The Baby Monitor by Rosie Walker

Author:Rosie Walker [Walker, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

26

At the sound of the front door, I leap to my feet, ready to present Jeremy with a glass of wine and his favourite home-cooked meal: lasagne. The golden surface bubbles in the light of the oven, a baton of garlic bread nestled on the rack next to it. On the stove top, plumes of steam escape from the hole in the pan lid where broccoli boils. I’ve decanted the Argentinian Malbec, lit candles at the table.

I’m the perfect wife. The best mother. And it’s all on show for the cameras, every single day. The children are in bed, with a new monitor set up to alert me if they cry out. This one is a non-Wi-Fi-enabled video monitor that no one outside our home can access. Jeremy bought it while I was away, and the old one disappeared. A strange acknowledgement that what I was saying was true: that someone had hacked it. But then he rigged the whole house up with cameras instead. He doesn’t need to watch the baby any more. He needs to watch me.

Even the teddy cam watches beadily from next to the microwave. Jeremy must have moved it downstairs to have extra eyes on me.

But I’m used to surveillance; two weeks in the Hermitage got me accustomed to being monitored twenty-four hours a day, and now these cameras are my friends: I’ll use them to my advantage. Look at me cooking dinner for my husband, watch me playing tag with Liv along the upstairs corridor.

‘Hellooooooooo?’ The voice in the hallway is not Jeremy.

Jac blusters into the kitchen in a whirl of shopping bags, wild hair and the smell of winter on her coat. ‘Smells amazing in here! Sorry for dropping in unannounced.’ She takes in the two glasses of wine, the candles, the lasagne cooling on the side. ‘Did I interrupt something?’

I slide a glass of red towards her with a shake of my head. ‘It was supposed to be a special meal for Jeremy, but he’s had to work late.’

Tomorrow is Jeremy’s first work trip since I returned from the Hermitage. It’s been an unspoken condition, hovering in the air: I will only go if you prove you can look after the kids. And I have proved myself over and over again. He didn’t need to cancel his trip, or even threaten to invite my mother to stay. He’s been watching me every day as I perform for the cameras, and I have played my role to perfection.

So his bag is packed for tomorrow’s flight to Lyon. He’s really going to go. I wonder if she is going with him.

A look I can’t interpret crosses Jac’s face. ‘Working late again?’

I suppress a grimace, my face pointed away from the camera hidden in the recipe books. Tabitha likes to call impromptu meetings that run for hours. Perhaps she’s doing it on purpose. She knows it’s his last night at home before a week-long trip; perhaps she knows I’m sitting alone at the table, wondering if she is the one watching through the cameras, planning to wreck this family, take my kids away.

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