assuredly judgemental I was at seventeen, how mercilessly I judged my mother and her friends – I ask the usual questions. She’s taking English, French and history. Applying to do modern languages. Year out, she thinks, au pairing in Paris.
‘You should tap Sophie for babysitting,’ Nina says. She’s busy at the kitchen counter, cutting and rinsing lettuces, drying them in a tea towel and throwing them into a large flat wooden bowl. ‘She’s quite experienced, aren’t you, Soph?’
Sophie tells me that she spends quite a lot of time in the holidays with her American half-siblings, Otto and Astrid. In London, she sometimes looks after a neighbour’s three-year-old. Also, her friend Tasha’s younger sister, who’s eight. She makes smiley faces at Cecily, who wriggles and gurgles in response.
‘I’m not sure, Cecily’s so tiny,’ I say, but even as I’m saying it, I’m thinking about how wonderful it would be, getting the pair of them down and then darting out with Ben for a few hours: to the cinema, or even just the Italian place by the tube station. Just walking there would feel like a novelty. Out in the dark, the winking lights.
‘Well, bear it in mind,’ says Nina, pushing back the sleeves of her jersey. The white cuffs of her shirt flash as she pours oil and vinegar into a jar, adds salt and sugar, screws on the lid and gives it a shake. Now she’s pouring the vinaigrette over the salad, reaching in, turning the lettuce leaves over and over with her bare hands, coating them. There’s something so careless and easy and straightforward about this; and – very distantly – familiar too, though I can’t remember who else does it. Perhaps a character in a book.
‘Can I help?’ I say, as one does, as if I’d be any assistance with Cecily on my hip, grabbing at my neckline. I fed her just before we left, and now she’s beginning to shade into nap-time irritability. Oh, don’t be silly, it’s all under control, have a glass of wine . I’d love one, I say, but first I’ll try my luck, see if she’ll go down to sleep in the buggy for a bit. Chances are she won’t, but.
Nina says I’m welcome to put her in Charles’s study, at the end of the hall, it’ll be quieter in there.
The study is muted, as plain and perfect as an egg. There’s nothing stray or random in here, nothing out of place: no paper drifting over the desk, no pens in pots, no pictures on the walls. Its asceticism is full of purpose. A plan chest, shelves of architecture books, a slimline silver laptop, a 60s recliner by the window overlooking the magnolia tree. I walk around the room with her for a bit, patting her back while looking at the architectural models in the Perspex boxes: a university campus, a museum in Vienna. I don’t know how to analyse the buildings, so my eye goes quickly to the tiny little people animating them, the students and tourists gathering for scale in the covered walkways and around the fountains, casting their miniature shadows. Cecily has gone quite still, so I release the blind, filling the room with a sub-aquatic dimness, and lower her in, fastening the straps and tucking the blanket around her. In the half-light, she tilts her face to one side and gazes at the wall: a hopeful sign. Maybe it’ll work. That’d be a first.
Back in the kitchen, lunch is waiting. The dishes on the table are not, at first glance, Christopher-friendly – it’s all Middle Eastern-inspired, lots of aubergine and flatbreads and pomegranate seeds scattered on the salads – and I anticipate an embarrassing scene, but he is tempted by the little meatballs studded with pine nuts, and the herb-flecked couscous also goes down well, so I think: that’s one less thing to worry about. Well-rested and well-fed, Christopher is not bad company; the problems start when he’s running low.
We go back over that awful afternoon. Nina tells me about coming back to the house in the late afternoon, and finding Christopher and
‘You should tap Sophie for babysitting,’ Nina says. She’s busy at the kitchen counter, cutting and rinsing lettuces, drying them in a tea towel and throwing them into a large flat wooden bowl. ‘She’s quite experienced, aren’t you, Soph?’
Sophie tells me that she spends quite a lot of time in the holidays with her American half-siblings, Otto and Astrid. In London, she sometimes looks after a neighbour’s three-year-old. Also, her friend Tasha’s younger sister, who’s eight. She makes smiley faces at Cecily, who wriggles and gurgles in response.
‘I’m not sure, Cecily’s so tiny,’ I say, but even as I’m saying it, I’m thinking about how wonderful it would be, getting the pair of them down and then darting out with Ben for a few hours: to the cinema, or even just the Italian place by the tube station. Just walking there would feel like a novelty. Out in the dark, the winking lights.
‘Well, bear it in mind,’ says Nina, pushing back the sleeves of her jersey. The white cuffs of her shirt flash as she pours oil and vinegar into a jar, adds salt and sugar, screws on the lid and gives it a shake. Now she’s pouring the vinaigrette over the salad, reaching in, turning the lettuce leaves over and over with her bare hands, coating them. There’s something so careless and easy and straightforward about this; and – very distantly – familiar too, though I can’t remember who else does it. Perhaps a character in a book.
‘Can I help?’ I say, as one does, as if I’d be any assistance with Cecily on my hip, grabbing at my neckline. I fed her just before we left, and now she’s beginning to shade into nap-time irritability. Oh, don’t be silly, it’s all under control, have a glass of wine . I’d love one, I say, but first I’ll try my luck, see if she’ll go down to sleep in the buggy for a bit. Chances are she won’t, but.
Nina says I’m welcome to put her in Charles’s study, at the end of the hall, it’ll be quieter in there.
The study is muted, as plain and perfect as an egg. There’s nothing stray or random in here, nothing out of place: no paper drifting over the desk, no pens in pots, no pictures on the walls. Its asceticism is full of purpose. A plan chest, shelves of architecture books, a slimline silver laptop, a 60s recliner by the window overlooking the magnolia tree. I walk around the room with her for a bit, patting her back while looking at the architectural models in the Perspex boxes: a university campus, a museum in Vienna. I don’t know how to analyse the buildings, so my eye goes quickly to the tiny little people animating them, the students and tourists gathering for scale in the covered walkways and around the fountains, casting their miniature shadows. Cecily has gone quite still, so I release the blind, filling the room with a sub-aquatic dimness, and lower her in, fastening the straps and tucking the blanket around her. In the half-light, she tilts her face to one side and gazes at the wall: a hopeful sign. Maybe it’ll work. That’d be a first.
Back in the kitchen, lunch is waiting. The dishes on the table are not, at first glance, Christopher-friendly – it’s all Middle Eastern-inspired, lots of aubergine and flatbreads and pomegranate seeds scattered on the salads – and I anticipate an embarrassing scene, but he is tempted by the little meatballs studded with pine nuts, and the herb-flecked couscous also goes down well, so I think: that’s one less thing to worry about. Well-rested and well-fed, Christopher is not bad company; the problems start when he’s running low.
We go back over that awful afternoon. Nina tells me about coming back to the house in the late afternoon, and finding Christopher and
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