“Where shall I take Shaun?” asked Jo. “I’d ask Gerry, but I don’t feel it’s appropriate.”
“Ooh,” said Pippa. “So you do like Gerry?”
“No.” Jo frowned. “Not like that.”
“So why are you keeping him interested?”
“For you! He might have a friend.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh God,” said Jo. “I’m so confused.”
“Why?”
Jo looked at Zak. “You know…” she said. Zak didn’t even look up. He was filling in Jo’s cat tail.
Pippa mouthed, “Josh,” and Jo nodded.
“Told him yet?”
Jo shook her head, and Pippa tutted, then dunked her chocolate square in her tea and sucked contentedly.
“How’s the picture of Catwoman going?” Jo asked Zak.
Zak didn’t look up from his drawing. “Fine.”
“Pippa,” said Jo, turning back to Pippa, “either Sebastian James needs changing, or you’ve got a serious problem.”
“I know. I was seeing how long I could leave it.”
“Well, give it another ten minutes and I’ll be sick.”
Pippa looked at her watch. “Okay.”
Five minutes later his picture was finished, and while Pippa changed Sebastian James, Zak performed the unveiling ceremony in front of Jo.
Her ears were a bit big, one arm was longer than the other, and she only had one leg, but apart from that it was an uncanny resemblance, especially the bouncy tail, which seemed to defy gravity.
“That’s fantastic, Zak!” she cried. “Look! I’ve got a tail!”
“Of course you’ve got a tail,” said Zak. “You’re Catwoman. Can I have my Fruitellas now?”
“Not till after tea.”
When the mummy of Sam, one of Zak’s best friends phoned, Jo answered it happily. “I’m not accusing him of anything,” said Sam’s mum wearily over the phone. “It’s just that Sam can’t find his tortoise anywhere, and he’s distraught.”
“Of course I’ll ask,” said Jo. “I’ll call you straight back and let you know.”
She clicked off the phone and sat next to Zak, swishing her tail deftly out of the way.
“Zak,” she said.
“Mm.”
“That was Sam’s mummy.”
Zak went quiet.
“Sam’s very upset.”
“Mm?”
“Because he thinks he’s lost his toy tortoise.”
Zak shrugged.
“Do you want to go upstairs and have a good look and see if you didn’t bring it home accidentally?”
For a few seconds Zak’s body seemed to fight itself, but finally the part that knew there was no point in arguing stomped upstairs, furious that the other half of his body hadn’t been stronger.
“I can’t find it!” he shouted immediately.
“Do you want me to come up and help you look?”
“Found it!”
Jo crossed her arms.
Zak came downstairs and produced a tiny plastic tortoise for her to inspect. A deep flush had spread all over his cheeks and he couldn’t look her in the eye.
“I’m not pleased, Zak,” said an unimpressed Catwoman.
“I just FOUND it.”
“Don’t lie to me, Zak,” said Jo firmly. “If there’s one thing I cannot bear, it’s lying.”
Zak felt surprisingly icky.
“I’m going to phone Sam’s mummy,” she said.
“It was an accident!”
Once the call had been made, she went upstairs and found Zak sitting on his bed.
“It was an accident!” he repeated, though with decreasing vehemence.
Jo sat down on the bed, her tail perkily behind her.
“Zak. How would you feel if Sam came here and took home your cyberdog?”
Zak’s foot started tapping and he took in air like a fish out of water, a useless displacement activity his body did to stop tears coming. “It was an accident,” he whispered, but the tears gave him away.
“You’ve stolen something, then lied about it,” said Jo sadly.
Zak fell facedown onto his pillow as she left the room.
After changing Sebastian James’s nappy, Pippa helped Jo compile a list of the top London clubs, wine bars, and restaurants to introduce Shaun to and help make the weekend go with a bang, “’Cos it doesn’t look like there’ll be much other banging going on,” she told Jo.
Tallulah entered.
“I need to do a poo,” she announced with great aplomb.
