Vanessa stopped. “That’s nice. Night, darling,” she said, gently kicking back her own rear end. “Don’t forget to turn off the lights.”
“Mmm,” called out Dick after her, eyes still on the screen.
Half an hour later, a knock at the en suite shower door disturbed Jo from her thoughts. She picked up her book.
“Come in!” she called, and immediately felt foolish—Josh didn’t want to come in, he wanted to come through. Josh opened the door slowly and Jo glanced up from her book toward him. She felt heat flush up her chest. He was wearing nothing but jeans, his damp hair tousled. He stood in the doorway drying his hair before replacing the towel on the rail. Jo stared until he looked at her.
“Bruises are going down nicely,” she said quickly, turning back to her book.
Josh padded slowly across her room and looked down. “You think?” he asked opening his arms out. She looked up.
He turned slowly round until he faced her again. She was lying on her side, head cupped in hand, legs dangling over the bed, hair cascading over the grinning coyote. He raised his eyebrows at her, as if daring her to answer.
Jo frowned intensely, disturbed by the sight of his bruised back. “Not long now, I suppose,” she said, her tone softer.
Josh nodded. “Why, thank you, Dr. Nanny. Can I go now?”
She nodded miserably.
“Night then,” said Josh.
“Night.”
Jo stared at the open page of her book while Josh left her room. And then, to the murmuring vibrations of him going to bed one foot away from her, she shut her book, lay back on her bed, and closed her eyes.
Chapter 17
Saturday morning, Vanessa woke to feel someone gently stroking her ear. She nuzzled closer. Slowly she opened one eye and saw Tallulah, thumb in mouth, staring deeply at her. Vanessa snuggled up against her baby.
“Hello, Tallulah-mae,” she whispered. “What are you doing in here?”
“Watching you,” said Tallulah.
Vanessa smiled, inhaling her daughter’s smell.
“Mummy?”
“Hmm?”
“Who’s Anthony?”
Vanessa opened her eyes and edged away slightly. She blinked a couple of times to clear her cobweb brain. “Oh just some awful person Mummy’s having to work with at the moment.” She closed her eyes again.
“Were you having a nightmare?” asked Tallulah.
“Mmm,” answered Vanessa. “Most probably.”
“Is that why you were moaning?”
And, as if by magic, Vanessa was wide-awake. “Is Daddy making breakfast?” she asked her daughter.
Dick always did the early Saturday morning shift. He didn’t mind because the TV channels had just woken up to the fact that dads were now involved in child care and so had started to screen sport, followed by children’s TV hosted by nubile blond babes. Funny that, pondered Vanessa, curling up round Tallulah. No Love Boat and hunky male presenters in the weekdays for mums. Oh God, she thought, interrupting her own thoughts. She was so sick and bored and tired of being angry all the time. Why did these destructive thoughts circle like vultures in her head all the time? Why couldn’t they just leave her alone? She didn’t want to hate Dick. She didn’t want their marriage to turn into one long blame-fest. She hugged Tallulah and kissed her baby neck.
“Is Toby up?” she asked, stroking Tallulah’s hair.
“Yes,” said Tallulah. “He’s taken Josh to see the Lord.”
“What? He’s taken him to church?”
“That’s what he said. Where everyone wears white together.”
“Oh my God. They’ve gone to a church?” Vanessa was completely awake now, no going back.
Dick appeared at the bedroom door with a tray containing a cafetière, half a grapefruit, a bowl of organic muesli with soya milk, a bowl of crunchy nutty chocolatey cereal with full-fat milk and a copy of the Observer.
“Breakfast in bed for two of my favorite women,” he said, placing the tray on the chair at the end of the bed. “And certainly two of the most terrifying.”
“Thanks, Dick,” croaked Vanessa. “It would be absolutely marvelous if you could walk it an extra two feet so we don’t have to get out of bed for our breakfast in bed.”
“Of course, darling,” said Dick, stepping back and picking up the tray again. He placed it on the bed. “Would you like me to oil your pillows while I’m here, too?”
