by Beth Moran
‘And, for the record, if I was going to steal anything, I’d have done it long before you arrived.’
‘Okay.’ I nodded.
‘And the mattress and bedding were from my spare room. If I’d offered them, you’d have said no. I couldn’t sleep properly, knowing you were on the other side of the wall in a bath.’
‘Okay.’ Mack was on a roll. There was no way I was interrupting the flow.
‘I didn’t think of it as being creepy. I guess because, well, I know I’m not a creep. Although—’ he cleared his throat, and looked away ‘—I have got used to my own company. Probably lost some social skills. So, I apologise for creeping you out.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
He took a swig from the flask. ‘Four years, near enough.’
‘How do you get out anywhere? I haven’t seen a car, or a bike.’
He shrugged. ‘I walk. Run. Get the bus.’
‘When?’ I casually dabbed at the remaining cake crumbs.
The portcullis to Castle Mack slammed shut again. ‘I’ve got to get back to work.’ He gathered up the things on the table, but I grabbed the key as he made to move away, holding it out.
‘Keep the key.’
He looked at the ground. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please. I think we’ve established that I’m a buffoon, whose dream of being a self-sufficient, capable wonder woman is still just that. I’d appreciate it if you had a key, in case of emergencies.’
He shook his head, briefly, and glanced up at me. By golly, those eyes were as smooth and dark as the cake. ‘Emergencies, by their very definition, are supposed to be rare and unexpected.’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled, shrugging my shoulders. ‘I’m working on that.’
9
I still got that common recurring nightmare, the one where I was at school, only instead of the beyond nerdy uniform I had to wear, I was in my underwear, and instead of being invisible, a superpower I perfected during my years treading water in the ocean of academia, everybody was pointing and laughing. And I couldn’t move. And the teacher was nowhere to be seen. Or they were the one laughing the loudest.
So today was sort of like that nightmare coming true. Only instead of underwear, I was wearing a milk-stained, jam-smeared hoodie and muddy jeans. One of my eyes had swollen half shut, thanks to an ‘accident’ with a toy aeroplane. And my hair? Best not think about my hair.
The task list had looked straightforward. Breakfast for the younger three, as Maddie and Dawson could make their own. Two plates of toast – butter and jam on one, honey on another, and a bowl of cornflakes. A three-minute job. Only the list forgot to mention the butter-and-jam toast needed to be cut into triangles, or it didn’t taste ‘properly’. And evidently small triangles didn’t taste properly, either. The honey toast was ‘burnted’. Apparently. Making toast to Hamish’s exact shade of brownness should be a new skills test on MasterChef.
And cornflakes – how could you go wrong with shaking cereal into a bowl, and pouring milk on the top?
How indeed?
Did most children have an exact specification for flake-to-milk ratio? Decide the milk was too cold, and needed warming up in the microwave, which made the cereal too floppy, like ‘yuck flakes’, as demonstrated by catapulting them into their sister’s hair?
And breakfast was only the start. The ragtag, mismatched, inside-out and back-to-front outfits the younger boys wore were in blatant rebellion against the neat piles of clothing laid out ready to be scrumpled up and stamped on.
Brushing teeth? Wasn’t that supposed to take two minutes?
Packing bags? Not a problem. Un-packing the toys, stones, snail and mould specimens nearly finished me off. Like some insanity-inducing torture, every time I had one child suited and booted, coat on, bag ready, I turned around to find another running around the garden in nothing but a batman cape and armbands.
Dawson refused to go on without us, even as the clock ticked towards morning registration, instead lingering by the door and yelling increasingly frustrated orders at his brothers. At the school gate, however, he ran to his classroom, face pinched with worry. Maddie, still weeping over the cereal blobs I’d painstakingly combed out of her hair, refused to acknowledge me. She sloped off, head down, scuffing her shoes across the empty playground.
I heaved Jonno down from a wall, dodged between Billy and Hamish’s branch battle, and spent so long trying to herd them round to the reception building that the site manager had to come and help me.
