‘No, I don’t mean Mum and Dad are driving me mad. Of course not,’ Paula said hastily. ‘Or even home. I just mean the thought of spending the summer holidays working in the hotel is a bit of a drag. I know I’m in reception now and, believe me, it’s a thousand times better than doing the rooms. I just feel terribly restless. I’d love to get away from everyone and everything for a while, like you.’
‘I’ll probably be mad homesick,’ Jennifer retorted as she slipped in between the fresh crisp sheets and sank into bliss. She could hear the sea pounding the pier, the rain battered the small square windowpanes. It might be midsummer but it sounded like the middle of winter. This bedroom was made for weather like this, she thought approvingly as she gazed around at the old-fashioned pink floral wallpaper and the faded dusky-pink pelmeted curtains. The ceiling sloped down in the shape of the roof. Two small lamps cast a warm glow in the snug little room. She yawned, hoping against hope that Paula wasn’t in the humour for a great long chat.
Paula echoed her yawn. ‘I’m whacked,’ she moaned. ‘Thank God I don’t have to get up in the morning. You’d better make the most of your lie-in. It might be the last one you’ll get for a while. Those kids will probably be up at daybreak.’
‘Mmmm,’ Jennifer murmured. She was feeling much better in herself. Paula had been genuinely pleased to see her and, despite her declarations of envy, Jennifer knew she wished her well. It was a pity she couldn’t come as well. That would have been the icing on the cake.
‘Mind yourself, lass. Don’t come back telling us you’ve a bun in the oven from some Spanish Casanova.’ Grandpa Myles bestowed a final benediction on Jennifer just before she left for the airport. She didn’t know whether to feel amused, exasperated or indignant at his remark. ‘Goodbye, Grandpa, and mind yourself.’ She bent and kissed his lined cheek.
‘I’ll miss you, lass, you’re the only one who has any time for me,’ he muttered and she was shocked to see a suspiciously bright glitter in his eyes.
‘I’ll write to you,’ she promised. ‘Every week.’ He’d got old-looking. There were times when she could murder him but there were times when she couldn’t help but be fond of him. She leaned down and hugged him tightly. God bless and protect him, keep him in Your tender loving care, free from all harm and danger. Amen. She blessed him silently with the old familiar prayer of her childhood.
‘See ya,’ she whispered and tried to swallow the apple-sized lump that had lodged in her throat. Mother of God, you’d think you were going to Australia for years. She chastised herself for her silliness as she hugged her younger brothers and followed her parents out to the car.
Kit kept up a stream of chat as they drove along the back road to the airport. They passed St Pappin’s School and Church, now dwarfed by the high-rise towers of Ballymun. The farms of long ago swallowed up by flats and houses. The narrow winding country road now a wide dual carriageway.
Excitement entwined with loneliness as the control tower and terminal buildings of the airport came into sight. Jennifer smoothed out the telegram she had received from Ronan that morning and smiled at the message.
Have a ball! it said. Jennifer took a deep breath and sat up straight. That was precisely what she was going to do. ‘Majorca here I come,’ she announced, smiling at her mother.
Chapter Forty-Eight
‘This is a nightmare.’ Gillian lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply.
‘Mummy, I want to wee,’ Emma whinged. Gillian looked helplessly at Jennifer.
‘Could you?’ she asked. ‘And then could you see if you can get some trolleys?’ They’d been waiting for their luggage for the past twenty minutes. Palma Airport was chaotic.
‘Come on, Emma,’ Jennifer said.
‘Don’t want you, want Mummy,’ Emma pouted.
Come on, you little brat, Jennifer thought to herself. ‘Mummy has to wait until the cases come out. Come on, let’s go or we’ll miss it. It’s great fun when they all go around the black belt there. It’s like a merry-go-round.’
That did the trick. The little girl took her hand and Jennifer battled her way through hordes of people standing around the various luggage carousels. She did her best to avoid the lucky ones who had luggage trolleys, which in some hands were lethal weapons as she found to her cost twice as her shins became victims of the mêlée.
