Every single evening Alysha gets dressed up and goes out for dinner, despite having a private chef at her beck and call at home. She visits the same three restaurants on rotation, where the cooks have all been schooled on her stringent meal requirements—no gluten, no dairy, no grains and no oils. On top of this, every meal must somehow include coconut. This is because a ‘psychic nutritionist’ once told Alysha that, in a past life, she’d lived on a coconut plantation, and her ‘aura’ craved the taste of her homeland. According to Fernando the psychic nutritionist in question has shares in a brand of coconut oil, and that’s his standard line to all his wealthy clients.
It doesn’t really matter what ingredients are served to Alysha, though, as eating isn’t exactly top of her agenda. She only goes to these restaurants to network and to be seen in the right places. Her dining companion is usually a fellow actress, a fashion designer or a director, whose phone number she’ll conveniently lose once their careers are on the nosedive.
In the few months that I’d been stationed with the family, Alysha had never once eaten dinner with the children. I had tried to hint to her that it could be beneficial, as I think all families bond best over full bellies, but there was always an important event or companion that prevented her from being at home for dinner. On the upside, I was pleased that the kids weren’t being dragged around with their mother every evening. The type of restaurant that Alysha goes to are always overrun with the who’s who of Hollywood—usually the most erratic and unstable characters.
I once worked for a famous businessman who would only eat his dinner if he was sitting in a large gold throne positioned at the head of the table. He had a dozen of these thrones, which were delivered to the restaurants that he wanted to dine in so they’d be ready and waiting.
I also worked for an American sitcom star who hated the paparazzi and, when we went out for dinner, would insist on wearing a blanket draped over his head, covering his entire body from scalp to toes. The only part of him you could see was the hand he held his spoon with. It was like eating dinner with Casper the Friendly Ghost.
In Hollywood’s most exclusive restaurants, strange behaviour like this is often overlooked, mainly because the craziest celebrities are also the biggest tippers. But these are not the kind of antics I think children should be exposed to, so it’s a relief in a sense that Alysha is happy to spend her evenings separately. It’s actually my favourite time of the day, sitting down to eat with the kids, without my boss looking over our shoulders.
This is why I was so surprised when Alysha’s personal trainer, James, stopped me in the hallway and hissed, ‘Hey, Linds, did you get the message about dinner?’ I hadn’t, but my mind instantly went into overdrive. Was he asking me out? What was I going to say? Was this really a good idea?
I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about it—James is a former army lieutenant who Alysha met at a charity gala and lured away from active service by naming a salary he couldn’t resist. I have on the odd occasion fantasised about wrapping myself around those toned, flexed muscles, but in reality I find James a little intimidating. If we were to date I’d have to constantly hold my stomach in. He’d expect me to be one of those Hollywood robo-mothers who runs marathons eight months in to her pregnancy.
I realised I was getting a little ahead of myself when James broke in to my thoughts by waving his hand in front of my face. ‘Earth to Lindsay,’ he laughed. ‘You looked miles away there for a moment. I was telling you about tonight. Everyone has been told they have to eat out with Alysha . . . and I mean everyone.’
I hadn’t got the message, but it didn’t seem right. Why would Alysha invite us to dinner? Before I could ask any more questions, the alarm on James’s stopwatch sounded. ‘Sorry, darling, I’ve got to run,’ he said, ‘I’ve left Alysha in her floatation tank and she’ll kill me if her skin wrinkles.’ Then he turned and jogged away down the corridor, as I watched his calf muscles bulging and regretted eating an entire cheese pizza with extra olives the night before.
That afternoon I didn’t have much time to dwell on our dinner plans, because Alysha had far more important work for me. Harlow had got a splinter while riding the antique fairground carousel in the back garden and had to have a particular type of pink, glittery Band-Aid. ‘I’m sure she’ll stop crying if you just kiss it better,’ I told Alysha, but instead she instructed me to drive around every pharmacy in Los Angeles until I found somewhere that sold them.
This wild goose chase took me until close to dinnertime. I only remembered my conversation with James when I went back to my bedroom to grab a sweater and found a Diane von Fürstenberg dress bag hanging from my clothes rail. It contained a cream floor-length gown with a long train and flowing sleeves covered in silver sequins. It was stunning, but not exactly child friendly.
There were no instructions, but I knew the drill. If an outfit was left in my room, then it was my cue to put it on. The reason would soon become apparent. I quickly brushed my hair, trying to undo the plaits Harlow had knotted into the back of my head earlier, and brushed some mascara onto my eyelashes. Wherever I was going, that would have to do.
At least I didn’t have to waste time worrying about accessories, because Alysha’s personal stylist had also laid out shoes and jewellery. As I slid a delicate Marc Jacobs charm bracelet onto my wrist and stepped into a pair of strappy Jimmy Choos, I thought, ‘This would make an amazing date outfit.’ It was just a shame that my only plus-ones were under ten years old.
