I nodded.
“Let me show you to your room and then when you’ve changed and made yourself comfortable, come down and we’ll have something to eat. I can’t believe it’s so late. Past nine already. Was your journey awful?”
“Not awful, no,” I said. “Just slow. There was some kind of points failure at York, so I missed my connection. I’m really sorry; I’m usually very punctual.”
That at least was true. Whatever my other flaws and failings, I’m very rarely late.
“I got your text. So sorry I didn’t reply. I didn’t see it at first; I was up to my elbows in the kids’ bath time when it came through, and I only just managed to rush out and tell Jack to collect you. I hope you weren’t waiting at the station for ages.”
It wasn’t a question exactly—more of a remark, but I answered anyway.
“Not too long. Are the children in bed then?”
“The three youngest, yes. Maddie is eight, Ellie is five, and the baby, Petra, is just eighteen months, so they’re all in bed.”
“And your other child?” I asked, thinking of the flash of red I’d seen between the trees on the drive up. “You said in the advert you had four?”
“Rhiannon is fourteen going on twenty-four. She’s at boarding school—not really our choice; I’d prefer to have her at home, but there’s no secondaries close enough. The nearest day school is more than an hour’s drive, and it would just be too much every day. So she boards over near Inverness and comes home most weekends. It breaks my heart a little bit every time she goes, but she seems to enjoy it.”
If you want her at home that badly, why don’t you move? I thought.
“So I won’t meet her?” I asked. Sandra shook her head.
“No, unfortunately not, but to be honest your time would be spent mostly with the little ones. Anyway—it means we can have a lovely chat now, and you can get to know the kids tomorrow. Oh, and I’m afraid my husband—Bill—can’t be here either.”
“Oh?” It was a surprise—a shock even. I wasn’t going to meet him, then. I had been so sure that someone would want to meet the person they were considering hiring to look after their children . . . but I tried to keep my face neutral. Nonjudgmental. “Oh, that’s a shame.”
“Yes, he’s away, working. It’s been a pretty horrendous struggle, I have to say, with so many nannies leaving this year. The children are understandably very destabilized, and the business has really suffered. We’re both architects in a two-man firm. Well, one man, one woman!” She flashed a smile, showing very white, perfectly even teeth. “It’s just me and him, and it means that in busy periods when we’ve got more than one project going on, we can get terribly stretched. We try to juggle it so that there’s always one of us around, but with Katya leaving—she was our last nanny—it’s just been chaos. I’ve had to pick up all the slack here, and Bill’s been trying to hold the business together—I need to be completely honest and say that whoever does get the post isn’t going to get a very smooth introductory period. Normally I try to work from home for the first month or so to make sure everything is going okay, but that just won’t be possible this time. Bill can’t be in two places at once, and we have projects that desperately need me to be there and on the ground. We need someone very experienced who isn’t going to be fazed by being left with the kids early on, and they need to be able to start ASAP.” She looked at me, a little anxiously, a furrow between her strongly marked brows. “Do you think that describes you?”
I swallowed. Time to shed my doubts and step into the role of Rowan the Perfect Nanny.
“Definitely,” I said, and the confidence in my voice almost convinced myself. “I mean, you’ve seen my CV—”
“We were very impressed with your CV,” Sandra said, and I gave a little blushing nod of acknowledgment. “Quite frankly, it’s one of the most impressive ones we’ve had. You tick all the boxes we need in terms of experience with the various age groups. But what’s your notice period like? I mean obviously”—she was talking quickly now, as if slightly uncomfortable—“obviously getting the right nanny is the most important thing, that goes without saying. But actually we do need someone who can start pretty much . . . well, pretty much now, if I’m being completely honest. So it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that’s not a factor.”
“My notice period is four weeks.” I saw Sandra’s mouth twist in a little worried moue—and added hastily, “But I think I could probably negotiate an earlier finish. I have quite a bit of annual leave left . . . and I’d have to sit down with a calendar and do the sums, but I think there’s a good chance I could get it down to two weeks. Maybe less.”
If Little Nippers were prepared to be flexible, that was. God knows, they hadn’t given me much reason for loyalty.
I didn’t miss the flash of hope and relief that crossed Sandra’s face. But then she seemed to realize where we were.
“Look at me, keeping you talking in the hallway. It’s hardly fair for me to be interviewing you before you’ve even got your coat off! Let me show you to your room, and then we can retreat to the kitchen and have a proper talk while you get some food inside you.”
She turned and began to make her way up the long curving flight of stairs, her feet silent on the thick, velvet-soft carpet. At the first landing she stopped and put her finger to her lips. I paused, taking in the wide sweep of space, the little table with a vase of blush peonies just beginning to shed their petals. A corridor disappeared off into semidarkness, lit only by a rose-tinted night-light plugged into a wall socket. Half a dozen doors led off from it. The one at the far end had wonky wooden letters stuck on it, and as my eyes got used to the low lighting, I made out the words. Princess Ellie and Queen Maddie. The door closest to the stairwell was slightly open, a night-light shining dimly in the recesses of the room. I could hear a baby’s soft snorting breath coming through.
“The kids are asleep,” Sandra whispered. “At least, I hope so. I heard some pattering earlier, but it all seems to be quiet now! Maddie in particular is a very light sleeper, so I do have to tiptoe around a bit. Bill and I sleep on this floor, but Rhi sleeps upstairs. This way.”
At the top of the second flight, three more doors led off a slightly smaller landing. The middle one was open, and inside I saw a small cupboard housing a jumble of mops and brooms and a cordless Hoover charging on the wall. Sandra shut it hastily.
The door to the left of it was closed and had FUCK OFF, KEEP OUT OR YOU DIE written across the paneled wood in what looked like smeared red lipstick.
“That’s Rhiannon’s room,” Sandra said with a slight lift of her eyebrows that might have indicated anything from amusement to resignation. “This one”—she put her hand on the knob of the door to the far right of the stairs—“is yours. Well, I mean—” She stopped, looking a little flustered. “I mean, it’s where we always put the nanny, and it’s where you’ll be sleeping tonight. Sorry, don’t want to be too presumptuous!”
I gave a slightly nervous attempt at a laugh as she opened the door. It was dark inside, but instead of groping for a switch Sandra pulled out her phone. I was expecting her to turn on the torch, but instead she pressed something, and the lights inside the room flickered into life.