Chapter 23
After I’d been told outside the church that my husband-to-be had stood me up, the rest of the day was a bit of a blur.
I remember the bridesmaids and ushers squabbling about who was to blame, and Win walloping her boyfriend with an already wilting bunch of calla lilies after he enquired whether the reception was still on.
I remember them nominating each other for the job of informing the hundred-odd guests that the show was over before it had begun.
I remember poor Dad wanting to stay with me, but finally being persuaded to go and break the news to Mum.
And I remember, while chaos broke out around us, Jessica shoving me back into the car and instructing the driver to hit the accelerator as if she’d just won a bit part in The Sweeney. ‘What a bastard!’ she kept exclaiming. ‘A complete and utter bastard! I can’t believe it. I mean . . . Huh! The bastard!’
Then she paused. ‘Sorry,’ she said, momentarily sheepish. ‘I didn’t mean to rant. You’re the one who should be ranting, not me. Although . . . what a bastard! I just can’t believe— Oh, sorry. You okay?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, so numb I felt anaesthetized. I remember thinking I wasn’t crying so perhaps I must be okay.
‘The thing is,’ she continued, ‘anyone who does this sort of thing really isn’t someone you want to be married to, Zoe. What was he thinking? He mustn’t have been thinking.’
I glanced down at my dress, my beautiful ivory silk dress that had come at such an eye-watering price that they should have thrown in a bottle of Optrex. There was a tiny snag on the skirt, right at the front. I picked at it with my middle fingernail and pulled gently. The fabric bunched.
‘It’s not as if he hasn’t had years in which to dump you,’ Jessica babbled. ‘He could have done it six months ago and not put you through this. Or at least waited until after the honeymoon when he could have done the decent thing and got a divorce. It’s not like it’s hard, these days.’
I stared out of the window and suddenly wondered what poor Mum was doing. Probably shrieking loud enough for people sitting down to lunch in Newcastle to hear.
‘I am going to kill Neil when I get hold of him,’ Jessica huffed. ‘As best man, it was his job to get the groom here – even if that meant binding and gagging him.’
Her phone vibrated. She had it slammed against her head so rapidly I didn’t see her hand move.
‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?’ I could picture Neil cowering at the other end of the phone. To say that Jessica wears the trousers in their relationship hardly covers it. I don’t think Neil even has any trousers.
‘More to the point,’ she continued, so forcefully it must have singed the hair round his ears, ‘where’s that bastard friend of yours?’
I couldn’t hear Neil’s response. But, as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
‘What do you mean you’ll tell me about it later?’ Jessica sounded one step away from ordering him to be beheaded. ‘Tell me now. Neil? Neil! Don’t you put that phone down – I mean it. I’ve never meant anything more in my life. If you put the phone down on me I’ll—’
He’d put the phone down on her.
‘Soddit,’ she said. ‘Soddit, soddit, soddit.’
We looked out of the window in silence.
‘Was he with him?’ I couldn’t help asking, eventually. ‘Jason, I mean.’
She sighed and nodded. ‘He didn’t tell me much. In fact, he didn’t tell me anything. Oh, I’m sorry, love, I really am. This is horrendous. Absolutely bloody horrendous. I don’t think I’ve ever known—’ She wiped away a tear and sat, shaking her head and muttering like someone in the early stages of post-traumatic-stress disorder.
When we got to the house I realized, as I put my key in the front door, that I needed the loo. In fact, I was desperate. I’m talking every muscle in my pelvic floor working so hard it felt like a competitive sport. I remember wondering how I would have handled it had I been standing where I was supposed to be standing at that moment.
Going to the loo took longer than I’d anticipated, courtesy of my four-foot train and so much skirt it almost filled the room. As I was about to step out of the bathroom, I heard people coming in downstairs. My mother’s voice was the loudest: ‘What a pillock!’ she bellowed. ‘What a bloody, bloody pillock! And what a selfish bloody pillock at that! I suppose in Cheshire it’s no big deal if a hundred and twenty-two asparagus tartlets go to waste. Or a hundred and twenty-two lemon mousses with curry.’
‘Coulis,’ corrected Desy.
