A Nanny Named Nick

‘Marriage is not for me,’ he said, again quite curtly. But then he smiled, and the old Nick was back once more. His black eyes gleamed and his mouth was lightly mocking. ‘I could ask the same of you, Dave. Why haven’t you a wife and family?’

‘I did have a wife. Once.’

Nick just stared at him. He looked quite shocked. ‘What happened?’

Dave shrugged. ‘Nothing drastic. Just divorce. But it turned me off marriage for life. As for kids... The truth is I can’t have any.’

‘Oh, God. That’s rotten luck, Dave. You’d have been a great father.’

‘Well, that’s a matter of opinion.’

Actually, Dave was not one of those men who related easily to children. Or babies. He’d made it perfectly clear to Linda from the word go that she wasn’t to expect him to babysit except in cases of extreme emergency. He’d told her quite firmly that if she was silly enough to become a single mother on purpose, then the responsibility was hers and hers alone.

Linda had scoffed at ever needing her brother’s non-existent babysitting abilities. The dear girl had gone into unmarried motherhood with rose-coloured glasses, only to discover it wasn’t nearly as easy as she’d thought it would be.

Postnatal depression and an inability to breastfeed had been dismaying starters, gradually followed by the grim acceptance that good parenting was not something that miraculously happened on the birth of one’s baby, however wanted and loved that baby might be. There were some women who, while they loved their offspring to death, just weren’t cut out to be with them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

This realisation had depressed Linda all the more.

But, Linda being Linda, she hadn’t wallowed in her own weaknesses for too long. She’d hired her widowed neighbour to be Rory’s minder during the day and had gone back to work. She wasn’t totally happy with the situation, but she was at least sane.

Linda’s experience confirmed to Dave that the Sawyer siblings were not natural parents, and that being childless was not the end of the world.

To be perfectly frank,’ he told Nick now, ‘I’m not unhappy with the status quo. I’ve always been married to my job. And children have never been a priority with me, even before I knew I was sterile. My wife was right to divorce me. She now has a new husband and three incredibly noisy boys.’

‘So how is the job down at the paper?’ Nick asked.

‘Flat out as usual. I came here straight from the office. Worked all night and all morning getting Sunday’s edition ready. I’m just about to go home to bed and I don’t intend resurfacing for the next twenty hours. But first I think I’d better visit the Gents. That beer’s gone straight through me. Mind my mobile, will you? When you’re a journo they never leave you alone for too long. If it rings, answer it and tell whoever it is that I’m in a coma.’

CHAPTER TWO

NICK watched his friend make his way tiredly across the floor. Poor Dave. He felt sorry for him. He had nothing in life but that pathetic newspaper he worked on. Still, he could well understand that Dave might not want to marry again after his first marriage had ended in divorce. One bitten, twice shy was something Nick could relate to.

He frowned darkly for a moment, then shuddered. Don’t start thinking about that, man, he ordered himself.

His mind swung to the news Dave had given him about his failure to father a child for that unhappy, unfulfilled woman. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.

Initially, the thought that he’d given some unknown woman the baby she so desperately wanted had made him feel good. But then his feelings on the matter had changed. The idea of being a father had begun to both disturb and absorb him.

Within a week of handing his specimen over, Nick had felt the urge to find out who this woman was, and what she looked like, whether she would make a good mother and whether he’d done the right thing in giving her the wherewithal to have his child.

His child. Not her husband’s.

That was why he’d fled Sydney eighteen months before. Because he’d known if he stayed, he might put such a search into reality. Yet he’d known that to do so would be very wrong.

So he’d taken off around Australia again, seeking distraction from his disturbingly compulsive feelings. But nothing had totally emptied his mind of thoughts of his unknown offspring, and in the end he’d been forced to return and confront what was eating away at him—only to find out that the mystery child which had haunted his head did not exist! Had never, ever existed!

Again he felt a fierce jab of disappointment.

Male ego, Nick supposed ruefully. That perverse part of the male psyche which drove one to do stupid things and feel stupid things. He should be grateful that he’d failed to impregnate that woman. He didn’t want to bring a child into this world, even an unknown one. What was the matter with him? He’d given up being a masochist ten years ago, and he didn’t aim to start again now!

He was scowling down into his beer when the beep of Dave’s mobile phone made him jump. A quick glance across the room showed no sign of Dave’s return, so he picked up the phone and pressed the answer button.

‘Dave’s phone,’ he said.

‘I must speak to Dave,’ a female voice said impatiently. ‘Is he there? This is Linda. His sister.’

Nick blinked his surprise. He’d had no idea Dave even had a sister. There again, neither of them had spoken to each other on any personal level before today. Their previous Saturday afternoon drinking discussions had always been typically male—competitive, argumentative, analytical. And totally impersonal and objective.

‘He can’t come to the phone at the moment,’ Nick told Dave’s sister. ‘Can I take a message?’

‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded to know. She sounded irritable.

‘My name’s Nick. I’m a friend of Dave’s.’

‘Where is Dave, damn him? He’s always complaining that he has to keep that phone glued to his side, but the one time I need to talk to him he’s not there!’

‘He’s in the Gents. We’re at the pub. Can I help?’

‘At the pub,’ she said tartly. ‘Would we all be that lucky! At least he won’t be able to tell me he can’t help me out this afternoon if all he’s got to do is drink himself silly.’

‘Help you out with what?’ Nick asked.

‘My front lawn, that’s what.’

‘What about your front lawn?’

‘My mower-man didn’t come today. I just rang him and he’s come down with some bug or other, but I simply have to have that lawn mowed today. I’m having people over tonight, and after all the rain we’ve had this past fortnight the grass is up to my knees. So where is that brother of mine? Surely he’s out of the Gents by now.

‘Yes, Sue, I won’t be much longer!’ she yelled to someone in the background.

‘I hate to tell you this, Linda, but I don’t think Dave’s in a fit state to mow lawns today. He’s absolutely exhausted after working all day and night at the paper.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, you don’t think I’ll fall for that rubbish, do you? Put Dave on, please,’ she insisted snippily.

‘I told you, he’s in the Gents. And then he’s going home. To bed. Look, give me your address and I’ll pop over. and mow the lawn for you.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘And why, pray tell, would you do that? You don’t even know me!’

Yep. She was definitely irritable.

‘I’m Dave’s best mate.’ A little exaggeration never hurt, Nick thought. Besides, he was rather enjoying sounding noble in the face of the prickly Linda’s lack of compassion. ‘Mates help each other out in times of need.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded mollified. Or perhaps ashamed of herself for her stroppy attitude. ‘All right, then. I won’t look a gift-horse in the mouth. Thanks,’ she added grudgingly, and gave him an address in Balmain, which was blessedly no more than twenty minutes away from the inner-city hotel he was sitting in at that moment. ‘The equipment’s in the garage,’ he was informed brusquely. ‘Just knock and Madge will show you where. I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming.’