Kitabı oku: «Claudia Carroll 3 Book Bundle»

Chapter One

Not today. Just please not today. I can’t tell you how I so do NOT need this today.

It’s barely five thirty in the morning and already my whole life seems to be spiralling dangerously out of all control, something that’s happening with all-too alarming frequency these days. For starters, while I’m trying to slip out the door at the crack of dawn (nothing unusual there, this is when I have to leave for work every morning), Elka, my Polish nanny, picks today of all shagging days to have an out-and-out meltdown.

There I am, sneaking downstairs in my bare feet, trying not to wake anyone, already running late for the early morning news briefing. Never, ever a good start to the day. Next thing, madam stomps out of her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, not so much asking, as demanding, to have a ‘queek word with you.’

‘Emm … yes, of course, Elka,’ I say, instantly smelling trouble and deliberately keeping my voice down to a low hiss, so as not to disturb Lily.

Lily, by the way, is my little girl; almost three years old now and the light of this exhausted, knackered-to-her-very-bone-marrow mummy’s life.

‘Is everything OK?’ I ask politely, biting my tongue and bracing myself for the answer. Elka is the one nanny we’ve had who Lily adores and behaves beautifully for, and for her part, Elka herself genuinely seems fond of her too.

‘I neeeeed to speak with you, and this crazy hour of morning is only time I am seeing you all this week,’ she tells me in her still-rubbishy English, in spite of the small fortune I’ve forked out on audio books and private lessons for her over the past few months.

Please don’t tell me you’re about to leave. Please for the love of God, don’t let another one leave …

‘Go ahead, Elka,’ I manage to say calmly, but with bowels clenched, only dreading what’s going to come out of her mouth next.

‘In my contract, it say that you am paying me to look after Lily,’ she says crisply, arms folded, ponytail swishing back, nostrils flaring. ‘But you must understand me when I tell to you, this mean during reasoning hours.’

‘I think you might mean reasonable hours,’ I tell her. ‘Can I ask you what’s suddenly brought all this on?’

‘You have huge nerve to ask that of me!’

‘Shhh! Can you keep it down please? You’ll wake Lily.’

‘I have many, many problem with the hours you expect me to be working. None of the other nannies who am my friends work as long days as I must.’

‘But Elka, your hours are hardly long. At least, not compared with mine, they’re not …’

‘Look at time now! Five thirty a.m.! And already you are going to office, which mean I am in care of Lily. You meant to be home at seven in the night times so I can have free time for me, and you never are. Ever!’

Okay, I’m momentarily silenced here. Because actually, the girl does have a point. Technically I’m supposed to be home at seven-ish in the evening so she can clock off, but … well, for the past while, it’s been a tiny bit later than that. Like eleven p.m. Or even midnight.

‘All other nannies have evenings free! They am all meeting for coffee and beer and movies. All having good time in Ireland! All have boyfriends and days off and nights out! But never me! No fun for me, ever. I tell you I am sick of it, have enough! Is total crap!’

‘Shhh! Elka, please will you keep your voice down,’ I stage whisper at her, but madam’s having none of it. Instead she’s whipped herself up into a right frenzy and there’s no stopping her now.

‘No, you must be listening to me. Because you am working late, I must too. It’s too much and I want to quit!’

‘I hear what you’re saying and I completely understand but can I also remind you that this is the nature of my job?’ I tell her as soothingly as I can, knowing full well she has me backed into a corner now. Because if she walks out on me … Oh dear God, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

‘And if you don’t like the schedule I have to work Elka, well … I’m really sorry but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I don’t like working such long hours, any more than you do. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, then take it up with … Eurozone leaders and the global economic meltdown. Or … blame the Arab Spring in the Middle East, which is hardly my fault, now is it?’

‘I no understand … you must use little words for me!’

I take another deep breath.

‘I’m so sorry Elka,’ I tell her as calmly as I can, given that I should have been out the door ten minutes ago and even though the day has barely started, I’m now already well behind schedule, ‘but if there’s a big news story, the editor has to be there to oversee it. That’s my life. News doesn’t take time off and therefore neither can I. Editors at the Post don’t sit around. In fairness, I did make this perfectly clear to you when I hired you. Plus, can I point out that I pay you far and above the rates all your other nanny pals are earning? But of course,’ I tack on brightly, hoping against hope that this might just work, ‘if it’s a question of giving you yet another salary increase, I’d be perfectly happy to discuss it with you later.’

No, not even that sways her though. In fact, I might as well be talking to the back of my hand.

‘You work too long days and it no good for Lily, as well as no good for me,’ she lobs in, a cheap shot if ever there was one. The old emotional guilt-card thrown at a busy working mother.

‘She miss her mama so much when you not here. All the time she ask me, when is Mama coming home?’

‘Come on Elka, that is blatantly ridiculous and deeply hurtful …’

‘Even at the weekend time, when you should be with her, you am still in the office. Always, always working.’