‘That’s what I said!’ snapped Mum. ‘The point is they’re all sat in a room along with a three-hundred-and-fifty-pounds-a-night disco man and twelve completely bloody useless cava lily centrepieces.’
‘Calla,’ corrected Desy.
‘What?’ said Mum.
‘It’s calla lilies,’ Desy repeated.
‘And that’s before we even get on to the peach sugared almonds,’ Mum continued, ignoring him. ‘What exactly is our Zoe supposed to do with a hundred and twenty-two bags of peach sugared almonds?’
I attempted to open the bathroom door silently but the hinges had needed a squeeze of WD40 since 1991.
‘Zoe? Zoe! Is that you?’ yelled Mum, hurtling up the stairs, followed by Desy, my auntie Linda and various other members of the Slimming World/step-class posse.
‘Oh, looove!’ she yelled, flinging her arms round me and squeezing me so hard she made my tiara fall off.
When she pulled away, her own hat – the Accessorize number that was a dead-ringer for a Philip Treacy – was wonky. It sent a stab through my heart.
My mum is usually nothing less than immaculate. She might be twenty years older than the average Wag, but her approach to self-maintenance would put Alex Curran to shame. I sometimes think she’d prefer to amputate her fingers than be seen in public with no nail polish.
At that moment she wasn’t immaculate. At that moment, when she pulled away from me, grasping my arms as if I was about to abscond, she had so much mascara down her cheeks she might have been experimenting with the Gothic look.
‘Mum, I—’
‘Don’t say anything!’ she said, flinging her arms round me again with the grip of a Tae Kwon Do grand master. ‘You don’t need to say anything. That bloody pillock. I knew he didn’t deserve you.’
‘Mum, you loved him until an hour ago,’ I pointed out.
She sniffed. ‘I never liked his hair. Never trust a man who tints his own hair, that’s what I always think. He did tint his hair, didn’t he?’
I sighed and closed my eyes.
I could feel her about to protest again, but then she said, ‘Oh, God, I blame myself.’
‘Why?’ I frowned.
‘I should never have let this happen.’
Desy rolled his eyes and took a drag on his Embassy cigarette. ‘Zoe, how are you feeling?’ he asked, blowing smoke.
‘Me?’ I said. ‘Er . . . I don’t know, really.’
Then they frowned. Had they each been asked to assess my mental state there and then I think I’d have spent the next twenty years locked up in a padded cell. Because, as far as they were concerned, I should have been wailing. I should have been calling Jason a bastard and a pillock and all the names under the sun. With hindsight – sorry, that word again – I was in shock. I must have been, because the tears did come later, buckets of them. All behind the door of my mum’s sweltering spare room, which I moved into, feeling like a pathetic, overgrown teenager.
In the weeks following my wedding day, I did so much weeping my cheeks were as raw as two free-range chicken breasts. I listened to torturous love songs and wallowed in memories of our first kiss, our first weekend in the Lake District, the day we moved into our house.
But I never called him names, not even to myself. Because I still loved him. I knew I shouldn’t. But I did.
Chapter 24
It’s the natural instinct of all British nannies in the States to seek out others o
f their kind – even if they would make the most unlikely of chums back home. My new friend Felicity Bowdon-Clarke and I undoubtedly fall into that category. In fact, it would be fair to say we have about as much in common as Princess Michael of Kent and Kerry Katona.
I had worked in a lovely but average nursery in the suburb of a provincial city, while Felicity had been employed in super-rich Knightsbridge by the family of an industrialist so wealthy the patterns on their loo roll were probably Picasso originals. As far as I can remember, she’s the first finishing-school graduate and High Court judge’s daughter I’ve ever come across.
‘Now, Nancy, watch carefully, please. Knife like so, fork like so,’ she instructs, in a voice so cheerfully jolly-hockey-sticks that she can get away with saying almost anything.
As Felicity picks up Nancy’s right hand and positions her fingers correctly, I should explain something: Nancy is not the five-year-old Felicity is employed to look after but the child’s thirty-nine-year-old mother.
‘Now, the American etiquette, as you know, is to cut a few bite-sized pieces of food, then lay one’s knife across the top of the plate with the sharp edge of the blade facing in,’ Felicity continues. ‘The fork then changes from the left hand to the right, before eating commences.’
