Secret Nanny Club

by Mackle, Marisa

  9. Calm. She must be the yin to my yan. Sometimes I can get so worked up about things. I panic if I find myself running out of nappies and milk formula. I fret when I’ve done a huge wash of baby clothes and its pouring rain outside and I can’t dry them. Most of all, I lie awake at night worrying about money and ignoring the small pile of official brown

  envelopes stacked on the table beside the front door. I need to stop stressing so I think that a calm person could be a very good influence on me. Maybe we could do yoga together.

  10. Friendly. Now this might seem like a really obvious one, but I don’t want somebody who makes me feel like a stranger in my own home. I don’t want to dread hearing another person turn the key in my front door and wonder what uncomfortable small talk I should start engaging in. An au pair is supposed to be part of the family, but not so close to me that we are living in each other’s hair. I want to just click with somebody. I am looking for Miss Right. Surely that isn’t too much to ask?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  My son got his first two teeth this week. Or maybe it was last week. I’m not too sure. You see, I was over in Mum’s at the weekend and she looked at me crookedly and said, “You never told me!”

  “Never told you what?”

  “About Baby John’s teeth! He’s got two of them. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I was genuinely surprised. “Oh, I didn’t know. Nobody told me.”

  “But you’re his mother!”

  I felt a bit guilty then. I mean, I should have known. I should have been the first to discover them as I knew he had been teething for some time and his gums were sore, but the truth is that I’d been looking in his mouth and there was no sign of them. Like buses, two came along at once with no warning. I sent a text to Clive to tell him the good news and as

  usual I got no reply. Then I spent a bit of time wondering what other parents do. Do they celebrate occasions like these? Do they stick a camera down their baby’s gob and

  post the pics on Facebook? Isn’t that a bit OTT? Other people don’t really care, do they? Just because they feign initial interest in your tot doesn’t mean they’ve given you

  the green light to bore them to tears every time they meet you for the next few years.

  I saw these really cute baby books in a stationary shop recently. They were selling them in pink and in blue. Inside you could stick all kinds of things onto the pages such as a

  lock of your baby’s hair or his painted handprint, and record all kind of important dates like baby’s first tooth arrival etc. I wouldn’t really be into that though. I don’t want to become too obsessed. It’s unhealthy. Mind you, my mother thinks I’m the other extreme. My baby isn’t even christened yet because I can’t decide on godparents. I am trying to think of two people who will be generous and remember him on his birthday and at Christmas-time, unlike my own godmother who gave me zilch. But I’d need to get a move on. At this stage he’ll be making his Holy Communion before his christening. He’ll be walking up to the church himself and maybe even pouring a jug of water over his own head.

  It’s a difficult time though. The teething thing is so frustrating for both of us and it makes me feel so helpless. Nobody likes to see their little one in visible pain. John’s gums are sore and sometimes he screams so loudly I have to check to see nobody’s torturing him. I’ve tried everything from rubbing Bonjela on his gums, to sticking his teething ring in the freezer and I sing ‘Hush-a-bye, Baby’ from morning to night. All of it helps but there’s no miracle cure.

  I met an old college friend of mine at the supermarket recently and told him I was wrecked because of my baby’s teething.

  “He’s not sleeping, poor mite, and neither am I,” I told him bleary-eyed.

  “Tell me about it,” he said, commiserating with me, and shook his head. “I remember my own son’s teeth coming down. But,” he went on, “it’s much worse when they lose them.”

  “That must be painful too,” I agreed.

  “Painful on the pocket,” he said gloomily. “Recession or no recession, the Tooth Fairy demands to be paid. And she hasn’t brought his prices down in line with the current economic climate!”

  I’d never thought of that. The Tooth Fairy! Oh my goodness. I guess she’ll be making plenty of visits over the coming years, as will Santa Claus. I hope I have enough money to grease the palms of their hands. I need to get back to full-time work and fast.

