at the top of the table, looking and acting like I’m listening intently; but actually, I’m a million miles away.
Because now I know. It’s finally official. I’m on the brink of a crisis.
I Have. No. Childcare. As of the end of this week, I have no one to help me; not a single soul. And what in the name of God am I going to do then? Take Lily into work with me and stick her into a playpen in the middle of my office, hoping no one will notice? Yeah, right, some hope. If I were to even think about doing that, I might as well tie a large neon sign around my neck saying, ‘Have finally cracked up, kindly fire me ASAP as Seth Coleman is only chomping at the bit waiting to take over anyway’.
The more I dwell on the problem, the more my mouth begins to feel dry; and although I’m desperately trying not to let it show, I know that tiny beads of worry sweat are forming on my forehead, as my heart palpitates with anxiety. I hear nervous rattling and realise it’s my ring off the desk in front of me, so I snap open a bottle of water and try to focus on the length of my inhale and exhale, desperately trying to stay in the game. Because if I am in the throes of a full-blown panic attack, no one in this room can ever know about it. Try as I might though, the same sickening thought keeps playing like a loop in my head, over and over again, and there’s just no getting away from it.
Every available nanny out there is completely unhireable, I’m in the middle of the biggest crisis I’ve had since having Lily, there is no one, absolutely NO ONE out there to help me and what in the name of arse am I supposed to do now?
Earlier today, Rachel, my long-suffering assistant, managed to trawl through the few childcare agencies that I haven’t been blacklisted from as of yet and scraped together a grand total of four nannies for me to interview. Yes, that’s right, four. We’re in the middle of the deepest recession since the Dark Ages, no one is spending a red cent, property values have dropped so much that people’s homes have fallen back to the prices they would have been in Viking times and above all … There are NO JOBS.
And yet here I am, fully poised to pay top dollar plus bribe money to someone who’ll take care of a child who’s almost three years old, and move into a perfectly comfortable home in Rathgar, with their own bedroom and ensuite to boot. Not exactly a demanding gig; it’s not brain surgery, it’s not like running a global corporation, all I’m looking for is some reasonable, responsible person who’ll make sure a little girl eats up her vegetables, gets to pre school on time, takes her naps when she’s supposed to and doesn’t spend the entire afternoon watching CBeebies on telly … and can I find anyone to fill the vacancy? No, not a solitary soul.
It beggars belief. Three interviews in total today and each and every one has been an unmitigated disaster. You want to see the standard – and I really wish I were joking, but some of these people would make Mel Gibson look employable. And so now, there’s no getting around it; as of the end of this week when Elka buggers off, I can’t get anyone to take care of Lily for me. I have no one. No one.
And believe me, I’ve done everything. I’ve swallowed my pride and called Elka, offering to double her salary and negotiate more time off if she’ll only reconsider, but no joy; she’s had enough of the job and wants out, simple as that. In desperation, I even thought of calling on my sister Helen, but know without even bothering to ask that it’s not a runner.
Being brutally honest, I have to admit that Helen and I have little in common and have never really been all that close, so she’s hardly someone I can expect to come to my rescue in my hour of need. Besides, since I had Lily, Helen’s gone and met a guy called Darren who runs a small seaside B&B in Cobh and within an alarmingly short space of time, she upped sticks and announced she was moving down the country to work side by side with him. Packed everything in for him; her job in a call centre, her brand-new flat, the lot. But then that’s my sister for you; she’s always struck me as someone who panic-dated, panic-settled and is now living with the consequences … in Cobh, miles and miles away from her old friends and her old life.
Total insanity, I thought at the time, and I still continue to think it. And although I’ve only met Darren a handful of times at Christmas dinners, or else on the rare occasions when they both come to Dublin and drop in to visit me and Lily, I can’t help wondering if Helen is actually happy living with him, two hundred miles away in a tiny remote village. But then, keeping up to date on what’s happening in each other’s lives is tough and apart from the odd ‘Hi, great to hear from you, but can I call you back? I’m running into a meeting’ type chat, we never seem to really get a chance to catch up properly.
And no, I still haven’t taken Lily down to Cobh to visit, in spite of all the child’s entreaties and in spite of the fact that she adores her auntie, because how could I possibly leave work? Every now and then Helen will email, mainly either to vaguely moan for a little bit about Darren or else, in a roundabout way, to ask for a lend of money; it seems people in the hotel business are even more savagely affected by the economic downturn than the rest of us. And I always oblige and fire off a cheque and never ask for it back, and she’ll gratefully accept, then send bright, breezy emails inviting Lily and me down for a freebie weekend anytime we want. Which is a nice thought and much appreciated, but come on … me? Get a whole entire weekend off? Saturday AND Sunday? One day after the other? Are you kidding me?
That aside though, I know Helen’s up to her tonsils with trying to make ends meet at the B&B à la Sibyl Fawlty anyway, so I’m sure she’s quite enough on her plate without me landing Lily on top of her too. Plus, no matter how desperate I was and no matter how much money I paid Helen to take care of her till I got sorted, it would mean I’d never get to see my little girl at all, wouldn’t it? And frankly the snatched glimpses of her slumbering little head first thing every morning and last thing at night are about the only thing keeping me sane after the daily grind I’m expected to get through. The one dangling carrot in my life that somehow makes the rest of it all that bit more bearable.
‘Barack Obama’s re-election campaign has just GOT to get a page one tomorrow, Eloise,’ Robbie Turner is thundering on, interrupting my incessant stream of worrying. Robbie is the Post’s chain-smoking, gravelly-voiced chief political editor; a likeable guy, young but never youthful looking, he just streels round the office night and day looking as washed out and baggy-eyed as the rest of us. But then, because of the time differences involved in covering any foreign story, the political editor is expected to put in hours almost as ridiculous as I do myself. The general rule of thumb is that if I’m here till the night editor takes over at eleven p.m., chances are I’ll catch a glimpse of Robbie’s thick, prematurely white shock of hair and John Lennon glasses still at his desk, bashing out a first draft of a story breaking in the Middle East while the rest of the Western world snoozes peacefully on.
So I happen to know that Robbie rarely gets any time off to be with his own young and growing family and to his credit, it’s something he’s never once complained about. I may not let it show, but I’m genuinely fond of him; as I’ve told the Board of Directors on many occasions, Robbie is someone who does consistent good work in the face of pressure that would drive a lesser personality straight to the nearest home for the bewildered.
The only slight downside in these meetings is that Robbie’s sole weak spot tends to come to the fore; his unhealthy obsession with Barack Obama, to the point that the running joke in the office is that he’s actually a tiny bit in love with him. I’m not kidding, he eats, drinks, sleeps and breathes Barack Obama and the highlight of his life to date was getting to shake the hand of The Mighty One when he visited Ireland. True, there were about four hundred other people in the room with him at the time, but Robbie still managed to wangle past the secret service and touch the hem of the garment of the Chosen One, so to speak. All while making it sound like they’d shared an intimate one-on-one meeting, just the two of them chatting about the re-election campaign over a nice cuppa and a plate of Hobnobs. He even had a photo of said momentous
