so high that it was as if she had performed a cartwheel in the front room. Dad asked the girls to leave him for a while, and Janey asked Stella if she could play with the dog. Stella agreed and gave the girls a little wave, with her elbow bent and her bright red painted extended nails waggling a little as she bent her head to one side.
As they left the room, Libby mimicked Stella’s wave to Janey and pretended to wave back to Stella from behind the closed door, mouthing “Bye Barbie”. Libby then turned to Janey and grunted “No way!” – but Janey missed this as she was already outside playing with Winkle the dog.
Inside the interview room, Dad was finding it difficult to even get to the questions that he had prepared, as Stella wanted to know all about Dad and proceeded to ask him lots of personal questions. It was only when Stella asked Dad if it would be possible for her to live at home for the first few months before moving in that Dad became worried that she might have got the wrong end of the stick.
“Sorry Stella, can I just check that you understand what the interview is for?”
Stella was quite taken aback and said, “Well, I don’t quite know how I would describe it; I would guess you are sort of looking for a new mother for the children and possibly a wife for you.”
Dad nearly fell off his chair as he choked on a sip of water he had just taken to calm his nerves. Dad knocked all the papers, including the questions and the marking sheet, onto the floor. In an attempt to escape Stella’s gaze and the situation itself, he leapt to his knees to retrieve the papers – but at the very same moment, Stella did the same.
This led to further embarrassment as they spent the next few awkward moments clashing face to face with only millimetres in between them, followed by urgent attempts to adjust their heads one way and then the other like a pair of emus greeting each other, but continually moving at just the wrong time so that their faces met again and again. Once they were finally back in their chairs, Dad explained that he was only looking for a childminder after school for the girls. He said that he apologised if he had not made this clear, as he desperately shuffled through the papers to reread the original advert. Surely he had made it clear; he had written “childminder”, not “wife”. He had been tired when he wrote the advert, and emotionally it had been tough for him to do; maybe he had this thought deep in his head and had accidentally written it on the advert. But surely he would have seen the mistake when he checked over it.
As he started sinking into self-doubt, Stella seemed to sense Dad’s panic and offered, “No, no, you did say ‘childminder ’, but when I saw the bit about ‘single dad’, I thought it was code for something else.” Stella explained that she had responded to many online dating requests and found that men often said one thing when they meant something completely different.
Dad stood up and reached for Stella’s coat, thanking her for coming. Stella had to take some time adjusting her dress to pull it down over her thighs, back to the length it had been when she walked into the house. As she did so, she made a funny wiggling movement with her hips, which Dad had to watch as he held her coat out for her. Dad did not want to be rude to Stella, as she had clearly thought the interview was something entirely different. He just wanted her to leave and never see her again, although he knew this would be difficult as Stella had already told him that she lived only two streets away.
“Maybe we could go for a drink sometime,” Stella suggested.
Dad mumbled something about not having a lot of time with the girls, and ushered her out of the door.
After Stella left and Janey realised, from Dad’s face, that she would not be the new childminder, she moodily stomped off to her room and refused to be involved in the rest of the interviews. In the comments box, Libby noticed that Dad had written:
DO NOT APPOINT!!!
Dad seemed very nervous for the next ten minutes, and quickly searched on his computer for the advert that he had written to check what it had said. He read the words aloud three times to Libby, each time placing a different emphasis on certain words to see if that might make a difference to the way it was interpreted by the reader. Libby didn’t know what the problem was, but she decided that it was best to leave Dad to his own thoughts at this stage as he scratched his head and shuffled his papers repeatedly.
Meanwhile, Janey had crept into Dad’s bedroom and made a little seating area for herself on his windowsill. She had brought a pillow, a blanket, and her favourite teddy Footsie from her bedroom, and arranged herself into a comfortable position to watch out of the window. She closed the curtains so as to enclose herself in this little space. She knew that Dad would have disapproved of this, but she also knew he would be far too busy to find her this afternoon.