When I eventually returned to find the gate locked, I gave up restraining myself, clinging to the railings while I snivelled. I had led a lonely life for a long time. But in that moment, trapped in a strange school, my black eye throbbing along with my weary head, facing a two-and-a-half-mile cycle back to Grime Cottage, where I would spend five hours silently scrubbing filth, with no one to laugh with about the morning’s palaver, before cycling back to spend another two hours failing at my work probation, currently my only option of surviving…
I had never felt so alone.
‘Excuse me?’ A voice interrupted my pity party. ‘Can you let us in, please?’
I opened my working eye to see an Asian woman with two girls, and a baby on one hip, peering through the bars. Sniffing in a most unladylike fashion, I made a pathetic gesture to indicate I didn’t know how.
‘The code is seven two three three. It spells “safe” on a phone.’
Attempting to hoist myself back together, I opened the gate. The children followed her in, waiting politely while she handed them their bags and kissed them both goodbye.
‘Goodbye, Okaasan,’ they chorused, beaming angelically before skipping off, holding hands. ‘Have a lovely day! Miss you!’
Have a lovely day? I felt a fresh, hot rush behind my eyes. My farewell that morning: I’m going to be in loads of trouble and it’s all your fault… I wish Mummy was here she’s nicer and funner and better at plaits… I’m going to shoot you with my poisonous arrows if you make me go… Billy said you’re a stupid-glasses-head… I’m telling Mummy you pulled my arm and shouted and now it’s brokened and I don’t like you, Jenny…
The woman shuffled awkwardly. ‘I don’t remember seeing you here before…’
I sniffed again, fumbling through my pockets for a tissue before remembering they’d all been used on Maddie’s tears, Billy’s scraped knees and everybody’s noses.
‘Here.’
I accepted the offered tissue and blew my nose, wincing as it sent shooting pains up to my eye. ‘I’m the Camerons’ new nanny,’ I croaked. ‘It’s my first day.’
‘Oh!’ The woman nodded vigorously, enough said. ‘Well, I need to let Reception know the girls are finished at the dentist. But if you can wait, you’d be welcome to come to mine for a cup of tea.’ She ducked her head. ‘I mean, if you like. You’re probably busy. Or would rather be by yourself. Forget it, forget I asked…’
‘I’d love to,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m not busy. And I’ve spent more than enough time by myself.’
She blinked at me, cheeks turning pink. ‘Great. Well, I’m Kiko. And this is Hannah.’ She patted her baby’s back. ‘I’ll see you in a minute.’
She hurried off, leaving me a precious few moments to take some calming breaths. I thought about the Hoard, waiting for me, and felt the beginnings of a smile.
Kiko’s house was a modern detached squeezed into a patch of land between two cottages. Inside, I perched on the pristine sofa and scanned the wall of family photographs while Kiko fetched our drinks. We chatted about how I’d started working for Ellen, and a bit about her children, while Hannah played on a mat on the floor. Kiko seemed nice, if a little tense. She asked about my plans for the rest of the week.
I glossed over the fact that my current plan started and ended with ‘survive’.
‘Only, I go to a book club once a month, and it’s meeting this Friday. Ellen founded it, and sort of made me deputy leader now she’s at university.’
�
�How does it work?’
‘Um, we chat for a bit, then discuss the book we’ve just read, oh, and there’s drinks and nibbles. At least, that’s the theory.’
‘Oh? What really happens?’
She began to bounce Hannah up and down on her knee. ‘Um, no, that is what happens. Mostly. It’s just, well. Sometimes the discussion gets a bit… lively.’
I wondered what she meant by lively. The question must have shown on my face, because Kiko hastily added, ‘But mostly it’s great. The club are lovely. Most of them. Most of the time. I’m just a bit nervous in case Ellen won’t be there, and I’m in charge. The fights aren’t that bad.’
‘Fights?’
‘No!’ She pulled a slightly manic smile. ‘Not real fights. Hardly ever real fights. It’s just this one woman, Lucille, she can get a bit overheated. And then, well, Ashley gets upset if Lucille makes a comment about Hillary West, with her being a local author and everything.’
‘Hillary West is a local author?’ Ooh, now I loved her even more. Being able to dive into her latest book had been helping keep me sane. The way she wrote about life, and love, and all the crappy things that happened, but somehow left you full of hope… I wanted my life to be a Hillary West story.