  As soon as I get home I switch on my computer. It’s a real sign of the times. My inbox has been overflowing with replies from eager au pairs looking to come to work for my little family. Some of the applicants seem highly qualified with tons of experience and degrees and diplomas, although unfortunately a lot of them don’t seem to be able to read. Like that barman from Dublin who explained that he wanted a career change after a few years in the hospitality industry. He was so enthusiastic he even sent a photo. And in case you’re wondering, yes, he was very cute! But suitable? Not really. Mind you, he’d be

  handy for making me a vodka cocktail in the evening after a hard day’s work. I’m joking!

  Anyway, I got literally hundreds of CVs from all sorts of applicants. In fact I got so many that I really began to regret the fact that I’d advertised myself. If I’d gone through a nanny agency they’d have been able to sift out all the riff-raff. I can’t tell you how exhausting it was trying

  to read all the CVs, some of which were completely illegible i.e.I like you children. We make very good fun. I had asked applicants to include photos too because, you know, you can tell a lot from a photo in my experience. Like if somebody was scowling at you, and

  their photo looked more like a mug shot than a friendly snap, you wouldn’t really choose them to be your au pair. You wouldn’t be keen on somebody too glamorous either. Somebody very glamorous might find herself a rich man and then she might decide she’d rather live with him in a fancy penthouse than in a two-bedroom apartment with a single mum and her snotty kid. I got one rather odd CV from a couple of Scandinavian girls. Yes, a couple, even though I had specifically said I wanted one female. They said in their email that they were willing to work for free as long as they could be together. They also sent a photo. They had nice smiles, but all the facial piercings were off-putting. Besides, I really did want

  just one girl. There isn’t room in my humble abode for more than that. After all, I only have one child and how many females does little John need?

  Then I got a call from a woman who said she was also a mum and that we could meet up with our kids and have fun in the park. She seemed so nice and enthusiastic but I’m really hoping to get a girl who doesn’t want to become best friends with me and will see me as an employer rather than somebody to hang out with. Somebody calm, who won’t mind doing the ironing and tidying John’s room while I get some shut-eye if I’m exhausted. Besides, I never see my own friends as it is, never mind trying to make more online!

  Then I got a CV from a girl called Katia who had never looked after kids and wanted to eventually become an engineer and hoped that I would speak English to her all day so that she would be fluent in a couple of months. I had to reread that one a couple of times just to make sure it wasn’t a piss-take. Like, hello? Did she think I was running a language school or something? Of course I don’t mind speaking English to a foreign girl who is here to learn English – but all day? Give me a break! Maybe I could get an Irish girl. A nice local girl just out of school maybe, somebody who wants to move out of home for the first time. If I had an English-speaking girl then I wouldn’t have to speak slowly all the time and if I had a local girl staying with me she could go home every weekend and then I could have the place to myself. Also a local girl wouldn’t miss her family. A friend of mine told me her sister got a girl who missed her family so much she was on Skype non-stop talking to them and, when she wasn’t on either Skype or Facebook, she was sobbing her heart out because she missed them so much. After three weeks the girl told my friend’s sister that she had booked a
one-way ticket back home and she had to go and interview a whole set of new girls again. I really think it wouldn’t be fair on John to have a whole lot of girls coming and going like some kind of train station so I hope our girl stays and becomes part of our little family. Mind you, I don’t want somebody to stay forever. Like, suppose she never wanted to leave and twenty years down the road she was still with us? Hopefully I’ll get somebody who wants to stay for a year. A nice normal girl with no piercings or strange eating habits or dodgy boyfriends. Surely that’s not too much to ask, is it? Oh gosh, please, please, let me find somebody suitable soon. I am desperate!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Who’s that girl? I thought the other day, glancing in the mirror and shuddering. That girl had dark roots, dry frizzy hair and was wearing an old T-shirt with baby sick on the front of it. She also had unfamiliar circles under the eyes. I didn’t recognize her. But sadly it was me.

  Something drastic had to be done. So I called on my mother to mind John and took myself off to the hairdresser looking for a miracle (and intending to claim my usual press discount).

