by Fiona Neill
“Damn,” said Nick suddenly. “The bloody cork has broken.” He held up the bottle to the window and saw tiny pieces of cork floating on the surface.
“I thought it was an infallible bottle opener,” said Foy wryly. Nick picked up the bottle of Puligny-Montrachet and started pouring it down the sink. He assumed a pose of utter nonchalance that he knew would irritate his more frugal father-in-law.
“Why don’t we put it through a sieve?” suggested Foy.
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” said Nick, pointing at the floor beneath him, where his wine cellar was located. “We’ll just have the Meursault instead. Salmon needs something a bit stronger than a Montrachet, don’t you think, Foy?”
Foy wasn’t listening. He had just noticed Ali standing awkwardly by the window.
“And who are you?” Foy boomed. Ali stared at him vacantly. She pointed at herself with one hand and tried to say “Me?” but no sound came out. In the week since she had moved into Holland Park Crescent, Ali was growing accustomed to the idea of being invisible. In Cromer she was always coming across people she knew, whether it was queuing in the butcher’s or walking along the beach. Even in Norwich she often ran into fellow students or friends who had moved to the city in search of work.
In London, there were no familiar faces. She was neither a parent nor part of the group of Eastern European nannies who stood together, laughing and chatting in guttural strange languages in the park. It made Ali realize how much of her identity was formed from her relationship with the familiar. She regretted not taking up her father’s recent offer to go out to sea with him. She hadn’t been for years. She might have seen which parts of her were exposed in heavy seas when everything nonessential was stripped away, and this would surely have helped her now. Foy turned away from her.
• • •
There had been times this week when she went the entire day without speaking to anyone apart from the children and Malea, who was clearly more interested in the soaps she followed daily on the TV in the kitchen than in talking to Ali. The first two evenings she had dutifully waited downstairs at the kitchen table until eleven o’clock at night for Bryony to come home from work. She had compiled a careful list of the day’s highlights, hoping for reassurance that she was doing things right. But she never appeared. On the third night, Ali gave up and took herself off to bed at ten o’clock. She walked past Izzy’s door and could see her on the computer.
Above her, she could hear Jake padding about in his bedroom on the top floor, occasionally singing to a song on his iPod. She longed for company and scrolled down her contacts in the new BlackBerry that Bryony had given her. It was a spartan list. There were three numbers for Jo, but they were probably all defunct because her sister would have either lost her phone or run out of credit. And even if she managed to get hold of her, at this time of night, the chances of her being off her face were too high to risk a call. Then there were Rosa, Tom, Maia, her parents, and Will MacDonald. Impulsively, she deleted her tutor’s details as surplus to requirement. Rosa, however, picked up straight away.
“Hello, stranger,” Rosa said warmly, even though it was less than a week since she had organized a party to celebrate Ali’s departure. Ali understood. University friendships depended on day-to-day contact, and she was already out of the loop. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” said Ali. “More complicated than I imagined. Difficult to form relationships with so many different people in such a short space of time, but Hector and Alfie are really sweet. And my room is enormous. You’ll have to come and stay. I’m allowed girlfriends.”
“Great,” said Rosa. Ali could tell her attention was already wandering and knew it would be difficult to lure her away to London from the intense self-contained world on campus.
“How’s your new flatmate?”
“What?”
“The girl who took my room.”
“You chose well,” said Rosa. “She’s great.” Ali heard a voice in the background.
“Who’s with you?”
“Can’t talk,” Rosa said, and giggled.
“New love interest?” questioned Ali.
“New lust interest,” confirmed Rosa. “Can I call later?”
“I have to get up at six-thirty, so maybe tomorrow,” said Ali.
“Sure,” said Rosa.
It was a phone call that reinforced Ali’s sense of isolation. Of course Bryony communicated with her. But it was a virtual relationship conducted by BlackBerry in short, terse sentences at odd times of day. “Izzy cello?” read one. “Jake weekend plans?” read another. “Twins MMR?” Nick was out of the picture. She had seen him only once the whole week.
• • •
“And who are you?” Foy turned his attention to Ali again. “Apart from being the kind of person who requires people to ask the same question twice.”
Ali found Foy’s sudden attention almost more unwelcome than the previous neglect. She regretted the denim miniskirt and leggings that she was wearing and wished she had put on something more sober. She wrapped her cardigan tightly around her and pulled down the sleeves. She lacked gravitas.
“Sorry, Dad, I should have introduced you,” said Bryony apologetically. Ali stuck out her hand as far as it would stretch in an effort to keep Foy at bay.
“This is Ali, our fantastic new nanny,” said Bryony, an approving arm resting protectively around Ali’s shoulder. “Be nice to her, because she only moved in this week.”
“What happened to the other one?” asked Foy.
“She got pregnant,” Tita reminded him.
“I thought that was the one before?” Foy said.
“No, she was the one who kept locking the twins in the playroom when she—” said Tita.