‘I like Liz better than you,’ her young charge informed her as she presented Jennifer with a bare bum for her to wipe. Tough, Jennifer felt like saying as she did the necessary, I don’t like you at all! But she restrained herself, admirably. She knew she was going to have to make the best of it, after what she’d had to put up with on the flight. ‘We have to get to know each other,’ she smiled as she pulled up the little girl’s panties and straightened her dress. ‘Now let’s go and see if the luggage is arriving.’
By the time they’d pushed their way down to their carousel, the luggage had indeed started to move and Gavin was sitting in the middle of the belt, much to his mother’s consternation.
‘Darling, get off, get off, quickly!’
‘This is fun, Mummy,’ her son shouted as he evaded her grasp. That woman is ridiculous, fumed Jennifer as she raced around the other side. A good slap on the arse or the threat of the wooden spoon would work wonders on that pair. Gillian didn’t believe in corporal punishment. She liked to see children ‘expressing’ themselves. Reasoning was the best way to correct a child, she’d informed Jennifer during one of their chats when she explained what duties being her au pair entailed. It was clear that reasoning had no impact on Gavin as he pranced along the conveyor.
Jennifer plucked him off the carousel, much to his disgust. He immediately started a tantrum. ‘You’d better stop that at once, Gavin,’ Jennifer said sternly. ‘Do you see that policeman over there with the gun in his holster, he’ll drag you off and throw you in jail,’ she added cruelly. It worked. Gavin was a coward at heart.
‘Oh dear, I hope that won’t give him nightmares,’ Gillian murmured distractedly. ‘I can’t see any sign of our cases.’
‘I’ll go and get a trolley,’ Jennifer suggested.
‘I want to go too,’ Gavin insisted.
‘An’ me,’ Emma piped up. Gillian fluttered her limpid-eyed gaze at Jennifer.
‘Would you be a darling and take them?’
‘Certainly,’ Jennifer said politely, feeling very tempted to sneak off into the middle of the crowds, and book herself a flight out of this hell as fast as she could. Two months as an au pair in Spain had sounded so glamorous. She hadn’t even been on Spanish soil for an hour and it was beginning to feel like a nightmare.
She gripped the two children tightly by the hand, and battled her way through the charter flight crowds out to the exit of the arrivals hall. Dozens of couriers stood in the foyer, clipboards in hands, greeting their clients. The heat made her clothes stick to her. It would be nice to be a courier, she thought wistfully, as Emma fidgeted. It was a cloudy oppressive day, the humidity was very high. Jennifer felt as if she was breathing steam. She stood, pausing to review the situation. There hadn’t been one free trolley in the terminal. Her best bet, she decided, was to follow someone who had one. She noted the taxis outside the building. They should have no trouble getting one when they finally collected their baggage. An elderly couple pushing a trolley began walking in the direction of a fleet of coaches to the far right of the terminal building. Perfect, thought Jennifer, I’ll nab theirs when they’re finished. They walked on . . . and on . . . and on, right down to the last coach. She breathed a sigh of relief when they finally drew to a halt.
‘Come on. Quick!’ she said to the children, who were dragging their footsteps.
She was almost there when a skinny little man wearing white shorts and a striped T-shirt stepped over to the couple and spoke to them, pointing at the trolley. They smiled and nodded and, much to Jennifer’s frustration, handed over the precious trolley to him as soon as they’d unloaded their luggage onto the coach. Jennifer felt like crying. This was wo
rse than the quest for the Holy Grail.
It was another fifteen minutes before she eventually laid hands on a luggage trolley. Gavin wanted to push it. Emma screamed and insisted she wanted to push it too. Jennifer solved the contretemps by plonking Emma in the front basket and making Gavin stand on the bars. She was perspiring as she pushed them back to the terminal. Gillian, surrounded by luggage, was gazing around anxiously, looking for them.
‘Thank goodness, Jennifer. I was beginning to worry,’ she said in her breathless little-girl voice. ‘I wish Bryan was here to organize things, it’s a bit much leaving me to bring two children to a foreign country.’ Her tone was petulant, it reminded Jennifer of Emma.
‘It took ages to get a trolley, but at least there’s plenty of taxis outside so we shouldn’t be here for much longer,’ Jennifer assured her. She grabbed her own luggage, which was still revolving on the carousel, and then organized Gillian’s on the trolley. She had to carry her own because there wasn’t enough room. Ten minutes later, Jennifer had her charges settled in a taxi and they were on their way.
