by Beth Moran
‘Oh!’ She grinned. ‘No. That’s the kids’ questions. I’m training to be a midwife. A whole lot of different questions. Although I did have a boyfriend once who considered pregnancy a man-trap.’
We followed the boys down a gravel driveway to the Victorian house at the end.
‘It’s a life-long dream, and after giving birth to five kids I think I’ll be a flippin’ good one. But I haven’t exactly worked out how we’re going to manage it yet.’
After shooing the boys inside, Ellen led me through a tiled hallway full of coats and shoes into the kitchen. A battered oak table stood in the centre. An enormous oven, two solid dressers and rows of open shelving filled the walls.
‘Sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.’ Ellen brushed a pile of crumbs off one of the chairs, and I perched on the end, trying to make sure none of the food remains on my jeans rubbed off. She kicked a path through the toys to the back door, letting the triplets into the garden, and dashed about chucking dirty pots into the Belfast sink before rummaging in an enormous freezer. She put a plastic tub in the microwave to defrost, poured the tea and offered me a doughnut.
‘You have a lovely house,’ I said, admiring the walls covered in children’s artwork, the pots of herbs lined up on the counter-top and the brightly coloured window seat.
‘It used to be. Lately it feels like the chaos is winning.’
‘Chaos?’ I laughed. ‘You want to see my cottage. Actually, you probably don’t.’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘Worse. Chaos and mess I can live with. Filth and animal infestations have been more of a challenge. I don’t know whether to be worried or pleased about not gagging at the stench any more.’
‘Are you sure it’s safe to live there?’
‘Right now, I don’t have any other options.’
‘Where were you before?’
‘Living with my sister in Edinburgh.’
‘So why tackle the cottage now? It’s been empty for years.’
I shrugged. ‘I needed to move on. When my mum offered me the cottage it seemed like the perfect answer.’
Before Ellen could ask me anything else, the door burst open and Dawson and his sister ran down the hall, Dawson elbowing his way in front as they approached.
‘She’s lying! I didn’t do it, she pushed me first. And then she called me a brain-dead cyberwimp who doesn’t even know the genetic code for E. coli. And Austin says he won’t walk home with me any more if she’s there, even if he is my cousin, cos she didn’t shut up the whole way about bacteria and micro-things.’
‘Not true! He’s lying! He threw my bag over the hedge, and made me give him my crisps. He said he’d tell Austin I wet my pants in the car if I didn’t.’
Dawson interrupted her. ‘LIAR!’ They carried on arguing at full speed, voices growing louder.
Ellen stood up, pushing back her chair, and placed one hand on each child’s arm. ‘Excuse me?’ Her voice was quiet, but by golly it sent shivers down my spine. ‘I think we’d better start again.’
After another ten minutes of he-said, she-did, Ellen wangled an insincere apology from both the children, and they stomped off to other parts of the house. She stood there, hands tugging at her hair. ‘Sorry. Dawson walking Maddie home from drama club was supposed to solve one of my childcare headaches. It’s a five-minute walk with no roads to cross, but Dawson is anxious about me not being around so much and he’s resisting responsibility. I don’t blame him. I’m anxious about it. In a couple of weeks the course properly kicks in, and the nanny I’d hired has taken an au pair job in California with an only child and a swimming pool instead.’
The back door crashed open and three stick-brandishing four-year-olds came hollering through, knocking over a chair, stepping on the cat’s tail and leaving a trail of mud and leaves behind them.
‘I can`t imagine why.’ Ellen shook her head, righted the chair and glanced at her watch. ‘Oh boy.’ She eyeballed the mess, the uncooked dinner, the mud. ‘It`s days like this I wish I had a wife. Sorry, Jenny, I don`t mean to be rude, but I really need to press on. Do you mind if we chat while I get things sorted?’
The sounds of battle wafted in from the hallway, followed by a loud thud, a high-pitched scream and a wail. Ellen closed her eyes and sucked in a juddery breath.