When the doorbell rang, Jo grimaced at Pippa. “That’s probably Josh back from his walk, forgotten his key again. You don’t mind getting it do you? Tallulah and I have a prior engagement.”
“Course not,” said Pippa. “Can’t wait to see the famous Joshua Fitzgerald.”
Pippa went to answer the door, holding Sebastian James in his car seat against her hip. The sun shone on her blond hair, showing up the hazel flecks in her eyes, as she grinned openly at the two tall men in suits standing at the door.
Nick and Gerry looked at her keenly and, thanks to years of undercover training, remembered not to pant.
“Hello!” said Pippa to Nick.
“Hello!” said Nick and Gerry.
They all grinned happily at each other.
“Can I help?” asked Pippa.
“We just came to pop in on Jo,” said Gerry.
“Well, he did,” explained Nick. “I just came along for the ride.”
Pippa and Nick smiled at each other. “Well,” said Pippa, as seductively as she could, “Jo’s just wiping Tallulah’s bottom, would you like to come in?”
“How could we refuse?” answered Nick, and the two men entered the house.
When Jo and Tallulah came into the kitchen a while later, they found an intriguing sight. One CID officer was reading How Much Do I Love You? to Sebastian James at the kitchen table, the other sitting in the conservatory armchair with Georgiana on his lap, reading Whatever Next?
Nick and Gerry also found an intriguing sight. Jo stood long-limbed in front of them, wearing a furry cat hat with pointy ears, mittens, and a bouncy tail. The sun that had done such favors for Pippa’s hair was making Jo’s dark blue eyes look all the more feline.
“’Allo, ’allo, ’allo,” greeted Nick. “Looks like we’ve found our cat burglar.”
“Do you think we should take her away for questioning?” suggested Gerry.
“You brought your dog-crap friend!” Jo laughed.
“Well, actually—” started Nick, glancing at Pippa, who grinned back at him.
“They’ve been reading to the children,” said Pippa. “Looks like our work here is done!”
Tallulah, yet to learn the complex ways of feminine guile, ran up to the nearest man in the room. “I did a poo!” she exclaimed.
“Did you?” asked Gerry. “Uncle Nicholas likes those.”
Tallulah turned to Nick obediently. “I did a poo!” she told him.
“Well done!” he said sincerely. Truth was he never failed to be impressed by those. The lads at the station would understand (“I just gave birth to a seven pounder…” “That’s nothing, mate, I needed stitches last Tuesday…” “Bollocks. Until either of you get a nosebleed, I’m still King of the Craps,” etc).
“It wasn’t as squidgy as yesterday,” continued Tallulah.
“Really?” asked Nick. “Excellent.”
He then looked at Jo apologetically. “Did you get it off the duvet?”
Tallulah let out a gale of laughter. “I didn’t do it on the duvet, silly!” she giggled. “He’s being silly!” she informed Jo.
“Yes, thanks.” Jo grinned at Nick. “First wash.”
“Just let me find that dog in a dark alley,” said Nick. “It’ll be crapping sideways for a month.”
“Ooh,” quivered Pippa. “Sexy.”
Tallulah giggled so much she almost fell over. The laughter caught her body unawares, and she let out a ne
at little trumpet.
“I did a fart!” she cried gleefully.
“Well done!” congratulated Nick and Gerry, genuinely impressed. At last, a female they could talk to.
“I’ll tell you what you can do to make up for it though,” teased Jo.
“Dinner for two?” asked Gerry.
“No. You can show a good little six-year-old boy your badge.”
“I didn’t do a poo on the duvet, silly!” repeated Tallulah, climbing onto the lap of the nearest man. But he seemed far more interested in the sight of Jo wandering off with a pussycat tail bouncing up and down on her J-Lo bottom.
While Jo went upstairs to tell Zak the exciting news, Pippa, Tallulah, and Georgiana made the men a cup of tea. Alone in the room, the two men exchanged meaningful glances.
“I’d rather show her something else than my badge, Nicholas, if you know what I mean,” Gerry whispered.
