The Nanny (37 page)

“Being nice.”

“Have you tried apologizing?”

There was a pause.

“I can't,” he squeaked.

“Why not? You'd be surprised how effective it can be.”

Toby stared at the grass.

“Can you imagine how much fun you'll all have together if they like you?” asked Jo.

Toby managed half a smile.

“Come on,” said Jo, getting up. “There are some choc-ices in the freezer. You can give them all one and then tell them how you feel.” Toby stayed sitting on the grass. “Just be honest,” she said. “It'll make you feel so much better.”

He grimaced.

“Come on,” she urged.

He shook his head. “I'm scared,” he whispered.

“Of course you are,” said Jo, kneeling beside him. “Otherwise, the apology would be meaningless.”

After a moment's thought, Toby slowly got up, and they walked thoughtfully back into the house.

 

When Jo returned to her room, she landed heavily on her bed. Pippa looked up from sorting a box that had found its way into Josh's room.

“Feeling a bit better?” she asked. She saw Jo's expression. “Oh dear, what's up? You look like you've seen a ghost.”

Jo recounted her conversation with Toby, while Pippa sat next to the box, leaning back against Josh's bed.

After Jo had finished, she seemed to run out of energy. “That explains what Josh said to me,” she said in a monotone, “about how sometimes a woman can push a man into adultery.”

“Yeah, but that's still no reason to blame all women for men's affairs,” remarked Pippa, glancing round Josh's room. “He's messy isn't he?”

Jo frowned. “I don't think he did blame all women. I think he referred to just one man and one woman. He was talking about Dick and Jane, and he knew it was true. And that was when I told him that he disgusted me.”

“You were disgusted because he's helping his dad have an extramarital affair,” said Pippa, her eyes fixed on some pieces of pink paper by her feet.

“I know, but—”

“But nothing,” said Pippa, idly picking up the pieces of paper. “That's how you felt, and you had a right to those feelings. He's got double standards. The man's a woman hater—it doesn't matter why.”

“But it explains why he got so annoyed with me so quickly. I must have really hurt him.”

Pippa went silent. After a moment, Jo looked across at her. Pippa was staring, ashen-faced, at two pieces of pink paper.

“What are you looking at?” asked Jo.

“Jo-oh,” said Pippa slowly.

“Yes?”

“Did you say Josh was living here rent-free?”

“Yup. Another reason to hate him. Thank you, I was beginning to forget.”

“And how much is your monthly salary?”

“Why?”

“Just tell me. To the penny.”

“It's a really weird amount because of my raise,” she explained before giving her exact monthly salary.

Pippa put her hand over her mouth. “Oh dear,” she whispered.

“What?” Jo came over and looked at the pieces of paper. Pippa let her take them out of her hand.

They were receipts, in Dick's handwriting. They were called “Josh's rent—May” and next to the amount was the word “Paid.” And the amount was exactly—down to the last penny—the same amount as Jo's salary.

As they stared at it, their eyes alighted on an imprint, underneath, that slowly, like children's invisible ink, grew more and more legible. And the more legible it grew, the more cold Jo felt. In Dick's scrawl were the words, “for Jo—June.”

“Why did you think he wasn't paying rent?” asked Pippa eventually.

Jo sat down next to her, leaning heavily against Josh's bed. “Vanessa told me.”

They stared at the receipts.

“And do you think,” asked Pippa, ever so softly, “that it's remotely possible that Dick and Josh”—the words hung in the air—“kept it a
secret
from Vanessa? The fact that Josh was…” Again, the words hung in the air.

Jo forced herself to finish the sentence. “…Paying my salary?”

They continued to stare at the receipts.

“What did we actually hear them saying in the kitchen that time?” asked Pippa.

Jo furrowed her brow. “I don't remember.”

“Did they actually talk about an affair?”

“Well, there was a woman mentioned.”

“A lover? Did they say lover? Because she could have been anyone, right? She could have been someone from the shop. A buyer? Or someone to do with money? A rent collector or accountant or something?”

“I s'pose,” murmured Jo.

“Didn't Josh at one point tell his dad he should have gone to him first before turning to her?”

“Oh my God,” whispered Jo. “Maybe they were talking about an accountant. A female accountant.”

“Has been known.”

“But why be so cloak-and-dagger about an accountant?”

Pippa shrugged. “Maybe Dick keeps his accounts a secret from Vanessa.”

“He did keep saying she'd leave him if she knew the truth.”

“Yeah, well that fits. He probably thought she'd leave if she found out how bad it was.”

“Oh come on, surely not. She's not that bad.”

