The Nanny (29 page)

His thoughts pinballed round his brain as he stared blindly at the office ahead of him. Sitting in an office all day was shriveling his spirit. He needed to find something he believed in, something he could put his skills and his passion into. And he'd just found it.

Now all he had to do was tell his father.

 

Midafternoon, after returning from the shoot, Vanessa found a window to phone home. At the sound of Dick's voice she felt a rush of emotion.

“How are you?” she asked tentatively.

“Fine!” There was more warmth in his voice than she'd heard for a long time.

“And how are our children?” she asked.

“Fine!” said Dick again, with even more warmth. He had one eye on the clock, the other on the sandwich he was making. “Tallulah picked you some flowers on the way home from all the neighbors' front gardens. We ran the last fifty yards.”

“Aah, sweetheart. Give her a big kiss from me.”

“I will. I'm just about to pick up Zak.”

“Don't forget his scooter. Walking's for girls.”

“Oh right. Thanks. Then I'll make them lasagna. I'm making pancakes when Cassie gets home.”

“Blimey. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“I'll be out in time to pick up Cassie from Mandy's,” Vanessa told him.

“Okay. I'll be here with an open bottle of wine. Empty, but open.”

“Excellent.” Vanessa laughed. “Bye then.”

“Bye, love.”

Dick put the phone down, wrapped the sandwiches in foil to eat on
the way to school, picked up Tallulah, the scooter, and car keys, and left the house.

Meanwhile, Vanessa sat looking at the phone. Something was different. What was it? Oh yes, she realized with a little start. They hadn't argued. And Dick was going to make lasagna.

 

The lasagna was disgusting. Even Dick couldn't eat it, and he was starving. So when Zak suggested whole wheat biscuits covered in golden syrup and chocolate buttons and Tallulah started getting so excited she hugged her daddy, Dick decided that food was for fun, and one meal really wasn't going to harm anyone.

By the time Josh came home, Dick, Zak, and Tallulah were so high on E-numbers they could have invaded a small unsuspecting island. Josh tidied them up, cleaned the kitchen, calmed them down and made them sit down to cheese on toast with Tabasco sauce followed by fruit salad à la Josh. Then he and Dick prepared the pancake mixture while the kids tidied up.

 

Stalemate reigned in Niblet-upon-Avon. Jo had started ignoring her father back, and every opportunity that could have been taken to make friends had become an opportunity to be the first one to ignore the other. Jo's new existence was punctuated every so often by emptying her mother's commode and taking headache pills.

She was in the kitchen taking her teatime pills, ignoring her father as he prepared Hilda's tea, when her mobile interrupted the silence. Her father ignored the noise. She ignored her father ignoring the noise. When she saw that it was Gerry, she stared at the phone, and it was only her father's grunt that made her answer it.

“Hello!” she greeted warily.

“Hi there,” said Gerry. “Just wanted to see how you are.”

“I'm absolutely fine, thanks,” she said, surprised to feel warm and friendly at the sound of his voice instead of threatened and claustrophobic. “Thanks for asking.” Her father grunted again.

“Don't be daft,” said Gerry, “We've been missing you.”

“Oh thank you!” She crossed her arms and faced her father, while speaking into the phone. “Tell you what, it's nice to know someone cares.”

Bill looked at his watch, checked it against the kitchen clock and tapped it in Jo's face.

“I'd better go, Gerry,” said Jo. “I'm needed.”

“Okay,” he said. “I'll call you again another time.”

“Okay,” said Jo. “Thanks.” She put the phone down and told herself that this was not a man who couldn't take no for an answer. She had been frightening herself over nothing.

 

The pancakes were disgusting. Even Dick couldn't eat them and he was starving. But it didn't matter. The ice cream Vanessa had picked up while taking Cassie home was a grand success, and it only took an hour to clean the kitchen up afterward. No one was surprised that the kids disappeared for this. While the grown-ups tidied, the children had important issues to discuss.

“Right,” said Cassandra, upstairs. “I call this meeting now open.”

Zak and Tallulah looked up at her excitedly.

