I feel the colour creep into my cheeks. ‘Er … I suppose …’
‘There have been other comments, too, even more intrusive and personal. Quite frankly, I haven’t hired her to give me opinions about my family or house. Or choice of ties.’
Shit. Shit. This is all my fault. Except I can’t exactly say that, can I?
‘Well, I think you should give her another chance,’ I say hastily. ‘You don’t want to upset her, do you? She was probably just making conversation. I’m sure she’ll never be intrusive again. In fact, I’m positive.’
Because I’ll instantly ring her up and tell her to lay off the suggestions.
Luke gives me a strange look. ‘Why does it matter to you? You hardly know her.’
‘I just feel very strongly that people should be given a chance. And I think you should give this assistant another chance. What’s her name again – Bobbie?’ I add innocently.
‘Bonnie,’ Luke corrects me.
‘Bonnie.’ I nod. ‘Of course. I’ve only really met her once,’ I add for good measure. ‘Ages ago.’
I shoot a surreptitious glance at Luke but he doesn’t seem suspicious. Thank God.
‘I must go.’ He gets up, wiping his mouth. ‘So … I hope it goes well today.’ He kisses Minnie. ‘Good luck, poppet.’
‘She’s not running the Olympics,’ I retort curtly. ‘She doesn’t need luck.’
‘Well, anyway, let me know how it goes.’ He hesitates awkwardly. ‘Becky, I know how you feel about … today. But I really think this could be the breakthrough we need.’
I don’t even bother answering him. There’s no way some child-catching boot-camp expert is having any ‘breakthrough’ in my family.
By ten o’clock I’m ready for her. The house is prepared and I’m prepared and even Minnie is all dressed up in her most innocent-looking Marie-Chantal pinafore.
I’ve done my research. First of all, I looked up Nanny Sue’s website and read every page. (Unfortunately there’s nothing about the boot camp on there yet, just a message saying, ‘My new series of behaviour-management programmes for children and adults will be launched soon – check for details.’ Huh. I’m not surprised she’s being cagey.)
Then I bought all her DVDs and watched them back-to-back. And it’s always the same pattern. What happens is, there’s a family with kids haring about and parents arguing and usually an old abandoned fridge in the garden or dangerous electrical sockets or something. Then Nanny Sue comes in and watches carefully on the side and says, ‘I want to see who the Ellises really are,’ which means, ‘You’re doing loads of stuff wrong, but I’m not going to tell you what yet.’
The parents always end up having a screaming match and then sobbing on Nanny Sue’s shoulder and telling her their life history. And every week she gets out her little box of tissues and says gravely, ‘I think there’s more to this than child behaviour, isn’t there?’ and they nod and spill all about their sex life or job troubles or family tragedy and they play sad music and you end up crying too.
I mean, it’s a total formula, and only complete suckers would end up falling for her tricks.
And now, presumably, she’s going to crank up the drama and take all the children away to boot camp, somewhere really tough like Utah or Arizona, and it’ll make even better telly when they’re reunited.
Well, not here. No way.
I look around the kitchen, just checking everything is in place. I’ve put up a massive gold-star chart on the fridge, and I’ve labelled the bottom step of the stairs the Naughty Step and there’s a stack of educational toys on the table. But with any luck my first salvo will work and she won’t even get this far.
What you can’t do with Nanny Sue is say, ‘My child doesn’t have any problems,’ because then she catches you out and finds some. So I’m going to be even cleverer than that.
The doorbell rings and I stiffen.
‘Come on, Min,’ I murmur. ‘Let’s go and get rid of the nasty child expert.’
I open the door – and there she is. Nanny Sue herself, with her trademark blonde bob and neat little features and pink lipstick. She looks smaller in real life and is wearing jeans, a striped shirt and a padded jacket like horse-riders wear. I thought she’d be in her blue uniform and hat, like she wears on the telly. In fact, I’m half-expecting the theme music to begin and a voice-over to say ‘Today Nanny Sue has been called to the house of the Brandons …’
‘Rebecca? I’m Nanny Sue,’ she says in her familiar West Country burr.
‘Nanny Sue! Thank God! I’m so glad to see you!’ I say dramatically. ‘We’re at our wits’ end! You have to help us, right here, right now!’
‘Really?’ Nanny Sue looks taken aback.
‘Yes! Didn’t my husband explain how desperate we are? This is our two-year-old, Minnie.’
‘Hello, Minnie. How are you?’ Nanny Sue crouches down to chat to Minnie and I wait impatiently till she rises again.
‘You won’t believe the problems we’ve had with her. It’s shameful. It’s mortifying. I can hardly admit it.’ I let my voice wobble slightly. ‘She refuses to learn how to tie up her shoe laces. I’ve tried … my husband’s tried … everyone’s tried. But she won’t!’
There’s a pause, during which I keep my anxious-mother look perfectly intact. Nanny Sue looks a little perplexed. Ha.