“Shh!” said Nick, putting his hands over Sebastian James’s ears. “Not in front of the littl’un, Gerrard.”
“Sorry, Nicholas. Wasn’t thinking.”
Jo put her head round Zak’s door.
“Zak,” she whispered.
Zak was perched on the edge of his bed, head tilted slightly, feet crossed at the toes, eyes wide, watching Buffy about to kick the hell out of a vampire. He pressed the pause button and pointed at the screen.
“Look!” he said. “She’s about to boff him!”
“Ooh! Lovely! I’ve got a surprise for you.”
Zak’s eyes doubled in size.
“What?”
“Guess who’s downstairs!”
“Who?”
“You’ll like it,” she said.
“Batman?”
“No.”
“Spider-Man?”
“No.”
“Yoda!”
“This may take some time.”
“Daddy?”
Jo thought she’d better tell him before it became too much of a bitter disappointment.
“Two real live policemen.”
Zak gasped in horror, his face turning purple.
“It was an accident!” he shrieked, backing away against the wall. “I’m not going to prison!”
Jo realized her mistake, but not before Zak had gone through the terror barrier and come back again.
He got his Fruitellas early that afternoon.
During the afternoon with Nick and Gerry, Jo managed to mention Shaun casually a few times, helped by prompts from Pippa, and she felt sure that Gerry clearly received and understood the message. In fact he seemed to have taken it very well. So when both men invited her and Pippa out in a foursome to the cinema the following Saturday, the weekend after Shaun’s visit, she felt confident that it was all aboveboard.
Unfortunately Josh got home from his slow ankle-strengthening stroll round Waterlow Park before the men had left, after Pippa had gone and before she’d taken her outfit off.
When he entered the kitchen, she was reaching up, blu-tacking Zak’s picture of her to the top of the fridge door. She felt the atmosphere change and swung round, her tail bouncing behind her. Josh was standing in the doorway looking at Nick and Gerry. Then he turned to her, paused in what looked like midthought, and blinked. She stood tall while he slowly took everything in. Her hand shot to her curvy tail and rested on it defensively as Josh’s eyes went to her black-and-white furry hat and fluffy ears, and then slid downward. She tried to smile, then tried not to. Eventually, he looked back at her eyes.
The room was silent.
Josh lifted his eyebrows. “Coppers follow your tail then?” he queried quietly.
Gerry laughed, and the room seemed to breathe out. “Too right, mate.”
“Hello,” said Josh, in a faux-cheerful tone. “It’s Maverick and Dog Crap. Back again?”
“Looks like it,” said Gerry, just as cheerfully.
Josh glanced at Jo before turning to Gerry. “Have a nice time.” And with that, he went into the living room.
Jo raised her eyes heavenward and caught a glimpse of the clock. With a start, she realized she was late for Cassandra’s pickup from choir practice. Within five minutes, she’d got the policemen, Tallulah, and Zak out. She drove like a maniac to find the little girl sitting miserably on the school wall. Not even the sight of Jo wearing cat ears cheered her up.
“Right, let’s get started,” Vanessa told Anthony and Tom, crossing one stockinged leg over the other.
Anthony coughed quietly, lowering his face into his hand.
“I’ve spent a fascinating morning with VC, and here’s what they want,” she began.
“They want fast, they want funny, they want friendly.”
“Right,” said Tom, making to stand up. “We’ll get on to it.”
“I haven’t finished.”
“How did I know that?” He sat down again.
“They want bubbly, clean-cut, clean-shaven, clean-living, white, heterosexual, happy, family-loving, new Labour-voting but growing cynical, preferably with blue eyes.”
“Right.”
“The key thought is ‘Takes you to another world.’”
Tom and Anthony wrote down all this information.
“What color underwear would they like?” asked Tom.
Vanessa sighed. “VC are fascists. I’m not apologizing, I’m just telling you.”
“We were hoping to get a dwarf in the ad” said Tom, for the hell of it.