The meeting didn't take long at all. Cassandra chaired it with confidence and purpose. Zak and Tallulah loved their roles and admired her terribly. They had no time to lose. Operation Jo had to start immediately.

 

Downstairs, things weren't quite as exciting. While Vanessa showered, Josh and Dick spoke quietly in the kitchen.

“Well?” asked Dick eventually. “Are things as bad as I thought?”

“Do you want the bad news or the bad news?” asked Josh gently.

Dick sighed.

“The bad news,” said Josh, “is that to my estimation, you're about six months from bankruptcy.”

“Jesus.” Dick took a swig of whiskey. “And the bad news?”

“And the bad news is that I'd like to buy it off you.”

Dick stared at his son.

“Come again?”

Josh took a deep breath, “The thought of being an accountant for the rest of my life depresses me more than you can imagine. I spoke to my bank today, and they'd give me a loan. I want to take over the shop, Dad.”

Dick shook his head. “Son, son, son.”

“Listen to me! No one else will buy it. This is your only chance. As well as mine.”

“Please don't make the same mistakes I did.”

“I haven't. I've got a profession, I could keep the books far more effectively than you ever could.”

“Owch!” grimaced Dick.

“All thanks to you. Thanks to your sound advice when I was a kid, I have a structure with which to support my dreams. I can learn how to run my own business because I've seen how businesses succeed and fail. I won't be doing it blind like you had to. And if it fails, at least I'll have tried, and I'll just go back to being an accountant. I'll never be unemployable, Dad. You made sure of that.”

“I got something right then.” Dick smiled.

“Yes. And now I'm going to do what you told me not to do and follow your example. I want to sell music.”

“Music? Not records?”

Josh shrugged. “Some records, but CDs, too, and DVDs.”

“So you're going to buy my shop and then sell out?”

“No, I'm going to make it work. And I won't sell out, because it won't be a pop music shop. It will be eclectic. Unique. Very Highgate. I also thought I might do a coffee bar, you know at the back there, where you've got the old jukebox.”

“You've really thought this through.”

“Dad,” said Josh, “I haven't felt this excited for…I've never felt this excited before.”

Dick shrugged. “Well,” he said eventually, “who am I to stop you?”

“But do I have your…blessing?”

“Do you need it?”

“You know I do.”

“You have my blessing whatever you do, Josh.”

Josh smiled.

Just then, Tallulah padded into the kitchen in her pajamas.

“Hello, sweetie,” said Dick. “How's my sunbeam?”

“Tired,” said Tallulah.

“Do you want me to come up and tuck you in?”

Tallulah shook her head and pointed to Josh.

“I want Josh to.”

Dick and Josh grinned at each other, and Josh tried not to feel smug.

As Josh took the stairs two at a time, feeling smug, Dick poured Vanessa a Baileys and took the stairs one at a time. Both men wavered for a moment before entering the rooms.

Dick wavered slightly more than Josh. As he closed the bedroom door behind him, he could hear Vanessa still in the shower. He undressed and
put his clothes in the empty laundry basket. He noticed Vanessa's blouse on the bed. The shower stopped. He picked up the Baileys and wandered in.

“Thought you might like this,” he said, as Vanessa wrapped a towel round her.

“Oh wow!” she smiled. “Perfect.”

“Do you want that blouse cleaned?”

“Oh, it's dry-clean, I'll do it over the weekend.”

“I'll do it tomorrow.”

She looked at him.

“You sure?”

“Yep. I'm going into the village anyway to get in some shopping.”

“Great.”

“Coming to bed?”

“Yes. I'll just comb my hair out.”

Vanessa gave her husband a smile, then watched him leave the room, slowly turned, and stared at herself in the mirror.

 

Josh pushed open Tallulah's door and was surprised to see the light off and Tallulah curled up in bed, with Cassie beside her.

“Hey,” he whispered. “What's this? A powwow?”

“Lula's been having bad dreams,” whispered Cassie. “Haven't you, Tal?”

Tallulah nodded.

“Come on then, move over,” said Josh, sitting on the bed. “I can't have my two favorite girls having problems sleeping. What's up?”

Tallulah sucked her thumb, and Cassandra sighed.

“Come on,” soothed Josh. “You can tell me.”

