The Nanny (6 page)

If I were there I would help you
, Nanny was saying, smoothing the jacket. “I won't know what to do. I won't know what not to do.”

“Virgie!” Victor called.

“Coming!” But Nanny was handing her the rouge puff because she was so pale. Virgie rubbed the small puff on her cheekbones but kept her eyes on the big face in the mirror. Nanny's lips were moving. “
If will be all right
,” she was whispering.
How could it be?

Victor said it also because having been silent the whole drive except for saying “Yes” or “No” or “Oh,” by the time they reached the school Virgie was trembling so badly that she could barely walk through the grounds to the entrance. “It will be all right,” Victor promised, and in a way it was. Lunch, even with the star pupils, was pretty much an ordeal, but it was worth it to see Joey with this kid Simon. Joey couldn't have guessed that under the circumstances it would mean a lot to watch him being so kind to a younger kid. Several times Victor tried to catch Virgie's eye and share his pleasure (his reassurance?) but Virgie could have been one of the disturbed children herself sitting there with her magnificent eyes cast down, whispering, “Yes, Joey,” or “No, Joey.” God, that's what she was now, wasn't she? A disturbed child. He had lost his baby son and his wife on the same day. Why was he kidding himself there was a chance?

Joey asked if Virgie could go to the craft room with him to get his present, so Victor was left alone. This seemed to be what Miss Sarah Schwartz was waiting for because she came to him immediately and handed him a piece of paper with something written on it. She certainly was one of those very dark, very intense girls. Too much unshaped black hair and crackled with a kind of electricity. (Psychic?) There was a smell of intensity about her, an ozone smell.

“This is my home telephone number, Mr. Fane.”

Victor wondered who would want her telephone number. Joey? He hoped Joey's taste in girls would improve with time.

“I'm taking the plane home tonight. I'm leaving High House by mutual consent. Actually, I just waited until Joey left, but he doesn't know. I couldn't tell him. Joey seemed to be counting on my being here … and … Dr. Bee doesn't think Joey's going to need me any more, but …”

Her eyes shifted from the paper to him, from the paper to him. She, too, seemed to need reassurance so Victor told
her
it would be all right. “If Joey should need you … and your Dr. Bee
could
be wrong, couldn't he? … Joey can reach you in the morning.” While she watched intensely, he placed the piece of paper carefully away in his wallet. Joey wasn't going to need her but she needed to be needed, he could see that. Hell, who didn't need to be needed … now, if Virgie …

On the way home, Joey sat between his mother and his father talking, Victor decided, like any other kid. The one thing out of the way was that Joey spoke about his room and obviously meant the maid's room which he had occupied for most of the two years of his brother's life because it had been found that whenever Nanny came in to attend to the baby, Joey awoke and couldn't get back to sleep again. Victor explained that they had planned that he should have the big room across from them, but Joey went into a tizzy. Over their child's head, Victor and Virgie exchanged glances. Did this mean Joey was afraid of the nursery? Was he avoiding the bathroom where the accident had happened? Dr. Berkover had told them he preferred them to stay in the same apartment when Joey came home. He wanted Joey to live where it had happened. He didn't, Dr. Berkover said, want any pretense that it hadn't happened, but now this.… “If you want the little room you can have it,” Victor said. Since they had been advised to do just about everything else the way Joey wanted it, this seemed the way to handle it. “But why, Joey?”

“I can take care of myself in that room,” Joey said.

“You mean if you want a snack at night, you can just hop into the kitchen and get it the way you go to the snack place in school?” Joey looked at him as if he had said that babies were born under cabbages. Victor felt foolish. This was not at all what Joey meant by taking care of himself.

“It's going to be just the way it was in school, darling.”

“Did you tell
her?”

“If you mean Nanny, say Nanny, darling. Don't say ‘her' and ‘she.'”

“She,”
Victor said. “She-saw, Marjorie Daw. She shall have a new master! That's good isn't it, Joey?
She
says the master, remember? And now ‘she shall have a new master' because after supper tonight she isn't going to be with us.”

Joey threw him a startled look. “But Mommy needs her.”

“No Mommy doesn't,” Victor prompted.