Now that bloody stung, and just as this conversation was heating up, temporarily stuns me into silence. I mean, yes, of course I wish I could spend twenty-four hours a day with Lily, I mean, who wouldn’t? But how can I possibly?

I get a lightning-quick flashback to the first year she was born, when somehow, I seemed to manage just fine; got to spend whole weekends with her, even managed to get home relatively early most nights. I can do this, I thought; I can have the best of both worlds. I can be Superwoman. I had my whole work/life balance sussed back then and can honestly say it was the happiest time of my life. By far.

But then the recession hit hard and the staff cutbacks started and that was the end of that. Suddenly I was expected to do the work of three people for the same money or else get out, that was it. Well, it was worse than Sophie’s bleeding Choice. Because much as I love and adore the ground Lily walks on, work is a hugely important part of my life too and if these are my new working hours, then bar resigning, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

In brutal moments of introspection, I just know I’m someone who’d go off her head in less than a week without a full-time career to nourish my soul. Sure, parenthood is a huge high, but then so is my job. Peppa Pig and Barney videos could never possibly give me the same buzz. So, if it’s not too much to ask, can’t I just have both? I mean, plenty of other women do, don’t they?

But I have at least established clear boundaries with the office and made it perfectly clear to everyone that my Sundays with Lily are sacrosanct. The one day out of an otherwise mental week when I get to read her stories and make pancakes with her, then maybe take her to a Disney movie, or else to feed the ducks in the park. You know, spoil her rotten. Be a proper mummy.

Mind you, ever since the most recent staff culling started, I reluctantly have to admit that Elka might have a point and that even Sacred Sunday Mummy Time seems to have been seriously curtailed lately. Last week for instance; I’d made Lily her breakfast, played imaginary tea parties with her small army of dolls and was just about to take her to the toystore for a very special treat, when I got a call to get into the office ASAP. There was an emergency news conference about a breaking story developing in Afghanistan, so what else could I do? I had to be there, simple as that. Goes with the job.

And I may not let it show, but I love my little Lily so much that it physically aches to be away from her for any length of time, never mind for the eighteen-hour days I’m practically expected to put in right now. For God’s sake, don’t I have enough guilt of my own to deal with at being apart from her, without having it flung into my face by someone who I’m employing? And at premium rates too, I might add?

‘Tell you what, I have a suggestion Elka,’ I say, evenly and deliberately locking my voice into its lowest register, which I’ve learned is absolutely the best way to deal with any confrontational situation. And I should know, having been through more than a fair few in my time. ‘Is it too much to ask that you just get on with your job, let me get on with mine and then this evening when I’m home from work, we can discuss this calmly, at a more appropriate time. Come on now, what do you say to that?’

But madam’s in no mood to listen to reason.

‘I say to all the other nannies, you have no husband, you have no boyfriend, no man, instead you are married to your work.’

And … bam.

‘Excuse me, what did you just say?’

‘… all other children I know each has each mother and father, but not Lily. She only have mother. So the mother need to be here for her more. Much, much more.’

Okay, now that feels exactly the same as a hard wallop across the cheek and hurts so much it momentarily stuns me. So of course, the second I come to, I snap right back at her, the way I seem to snap at everyone these days. But there you go, that’s what deep, ongoing exhaustion and off-the-scale stress levels will do to you.

‘Elka, I made it perfectly clear to you from day one that I was a single parent,’ I tell her crisply. ‘I don’t have a problem with it and neither does Lily, but if this is some kind of issue for you, you really should have said so before now.’

‘Single parent need to spend more time with kids, not less.’

Okay, so now I’m fuming, feeling like smoke is physically puffing out of my ears, cartoon-like. Because she’s hit my weak spot square-on, with all the accuracy of an aircraft bomber. Yes, I’m a lone parent and yes, there can be huge disadvantages to that. But deal with it, is my attitude.

The subject of Lily’s father is one that’s not up for discussion. Not now, not ever.

And when I think of the amount of money I pay Elka every month – and all for what? So she can stand here, pass judgement on my life and make me feel about two inches tall? So she can spend all day playing with a little girl who’s not even three years old? Does she think that I wouldn’t jump at the chance to stay home all day and be a full-time mum? Doesn’t she realise how it’s like a stab in the chest every time I have to kiss Lily’s little strawberry-blonde head of curls goodbye? Or, worst of all, when I have to listen to the innumerable voice messages she leaves on my phone when I’m at work, in her angelic little baby voice, all with the same unvarying theme? ‘I miss you Mama. When are you coming home?’ There are times when all I want to do is hug her and hold her and tell her not to bother growing up, it’s not worth all the hassle. Just stay like this, stay my little girl forever.