As I tottered down the stairs in all my finery, I was met by a squealing group of children. ‘Nanna is here, Nanna is here!’ I thought they were talking about me, until I spotted the children’s grandmother, Eugenie, walking in the front door, carrying an armful of toys and colouring books. This was odd, as Alysha only invited her mother around if she was desperate for a babysitter, usually on my night off.
‘Well, don’t you look like a princess,’ said Eugenie, as I manoeuvred past the children to kiss her on the cheek. She smelt of buttery toast and Chanel No. 5 perfume, and I suddenly missed my own mum terribly.
I adore Eugenie, a 73-year-old widow who is also a prize-winning novelist, but who lives in a modest studio an hour out of the city. Her gifts to the children are always fun but frugal—bouncy balls, plastic soldiers and packets of M&M’s. The kids get more excited by these goody bags than all the elaborate presents their father sends. Last Christmas, after a few too many glasses of eggnog, Eugenie told me it was the worst day of her life when Alysha married Sir Cameron, although she didn’t elaborate on the reasons.
‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ I said. ‘It feels like it’s been ages.’ The last time she’d babysat the kids had been the night of the Met Gala, when Alysha’s stylist had got a stomach bug and she needed me to act as her ‘train manager’, to check that the back of her Givenchy gown was in place as she posed for the paparazzi.
‘Oh, you know my daughter doesn’t like me to intrude into her world,’ Eugenie sighed. ‘I keep offering to babysit but she says the children’s social lives are too busy for their granny. How can a two-year-old even have a social life?’
Although it wasn’t my fault, I felt instantly guilty, because I was the one chauffeuring the children here, there and everywhere. ‘I’ll keep sending photos and drawings,’ I told her. ‘At least that’s better than nothing.’
Unbeknown to Alysha, I send Eugenie care packages containing photos of her growing grandchildren and pictures they drew in art class. Alysha wouldn’t let me stick their paintings on her refrigerator anyway, as she said they’d clash with the colour scheme in the kitchen and her interior designer would be offended.
I’m not sure why so many wealthy people distance themselves from their elderly relatives. I once worked for a mother of six who would happily splash out $10,000 on a private-jet trip and $18,000 on a painting but refused to pay for her dying father to have an operation to save his life. I had a sneaky suspicion that Alysha kept Eugenie at a distance because her mother was the only person who knew her real age. She had celebrated her thirtieth birthday for the past two years running, and this year planned to celebrate her twenty-ninth.
As I helped Eugenie wheel her overnight suitcase into the kitchen there was a knock at the door. ‘Hey, Lindsay, are you ready to go?’ asked Alysha’s chauffeur, Seth. ‘Everyone else is already waiting at the restaurant.’ I kissed the kids goodbye, grabbed my handbag and followed him obediently to the Bentley waiting outside. I wondered which of Alysha’s three favourite restaurants I was being taken to. It was always a treat to eat ‘adult’ food, rather than alphabet spaghetti and vegetables cut into happy faces.
‘Well, I won’t be eating steak,’ I muttered, when we parked outside Minus-47, a raw food restaurant where nothing is cooked above 47 degrees Celsius. Then I gasped out loud, as I spotted Alysha sitting at a table right next to the window. When James had said that ‘everyone’ was invited to dinner he wasn’t kidding. Around the table sat every member of Alysha’s entourage, including her three personal trainers, her nutritionist, her masseuse, her hairdresser, her stylist, her agent, her publicist, the chef and even the cleaners. Now I understood why she’d left the children in the care of their grandmother—because there was absolutely no one left to ask.
All of a sudden I’d lost my appetite completely. I had worked for Alysha long enough to know that she must have an agenda for calling us all together. I could tell, even before entering the restaurant, that the atmosphere at the table was awkward. It was messing with the ecosystem, expecting us all to socialise together. It was also messing with some of the staff members’ body clocks, as the night watchman would usually just be waking up at this time and James, who got up at 3 a.m., would usually be going to bed.
‘Oh, Lindsay, you’re here,’ Alysha gushed as I neared the table. ‘Isn’t it just fabulous that everybody could make it on this special night? I’m so glad that we could all get together as a family.’
Her publicist and agent seemed less than impressed by this statement, and I bit back my laughter. In the hierarchy of hired help, Alysha’s office staff considered themselves above the rest of us. They count themselves as professionals and the rest of us as mere servants. I found this funny, as I happen to know that I’m paid more than both her publicist and agent put together.
When I moved in with my first celebrity family, I used to hate living in a house with such a large team of staff, because I wasn’t used to people picking up after me. It felt indulgent to have cleaners sweeping my bedroom, laundresses washing my clothes and drivers transporting me everywhere. It felt especially ridiculous being chauffeur-driven to the school pick-up. Why was my presence even necessary when there was an adult already driving the vehicle?
