The Au Pair

by Emma Rous

  Warmth spreads across my cheeks as I picture myself staggering out of the doctor’s office the day before yesterday. What must Helen have thought? And of course, Hayley Pickersgill would have told him about it too. His fiancée. I grip the door handle more firmly, ready to send him on his way.

  “I’m really sorry about your dad,” he says then, his voice low, and for a fleeting moment I glimpse Ralph as a teenager again: always ready to help anyone in need despite the constant responsibility of caring for his mother and sister. I was so angry with him after he punched Joel at Edwin’s party that night, but I never doubted it was because he cared about me. He kept checking up on me in the days and weeks afterward, long after Joel had disappeared. I swing the door open wider.

  “You might as well look at the lawn now, since you’re here.”

  He glances back at his van. “I should have rung first. I can come back at a better time.”

  “Please. I haven’t seen you in so long. And I’m going a bit crazy here on my own, to be honest.”

  He puffs out a big breath, and his gaze runs over the upstairs windows. “Sure, okay.”

  I fill two glasses with cold water from the kitchen tap, and he follows me out to the patio. I settle in a chair and watch him pace out over the lawn, stooping to poke at it a couple of times. When he joins me back on the patio, he’s restless, jiggling his leg as he squints out at the garden.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I say, following his gaze. “Not like when Michael Harris used to do it. I wish Vera would get rid of the current gardeners. Would you take it on, if she asked you?”

  He clears his throat. “Actually, she thinks I should concentrate on the design side of the business in the long term. But she did cancel their contract a few days ago. That’s why—I’ll get the lawn treated at least, while she finds someone else to take over.”

  “Oh.” I nod slowly, determined not to show him how taken aback I am that he knows more about my grandmother’s plans than I do. There’s a note of respect in his voice when he mentions her that makes me feel guilty for not having apologized to her after our argument last week. She’s helped his family a lot over the years, and he’s obviously grateful. “Gran said—didn’t she help find Daisy a job recently, in the village?”

  “That’s right. At the baker’s. She loves it.”

  “Great,” I say. We sip our drinks and stare out at the garden. I don’t want to ask him about the rest of his life, about Hayley and his wedding plans. I wish I hadn’t invited him to sit down; he could have been on his way by now, reporting back to his mother and my grandmother. Yellow dandelion heads shiver as a breeze strokes the lawn, and an idea occurs to me.

  “If someone sprayed normal weed killer on all this”—I gesture to the scene in front of us—“would it kill the grass too?”

  “Well, you’ve got to use the right stuff.”

  “What I mean is, what would kill grass? Like, burn grass?”

  His fidgeting stops, and he frowns at the lawn. “What do you mean, burn?”

  “I mean, if you used the wrong weed killer, say, could that leave burn marks in the grass?”

  He nods. “Yeah, of course. Or a propane torch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A weed burner.” He looks directly at me for the first time, his forehead creased, as if he’s looking for some sign in me. “Why do you ask?”

  I feel as though I’ve missed something; our wires are crossed.

  “No reason,” I say. “Why do you say it like that?”

  He settles back in his chair, his gaze still on me. “I had one stolen from my van the other day. A propane torch.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. One of the tools I bought from Michael Harris, actually, when he stopped working. Joel helped him sell some of his stuff.” He says Joel’s name with a slight awkwardness.

  I stare at him. “Did you report it to the police?”

  He studies me for a moment. “Is there something you want to confess, Seraphine?”

  “No!” I say, but I can feel the heat in my cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous. What would I want with a weeding tool?”

  He runs his hand over his beard as he glances at the lawn, and the sudden flash of amusement in his eyes triggers a stab of regret in me for our lost friendship.

  “Fair point,” he says. “No, I haven’t reported it yet. I’ll mention it to Martin when I see him. I was stupid—the van wasn’t locked—and it’s the only thing they took. I thought it was probably kids mucking around. Or someone just”—his smile has gone—“borrowed it.”

