‘But I’m going to be working too!’
‘Sorry, could you just move that bag?’ came Skylar’s voice. ‘Only I want to get the recyclables out so I can help preserve the earth? You know you can’t recycle crisp packets?’
Carmen made the mistake of not zipping up the bag again, which meant, as she knelt down to pick it up, her washbag and knickers burst all over the floor.
‘KNICKERS!’ said Jack, bursting out laughing. Phoebe laughed too, while Pippa pursed her lips and looked disapproving. Sofia looked absolutely pained at all this horrible stuff going on in her Martin Moore kitchen. Face bright red, Carmen knelt down and started stuffing everything into the bag which now, of course, wouldn’t zip up. It seemed to take an hour to remove her washbag – which was filthy, and she thought out of the corner of her eye she caught Skylar mouthing something – and a couple of jumpers, stick them under one arm, sit down on the bag and zip up the rest, all the while watched by three mouth-breathing, crumb-covered children.
‘I’ll show you where you’re sleeping,’ said Sofia, getting up from her chair with some difficulty. ‘Actually, I should give you the tour.’
‘I’ll get the couscous going?’ said Skylar. ‘I hope you haven’t all ruined your appetites?’
There was another staircase that went down instead of up. Up contained a huge drawing room, a master suite with dressing room and bathroom, a pristine guest room, then up again under the eaves were the children’s beautiful rooms in sailor prints and White Company fairy lights and bunting. Carmen smiled tightly at the tour as Sofia, slightly apologetically, then took her down to the basement.
‘So I thought … ’
Sofia was using the bright tone of voice Carmen recognised from childhood, from when she had to deliver disappointing news like she’d only got an A minus instead of her usual A plus, or Carmen couldn’t keep that cat she’d found in the street as it belonged to somebody else.
‘ … you could sleep down here. It’s got its own bathroom so you wouldn’t have to share with the kids, and its own entrance so you can come and go as you like!’
She made it sound so appealing there had to be something wrong with it, and sure enough, as they passed through the beautiful light-filled folding-door paradise of the warm kitchen upstairs and descended into the basement, it became apparent.
There were three tiny rooms ahead of them, obviously once used by servants, and a bathroom with a shower but no tub.
Behind them was a large utility room full of all the rubbish most people had to fit into their real houses – ironing boards, washing machines, wellington boots, winter coats. No wonder their house could look tidy, thought Carmen crossly, when you could just throw all your stuff down the stairs.
‘And you’ll be next to Skylar so you two can get along!’
‘As the hired help,’ said Carmen.
Sofia sighed. She was doing her best, but it never seemed to work with Carmen.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s just a couple of nights. Just to help me, that’s all. Sometimes I get in late. And some mornings.’
‘Well, I might get in late,’ said Carmen. ‘What is this job anyway? Mum just said retail.’
That was not remotely true, but Carmen hadn’t really been listening. Also, Sofia hadn’t been a hundred per cent open with her mother about how bad things were at the shop in case Carmen went off on one and refused to come.
‘It’s a bookshop,’ said Sofia. ‘One of my clients owns it. Mr McCredie. Needs someone to help him over Christmas.’
‘Well, that sounds okay.’
‘You like reading, don’t you?’
Sofia had never been a bookworm like Carmen: she had studied hard and read textbooks, and now she liked interior design magazines, whereas Carmen followed her heart and read books wherever her interests took her; about space, history, romance, anything she felt like, alighting from one to the next like a butterfly.
Carmen shrugged.
‘So,’ said Sofia. ‘Okay,’ said Carmen. ‘What is Skylar studying?’
‘Something arty? Not sure.’
‘She seems very … organised.’
Sofia was in no mood to discuss Skylar after a hit-and-miss trail of previous au pairs had spent their days crying with homesickness, ransacking the fridge, smoking in their rooms, flirting with Federico and actually stealing.
‘She’s great,’ she said. ‘Please don’t fall out with her. I really need her.’
Carmen was about to snap back that she didn’t fall out with anyone, but thought better of it on the grounds of it not being strictly true.
