What the Nanny Saw (7 page)

“That smoked salmon is paying your school fees,” said Foy. “Don’t knock it. Just wish I’d thought of pickling it in formaldehyde and selling it to Tate Britain.”

“Actually, I’m paying the school fees,” Nick interrupted loudly.

He was standing on one side of the long, thin island that dominated the other end of the kitchen, examining bottles of wine he had brought up from the cellar. He looked like a lonely plane that had fallen off the edge of a runway. It was the first time he had spoken since his father-in-law had come into the kitchen. Now it was his turn to admonish himself. What was he trying to prove?

“Hello, Nick, how’s business?” Foy asked, moving swiftly toward the end of the kitchen island to shake his son-in-law’s hand. For a man of sixty-eight, he moved remarkably fluidly. “Is it a bull or a bear?”

Nick laughed loudly, as though it were the first time Foy had ever posed this question. Over the years Nick had tried to explain to his father-in-law that the vagaries of the stock market didn’t have any impact on the daily rhythms of his work, but Foy simply ignored him because he liked the sound of the question.

“Actually, we’re still benefiting from the fall in interest rates. Means people aren’t getting a good return from government bonds or savings,” said Nick, putting down the bottle of wine he had been examining. “We’re making a killing on these investment products called collateralized debt obligations. It’s like a never-ending party.”

Foy looked at him quizzically, because Nick wasn’t following the established routine. Foy’s question was usually the cue for Nick to ask him about his latest news.

“Sounds fascinating,” said Foy, unable to disguise his lack of enthusiasm.

“It is,” said Nick, deliberately misreading his father-in-law’s tone. “House prices are rising, people are taking out loans to spend on cheap goods made in China. Everyone is getting rich, especially the Chinese, and they’re keeping interest rates low by buying U.S. treasury bonds.”

“Are you going to open that bottle of wine, or do you want me to?” asked Foy jovially, stretching toward the Girardin Puligny-Montrachet that Nick was holding. Nick possessively held on to the neck of the bottle. The bottle opener remained on the worktop.

“We’re pooling debt, adding it together, and selling it on as bonds paying different interest rates depending on the risk,” said Nick. “Most of it is subprime mortgage debt but it could be credit-card debt or emerging-market debt, doesn’t matter, really. We sell it on to a company we’ve created to buy it so the risk is off our books, and then it gets sliced and diced. We get a fee on every deal, and there’s revenue from repayment.”

“Who buys debt from people they don’t know?” asked Foy incredulously.

“People like your pension fund, for example, or your bank,” said Nick. “They’re looking for the best return on their investment.”

“Surely you need to know who’s borrowing the money in case they can’t pay it back?” pointed out Foy.

“We have formulas to assess risk, and agencies like Moody’s who rate the debt,” Nick said, and shrugged. “It’s practically infallible. Anyway, as long as people are making money, they don’t ask questions. They’re riskier for investors, but the returns are much higher.”

Foy shook his head and picked up the bottle opener. It was clear from the way he kept turning it in his hands that he had no idea how to use it.

“The more leverage, the more potential return. That’s our mantra,” continued Nick. He knew from meetings with investors that there came a point in the discussion where people were unwilling to admit they didn’t understand and simply capitulated to his superior knowledge of the jargon. “We’re operating in the outer frontiers of finance.”

“To go where no man has ever gone before,” joked Jake.

“Like the olive, the stock market is both a good servant and a hard master,” said Foy eventually, misquoting Lawrence Durrell.

“It is,” agreed Nick.

“So you’re still just selling bits of paper,” said Foy.

“Yes, but the color of the ink is different,” replied Nick firmly, finally releasing the bottle from his grip.

“There’s got to be something wrong with a world where people aren’t just spending what they earn but spending what they don’t earn, too,” said Foy finally.

He made no attempt to put forward his favorite argument that the growth of the financial sector in London was killing innovation in British manufacturing. It was clear to everyone in the room that Nick had just won an argument. It just wasn’t obvious what it was about.

“You’re being boring, Dad,” Jake shouted grumpily from the middle of the room, where he was leafing through a copy of
Kerrang!
at the kitchen table, one iPod earphone in his ear, the other drifting across a plate of butter.