‘I`ll see what`s happened. You carry on with dinner.’ Before realising what I`d said, I was following the sobs to where Maddie stood in a bedroom doorway, clutching the broken pieces of what had once been a microscope. Her brothers were nowhere to be seen.
I pointed at one of the doors, questioningly. Maddie shook her head, extending one trembling finger to the door behind me. Opening it up, I entered an empty room. Empty apart from three pairs of muddy feet poking out from beneath the curtains.
I summoned up my best impression of Zara facing an opponent`s client. ‘Which one of you broke Maddie`s microscope, and why are you hiding here instead of out there telling her how sorry you are?’
Silence.
‘Believe me, it`ll be a lot nicer if you make a voluntary confession.’
‘Jonno did it.’ Two voices chorused from behind the curtains. ‘I did it.’ Another voice, raspy with emotion, echoed them.
‘Right.’ I pulled back the curtains to reveal three very contrite little boys, holding hands and wondering what on earth this scary lady was going to do. ‘Who`s Jonno?’
I`m not quite sure how it happened, but I bundled the triplets – or as I now knew, Jonno (with the freckles), Billy (with the curls tumbling well past his ears ‘`cos he`s scared the scissors will chop off his head’) and Hamish (with a front tooth missing from falling out of a tree) – into the shower, out again and into some clean clothes. I managed to re-connect Maddie`s microscope, and gather up the pieces of glass from the shattered specimen slides. I cheered her up with a promise of some bacteria-riddled samples of dirt from my cottage, and even coerced the four of them into tidying up some of their toys while I wiped the mud from the stairs and hallway.
It took the best part of two hours, but by the time Will returned home, Ellen had dinner in the oven, a reasonably clean kitchen, a nicely laid dining-room table and five children playing Uno with an utterly exhausted stand-in childminder.
I cycled home through the frosty evening with a tub of chicken casserole tucked into my rucksack. I’d have to eat it lukewarm, but, compared to another pot of rehydrated pasta, it’d taste like manna.
5
The following day, while I was washing my clothes in the bath, someone knocked on the back door. Quickly glancing in the mirror, I confirmed that, yes, I did have a bright red face, hair like a bottle-brush and my top – the only one not being washed – had a split shoulder seam, revealing my most ancient of bras. Shooting off a quick prayer that it wasn’t Mack (for pride’s sake, nothing more!) I wiped my hands on my pyjama bottoms (again, the only thing clean after yesterday’s hit and run) and scrambled down the stairs before whoever it was decided to let themselves into the Hoard. An unheard-of practice in my previous life. Here, in the land where everybody knew your name, shoe size and bowel habits, I wasn’t taking any chances.
And a good thing I did. The door had already begun to open by the time I grabbed hold of it, firmly placing myself between the visitor`s line of vision and the inside.
‘Jenny?’
‘Ellen!’ I hovered in the crack, not sure how to keep her on the doorstep without being rude. ‘What are you doing here? I mean. I didn`t mean it like that. It was a genuine question. You`re my first visitor.’
‘Are you free for a chat?’
‘I, well, I`m cleaning. Hence the old clothes.’ I laughed, awkwardly. ‘Shall we sit outside, away from the mess? We can use Mack`s picnic-table. Um, would you like a drink?’
‘Yes please. I have to pick the kids up in a bit, but tea would be lovely.’
‘I haven`t any milk. Or sugar.’
‘That`s fine.’ Ellen smiled. ‘I have five children. A hot drink supped undist
urbed is my idea of heaven.’
‘Right. Back in a minute.’ I dodged through the tunnels up to the clean bedroom, where I now kept the kettle, hastily re-scrubbing out two of the mugs I`d previously sterilised, just in case something had crawled/landed/died in them since. Clattering back outside, I set them on the picnic bench.
‘Marvellous.’ Ellen closed her eyes and took a sip. ‘Do you always wear shoes with pyjamas?’
‘Until I`ve got rid of the mice, I wear shoes the whole time except for in the shower or bath. I mean bed. Well, bath or bed. Either. Both! I almost made it sound like I sleep in the bath! Hah!’
She smiled at me, unperturbed. ‘I wanted to say thanks again for helping me out yesterday.’
