The Room Beyond (4 page)

‘I don’t know. What about Cambridge?’ Beth replied.

‘No sweetie, you’ve got to be clever to go there.’

‘What if you pay them?’

‘Um, maybe, I’ll ask Daddy,’ she mused, toying with her pink pearls
with renewed vigour.

So, Eva was young, barely out of her teens. In my naivety I’d never
made a connection before between underage sex, teenage pregnancies and the
privileged upper classes. And now it all fell into place: why Arabella had
taken the responsibility for interviewing me, Beth calling Eva by her name, the
reason for the whole family living under one roof. She threw a glance in my
direction.

‘You must be the new nanny.’

‘Yes... my name’s Serena; it’s nice to meet you.’

I moved towards her a little but she didn’t move an inch.

‘We had a nanny when I was small,’ she continued, her attention back
on Beth. She stole one of my bracelets so Daddy sacked her.’

‘Was it an antique?’

‘I don’t know, probably.’

Beth screwed up her nose. ‘Disgraceful.’

It was hard to believe that Beth was really only four years old. In
contrast to her mother she appeared like a little wizened old soul. There was
some similarity between the two faces: Beth was far blonder, her eyes much
bluer, but they both had the same beautiful fair skin, faultless like spilt
wax.

Eva lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply and began to smooth out the
ruffles in the silky slip of a garment she was wearing. It was just long enough
to pass for a dress and yet suitably short to reveal the infinite length of her
slender legs; just like the legs on my old Barbie doll, even down to the pointy
feet.

Something suddenly moved in the corner of my eye. It came from the
other sofa. I’d completely forgotten that someone else had been present all
along and I now turned to find a male figure there, slouched as comfortably as
a cat.

The deep cushions obscured his face from where I was standing, but
his body was long and lean and although he was dressed only in scruffy jeans
and a faded old T-shirt, his lolling posture suggested that he was totally at
ease in this place. He moved again, this time with a dramatic stretch and the
sigh of a long waking-up yawn.

Who was he? What was the name Beth had murmured when we’d been up in
my room? Seb. He shifted forwards and his profile came into view. It was lithe
and high cheeked, in need of a shave and framed by unruly dark blonde hair.

‘Shouldn’t you be at nursery Beth?’

His voice was still drowsy although tinged with playfulness.

‘I tried it a few times but I’ve decided not to go anymore,’ she
replied softly.

‘Oh, didn’t know you could do that.’

‘Neither did I,’ I added.

The corner of his mouth curled up into a smile at the sound of my
voice and, slowly, he turned to face me.

His eyes were glacial; so translucent that they barely passed for
blue. And in that first brief moment when they met mine, they seemed to sear
right through something deep inside me. It made me want to draw my stomach up
into my chest. I wavered a little, betrayed an anxious laugh and the eyes
instantly softened in response; all that lucid blueness mellowing into a more
apologetic grey.

But the side of my cheek felt the onslaught of yet more eyes: Eva
watching me like a hawk, her face wide with interest, astonishment even. Her
mouth was actually gaping open a little.

‘This is Serena, she’s my new nanny.’

Beth’s voice sounded cautious, as if she were testing tricky waters.

‘Well thank God you’re here. We’ve been waiting for someone like you
for ages, haven’t we?’

Beth didn’t reply.

He shook my hand and his skin felt cool against mine. ‘I’m Sebastian
White, friend of the family.’

‘But we all call him Seb and he’s always hanging around here,’ said
Beth.

He hurled a cushion from behind his back in her direction. ‘I’m a
big favourite of hers, as you can see.’

His eyes met mine again and then he scanned my body up and down. I
felt my face turn scarlet.

‘So how did Arabella find you?’

‘Oh, a friend of hers does amateur dramatics with my aunt.’

‘How very straightforward!’

‘You know what Mummy’s like,’ interrupted Eva.

‘Oh yes, and we love her for it. Have you been a nanny long?’

Somewhere on the periphery I could still feel Eva’s stare boring
into my skull like a series of cold, grey bullets.

‘No, actually this is my first job as a nanny,’ I shrugged and tried
to smile beneath the onslaught. ‘Not really selling myself here, am I?’

‘Don’t worry, you don’t need to,’ he beamed. ‘You’ll be fine.’

‘You think so?’

‘Of course, and if you find Beth too difficult just tell us and
we’ll swap her for a Labrador.’

The cushion instantly came hurtling back in Seb’s direction, but
this time Beth did betray a giggle.

‘What
did
you do before this then? I mean, you must have done
something?’ asked Eva, cutting the merriment with the precision of a scalpel. Although
her mother had already employed me, it was quite obvious that for Eva my
interview had barely begun.

‘Yes, I’m an artist, although I’ve always had to work to keep myself
going. I’ve brought my materials, perhaps Beth might be interested in some
lessons...’ Eva blinked but said nothing. ‘I’m always looking for inspiration...
actually I’ve just been to Thailand on a sort journey of discovery.’

‘And what did you discover?’ asked Beth, wrinkling up her forehead.

‘Oh, not much in the end,’ I laughed. ‘How to live on ten dollars a
day I suppose, how to avoid a lot of other tourists attempting to do exactly
the same thing. But you could say that a pretty vile stomach infection
discovered me, so I came home.’

‘How remarkable.’ Seb seemed as wide-eyed and innocent as a little
boy. ‘Why on earth did you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘You know, go so far away by yourself? Where did you live?’

‘In a hut on a beach for most of the time.’

‘Everyone does it Seb,’ said Eva, wryly. ‘It’s the thing to do
nowadays,’

‘Well anyway, I’m in awe,’ he answered, standing up and stretching
his body to its full height. As he raised his arms I caught a glimpse of flesh
above the top of his trousers. ‘Eva’s just come back from Morocco, haven’t you
darling?’

