The Second-last Woman in England (31 page)
‘Aye, I did go to Leicester, but I come back, didn’t I?’ was all the reply Nanny Peters seemed prepared to give.
‘Oh.’ Anne was clearly a little perturbed by this. ‘But why didn’t you come back to
us
, then?’
Nanny Peters raised her eyebrows at this suggestion, which seemed to strike her as amusing. Then she looked away, over Anne’s head, and at once saw Jean, despite Jean being largely obscured by the slide.
‘Oh, I remember you,’ she called over. ‘So you followed my suggestion then? Bet you regretted it soon enough.’
Jean gave a non-committal smile.
‘Anne, come on, it’s time we went home,’ she called again.
Nanny Peters had recognised her.
They had met once before, months earlier, on a warm autumnal day last September. On that day a woman with a small child had emerged from one of the large houses at the far end of Athelstan Gardens and, after a moment of hesitation, Jean had followed them.
The woman had not looked at all how Jean had pictured someone from such a house would look. She had sported a fuzz of peroxided hair in a very tight perm, a figure-hugging blouse of some cheap, clinging material, and lipstick so vivid you could see it from the other side of the street. And she had been young, perhaps a year or two older than Jean herself. The child that had accompanied her was around eight or nine, a girl with very straight brown hair in two demure pigtails and wearing a tunic—the sort of tunic children who went to exclusive private schools might wear.
They had walked up Palmerston Terrace, crossed Old Brompton Road and come here, to the park, and Jean had followed them.
At the park the child had immediately disengaged herself from the woman and marched over to the swings where she had sat sullenly kicking the dirt before picking a fight with another, much smaller child who had run off in tears. The woman with the tight perm had parked herself on a bench and lit a cigarette.
Jean had walked over and sat down. And after a moment she had spoken.
‘Fun at that age, in’t they?’ she had said to the woman, because this was what she imagined people—mothers—might say to one another.
The woman had shrugged.
‘I don’t know, love. Some of ’em in’t fun at any age,’ she had replied.
Jean had searched for a suitable reply to this observation, but found none. After a moment she had said ‘Do you just ’ave the one, then?’ and nodded at the sullen child.
At this the young woman had raised both eyebrows and her nostrils had flared.
‘Oh, she in’t mine, pet. I’m the nanny.’
‘Oh.’
Yes, the young woman would be the nanny, of course.
‘I’ve been a nanny too,’ Jean had replied. ‘For a family back east.’
‘What—China?’
‘No. Stepney.’
‘Oh.’ The woman had nodded without appearing much interested. ‘Well, I’m out of it soon,’ she had added unexpectedly. ‘Next week, in fact. Back ’ome to Leicester. And not a day too soon.’
‘Oh. What will they do?’
‘Who?’ The nanny had looked mystified.
‘The family you work for.’
‘Oh, them.’ She had shrugged again. ‘Don’t know. Not my problem, is it?’ and she had paused to draw heavily on her cigarette. Then she had turned and looked at Jean, a long, appraising look that took in the dull brown hair in a dull, plain style, the pale face unadorned with make up, the plain white blouse and unstylishly narrow skirt, and the heavy navy shoes, unfashionably low. ‘You
are
a nanny, in’t yer!’ she had added in summary and Jean had had a sense she was being judged. ‘Well, if you’re looking for a job, love, they’re always desperate these days. My lot got me through the agency in the High Street. Simpson’s is the name. I’ll give you the address if you like.’
And she had pulled out an old bus ticket and scribbled down the address of an employment agency in Kensington High Street and handed it to Jean.
‘I’m Nellie. Nellie Peters,’ she had added, standing up and smoothing down her skirts. She hadn’t held out her hand or even met Jean’s eye as she said this as she was too busy adjusting her petticoat, the cigarette wedged firmly in the side of her mouth.
‘Thanks. I’m Jean. Jean Corbett,’ but the nanny had been scowling over at her charge and seemed not to be listening. The child, it appeared, had pushed another child off the swing and an anxious and overdressed young woman had run frantically over. A scene had appeared inevitable.
‘Bloody little bitch,’ the nanny had muttered and marched over.
Jean hadn’t stayed to watch. A few days later she had sat in the offices of Simpson’s in Kensington High Street across from a Miss Anderson and, yes, it had appeared that everyone wanted a nanny and, despite Jean’s shaky references, she had been given the name and address of eleven potential clients. In the end she had agreed to visit only one, the Wallises in Athelstan Gardens.
‘
Anne
!’ Jean called. ‘Come on, your mother will be wondering where we’ve got to and it’s your piano lesson at five.’
As Nanny Peters had begun to herd her small charge away and appeared in no hurry to prolong the interview, Anne capitulated and came moodily away.
‘I wonder why Nanny Peters came back and didn’t tell us,’ she mused as they began the walk home.
‘Perhaps she was too busy with her new family.’
Anne considered this. ‘Nanny, what did she mean about you following her suggestion?’
‘I have no idea, Anne. I think she was mistaking me for someone else.’
The telephone was ringing as Harriet arrived back home from visiting Cecil at his office.
She dropped her front-door key so that by the time she had let herself in Mrs Thompson had already got to the telephone and was standing in the hallway in her apron, the usual cigarette clenched in her mouth. Harriet reached for the glass ashtray that lived on the hallway table and whipped it beneath Mrs Thompson’s cigarette moments before a dusting of ash toppled from the end and tumbled towards the carpet.
‘Mr Paget,’ announced Mrs Thompson, unimpressed by Harriet’s quick thinking with the ashtray.
‘Thank you, Mrs Thompson.’ Harriet took the telephone receiver and, even though Freddie had been back seven months, it was a moment before she realised it was him on the other end of the telephone and not Simon.