“What’s Dad talking about?” Izzy asked her mother.

“His work,” said Bryony. “Don’t worry. No one understands what he does. Not even me.”

“Are you going to open that bottle? Or are you waiting for us to pay further homage to the high priest of finance?” Nick picked up the bottle opener. “Nothing’s obvious anymore,” Foy complained, “just look at that gadget. You need to read an instruction manual to operate it.”

“That was a present from my team,” said Nick. “It’s probably the most evolutionary bottle opener on the market. You can open two thousand bottles of wine before you even have to think about recalibrating it.”

“It’s like your electric salt and pepper mills,” continued Foy. “I can’t help thinking that the phallic nature of all these inventions is to compensate for the fact that men spend so much time in offices staring at spreadsheets on computer screens and so little time outside hunting and gathering. At least the smoked salmon industry kept me fit.”

“I’m perfectly fit,” said Nick. “I run four times a week. And there’s not much need for hunting and gathering in the age of Internet shopping.”

Foy retreated from Nick like a kicked dog and headed open-armed toward Malea, who had emerged from the storeroom in the basement beneath the kitchen. The area below the kitchen was Malea’s domain. It was the beginning of the production line for the three meals she prepared each day. It was where she slept and bathed, and the front line for the laundry effort. There was a room at the back on the garden side that doubled as a playroom during the day and a place for Jake and his friends to watch TV and play snooker at night. It was also Malea’s favorite location for ironing. Malea looked pleased but embarrassed as Foy picked her up and hugged her.

“Honey with walnuts,” he said, pressing a couple of jars into each hand.

“Mr. Chesterton,” she said in embarrassment, “you are spoiling me.” Everyone giggled. Jake shifted uncomfortably in his chair because he was the one who had taught Malea to say this without telling her about the Ferrero Rocher advert. Although his worldview was limited by his parents’ wealth, at seventeen he had enough insight to know that it wasn’t cool to take the piss out of the person who ironed his pants.

“A taste of Greece, to entice you to visit us,” Foy said.

Nick busied himself with bottles of wine, trying to hide his annoyance with his father-in-law. It wasn’t for Foy to invite Malea to Greece. She worked for him and Bryony, not Foy and Tita, and they needed her at home even when they were away. Besides, the idea that his father-in-law’s indomitable Greek housekeeper would ever accept such an interloper was ridiculous.

“Stop pissing all over my territory,” Ali was taken aback to hear Nick mutter under his breath. He tried to focus on the bottles of wine. Malea, who obviously wasn’t privy to the fish embargo, told Foy proudly that she was cooking salmon en croute in his honor. Foy didn’t flinch.

“Hope it’s wild salmon. The farmed stuff is full of crap,” he said virulently.

Nick looked up at him in surprise. Foy normally talked about the salmon business in terms of revolution. Of how he had introduced salmon to the masses, how he had brought democracy to the dining table by selling it in supermarkets, how he had improved the nation’s health long before fish oils had become fashionable. But the Che Guevara diatribe was gone. This was a new angle.

“Those fish are no better off than battery hens,” he said. “Covered in fleas, pumped with more chemicals than an East German weightlifter. God knows what they do to a man’s libido.”

“Damn,” said Nick suddenly. “The bloody cork has broken.” He held up the bottle to the window and saw tiny pieces of cork floating on the surface.

“I thought it was an infallible bottle opener,” said Foy wryly. Nick picked up the bottle of Puligny-Montrachet and started pouring it down the sink. He assumed a pose of utter nonchalance that he knew would irritate his more frugal father-in-law.

“Why don’t we put it through a sieve?” suggested Foy.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” said Nick, pointing at the floor beneath him, where his wine cellar was located. “We’ll just have the Meursault instead. Salmon needs something a bit stronger than a Montrachet, don’t you think, Foy?”

Foy wasn’t listening. He had just noticed Ali standing awkwardly by the window.

“And who are you?” Foy boomed. Ali stared at him vacantly. She pointed at herself with one hand and tried to say “Me?” but no sound came out. In the week since she had moved into Holland Park Crescent, Ali was growing accustomed to the idea of being invisible. In Cromer she was always coming across people she knew, whether it was queuing in the butcher’s or walking along the beach. Even in Norwich she often ran into fellow students or friends who had moved to the city in search of work.