“We don’t talk about that anymore,” Bryony interrupted.
“You can’t have a nanny this pretty with a teenage boy in the house,” said Foy dramatically. Fortunately, Jake was sitting at the table wearing his headphones and didn’t hear him.
“You can’t say things like that, Dad. She’s an English-language graduate from the University of East Anglia,” Bryony explained, trying to divert her father. “She’s helping the children with their schoolwork as well as looking after them when I’m working. Like Jane Eyre.”
Ali looked embarrassed.
“What do we have for Ali?” Foy shouted over to Tita. Tita glided toward Ali and silently held out her hand for Ali to shake it. It was small and bony, and reminded Ali of the swallows that used to nest in the eaves outside her bedroom in Cromer.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Chesterton,” said Ali nervously.
“How about a jar of honey?” suggested Tita.
“What’s a young girl like this going to do with a jar of honey?” said Foy dismissively. “Do we have an extra sarong, Tita?” Tita shook her head.
“Then we’ll have to get you something when you come to Corfu,” said Foy. “You’ll be coming out in the summer, of course.”
“I’m not sure,” said Ali, again a little nervously, because it wasn’t clear whether he was making a statement or asking a question, and although Bryony had mentioned family holidays in the interview, she didn’t specify the destination or whether she would be invited.
“The nanny usually brings the children for a month,” explained Foy, “and Bryony and Nick join us for the last couple of weeks, although Nick generally spends more time with his BlackBerry than he does with us.”
His tone was jokey, but no one laughed apart from Ali, who quickly stopped. Bryony looked offended. Ali assumed it was because Foy had criticized her husband.
“You know I work pretty hard, too,” said Bryony defensively.
She muttered something about going in search of Nick, who was now delaying lunch by heading back downstairs to recover another bottle
of wine from his cellar. The twins were nowhere to be seen. Ali was unsure whether she should go and look for them.
“Maybe I could help with the olive harvest?” she suggested politely.
“That happens in the winter,” said Foy. “It goes on for months.” To Ali’s relief, Foy excused himself and went back upstairs, muttering something about a weak stream and the perils of a dodgy prostate.
“The honey would be lovely.” Ali turned to Tita. Tita smiled benevolently but it was her piercing green eyes, not her lipstick-smudged mouth, that captivated Ali. They were eyes that saw everything but revealed nothing. Even through the unforgiving glare of youth, Ali could appreciate that Tita was a woman whose life had been defined mostly by her beauty. Her hair might be gray and scooped up into an unfashionable bun at the back of her head, and the way she stood with her legs slightly too far apart may have made her look rather sturdy, but she was still a woman who commanded attention.
“Ignore him, my dear,” said Tita. “He’s like a child in a sweetie shop when he meets someone new, but he quickly loses interest. It’s all about the first five minutes. He means no harm. Foy is a very obvious person.” She sounded dismissive, but the comment was said with pride.
“With a big personality,” agreed Bryony, who had come back into the room with Nick and another bottle of wine.
They could hear the Big Personality thumping back downstairs with the twins in hot pursuit.
“Look at this,” he said loudly. He was holding a picture that usually hung on the wall of the upstairs bathroom, a location that was meant to lend it an air of casualness that it wouldn’t have had if, for example, it had been hung in the drawing room. It was a framed photograph of Foy taken in the 1980s, outside 10 Downing Street, after a meeting of business leaders with Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher, dressed in a blue skirt and jacket, was leaning toward Foy, ignoring the person on her left-hand side. It looked as though she was asking him an im-portant question. He leaned toward her so that her face almost touched his neck.
The photograph had appeared in a couple of broadsheets. Foy had managed to get the original picture and had written a small caption at the bottom that read, “Let them eat fish!” He had given it to Bryony “for inspiration” after she set up her own financial public-relations company sixteen years earlier. Bryony had been touched until she realized that he had given a copy of exactly the same photograph to her sister, Hester. But by then it was too late to remove it from the bathroom wall without offending her father.
Foy held the photograph up in its frame and urged everyone to come closer. A small group gathered around the bottom step. At the front were the twins, sucking intently on sweets they had found in their grandfather’s pocket. Behind them stood Bryony and Tita, standing in exactly the same pose, arms crossed and feet sticking out at right angles. Izzy hung behind with Jake, who had obligingly taken the iPod headphone out from his ear. Nick strolled over, holding another bottle of wine. Even Malea came away from the cooker to see what was going on. Only Ali hung back.
“What’s wrong, Foy?” demanded Tita.
“Can’t you see?” said Foy, pushing the photograph into her hands.
Everyone crowded round. Foy’s face was flushed, but when they tried to reconcile its familiar features with the photograph in his hand, it became apparent that something was wrong. The face in the picture had become a smudge. It was as though Foy’s face had overflowed so that his aquiline nose and jaunty chin merged into each other. The eyes, no longer blue, were in the wrong place. Foy’s face was almost indistinguishable from Mrs. Thatcher’s, who had undergone a similarly radical transformation. The surface had concertinaed in parts, and the corners had curled.
