The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie

Author:Celia Imrie [Imrie, Celia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2011-04-13T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Around this time, my neighbours in Cowes told me that they were selling up, and an idea came to me. I would buy the little house next door, knock down the garden wall and thereby have a house big enough for me to live in, work in and have my baby, while in the adjacent house I could give a nanny her own quarters including a nursery, without everyone getting on top of one another. I made the deal with my old neighbours and bought the next-door house.

A few weeks later, heavily pregnant, I threw a party, partly to celebrate my birthday and also to toast the successful purchase of the house next door. Among others, I invited my old nanny, Pop, who lived across the Solent in Winchester.

When people at the party asked me about the next-door house I gaily explained to them how excited I was and told them how I had bought it for my nanny.

A while later there was a noise across the garden, a spoon tinkling against a glass, heralding the fact that someone was preparing to make a speech. I imagined that this was going to be some kind of happy birthday malarkey, so stood back and waited.

‘Ssshhh, ssshhh! Everybody!’ We all fell silent and Pop, my childhood nanny, took a step forward.

‘I’d just like to make a little speech to thank Celia,’ she said. ‘She has just made this the happiest day of my life!’

I was astonished. What on earth could she be talking about?

‘Just in case there’s anyone here who hasn’t heard, Celia has very kindly bought the house next door for me.’

Oh my God! This was a novel way of learning the true meaning of the word ‘ambiguity’.

Yes, I had indeed said I was buying the house next door for my nanny. But I had meant the prospective nanny for my unborn child. Now here was a conundrum. What to do or say?

The truth is that I was simply struck dumb and couldn’t think of anything to do but smile graciously and accept the thank-you. And after that, I simply didn’t have the heart to tell Pop there that had been a bit of a misunderstanding over my use of the word ‘nanny’.

So Pop duly sold up her house in Winchester and moved in to the house next door to me. And it worked out so very well. A few years later when Mums’s second husband, Douglas, died, she was left with nowhere to live. So my mother also moved to the island and lived next door with Pop. So although it was initially an unintentional gesture, in the end everything all worked out brilliantly. Pop took the greatest care of Mums, just as she had taken the greatest care of us, as children.

Living next door also meant that both my nanny and my mother had many opportunities to spend time with little Angus.

My baby was due in the third week of July. Days passed and nothing happened. I went for check-ups, and nothing happened.

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