Jo was so busy in her first week at home that she didn’t have too much time to brood on why Shaun hadn’t returned the phone message she’d left him on her first day back. Looking after her mother was far harder than looking after any children because Jo was so emotionally drained. Hilda needed twenty-four-hour care and could only move fractionally. It was like looking after a baby, while coping with the grief of losing a parent.
However, her mind wasn’t so one-tracked that she didn’t notice something was up with Shaun. She started replaying recent conversations with him and realized they’d hardly spoken more than twice a week in the past month, and even then their conversations had been short and full of unspoken resentments. She kept thinking back to when he’d come to visit her in Highgate. On the surface, things had gone well between them—if anything, they’d been happier than they had been for a long time. And then she thought of how things had felt under the surface. And then she pushed all thoughts of Josh to the back of her mind. Until nighttime, when in the safety of her bed, in the safety of the dark, she scrunched her eyes shut, faced the bedroom wall she’d faced all the way through childhood, and let her mind free-fall from a great height, whizzing past heaven and landing in hell, just thinking of him.
When she had a spare moment from worrying about her mother, musing over Shaun, and dreaming of Josh, she thought about Sheila. Sheila had also not phoned her back since her return. It dawned on Jo that she hadn’t actually spoken to Sheila since the call when Sheila had asked about Pippa, when Jo had had to leave midconversation. It only occurred to her now, in the cold light of day, how insensitive that was. And that was weeks ago—or was it months? Sheila hadn’t returned one of her voice messages since then.
When Shaun finally phoned, a week and a half after she’d got home, she hardly recognized his voice.
“Oh hello,” she said warily. “How are you?”
“Fine thanks,” said Shaun. “You?”
“Mm. Fine.”
She was just about to ask him whether he’d got her message, when he asked how her mother was. She did a little hop, skip, and jump over concern and landed on anger.
“Fine.”
“Oh good.”
“She’s back home.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Thank you.”
They arranged to see each other that Friday night—in two days’ time, nearly a whole two weeks after she’d come home. Neither seemed particularly excited about it.
Things were going just as badly at the Fitzgerald home. Vanessa stood motionless in the middle of her kitchen, silence percolating through every pore, her naked eyes fixed on the clock—11:15 a.m. Were the clock batteries running low? She considered going back to bed until Tallulah needed to be picked up. Ironically, taking this time off to be at home had felt, at first, like supremely beneficial timing—she hadn’t had to face Anthony after their scramble in the Silly Nibble cupboard. But as the time had passed, she realized it was the worst thing she could have done. All it meant was that she hadn’t been able to tell him immediately that she’d made a terrible mistake. She’d had to nurse her guilt for a whole fortnight, her only company being all the loved ones she’d betrayed. It bordered on torture.
She had thought about phoning Anthony at the office, but that would have implied that their dalliance—dalliance? Did it even count as that?—held some significance for her. And also someone at home might find out. Oh God, had it come to this? Added to the stress of that, the isolation of being at home was doing her head in. Every morning, she had her daily update phone call with Tricia and Max, but their efficient brusqueness against the background office noises cut like a knife. Every time they were about to say good-bye she had to stop herself asking them to stop and chat. Was she like this on the phone when she spoke to Dick, in his empty shop? Did she make him feel this excluded, this irrelevant? And then the phone call would be over and Tricia and Max would hang up abruptly, leaving her to a day of relentless, mind-numbing silence.
She felt like her soul was slowly shrinking. And in only a few days, she had become a different person. She hardly recognized herself. She’d become dangerously introspective and started talking to herself. Her beautiful home had transformed into a prison, and she felt swamped by a need to get out of it. Unfortunately, the more swamped she felt, the less she was able to extricate herself from it. But when she did manage it, she seemed to have turned into a madwoman. She’d start striking up inane conversations with shop staff, she’d try and make eye contact with passersby, she’d even chatted to the Big Issue seller she usually ignored, until his eyes glazed over. Her all-time low was one morning when she’d managed to rationalize to herself the possibility of inviting in the dustmen for coffee. She wasn’t one for poetry but after nearly two weeks at home as a full-time mother, she felt like she was a flower rooted in the shade, wilting silently against a cold brick wall. The thought that she might never again find a nanny like Jo, who would stay with them for long enough to give the children stability, and that the only possible solution might be that she give up her day job, had started to haunt her in the dead of night.