“It’s got damp,” said Bryony in wonder. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice before.”
“Maybe there’s a leaking pipe?” suggested Nick helpfully. “Or did someone leave the window open?”
“It’s the only picture that’s been damaged,” said Foy.
“Such bad luck, Foy,” said Jake, and for once he wasn’t taken to task for calling his grandfather by his first name.
“Smell it,” urged Foy.
Bryony leaned forward and sniffed deeply, and then immediately recoiled. She passed the photograph back to Nick, who tentatively smelled the surface and swallowed a couple of times, as though trying to prevent himself from retching.
“What does it smell of?” demanded Foy.
“Urine,” said Nick in disgust.
“Someone has pissed all over me,” shouted Foy. His eyes flashed accusingly around the room.
“It must have been the twins,” said Tita.
“How could they reach the photograph?” Foy rounded on her.
“They could have stood on the loo seat,” suggested Nick.
“It was probably part of a game,” said Izzy. “They’re always trying to see who can pee the farthest.”
“It’s just bad luck that you were used for target practice,” said Bryony.
“When did they do it?” demanded Foy. “It must have been today.”
Ali, who had been rooted to the same spot by the sofa, realized that all eyes were on her.
“It wasn’t me,” she said nervously.
“Of course we know it wasn’t you,” said Bryony in exasperation, “but you’ve been monitoring the twins all morning. When could they have done it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ali, looking over at the twins. They were whispering together in their strange language.
“Stop it,” shrieked Bryony. “Speak normally. Stop all this weirdness.”
“What are they saying? What are they saying?” Tita repeated, until Foy suggested it wasn’t helpful to ask.
“We didn’t do it,” they said in unison.
“Ali, I want you to get to the bottom of this,” said Bryony. It wasn’t clear to Ali whether the severity of Bryony’s tone was to instill fear in the twins, who were standing on either side of her, boiled sweets stuck in their cheeks, or to appease Foy, who was demanding immediate retribution.
“Yes, of course,” said Ali, wondering how on earth she was going to conduct such an inquiry.
Nick’s BlackBerry started to ring. He glanced down at the screen.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he said, looking relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. “It’s about the deal. The numbers are so complicated it takes the whole weekend for the computer system to crunch them.” Then he left, and as far as Ali could remember, he didn’t come back.
• • •
“Sum ergo edo,” Foy said, and smiled, invigorated by the arrival of food, his outburst seemingly forgotten. “I think, therefore I’m hungry.” Malea set down the salmon en croute on the kitchen island, and Foy leaned over to savor the smell. He gave a hyperbolic sniff and extolled the virtues of her cooking until Malea retreated in embarrassment back to the stove, where she began serving small portions of asparagus onto plates.
“All the more welcome after a month of Andromede’s spetsofai,” he declared. “It plays havoc with my digestion. I have to sleep every afternoon.”
“Needs ten more minutes, Mr. Chesterton,” said Malea, lifting the salmon back into the oven. “First the asparagus.”
“You do the same in England,” pointed out Jake. “In fact, wherever you are, you always sleep after lunch.”
Foy picked up the carving knife that Malea had placed on the worktop. He held it up so the light caught the white blade, turned it from one side to the other, and examined the handle as though he had come across an ancient artifact.
“What’s this? It looks like a samurai sword,” said Foy.
“It is Japanese,” said Bryony. “It’s meant to be one of the best knives in the world. It was a present for Nick after he closed some deal. Careful with the blade, it’s ceramic.”
“What are you doing?” asked Foy impatiently, sensing her presence. “You’re making me nervous. Come and sit down.”
“I’m not sure . . .” mumbled Ali.
She looked across at Bryony for direction, but she was embroiled in conversation with Tita about her younger sister’s plan to reinvent herself as a life coach.
“Why would anyone pay Hester for advice?” asked Tita incredulously, pulling out a chair next to her husband. “She can’t make her mind up about anything.”
“Maybe it’s the homeopathic approach, treating like with like,” Bryony said, and laughed, sitting opposite Tita. “Anyway, it’s more mainstream than crystal healing.”
“I’m very relieved she’s given up on that idea,” said Tita. “I cannot be doing with all her New Age mumbo-jumbo. Do you know, the last time I saw her she suggested that we might all benefit from family therapy?”
“What did you say?” Bryony continued to question Tita.
“I asked her why,” said Tita. “She started telling me that when you were children you drew a line on the bedroom floor to mark your own territory. Apparently you awarded yourself a much bigger space, and we allowed it to happen.”
“Anything else?” asked Bryony.
“She said that I was a distant mother and Foy was an overbearing father, and that we stymied her ability to think for herself. So I asked how she could explain that you were so decisive,” said Tita, obviously troubled by this turn of events.