“No, I don't, Joey,” Virgie said, but she couldn't help it, her voice cracked, and Victor glared, which brought tears to her eyes and made him, glancing at her quickly, then back to the road, even angrier.

Neither of them noticed the expression on Joey's face.

“I'm going to take care of you myself now, Joey,” Virgie said, her voice ragged although she tried hard.

“I can take care of myself,” Joey said. “Don't you worry about me, Mom.”

Victor had to put the car in the garage, so Joey and Virgie went up alone. Virgie rang the doorbell and there
she
was.

“Here is Master Joey at last! Welcome home, Master Joey.”

“How does he look, Nanny?” Virgie asked because Joey wasn't going to be “nice”; no, it was obvious he wasn't going to be nice. “Hasn't he grown?”

“Indeed he has. You're a big boy now, Master Joey.”

He looked at her. “You're just the same.”

“Let's unpack,” Virgie said quickly. “Let's get unpacked right away.” She wanted to toss balls into the air, to pirouette on her toes, to draw their attention from each other and on to her. “Come on, Joey.”

So, in the small room behind the kitchen, Joey was doing his own unpacking, putting his own clothes into his own closet and chest of drawers. Nanny, who was getting dinner, would come and stand in the doorway to the room, watching. Virgie smiled at Nanny sympathetically, knowing how her fingers must be itching to rearrange Joey's clumsy efforts but she made no move. (Nanny would have obeyed orders to the
letter
, Virgie thought.) Then Joey put a spotted leopard and a plush elephant on the pillow of his bed and, between them, a coil of thick rope. Although Virgie knew about the rope she couldn't help gasping and Nanny said, “Now where-ever did you get
that
, Master Joey?”

“It's mine. Don't you touch it.”

“Dr. Berkover gave it to Joey, Nanny.”

“It goes
there
,” Joey said, pointing.

“Fancy,” Nanny said, “a thick rope like that! Won't it disturb your rest, Master Joey?”

“No, it will not.”

He was about to tell her to leave it alone again, Virgie knew. “Nanny just wants you to be comfortable, darling.” Nanny was shaking her head and staring at the rope, chuckling.

“Do you know how to make knots now you're such a big boy, Master Joey?”

“A course,” he said. “A course. I can make about every knot there is.”

“Fancy, Madam! Master Joey can make just about every kind of knot there is!”

But her chuckling and her praise were making no impression on Joey. “Nanny's fixed such a delicious supper for you, Joey.”

“I won't eat it,” he said.

“Darling! Fruit cup and those little tunafish pies you used to like so much.”

“I woan eat it.”

Nanny was signaling her not to press him, that she should allow the sight and the smell of the food to do its magic. Oh, God, Virgie thought. Is he going to start that again? Dr. Berkover said he ate enough for two at school and he had gained over ten pounds. Was he going to start that again?

“May I speak to Madam, please?”

They walked through the kitchen and out to the dining gallery. “Yes, Nanny?” Nanny's whisper was sibilant because of her false teeth.

“I just wanted to tell Madam that Master Joey's been rooting around in my medicine chest.”

Virgie said, “Oh, Nanny!” because a worried reaction seemed indicated, but since this meant that Joey had at least gone into the nursery bathroom, she was pleased. “What do you think he wanted there, Nanny?”

“I don't know, I'm sure, Madam. I just thought I had better mention it so that when I am gone you will always be on the watch. Master Joey always was a child who had to be watched.”

Virgie's eyes filled because although Nanny had not meant to, she had reminded her of how she had failed to watch Joey.

“Now, Madam, I only meant …”

“I know, I know, Nanny, but you saw how he is.… I'm so afraid that I'll …”

“It will be all right,” the old woman said, nodding. She waited, big, calm, smiling, until Virgie stopped trembling; then she went back to cooking and Virgie returned to the little room.

