Sylvia Garland's Broken Heart by Helen Harris

Author:Helen Harris [Helen Harris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781905559718
Publisher: Halban
Published: 2014-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

When Smita began to interview nannies, it felt to Jeremy like a continuation of their argument even though he knew it wasn’t. Of course Smita had every right to resume her career, not to throw away everything she had worked so hard for. But did she always have to get her own way?

As he heard her on the phone to agencies, busily discussing her requirements – Monday to Friday, 8 am to 6:30 pm – he felt wretched. He started to worry about ghastly accidents, about neglect and abuse; Anand lying in his cot, unstimulated, hour after hour, Anand harmed in undefined, unspeakable ways, Anand hurt.

None of the first applicants were anywhere near suitable. Smita agreed with him. But a second round of interviews yielded a capable young Bulgarian woman whom Smita thought would do. The young woman, her name was Galina, looked curiously like Smita, a slightly shorter, broader version of Smita, with utterly black hair parted in the middle and a business-like manner. She stated very plainly in the interview that being a nanny was not her long-term goal. She was studying to become an accountant in the evenings, at weekends and the nanny job would just be to fund her studies.

“I like that,” Smita said to Jeremy afterwards. “I like the fact she’s an intelligent person, with goals of her own. I wouldn’t want Anand to be cared for by a moron.”

Jeremy imagined Galina’s capable but uncaring hands handling Anand and he felt utterly miserable. But he knew there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. It was like the first vaccination which had marked Anand’s perfect body. This was the first flaw to mar his vision of Anand’s perfect childhood.

Jeremy supposed that he must have talked about his concerns to his mother. But he was sure that he had not said anything which might have encouraged her to do what she did next.

Three days after Galina’s interview, while Smita was checking up on her references and debating how long before her own return to work Galina should start, their doorbell rang, relatively early on a Saturday morning and Sylvia’s voice trilled through the intercom, “Yoo-hoo! It’s Mary Poppins!”

She seemed to take forever coming up the four flights of stairs, they could hear her huffing and puffing – and thank goodness Mrs Castellini hadn’t chosen that moment to stick her head out of her front door or they would doubtless have been waiting all morning. They were totally shocked when Sylvia finally made it to their front door, out of breath but grinning, unbuttoned her heavy winter coat to reveal a frilly white apron and launched into a breathless but jaunty version of “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” She even produced a little silver spoon from her pocket which she waved about theatrically. She then kissed them both resoundingly and announced excitedly, “I’ve come about the job.”

Jeremy’s first thought was that she must be drunk. To turn up like that, unannounced, in fancy dress and singing; surely it was the only explanation.

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