  He eases to his feet, the empty glass in his hand.

  “Who would have borrowed it?” I ask.

  He looks at his watch and grimaces. “I really need to run, sorry. Thanks for the drink.” I have to make an effort to keep up with his long strides back through the house.

  “You’re not going to answer me?” I say as he opens the front door, and he turns to me with a startled expression.

  “What?”

  “Who do you think might have borrowed a weed burner from you?”

  His eyes search mine, and he leans toward me, and when he speaks I hear the genuine concern in his voice.

  “I’m really very sorry about your dad, Seraphine. He was a good man. We all miss him. Just—let me know if there’s ever anything you need, anything I can do.”

  He swings round and jogs to his van.

  I lean against the kitchen sink for a long time, waiting to make sense of it. I’ve had so many off-kilter conversations this past week—not just with Ralph, but with Laura, Pamela, Alex, Michael—do they all know something I don’t know? Do they have an agenda, an ulterior motive? Is it personal? Is it me?

  I don’t find any answers. The clock in the hall chimes, and I lift my chin, shaking off the circular thoughts. I make a cup of tea and prowl around the house, poking through the sideboard in the sitting room and browsing through the family photo albums again. I wander back toward the day nursery, an old memory niggling at me.

  A walk-in cupboard opens into one corner of the room, and I have to replace the light bulb inside it to get a good look at the contents. It’s like a time warp in here, with the games and toys of several generations muddled together. I know what I’m looking for, and after a couple of minutes, I ease out a cardboard box, a bit bigger than a shoebox, decorated with glued-on postcards and tickets and drawings. This was Edwin’s treasure box.

  I carry it over to the battered old nursery table. In my memory, the pictures stuck on the outside were colorful and exotic, but in the bright sunshine of this room now they look faded and tatty. I lift the lid gingerly.

  There are shriveled pinecones inside, and conkers. A pebble that has an “S” shape gouged into it. Tickets to the pantomime, the aquarium, Madame Tussauds waxworks. Train tickets—many, many train tickets. Programs for primary school productions—Edwin Mayes as The Innkeeper. Certificates for swimming, for a spelling bee, for karate. And a bundle of cards and drawings at the bottom. I would guess Edwin stopped squirreling things away in here when he was around seven or eight. Danny and I caught chicken pox when we were six, and I remember Edwin digging the box out and letting us browse through its contents when we were housebound feeling itchy and grumpy.

  I ease out the bundle from the bottom and flick through the drawings. Almost all of them show people, ranging from stick men to more sophisticated figures with detailed expressions. I wonder what it says about me that I used to draw Summerbourne so obsessively when I was a child, but rarely people. Danny used to design complicated mazes. Not for the first time, I wonder how different our personalities might have been if we’d grown up with a mother.

  I pause at a simple drawing of two figures, one labeled with an “E” and the other with a “T.” Edwin and Theo. They each have a yellow spiral of hair. A later picture shows “Daddy, Gran, E
dwin, Sefn, Dany.” There are several featuring Edwin and Joel surrounded by animals.

  There are postcards from Vera in London, and from our paternal grandparents in Scotland who died a few years ago. I open a Christmas card and read: Dear Edwin, I am at my own home now, but I miss you loads. Happy Christmas and I’ll see you soon. Love from Laura xxxx

  I check all the others. There’s no further mention of Laura, and none of Alex.

  Just before nine in the evening, I hear a car on the drive. I am tempted to run out and tell them all about the burned grass and the lipstick message, but I steel myself against it. Edwin and Danny make a noisy entrance, dropping bags onto the floor I cleaned earlier, scattering possessions over the kitchen countertops I’d so diligently cleared. I grit my teeth.

  “You told me you were coming straight back here,” is the first thing Danny says to me. “Alex bloody Kaimal? What the hell’s got into you?”

  “At least I’m doing something,” I snap back. “I need to know what happened that day.”

  Edwin holds up his hands between us. “Hey, you got beer in for us, thanks,” he says, grabbing a bottle and pulling the bottle opener from the drawer.