‘Uh-huh,’ replies Nancy, studiously.
‘The European style begins in the same way as the American, in that one cuts by holding the knife in the right hand while securing the food with the fork in the left. The difference is that the fork remains in the left hand, prongs facing down, and the knife in the right. One proceeds to eat the cut morsels of food by picking them up with the fork still in the left hand. There. What do you think? Easy, yes?’
I’m just trying to work out how Felicity has managed to make something as straightforward as using a knife and fork sound like the worthy subject of an advanced lecture in applied science when she leaps in again. ‘I do think this sort of detail is worth while, don’t you, Zoe?’ she asks, her smile broader than ever. ‘I’m a firm believer in the importance of parents setting a good example. I’ve seen so many times what happens otherwise. If parents run a sloppy household, they end up with sloppy children.’ Then she laughs. ‘And, to put it bluntly, I don’t look after anyone’s slops!’
Felicity is supremely attractive: a slim, coltish redhead – think Nicole Kidman fifteen years ago. And, although her approach to childcare is about as progressive as that of a Victorian schoolmistress, it’s hard not to warm to her.
‘Okay, I think I got it now,’ replies Nancy, in a broad east-coast drawl. ‘Like this?’ She holds up her knife and fork to Felicity for approval.
‘Parfait!’ exclaims Felicity. ‘Félicitations!’
‘Hmm?’ asks Nancy.
‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll get on to that another day.’
Nancy Magenta and her husband Ash made their money running a hairdressing empire that they sold last year to concentrate on developing a range of shampoo. They’re not exactly typical of the Hope Falls residents who, I have worked out, fall mainly into two categories: deep-thinking intellectuals or high-flying City types. Judging by Nancy and Ash’s success in life, you can only assume they’re as sharp as they come. And, given that, you might think being retrained in the art of holding cutlery wouldn’t be top of their priorities. Apparently you’d be wrong.
‘Y’know, this is just the kind of added value a British nanny brings to a household,’ Nancy tells Trudie, Amber and me as she flicks her hair behind a Versace-clad shoulder. ‘I just knew the day we got Felicity we were right to hire one of you people. I mean, she has so much to give culturally.’
Nancy pauses momentarily in chewing her gum, which she’s been doing so vigorously for the past half-hour that my jaw aches just to look at her. ‘I don’t tell you this enough, Felicity, but it is so great to have you here!’ She leaps up to give Felicity a hug, apparently to celebrate her very existence.
‘Yes, well, let’s not get too carried away,’ chuckles Felicity, unravelling herself from Nancy’s grasp. ‘Now, Tallulah, have you washed your hands and face in preparation for our day out?’
Tallulah, a cute, slightly tubby little girl with a Cleopatra bob and shy smile, nods obediently.
Less than an hour later we arrive at the park and Tallulah is loosening up a bit, thanks, largely, to her hitting it off spectacularly well with Ruby – as big a Bratz fan as she is. The pair skip to the swings as Felicity perches herself on a bench and smiles fondly. ‘Tallulah’s a lovely little girl,’ she says.
‘Do you like working for Nancy?’ asks Trudie.
‘Of course!’ replies Felicity. ‘I mean, no family is for ever, and I’m sure I’ll go back to the UK at some point, but for the moment they’re all wonderful!’
‘They sound a lot better than the last bunch you worked for,’ Amber says, nodding. ‘From what you’ve said, I just can’t believe anybody could be so materialistic.’
‘I have nothing against materialism,’ Felicity responds. ‘In fact, I’d almost consider it a prerequisite. There’s nothing worse than working for someone who’s not prepared to part with any money. ’
‘You can’t do this job for the cash,’ Trudie points out.
‘Of course not!’ Felicity hoots. ‘Although I am well paid.’
‘Really?’ I ask doubtfully.
She looks at me pityingly. ‘There are people in Boston with JDs – that’s a law degree – who make less than a good nanny,’ she informs me. ‘If you play your cards right, as I have, you can get all sorts of benefits . . . health insurance, a country-club pass, personal trips using your employer’s frequent-flyer miles . . .’