“Has Josh taken Toby to a happy-clappy church?”
Dick frowned. “No, dear. To Lords to see the cricket. But I can see how you’d make the mistake.”
Vanessa looked hard at her husband. “Thank you for bringing my breakfast and a stomach ulcer, darling. You do help.”
“Pleasure, darling. I’ll be off to do a hard day’s work. Don’t worry about me.”
“I should think I’ll be far too busy looking after all your children, including the ones that aren’t mine.”
“Bye then.”
“Bye then.”
Dick shut the bedroom door behind him, and Vanessa shut her eyes tight.
That afternoon Toby and Josh sat in Regent’s Park together. Toby was now so tall he almost reached Josh’s shoulders. One more growth spurt and he’d easily be taller than his big brother. He would never have the same brooding looks as Josh because he’d inherited his mother’s coloring, but he did share Josh and Dick’s handsome features, and at times, a fleeting expression—usually of bewilderment—revealed his genetic connection to the male role models in his life.
Josh kept sneaking sideways glances at his brother, trying to remember how he felt at that age. But he kept coming back to the same thing. When he was Toby’s age, he’d already started eavesdropping on his father’s telephonic trysts with his secretary, and the first signs of insomnia had kicked in.
He tousled Toby’s hair.
“Don’t!” said Toby, curling his lanky form into a semicircle. If he could, he’d have formed hedgehog prickles on his back.
“Why?” asked Josh. “Too mature for it?”
“Nah. It’s budgit, man.”
“It’s what?”
“Like, lame.”
“Like lame?”
“Stupid.”
“Ah! Stupid. Right.”
Josh watched as Toby groomed his hair back into position. As Toby lay back and raised his face to the sun, Josh noticed a neat constellation of spots round his mouth. He didn’t know when or how to approach the subject of Toby’s phone call from school earlier that week, if at all. Toby had seemed fine today, and they’d sat together watching the cricket for about four hours without either of them saying anything about it.
“So,” he said eventually, as indifferently as possible, “how’s things?”
Toby’s volume knob went to mute. He turned his head away. “There’s this girl,” he forced out of his body.
Josh almost had to stop slapping himself on the forehead. Of course! Girls! Toby was thirteen years old—what had he expected? Here he was imagining it would be something between Mum and Dad, something he could perhaps help with, add his expertise to, but no. It was about girls. How could he tell his kid brother that he’d come to the last person on earth who could help him?
“Right,” he said seriously.
“She’s a ledge.”
Josh frowned. A ledge? Was that a good thing? Or a bad thing? He racked his brains for what that word might mean, but kept coming back to a window ledge. Did Toby mean she was “on the shelf”? If so, did that mean she was the ugliest girl in the class? Still, it seemed a bit cruel to describe a thirteen-year-old girl as on the shelf.
“A ledge,” he repeated thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” said Toby. “You know. A ledge. A legend.”
“Oh right.”
“Like, safe.”
Nope. He’d lost him again. “Oh, like, safe,” he repeated, hopefully.
Toby sighed heavily. “She’s practically famous at school ’cos every boy fancies her.”
<
br /> “Ah, right.”
“She asked me out to the cinema.”
“Wow!” Josh slapped his brother on the back. “Look at you! My kid brother, eh? Can you give me some dating tips? I always go for the wrong type and am scared I’ll end up alone. What do you suggest?”
“And now Todd Carter says he’s gonna split my head open.”
Josh stopped still. He stared at the grass. He wanted to kill Todd Carter but he knew that the little shit could probably wipe the floor with him. He thought long and hard. “Oh dear,” he said weakly.
Vanessa and the children were eating ice cream for dessert. They’d enjoyed a lunch that had consisted entirely of additives, except Zak who had eaten four whole wheat digestives (albeit covered in golden syrup and chocolate buttons). Oh well, thought Vanessa. It’s only two days a week.
She was sitting on the floor with her children, watching a tape of Buffy when the front door slammed. Toby and Josh wandered into the room, glanced over and said hello. While Josh went to make a pot of tea, Toby stood behind them, casting a shadow over the happy scene.
