Baby on Loan

‘Don’t laugh at me! I’m being serious!’

Laugh? She had to be joking. He wasn’t in the mood for laughing. Or indulging his niece. The way things were going, she’d be off the hook soon enough; meantime, it wouldn’t hurt her to behave herself for once.

‘So am I, Carenza.’ The formal use of her name was usually sufficient warning that she was pushing her luck. ‘You seriously promised to look after the house while I was away. And I seriously trusted you to keep your word or I would have used my usual house-sitting service.’

‘I thought you said they couldn’t find anyone at such short notice?’

She was so sharp it was a wonder she didn’t cut herself with her own tongue. ‘I believe I said it would be difficult for them to find anyone at such short notice.’

‘Oh, don’t be so…so…lawyerish!’

‘Don’t knock it, Carrie, it pays the bills. Quite frequently they have your name on them.’

Unabashed, she changed tack. ‘You could call the house-sitters now and ask if they could find someone. Couldn’t you?’ Even the hollow echo from the communication satellite couldn’t disguise the wheedling tone that was supposed to have him twisted around her little finger.

‘Now? Correct me if I’m wrong but, whilst it’s the middle of the day here, I’m pretty sure that it’s the middle of the night in London. I don’t think the agency—’

‘Later, then,’ she pushed, her keenness apparently undiminished by his obvious lack of enthusiasm. ‘You could call the agency later.’

‘I could,’ he agreed tersely, ‘but what would be the point?’ A fraud case that he’d put weeks of work into and was scheduled to be in court for a minimum of three months was collapsing about his ears, which left him disinclined to submit to the wheedling of his eighteen-year-old niece. ‘You haven’t got the money to go gallivanting around Europe or you wouldn’t be spending your summer in London house-sitting for me and, by the way, using my phone to call me long-distance.’

‘It’s the middle of night,’ she reminded him. ‘Cheap rate. And actually that was the other thing.’

‘What was?’

‘Money. I thought maybe you could lend me some until Mummy comes to her senses.’

‘To go backpacking around Europe for the summer? Are you crazy? Your mother would have a fit.’

‘I wouldn’t tell her if you didn’t.’ She gave a little-girl laugh that didn’t fool him for one minute.

‘Nice try, sweetheart, but forget it.’ Europe was going to have to remain a dream for her this year. ‘Get better grades when you do your resits in November and I’ll give you a nice fat cheque so that you can go skiing at Christmas. Meantime, I suggest you use the long, friendless weeks ahead of you to revise, revise, revise.’

Carrie said something very rude about revision. ‘How can you be so mean?’

‘It takes practice, angel.’ And he’d had a lot of practice. Some women refused to take a gentle hint. ‘Tell me, how are my precious, er, ficus? You’re not forgetting to spray them, I hope?’ Her response, as he had anticipated, was brief and alliterative. ‘Luke-warm water, don’t forget,’ he responded, mildly.

‘Okay,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I’ll do it now. I’ll spray them with luke-warm water and then I’ll take them out of their pots and cut off all their roots.’ And then she hung up.

Patrick laughed, feeling a great deal better for the exchange. He certainly wasn’t worried about the wretched house plants; they had been her mother’s idea, as was the complicated care routine that she’d invented for them. His sister had prevailed upon him to ask the child to house-sit for him while he was in the Far East. What Carenza needed, Leonora had asserted firmly, was some responsibility, something to make her feel trusted, something to keep her in London and her mind on her resits. Against his better judgement, he’d agreed.

And he’d had to have someone. He couldn’t leave the house empty for the length of time he’d anticipated this case would take. But two weeks of spraying house plants had clearly taxed Carrie’s capacity for responsibility to the limit, especially now her friends were deserting her for the pleasures of Europe.

Tough.

Jessie turned off the shower. Someone was ringing her front-door bell and it appeared to be stuck. If it wasn’t stuck, someone was going to need a very good reason for making such a racket.

‘All right! I’m coming!’ she called as she reached for her bathrobe, wound a towel around her dripping hair and headed for the door. As she drew back the bolt the clangour abruptly stopped, although by now it had probably woken up half the residents of Taplow Towers which would not make her Miss Popular at six-thirty in the morning.

She slipped on the chain, turned the dead-lock and opened the door a few inches. There was no one there. Then she looked down. Looking back up at her, with eyes that could melt ice, was Bertie.

She melted momentarily, then because Bertie, clever though her adorable nephew undoubtedly was, couldn’t have rung the bell himself, she undid the chain. ‘Faye? Kevin? What’s wrong?’ she asked, flinging back the door.

Her brother and sister-in-law were noticeable only by their absence. There was just a little yellow note in Kevin’s handwriting, stuck to the gleaming woodwork. She peeled it off, held it up to her face and squinted at the words. Certain that she must have misread them, she fumbled for the spectacles in the pocket of her robe. The words leapt into bright focus. ‘Please take care of Bertie for a few days,’ she read. ‘We’ll explain when we get back. Love, Kevin and Faye.’