‘No problem. I enjoyed it. I hope dinner went okay.’
‘It was hideous, but no amount of preparation could have altered that. Anyway, I`m glad you enjoyed it. Because I`m wondering if you`d consider looking after the kids more often. Like, four days a week. For an hour in the morning, and two or three after school. Term-time only.’ She looked at me, expectantly.
‘Oh! Right. Well, I am quite busy with the cottage, but I don`t mind helping out I suppose, until I manage to get a job…’ Was that what happened here? You did someone a favour and they expect it four days a week, term time only? I mean, Ellen was really nice. Her kids were funny, and interesting, and I genuinely liked them. But they were also mentally and physically exhausting.
Ellen sat forward, her eyes wide. ‘I meant as a job, Jenny. What, did you think I was scrounging babysitting? I know Sarah isn`t paying, but I think with my troop you`ll be earning more than a chicken dinner.’
‘You want to give me a job? Taking care of your kids?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I don`t have any childcare qualifications or experience of how families work.’
Ellen frowned. ‘That`s not a problem. My gut tells me you`re a good woman. I need someone to work for me, and you need work. No-one, apart from me or Will, has got Jonno, Hamish and Billy in the shower before. Dawson told me you played three games of Uno, without anyone throwing the cards in anyone else`s face. Even I haven`t managed that. And if you`ll risk a hit-and-run to save my shopping, I`m guessing I can trust you with my kids.’
‘They were just behaving themselves for a stranger.’
‘No. They loved you. Maddie can`t wait to tell you about the sample of Aureobasidium she found in a crack in the basement steps. And Billy thinks you would make an excellent general. Better than William Slim.’
I ducked my head. ‘Things got kind of awkward with my last employment. They won`t provide a good reference.’
‘What about from an earlier job?’
‘I haven`t had any other jobs.’
‘Okay, Jenny. If we`re being honest ... Most people find my kids too much. They find Maddie too strange, and Dawson too emotional. The triplets – well. One babysitter said it was like taking care of three piglets, only with fake swords and better aim. Children can tell if someone likes them or not. I`d rather have someone who likes them, than fancy qualifications and a great reference. If you explained why you left your job, would that help?’
I wanted to – I wanted to snatch the offer before she could see sense. I so, so wanted to be a part of this warm, crazy family. To sit in their sunny kitchen, with a coffee machine. Curl up with a story-book in the rocking-chair, children snuggled under my arm. I wanted to soak up the love, and the noise, and the life. It was everything I`d never had, and always dreamt of. But I couldn`t do it. I couldn`t take another job I didn`t deserve.
I put down my cup, straightened my glasses and tried to look Ellen in the eye. ‘I really appreciate the offer. I`m amazed to even be considered. But I can`t work for you like this. I could be a child-murderer, or a confidence-trickster. A thief.’
‘Are you any of those things?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I`m sure we can work out something sensible. Will`s a headteacher. He isn`t going to let someone loose on his precious offspring lightly.’
Ellen left a short while later, having agreed the something sensible to be two character references, what sounded like umpteen background checks and a thorough interview with Will over dinner followed by a trial period of a week.
I could find two people who weren`t relatives to provide character references, couldn`t I? Sheesh, Jenny, it would be a lot easier than finding two people who were relatives to give them.
I meant it about having zero experience of how families work. My twin sister Zara and I are about as non-identical as it is possible to be having shared a womb. After nine months guzzling way more than her fair share of maternal nutrients, she used her three-pound weight advantage to shove her way out first and proceed to push, jostle, demand and manipulate my parents into making sure we never shared anything again, beyond a date of birth and surname. Waltzing off to boarding-school aged eight, she spent the next ten years wangling invitations to trips abroad, sponsored places on expensive summer camps and even a whole two months house-sitting in the South of France the year she finished school.