Tallulah looked up at him.
“What are those things round your mouth?” she asked, pointing.
“Spots,” grunted Toby, eyes on the TV. “You get them if you’re good.”
“Mummy,” whined Tallulah, “I want spots.”
“They’ll come soon enough, sweetheart.”
“I want them now.”
“And then you’ll get your girl’s periods,” continued Toby, “and you’ll go all ugly.”
“Thank you, Toby,” said Vanessa.
“No you don’t,” corrected Cassandra. “Some women glow. I read it in a book.”
“What book was that?” asked Vanessa.
“Yeah, the pretty ones glow,” growled Toby. “You two will just go even uglier.”
“Thank you so much, Toby,” said Vanessa. “Don’t you have anything to do, like strangle a hamster or something?”
Having successfully completed his task for the day, Toby joined Josh at the kettle.
Josh wasn’t sure if he should say something to Toby about how being loathsome wasn’t nice and how it wasn’t actually Tallulah’s and Cassandra’s fault that his parents split up. He often found himself wondering if he should play the father figure or the friend to Toby. Could he be both? If he started telling Toby that sometimes he was a shit, would Toby then have no one to confide in? He decided to merge the two.
“Here you are,” he said, handing Toby a cup of tea, “you little shit.”
“Cheers.” Toby grinned.
The front door slammed again and moments later Jo and Pippa wandered in, laughing and chatting, both in their gym kit. They’d been to an aerobics class at Pippa’s gym. Pippa had assured Jo that they would be able to stay at the back of the class and muddle their way through it, but the instructor had insisted Pippa stand right at the front. They’d been compelled to behave and were both knackered.
And then they’d experienced the strangest coincidence. As they’d walked out of the gym, they’d found Gerry standing outside it, reading the timetable, which was pinned to the glass frontage. He appeared just as surprised to see them as they were to see him, and after a few moments’ chat, they all went their separate ways. But it had left a nasty taste in Jo’s mouth.
“Did you tell Nick we were going to the gym this morning?” asked Pippa.
“No idea,” replied Pippa. “Why?”
“No reason.” Jo stopped herself from letting paranoia settle under her skin. Maybe even in London, flukes like that did happen.
They’d planned to change here before spending the afternoon shopping in Crouch End together. Pippa wanted to buy something new to wear for their cinema date with Nick and Gerry, and Jo was happy to accompany her. She missed the shopping trips she used to go on with Sheila.
Toby and Josh, sitting at the kitchen table with their mugs of tea, stared openly. Jo had her hair in high, looped bunches, and there were dark patches of sweat in key areas of her body. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright, and her lips ruby red. When Pippa caught Josh’s eye, he looked down at his tea.
Pippa grinned. “Well, hello!” she greeted, hands on hips. “I love the smell of testosterone in the morning!”
Toby almost died there and then, but thankfully, Vanessa, blissfully unaware of any sort of tension other than family tension, butted in.
“Hiya,” she said. “I let them watch Friends.”
“Oh, right,” said Jo.
“And eat chocolate,” called out Tallulah. “One day I’m going to have girls’ periods and spots!”
“And ice cream,” said Cassandra. “And I’m going to glow.”
“Great.” Jo smiled. She looked sadly at the kitchen.
“I’ll tidy it all up, promise,” said Vanessa. “I know how anal you nannies are about your workspace!”
Jo sighed. “We’re just gonna use the shower,” she replied.
“What? Together?” squeaked Toby.
Josh laughed loudly at this. He suddenly saw all the uses a younger brother could have. He would have pondered the same question, too scared of making a stupid arse of himself to ask. He now fondly handed over the mantle of stupid arse to Toby and considered bringing him along on dates.
Pippa joined in the laughter and approached the kitchen table.
“No, of course we won’t shower together,” she said, leaning over the kitchen table and whispering. “Then we wouldn’t be able to work up such a lather, would we?”
Toby swallowed.
“How old are you, handsome?” asked Pippa.