But over time I’ve learnt that everyone has a unique role and it’s best just to go along with it. I don’t think I’m above any other member of staff, and I think it’s important we all stick together. That’s why I learnt Spanish, because it’s the first language of many of the household staff. It means we can talk about our bosses without them knowing, which is why I learnt all the swear words first.
As Alysha continued to talk, I mouthed one of these words across the table at her housekeeper, who laughed and rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation.
‘I’d like to thank you all for coming to this celebration,’ Alysha continued, as if we’d had a choice. ‘I have very, very big news. We’re all going to be reality television stars! Well, the children and I are. You’ll be more like extras . . . but isn’t that still exciting for all of us?’
Now I understood the motivation for this dinner. She’d bought us here to butter us up, and had chosen a public place so that we couldn’t cause a scene. I noticed that beside every dinner plate there was a thick cream envelope, which was stamped with the logo of a production company.
‘Now, there’s just a teeny tiny bit of paperwork,’ said Alysha. ‘The producer needs everyone to sign a contract. It’s all very straightforward and is nothing for you to worry about. You probably don’t even need to read it . . . it’s probably a little too complicated for you all. You just need to sign it by the end of dessert.’ She then signalled the waiter. ‘Anyone for Champagne? Now, don’t say no, or I’ll be offended. It’s a celebration, after all.’
At first nobody reached for their envelope, even though we were clearly all itching to. It’s like the first rule of going to a glitzy celebrity party—never ever look inside the goody bag until you’re out of public view. It’s not the done thing to show excitement over freebies. So, as Alysha doled out the champagne and pushed morsels of food around on her plate, I discreetly slipped my envelope into my handbag and excused myself to go to the bathroom.
I only peeled open the package once I was safely inside a toilet stall. I would like to say it was shocking, but after a decade working around showbusiness, it was, unfortunately, exactly what I expected. As well as asking for permission to use my image ‘as the producer sees fit’, it stated that ‘The producer has the right to edit, delete and fictionalize the footage at his or her discretion.’ In signing the contract I was also indicating I understood that ‘it may expose you to public ridicule, humiliation or condemnation.’ Yeowch! They really weren’t pulling any punches.
I’m not sure what was worse—being treated like a second-class citizen, or being treated like one of the family and dragged into Alysha’s fame game.
•
The next morning I woke up feeling exhausted and tearful. I blamed the Champagne I’d drunk the night before. Alysha had insisted on topping up our glasses, and hadn’t allowed us to leave the restaurant until we finished the five bottles.
‘Oh, don’t worry, Champagne doesn’t give you a hangover,’ she trilled. ‘I’m always perfectly capable of functioning the next morning, even when I’ve drunk far too much.’
I didn’t want to point out that Alysha’s average day involved waking up at noon, having a facial and then meeting her agent for a liquid lunch at The Ivy. She would probably feel the side effects of alcohol if she had a screaming child to bath, or a kitchen floor to scrub. I don’t think a hangover is a problem experienced by the upper classes.
It’s days like this when I wished I didn’t live with my employers. I know, I shouldn’t complain when my accommodation, food and even my toiletries are paid for. I don’t like complaining about my job, because I know I’m very lucky, but everyone has a bad day at the office sometimes and Alysha’s announcement had left me feeling anxious. I had a feeling that her new reality television career would come back to bite us all.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of sitting around feeling sorry for myself. I had to shake myself out of my slump because I had a big day ahead of me, including taking Goldie to a music concert that evening. A seven-year-old in her class had just released an album, which was currently rising up the charts, although I thought the lyrics were a little explicit for a schoolgirl. She was the third girl in Goldie’s class to sign a recording contract. Their end-of-year play was like a live episode of Glee.
In a few hours I would be front and centre stage at a concert, surrounded by hyperactive schoolgirls, so I needed to snap out of my hangover and stop moping around. I fell back on a strategy I use whenever I’m feeling blue—I just think about the worst boss I’ve ever had, which always puts my current troubles into perspective.
Every VIP nanny has a story about a boss from hell who made their life miserable. In my case, it wasn’t actually a parent, but the new girlfriend of a father who I worked for. Remember Steven Stavros, the unfaithful pop star? He eventually left his wife Barbie after falling in love with a Canadian model he met on Facebook. He had shared custody of his kids, who were teenagers by this point, and asked me to move back in temporarily to help them adjust to the newly fractured family.
He also moved in his new girlfriend, Jamie, who was clearly determined to prove she was the new head of the family. The model-turned-fashion designer had a reputation for being a diva. She had already been married four times and sold the photos from her last wedding to a magazine for a cool $3 million. She was used to getting her own way and clearly didn’t like that my relationship with Steven verged on being a friendship rather than just a professional acquaintance.