Janey was the first to see Marjorie arrive. She watched as a little round woman waddled up their drive. To Janey, she seemed like a big round ball. Janey wondered whether, if she gave her a little push from behind, she might roll right back down the drive. Janey heard Dad answer the door and invite her inside. As Marjorie walked through the hall and into the kitchen, Janey could no longer hear the conversation, and her curiosity got the better of her as she raced downstairs to meet Marjorie. Dad seemed really nervous to the girls as he shook Marjorie’s hand, and thanked her for coming to the interview for a “C-H-I-L-D-M-I-N-D-E-R role”.
He seemed to say this very slowly and exaggerate the word “childminder” in a weird way. Janey looked to Libby for an explanation, but Libby just shrugged her shoulders.
Marjorie accepted a cup of tea, and helped herself to a scone when she was offered. She managed to finish the first scone before the interview had even begun, and congratulated Libby on how wonderful it tasted. Pleased with the praise, Libby thanked her and suggested she could take another if she liked. Libby had not really expected her to accept, but Marjorie eagerly tucked into the second scone and polished it off in no time. Dad asked the girls to leave the room so that he could speak to Marjorie. Libby worried that there would be no scones left if the plate remained next to Marjorie, and tried to signal to Dad that she needed to take the scones into the kitchen - but Dad was still very distracted and ushered the girls away, giving Libby no option but to leave the plate on the arm of the chair that Marjorie was sitting on.
Janey and Libby left the room and, as Janey was about to make her way upstairs, Libby pulled out two drinking glasses from her apron pocket. Janey had no idea what the glasses were for, but Libby showed her how to place the glass quietly on the door and listen to the interview. Janey didn’t really get the hang of this trick and kept scraping the glass on the door as she twisted it, which prevented either girl from hearing the conversation. This led to the girls arguing, poking and kicking each other in a silent exchange, which resulted in them missing the whole interview. Before they knew it, Dad’s voice had risen slightly and the girls heard him thanking Marjorie for her time, explaining that he would ring her later if he decided to appoint her. The door shut and the girls raced to the bedroom window to see Marjorie waddling back down the drive with another scone in her hand. The girls ran back downstairs into the room to ask Dad about Marjorie.
He said she was very nice, but that she would “eat us out of house and home. I’m sorry, Libby; she ate every single scone, and took the last one home with her.”
Thankfully, Libby saw the funny side of this, taking Dad’s pen from him and writing
‘Do not appoint!!!’ next to her name, carefully copying the three exclamations marks that Dad had put next to Stella’s name.
Chantelle arrived next, and Janey welcomed her into the house. She seemed young, pretty and very confident to the girls.
Libby whispered to Janey, “She is really cool, isn’t she?”
Libby asked Chantelle if she would like a tea or coffee, and apologised for there being no scones left.
“Na fanks, but have you got any diet coke?
”
Dad said “Unfortunately not”, but suggested some juice or water.
“Na, I’m cool, got chewing gum in anyway, so won’t taste good.”
Libby caught Dad’s face as he led her into the lounge for the interview. He seemed to take a deep breath and then close his eyes for a good few seconds. Before being offered a seat, Chantelle had plonked herself down in the chair that Dad had previously been using to conduct the interviews from. The interview questions and marking sheets had been neatly placed on the arm of the chair. Chantelle picked them up and started reading through them as she placed her feet on the glass coffee table.
Before Dad had chance to take the papers from her, Chantelle brashly asked, “What does do not appoint mean? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Dad suddenly turned his teacher voice on. This was something he rarely did outside of school, but on the odd occasion when it appeared outside the school gates, Libby and Janey were left in no doubt of Dad’s ability to take control of any situation.
“I suggest that you go home and look it up in the dictionary, and when you go to college, ask the teachers for some advice on how to approach an interview. Thank you for your time; you can go now, and you won’t be hearing from me again.”
Dad said all of this in a stern but controlled voice, and with a steely look in his eyes. As he finished he turned his lips upwards into the shape of a smile, but it was clear to everyone, including Chantelle, that there was no generosity in this final exchange.