The Nanny (31 page)

Jo blew again. “You think?” she said.

“I'm sorry, Jo.”

“Yeah, right.”

Sheila turned to go. As she reached the kitchen door, Jo called her name. Sheila turned slowly round.

“Yes?”

They looked at each other for a while.

“When did you stop liking me?” Jo asked.

Sheila looked impatient. “This isn't about you,” she said. “It's not even about you and me. It's about me and Shaunie. You just happened to be in the cross fire. No one meant to hurt you.”

Jo looked at the paper towel in her hand.

“When did you stop liking me?” she repeated.

After a pause, Sheila just shrugged.

Jo nodded, exhausted.

“We're going to have Shaunie's nieces as bridesmaids,” said Sheila quietly. “I know we always said we'd be each other's—”

“Just go.”

Jo managed a wry laugh at Sheila's nerve, which, once the front door clicked shut, turned into a choked sob.

 

Meanwhile, Josh had stopped at the traffic lights on Niblet-upon-Avon High Street and was staring, baffled, at a map. Unfortunately, the map was upside down and the lights were green. He turned the map the right way up. Nope. No clearer. It had obviously been drawn by people who wanted Niblet-upon-Avon to stay unspoiled by tourists. He looked up from it and found himself gazing at green lights. With a jump, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a man in a hat at the wheel of the car behind. The man waved. Bemused, Josh drove on. It was like a different country. Then he pulled into a side road and took out his mobile phone.

 

Jo was hunched over the kitchen table, head buried in her arms. Every time she thought she was feeling better, a stab of fury, humiliation, and pain hit her again, and she heard a strangled sound that seemed to emanate from deep within her. When her mobile phone rang, she supported her head in her hands. When it occurred to her that it might be Shaun, she picked it up.

“Hello?” she said, her voice thick with tears.

“Bloody hell,” said Pippa. “You sound awful.”

“That's nothing.” Jo started sobbing again. “You should see how I look.”

“What the hell's happened?”

“Shaun was two-timing me!” wept Jo.

“
What?
”

“With Sheila.”

“Oh my God,” breathed Pippa through Jo's crying. “Do you want me to come and see you?”

Jo nodded into the phone. “No thanks,” she sniffed. “I don't think I could take seeing anyone right now. I-I can't take it all in.”

“Would you like Nick to come and beat Shaun to a pulp?”

“No.” Jo managed a smile. “Maybe he could mess Sheila's face up a bit though.”

“Yeah.”

Jo wept some more. “They've made such a fool of me.”

“No they haven't,” said Pippa. “They've made fools of themselves.”

“They're getting married!”

“Hah!” cried Pippa. “More fool her! Can you imagine marrying someone who was dating your best friend all the way through your courtship? With your knowledge? Can you imagine what sort of marriage that's going to be?”

Jo stopped crying for the first time since Sheila's revelation.

“Believe me,” said Pippa. “You are best out of it. He was bad news.”

“I thought he loved me,” said Jo pathetically.

“I know, hon. There'll be others. Much better than him. There's already two in the wings.”

Even though that didn't feel strictly true, what with one of the men in the wings being a freak stalker and the other a hypocritical scrounging bastard who was only interested in a shag, the thought did somehow made Jo feel better.

She wished she could get to see Pippa, but neither of them could afford the time off. So Jo made do with the phone call. When it was over, she washed her face at the kitchen sink and decided to go for a walk.

 

Josh put down his mobile. The local station had been very useful. He was practically on top of Jo's house. He started the engine, turned the car round, went through some red lights, and headed toward her.

 

By the time the doorbell went for the second time that day, Jo's skin wasn't glowing quite as much as it had been earlier. In fact, as any beautician worth her salt will tell you, if you want your skin to look good for a special occasion, it's advisable not to spend the entire hour beforehand weeping.

Her body jerked in shock at the sound of the bell. It must be Shaun.

She padded quickly to the door, roll of paper towels under her arm, the used one in her hand, slippers flip-flopping against the carpet.

