by Adele Geras
I returned as quickly as I could to the study. As soon as I came in, Bridie jumped up and took my hand.
‘I like you,’ she said. ‘Don’t go home yet.’
‘I like you too,’ I said to her and found that I meant it. I liked having her hand in mine.
Dee, anxious that her younger sister was getting all the attention, wasn’t going to be left out. ‘I like Megan as well,’ she said to Bridie, frowning a little.
I was just about to proclaim my devotion to Dee, too, when Eva spoke: ‘I’m sure it’s time for your tea now, girls. And I’d like a word alone with Megan. Say goodbye now, please.’
They said goodbye and I kissed each of them in turn. On their way out of Eva’s study, they were whispering to one another but I couldn’t catch what they were saying.
‘Megan,’ Eva said, ‘You’ll forgive me for saying this, but you look dreadful. I’ve had a word with Rowena and she agrees. We think you ought to stay here tonight. We’d really love to have you, you know.’
I opened my mouth to say no, that wasn’t necessary and I was perfectly fine but suddenly I felt weak and wobbly and I could feel tears coming to my eyes again. I said, ‘I’m okay, really. The tears are because I’m so … well, because you’re being so kind. I don’t know if …’
‘I know if,’ said Eva firmly. ‘Of course you’re an adult and I don’t want to make you feel … but I’m sure it wouldn’t be sensible for you to drive all that way in the dark when you’re upset. Everything always looks better in the morning. Come with me, and I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. It’s the smaller guest room, but it’s pleasant enough. I’ve lent you one of my nightgowns and there’s a new toothbrush in the en-suite.’
I nodded. There was so much I wanted to say to Eva, but I couldn’t. I didn’t think that the morning would necessarily make me feel any better but she was right that I was too shaky to drive now. I said, ‘You’re being so kind to me, Eva. I’m really grateful. Thanks.’
As we went upstairs, she said, ‘I’ll send Phyllis up with a tray for you later on. Is that all right? Or would you rather come down and eat with us?’
‘A tray. Thank you. That’ll be good.’ I didn’t feel at the moment as if I’d ever want to eat again but I knew I’d probably be hungry later on.
‘It goes without saying,’ Eva went on, ‘that if you want anything, anything at all in the night, just come down to the kitchen and get it for yourself. I walk about at all hours, these days. All right? You’re to make yourself completely at home.’
‘I will. I’m really grateful.’
When Eva left me in the small guest room, I sat on the bed and wondered how I’d fill the night hours. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. There were books in a small shelf beside the bed; there was a radio on the bedside cabinet. My iPad was in my handbag: plenty of things I could do, but I didn’t feel like doing any of them. I lay back on the bed and looked around. Red curtains, made of velvety stuff with a raised pattern on it. Thick, beige carpet. Not a proper dressing table but an ordinary pine table with a swing mirror on it. I didn’t have the energy to explore the bathroom.
When Phyllis brought my supper on a tray, it looked so delicious and I was so hungry that I ate it at once: mushroom soup and toast, some smoked salmon sandwiches and a fresh fruit salad. I hadn’t had anything to eat since early morning, apart from half a Melting Moment.
When I’d finished eating, I put the tray outside the door. I could hear voices coming from downstairs. A bit earlier on, I’d heard the girls going to bed; saying goodnight and then their dad’s voice answering them. In the end, the house fell silent and my breathing was the only sound in the room. You might as well undress and go through the motions of going to bed, I told myself, and I got into Eva’s nightie, which was like a long-sleeved white T-shirt. It was soft and smelled of something lovely and covered me up almost to my ankles. I went to brush my teeth. I didn’t have any make up left on my face after crying so much but I washed my face anyway, scrubbing away at my eyes, making them even more scratchy and sore than they were before.
I turned out the light and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Darkness was good. Darkness was what I wanted. I don’t know how long I lay there, but eventually I fell asleep.