Pippa shook her head. “That's not the point. The point is Dick thought she might be.”

“Maybe that's why Josh called her Scary Spouse,” Jo said quietly.

Pippa laughed. “That's brilliant!”

Jo gave her a look.

“Sorry,” said Pippa. “He may be a bastard, but that's funny.”

Jo sighed. “Oh no.”

“I think it's safe to say there was no affair,” concluded Pippa, holding up the receipts.

“And that Josh and Dick's real secret was that Josh is in fact a generous, trustworthy type, taking responsibility for his father's actions by paying your salary.”

They took a moment to reassess the situation so far.

“And as such,” concluded Pippa, “you have fucked up big-time.”

Jo groaned.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?” asked Pippa.

“He hid the secret very well,” whispered Jo.

“Yes,” agreed Pippa. “We can add clever to his list of attributes then.”

Jo sank her head back against Josh's bed.

“This is all good, hon,” soothed Pippa. “It means he's a hell of a lot nicer than you thought. You're not obsessed with a nasty bloke, you're obsessed with a really decent
catch
.”

“Nngh,” agreed Jo.

“I have only one question.”

“Hm?”

“What are you still doing in here?”

Jo tilted her head. “I'm waiting for the ground to swallow me up.”

“Just apologize to him.”

“Where should I start?”

“How about with absolutely everything you've ever said to him?” suggested Pippa. “That might make a good start.”

“I
can't
.” Jo hid her head in her hands.

“Course you can.”

“I can't.”

After a moment's silence, Pippa spoke again.

“Course you can.”

“I
can't
.”

At which point Pippa gave up.

Toby carried four choc-ices upstairs and waited outside Tallulah's bedroom door until a strategy occurred to him. Unfortunately, the choc-ices were considerably faster at melting down his hands than the strategy was at occurring. When they started dripping, he had no choice but to knock on the door.

Cassie, Tallulah, and Zak yelled at him to leave them alone. He stared at the door handle, stared at his creamy knuckles and knocked again. There was more yelling. He poked his head round the door. The yelling started up again. He showed them the choc-ices. There was an aborted yelp of joy from Zak, followed by a thoughtful silence.

Toby used the moment to squeeze in a broken explanation for his past behavior and an apology that would have melted the heart of anyone.

They stared at his red eyes, and they stared at the choc-ices. When Tallulah crossed the room, took the choc-ices, and reached up to kiss him on the cheek, they all knew he was forgiven.

And a good thing too. Toby's contribution to the meeting proved vital.

 

While the children concluded their business for the day in a most satisfactory manner, Jo and Pippa were going round in circles.

“Okay. I've got to say sorry,” repeated Jo.

“Yup.”

“But I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because he hates me.”

“Because you haven't said sorry.”

“Okay. I've got to say sorry.”

“Yup.”

“But I can't.”

Pippa looked at her watch. “I have a flight to catch in two months.”

“Right!” announced Jo. “I'm going to say sorry.” And she got up and walked out.

As she strode purposefully through the kitchen toward the living room, she saw Toby in the hall opening the living room door, followed swiftly by Tallulah. In one fluid movement, she turned on her heel and strode back into the kitchen, where she busied herself frowning and humming.

When Cassie and Zak bounced in, she gave them an absentminded smile.

“Thank you, Jo!” yelled Cassie. “Toby just gave us all choc-ices!”

They came over and hugged her.

“We've got something to show you,” said Cassie. “But we can't show you here, Toby might see. It's a secret.”

“Where shall we go?” asked Zak.

“I don't know,” pondered Cassie. “Toby mustn't hear us. Where is he?”

“In the living room with Josh,” said Jo.

“Where can we go where he won't hear us?”

“I don't know,” said Zak, looking out into the garden.

“Shall we go into the garden?” suggested Jo, following Zak's idle gaze.

“Yes!” they both cried.

They went into the garden, and Zak got so excited he started running in place.

“I know!” he cried. “Let's go into the playhouse! Then no one will see us!”

Cassie frowned. “Jo won't fit.”

“But I want to do it in the playhouse!” insisted Zak.

“Of course I can fit,” Jo told Cassie. “Let's go into the playhouse. I think it's a great idea.”

“Oh, alright.” Cassie sighed.

They bent down and single-filed it through the door. Once inside, they sat in a cosy little circle.

“Well, go on then,” Cassie told Zak. “Give it to her.”

“I haven't got it,” said Zak.

“I gave it to you!”

“No you didn't!”

“I did! I put it on your bedside table!”

“Well, then, you didn't give it to me, did you, Clever Clogs!”