They were driving past the enormous yacht-filled marina of Palma when the clouds opened and a flash of lightning seared the sky. ‘Oh my God!’ shrieked Gillian. ‘I’m absolutely petrified of thunder and lightning.’
You would be, Jennifer thought unsympathetically as Gillian gave dramatic little shrieks with each crash of thunder. Jennifer was beginning to realize that her employer was a very silly woman. She’d asked Jennifer three times if she was sure she’d given the taxi driver the right address. Then she wanted to stop to get some bottled water just in case there wasn’t any in the villa. It was vital to get bottled water, she explained. She told Jennifer she must be absolutely scrupulous about making sure that the children didn’t drink tap water.
Jennifer asked the taxi man to stop at the nearest supermarket while Gillian looked on in awe at her au pair’s fluency. Jennifer was sure there’d be bottled water at the villa, but the way Gillian was going on she decided that the best thing to do was to humour her. No wonder Bryan, the husband, had skedaddled off to Brussels on business. He probably knew exactly what he was missing.
Half an hour later, looking out the car window through a torrent of water that the windscreen wipers were hardly able to cope with, Jennifer got her first blurry view of the villa as the taxi passed through black wrought-iron gates. They drove up a curved driveway to a whitewashed single-storey terracotta-roofed sprawling villa. Moments later the great oak front door opened and a small plump dark-haired woman dressed in a black dress and white apron stood smiling at them.
In a flurry of excitement Gillian and the children rushed out of the taxi into the villa, leaving Jennifer to deal with the luggage. She and the taxi man carried the bags in to the hall and Jennifer paid him from the wad of notes Gillian had given her.
‘Bienvenida, Señorita,’ the housekeeper greeted her, tutting and throwing her eyes up to heaven and gesticulating at the weather. ‘Me llamo Conchita Fernandez.’
‘Encantado de encontrarle. Me llamo Jennifer,’ Jennifer smiled.
‘¡Usted habla Español!’ the housekeeper exclaimed in delight and began to gabble away. Jennifer laughed.
‘Lentamente, lentamente. Slowly, slowly,’ she urged.
‘Jennifer, Jennifer, isn’t this superb?’ Gillian appeared from the lounge, beaming.
‘It looks nice,’ Jennifer agreed, gazing around her at the huge parquet-floored hall decorated with old chests and an antique sideboard on which stood a glorious array of flowers.
‘Nice! It’s gorgeous!’ Gillian enthused. ‘Come on, let’s explore.’ The housekeeper led them on a tour of the rooms and Jennifer was deeply impressed. She had never seen such luxury in her life.
‘Oh Conchita!’ she exclaimed when she saw her own room with its en suite tiled bathroom. It was a beautiful room. White walls were offset by a selection of water-colour landscapes. Green shutters covered the window. The bed had a luxurious white candlewick bedspread dotted with peach and green cushions. A small desk, a bedside table and lamp, a wicker chair and a large oak wardrobe completed the furnishings. Beautiful rugs lay on the polished wood floors. This would be her haven, Jennifer thought happily as the peace was shattered by the sound of the children squabbling.
Time for bed, she decided as she reluctantly left her lovely room to see what the argument was about.
Two hours later Gavin and Emma were tucked up in bed sound asleep. Jennifer had given them their tea, read them a story and promised, if it was fine in the morning, that she would teach them to swim in the pool outside, which now rippled under the onslaught of wind and rain. Maybe it was wishful thinking, she mused as the thunder rumbled away. Gillian, exhausted by the traumas of the day and terrified by the thunderstorm, retired to her room, unable to eat the delicious supper that Conchita had prepared for them.
‘I’m going to take a sleeper,’ she told Jennifer. ‘Be a darling and keep an ear out for the kids in case they wake up,’ she murmured tremulously as another crash of thunder sent her scurrying to her bedroom.
Jennifer was delighted to be rid of the lot of them. She sat at the exquisitely set table with its sparkling glassware and cutlery and ate her chicken salad with relish. She could see a horseshoe of lights curving around the bay. Pine trees swayed outside the window, and small lanterns illuminated the grounds of the villa, revealing an immaculately manicured lawn and tubs of exotic coloured flowering shrubs.