It wasn’t as if she was idle. Keeping house—to the standard she’d grown used to with Jo living there—was a thankless, invisible, and twenty-four-hour-long job. It made her office job look like sheer bliss. At least with an office job, everyone at the office might treat you as a form of underclass, but the outside world treated you with some respect. At home not even your own children respected you. In those seemingly endless hours between afternoon and evening when the children needed her attention most and when she had least reserves of energy or emotion, she’d think of Jo and want to weep.
As she stood in the silent kitchen, thinking such thoughts again and again, the phone made her jump. Was it Max? Anthony, maybe? She braced herself and picked up the phone. “Hello, Vanessa Fitzgerald,” she announced.
“I should hope so,” said Dick cheerfully. “Otherwise, I’ll have to start paying you.”
“Ha-ha.”
“How’s it all going?”
“The kids are at school, and I’m just about to make a coffee to give me enough energy to kill myself.”
“Oh. Don’t do that, darling.”
“Give me one good reason.”
“Who’d pick up the children?”
She slammed down the phone and cried until it was time to pick up Tallulah.
With only one more day to go before the weekend, Vanessa wore mascara to celebrate. Three layers of it. She spent twenty minutes doing her makeup. It probably made her weigh two pounds more, but it had been worth it. Tallulah had watched with awe and, once permission was granted, had played ecstatically with mummy’s pinkest lipsticks, and they’d managed to while away almost an hour tidying her makeup drawer.
They hadn’t bothered with Tumble Tots or ballet all fortnight—Vanessa decided they might as well make the most of just being together, and anyway, she wasn’t exactly sure where they were held and didn’t want to interrupt Jo on her time off. She also didn’t want to risk getting Tallulah’s hopes up and then not be able to find the place.
On their last Thursday together, by the time they were ready for their teatime walk, both were pleased with the way their afternoon had turned out. Tallulah was wearing Summer Sunshine nail polish and Vanessa had a tidy makeup drawer. Tallulah had learned how to make pizza from scratch, and Vanessa didn’t have to prepare any tea. It didn’t give her the same buzz that her job did, but it did make her feel she wasn’t such a failure as a mother.
The next morning, her last Friday off from work, Vanessa woke with a start after dreaming of falling down a hole in the ground and never reaching the bottom. She got out of bed in one bound.
While Vanessa clattered round the kitchen, Josh lay awake listening. He’d been having problems sleeping again, just like old times. And every time he woke up in the morning, after a night of thinking it would never come, his first emotion was dread. He hated walking through Jo’s room. Every time, the same thoughts, the same feelings. He’d try not to, but end up looking at her bed and remember lying on it watching her falling asleep the night she’d got her dad’s call; then he’d think about her with Shaun and remember the noises he’d heard through the stud wall when Shaun had come to stay; then finally, he’d think about them being together now. And then after his shower, he’d walk back through her room again into his room to dress and have exactly the same memories, the same thoughts, the same feelings. And then he’d have to walk through her room again, out into the kitchen and have exactly the same memories, the same thoughts, the same feelings. Three little journeys to hell every morning before breakfast.
And every evening he’d have to listen to Vanessa and Dick arguing about giving up on Jo and getting a new nanny. Vanessa was adamant Jo was coming back, Dick was concerned that she wasn’t and they’d never find a nanny as good as she, or one who would stay. One evening when Dick had suggested that maybe after all, the children just needed their mother, they’d had the biggest row he’d ever heard.
After work, Josh climbed up the steps from Highgate Station, slowly but surely, and made his way to his dad’s shop. Although there was a light drizzle, the spring evening smelled of flowers trying to bud. There was an almost tangible optimism in the air, like God’s own version of supermarket’s baked bread and Muzak. Summer would be here before he knew it. And yet he was depressed. He watched the traffic as he paced through Highgate. Weird, he thought as he neared the shop. I never noticed how popular white Clios were before.
Jo wiped her mother’s mouth gently with the napkin and put the spoon back in the bowl.
“There,” she said. “Well done. Can you believe Dad made it out of his own brain?”
Her mother smiled a slow wonky smile that squeezed at Jo’s heart.
“He never even knew there was such a thing as a parsnip before making it,” Jo said briskly. “You almost had parsnip soup without the parsnip.”
Hilda laughed as Jo put the bowl on her bedside table.
“Do you want to wait a bit before you move on to the cheese and crackers?”
Hilda nodded.
“Sheila still hasn’t called back,” said Jo quietly. Hilda looked at her. “I think I upset her when I was in London,” she explained. “Didn’t call enough. Made her feel used.” She looked up at her mum. “I don’t think I called anyone enough,” she whispered. Very slowly, Hilda lifted her hand and placed it on Jo’s. They exchanged thin smiles. Jo picked up the plate with the cheese and crackers.