He brushed his hand softly against her cheek and my heart sank. So
that’s why she’d been glaring at me.

‘Do you... live here?’ I asked.

He unleashed an enigmatic grin. ‘No, I just spend A LOT of time here.
It’s the best place in London after all, don’t you agree?’

‘It seems beautiful, although I just arrived this morning. I haven’t
even unpacked yet.’

‘Oh you’ll love it, you’ll just love it. It’s paradise here isn’t
it?’ he exclaimed, attempting to encompass both Beth and Eva in his enthusiasm
with a wave of the hand. Beth ignored him completely and Eva just raised her
eyebrows until they formed two perfectly plucked half-moons.

‘And you simply can’t beat the Hartreve women for their unfettered
energy and enthusiasm.’

I burst out laughing and then swallowed hard to stop myself as Eva
actually turned her face away despondently.

‘I’m bored. Can we go to the park?’ said Beth.

‘Yes, although shouldn’t you be having some lunch?’

I looked at my watch, it was nearly one o’clock.

‘I don’t like lunch.’

‘What does Beth usually eat for lunch?’ I asked Eva.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied with a blank look. ‘I thought she just
said that she didn’t like it?’

Beth slipped out of her chair and dragged me away by the hand. I
felt a warm, grateful rush at her acceptance of me.

‘Have fun!’ said Seb.

‘We will.’

I felt his eyes watch me leave and fought hard not to return the
glance. Eva Hartreve was quite clearly the last person I wanted to get on the
wrong side of.

I took Beth to Holland Park. We went to the playground first but she
only looked bored there, kicking her heels around in the sand nonchalantly and
eventually sitting down on a bench by herself.

‘What would you rather do?’

‘I’d like to go over there and look for insects.’

We flopped down under the large tree she’d singled out at the edge
of the park. It was a secluded spot, cloaked in mottled sunlight that filtered
down through the canopy of the tree. A subtle breeze teased the leaves above
our heads.

‘Sounds like silver foil, or new clothes wrapped in pink tissue
paper,’ she said. I looked at her face and noticed that her eyes were closed,
tightly wrinkled up in fact. She seemed to be feeling the sounds around her,
tuning herself to the environment. A dog whined in the distance.

‘What does that sound like?’ I asked.

‘A bear in a cave, or maybe an unhappy ghost.’

She opened her eyes and they lit up suddenly.

‘Look Serena, there’s a ladybird on your arm!’

We placed it carefully on a leaf and counted its spots as it waved
its antennae furiously at us: a small conductor with two batons. And when
eventually it flew away, scooping pools of sunlight up into its wings, Beth’s
face was a picture of delighted fascination.

‘Does Eva bring you to this park?’

‘No, she doesn’t really do parks. Raphael does sometimes.’

‘Ah yes, I saw a photograph of him.’

‘He’s Eva’s twin brother,’ she added, pulling her dress over her
knees and resting her chin on them. ‘Grandma and Grandpa have three children:
Eva and Raphael, and then Robert, the musician I told you about. Oh and then
there’s Seb, who’s like a sort of family member. Raphael’s not around very
much, he lives abroad mainly.’

‘You must miss him.’

‘I do. He buys me nice presents, beautiful interesting things. And
he tells good stories about his travels.’

Yes, stories. I’d forgotten how important they were to childhood. My
parents must have told me stories when I was a little girl but I couldn’t
remember a single instance. I blinked hard at the sky: didn’t all children have
some sort of memory of sitting on their mother’s lap being read to? I could
remember Jessica reading to me, from a large hard backed edition of
Alice in
Wonderland
, her favourite book as a child. Perhaps she’d wanted to share
her feelings of nostalgia for it with me. But as a ten year old I’d found it
rather juvenile and actually quite distressing. I couldn’t really grasp the
charm of a small girl all alone, constantly changing size and running into
weird characters who wanted to chop her head off.

‘What sorts of stories do you like?’

‘Spooky ones.’

‘What, ghost stories?’

‘Yes. I have a large collection of them at home.’

Was this normal for a four year old? But this was Beth, and although
my knowledge of young children was limited even I could tell that she was
unusual for her age; a small eccentric in the making.

‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’ she asked, cautiously.

She’d picked up an ant and was watching him circumnavigate her bent
knee.

‘Not really. I might have heard one once, though.’

She looked up.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘OK then. It’s a silly thing really, probably not half as impressive
as your stories at home.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, when I was a little girl, probably about seven or eight years
old, I went for a sleepover at my friend’s house. Her name was Sally, Sally
Davies. She lived on a farm in a big old squeaky house that I was a little bit
scared of. That night we stayed awake in her bedroom talking for ages until we
got really tired and closed our eyes to go to sleep. Suddenly I heard
whispering, so quiet that I couldn’t understand the words. “What did you say?”
I asked Sally, but when I listened to her breathing I knew she was fast asleep.
I heard the whispering again and again. It scared me so much that eventually I
pulled my covers over my head to block it out. The next day I told Sally about
it, thinking she’d probably laugh at me. “Oh don’t worry,” she said instead,
“that was just the ghost.” I never stayed at Sally’s house again after that.’

Beth brushed her fingers through the long spears of grass around her
feet. Her forehead had wrinkled up. She’d clearly taken my story quite
seriously, maybe I should have kept it to myself.

‘It’s a bit of a rubbish ghost story.’ I stroked her shoulder. ‘And
it was such a long time ago I don’t really remember it properly.’

‘I liked it.’ A cloud had momentarily obscured the sun and her eyes
darkened.

‘I hear voices all the time,’ she murmured.

A flurry of cool air rose up my arms, like a flock of birds swooping
over the horizon.