‘Yes.’ Kiko stopped bouncing and looked at me. ‘Ashley is her biggest fan. She keeps inviting her to the book club, but never gets a reply.’
‘Sounds… interesting.’
‘It beats Yellow Mickey’s bingo in the village hall.’
I see.’ I saw that I probably should never go to this book club…
‘You’ll come, then?’
‘Um. I guess so.’ I shouldn’t be one to judge a brawling woman, after all.
‘Great! We meet in The Common Café. Do you know it?’
‘I work there on Saturdays.’
‘Oh! You’re Sarah’s new friend! I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection. Well, you’ll be fine, then. She said you’re a strong woman who won’t take any—’ she paused here to cover Hannah’s ears, which was slightly pointless as she only mouthed the next word ‘—crap, excuse my language.’ She beamed, and I couldn’t help smiling back. I liked how this new Jenny was shaping up. I could back up my friend Kiko and deal with a few rowdy women at a book club.
Dawson and Maddie greeted me in the playground that afternoon with resignation. The triplets were too busy fighting invisible alien koalas to take much notice of who’d picked them up. I shooed them home and set about clearing up the mess from the morning, wincing at the thuds and crashes above my head. After one ceiling-shaking thump, I went to investigate.
The bedroom door wouldn’t open. I gave it a shove, and a rattle, and called through the wooden barrier. ‘Boys? Let me in, please.’
Silence. I gave a good loud knock on the door.
‘Why won’t the door open? What made that massive bang?’
I heard a quick scuffling noise, followed by more silence.
‘I can hear you in there. Open the door.’
I knocked again, hard enough to bruise my knuckles.
‘There’s an alien koala in the kitchen and he’s eating all the biscuits! Quick – you need to come and blast him for me!’ I tried.
More rustles and thuds.
‘Aren’t you guys going to help me? I’m rubbish at blasting aliens. At least come and tell me what to do.’
‘You need the blastabits,’ Hamish called from the other side of the door. ‘I think I left one in the shoe cupboard.’
‘I can’t hear you through the door. You need to open it.’
‘It’s in the shoe cupboard,’ he shouted, his brothers joining in. I could hear they were close to the door, and felt a twitch of trepidation. After more failed attempts at finding out what was going on, rapidly descending into bribery, threats and, worst of all, the promise to tell their mother, Dawson came out of his room.
‘When’s dinner?’
‘Your mum said you eat at six. It’s only just after five.’
‘When’s she coming home?’
‘She’ll be home in time for dinner.’
‘When, though?’
A muffled shriek from behind the closed door.
‘I don’t know, Dawson. Within an hour. Do you need something? Can I help?’
‘Why are you talking to them through the door?’
‘It won’t open. Does it have a bolt or something on the inside?’
Dawson rolled his eyes. ‘As if.’
‘Have they done this before? Do you know why the door won’t open?’
He shrugged. ‘Mum would get them out.’
‘I’m sure she would. In the meantime, how about you help me try?’
Dawson gave me a flat stare before going up to the door. ‘Open the door. Jenny can’t cook tea while she’s standing here yelling at you idiots.’
‘Dawson! Don’t call them names.’
‘Don’t want any tea,’ Jonno yelled back.
Dawson stomped back into his room. I tried Maddie, instead, who was watching television downstairs.
‘You could look through Mummy and Daddy’s window.’
I ran back upstairs, and found that Ellen and Will’s bedroom stuck out from the back of the house, with a window on the side. If I pressed my face against the glass, it provided a good view into the boys’ room. Maddie followed me, handing over a telescope.
‘Oh, no.’
‘What?’ She tugged on my jumper.
‘The wardrobe is on its side, in front of the door.’
I instructed the boys to empty the wardrobe, and then see if together they could push it away. No good. Time ticked on. I hadn’t started cooking dinner. Shoes, coats, bags and other mess lay strewn about downstairs, and I began to genuinely panic about getting the boys out of the bedroom.
‘Are you going to call the fire brigade?’ Dawson asked, loitering in his doorway.