“Right,” she said. “Tell me when you’ve had enough.”
They’d phoned! Three o’clock on the Friday before Vanessa was due back and they’d phoned! It had taken them two weeks to need her, but need her they did! Vanessa was buzzing. She had a deadline—Max wanted some facts and figures that only she could provide, and he wanted them fast. “Fucking fast,” in fact. Tra bloody la, thought Vanessa. A few emergency phone calls and she was back in the driver’s seat. Tallulah sat with Mummy at the kitchen table and pretended to be an advertising accounts manager while Vanessa delegated the most basic of jobs and got one of the most efficient PAs she’d ever had. Better still, it stopped Vanessa thinking too much about Anthony, her marriage, her responsibilities, and the mess she was making of her life.
“Thanks for coming straight from work,” said Dick to Josh. “I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Dad,” said Josh. “You must know that.”
“Yes but on a Friday,” said Dick. “I know all you city types usually go out for a well-deserved drink—”
“Yeah and I hate it. I’d much rather be here.”
Josh never ceased to be amazed that his father didn’t realize that he’d probably swallow fire for him. That’s the way parenting works. Children could smell parental love like dogs could smell fear. Love your child unconditionally and they could one day leap up and ferociously attack you. Act as if you don’t really care, and they slavishly adore you.
“What’s the latest, Dad?” he asked.
Dick sighed. “I’m giving up on Jackie.”
Josh stared at his father, then started nodding slowly.
“I can’t rely on her anymore,” said Dick. “And I may not have the time. I need someone I can really rely on. Someone I can trust.”
“Mm?”
Dick grinned at his son. “You’re going to make me ask you, aren’t you?”
Josh mirrored his father’s grin. “Oh yes.”
“Josh.”
“Dad.”
“I’m sacking my accountant. Please will you do my accounts?”
Josh sucked in air and shook his head, pretending to consider.
“Of course I’d pay you!” rushed Dick.
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“I’m not being ridiculous,” said Dick. “I have, amazingly enough, still got my pride. God knows how, but—”
“Dad, it would be like a hobby for me—I mean, I’d love to actually keep the books for a place I care about instead of some massive, faceless company—”
“Well we certainly aren’t massive.”
“I don’t want the money.”
“Stop it, Josh—you’re doing more than enough already.”
“Hardly. And as we both know, if it wasn’t for that bloody stupid n—”
“It wasn’t Jo’s fault—”
“I know!” broke in Josh, astonished. “I was going to say that stupid night, not that stupid nanny. If it wasn’t for that stupid night and me being a prize moron, we’d be in a much better position—you’d be in a much better position. It’s my fault, so the least I can do is help out.”
“I’m very grateful. Please look at my books and let me know if it’s worth carrying on. I can’t live like this for much longer.”
“You’ll take my professional opinion?” asked Josh.
“Of course.”
“But…you didn’t when I told you not to fall for Jackie’s sales pitch. Remember?”
Dick smiled. “You were still studying then. Give me a break.”
“I just needed to check.”
“I trust and respect your professional opinion.”
“Wow,” said Josh. “And what will you do if I suggest the worst?”
Dick took a deep breath. “Sell.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it,” said Dick. “One thing at a time, eh?”
Josh nodded again. Dick came across and shook his new accountant by the hand.
Friday evening and Jo was more nervous about seeing Shaun than she had been when he visited her in London. Still at home, she brought down the dinner tray and placed it on the kitchen table. Her dad, wearing a pinny, put the dinner plates straight in the sink.
“Oh good,” he said, looking at Hilda’s leftovers. “She’s eating much more isn’t she?”
“Well it’s so delicious,” Jo said, looking up at the kitchen clock.
“It’s Nigella.”
“Ah.”
“Will you give me a hand carrying the TV upstairs before you go, love?” asked her dad. “She wants to watch Midsomer Murders.”
“Course.”
“I don’t want to make you late for Shaun,” he added.
“No worries. He took long enough to call me back.”
Bill followed her into the lounge. “You’re not playing games with him, are you? Men don’t like that.”
“Dad,” breathed Jo, lifting the TV. “How old am I?”
“Old enough to know better. Steady.”
“No, that’s you. I’m old enough to make my own decisions. I’ve got it, stop pushing.”
“Alright alright. Left a bit. I just don’t like to see a good man treated badly.”
Jo decided to concentrate on maneuevering the television round the tight corner of the stairs instead of maneuvering her father round the twisted corners of her mind. Half an hour later, she lounged upstairs on her mum’s bed watching TV, while her dad chatted to Shaun downstairs.
