‘I’m Sally,’ the woman said. ‘Charlie’s next door asleep, I’ll show you him in a minute but I’ll go mad if he wakes up again. He’s hell to put down.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose I should say that, I might put you off. I mean, he’s coming on. The thing is, he’s not such a good feeder. I’ve got to go back to work and he’s still getting used to the bottle.’
‘Oh,’ Steph said.
Sally turned, and as she poured water from the kettle, which had not yet boiled, into the mugs, she said breezily, ‘Still, at least I’ve got my tits back. Not that they’re much use to me now.’
Steph made a small noise that was half surprise, half laugh. That was the trouble with educated people. At some point in their lives they simply managed, somehow, to go beyond embarrassment. Or perhaps they were born incapable of it. Whichever it was they made you take on double the amount because you had your own and theirs on top. They told you things that you could never reply to. What was she meant to say?
‘So.’ Sally was putting milk into two mugs of instant coffee, another thing she hadn’t asked Steph about, shifting stuff- a baby’s jacket, a purse, some keys and half a croissant- off a chair so that Steph could sit down. She didn’t offer sugar, either, but she was watching Steph carefully. Steph, knowing she was being sized up, put on a bright face. ‘Charlie’s a lovely name,’ she said. ‘They’re coming back, aren’t they, the traditional names.’
Sally ignored her, but went on watching. ‘I did have somebody all lined up weeks ago but she rang to say she’s not coming now, less than a week before she’s meant to start. Got a better offer, I suppose. So I’m stuck. I’ve got to go back full-time next week.’ She leaned against the worktop and sipped her coffee. ‘If I don’t get somebody local I’ll have to take this girl an agency’s offering me and they charge a fortune. What’s your name anyway? You’re local, are you?’ She smiled in such a way that Steph could tell she had had to remind herself that smiling was a thing she was meant to do.
‘Yes, I’m staying here. I mean, yes. I do live here now. I’m Stephanie. Well, Steph, really. I’m twenty-three and I’ve had… a lot of experience with children.’
‘Yes, but what about babies. He’s only four months. Have you done babies?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Steph said, ‘I had sole charge of a newborn.’ She took a mouthful of coffee while she tried to assemble the words for the story she had worked out. ‘I took care of my sister’s baby. She couldn’t. She was depressed after it, the birth. You know, post-natal, she got it really bad? So I did everything, more or less, the lot, all the looking after. She couldn’t do a thing, hardly.’ Then, in case the woman might think she was complaining, ‘I really enjoyed it, I had a knack, everybody said. My sister’s husband, he was away at the time as well, so I had sole charge, I held the fort. Then they moved away.’ She paused. ‘To America. Her husband was American.’
That should put the question of references on ice for a bit. She began to feel slightly inspired.
‘And so now I’m staying here with… with my aunt, I live with my aunt.’
She had rehearsed on the walk to Sally’s house the phrase ‘my boyfriend and my boyfriend’s mother’, and decided that it sounded too flaky and impermanent and might make her sound like a hanger-on. And she wasn’t wearing a ring; suppose this woman advertising for the childminder was a religious nut or something, who disapproved of people living together? A niece helping her aunt sounded solid and respectable.
‘I’m staying with her and helping her with the house, she hasn’t been too well. At Walden Manor.’ Risky to give the name, perhaps, but she had guessed, correctly, precisely the effect it would have.
Sally raised her eyebrows and made an ‘oooh’ shape with her mouth. ‘Walden Manor? Oh. I know, yes, I think I know where it is. Off the Bath road, that no through road marked private? I’ve never seen the house.’
‘You can’t see it from the road. It’s more than half a mile up the drive.’
Sally sighed. ‘There are lots of beautiful places round here, actually. But I didn’t know Walden was owned by a… Actually,’ she looked mournfully round the kitchen, ‘I don’t really know many people. I haven’t been here that long, we only moved here after I got pregnant. I thought it’d be all playgroups and community stuff and all that. But everybody under seventy’s at work all day, in Bath or Chippenham.’
Steph made a sympathetic noise. ‘You’ve got a nice house, though,’ she lied bravely.
‘Oh yeah, thanks, well, it is nice, or it could be. Haven’t done much to it, been too tired.’ She waved with the hand holding the mug. ‘As you can see.’
Steph said, bracingly, ‘Anyway, she’s much better now, you know, my aunt, but she likes having me there so I’m staying on, but now there’s less for me to do I thought it’d be nice to find something.’ She smiled competently.
‘Your, er… aunt, I mean, it’s not, is she… You don’t seem… has she lived there long, I mean? Has it always been in the family, the house?’
Steph beamed with sudden understanding and said, with a slight lowering of her voice, ‘In the family? Oh no. Not at all. Look, if I tell you, will you promise not to say, not to anybody? Not to anybody at all, ever?’
Sally’s eyebrows shot up with interest. ‘Sure. Of course.’
‘Because she doesn’t want all sorts knocking on the door, you know?’ Steph paused. ‘Lottery win,’ she said. ‘Five week roll-over. Only she wants it kept quiet, because she’s not that sort of person, she’s just ordinary. She’s not, you know, flashy. I mean she’s always had this thing about a house in the country, so straight off she went and bought this big place and well, I think it’s a bit too much for her, but I can’t say. I mean she can do what she likes at the end of the day.’
Sally nodded respectfully. ‘I promise I won’t say a word. I didn’t even know the house was up for sale.’
‘Oh. Oh no, well, it wasn’t advertised.’
‘No, they aren’t always, the big places, it’s all word of mouth.’ She drank some of her coffee. ‘We don’t get much of the big stuff. Though we get farms from time to time, and then of course I don’t get a look in. Farmers have to deal with a man, apparently, can’t cope with a woman handling things. The firm goes along with it, doesn’t matter what I say. The senior partner says,’ she twisted the words sarcastically, ’ “in this outfit, political correctness comes second to complete client confidence.” ‘
Steph cleared her throat. She was not sure she had understood a single word. ‘Only with my aunt- you won’t spread it around, will you, because she doesn’t want the publicity, she’s a very private person. Not unfriendly or anything, but she likes to get to know people at her own pace, what with everything. You can understand. So you won’t tell anyone, will you? I mean I’m only telling you so you know the score. About me, for the job I mean.’
‘No, no, of course I won’t say anything,’ Sally said, in a way that made Steph wonder if she were interested enough even to remember the story, let alone divulge it. But she roused herself from her thoughts about the senior partner to ask, ‘But that is a point. You- I mean, what do you want a child-minding job for? I mean you can’t need the money, can you?’
Steph looked her in the eye. ‘My aunt, she’s dead generous, she’s doing a lot for me, but I’ve told her no way am I living off her for everything. So okay, no, in a way I don’t really need it, but I like earning a bit of my own money, you know what I mean?’