‘Listen, sis, you won’t believe it but Caruthers has offered me the job.’
Harriet heard herself gasp and she put her hand to her mouth.
‘I can’t believe it! I only just spoke to Cecil a couple of hours ago.’
‘Oh, I already had it in the bag by then. Looks like I didn’t need Old Ceec’s help after all. Apparently just being the brother-in-law did the trick. What do you think? Accounts clerk in some finance department near Liverpool Street, starting tomorrow.’ He paused to laugh. ‘Not quite the glittering career in high finance Father had planned for me.’
‘Father didn’t plan for the war.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, Freddie, it’s marvellous. Look, why don’t you come over? Come and meet the children, I know they’d be thrilled. Come for afternoon tea. Cecil won’t be back for ages yet.’
It was going to be all right. And Freddie was coming to tea to meet the children.
‘Mrs Thompson! Mr Paget will be coming for afternoon tea at a quarter past five. Please set up the tea in the drawing room rather than in the kitchen.’
Harriet did not wait to observe Mrs Thompson’s reaction to this request, which was both unprecedented and spontaneous. Instead, she went upstairs and almost ran into the nanny.
‘Miss Corbett. Are the children back from school yet?’
‘Yes, Mrs Wallis,’ the girl replied. ‘We’ve just this moment returned from the park and Anne is getting ready to go to her piano lesson and Julius is in his room doing homework.’
She delivered these statement, then waited on the stairs.
Harriet smiled and that seemed to unbalance the girl, who didn’t know where to look. Nanny had gone for the austere look today: a dull, white blouse over a navy skirt, offset with flesh-coloured tights and her ugly navy shoes. To supplement this she had dug up a dun-coloured cardigan. Come to think of it, every day was austere day for Nanny. And it was a pity too, for the girl was quite pretty. She had good bone structure and a good figure, if a little … well, austere. All she needed was a hair-do, a decent outfit and some good lipstick. Surely there must be one or two unused tubes upstairs. She would give them to Nanny. And perhaps it was time the girl got a pay-rise; after all, she had been with them now for six or seven months.
‘Well, let’s be very naughty and skip piano lesson for today,’ Harriet declared. ‘Would you telephone Miss Dalrymple and let her know? We have a visitor coming for afternoon tea: Mr Paget, the children’s uncle will be joining us.
‘Mr Paget? The children’s uncle Simon?’
‘No … their Uncle Freddie. They haven’t seen him in a long while.’
‘Oh. Has Mr Paget been away, then?’
‘Yes, obviously, or they would have seen him, wouldn’t they?’
The girl made no reply to this.
‘Well. Would you let the children know? No, wait—I’ll tell them myself.’
Really, the girl was beyond sullen! It quite spoilt her features when she pulled such a face. Perhaps the lipstick wouldn’t suit her after all.
Harriet went quickly up the stairs and found Anne in her room rummaging around in her wardrobe.
‘Anne, I—oh!’
Harriet had trodden on Anne’s school hat which lay in a dishevelled state in the middle of the room. It squelched as her foot made contact with the crown and water seeped out onto the carpet.
‘It’s my hat,’ Anne explained, emerging from the cupboard. ‘It ended up in the pond. I really can’t say how.’
‘Oh. Well, never mind. Anne, what do you think? Your Uncle Freddie has returned to England and he’s coming to tea this afternoon to see you.’
Anne digested this information thoughtfully.
‘I don’t have an Uncle Freddie,’ she declared at last.
‘Yes, you do,’ Harriet explained patiently. ‘He is my and Uncle Simon’s younger brother. You met him at Harrods once during the war, though you probably won’t remember it as you were only a year old. Julius would remember it.’
Anne appeared less than impressed.
‘
What
would I remember?’ said Julius behind her.
‘Uncle Freddie. He’s coming to tea. You met him at Harrods once. In the tea room. During the war.’
‘Oh yes, I do remember that … We had scones. They served them on a sort of multi-layered plate thing. One of them had peel or something in it—so I don’t think that can have been a scone after all. More likely it was a kind of bun—’
‘Yes, but don’t you remember Uncle Freddie being there?’
Julius frowned in concentration, but it was clear the scones had made a bigger impression on his five-year-old brain than his uncle had.
‘Well, anyway he’s coming to tea and he’s very much looking forward to seeing you both again. In fact—I have a super idea! Why don’t we go and meet him at the tube station?’
Anne and Julius regarded their mother in astonished silence.
‘You want us to go to the tube station to meet him?’ Julius repeated. ‘All of us?’
‘Yes!’ God, children could be so maddeningly slow sometimes!
And so, after some minutes spent assembling the appropriate outdoor clothing they were ready to set off, and when it became apparent that they were going out sans nanny and with just their mother, Anne grabbed Harriet’s hand and skipped down the front steps, almost falling head-first in her excitement. Julius followed at a more sedate pace, preferring to walk a little apart with his hands in his trouser pockets and clearly still dubious as to the nature of the expedition.
‘What will Uncle Freddie look like?’ Anne asked, swinging Harriet’s arm madly as she walked. ‘Will he look like Uncle Simon?’
Harriet laughed. ‘No, he’s much younger than Uncle Simon. And they don’t look a bit alike. Uncle Freddie has darker hair and he’s a bit taller and thinner. And he doesn’t smoke a pipe.’
‘That’s good.’
‘And Mother, where has Uncle Freddie been?’
‘Canada. He’s been in Canada. And America. Working.’
‘Doing what?’ asked Julius.
‘Oh, lots of things. Important work for a railway company and a shipping firm and—oh, lots of things.’