She opened the door wide. She looked up at a tall dark stranger who
made her heart squeeze. She stopped. Her eyes took in lots of information that her brain then vomited back out. She blinked and tried again.

There was a Jehovah's Witness at her door—one of those incredibly smooth, good-looking chaps who have a strange light in their eye called Jesus. No, silly. She was dreaming and this was God.

When God said, “Jesus F. Christ, you look like shit,” she realized it wasn't God. And then she realized it was Josh.

 

Josh certainly hadn't intended to wrap Jo in a prolonged, full-bodied bear hug. He'd had a long enough journey to get his greeting planned just right, and nowhere in it was there a prolonged, full-bodied bear hug. In fact he didn't really know where it had come from. But he'd done it, and she was sobbing into his sweater, and he was stroking her hair, and he felt like he didn't want to do much else in the world, so it was probably all for the best. Maybe her mother had had another relapse. Poor lamb.
God, life can be cruel. Some people get all the short straws
, he thought, looking at her hall.

When he spotted a barrel-chested man standing on the stairs staring at him with all the warmth of a raging bull he almost jumped out of his skin. He released Jo and stood her at a safe distance.

“H-hello,” he said to the man on the stairs.

The man's eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you?” he whispered, “and what have you done to my daughter?”

“Dad, this is Josh,” sniffed Jo.

“Josh?”
queried the man with such confused disgust in his voice that Josh suddenly became aware of how odd his name was.
“What sort of a name is that? And who's ‘Josh' when he's at home? And why are you crying?”

Josh stood stiffly. “I didn't make her cry, I-I-found—”

“Was I talking to you?”

Josh shook his head.

Bill looked at Jo.

Jo started trying to speak. Then she realized she didn't know where to start. Then she realized she and her father weren't talking anyway. Then she realized Josh had come all the way from London to see her. Then she realized she must look like a blowfish. She ran blindly into the kitchen.

The kitchen door slammed shut and Jo's father turned slowly to face Josh. Josh's mouth formed itself into something approaching a smile while his stomach formed itself into something approaching an ulcer.

“I'm Joshua Fitzgerald,” he said in a small voice, holding out his hand. “It's an honor to meet you.”

The man grunted and continued to stare. Josh's throat contracted. He moved his hand down to his side.

“I like your hall,” he croaked, his mouth dry.

The two men stood looking at each other in silence for what felt to Josh like the better part of a year. A bad year. Droughts, diseases, famine, that sort of thing. He had the strongest sensation that if Jo's father had had antlers, they'd be piercing his groin by now. He was about to say that he'd pop back later, now was obviously not a good time but it had been a delight to meet Jo's family and what a very lovely hall, when Jo appeared. She was clearly still upset about something, but she invited Josh into the lounge, instructed her father to be nice unless he wanted her to leave home that night, then walked stiffly upstairs where she would, she explained to them both “attempt to rectify my face.”

Josh waited in the lounge and stared at everything, trying his best not to stare at the commode. He could hear muted voices at the top of the stairs, which he assumed must be Jo's parents because the higher one was speaking much more slowly than the lower. When the door opened, he stood up. Jo's father grunted at him again, and he smiled gratefully.

“Nice horses,” he said, nodding to the ornaments. “And foxes. And cats. And the otters are sweet. And the commemorative plate. What a tragic waste, eh?”

“The wife likes them,” said Bill. “Bugger to dust.”

“Oh, I bet.” Josh nodded, as though dusting had always been a major consideration in his life.

Then Hilda appeared next to her husband, holding on to the door. Josh stepped forward and shook her hand ever so gently.

“Mrs. Green,” he said, “Joshua Fitzgerald. So pleased to meet you.”

She smiled at him, and he saw the same eyes as Jo's, although Hilda's were a paler blue as though exhaustion had washed them out. He felt inclined to give her a bear hug, too, but reined himself in.

“She's just coming,” said Hilda slowly.

“Thank you.”

“Please,” murmured Hilda. “Sit…” He sat obediently. “Down.” He cringed inwardly.