I woke up quite suddenly and for a second I didn’t know where I was. There’s an eye-blink of time when you feel okay, and it’s morning, or nearly morning, but then you remember the bad things and you want to go back, back into the night. I looked at my watch and saw that it was five o’clock. Two hours at least before I could get up. Whatever Eva had said, I didn’t dare to go down to the kitchen. Instead, I lay in bed and tried to go back to sleep. I must have drifted off, I think, or at least, had some kind of waking dream. At first I thought it was the girls, Dee and Bridie, up early and chatting but I knew this room was nowhere near where they were sleeping. It couldn’t be them. Also, they sounded too close to me. I heard whispers. Someone was whispering somewhere. I sat up at once and looked around. Nothing. No one in my room. I glanced over at the table, at the swing mirror and saw a flicker of white in the glass. I turned cold with fear but then realized that it must have been me, my face and upper body in Eva’s white nightie, reflected there. I lay down again. Of course it’s me, I thought. Who else could it possibly have been? Still, I didn’t want to look at the blank silvery surface and I closed my eyes tightly, with my face turned into the pillow.
*
‘I hope you slept well,’ said Eva. ‘You look a little better, I think.’
‘Yes, thanks,’ Megan answered and smiled. Eva could see that the smile was an effort for her. She was just about to say something else when Dee and Bridie came running into the kitchen.
‘Megan! You’re still here. Mum told us you were staying the night,’ said Dee. ‘Will you play with us after breakfast?’
Megan shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t. I’ve got to go home now. It was very kind of you to let me stay but I have to get back to London.’
Rowena followed the girls into the kitchen and sat down opposite Megan. ‘Good morning, Megan,’ she smiled. ‘Ma showed me the article you’ve written about her. It’s really wonderful. You must be so proud. I’m sorry I was busy with Mr Fielden yesterday and didn’t get a chance to speak to you properly. I hope you slept well?’
Megan nodded and said, ‘Yes, thanks very much.’ For a few moments the only sound came from everyone helping themselves to cereal and milk and coffee. Then Bridie spoke. ‘Do ask her. Please, Mummy,’ she said.
‘Yes, please, Mummy,’ Dee joined in.
Rowena sighed. She took some butter and began spreading it on a piece of toast. ‘Oh, Bridie, honestly!’ She turned to Megan. ‘I was moaning at supper last night about the trouble I’m having finding a nanny for the girls. They both want me to ask you if you’d be up for it. I told them I was sure you had better things to do than be their nanny.’
‘I haven’t,’ Megan replied immediately. ‘Actually I’ve recently left my job, it didn’t work out. So I’d be free.’
‘I told you that,’ said Eva. She took a sip of coffee.
‘Well, you did tell me but I can’t have made the connection. I don’t for one minute suppose you’d fancy coming to be a nanny here, would you? To these two? You can’t believe how awful everyone I’ve interviewed has been. Just –’ she spread her hands and shrugged her shoulders and sighed ‘– hopeless in dozens of different ways.’
Eva watched Megan. The girls were silent, looking at her, tense at the thought of what she would say. Would it be a good thing for them? Was Megan capable of looking after two children, the state she was in at the moment? Maybe it would be good for her; to put her somewhere far away from the things that were troubling her. Megan was intelligent and sensible. She seemed to like the girls. And after all, it would only be until they moved out of Salix House. Eva found herself hoping, almost as hard as the girls, that Megan would say yes. Megan looked up from her plate at last and said, ‘Well, that
would be … it would be strange for me, because I don’t know how good a nanny I’d be, but I haven’t got anything else to do right now, so I don’t see why not. At least for the time being.’
Before Rowena had a chance to say anything, Dee jumped up and grabbed hold of one of Megan’s hands and Bridie took the other and they both started squeaking and jumping up and down.
‘Let go of her, girls, please,’ said Rowena, ‘Megan’ll change her mind about looking after you.’
‘You won’t, will you?’ Dee said. ‘We’ll be ever so good, promise.’