Conchita’s daughter, Estella, cleared away the dishes and Jennifer sat in happy solitude. She was pleased that she’d coped so well today. It was nice, she thought, to know that people depended on her. Gillian clearly expected her to take charge, and she had. Her Spanish had been more than sufficient for their requirements. Jennifer made up her mind to spend as much time as possible speaking Spanish with Conchita and Estella.
It was good to stand on her own two feet, she decided. At home, she had Brenda telling her what to do and Jennifer was inclined to let Paula make the decisions and be the leader. She was going to have to make decisions here. It was about time she grew up, she thought. After all, she was almost eighteen. It was time to start acting her age. Here, she was not the daughter, or granddaughter, not the younger sister or friend. Here, she was Jennifer Myles, Spanish-speaking au pair. In charge!
Invigorated, she began to write a long letter to Ronan.
Fifty dollars in tips. Not bad, thought Ronan, as he changed out of his green and gold bell boy’s uniform and stood under the cold shower. It was sweltering in New York. He’d been working since six a.m. in the Manhattan Tower Hotel. It was now almost seven-thirty and he had to be at work in the Dixie Southern Style restaurant by eight. He was earning good money. He was living in a small one-roomed bedsit in the Bronx with plenty of cockroaches for company, compared to which the digs in Phibsboro were a paradise.
Ronan didn’t care, he was hardly ever there anyway. He was working all the hours God sent and when he did get home at night he went straight to bed and slept like a log. There was no point in spending money on a palace when he was never there and besides he was saving hard. He glanced at his watch. He wasn’t sure what time it was in Spain, they were six or seven hours ahead of the US. Jennifer would be there by now. Probably fast asleep. He missed her very much. There was something about Jennifer that made him feel he had known her all his life. There was something kind and serene about her. Paula might be more sophisticated and glamorous, Beth more jolly and extrovert, but Jennifer touched a chord in him.
They had both agreed to go out on dates if they wanted to while they were parted for the summer. Ronan had taken a friendly Scots girl called Maggie to the pictures on a rare night off. But it was Jennifer he thought of last thing at night.
He had a five-page letter to her on the locker beside his bed. He would finish it tonight after work and post it in the hotel in the morning, Ronan decided as he dressed rapidly and headed off to catch the subway to work.
It had turned into a
ten-page letter to Ronan. She told him about all that had happened on their journey to Majorca. She’d told him about Gillian and her theatricals. About Emma and Gavin and how spoilt and badly behaved they were. She described her room. The view from her window, the sound of the crickets, the storm, it was as if he was sitting in the room beside her and she was telling him all about it.
When she was finished, she peeped in at the children. They were fast asleep. As was their mother, snoring resonantly, helped by the brandy and sleeping tablet she’d consumed. Satisfied that all her care had no need of her Jennifer had a quick bath before slipping beneath cool white sheets. She was asleep in minutes.
It rained solidly for five days. Gavin and Emma outdid themselves in boldness. Gillian left them completely in Jennifer’s charge while she spent most of her time in bed or in the bath quaffing brandy, and reading Jackie Collins novels and Cosmo.
On the sixth day, Jennifer woke to sapphire skies and sun-drenched seas. It felt like being reborn, she thought with pleasure as she gazed at the colourful vista from her window. Gavin appeared in her bedroom, closely followed by Emma. Both were in their swimsuits.
‘Can we go swimming now?’ Gavin demanded. Jennifer felt sweet power surge through her.
‘As soon as you’ve had breakfast and tidied your bedrooms,’ she insisted. Usually, breakfast-time was a battleground. And getting them to tidy their bedrooms was a Herculean task.
‘But I want to go swimming. NOW,’ Gavin screeched.
‘There’ll be no swimming at all,’ Jennifer scowled, ‘until breakfast is over and beds are made.’
‘Mummy will let us go swimming if we want to,’ Emma scoffed.
‘Your mummy doesn’t know how to swim so she won’t be able to teach you,’ Jennifer said smugly, playing her trump card. ‘And I won’t teach bad children to swim, or,’ she glared at Gavin, who was kicking the end of her bed in temper, ‘snorkel . . .’
It was two very well-behaved children who finally sat down to breakfast, having tidied their rooms under Jennifer’s gimlet eye.
Foreign Affairs Page 42
