Chapter 11
Oxana and her friends are sitting at the back of an infant welfare class.
The class is being taken by Miss Scott, a firm-but-fair type who has been darting uncertain glances at Oxana throughout the lesson.
‘I want to talk to you today,’ she says, ‘about emotional self-control. You all know that, however kind the family you’re attached to, and however much they make you feel a part of that family, the day will come when you have to leave.
So how do you protect yourself? How do you ensure that you don’t get hurt?
’ She looks round the room. ‘Let’s ask our new girl. ’
Oxana is staring out of the window with her mouth open, and Georgie digs her in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Ox,’ she hisses.
‘Yes,’ Oxana says, snapping awake.
‘How do you make sure that you don’t get hurt?’ Miss Scott asks.
Oxana stares at her blankly. ‘I think the best means of defence is attack,’ she says.
‘And what do you mean by that, exactly?’
‘Hurt them before they hurt you?’
The ensuing silence is broken by the sound of Milly sniggering. ‘Remind me of your name,’ Miss Scott murmurs.
‘Oxana, miss.’
‘Oxana, have you listened to a word I’ve said? Because I have no real idea what you’re doing in this graduation class. My question was, how do we protect ourselves, as nannies, from emotional harm?’
‘I don’t know, miss.’
And I don’t. I absolutely do not know. It’s been five days now since Eve walked out of our meeting with Johnny Fernandes.
Since then I’ve rung her number countless times in the hope that she’ll switch her phone on again.
Nothing, and I’m distraught, because this has gone far beyond any fight we’ve ever had.
It gives me a sick, empty feeling that I can’t put into words except to say that it feels like an ending.
I know that I’m everything that’s bad in a lover.
I know that I’m vicious and greedy and selfish.
But she seemed content and even happy to live with that.
She seemed to see something that transcended my cruelty, which in a sense wasn’t cruelty at all, but our own private, elaborate game.
Because what we have – call it love, call it what the fuck you like – exists so far outside the conventional boundaries that everyday language simply doesn’t apply.
Was this just too much for her? Have I forced her to face her authentic self? Has she been turned to stone?
‘All right, girls,’ Miss Scott says. ‘Please go and collect the baby assigned to you, and prepare for a stroller outing.’
With the others, Oxana moves to the far side of the classroom, where twenty babies are lying in rows on a long table.
They’re not living babies, at least not quite.
These are Stoolman babies, described by their German manufacturer as ‘fully vocalised, self-soiling manikins.’ Weirdly lifelike and covered in soft plastic skin in a variety of tones, the babies are programmed to cry, scream and enact a variety of bodily functions.
Oxana locates the baby assigned to her, a stolid-looking creature named Konrad. ‘What do I do?’ Oxana whispers to Georgie.
‘First, you have to load it,’ Georgie says, showing her how to unzip Konrad’s skin and prise open his chest cavity.
‘You put the brown pellets in the stomach, the yellow ones in the bladder, and the multicoloured ones in the stomach, like so. Then you add water to the pellets, taking care not to get any in the lungs, click the chest shut and seal the skin. Voilà! All done.’
‘What’s that gurgling noise?’
‘That’s the pellets being converted to wee, poo and sick inside him. Scotty activates the functions from an app on her phone.’
Oxana regards Konrad suspiciously. ‘Can we swap babies?’
Georgie cradles her own baby, Irma, which is a bluish colour and barely the size of a guinea pig. ‘Why?’
‘Yours is nice. Mine’s hideous.’
‘It’s just a baby, Ox.’
‘I don’t like the way it’s looking at me.’
‘We’re not allowed to swap. Besides, Irma’s premature, I asked for her specially.’
Oxana regards Konrad resignedly. ‘I suppose I should dress it.’
‘Yes, and don’t forget to put a nappy on. If he craps his Babygro, Scotty’ll make you wash it.’
‘Oh God.’
‘I know, right?’
Oxana prepares Konrad for the outside world. Pampers, Babygro, travelling jacket and bootees. Miss Scott, prowling from student to student, watches the process without expression.
Oxana pulls on Konrad’s sun hat. ‘That woman hates me.’
Georgie looks at her. ‘You’re just not really the Ruffley Royal type.’
‘I think Ox’ll make a brilliant nanny,’ Charlotte protests. ‘Scotty’s just a miserable old cow.’
‘Scotty’s what we’ll all be in thirty years’ time,’ says Milly, hoisting her baby to her shoulder. ‘If we don’t find a rich husband, that is. Or steal someone else’s.’
‘You’re a bundle of joy this morning,’ Georgie says.
Milly shrugs. ‘Just saying.’
The Ruffley pram hall was named in the days when the school’s nurses trained using traditional Silver Cross prams, but for some years now these have been replaced by strollers.
The latest version is the Monza Imperial Super-Stroller, developed in collaboration with the racing division of Ferrari.
