What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill Page B

supermarkets are squeezing your margins. Then you could sell at a higher price to more niche outlets. The other day you were complaining to Nick that the fish were full of fleas.”
    She was talking to Foy. Ali could hear his voice booming back down the phone. Old people always shouted into telephones, especially mobiles.
    “Bloody organic,” Foy shouted back at her. “It’s total bunkum. We’re going to the dogs in this country. Do you know, when I went to the doctor about my back last week he suggested acupuncture in my sacrum?”
    “Acupuncture is very effective,” Bryony interrupted him, clearly hoping to move the conversation in a different direction.
    “No one’s sticking a needle in my arse,” said Foy, “and I’ll never agree to organic salmon. God, by the time I need a hip replacement they’ll be offering Dark Rescue Remedies instead of morphine.”
    “Bach Rescue Remedy,” Bryony corrected him.
    “I blame your sister,” Foy continued. “All her homophobic mumbo-jumbo. Bloody yogurt knitting brigade.”
    “Homeopathic,” Bryony corrected him. He ignored her.
    “I can’t think what’s got into Fenton. He’s spent too much time with bloody Prince Charles. I swear I saw him talking to the fish last time we were in Scotland,” Foy rambled on, “asking them whether they had enough room to swim.”
    “How did you respond?” asked Bryony, wondering how her father’s younger business partner coped with him.
    “I reminded him that fish have a three-second memory,” shouted Foy. “He’s taking the idea to the board, you know. He’s got this big idea to bring in ballan wrasse fish to eat the fish lice instead of using chemicals, because they’re bad for the environment.”
    “That sounds like a good idea,” said Bryony.
    “It’s a fucking awful idea. It could turn on the salmon, like the gray squirrel did with the red. It could turn out to be an invasive species like the American signal crayfish. It could . . .”
    “Look, even if they decide to run with it, you’ll be long gone, Dad,” Bryony interrupted him. She immediately regretted her mistake. “What I mean is that it will take years before the fish can be certified as organic, and by then it will probably have gone out of fashion.” But this didn’t placate Foy. Ali winced on her behalf.
    “They’ll have to drown me in the fucking fish farm before I retire from fucking Freithshire Fisheries,” said Foy. “I’m not going to leave my lifetime’s work in the hands of that fucker Fenton.” Bryony held the phone away from her ear until he stopped to ask if she was still there.
    “Illegitimi non carborundum,” responded Bryony, adopting one of Foy’s favorite phrases, when he finished his diatribe. There was a silence. Then Foy laughed.
    “I won’t let the bastards grind me down,” he agreed, his mood lifting.
    “Now, can you please stop swearing, because I’ve got the children in the back of the car and Ali sitting beside me,” said Bryony, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized his spleen was finally vented. “And her first impression of you wasn’t favorable.”
    “I see, I see,” said Foy, sounding interested. “Tell me, has the Sparrow managed to get to the bottom of who defiled that image of me in your toilet? Hester is right, there’s something wrong with those twins. Too much organic food, probably. Same with that bloody dog.”
    •   •   •
    The bus turned off, leaving the road ahead worryingly free of traffic. She would have to go faster. Ali tentatively pressed the accelerator. The car lurched in protest. She cursed Foy for bringing up what happened at the weekend. Apart from a couple of jokes by Jake about “pissgate” on Sunday evening, the subject had slid down the agenda, to be replaced by more trivial concerns. Had Nick put Ali on their car insurance? Which of the children had been using Bryony’s laptop without permission? Ali had been waiting to ask Bryony for some guidelines