‘No, I won’t.’ She smiled at them. Rowena said, ‘Okay, kids, if you’ve had your breakfast, go off and play. Megan and I have to sort out the details. Come into the drawing room, Megan, and we’ll work everything out. Thank you so much for doing this. You’ve rescued the girls and me from a whole series of Nannies From Hell. How soon can you start?’
7
After I drove away from Salix House last Saturday, I spent a long time thinking about what Simon had told me. I felt sick at the thought that it might be true. Now Eva and Rowena had given me a way of leaving London, leaving everything behind. I could live in Salix House. I loved the house, although I had found that first night creepy. And what about what happened in that small downstairs lavatory? Was that only a product of how I was feeling? Aside from all that, which was probably just a product of my overactive imagination, could I be a nanny? Did I even like kids enough to spend hours looking after them? It wouldn’t be many hours. They were at school for most of the day. At least I’d be away from London and a long way away from Simon. If I were here, wouldn’t it be easier not to think about all the things I wanted to avoid, and work out what I wanted to do next?
I started making arrangements. From first thing on Monday, I was cleaning and tidying my flat. I wanted to leave it ready for the agent who was going to sublet it while I was away. I didn’t know how long I’d be working at Salix House, but I was sure it wouldn’t be all that long and I had every intention of continuing to look for work as a journalist and of moving back to my flat sometime. But looking after two children was different from anything I’d ever done, and it was a good way of not going over and over in my mind everything that had happened with Simon. I thought a lot about Eva, and what a shame it was that she was going to have to leave Salix House. There was something about the place now that hadn’t been there when I’d first gone to interview her. I’d been impressed then. I thought that everything I looked at was artistic and unusual and touched with a kind of difference. It was a special place. The first time I went there, Eva had shown me round the garden. We’d walked across the lawn and sat on the bench near the monkey-puzzle tree and Eva had seemed happy. She explained to me that making the garden was a kind of substitute for making the clothes. It gave her something creative to do and I could see she was proud of what she’d achieved. I was absolutely sure she didn’t want to leave the house. Now, maybe because both of us were unhappy, it felt as though the combination of our moods had had an effect on the fabric of the house. After spending more time there, I was thinking of it as slightly shabby and also a little unwelcoming. But what on earth did I mean, unwelcoming? Grow up, I told myself. The house was fine and you were just being stupid. Everything will be better once you’re there, once you’re busy with the girls. I moved in the following Sunday.
*
My bedroom in Salix House is practically the size of my whole London flat. When Jay first caught sight of it on Skype, she said, ‘God, Megs, you’ve landed in the jam. It’s stunning.’ And it is. I can see the drive from my window, edged with the pretty trees the house is named for, curving down to the gates. It is late October and a few pale green leaves are still clinging to the red twiggy branches. I’ve got a bed, a little sofa, a colour television, a dressing table and more cupboard space than I need. There’s also a chest-of-drawers and an en-suite bathroom. On the wall above the bed is a large still life of a white jug with some apricots lying next to it.
I liked the room as soon as Rowena opened the door to show it to me. I was relieved about that because the moment I arrived in the house, I sensed again that the atmosphere had changed. It hadn’t been my imagination. Now, especially at certain times of the day, I have the feeling that I’m missing something; that there are conversations going on where I can’t hear them. I feel unsettled and awkward when I’m alone in certain rooms.
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen very often. Someone walks in and dissipates whatever it is that’s odd about the atmosphere. Bad vibes are here, somewhere, and it worries me that I can’t quite pin down where they’re coming from or why. At my most paranoid, I think: it’s me. They’re attached to me, somehow. I’ve brought them to Salix House. It was perfectly okay before I came but now that I’ve moved in, things seem not to be exactly as they were before. But I feel fine in my room.
