The Nanny Read Online Free Page A

sick.
    Within seconds, his cries are deafening.
    Instead of picking him up, I sit and watch him scream, his face scarlet and shiny with tears. If I left him, would he literally cry himself to death? Or would he realize it was hopeless and give
up?
    He’ll wake Marc and Poppy. They need their sleep.
    You wouldn’t think his lungs were big enough to make this much noise.
    The streetlight outside casts orange Hallowe’en shadows across the floor. It’s never truly dark in the city. Never truly quiet.
    The room is filled with screaming. My head vibrates with sound, the way it does when a car has stopped next to you at a traffic light, the bass so loud you feel rather than hear it. My knuckles
are white from gripping the arm of the sofa, but I can’t feel my hands.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say calmly. ‘I can’t do this any more. It’s too much. It’s not fair to Poppy. You do understand, don’t you? It’s not fair to
Poppy.’
    And then I pick up a cushion to smother my son.

2
Jenna
    Best cure for a bad hangover is a good fuck.
    Looks like I’m in for a monster headache, then.
    I curl against Jamie, wrapping my arms around his stiff back. I know better than to tell him it doesn’t matter.
    He prises my fingers away. ‘You’re going to be late for work.’
    ‘Jamie . . .’
    ‘Try to get home on time.’
    The room swims when I get out of bed. I lean my forehead against the cool bathroom tile, wondering queasily if I’m going to puke again. Maybe I’d feel better if I did. I’m
certainly in no fit state to take on two spoiled brats whose fucked-up parents should never have been allowed to reproduce.
    When I finish my shower, Jamie has gone.
    I sweep up the shards of his coffee mug – still warm – and run my finger lightly over the new dent in the bedroom wall. It’s been two months now. He’s got to talk to
somebody who knows how to help him. I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with this on my own.
    Maggie is standing on the doorstep when I arrive at the Hasselbachs’. She thrusts Tatiana into my arms with a glare. The two-year-old promptly spits in my face.
    ‘Well, you can’t blame her,’ Maggie snaps. ‘You’re late.’
    Yeah,
three minutes
. I watch Maggie stalk down the front steps. Should I tell her she’s got her executive skirt tucked into her tights?
    Tatiana spits at me again.
    Screw it.
    Three-year-old Galen is slumped on the floor of the living room, transfixed by
Spongebob
. I turn the TV off (‘Please understand, Jenna, the children are
not
permitted to
watch television. We believe it Rots Young Minds’). Galen yells and turns it on again. I turn it off. Galen kicks my leg and lunges for the remote. I put Tatiana down, take the remote away
and put it on a shelf out of his reach. The little sod pulls his sister’s hair, upends the Lego table and throws himself on the floor in a tantrum. So far, so normal.
    In the kitchen, Maggie has left her usual list (heavily underlined) weighted to the hand-hewn butcher’s block with an empty bottle of avocado oil: her subtle way of telling me to buy a new
one.
    I skim my errands for the day. ‘Collect dry cleaning. Tati haircut (remember we are growing out her fringe ). Galen needs new shoes, not leather.’
    Christ. That’ll mean a trip to the fancy vegan shoe store on the other side of town.
    ‘Birthday present for Lottie’s party ( nothing made in China.) Toilet roll. Crushed garlic. Organic salmon fillets x2 ( fresh ). Pick up
tile sample from Bathstore. NB dishwasher man coming 2 p.m. Do not ’ (triple underlined) ‘let him leave without fixing problem under any circs .’
    ‘D’you think she expects me to sleep with him?’ I idly ask my BFF Kirsty later.
    ‘Would it help?’
    ‘Not unless he’s into necrophilia. I look like death.’ I jam the phone beneath my chin and rip open my second packet of Resolve. ‘I shouldn’t have let you talk me
into that last tequila. I’m too old for this shit.’
    ‘Stick the