Tallulah shook her head.

“Sweetheart!” said Josh, dismayed. “What can't you tell me?”

Tallulah sighed.

“Can you tell Mummy or Daddy?” tried Josh.

“No!” said Cassie quickly.

“Why?” he asked, starting to worry. “What's going on, Cass?”

Cassie turned to Tallulah.

“Can I tell him, Tally?”

Tallulah barely nodded.

“She's been having nightmares,” whispered Cassie.

“What sort of nightmares?” whispered Josh.

Cassie opened her eyes wide in the dark. “Nasty ones,” she said in hushed tones.

“How nasty?”

“They're about…they're about…”

“Go on…”

“They're all about…”

“Cassie, you have to tell me.”

“They're about Jo.”

Josh sat up straight. That he had not expected. And then to his horror, Tallulah curled up even tighter and started weeping. He put his arm round her and made soothing noises.

“Jo keeps dying in her dreams,” explained Cass.

“You're kidding!” said Josh. “That's terrible.”

“And Lula's trying to catch her—”

“Catch her? Is she falling?”

“Yes. She's always falling. Off a cliff.”

Josh gasped.

“We're scared something terrible's happening to her.” Tallulah's elbow jerked out and nudged her sister. “And we miss her,” added Cassie, her head down.

“Yes,” said Josh. “I know. We all do.”

“Mummy and Daddy didn't row as much when Jo was here,” whispered Tallulah through her thumb. “Now they row all the time.” She started crying into her hands again.

They had a point, thought Josh. There was that hideous row the other night that was so loud it woke him up, then he'd heard Dick crying. And God only knew what it was doing to Dick's self-esteem shutting up the shop for most of the day and being at home with the children. He was putting a brave face on it, but it couldn't be good for him. But what to do?

“What can we do?” asked Cassie.

“I don't know, darling,” said Josh. “Hope and pray to God that she comes home soon.”

“Mummy said God is a man-made construct to stop people being ambitious,” said Cassie.

“Oh.”

“Shall I phone Jo?” she asked.

“I don't think that will be a good idea.”

“Oh,” said Cassie, and then started whispering again. “We thought we might go and get her.”

Josh looked at his half sibling with wonder. “Did you?” he asked.

“Yes. But then Zak said he'd have to use the girls' toilets with us, so we couldn't.”

The three of them sat on the bed for a while.

“G'night, Josh,” came Tallulah's voice in the dark.

“Oh, good night pumpkin,” said Josh, and gave her a kiss on her soft, dry cheek. He and Cassie left Tallulah's room, closing it softly behind them. In the hall, Cassie looked up at Josh.

“Thanks for helping,” she said.

“I didn't do anything.”

“No, well,” said Cassie, disappointment in her voice, “thanks for trying anyway.” With a heavy sigh, she went to her bedroom.

As Josh stood on the landing, he heard a noise from upstairs that sounded like someone snorting a vacuum cleaner. After a while, he realized it was Zak sobbing. He bounded upstairs and knocked on his door. The sobbing stopped.

“Zak?” whispered Josh. “Can I come in?”

After a while, there was a muted “Yes.”

Josh pushed Zak's door slowly, catching the flying cyberdog as it flew toward him and jumping over the trip wire. He sat on Zak's bed.

“What's up, little man?”

Zak wiped his face.

“I had a nasty dream.”

“Was Jo falling off a cliff?”

There was silence in the dark.

“No,” whispered Zak.

“Go on.”

Zak sat up in bed. “Mummy left us”—he sniffed—“because, because she had to go and be a nanny…for Jo…in the north somewhere. And then Daddy left us because he couldn't live without Mummy.”

Josh hugged his brother. “Mate,” he said, “no one's ever going to leave you.”

Zak leaned into Josh and sniffed. “Jo left,” he whispered.

“But she'll be back. I know she will.”

They sat up until Josh was woken by the sound of a lawnmower in his ear. Zak was snoring.

After tucking Zak in, Josh went downstairs and walked slowly through Jo's empty room to his own. Sitting on his bed, he made up his mind. For the sake of the children, for the sake of the family, there was only one thing he could do. He was going to bring Jo back.