“Guys!” shouted Jo. “Why don't you just go and get it?”

There was a pause.

“You go,” Cassie told Zak.

“No!” said Zak. “You go!”

“No!”

“Guys!” shouted Jo again. “Why don't I go and get it?”

“
No!
” they yelled.

“Okay then, why don't you both go and get it?”

“But you might go away,” said Cassie.

“I promise you I won't leave this spot until you come back.”

“Cross your heart?”

“Cross my heart.” Jo obliged, and from their expressions of total trust, felt as if she'd just signed a contract in her own blood.

They disappeared out of the tiny door, and she heard them giggling together before they even got inside. It always amazed her how children could forgive each other so easily. Why did adults lose that ability?

She leaned back against the wall and breathed in the woody smell, which was even more pungent than usual after the night's rain. She found it surprisingly soothing. Through the tiny window she could just make out one of the cats sitting in a tree, watching the proceedings. Perhaps she should just never come out. She closed her eyes and waited for the children to come back. They must have been quite a while because the next thing she knew she was jumping awake at the sound of the little door being slammed shut with some ferocity.

She turned and looked. And gasped. Josh had squeezed his tall frame into the house backward—she had to shuffle back before he trod on her—and Toby had just slammed the door shut behind him. “
Okay!
” yelled Toby from outside. “Now you can turn round and open your eyes.” Then she heard the children disappear into the house in hysterics as Josh, with some difficulty, turned round to face her.

 

To say Josh was surprised to see Jo was an understatement. He was so shocked that he forgot he was in a playhouse and jumped up to leave, thwacking his head on the roof before he'd even sat up properly. He crouched down again, his head in his hands. Then at the same moment they both lunged for the door and pushed with all their might. Nothing. It was not going to budge. Jo knew. She'd spent hours in here in her time—usually with Tallulah—just waiting for the wood slowly to shrink back to its usual size. She considered asking Josh if he wanted to play
imaginary tea party, which had been known to keep Tallulah contented for so long Jo had got repetitive motion injury from so much imaginary tea pouring. But as he was holding his head in pain, she decided it probably wasn't a good idea.

“I always thought this place could do with a chimney,” she whispered eventually. “Nice period touch.”

Josh grimaced. “Yeah, I'm fine thanks,” he said, stretching his legs as far as they could go—one out in front of him, the other bent to the side, both taking up precious space around her.

“Hey,” said Jo, trying to shift herself out of his way. “This time it was not my fault you got hurt.”

“Yes it was.” He tried to stretch his bent leg.

“How was it my fault? Do you mind? That's my bottom.”

“You shocked me. Can I—' He indicated for his leg to go behind her.

“I was just sitting here minding my own business, thank you very much,” she argued, inching forward.

“Yeah,” he muttered, fitting his leg behind her, “waiting to give me the fright of my life.”

“I had no idea you were coming in here,” she said, lunging forward. “If I had, I'd have tunneled out.”

“So what are you doing in here then?”

“Waiting for Cassie and Zak.”

“Well you're in for a long wait.”

“Why?”

“Because they're inside watching TV.”

“What? They can't be. They told me to wait in here. They made me cross my heart.” Josh leaned back against the wall, his head in the eaves, all the fight suddenly out of him.

“Little bastards,” he snarled. “We've been set up.”

“Josh,” said Jo. “Will you please get your thigh off my bottom?”

“No,” shot Josh indignantly. “You get your bottom off my thigh.”

She lean forward and ended up practically eating his nose. She sat back again. “What do you mean ‘set up'?”

“Toby—my Judas of a kid brother—persuaded me, with some difficulty, to come in here backward with my eyes closed because he had a surprise for me.”

Jo stared back at Josh. “Little bastards,” she agreed. “I thought they were my friends.”

Josh nodded back at her. “Well, they clearly hate us both.”

“So,” he said. “As soon as you've managed to prise your bottom off my thigh, I vote we go back inside and kick their little heads in.”

He turned toward the door, entangling most of Jo in his legs.

“Careful!” she yelped.

“Oh, come to help?” he asked. “How good of you.”

“You'll never open it. It sticks in the rain. Last night was a downpour, I nearly drowned.”

“Damn,” muttered Josh, banging hopelessly at the door. “Those pesky kids.”

Despite herself, Jo started to giggle.

“I don't know what's so funny,” said Josh. “I'm claustrophobic.”

“Oh dear.”

He turned to face her. He was so close that her natural instinct was to jerk her head back. It walloped the wall behind her. “A condition not improved,” he whispered, “by someone's entire body weight making my knees go numb.”

Jo whipped herself away from him so fast he ended up lying half on top of her.