  “Make me look like this,” I demanded, waving a dog-eared picture of Kate Moss in her prime. “I’m willing to pay whatever it takes.”

  Actually I did nothing of the sort. I’m not that delusional, not yet anyway! I just explained that I’d like a bit of colour in my hair to make it look not quite as dull as it did. The hairdresser offered to do her best. “Would you like a few magazines to look at with your coffee?” she asked cheerfully when we got to the drying stage.

  I said I would. Anything rather than discuss a holiday that I wouldn’t be taking, which she was bound to ask me about. Anyway I was looking forward to enjoying catching up on some celebrity gossip. The only time I ever got to read magazines nowadays was when I went to the hairdresser.

  The girl handed me a pile of reading and I was all set to read about Angelina and her brood when I came across a very sad article about a pair of Siamese twins. One had survived but the other had died six weeks after being operated on. Tears formed in my eyes and I tried fighting them off. But it was no use. I’d already been in a tearful mood that day. My mother had told me she’d visited a friend’s daughter with leukaemia in hospital a fortnight ago. The girl was a mother of three, her youngest seven months old. As the girl lay in her hospital bed my mother had chatted to her about everything, including the current economy. She said how worrying it was that house prices were falling and people were losing their jobs. The friend’s daughter had smiled and said, “Myself and my husband used to worry about stuff like that. Not anymore. Now all I want to do is live.”

  She died a week later. When Mum told me I couldn’t stop bawling. “I want to live,” she had said. But that didn’t happen. Her wish hadn’t come true. Thinking about that girl again as I read about the Siamese twins, it suddenly made me realise that if my hair didn’t look great, it didn’t really matter. Or if I couldn’t afford a sun holiday this year, that didn’t matter either. Baby sick down the front of my top just means my baby is alive and well and the sound of his cries in the middle of the night should be reassuring rather than frustrating. The more I thought about it the more the tears flowed and I could no longer stop them. I felt so guilty for secretly moaning about minor mishaps going on in my life.

  “Is everything okay?” asked the bubbly hairdresser, turning the dryer off for a second. “Is the coffee not okay?”

  I looked down at my full, untouched cup and then looked at her in the mirror through my tears. She seemed fairly alarmed. It probably didn’t look good for her to have a crying customer. “Oh, it’s not the coffee,” I sniffed, dabbing my eyes with a tissue. “Honestly, the coffee is lovely. Sorry, I was just having a little moment.”

  Later on that evening I was still feeling a bit down. I couldn’t understand why. I wanted to snap out of my bad mood. I should have been feeling all positive after getting my hair done. Usually that put me in great form! After I had put John to bed after his bath, I started googling stuff on the internet about hiring nannies and au pairs. I came across a newspaper article which made the hair on my head stand up. It was quite shocking. The article was about money scams and it was entitled: NANNY FRAUD.

  It read as follows: She looks like a nice smiling, honest girl. She wants to learn English, is caring and adores kids. She doesn’t mind helping out with the housework either and is happy to baby-sit in the evenings also. She particularly wants to come to Ireland because she has heard many wonderful things about our country and she is anxious to work with kids of all ages and hopes to become a nurse one day. So you write back to this girl, let’s call her Maria. Maria emails back immediately, full of gratitude. Becoming an au pair is a dream of hers and she comes from a huge family and has lots of experience looking after babies and toddlers. You, of course, are a harried overworked mum so you write back asking how soon can she come? She’s on her way, she says. But there’s just one problem. Maria has no money and her parents are struggling financially and can’t help out. Can you transfer over the money for her flight? She would be most grateful. You are a little surprised, but because you are hiring her yourself and not through an agency, therefore avoiding high agency fees, you agree to send her the money. After all, you need someone yesterday and she’s on stand-by to fly into Dublin. You agree to meet at Dublin airport. Only Maria never arrives. Why? Well, because Maria never existed. That lovely smiling girl in the photo is probably not even aware that her photo has been posted on the Internet. And that girl has never had any intention of becoming an au pair in a foreign country.