Doesn’t anyone realise how gutted I am that I seem to be missing out on so much of her? Missed her taking her first baby steps, missed her saying her first words … I’m never there, I’m either in a meeting or writing an editorial or chairing a news conference; always, always, working. And of course I went into single parenthood with both eyes open; I knew massive life changes would be involved. Which is why I hired a live-in nanny, plus two back-up childminders in case of emergencies. Hired them – and then subsequently had to accept all their resignations, one by one like ducks in a row, for exactly the same reasons Elka is now citing.

But come on, in my defence, how was I supposed to know with all the redundancies at work in the past two years that my workload would effectively double? Anyway, I think, furious with exhaustion now, what does Elka think I’m putting in all these ungodly hours for anyway? Only to keep myself sane, while giving my little girl the best life that I possibly can. Hardly my fault that I can’t be in two places at once – not with the hours I’m expected to put in, and certainly not with my contract up for renewal in six months. Not now. Apart from everything else I have to worry about, now there’s trouble afoot at work, you see, though it’s not normally something I articulate out loud.

Trouble by the name of Seth Coleman, managing editor of the Post.

Ah, Seth Coleman. Where do I begin? He hasn’t even been in the job that long; he was headhunted from The Sunday Press when his predecessor at the Post left. Who by the way was a gorgeous, preppy, easy-going guy I strongly suspect I drove out of there and who I now miss more than my right hand. His official reason for quitting was for ‘work/life balance’, and to be perfectly honest, who could blame him?

Anyway, when pressed officially as to my opinion of Seth, I smile curtly and acknowledge his fine leadership qualities and firm grasp of the newspaper business, always adding that he’s never anything else than a consummate professional, at all times, always.

But when I’m standing in the shower, which is about the only place I get any kind of private time to myself these days, I will name-call Seth Coleman as the sleaziest, most hypocritical b**locks on the face of the planet, with a thin, slimy, greasy head of hair, and pockmarked, boiled-red skin, whose total absence of neck gives him more than a passing resemblance to Barney Rubble. Oh, and with an ego the approximate size of Saturn’s fifty-seven moons. Represents just about every trait that I despise in the male sex and even manages to discover a few new ones along the way. Patronising to my face, but behind my back, I know right well that he’s deeply resentful of working for a woman. And with my seven-year contract up for renewal in the next few months, even the dogs on the street seem to know that his greedy eye is now firmly focused on the big prize.

A classically mean-spirited man, he’s also someone who keeps a mental tally of all my losses in work, diligently measuring all my shortcomings, rather than any of my gains. For starters, he’s been busily spreading rumour after rumour about me and they’ve all filtered back; that I’m slipping, that ever since I had Lily I’m not the firebrand I once was, that I’m not living and breathing the job like I used to. And I know, just know without being told, that he’s just biding his time, waiting for me to crack, and so therefore I can’t.

So I do what I have to do. Go into work and act the part of the bossiest boss that the world of big bossy business could ask for. Do exactly what I’m programmed to do. And it’s tough and getting tougher by the day, even though my job defines me; it’s who I am and not for one second could I consider doing something less stressful.

But having said all that, the brightest part of my day isn’t when I sign off on the next issue of the Post, it’s seeing the little strawberry-blonde head of an almost-three-year-old sleeping like an angel when I get home, cuddled up in her bed with her favourite teddy bear beside her. And I’ll gaze at her adorably freckled pink little angel’s face and whisper to her that I love her so, so much and that one day we’ll have proper time to be together.

Then I do what I always do; collapse into bed and try to lock away the guilt that feels like heartburn every time I realise the one single thing that has the power to kill me on the inside; the only time I seem to see my baby girl these days is when she’s sleeping.

But back to Elka, still spitting fire and venom at me on the upstairs landing.

‘Lily is beautiful little girl,’ she spews, ‘and I will be sad to say goodbye to her, but the hours you make me work are crazy. Crazy! And they making me crazy too!’

‘Really sorry about this,’ I’m forced to interrupt, unable to take much more, But ‘I’m going to be late for work. Could we please discuss this later?’

‘I not finished! I know my entitlements too. My other friends tell me you must give me P45 with full salary entitlements paid up front before I leave.’

Interesting, I think wryly, grabbing my car keys. Elka’s grasp of English is so weak she can barely get by in the supermarket and yet her vocabulary freely encompasses quite scarily impressive phrases like ‘P45 with full salary entitlements paid up front’?

‘Elka,’ I tell her, as briskly as I can, given that I’m now running so late it doesn’t bear thinking about. ‘Can I just point out that it’s not as if you have to take care of Lily all day, every day? She’s only just started in preschool and is there till early afternoon every day, which gives you a good five-hour break, plus it’s not like you’re expected to do housework on top of everything else. I’ve a cleaning lady, a gardener and a handyman, who between them pretty much do everything that needs doing around here, so you’ll forgive me for thinking that you actually have it pretty easy compared to some.’