Chapter 29
Bella was dimly aware of the alarm in her dream for a long time before she managed to drag herself back to the surface and open her eyes. Her sleep was so fractured now, every nap led to a complicated dream sequence.
Don had taken Markie downstairs after his 6a.m. feed to allow her to sleep in until eight. But now she had to get up and get ready. Today was nanny interview day.
The usual problem of what to wear loomed large. It had only occurred to Bella this morning that this wasn’t just about her liking the nanny, the nanny had to like her too.
She opened her wardrobe but closed it in despair after a few moments and then decided to try Don’s. There she found a white shirt, which did at least button up over her chest, and a pair of camel-coloured jeans. She pulled them on, rolled up the bottoms and looked at herself in the mirror. Frumpy but not hideous, it would have to do.
She added earrings, lipstick and even a squirt of perfume. It was a slight improvement.
‘Bella!’ said Don with a smile when she came into the kitchen. ‘You look nice.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she snapped.
‘OK, nicer,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I’m just trying to be friendly.’
He turned to Markie who was lying on his sheepskin rug on the floor gurgling.
‘I’m sure he smiled at me a minute ago,’ Don said, waving a rattle over his son.
‘Did he?’ Bella rushed over. If Markie was going to start smiling, he better smile at her first. ‘Hello, gorgeous, how are you today?’ she cooed at him. Markie locked eyes with her and smiled.
‘See!!’ Bella and Don said in unison, then laughed.
‘Wow, smiling at five weeks, I think that’s early,’ Bella said, gazing at her son.
‘Oh no,’ Don groaned. ‘He was supposed to have your looks and my IQ!’
Bella managed a smile at this, then sat down and ate some cereal, her mind on all the things she wanted to do in the house before the nanny arrived at 10a.m.
Bella was still breastfeeding in the immaculately tidy sitting room when the doorbell rang at ten to ten.
Don jumped up and Bella could hear polite hellos before Don ushered the nanny into the room.
‘Hello, I’m Joanne,’ said the girl, heading towards her with an outstretched hand.
Bella juggled Markie for a moment, then managed to reach Joanne’s hand.
‘Hello, Bella Browning, pleased to meet you. Please sit down.’ She was a little surprised at how quickly her brisk, business tone had kicked in.
‘And this must be Mark,’ said Joanne sitting down on the edge of the one armchair.
‘Markie, we call him Markie,’ said Bella, glancing down at the fuzzy little head nuzzling at her.
Looking up again, she took Joanne in properly. She was quite a plain-looking young woman, squarely built with pale, freckly skin, clear blue eyes and straight mousy hair in a ponytail. She was dressed in no-nonsense navy-blue trousers with a matching jacket.
They began talking about Joanne’s last job, which was perfect previous experience.
Then Joanne asked Bella questions while Don made coffee.
‘Have you got him into any sort of routine yet?’ she asked.
‘Er, well… I think it would be fair to say it’s not much of a routine yet,’ Bella admitted.
‘And how about you? Are you managing to get enough sleep?’
‘Just about enough to keep sane.’ Bella smiled.
‘And does he take a bottle as well?’
‘Yup, he got a lot of top-up feeds from a bottle until a few days ago, then suddenly he didn’t seem so hungry.’
‘So, we’ll have to get him really happy with the bottle before you go back. Are you planning to carry on breastfeeding?’ Joanne asked. ‘Or would you prefer to stop?’
‘I’ll try and do a morning and evening feed for as long as I can,’ Bella replied, feeling almost physical pain at the thought of no longer feeding her baby.
‘Obviously, breastmilk is so good for babies, but it makes it harder for the baby to detach from you and really relax with another caregiver.’
I don’t want him to detach.
‘Well… I’ve not done this before and I’ll have to see how it goes,’ Bella said, suddenly anxious that Joanne might turn them down and then she would be completely stuck.
They covered some more ground. Joanne quite taken aback by the hours Bella was suggesting: 8a.m. till 7p.m. Monday to Friday.
‘That’s a fifty-five-hour week,’ she pointed out.
‘Well, most nights I hope to be here at 6.30p.m. but I want to make sure I’m covered if I’m running late,’ Bella explained.
‘Look… I don’t mind doing those hours to start with until we’re all settled in, but then you’ll really have to think about giving me a three-day weekend and finding someone else for Monday or Friday,’ Joanne said. ‘And you’re going to find it very tiring, Mrs Browning. You might want to think about a three-day weekend yourself.’
Bella was so surprised by this suggestion that she wasn’t quite sure how to reply. She’d promised everyone, and herself, that nothing was going to change. She was going to come back and be just as good and just as hard-working as she had been before – better, even.
But here was an experienced nanny telling her that it might be too hard.
Don returned with the coffees and put Joanne more at ease with general, chatty questions about where she was from and how she’d got into being a nanny.
‘Will I have the use of a car?’ she asked.
‘Not immediately,’ Don answered, trying to imagine Bella letting someone else drive her Porsche. ‘But we’ll look into it for the future.’
Bella was horrified. She didn’t want Markie to be driven anywhere without her.
Another twenty minutes or so of questions and conversation followed before things seemed to wind to a natural end.
‘It’s been lovely meeting you, Joanne,’ Bella said, showing her out of the house. ‘We’re going to talk this over together, call your references, if we may, and I will get back to you on Monday.’
‘No problem.’
As soon as Bella was back in the sitting room, Don got the ‘what did you think?’ question in first.
‘No way. Just no way,’ Bella answered.
‘Seriously?’ he asked, sounding surprised. ‘I thought she seemed really nice and she has all the right experience.’
‘What!? She wasn’t going to pull her finger out one little bit. I can’t have someone who works to rule looking after my baby.’
‘What are you talking about? She wanted to clarify her hours, which are bloody long, and make sure she doesn’t get lumbered with all our housework. I think that’s fair enough.’
There was a pause as the two looked at each other.
‘She seemed like a nice, caring person and she certainly knows what she’s letting herself in for, she’s done this before many times,’ Don said. ‘Anyway, have you got any alternative?’ he added.
‘Look,’ he said putting an arm round her. ‘Why don’t you phone the family she was with before and ask them about her before you decide? Then, you can put her on trial for a month. If it’s not working out, look for someone else when you’re back at work.’
Bella sniffed hard.
‘You should be enjoying this time,’ Don hugged her against him, ‘not filling it with anxieties about nannies and going back. I’m sure it’s going to work out fine,’ he added. ‘You kept telling me when you were pregnant that this was what you wanted to do.’
‘I don’t want to leave him,’ Bella heard herself wail against Don’s chest. ‘He needs me and I haven’t figured anything out yet.’
Don held her tightly and didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then in his most soothing voice, he said, ‘Bella, just give it a try, my love. You loved your job. I don’t believe you’d be happy without it. You’ve got to think about how to make this work, not blow every hurdle out of proportion.’
She knew he was right, but she was still crying because it was a huge and difficult decision.