A high-performance baby carriage with active suspension technology, full off-road capability and a price-tag in excess of ￡5,000, the Monza Imperial is the stroller that Ruffley Royal nannies are most likely to encounter in the homes of their employers.
The students file into the pram hall and, one by one, arrange their Stoolman babies in their strollers.
Then they proceed with military precision out of the hall, and onto the descending path to Pangbourne.
Seeing the line of young women in front of her, all of them straight-backed, all identically coiffed and uniformed, Oxana feels oddly moved.
The scene encapsulates the endearing oddness of the British, and she feels a stab of longing for Eve, who is so British and in so many ways not British.
Oxana allows a tear to roll down one cheek, moved by the poignancy of her situation, and flicks a glance at Konrad, strapped tightly into the seat of the stroller. His sightless eyes gaze back at her.
Then he starts to vocalise. At first there’s just a low feral growl, then a whining sob, and finally an infuriated, full-throated scream.
Alarmed, Oxana looks around her. No one else’s baby is making a sound.
Quickly releasing Konrad from his straps, Oxana gathers him up with her right arm while continuing to push the stroller with her left.
Aware that Miss Scott is probably able to hear her via some listening device implanted in the baby, Oxana murmurs soothing sounds.
Feeling inside Konrad’s nappy with a finger, she encounters dampness.
Pulling off the nappy one-handed, she slings it into the stroller’s storage bay.
She’s about to fit another to Konrad’s plastic loins when he voids his bladder, fully this time, and a warm stream of synthetic urine soaks Oxana’s regulation shirt and bra.
She swears in Russian, and Konrad’s screams turn to gurgling laughter.
Gritting her teeth Oxana completes the task, nudging the stroller along the path with her waist. Behind her, seeing her plight, Georgie slows down.
In front of her, Charlotte moves swiftly ahead, so that the line begins to stretch out unevenly.
Finally, with Konrad fully dressed, they reach the town, and soon the file of stroller-borne Stoolman babies and Ruffley Royal nannies-to-be is proceeding sedately down Pangbourne High Street.
Some of the townspeople stop and stare, but the nanny parade is a daily occurrence, and most pay it little attention.
There’s a wet, bubbling sound coming from Konrad’s nappy, but Oxana presses on, ignoring it.
Ahead of her, Charlotte stops at a pedestrian crossing and leans forward to coo at her baby.
As she does so a boy on a BMX bike – eighteen, perhaps nineteen – speeds past her, violently wrenches the bag from her shoulder, and races downhill towards the station.
Charlotte stares after him, eyes wide with fright and distress, and Oxana doesn’t hesitate.
Whirling her stroller around so that it’s facing backwards, she grabs the handlebar, places a foot in the storage basket and kicks off hard in pursuit.
As she flies downhill, the Ferrari-engineered suspension smooth beneath her, she quickly gains on the freewheeling BMX.
Its rider hears her and looks back at the precise moment that she leaps at him.
He hits the pavement at speed with the BMX beneath him and Oxana clamped to his back like a hawk.
He lies there for a moment, groaning, then looks up, his face dripping blood.
Oxana forces his head down and chokes him into unconsciousness.
Unhurriedly, she releases Charlotte’s bag from his fist. Beside it on the pavement are a paperback romance novel (Her Frozen Heart), a plastic hair slide, and two light brown bun-nets in cellophane wrappers, which Oxana returns to the bag.
Passersby gather round and anxiously examine the fallen cyclist. Oxana ignores them.
She herself is unharmed and her uniform barely disarrayed, although her hair and hat need attention.
Georgie and Charlotte hurry towards her, leaving their strollers in the care of Debbie and Milly. Seeing the fallen BMX rider, now just beginning to stir, they both gasp.
‘God, what did you do to him?’ Georgie asks.
‘I got Charlotte’s bag back.’
‘But that guy. There’s blood everywhere. Is he OK?’
‘No idea. Have either of you seen my stroller?’ Oxana hands the bag to Charlotte, who accepts it gratefully, her eyes shining.
‘That was amazing,’ she says, blushing. ‘Actually, Ox, you’re pretty amazing.’
‘Your stroller,’ says Georgie, pointing. ‘And your baby.’
The Monza Imperial has upturned ten metres down the hill and is surrounded by a circle of concerned onlookers.
The stroller is in one piece, resting against a bollard, but Konrad, who has been thrown clear, is not himself at all.
Faecal matter is oozing from his nose and both ears.
He appears to be trying to scream, but although his mouth is working steadily, no sound comes.
‘Don’t touch him,’ an elderly man is saying. ‘His neck might be broken.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Oxana says. ‘It’s mine.’ She picks Konrad up by one leg, to a collective gasp of disapproval, and jams him back in the stroller.
‘Is he all right?’ Charlotte asks.
‘He’s absolutely fine,’ Oxana says. She looks around her, smiling brightly. ‘Trust me, I’m a nanny.’