In London, there were no familiar faces. She was neither a parent nor part of the group of Eastern European nannies who stood together, laughing and chatting in guttural strange languages in the park. It made Ali realize how much of her identity was formed from her relationship with the familiar. She regretted not taking up her father’s recent offer to go out to sea with him. She hadn’t been for years. She might have seen which parts of her were exposed in heavy seas when everything nonessential was stripped away, and this would surely have helped her now. Foy turned away from her.

•   •   •

There had been times
this week when she went the entire day without speaking to anyone apart from the children and Malea, who was clearly more interested in the soaps she followed daily on the TV in the kitchen than in talking to Ali. The first two evenings she had dutifully waited downstairs at the kitchen table until eleven o’clock at night for Bryony to come home from work. She had compiled a careful list of the day’s highlights, hoping for reassurance that she was doing things right. But she never appeared. On the third night, Ali gave up and took herself off to bed at ten o’clock. She walked past Izzy’s door and could see her on the computer.

Above her, she could hear Jake padding about in his bedroom on the top floor, occasionally singing to a song on his iPod. She longed for company and scrolled down her contacts in the new BlackBerry that Bryony had given her. It was a spartan list. There were three numbers for Jo, but they were probably all defunct because her sister would have either lost her phone or run out of credit. And even if she managed to get hold of her, at this time of night, the chances of her being off her face were too high to risk a call. Then there were Rosa, Tom, Maia, her parents, and Will MacDonald. Impulsively, she deleted her tutor’s details as surplus to requirement. Rosa, however, picked up straight away.

“Hello, stranger,” Rosa said warmly, even though it was less than a week since she had organized a party to celebrate Ali’s departure. Ali understood. University friendships depended on day-to-day contact, and she was already out of the loop. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” said Ali. “More complicated than I imagined. Difficult to form relationships with so many different people in such a short space of time, but Hector and Alfie are really sweet. And my room is enormous. You’ll have to come and stay. I’m allowed girlfriends.”

“Great,” said Rosa. Ali could tell her attention was already wandering and knew it would be difficult to lure her away to London from the intense self-contained world on campus.

“How’s your new flatmate?”

“What?”

“The girl who took my room.”

“You chose well,” said Rosa. “She’s great.” Ali heard a voice in the background.

“Who’s with you?”

“Can’t talk,” Rosa said, and giggled.

“New love interest?” questioned Ali.

“New lust interest,” confirmed Rosa. “Can I call later?”

“I have to get up at six-thirty, so maybe tomorrow,” said Ali.

“Sure,” said Rosa.

It was a phone call that reinforced Ali’s sense of isolation. Of course Bryony communicated with her. But it was a virtual relationship conducted by BlackBerry in short, terse sentences at odd times of day. “Izzy cello?” read one. “Jake weekend plans?” read another. “Twins MMR?” Nick was out of the picture. She had seen him only once the whole week.

•   •   •

“And who are you?”
Foy turned his attention to Ali again. “Apart from being the kind of person who requires people to ask the same question twice.”

Ali found Foy’s sudden attention almost more unwelcome than the previous neglect. She regretted the denim miniskirt and leggings that she was wearing and wished she had put on something more sober. She wrapped her cardigan tightly around her and pulled down the sleeves. She lacked gravitas.

“Sorry, Dad, I should have introduced you,” said Bryony apologetically. Ali stuck out her hand as far as it would stretch in an effort to keep Foy at bay.

“This is Ali, our fantastic new nanny,” said Bryony, an approving arm resting protectively around Ali’s shoulder. “Be nice to her, because she only moved in this week.”

“What happened to the other one?” asked Foy.

“She got pregnant,” Tita reminded him.

“I thought that was the one before?” Foy said.

“No, she was the one who kept locking the twins in the playroom when she—” said Tita.

“We don’t talk about that anymore,” Bryony interrupted.

“You can’t have a nanny this pretty with a teenage boy in the house,” said Foy dramatically. Fortunately, Jake was sitting at the table wearing his headphones and didn’t hear him.