One morning Steven came back from a gym session and I casually asked, ‘How did you like the new trainer? Did he put you through your paces?’ She spun on her heels and barked, ‘That is no way for a staff member to talk to their employer. How dare you speak to him like that?!’
As punishment for my error of judgement she then instituted a rule that I was no longer allowed to speak to Steven directly, or even make eye contact with him. It sounds unbelievable, but if I wanted to say hello to him, I had to tell Jamie and she would pass on the greeting. I hoped that Steven would stick up for me, seeing as we’d known each other for years, but he seemed to be under her spell. Even the kids had picked up on the fact that their dad had suddenly started dressing differently, had lost weight and had a suspiciously smooth face. Jamie visited a beautician every single day for some treatment or another, and Steven had started going with her.
That wasn’t the only thing that changed. The kids weren’t allowed to call me Lindsay anymore. They were told to refer to me only as ‘nanny’. I also wasn’t allowed to make direct eye contact with Jamie or any of her friends. After three months in the job I found myself automatically stooping and had to see an osteopath to correct my neck ache.
If you think this is unfair practice, some nannies I know have even more extreme stories. I’ve seen a mother slap a nanny in the face in the first class lounge of an airport because she’d forgotten to pack the children’s favourite bubblegum-flavoured toothpaste.
Another nanny I know, who worked for an Indonesian billionaire, was never allowed to use the same toilet as the family or drink out of the same glasses. A nanny who I met in India was made to sleep in a storage room under the stairs, despite the fact the mansion had sixteen spare bedrooms.
In comparison to some of these living conditions, working for Alysha didn’t seem so terrible. It’s hard to wake up on the wrong side of the bed when you’re falling asleep in the lap of luxury. My bedroom in the Appleby mansion has a four-poster bed with a $50,000 cashmere mattress, made by the company that supplies beds to the British royal family. All of Alysha’s staff are given matching silk pyjamas monogrammed with the Appleby crest. We’re banned from sleeping in anything else in case there’s a fire and we have to evacuate. God forbid we weren’t colour coordinated for the fire brigade.
It wasn’t exactly ideal that my bed would soon have a television camera installed over it, but it was something I was going to have to learn to live with. According to the contract laid out by the production company, none of the rooms of the house would be off-limits, including the staff quarters and their ensuites. They had insisted that cameras would be placed at a ‘modesty-preserving angle’. I’d just have to start getting changed in my closet.
I’m used to being watched, although it’s usually not by two million viewers. In wealthy homes you’re never out of sight of a security camera, security guard or night watchman. This means you can never let your guard down and have to be professional at all times. The cameras even have night vision.
I was caught out in the early days of my career, before I realised that an eye-in-the-sky was always watching me. As a sixteen-year-old, working for the Shawshanks, I used to dance while I vacuumed, pretending that I was Mrs Doubtfire. I even put on a Scottish accent and used to really get into character. I didn’t realise that Jason Shawshank had the security footage streamed directly to his laptop.
I only found out, one evening at a party they held at their mansion, when ‘Dude (Looks like a Lady)’ came on the stereo and he started mimicking my dance moves. I’m lucky that he had a good sense of humour and it became a long-running joke between us.
I didn’t think Alysha would find it as amusing if I was seen to be mixing business with pleasure. It would be the equivalent of the policeman who was caught doing a cartwheel during the royal wedding.
As I dressed Goldie in the outfit that she wanted to wear to the concert—a pink Chanel tutu and a T-shirt printed with a photo of her pop star friend—I thought about how many people would kill for the opportunity she’d had. I once worked for a judge on The X Factor, and have seen firsthand the lines of auditionees who queue around the block, desperately hoping for their fifteen minutes of fame.
I don’t have any such ambitions. I might live underneath the bright lights of Hollywood but being a celebrity nanny isn’t a stepping-stone to fame—in fact, it will more likely put you off ever entering the spotlight.
I see the downsides of stardom every day, from the loss of privacy, to the bad reviews and even death threats. I see actresses sobbing over their piles of hate mail. (If they say they don’t read them, don’t believe them.)
My bosses may seem like show-offs, but I see signs of their insecurity. Next to Alysha’s bed is a pile of self-help books with titles such as Dealing with Loneliness and How to Find Your True Life’s Purpose.
As I sprayed Goldie’s hair with glitter, she sang into her hairbrush. ‘Goldie, would you like to be a pop star?’ I asked her. ‘Would you like to be on stage in front of all those people, like your friend?’
My seven-year-old charge looked up at me with a disparaging expression. ‘Why would I want to be up there?’ she asked. ‘She’s up there on her own. I want to be dancing with the people below.’ I couldn’t help smiling with pride.