The few occasions she did end up home for more than a couple of nights in a row, she treated me with ninety percent indifference and ten percent irritation. I accepted this as exactly the way things should be. Stealing wondrous glances at the tall, blonde goddess, who flicked her glossy hair and pouted and the world bent to her will, she seemed another species altogether. A leopard and a mole. When people commented on how lovely it must be to have a special sister to share everything with, I merely shrugged and went back to reading my book. Zara didn`t have that problem. I don`t think she ever told anyone I existed.
Determined to justify her we-treat-our-daughters-completely-differently-because-they-are-individuals theory, my mum made it her mission to get me into the same university as Zara. Which happened to be Oxford. This included endless hours with a tutor, hundreds of headaches, heartaches and in the end the collapse of my parents` marriage, which disintegrated the year I turned seventeen. I lasted two terms at Queen`s College, Oxford before a nervous breakdown sent me home. The next three years were spent gathering my broken self together and wondering what on earth I was going to do, who I would be, and whether it mattered anyway. I also flunked out of yet more college courses my mother pressured me into, partly because I hated them, partly because I wasn`t yet mentally strong enough.
Then, landing in her own life-crisis, my mother sold everything she had and moved to Italy. My dad, renting a one-bedroom flat with his twenty-year-old girlfriend and seven snakes, somehow convinced the twin sister who had virtually forgotten my name to take me in (I suspect repayment of overdrafts was involved). I moved my battered suitcase up to Edinburgh, with strict instructions about never mentioning our embarrassing family to anyone, ever.
There is a reason why leopards and moles don`t live together. The odds are high that only one of them will get out alive.
And it isn`t usually the mole.
I had escaped, but it remained to be seen whether my wounds would prove fatal.
I dithered and dallied about who to call about a reference. Until, after hours of sorting crispy magazines into pointless piles, I phoned Meg, the one Dougal and Duff employee who might still consider talking to me.
‘Flip, Jenny, if anyone catches me talking to you, I`ll never hear the end of it.’ Her Scottish accent whispered down the phone. ‘I`ll call you back.’
She did, a couple of minutes later. ‘Right, we should be safe for now. I`m in the ladies`.’
‘Is it really that bad?’
‘Yes, Jenny. It is really that bad. When Zara heard that Elsie said you must have a good reason for what you did, you could hear the bellowing from Arthur`s Seat. Ian Dougal had to intervene before another nose got broken. Oh – hang on. Someone`s here.’
We waited in silence until they left.
‘So, how`s it going?’ Meg whispered.
‘Um, great, thanks. But I do need a favour.’
‘Ask
away, my friend. Ask away. Unless it concerns my boss, in which case don`t, and you`re not my friend, and we never had this conversation.’
‘No, nothing like that. I need a character reference. A truthful one.’
’A truthful one? Are you auditioning to be a cage fighter?’
‘A truthful one up about my character at any point in which you`ve known me, apart from at the party.’
Meg laughed. ‘No problem. You want me to leave out the secret fling with your boss, aye?’
‘Aye.’
Enough memories for one day, I abandoned the box of papers waiting to be tackled and went for a walk instead. I chose the opposite direction to the village, abandoning the footpath to push through the trees and wild bushes. I admired the frost sparkling on the branches, transforming the spider webs draped between them into exquisite jewellery, sucked in a lungful of fresh, bright air and picked up my pace. Winding my way along rabbit paths, up embankments slippery with mulch, in between vast rhododendron bushes, walking until the ache in my thighs and feet drowned out the ache beneath my ribs. Richard had stung. A lot. But, like falling into the nettle-patch growing beside my new back door, my foolishness bothered me more than the pain. But Zara. She had been a rose, with thorns long and merciless. And where she drew blood, the wound festered.
6
Three more days of cleaning, hauling, scrubbing, eating packet soup and mega-breakfasts and dreaming of a bouncy new mattress later, I cycled through the drab grey mizzle to have dinner with the Camerons. The door was flung open before I even rang the bell.
‘Hi, Superman.’
‘Hi.’ Superman, overcome with shyness, shuffled his feet on the welcome mat.
‘Are Ellen and Will in, or are you babysitting?’
He flicked his eyes up at me, the hint of a dimple appearing in his cheek. ‘I’m babysitting.’
‘Are you doing a good job?’