“Don’t…stay…” murmured Hilda.
“I suppose I’d better go,” agreed Jo. “Before Dad bores the pants off him. Have a good night. Enjoy the TV.”
As she got to the door, she turned round and looked at her mother. Hilda opened her eyes wide.
“Good…luck,” she whispered.
Jo smiled and made her way downstairs.
She stood outside the lounge for a second before opening the door. She was terrified of Shaun being indifferent to her, cold or just strange.
She needn’t have worried. He looked terrified.
“Alright?” he said.
“Alright.”
There was a pause.
“Right, well,” said Bill, leaving the lounge. “I’ll leave you lovebirds to it.”
They all went to the hall, Bill going upstairs as they opened the front door. “See you when we see you Jo,” he called from the stairs.
Jo considered smiling at Shaun, but didn’t.
“They’re watching what my mother wants on TV tonight,” she explained to the cold spring evening.
“Oh.”
“Quite a night, as you can imagine.”
Shaun did something in between a smile and a laugh.
By the time they reached the restaurant, Jo was beginning to fear that Shaun was planning to propose again. All the signs were there—he’d gone quiet and pale like the other times, and she was filled with a vague sense of foreboding.
They sat down at their restaurant table and faced each other.
“Jo,” started Shaun.
“Don’t, please—”
“Don’t what?”
There was a pause.
“I don’t know,” said Jo. “Sorry. What were you going to say?”
“Don’t what?” he repeated.
“I don’t know—”
“Then don’t what?”
The waiter appeared.
“Would you like some drinks?” he asked.
“Yes,” they said.
The waiter took their orders, and they started again.
“Jo,” said Shaun.
Jo took a deep breath.
“Yes,” she answered with a bright smile.
“I’m not going to propose again.”
She let out a heavy sigh of relief.
“After this one last time,” he finished.
She stopped breathing altogether.
“I don’t understand what’s happening in your world,” he said, gesturing vaguely near her head. “I don’t know how you’re feeling, I don’t know why you went to London, I don’t even know what you think of me anymore.”
“I—”
“Let me finish, please, Jo.”
“Sorry.”
“All I know is that I can’t go on like this any longer.”
“God, I’m sorry—”
“Please, let me finish.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s really very simple, Jo.”
She blinked and waited.
“You either want to be with me or you don’t.”
She blinked again.
“You either want to marry me or you don’t.”
She nodded.
“You just have to tell me so I can get on with my life.”
She blinked and nodded.
“So,” he said. “You have to decide.”
She stared at him.
“What’s it to be, Jo?”
The waiter appeared. “Are you ready to order?”
“Yes,” said Shaun.
“No,” said Jo.
“I’ll come back when you’re both ready,” said the waiter.
Jo looked at Shaun.
“I love you Shaun,” she whispered.
She saw him take a deep breath.
“But I can’t marry you.”
She watched him let out a heavy sigh.
As they sat there, she realized Shaun was right. It had been very simple after all. Now all she had to do was work out who was going to help her make big decisions like that in future.
After the last meal Jo and Shaun were to have together, it occurred to Jo that she had never loved him more than she did then. When he asked for the bill, she loved him for his quiet ability to take control; when he helped her into her coat, she loved him for his little gentlemanly acts. When he drove her home, she loved him for his kindness. When he kissed her gently on her lips for the last time, she loved him for having shared an intimate world with her. Sitting in the passenger seat of his car, she began to ache with loneliness.
“Bye, Shaun,” she said, sniffing.
“Bye, Jo. Always remember that I love you.”
She got out of the car and walked to her parents’ house.
She shut the front door and leaned against it. She could see a crack of light from upstairs, which meant that her parents were still awake. She knew they hadn’t expected her to come home that night and yet at the same time, they had. She climbed the stairs. When she reached the top, she heard her father call out from their bedroom. She tapped on their door.
“Come in,” he called.
Her parents were sitting up in bed together, a sight that made her feel envious and comforted at the same time.
“Your mother wants to know if you had a good evening,” said her father. “I told her to mind her own business, but…”
Jo sighed and nodded, the tears speaking for themselves.
“I’ll be fine,” she said eventually. “Night.”
“Your mother says to tell you we’re here if you need us,” her father said gruffly.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Her mother made a gesture with her right hand. Jo waited.
“No…matter…what,” whispered Hilda.
Jo smiled at them both and blew them both a kiss. She shut their bedroom door behind her and went to bed.