“That's better,” he said pleasantly. “Where were we?”

“Ow,” she moaned.

With some effort, Josh twisted his body away from hers, leaving them both just enough space to half lie next to each other, heads against the door. Then he sat up as far as he could, leaned his weight onto his right hipbone, and started to push the door hard with his upper body.

Jo had little choice but to watch, being unable to turn her head away without knocking noses with him. He was trying so hard to open the door that the veins in his neck were starting to bulge. After a while, he paused.

“Anytime you fancy,” he breathed hard, “you're more than welcome to join in. No pressure.”

Jo tried to speak. Josh looked at her and couldn't believe his eyes.

“Why are
you
crying?” he asked. “I'm the one who's claustrophobic. I should be in hysterics.”

Jo sniffed.

“I'd get you a tissue from my jeans pocket,” he said, “but in this space it might make you pregnant.”

She laughed, then started crying some more. He gave up trying to open the door.

“Hey,” he said, his tone softening slightly. “Come on. It can't be that bad being stuck in here with me.”

She shook her head. “How can you be so hateful and so nice at the same time?”

“Just gifted, I guess.”

“I'm sorry.”

“It's alright. Cry all you like. Better out than in. Bit like us in here really.”

She started to cry again.

“Come on,” he soothed. “What's up? Is it Shaun?”

Her crying came to a slow, ugly halt.

“You want to get out so much,” she whimpered.

“Well of course I do,” he said. “I need oxygen.”

She laughed, then stopped herself.

“So what's up?” he asked.

“I just told you. You want to get out so much.”

He looked astonished. “That's why you're crying? Because I want to get out?”

She nodded, her eyes firmly shut.

“Don't you want to get out?” he asked gently.

She turned away, her eyes firmly shut. “I'm sorry,” she blurted out.

“It's alright,” he said. “I'm getting used to seeing you crying. It's quite sweet actually.”

“I mean I'm sorry about…you know.” She ground to a halt.

“Not really,” he answered. “Perhaps you could narrow it down a bit.”

“I found out,” she whispered, turning suddenly toward him and giving him an intense look.

“Found out what?” he whispered back, squeezing his hips away from her.

“That you've been paying my salary.”

He gasped. “Bloody hell.”

Jo clutched his arm. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I-I haven't—I've just been paying my rent.”

“Which is exactly the same amount as my salary.”

He stared from her eyes to her lips and back to her eyes. He blinked hard.

“I-I was helping my dad,” he managed.

“And I was so horrid to you,” moaned Jo, clutching him a bit more.

“No you weren't—” he said, trying to keep every part of his body very still.

“I was! But you went so cold on me. Not like you were in the beginning. In the beginning you were lovely. And I'd been so scared of meeting you for the first time after all those horrid phone calls—”

“What phone calls?”

“Every time I spoke to you on the phone, you took the piss out of me. And then you got your office to listen in. I thought you'd be horrible.”

“Ah. Yes. Those.”

“But you weren't horrid at all. You weren't what I expected at all.”

“No, you weren't either.”

There was a pause.

“I thought you'd be mean and fat,” sniffed Jo.

“I thought you'd be stuffy and ugly.”

“Did you?” asked Jo breathily.

Josh forced himself to look away.

“About those calls,” he said. “When I agreed to come here, I really wanted to help my dad. I thought I was over all my jealousy of the kids. But every time I spoke to you on the phone you were so…disapproving, so—”

“I was terrified.”

“Terrified?”

“Yes! The first time I had the whole family watching me, and I was convinced it was some nanny test. The next time Diane was scrutinizing my every word to see that I was a good enough nanny for her precious grandchildren.”

“Ah,” said Josh. “I see. She is a bit special.”

“And you got your office to listen to me like I was some big joke.”

“I'm sorry. You're right, that was horrid. But I do have an explanation.”

Jo waited.

“I guess it's a long story.”

“Well,” she said. “It looks like we've got a long time.” She didn't risk pushing the door again, and neither did Josh.

Instead, he began. “When I was at school and college, my mum had no help bringing me and Tobe up,” he said, the words as new to him as to her. “She had to have a part-time job filing, so I had to pick up Tobe from a friend's on my way home, let us both in, make us both tea, keep him occupied till she got home. No biggie—there are worse things at sea, and I'm not complaining. I'm not emotionally scarred or anything. Well, I
didn't think I was. But every time I spoke to you on the phone—and you sounded
so
different from how you were…in the flesh”—he looked down at her legs and Jo's flesh went hot—“I was reminded that for Dad's new improved children, things were very different.”