The girls were happy to see me. Eva seemed pleased too. I haven’t a clue if I’m capable of being a nanny but, for the moment, I’ve decided to put my journalistic ambitions on hold, while I deal with everything that’s happened recently. The pay’s decent and I get bed and board, no rent to pay. I like the girls. The job isn’t very hard and I don’t have very much to do. I have to take them to school, fetch them at the end of the day. I help them with homework if they need it. I like Eva especially and it makes me happy to think that I’ll get to know her better. Perhaps I’ll even be able to help her when it comes to leaving Salix House. And I’m far away from Simon and everything that reminds me of him, which is good, even if there’s no way I’ll be able to escape from his terrible accusation.
During the last few days, I’ve learned certain things about this house and about Eva and her family. However carefully you’ve interviewed someone (and I thought I’d done a thorough job of it) you can’t know what their lives are like. Not really. Not until you share a house with them.
On my first night here, I couldn’t sleep. Something woke me up. I opened my eyes in the unfamiliar bed and listened. Houses make strange noises. People often put the sounds down to plumbing: the pipes are heating up or cooling down or something. But this was different. I thought it might have been a floorboard creaking. I checked the time, thinking that perhaps it was someone waking up extra early. One of the girls, maybe, up before daybreak. But it was two in the morning. It couldn’t have been the girls.
I got out of bed and put my slippers and dressing gown on. The house was silent now but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again for a while. I’ll go downstairs, I thought, and get myself a hot drink. I opened my door as quietly as I could and stood at the top of the stairs. A draught was blowing round my ankles and I looked down, astonished. This was the best insulated house I’d ever been in. I already knew that Eva liked warmth and in any case, where would any draught be coming from, up here? There were no windows opening on to the landing on the first floor. The front door was shut and so were all the hall windows. And then the draught stopped, just like that. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come. I puzzled over this as I crept downstairs, treading carefully on the carpeted stairs, but then I noticed that a light was on in the kitchen. Someone else was up. For a second, I froze on the bottom step, wondering if I had the energy to make conversation with one of the family at this hour. I was working out what to do when Eva came out into the hall.
‘Ah! It’s you, Megan. I thought it must be. Nothing wakes Rowena up but sometimes Bridie has a nightmare …’
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
‘No need to apologize. It’s often hard to relax on your first night in a new house. Come and have some camomile tea. That’s very good for getting you to sleep.’
I followed her into the kitchen, and wondered how I could get out of drinking camomile tea. She must have read my mind because she turned to me and smiled.
‘That’s if you feel like camomile tea. Hot chocolate is also good.’
‘Thanks, I’d much rather have that. Would you like something? I can mak
e it.’
She waved in the direction of the table. ‘I have my coffee already. Decaff at this hour, of course, but always coffee.’
As Eva showed me where to find what I needed, for a moment I had a strange feeling of being in someone else’s life: I’m in Eva Conway’s kitchen making hot chocolate, I thought to myself. It was like acting in a film when I didn’t quite know my part. I waited for the milk to heat up.
Eva said, ‘You don’t have to stay and talk to me, you know. You can take your chocolate back to your room if you’d like to. I often wander about in the middle of the night. Old people need less sleep, they say.’
‘That’s okay. I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all. It’s a funny time of the night, isn’t it?’
‘The house feels a bit different.’ I was thinking of the draught around my legs and I nearly said something about it and then didn’t. Eva looked much older in her nightclothes. She was wearing a greyish hooded velour robe which I recognized from the White Company catalogue. I’d wanted the very same one but could never afford it.
‘The girls are so excited that you’re going to be taking them to school tomorrow,’ Eva said.
‘I’m a bit nervous, actually. Maybe that was why I couldn’t sleep. Mr Fitzpatrick’s coming with us, to show me the way and what to do when I get there.’
‘Mr Fitzpatrick? Conor, surely. Eva, Rowena and Conor from now on. Mr and Mrs sound so formal.’
Rowena had made a point of telling me that too. Calling the girls’ father by his first name was going to be hard for me till I’d got used to it. Even saying Eva and Rowena sounded funny, like using the first names of your teachers at school. We sat in silence for a few moments and I felt more and more as though it was up to me to find a topic of conversation. In the end, I said, ‘Dee and Bridie seem to get on very well, don’t they?’
