Yes, I thought, surveying the scene at dinner, this is one of those rare times when life approaches the condition of color magazine. The domestic goddess entertaining her admiring parents-in-law in her lovely stylish home. Barbara had just asked me for the peppers recipe and then I saw it. Moving across the oak floor, the plump suede rear of a rat.
Etiquette books are unnaturally silent on the subject of rats at dinner parties. Do you
a. Laugh gaily and pretend the rat is a treasured pet?
b. Exclaim, Ah, there’s the main course! Nigel Slater says rodent’s the coming thing. Very good done the Vietnamese way, apparently?
c. Invite your guests to adjourn upstairs, ply them with as much drink as possible and put on a Burt Bacharach CD to drown out the sound from the kitchen where your husband is pursuing the rodent with your daughter’s Mary Poppins umbrella?
Richard and I went for c.
Downstairs, the rat holed up in the baby’s playpen, perhaps hoping to pass for a soft toy. Before long, though, it was doing frisky circuits of the kitchen. Barbara said that, come to think of it, she remembered feeling something running across her feet: she would need to take some aspirin immediately and go and lie down. Nobody was in the mood for my amaretto peaches in raspberry coulis. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about the clumps of raisins that had been appearing on the kitchen floor.
“Don’t get hysterical,” said Richard, after he had got the rat out of the patio door and into the garden. “Remember they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”
This seemed unlikely. The rat triggered what I can only call rat dread — that back flip of the stomach every time you open a cupboard, not knowing whether you will come face-to-face with a face. That night, whiskers and paws scurried through my dreams.
MONDAY, 9:38 A.M. I have been fired by my own cleaner. In the annals of domestic humiliation, how high does that rate? When I came down this morning, I found Barbara and Juanita in an accusing huddle. My motherin-law was tutting audibly as my cleaner mimed a rat scurrying along the worktop and pointed to parts of the kitchen made impassable by newspapers and toys. “It’s no wonder,” said Barbara. Although my motherin-law is not a Spanish speaker, she was able to communicate with Juanita in the international female language of Disapproval.
“The rat man is on his way,” I announced loudly, to alert them to my presence and stop the exchange of further examples of my sluttishness.
At the sound of the pest’s name, Juanita unleashed a machine-gun burst of woe.
“If you leave food out, it will attract vermin,” volunteered Barbara.
“I do not leave food out,” I said, but she was already in the hallway where Donald was assembling the luggage. He gave me a rueful little wave.
When they had gone, Juanita told me she was very sorry, but she couldn’t take it anymore. This all communicated via operatic arm gestures and sobs. Here at long last was my chance to point out that one of the reasons the house was in such a mess was because my cleaner had been unable to clean it for the past two years, owing to a succession of ailments which I had reacted to with enormous sympathy because — oh, probably because I am from a background where you don’t expect to have anyone else tidying up after you and some sneaking shame is attached to the fact that you’re a woman who can’t keep her own house clean. (“Kate may be a whiz with figures,” Cheryl my sister-in-law once said, “but you should see the state of her skirting boards!”)
So did I give Juanita a piece of my mind there and then? Not exactly. I gave her all the cash I had in my purse, promised to send more in the post and said I would recommend her to some friends in Highgate who were looking for a cleaner.
Chase RAT MAN again! Hire new cleaner! Replacement Roo MUST. Proxy voting policy to be agreed with clients. Complete quarterly performance questionnaire. Meeting minutes do myself (Secretary Lorraine still off sick in heat wave). Prospect for gaining client in final just done with Momo blown by bloody awful June performance. Check competitors’ performance — perhaps theirs even worse? Conference call with Japanese office to discuss stocks. Sandals for Emily — or will be questioned by NSPCC over foot cruelty. Sugar Puffs, Panadol Extra. Cancel spa day.
31 Nanny Crisis
6:27 A.M. It’s still very early, but sitting out here in the garden I can tell it’s going to be a hot day. The air is glassy with the promise of heat. When I was away in the States, no one took care of the plants, so the snails have hoovered up my hosta and the pansies in the terra-cotta pots are practically desiccated. If you touch one it turns to purple ash. I planted that kind especially, too; it’s called heartsease. One day, when I have time, the garden will be beautiful. I am going to grow lobelias and camellias and bay and jasmine, and there will be carved stone troughs overflowing with heartsease.
I hear a yelp escape from a window high up the house. Like me, the children are finding it hard to sleep these warm nights. Ben already woke screaming around five when I was in the middle of some awful dream. You even dream differently in summer: fevered, tentacular dreams that pull you down towards thoughts you’d rather stayed buried. Anyway, when I went into his room, he was slithery with sweat, poor baby: slid through my arms like a seal pup. Took him into the bathroom, sponged him down — he’s suddenly afraid of his Piglet flannel for some reason — then changed him. Offered him a beaker of water and he was furious. “App-ul,” he demanded. “App-ul!”
How many times have I told Paula that he’s not allowed juice? In my mind, composed a major nanny bollocking, but Paula has been complaining of “women’s trouble” lately so could easily pull a sickie and the holidays are the worst possible time to find cover. Damn. Damn.
7:32 A.M. I could tell right away from Paula’s voice that she wasn’t coming in. And me chairing the Global Asset Allocation Committee today because Robin Cooper-Clark’s away with his boys and Emily and Ben with no school or nursery to occupy them and the nanny’s not coming in. Great.
Traditionally a period of pleasure and relaxation, the summer holidays are the very worst time of the year for a working mother. Warm weather and careless days act as a constant rebuke. There are outings you wish you could join, cool paddling pools you would like to slip off your shoes and step into, ice-cream cones whose vanilla tributaries you would be more than happy to lick.
Paula exhales a long complicated sigh. Says she’s not been feeling that well for a while and the rat thing, of course, has been very upsetting. But she didn’t want to worry me because I Know You’re Busy, Kate. A classic nanny tactic, this: landing a preemptive strike before your own more powerful grievance has a chance to leave the ground. Even as I murmur mmm’s of sympathy, I am riffling through my mental Rolodex searching for someone who can take the children just for today (Richard is away presenting plans for a Sunderland crafts yurt).
First thought: Angela Brunt, my neighbor and leader of local Muffia. I start dialing her number but suddenly picture Angela’s Ford Anglia face, headlamps on full gleam, when it becomes clear that the “high flyer” across the road is emerging from the burning fuselage of her own selfishness to beg for help. No. Can’t possibly give her the satisfaction. Instead, I call Alice, my TV producer friend, and ask a favor. Could her nanny Jo possibly have Emily and Ben? I wouldn’t ask only I have this big meeting, and taking time off from EMF is practically illegal, and—