When her parents arrived home they were laughing and it cheered Fleur to hear it. They were her parents and she rarely thought of them as a couple, but the recent events had made her see how perfect they were for each other. She could just make out her father whispering something inaudible, to which her mother was giggling. Fleur decided that she had better make her presence known or she could become privy to something that might scar her for life.
‘Dirty stop-outs! What time do you call this?’
‘Fleur, sweetheart.’ Her mother homed in on the disembodied voice and found Fleur curled up on a sofa hugging a large mug of tea. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes. Thanks for leaving me a meal and the note and everything. But, honestly, you don’t need to. I know you’re being kind, but I’m an adult and you wouldn’t do it for Poppy.’
‘Oh,’ said her mother, a little crestfallen. Fleur’s father joined them in the room and wrapped a protective arm around his wife. He looked a little flushed as he kissed his wife’s neck and Fleur felt an unpleasant shiver go down her spine. Don’t think about it, she told herself.
‘The child is right. I’ll work out what you owe us in rent,’ he said with a wink. Fleur dismissively stuck her tongue out at him.
Her mother gave her a hug and perched on the arm of the sofa. ‘Did you have a nice time last night?’ she asked.
‘Um, I really need to talk to you about that. It’s all right, nothing to worry about but you might want to get a large glass of something alcoholic and sit down first.’
Breakfast was utter mayhem. Despite Charlie having laid out their uniforms and instructing them to check their school bags yesterday, somehow today everyone had lost something. For Millie it was her temper as she was lashing out at anyone who came within swiping distance. Eleanor was organising a production line and filled lunch boxes as quickly as Charlie could make the sandwiches.
‘Millie, we’ve got Music and Rhythm today.’
‘Yay!’ shouted Millie. ‘Zinging!’ she launched into a very off-key version of Humpty Dumpty.
Ted sat at the table, slowly stirring his cereal. He retrieved Millie’s toast when it went flying across the table and dangerously close to the edge. His blazer was definitely shorter in the arms and Charlie realised how much he had grown in the last few months, and not only physically.
Charlie herded the children to the front door and equipped them with bags as they filed out onto the pavement.
‘Eleanor, put the dog down and stop letting him lick your face. He was washing his bum earlier!’ said Charlie.
‘Eugh,’ said Eleanor, before she gave Wriggly one last kiss and deposited him back inside the house.
‘Bum, bum, b-bum,’ sang Millie, which for once sounded quite melodious and could very easily be mistaken for a nursery rhyme rather than her latest word obsession. But for Charlie anything was better than the ‘testicles’ incident.
George was chattering away to Ted and seemed completely unaware that Ted was not responding. Charlie buckled everyone into their seats in the back whilst Ted loaded the school bags into the boot. Charlie and Ted reached their respective doors at the same time and she looked at him across the roof of the car. She wanted to say something to him, after what had happened with his birth father last night, but nothing suitable came to her lips, so she shrugged instead. Ted nodded and they both got in the car.
Charlie was surprised how pleased she was to be going back to her old routine – she hadn’t realised how much she had missed it.
Millie’s playgroup was the best of her toddler activity groups as most people were friendly there; Music and Rhythm was different. Everyone had been friendly to start with but as the mothers realised that Charlie was the nanny and not Millie’s mother they were noticeably less chatty to her. As this was London, there were quite a few nannies in attendance so she had soon found the breakaway gang she was meant to belong to. There were two distinct groups: one for mums and one for carers. Even within the carers group there was a hierarchy as there were a couple of au pairs who were barely allowed to break into the conversation.
‘Hello, Millie, we haven’t seen you for a while. Have you brought Pooh Bear?’ asked Jane, the lady who ran the group. Millie nodded and went to grab a fish-shaped mat and dragged it to her favourite spot.
‘Hi, Jane, sorry we’ve not been for a while,’ said Charlie, realising instantly that none of the people here would be aware of why they had been missing for so many weeks. They had been in their dark bubble while the world carried on as usual.
‘No problem, you’re all paid up,’ said Jane.
The session went well and it made Charlie feel so much better to see Millie bashing the life out of a tambourine and belting out the words to ‘Buns in a Baker’s Shop’.
Charlie’s phone was on silent but she felt it vibrate in her pocket. A quick look told her that it was Fleur. She would have to wait.
Tea and biscuits at the end gave the opportunity for some much-needed natter in each of the two groups, whilst the children wore most of their biscuits and spilled their drinks happily.
‘Have you been away? You’re not very brown. I texted you, did you get it?’ said Ali, who was one of the friendliest of the group and someone who Charlie got on okay with. Ali was a talker and Charlie was more tolerant than others as she wasn’t so desperate to fight for airtime.
‘In that order: No, not been away which is why I’m not very brown. I did get your text and I’m very sorry that I didn’t reply,’ said Charlie, frantically wondering what she should say about Helen and Toby. These people didn’t know them, so should she tell them? Would they treat her differently? More importantly, they were sure to treat Millie differently. Charlie decided to avoid the conversation if she possibly could.
‘I thought you’d been sacked,’ said the blonde girl whose name was either Ada or Ida, but she had an accent and Charlie still wasn’t sure so she simply never used the woman’s name in conversation.
‘Not yet, still working. How is Zander eating now?’ asked Charlie, deciding to turn the conversation onto the child the woman looked after. This was a stroke of genius as that and the eating habits of the other charges then dominated the conversation.
In the car park Charlie was once again strapping Millie back into her car seat before attempting to strap Pooh Bear into the seat next to her, when Ali appeared.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ said Charlie.
‘You look… you look under the weather. I’m not being unkind, I just thought I’d check. I know what it can be like sometimes, if it all gets a bit much and the parents take the pee,’ elaborated Ali, not stopping for breath.
‘No, really. I’m fine. My friend’s had a bad time with her fiancé, that’s all.’
‘Oh, okay,’