  “Joel brought them, actually,” I say.

  “Is he coming tonight?” Edwin asks.

  I shake my head.

  Danny opens two more bottles and passes one to me. “Come on then, spill.”

  “Come and see what I found, first.”

  They follow me through to the day nursery. The sun is setting, and the pink-and-gold light bathes the contents of Edwin’s treasure box laid out on the table. It’s a strangely beautiful scene, and yet for some reason makes me wish I had never unearthed these memories, or perhaps just makes me wish that Dad was still alive and we were gathered here for happy reasons. Edwin moves forward with a murmur of recognition.

  “I haven’t seen this for years. Where did you find it? Look at these.” He shuffles through the cards and the tickets, holding a couple of them up to show Danny.

  “I remember this,” Danny says. “I started my own treasure box, but I could never be bothered to collect things for it.” I lean my shoulder lightly against his as we watch Edwin leafing through his old drawings.

  “That’s you two,” Edwin says, holding up a brightly colored picture, “flying on gigantic birds.”

  “Of course,” Danny murmurs.

  Edwin pauses at another one, and then places it separately on the table and stares at it. I recognize it from earlier—a bird with a beak and legs and spindly toes, and a person lying next to it with a sad face. Unusually, it’s all in black crayon, except for a red patch on the bird’s body.

  “Theo and the robin,” Edwin says quietly.

  My eyes widen.

  “What robin?” Danny asks.

  “I don’t know,” Edwin says slowly, shaking his head. “Gran said something about it that day, on the cliffs.”

  “Robin was Mum’s twin brother,” I say. “He died before he was born. The cord was wrapped around his neck.”

  They stare at me.

  “How did you—?” Edwin says.

  “Pamela told me. She also told me . . .” I feel light-headed suddenly. I can’t say it aloud to my brothers—that twins never survive at Summerbourne, that that’s why Theo died, that no one in the village believes we’re the real Summerbourne twins. I take a deep breath. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re here. I just hope Kiara can tell us something useful tomorrow, that’s all.”

  Edwin and Danny watch me. I concentrate on keeping my breathing calm, conscious of the other secrets I’m keeping from them: the letters burned into the lawn, the writing on the mirror.

  Edwin sighs. “What time is she coming?”

  “About twelve.”

  “And then you’ll come back with us for a Winterbourne lunch on Sunday, yes?”

  I nod, pressing my nails into my palms.

  Edwin is fiddling with the layers of tickets and postcards glued to the box lid, and he suddenly sits up straighter, ripping a train ticket off completely.

  “Look at this.” He gives a short laugh. Freshly revealed is a flimsy gray square of shiny paper with a grainy white pattern on it. He peels it off the box and bends over it for a moment, then pushes it across the table toward us. It’s an ultrasound image. With Ruth Mayes and 10 February 1992 printed across the top. And it shows a baby. One baby.

  Goose bumps spring up along my arms.

  Danny and I look at each other and then back at the scan picture.

  Which of us is it?

  “Shit,” says Danny.

  “I don’t believe it,” I whisper.

  We stare at it in silence.

  “Can you get individual pictures of twin babies?” Danny asks eventually.

  I rub my hands over my face. “I don’t know. We could ask Joel.”

  “Why did you have this?” Danny asks Edwin. “Did Mum give it to you?”

  Edwin shrugs. “I guess so.”

  “Would you remember if there were two pictures of two babies?” I ask.

  “Oh, Seraphine, I don’t know,” Edwin says.

  Without further discussion, we abandon the table strewn with Edwin’s memories and carry our beers through to the sitting room where we slump on the sofas.

  “Is there shopping coming in the morning then?” Edwin asks eventually.

  “Yeah, between nine and ten. I ordered stuff for risotto, if you don’t mind cooking?” I pause, trying to picture the four of us sitting around the dining table, eating lunch, piecing together clues. “I should have told Joel to come before twelve if he wants to see you. Can you text him and say?”