I haven’t seen a sniff of anything like that from Ryan, and from Trudie’s expression, I can only guess that she hasn’t either.
‘Of course it’s all about being in demand,’ Felicity continues. ‘Nancy knows that I’m often approached by parents in the park offering to double what I’m making. I had a note slipped under the windscreen wipers only yesterday.’
I continue staring at her, stunned.
‘Oh,’ she adds hastily, ‘I’d hate to give you the impression I’m in this job for the wrong reasons. I’m here because I find working with children and their parents very satisfying. When they’re well behaved, that is.’
‘It can get you down when they’re not, can’t it?’ I leap on to our first bit of common ground. ‘I mean, Ruby and Samuel are gorgeous – and perfectly behaved most of the time – but bedtime is an absolute nightmare sometimes.’
‘I was referring to the parents,’ Felicity replies. She stands up and cups her hands round her mouth: ‘Tallulah! Tallulah! Over here now, please!’ The instruction is delivered at the pitch of a falsetto sergeant major in charge of the deaf squadron. Tallulah drops her doll and sprints over to us, eyes wide with anticipation.
‘Now,’ Felicity tuts gently, ‘what did I tell you about your clothes?’
‘Um . . .’ Tallulah ponders, biting her lip. ‘I’m not sure.’
Felicity sighs as she takes a brush out of her bag and starts going at Tallulah’s hair as if she’s grooming an Afghan hound. ‘I asked you to try to keep them clean,’ she reminds her, smiling. ‘You may be five years old but that isn’t an excuse to start letting yourself go. Wait until you’re your mother’s age before you do that. Now, run along and be careful, darling.’
‘Have I told you my family want me to go to the Seychelles with them next month?’ Amber announces.
‘You’re kidding!’ shrieks Trudie. ‘You lucky thing! I mean, Barbara and Mike are great and everything but there’s no way they’ll be taking a holiday any time soon – let alone with me tagging along. They’re just too busy for vacations, Barbara keeps telling me.’
I’m about to share with them that I was supposed to be going to Bermuda this summer, but decide against it. I’m enough of a professional not to dwell on such things. Even if I did come close to ceremonially burning my bikini a couple of weeks ago.
‘Well, I’m not at all sure about it.’ Amber frowns.
‘What? Why not?’ I ask.
‘It’s just . . . I mean, it’s very difficult to reconcile the trip with my beliefs.’ She’s twiddling a dreadlock. ‘They’re planning to stay in a five-star hotel. I grew out of that sort of thing years ago. I prefer to travel meaningfully, staying with the indigenous population preferably. In fact, I had a trip planned last year to stay with the Zulu people of South Africa. It was only because I broke my toe getting on the plane that it didn’t happen.’
Trudie – who has been bouncing Andrew up and down on her knee in the most vigorous session of horsey-horsey you’d get outside a rodeo – pauses to look at her. ‘Can I give you some advice, love?’ she says. ‘Drag yourself to the Seychelles, pull up a sun-lounger, order the biggest Piña Colada they’ve got and relax. Then, if you’re still worried about your principles, give me a ring. I’ll be over like a shot.’
Chapter 25
Despite his tender age, Samuel loves helping me with household tasks. Almost as much as his father doesn’t. I’ve been in America for nearly two months now, and there aren’t as many of these as there were when I first got here, thanks to our new cleaning lady, Daria (apparently they’d had several before I arrived – almost as many as there were nannies). But whether it’s helping me to unload the dishwasher, sweep the floor after dinner or clear the coffee-table after we’ve been drawing, he plunges himself into each job with huge enthusiasm. He leaves a bit to be desired in the skill department but that hardly matters.
It all began a couple of weeks ago when I challenged Samuel to put away his toys faster than his sister could hers, then stood back to marvel at what a bit of competition does for a child’s motivation. They both ran round the living room, tidying things away, as if they’d been possessed by the spirit of Mr Sheen.
Samuel’s latest favourite is emptying the mailbox at the front of the house when the post arrives. He seems to remember this each day before Ruby does and begs me to let him run outside and down the steps so that he can stand on tiptoe to reach up and get it.
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