‘No!’ I took a deep breath. ‘Well, not yet.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Maddie wiped a tear away. ‘They’ll be stuck in there forever!’
‘I’m going to come up with a plan.’ I walked back into Ellen’s bedroom, and made a few mental calculations before going back to the kids. ‘Is that ladder Hamish had out the other day the longest one you have?’
‘I think so.’ Dawson perked up a bit, sensing that perhaps I did, indeed, have a plan brewing. One that might be quite interesting.
‘Do you think it’ll reach the window?’
We found the key to the cupboard on the extensive bunch Ellen had entrusted me with. But even before dragging the ladder outside, I knew it would be far too short. Looking up at the windows in the deepening dusk, however, did lead to a new plan. A more stupid, desperate and dangerous one, but a plan all the same.
Against the side of the house was a trellis. Faded, splintered, the remains of a spindly clematis clinging to one side, it hung half-heartedly from the old bricks. We reckoned I could reach the boys’ window from the top.
We poked a window key through a crack at the top of the boys’ door, and with me shouting instructions, Billy managed to open the window. The next challenge was convincing them not to try escaping down the trellis themselves.
Heart pumping in my ears, head spinning, I started to climb.
Maddie had made a pile of sofa cushions underneath me ‘just in case’. I wouldn’t die, would I, falling a couple of metres? Maybe break a bone or two, have a mild concussion. At least in hospital I’d get free food.
‘You can do it, Jenny!’ Maddie cheered from below. ‘Keep going, you’re nearly there.’
I ignored the creaks and wobbles from the trellis, the rotten section that snapped beneath my foot, repositioned my hand and edged higher. Three wide-eyed faces stared at me, mouths open, arms dangling out of the window above my head.
‘Okay, boys,’ I gasped. ‘Do not move. Or touch the trellis. My laser eyes are freezing you for ten minutes.’
My first hand managed to grip the window frame. Now the sec
ond. As I scrabbled upwards, leaning my shoulders onto the sill, the trellis broke away from the wall with a long, anguished shriek, followed by a solid thwack onto the cushions below.
Legs swinging against the wall of the house, I tried to screw my head around to see Dawson and Maddie. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Don’t fall, Jenny!’ Maddie cried. ‘Jonno, Hamish, Billy, help Jenny!’
‘We can’t!’ Hamish answered, while I dangled in front of him. ‘We’re frozen for ten minutes.’
‘Three, two, one, ten minutes is up!’ I garbled, breathless, as I desperately tried to haul myself in. ‘Come on, show me what you can do.’
Those marvellous boys each grabbed a bit of me: a hand, a shoulder, an ear, and as my feet pushed against the wall, I kicked and scrambled inside. Collapsing in a heap amidst the total destruction inside their bedroom, I heard a voice floating through the open window. ‘What on earth is happening?’
Ellen or Will’s voice would have been bad enough. But as the angry tones continued demanding answers, Hamish looked at me. ‘Uh-oh, Jenny. That’s Grandpa Fisher. You’re in big trouble now.’
Ya think?
My heart still hadn’t recovered when Ellen returned, twenty minutes later. Seeming not to notice the mess, she greeted the children and leant in to give me a hug. ‘So sorry I’m late. I had a load of forms to fill in. Have you already eaten?’
‘I’m starving!’ Jonno declared, swinging off his mum’s skirt. ‘What’s for dinner?’
Ellen swept him up. ‘Why don’t you ask Jenny?’
‘Jenny hasn’t made any dinner ‘cos she had to go up the plant ladder to rescue us, and then it fell down and Maddie and Dawson were at the bottom.’
‘But they didn’t die ’cos they jumped out of the way like this!’ Hamish dived across the kitchen floor.
‘And Jenny was hanging out of the window like this.’ Billy demonstrated by dangling off the edge of the counter-top.
‘And she nearly fell ’cos we were laser-frozen and she was slipping off, but the alien koalas were coming but then she unfrozed us and we pulled her in like this and Maddie cried but we didn’t cry we saved her and then we destroyed the barricade and Grandpa Fisher was really cross. But he went home ’cos he didn’t have time to deal with it now.’