Chapter 9
The first class of the day at Ruffley Hall is domestic science.
Specifically, the theory and practice of making marmalade.
This is a revelation for Oxana, whose culinary skills are basic at best. She imagines Eve coming home to their flat to find a half-dozen jars nonchalantly cooling in the kitchen and realises too late that she meant to call her after breakfast. She tried last night but got an ‘out of service’ response.
This makes her uneasy. Why would Eve decommission her phone? Is she avoiding her calls?
She’s not staying at the Hampstead Heath flat, that much is clear.
Oxana spent half an hour there before leaving for Ruffley Hall, long enough to establish that Eve’s cabin case was gone, along with her trainers and washbag.
So where is she? Obviously still very angry, her continuing silence confirms that.
Honestly, fuck her. Judgemental bitch. I feel my heart rate increase, feel a sick rush of adrenalin, and consciously clamp down on my anger.
This, I know, is when I make reckless decisions.
She’s gone, and I made her go. I didn’t mean to, but things concertinaed.
I lost my grip, got tough when I should have said sorry, and doubled down when I should have given way.
This is what I do. I know that because Eve has told me so, repeatedly.
She’s shown me how I repeat the same patterns again and again, and explained how this damages us both.
She refuses to accept that this is just how I am.
She won’t accept ‘my nature’ as an explanation of my behaviour.
She won’t accept that our relationship is inherently unstable, or that there’s a fault line that can’t be mended.
She insists that I’m better than that, that we’re better than that.
That we just need to reset our hearts and minds. To decide, together, to change.
I wish I had her confidence in me. I understand, rationally and intellectually, what she wants.
But the raw truth is that yesterday I was faced with a choice.
Two choices. I could have come clean about taking the Twelve’s money, and I could have declined the Medusa contract, which clearly scares Eve witless.
But I did neither. I did what I’ve always done: I chose what suited me.
In the past, Eve’s gone along with such choices.
But this time, maybe, I’ve gone too far.
Then again, what does she expect? She’s excited by me.
Not by cool, clever, marmalade-making me.
Not by Oxana. She loves Oxana, but it’s Villanelle she needs.
It’s Villanelle she lusts for. That’s her fatal flaw. She wants to feast with panthers.
Second lesson is self-defence. This is supervised by Sergeant Nobbs, a small gingery man who lines up the twenty-strong class in three ranks, then paces back and forth in front of them, fixing the students with an intense stare.
‘There may be occasions,’ he begins, ‘when the only thing standing between a child and a lifetime of sex-slavery is you, its nanny.’ He glares at a slight, nervous-looking girl with mousy hair escaping from her bun. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Debbie,’ she whispers.
‘So, Debbie. You’re in Harrods, the department store, and some big fucker grabs the kiddie you’re supposed to be lookin’ after. What d’you do?’
‘Scream?’
‘Wrong answer. Milly?’
‘Try and grab it back?’
‘Wrong again. You, what’s your name? I don’t recognise you.’
‘Oxana.’
‘Tell me what you’d do, Oxana.’
‘Attack the kidnapper.’
‘With?’
‘A knife.’
‘You always carry a knife, Oxana?’
‘Whenever possible.’
‘Interesting. Go on.’
‘I would go low. Aim for the femoral artery.’
Sergeant Nobbs nods. ‘I like your thinking. But it’s easy to miss the artery. Personally, I’d go for the groin. A blade in the plums can come as a very nasty surprise. Or better still, the ring-piece. So let’s practise that. Debbie, you go first.’
At lunch, the final-year students eye Oxana with wary respect. Sergeant Nobbs, it turns out, is usually sparing in his praise. ‘He really took to you, though,’ Debbie says.
‘I think he fancied you, Ox,’ Georgie murmurs.
‘I was quite surprised he teaches here,’ Oxana says. ‘I mean, you’re all nice, well brought up girls, and he is quite—’
‘Coarse?’ Charlotte suggests.
‘Something like that.’
‘Well,’ Charlotte lowers her voice. ‘We all think that he and Honey are, um…’
‘Nobbing,’ Georgie says.
‘Goodness.’ Oxana’s eyes widen.
‘Do you have a boyfriend, Oxana?’ Charlotte asks. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Oxana says. ‘And I don’t have one. Do you?’
‘I’m hoping I’ll meet someone when I start work.’
‘How, exactly?’
‘Well…’ Charlotte begins.
‘Oh God.’ Georgie rolls her eyes. ‘Here we go.’
‘The dream is, I find myself working for a man whose wife has very tragically died, leaving him with two lovely young children he has to bring up alone. The trouble is, he’s a billionaire who owns his own company, with hundreds of employees who depend on him, so even though he’s trying really hard to give quality time to the children, he’s finding it almost impossible.
So I start working for him, and I get on really well with the children, who begin to depend on me, but to begin with he and I just don’t get on, because he’s cold and proud and arrogant, and everything has to be done his way. ’
‘You are so deluded.’
‘Shut up, Georgie. Now obviously he’s extremely good-looking, in a cruel, icy sort of way, so lots of women have their sights set on him, especially one, an aristocrat-slash-model-slash-total bitch, and I’m convinced that he’s utterly infatuated with her, and of course I’m just a plain, ordinary little thing, and there’s no chance that he’d give me a second glance… ’
‘Just tragic,’ Georgie murmurs.
‘Until…’ Milly says, encouragingly.
‘Until there’s some terrible crisis with the children, and I keep calm and handle everything, and he begins to look at me with new eyes, and discovers that the aristocratic bitch is only after his money.
Then he kneels before me, vulnerable for the first time, and tells me that he adores me and desires me and—’
‘OK, I’m officially vomiting,’ Georgie says firmly.
‘Are there really employers like that?’ Oxana asks.
‘A girl can dream.’ Charlotte sighs.
‘Dream all you like,’ Georgie says. ‘The truth is that you’re more likely to find yourself with some stuck-up cow of a mother who spends her life shopping and Botoxing and shagging her personal trainer, while the husband’s some coked-out zombie of a hedge-fund manager who you only see on Sundays.’
‘Yeah,’ Milly says. ‘Leaving you to pick up the pieces with the brattish, entitled, screen-addicted kids.’
‘Wow, that bad?’ Oxana asks.
‘No,’ Georgie says. ‘Most parents are fine. And most kids are lovely. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, is my motto. Did you say you had a job waiting for you, Ox?’
‘Yes. I’ll be looking after a family on holiday.’
‘Oooh.’ Charlotte leans in closer. ‘Anywhere nice?’
‘The Greek islands. We’ll be on a yacht.’
‘Oh my God, you lucky thing. So romantic. What are the family like?’
‘Don’t know. Rich, I guess. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on the teenage daughter.’
Georgie grins. ‘Good luck with that.’