  I was shocked when I found out this was happening to vulnerable mums and dads across the world but apparently it’s rampant. So do be careful. You can be very lucky. I myself found a fabulous girl online but it took me a couple of months of talking to people

  online before I finally found her. If you need a girl urgently, it’s probably best to go through an agency that has already done the initial interviews for you.

  Alongside the article were lots and lots of comments from angry parents who had been caught in this internet scam. I was cross-eyed reading them all. I am glad and relieved that I hadn’t wired money abroad to some stranger who might never show up! You’d be sick with yourself if you’d been caught, wouldn’t you? The next morning I was feeling a lot more positive about my nanny search. I had scheduled five back-to-back interviews with girls who all sounded almost too good to be true. They all absolutely loved kids, apparently, and it

  was their dream to work with them. I had wonderful visions of Mary Poppins herself landing in my garden, complete with umbrella. Within minutes she’d be singing to Baby John and we’d be all trooping off to the park linking arms. Or so I had envisioned.

  Anyway, I had got up extra early and wakened John who was in a deep sleep after a restless night and was none too happy about being aroused from his dream, which probably featured lots of cute bunnies and teddies. He yelled and screamed as I struggled to put on his best Burberry outfit which was a present from Sally. It is white so he’s never been allowed wear it for obvious reasons but he looked adorable in it. Please God he wouldn’t start throwing up everywhere just as I began my interviews.

  The first girl was due to show up to my apartment at eleven. I had sent everyone texts with directions just in case, but the block is easy to find anyway. I had made fresh coffee because I read somewhere that if you are trying to sell a home it’s a good idea to greet potential buyers with the smell of coffee. Now, I know I’m not trying to sell a house but I am trying to entice somebody to live with us, so why not use the same tactics with prospective child minders? I had full make-up and new clothes on to convince the new au pair that she would be living with a glamorous yummy mummy and not a complete slob, and I had my hair swept back into a chic chignon. I had even sprayed a dose of Chanel No. 5 perfume behind my ears and was wearing smart high heels (something I rarely do since having a baby) for a bit of extra effect.

  Now that myself and m
y son were looking fairly presentable, I began to feel both excited and nervous. It was almost as though I was going on a blind date or something. I felt myself peering out the window at everyone walking down the street to see if I could spot

  the first candidate. I waited and waited and waited. I even opened the front door of my ground-floor apartment and looked up and down the street to see if I could spot Mary Poppins but all I saw was a very elderly woman hobbling on a stick, and a dog cocking his leg on the gate of the house three doors down. There was no sign of the girl who was

  supposed to be coming. She had not kept her appointment and hadn’t even had the courtesy to send me a text to say she was cancelling. And then I realised to my horror that I

  had been stood up! Oh my God, she’d got a better offer. She found a nicer family. We had been rejected before we’d been given a chance to even sell ourselves as a lovely little

  family. I can’t even begin to describe how deflated I felt. It brought me back to my childhood years when my best friend decided she wanted to be friends with somebody else, and then my teenage years when the guy I fancied at the school disco asked another girl to dance.

  I fleetingly felt a wave of despair. Had she decided to go to another family? Did she feel another family would be more fun than myself and my son? Maybe the other family had

  offered foreign holidays and a huge bedroom with an ensuite and a flat-screen TV? I looked at John on his play mat gurgling away to himself. He was so cute. How could somebody not want to mind him? I boiled the kettle again. I had to stay positive. I would find a great girl eventually. All hope wasn’t lost and another four girls were due to come. I couldn’t beat

  myself up over one little no-show. I made a strong coffee, changed John’s nappy for the third time that morning, washed his face, re-applied my make-up, dusted the sideboard, rearranged a few framed photos and waited. And waited. It was now ten past midday and no sign of anyone. I began to feel deflated. What was going on? The sound of the front-door buzzer startled the life out of me. I put John down on his play mat and anxiously checked my appearance in the mirror to make sure no bits of John’s mashed banana was left in my hair. I took a deep breath and patted down my skirt. I didn’t want to come across as too anxious, did I? I opened the door with some trepidation.