The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan

Author:Gilly Macmillan [Macmillan, Gilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473564343
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

1979

Hannah finds paint in the most intimate places. When she takes a bath she watches it soak off her inner thigh and bleed into the water. He has his hands all over her whenever he can. He wants to do it all the time.

‘God,’ he says, when he comes across her alone in a room. ‘I cannot resist you.’

She loves the attention but the sex is disappointing. She reads saucy novels she plucks from the shelves downstairs, so she dreams of something gentler or more romantic. Instead, she is often left sore afterwards and feeling as if she’s been shaken up and set back down with everything not quite back in place. But even though she knows he takes a selfish pleasure in her, she thinks it’s worth it because she has him, and his wife doesn’t.

The boys are the same as ever. The younger one, ever more devoted to Hannah. Such a poppet. The gloomy, threatening swell behind the older boy’s eyes is still there, though. She wonders if he guesses about her and his father. He’s too clever for his own good. She likes to take him down a peg or two. Sometimes, she sneaks his homework from his school bag after he’s gone to bed and makes little changes to the sums in his Maths book because he can’t stand it when he doesn’t get full marks. He cries with frustration. He’s such a swot. She feels put out when he starts keeping his bag in his bedroom, but also challenged. Let’s see which one of us is smarter now, she thinks.

The wife has started taking medication. ‘Happy pills!’ she says tightly and brightly, gulping them down in full view of the children. The pills are blue. Hannah barely visits her studio, but when she does she notices the paintings are becoming sloppier and unfinished canvases are accumulating in stacks against the walls. The pills make the wife very relaxed. Hannah wonders if she could crush one of the pills, or half of one, and grind it up and hide it in the older boy’s dinner. It might do him some good. Being so hostile all the time can’t be healthy for him.

‘How do you put up with her?’ she asks the husband one night, weeks after she’s had these thoughts about the pills, days after she first put them into action. By now, she and the husband have been doing it for months and Hannah’s become brave enough to discuss his wife with him.

‘That’s easy,’ he says. ‘Everything belongs to her. If I want all this and access to the pots of cash in the bank, I need to stay with her. Even if she is a fucking zombie.’ He waves a hand around the room and Hannah obediently takes in the high ceiling, the ornate plasterwork, the recently installed Italian chandelier, the rugs, the throws, the paintings, the fully stocked drinks cabinet, the television.

Ash from his spliff falls onto his leg. He rubs it into his jeans.

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