Vanessa smiled. “I was hoping I’d get a holiday before the summer,” she said. “Life’s a bitch.”
Anthony laughed.
“It looks like their marketing director is the biggest cow in the world,” she continued.
“I swear these people have How to Be a Bastard training weekends. There’s just no point trying to fight it.”
Anthony nodded. No point indeed. He kept his eyes on Vanessa.
“Have you ever tried to create anything, Vanessa?” Tom asked quietly.
Vanessa tensed. “Three children, a happy home life, and a career path,” she said. “Besides that, nothing much.”
“I mean really create anything?” repeated Tom. “Something from a key thought—spun magic from a shopping list of requirements? Something unique, memorable, clever, original from nothing but your own ideas…your own imagination…your, your innards.”
Vanessa looked at him. “Ooh! Listen!” she suddenly exclaimed. Tom and Anthony listened.
“What?” whispered Anthony.
“Warning bells,” said Vanessa wryly. “Bloody deafening.”
Tom sighed loudly.
“No, Tom,” she told him. “That sort of creativity is your job. My job is to squeeze your enormous talent into the small mind of a marketing director.”
Tom’s frame expanded. “It’s a tough job.” He grinned. “But someone’s gotta do it.”
They all smiled at each other. Wow, thought Anthony. Three children, and she still has that body.
After the meeting, he hung back, fiddling with his papers while Vanessa packed up all her notes. As she left, he fell into step beside her.
“Coming for a quick drink?” he asked her. “We’re only going downstairs.”
“I should get back home. I have a husband to be bitter at.”
“Oh go on.” He smiled. “It’s vital to work up a good relationship with us. I think Tom would appreciate it.”
Vanessa paused. “You think I was a bit heavy with him?”
Anthony smiled, and Vanessa admitted that if you liked blonds, he really was a stunner.
“I think it wouldn’t go amiss to show willing and buy him a quick drink,” Anthony confided.
Vanessa looked at her watch. Cassie would have been picked up. And it wouldn’t do her career any harm to build up a relationship with these guys. If they genuinely liked her, there was more chance they’d work well for her, which meant there was more chance of a great Christmas bonus for them all. She’d be doing it for her family.
“Alright.” She smiled. “Jus
t the one.”
Four hours later, Tom was the first to go home.
“One for the road?” Anthony asked Vanessa.
“Why? Does the road need me semiconscious?”
“You tell me,” said Anthony quietly.
Vanessa giggled and shoved him playfully on the arm. She picked up her handbag.
“I really must go,” she managed. “I have an entire family to heckle.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
With considerable messing about, they collected all their belongings and pushed their way out of the by then heaving wine bar. Outside, the fresh night air sobered them up enough to feel slightly self-conscious.
“Are you getting a cab?” asked Vanessa.
“Nah. Where you going?”
“North. Highgate. You?”
“Notting Hill. I’ll catch the tube.”
A cab appeared, and Anthony waited contentedly by its door, watching Vanessa lean into the window to give her address to the driver. Before opening the door, he stepped an inch toward her. They were eye to eye. She could smell the mingled aroma of smoke and aftershave.
“Night then,” he smiled.
“Night then.”
It started off as a fairly friendly good night kiss, perhaps a tad unnecessary for a business meeting, but pleasant nonetheless. It ended up, however, as something very different. Before the cab had rung up a fiver, Anthony had mastered most of the curves that had been preoccupying him of late and Vanessa had transformed into the woman she once was. It was as much of a discovery for her as it was for him.
Eventually, they stepped apart for some air. Vanessa leaned against the cab door, catching her breath. Her legs were trembling.
“Night then,” she mumbled, turning without looking back.
“Night then,” whispered Anthony, drawing himself back into the cold.
Vanessa stumbled into the cab and sat down heavily, her lips hot and stinging, her stomach liquid acid. As the cab driver put down his sandwich and set off, she was thrown into the back of the seat and started to feel very sick indeed.
The Nanny Page 15