  Edwin nods.

  “I can’t believe she’s driving all this way because her dad used to know our parents,” Danny mutters. Then he sighs and pats me on the arm. “Anyway, I’m sorry, sis,” he says. “I can see you’ve got it bad.”

  “What?”

  “Mentionitis,” Danny says, shaking his head.

  Edwin says, “Danny . . .” in a warning tone.

  I narrow my eyes at my twin brother.

  “I have no clue what you’re on about, Danny.”

  “Mentionitis. With Joel. You’ve mentioned him at least fifteen times since we arrived.”

  “Oh, shut up. Idiot.” I whack him with a cushion. He’s laughing, and I can feel my cheeks reddening, but I’m suddenly reminded of something else. “Hang on, truce. I need to ask you both something.”

  Danny groans. I look at Edwin.

  “You remember that day by the pool, when you had that party, with your university friends, and Joel called us sprites?” I ask.

  Edwin raises his eyebrows; Danny just blinks at me.

  “Yeah,” Edwin says eventually. “It was ten years ago, but yeah, of course I remember.”

  “What happened after I left?” I look from one to the other. “Did Joel get hurt?”

  Edwin tilts his head back against the sofa and looks at the ceiling. Danny’s gaze slides sideways, and he waits.

  “You knocked a glass off the table as you ran away,” Edwin says quietly. “Deliberately, it looked like. Maybe not, I don’t know. A piece of glass flew up and cut Joel under his chin.”

  I stare at him. The air feels too thick. “I never knew that. It was an accident.”

  They’re both quiet.

  “So what happened then? Did he need stitches?”

  “We got Michael.” Edwin rolls his head forward again. “The nanny would have made a fuss. Michael took Joel to the doctor. He got stitched up. It was fine.”

  “Lots of blood, though,” Danny says.

  I look at the bottle of beer in my hand, and slowly place it on the coffee table. “Why didn’t you tell me? Nobody ever told me.”

  Edwin sighs, and Danny makes a small noise in
his throat.

  “You always turned everything into a drama, Seph,” Danny says, his gentle tone at odds with the weight of the words. “Who knows how you’d have reacted. You spent the rest of that summer hiding from Joel anyway, and biting our heads off if we tried to talk to you about it. It was generally easier not to tell you stuff like that.”

  The fact that neither of my brothers adds, It still is, merely deepens the silence that follows.

  20

  Laura

  January to March 1992

  VERA BEGAN TO visit more frequently in the New Year—at least once and sometimes twice a week. Each time she arrived, she found an excuse to take me out of Ruth’s earshot and ask, “How is she?” I felt sick at being put on the spot like that, unwilling as I was to describe Ruth’s odd behavior, yet reluctant to lie that everything was fine. I began to dread her visits.

  Ruth took Edwin to his first settling-in session at the preschool. The following day I heard her on the phone canceling his place for the rest of the term.

  “Thank you so much. We’ll try again after Easter.”

  She didn’t mention a reason to me, and I didn’t ask.

  She hired a man to come and paint the day nursery, and then after he had moved all the furniture and covered it in dust sheets, she sent him away, claiming she couldn’t bear the smell of the paint. Privately, she told me, “I didn’t like his eyes. I didn’t trust him.”

  She spent ten minutes chatting at the front door with a red-haired traveler woman one afternoon, allowing the warm air of the house to be sucked out into the January gloom, and she bought a pair of beautiful glass candlesticks from her. Afterward, she smashed the candlesticks in the kitchen sink, grinding the glass with a rolling pin and flushing it down the drain.

  Yet frequently, she was seized by buoyant moods. She sang as she pottered around the kitchen, making up nonsense words to entertain Edwin. She stopped taking him to gymnastics, but she often joined us on the beach despite the cold weather, and we’d all have hot chocolate together on our return to the house.

  I might have told all of this to Dominic, but he never asked. He had a wary manner about him those days—sometimes watching me without seeming to actually see me.