The next instant, Jo appeared, and he bounced up again.

“Right,” she announced, putting on a jacket and tying her hair into a ponytail at the same time. “We're going to the river.”

“Now, young girl,” started her father. “Mind you—”

“Bogdon-over-Bray
,” Jo told him in a tone that would brook no nonsense. Her father shut up.

Josh, baffled and not unafraid, nodded a farewell to Jo's parents and followed her out of the house.

 

“Bogdon-over-Bray, eh?” he attempted, as soon as they were at a safe distance.

“It's a long story.”

“I bet.” He nodded, as though long stories had always been a major consideration in his life.

He walked alongside her in silence until they reached the stunning vista of a bridge over a stream. He stopped.

“My God,” he breathed. “It's beautiful.”

“Mm.”

Jo slowed down with him, and together, they walked onto the bridge. When he stopped in the middle of it and leaned to look over the stream, she did so too. “Thank you for coming, Josh,” she said quietly.

He turned and smiled at her. Their shoulders were almost touching.

“My pleasure,” he said.

“It's nice having you here.”

“Thank you.”

“On this bridge.”

“Oh. On this bridge. Well, it's a nice bridge.”

“New memories and all that,” said Jo.

Josh took this in.

“I bet,” he nodded eventually, beginning to bore himself.

“This is where I had my first kiss with Shaun,” said Jo.

Josh moved away slightly.

“Not exactly here,” she laughed, pointing to a spot a foot away. “There.”

“Ah,” said Josh, following her hand with his gaze.

Then to his surprise, she linked her arm into his and thanked him again for coming. He put his hands in his pockets, tried not to look too happy, and told her again that it was his pleasure.

They strolled off the bridge and past the church. Again, he stopped and took in the view.

“God,” he whispered. “It's stunning.”

“Mm.”

He listened to the gurgle of the stream, clear against a silence so pure that it was broken by the whisper of a breeze.

“How could you have left?” he whispered.

And then he listened to the clear, pure sound of Jo sobbing.

 

They found a bench near the pub, and Josh put his arm round Jo as they sat down. After a few false starts, she updated him on how her life had changed since he'd last seen her. She told him about Shaun's proposing again. About her confronting the truth and their relationship finally coming to an end. About the pain she felt in ending such a big part of her past even though she knew it was the right thing to do. About her guilt for hurting him and disappointing her parents. About Sheila, her best friend, popping round half an hour ago for an overdue girlie chat. About discovering the sham that was her relationship with Shaun. About discovering the sham that was her friendship with Sheila. About her humiliation. Her anger. Her confusion and her pain.

Throughout the dizzying tale, Josh stared at the fields ahead, his grip on reality steadily loosening as his grip on Jo's shoulder tightened. He couldn't believe it. It just couldn't be true. Surely there was a mistake. But no. It wasn't. Jo was actually single.

He couldn't think of anything to say, so he just held on and rested his head on hers.

“I'm so sorry,” he said.

And then he realized that he could say more. He told her that from a man's point of view, there was no way Shaun would have gone out with her for that long if he didn't want to. And he certainly wouldn't have risked proposing to someone he didn't want to marry.

Jo considered this. “You mean you've never gone out with someone just because you couldn't be bothered to chuck her?” she asked.

“Not for that long,” he confessed. “And I certainly wouldn't have proposed to her. Four times. You're only hearing Sheila's side, remember.”

Jo moved away a fraction to consider this.

“So, what does that mean? She's making it all up? She hates me that much?”

“No,” he said pensively. “For all you know, she told you what she'd love it to have been, but not exactly what it was. I watched—
saw
Shaun with you, and that was not a man who was obsessed with someone else.”

There was a silence.

“It sounds to me like Sheila's just probably in a lot of pain,” concluded Josh.

“In pain?”

“Yeah. Well, by her own account, she's been waiting for Shaun for a long time. Even longer than he was waiting for you. And maybe she's had to resort to using the old rule book ‘all's fair in love and war.' Which, let's face it, we've all used at some point or another.”