“Thirteen,” Toby mumbled into his mug, wishing Pippa had stayed over there.
“And how old’s your gorgeous big brother?”
Toby snorted his way through three octaves.
“Hi!” said Josh, extending his hand across Toby, who seemed suddenly fascinated by the oven. “Josh Fitzgerald.”
“Oh, I know who you are. I’ve heard all about you.”
Jo found herself by the drinks cabinet and moved to the kettle, where she got busy making her and Pippa some tea, wishing she was somewhere else and listening avidly.
“So!” said Pippa, looking at Toby’s and Josh’s somber faces. “What’s making the brothers grim?”
Toby snorted again.
“Toby’s got a dilemma because he’s got the hottest date in his class tonight,” said Josh.
“Jo-osh!” whined Toby.
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Josh. “It’s true. You’re too damn hot for your own good.”
Toby tried not to smile and failed.
“That true?” said Pippa. Toby grunted.
“Why’s that a problem?”
“Can I?” Josh asked Toby. Toby grunted again, the Esperanto of adolescence.
“This tosser in his class is jealous, so he’s threatening to follow them and beat Toby up tonight.”
“Oh my God,” said Pippa. “Where are you going for your date?”
“Dunno yet,” said Toby. “I’m gonna call her later. But her older brother is mates with the older brother of the bloke who’s threatened to get me, so she’s got to keep it a secret from him. Might not be able to ’cos her mother wants to know where she’s going.”
“So you mean,” said Pippa slowly, “that you might be beaten up during your dream date tonight?”
“We were just trying to work out where would be a safe place to go,” said Josh. “I might follow.”
“No!” said Toby.
“From a safe distance,” insisted Josh. “Believe me, I don’t want to watch. I just don’t want you getting into trouble.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Toby.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Pippa. “Let me just make a call.”
As she went to get her mobile from her bag, Jo finished making the tea.
“Right!” Jo exclaimed. “I’ll just have my shower.” She noticed that no one answered.
When Jo returned to th
e kitchen, clean and dry and dressed, she found Pippa on her mobile phone and Toby and Josh grinning identical schoolboy grins at her.
“That’s fantastic!” Pippa was saying into the phone. “We’ll owe you one.” She giggled and winked at Toby, before clicking off and replacing her phone in her bag. “Right,” she said. “It’s a deal. We’ll go to the same film as you and if there’s any trouble, Nick and Gerry will kick the shit out of anyone who touches you. Except your date of course, ’cos we want her to touch you.”
“Wicked!” said Toby.
“And Josh will chaperone us so that his mind is put at rest and so he can drive my date wild with jealousy,” finished Pippa, holding up her mug of tea as if to make a toast. “It’s the perfect plan!”
Josh held his mug up, too. “Much as I hate the thought of being a gooseberry to three separate dates,” he interrupted himself, “—does that make me three gooseberries?—especially with two blokes who’ve beaten me up, it’s all gonna be worth it to see those arseholes who are picking on my kid bro shitting themselves with terror.”
“Mine isn’t a date actually,” said Jo, but no one seemed to hear her.
“So thanks, Pippa!” finished Josh.
“Yeah, thanks!” Toby managed, eyes darting to her before returning to the safety of the floor.
“My absolute pleasure!” grinned Pippa. “And now I must peel these damp clothes off and have my shower,” she said as she left the room.
Jo followed Pippa into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
“Is he really going to come with us?” she hissed.
“Of course,” replied Pippa, brushing her hair. “You don’t expect him to stay at home and miss all the fun, do you? Especially when he is sex on legs.”
“He’s got a very ugly side,” muttered Jo.
“They all do,” said Pippa. “But I bet it’d be fun looking for his.”
“He’s putting on the charm,” said Jo. “The famous Josh Fitzgerald charm. He can turn it off very quickly if you piss him off. And he’s toxins on legs when he does.”
“Why? What’s he’s done?”
“I was too embarrassed to tell you,” confessed Jo, plonking herself down on her bed. “It was excruciating, Pip.”
The Nanny Page 21