With a saucer, the old woman cut out four circles of dough and put the saucer into the sink, and then, with her back to the door leading into the little room, reached into the spacious pocket of her white apron and took out a bottle. She had brought the square brown bottle from England twenty years before and the paper of the label which said “Spirit of Ipecac” was discolored. There was a dropper attached to the stopper, and the old woman pressed the rubber bulb until it was full, then, with the smooth speed so incongruous with her bulk, she dropped twenty drops into one of the three brown ovenware bowls which were grouped together on the kitchen table. Into the remaining two of the group of three, she poured from the bottle itself, with a practiced sweep so that the liquid permeated all of the tunafish and cheese mixture. Her hand was firm and her face was righteous while she did this, but then the expression faded into a vast vague benevolence, and the bottle was back in her pocket before Joey, his little room as he wanted it, came into the kitchen with his mother.

The old woman said, “See the tunafish pies, Master Joey!”

“Yeah,” he said, “I won't …”

“After I set the table I will put the crusts on and pop them in and then in ten minutes they'll be ready for you. Oh, Madam,” she said, and beckoned Virgie to precede her into the dining gallery. Her bulk immediately filled the doorway so that the child had to wait in the kitchen until she had finished whispering to his mother whether it wouldn't make a nice surprise for Master Joey if the pretty little statue which he had made for Madam's birthday could be set on the table with the carnations?

“I should have thought of that,” Virgie said. “Don't come out, Joey. Stay in the kitchen until I call you.” She went to her bedroom for the ceramic figure and Nanny came with her carrying the carnation centerpiece. The old woman fussed and fussed trying to set the figure in with the flowers so Joey had to wait in the kitchen a good ten minutes.

“Surprise, darling,” Virgie said, showing Joey. Actually she wanted to show Victor, who had now come in from putting the car away, how hard poor Nanny tried to give Joey pleasure.

“Yeah,” Joey said.

Nanny said, “You haven't been up to any mischief in the kitchen, have you?”

This Victor did notice. “Joey?”

“I have not!”

“Well … alone in the kitchen so long and all.… Pardon, Master Joey, but you had that same look on your face you used to have when you'd been up to something.”

“Well, I haven't,” Joey said. “I have not.”

Victor went to the big chair to read his paper and Joey sat on the arm. The old woman moved around the table, straightening a fork here, pushing a knife closer to the service plate, making sure that the dessert fork and spoon which she set out in the English way were perfectly aligned. From the center of the table, the ceramic figure of Joey watched her with his sad Spaniel eyes.

Although Virgie begged her to, just for once, the last time, the last supper, Nanny would not eat with them. Instead she stood in the doorway to watch them and, as he had threatened, Joey ate nothing. Virgie said, “I bet you never had strawberries this big in school, darling! I bet you didn't have balls of melon in your fruit cup there!” But Joey merely looked stubborn and when the tunafish pie with the “J” appeared, he didn't even pick up his fork.

“Perhaps it isn't good,” Nanny said.

“It's delicious, Nanny! Mmmm … mmm … isn't it delicious, Victor?” She took another forkful of the tunafish and then put the fork down.

It seemed to Victor that Virgie was telling Joey that if he wouldn't eat, she wouldn't, and he wasn't having any of that blackmail. “Virgie, if Joey wants to do himself out of this, that's his business. You eat yours.”

Although he didn't mean to, Victor had frightened his wife. She had put her fork down, not to blackmail Joey into eating, but because the pie tasted odd; now she picked it up again and ate as much as she could with as much gusto as possible. Victor … he wasn't made of stone, damn it … tried to make a festive occasion out of this damned supper although it was heavy going with the old woman standing there in the doorway to the kitchen. If this was how she had always stood over Joey, he could understand why he had been so stubborn about eating. It seemed to Victor that she planted herself there to count bites, putting each one down to her credit, no doubt. Finally he asked her why she didn't go in and have her own supper and she said that she would later, thank you, sir, and Virgie looked as if he had blasphemed. Why? Oh, she was supposed to derive her nourishment simply from watching them eat, was that it?

All in all, it was heavy going, like pulling teeth to make Joey even smile. Victor could have cheered when the old woman finally removed the three tuna pies, Joey's still untouched, and went into the kitchen with them, but then he began to feel sick. At first it was nausea. He felt the cold sweat break out over his body, and the smell of the chocolate blancmange to come which wafted out of the kitchen was torture; then his stomach revolted and he left the table precipitously, beginning to vomit the moment he reached the bathroom.