He looked at the ground. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please. I think we’ve established that I’m a buffoon, whose dream of being a self-sufficient, capable wonder woman is still just that. I’d appreciate it if you had a key, in case of emergencies.’
He shook his head, briefly, and glanced up at me. By golly, those eyes were as smooth and dark as the cake. ‘Emergencies, by their very definition, are supposed to be rare and unexpected.’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled, shrugging my shoulders. ‘I’m working on that.’
9
I still got that common recurring nightmare, the one where I was at school, only instead of the beyond nerdy uniform I had to wear, I was in my underwear, and instead of being invisible, a superpower I perfected during my years treading water in the ocean of academia, everybody was pointing and laughing. And I couldn’t move. And the teacher was nowhere to be seen. Or they were the one laughing the loudest.
So today was sort of like that nightmare coming true. Only instead of underwear, I was wearing a milk-stained, jam-smeared hoodie and muddy jeans. One of my eyes had swollen half shut, thanks to an ‘accident’ with a toy aeroplane. And my hair? Best not think about my hair.
The task list had looked straightforward. Breakfast for the younger three, as Maddie and Dawson could make their own. Two plates of toast – butter and jam on one, honey on another, and a bowl of cornflakes. A three-minute job. Only the list forgot to mention the butter-and-jam toast needed to be cut into triangles, or it didn’t taste ‘properly’. And evidently small triangles didn’t taste properly, either. The honey toast was ‘burnted’. Apparently. Making toast to Hamish’s exact shade of brownness should be a new skills test onMasterChef.
And cornflakes – how could you go wrong with shaking cereal into a bowl, and pouring milk on the top?
How indeed?
Did most children have an exact specification for flake-to-milk ratio? Decide the milk was too cold, and needed warming up in the microwave, which made the cereal too floppy, like ‘yuck flakes’, as demonstrated by catapulting them into their sister’s hair?
And breakfast was only the start. The ragtag, mismatched, inside-out and back-to-front outfits the younger boys wore were in blatant rebellion against the neat piles of clothing laid out ready to be scrumpled up and stamped on.
Brushing teeth? Wasn’t that supposed to take two minutes?
Packing bags? Not a problem.Un-packing the toys, stones, snail and mould specimens nearly finished me off. Like some insanity-inducing torture, every time I had one child suited and booted, coat on, bag ready, I turned around to find another running around the garden in nothing but a batman cape and armbands.
Dawson refused to go on without us, even as the clock ticked towards morning registration, instead lingering by the door and yelling increasingly frustrated orders at his brothers. At the school gate, however, he ran to his classroom, face pinched with worry. Maddie, still weeping over the cereal blobs I’d painstakingly combed out of her hair, refused to acknowledge me. She sloped off, head down, scuffing her shoes across the empty playground.
I heaved Jonno down from a wall, dodged between Billy and Hamish’s branch battle, and spent so long trying to herd them round to the reception building that the site manager had to come and help me.
When I eventually returned to find the gate locked, I gave up restraining myself, clinging to the railings while I snivelled. I had led a lonely life for a long time. But in that moment, trapped in a strange school, my black eye throbbing along with my weary head, facing a two-and-a-half-mile cycle back to Grime Cottage, where I would spend five hours silently scrubbing filth, with no one to laugh with about the morning’s palaver, before cycling back to spend another two hours failing at my work probation, currently my only option of surviving…
I had never felt so alone.
‘Excuse me?’ A voice interrupted my pity party. ‘Can you let us in, please?’
I opened my working eye to see an Asian woman with two girls, and a baby on one hip, peering through the bars. Sniffing in a most unladylike fashion, I made a pathetic gesture to indicate I didn’t know how.
‘The code is seven two three three. It spells “safe” on a phone.’
Attempting to hoist myself back together, I opened the gate. The children followed her in, waiting politely while she handed them their bags and kissed them both goodbye.
‘Goodbye, Okaasan,’ they chorused, beaming angelically before skipping off, holding hands. ‘Have a lovely day! Miss you!’
Have a lovely day?I felt a fresh, hot rush behind my eyes. My farewell that morning:I’m going to be in loads of trouble and it’s all your fault… I wish Mummy was here she’s nicer and funner and better at plaits… I’m going to shoot you with my poisonous arrows if you make me go… Billy said you’re a stupid-glasses-head… I’m telling Mummy you pulled my arm and shouted and now it’s brokened and I don’t like you, Jenny…
The woman shuffled awkwardly. ‘I don’t remember seeing you here before…’
I sniffed again, fumbling through my pockets for a tissue before remembering they’d all been used on Maddie’s tears, Billy’s scraped knees and everybody’s noses.
‘Here.’
I accepted the offered tissue and blew my nose, wincing as it sent shooting pains up to my eye. ‘I’m the Camerons’ new nanny,’ I croaked. ‘It’s my first day.’
‘Oh!’ The woman nodded vigorously, enough said. ‘Well, I need to let Reception know the girls are finished at the dentist. But if you can wait, you’d be welcome to come to mine for a cup of tea.’ She ducked her head. ‘I mean, if you like. You’re probably busy. Or would rather be by yourself. Forget it, forget I asked…’
‘I’d love to,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m not busy. And I’ve spent more than enough time by myself.’