Get back? Get back from where? Something had to be wrong! Very wrong!

Three floors below she heard the lift door opening. ‘Kevin!’ She edged round Bertie’s buggy and headed for the stairs. ‘Wait!’ She was halfway down the first flight of stairs when she was stopped by the disapproving voice of her neighbour from the floor below.

‘Is something wrong, Miss Hayes?’

In Jessie’s ordered world nothing was ever wrong. She anticipated practical problems and dealt with them before they could develop. And these days she was careful to avoid emotional ones.

A few feet above her Bertie snuffled in his buggy, gave a little whimper and, with a horrible sinking feeling, she acknowledged that she might have been getting complacent. Far below her, the front door banged shut. This was practical and emotional and she was in deep trouble.

Taplow Towers was a haven of peace and tranquillity. No loud music, no pets and definitely no children, apart from brief visits confined to the hours of daylight.

Dorothy Ashton, chairperson of the Residents’ Association, with ears as finely tuned as those of a bat, glanced up as Bertie whimpered again, in what Jessie feared was a prelude to something much louder. ‘What was that?’ she demanded, suspiciously.

‘Nothing.’ Jessie cleared her throat, loudly. ‘I’m just a bit wheezy, that’s all.’ She gave a little cough to demonstrate. ‘I’m sorry about the noise. I was in the shower and I couldn’t get to the door in time.’ But not by chance she was certain. The reason for the early-morning visit was to ensure that she’d being wearing nothing but a bathrobe and a frown and wouldn’t be able to pursue her brother to demand an explanation.

And it had worked. Better than he could have hoped, because pursuit was now further hampered by the necessity of getting Bertie into her apartment without Dorothy Ashton seeing him.

She waved the note as evidence of her probity as she backed up the stairs. ‘It was Kevin. My brother. He left a note.’ Then, coughing again and clutching at her robe to discourage any inclination the woman might have to follow and press home her complaint, she said, ‘Please excuse me, I think I left the shower running.’ She smiled, apologetically.

Lady Ashton was not to be moved by a smile. ‘You know we will not tolerate noise nuisance, Miss Hayes. You’re still on a probationary tenancy. Your visitors on Sunday were very loud—’

‘I know and I’m sorry, but Bertie’s teething. I did take him out for a while.’ She’d offered to take him for a walk to give her neighbours a break, holding his warm body close as she’d walked the path around the little park in the centre of the square. Kevin and Faye, poor loves, had both been asleep on the sofa when she’d got back. ‘It won’t happen again,’ Jessie added, quickly. ‘I promise.’ Nothing…nothing was going to ruin her chances of staying at Taplow Towers.

It was peaceful. Quiet. Utterly predictable. Taplow Towers wasn’t the kind of place where good-looking men knocked on the door when they ran out of coffee. She should have realised that someone who could flirt as skilfully as Graeme must have had a lot of practice. And, sooner or later, would run out of coffee again.

At Taplow Towers she could work all day, and all night when she wanted to, at her computer without the slightest risk of disturbance. She’d had all the disturbance she could take…

Not that it had been easy to get in. The Residents’ Association felt safer with ladies of ‘a certain age’ but her somewhat disingenuous statement that she had ‘lost’ her fiancé had been received with a tactful change of subject and, apparently reassured that her heart was broken beyond mending, she’d been given a probationary tenancy. It still had a month to run. One false move and she’d have twenty-four hours to vacate the premises. It was in the rules and she’d signed on the dotted line without a qualm.

A little grovelling might be wise, she decided. ‘I’m truly sorry to have disturbed you, Lady Ashton.’

‘Very well, Miss Hayes. We’ll say no more. This time.’ And she finally smiled. ‘Everyone is allowed one mistake.’ Behind her the snufflings were getting louder and Jessie’s cough took on epidemic proportions as she continued to back up the stairs. ‘You should take some honey and lemon for that cough, dear.’

‘Yes.’ Cough, cough. ‘I will.’ Cough. ‘Thank you.’

The moment that Dorothy Ashton retreated into her own apartment Jessie turned, grabbed the handles of Bertie’s buggy and wheeled him inside, shutting the door very quietly behind her.

Then she turned and leaned against it, pulling the towel from her hair, swamped by warring feelings of exasperation and longing as she looked down at her infant nephew.

His little face was screwed up into a man-sized frown as he tried to focus on her and, in an attempt to reassure him, she leaned closer. ‘Well, Bertie,’ she murmured as she stroked his downy cheek with the back of her finger. ‘This is a fine mess you’ve gotten me into.’

It was a mistake. Jessie’s height and colouring was similar to Faye’s, but Bertie knew his mother’s voice. This wasn’t his mother. He opened his mouth, determined to let not just Jessie but the entire world know exactly how he felt about that.