And God Created the Au Pair. Pascale Smets

arrive next week & last night after much hammering followed by silence followed by ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUUUUUUUCK!’ water started pouring through the living-room ceiling. Keith says ceiling will be fine as water ‘rushed through’ rather than trickled. Not quite sure why that’s better but according to Keith it is. As Keith & Gerry are moonlighting all work takes place in the evenings or at weekends. Laying pipes etc necessitates great deal of hammering, fine during the day but tricky at night when you are trying to get offspring to go to bloody sleep. Can’t exactly tell them to stop, as then they would stop. Floorboards up all over the house, a great hazard for someone as clumsy as me (narrowly missed putting my foot through spare-room ceiling). Furthermore, Hugh has discovered untold delight of lifting unsecured floorboards & placing girls’ (& my) cherished possessions under them. When we realised he was doing this subsequent under-board hunt turned up several items including my diaphragm, rather embarrassingly found by Gerry who feigned not knowing what it was – thank God it was in its case so we could both pretend it was my dentures.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      Dentures a very clever deception, after all would be terrible if Gerry suspected you sometimes have sex with your husband. Much less embarrassing to have lost all your teeth by your mid-thirties.

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      Re: Hugh’s debut as Count Dracula

      

      I allowed Ellie to be in charge of painting his face & slicking back his hair in Dracula-type mode. Unfortunately she was unsupervised when she did it so instead of using large pot of gel, prominently placed on basin for this exact purpose, she elected to scrabble through my bathroom cabinet until she found ancient pot of Vaseline which she used instead. Ana Frid has now washed Hugh’s hair about 1000 times (so convenient in a tin bath) but to no avail as he still looks like a v short bouncer from Stringfellow’s.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      Our Hallowe’en was something of a partial success. There was trick or treating at our fancy local mall where bored and snooty shop owners stood in the doorways of their shops handing out candy, then we moved on to the houses in our neighbourhood. Called at Suzette’s but couldn’t linger as Rob traumatised by the crazed barking of her vile, jumpy, licky dogs. Suzette was in full costume, dressed as a serving wench and she told me with a trill of girlish laughter that she’s ‘crazy about Hallowe’en and the kids would be so mad at her if she didn’t dress up’ (surprising as Sophie had opened the door for us with her usual morose expression and wearing grungy jeans and a sweatshirt). This episode has proved that Suzette is much more young-at-heart than me (even my own treacherous children asked how come I didn’t dress up like Suzette). Also she is a crafty dresser because wench costume perfect for someone like her who has quite decent boobs but a really fat arse. Anyhow we soon gave up, so many people out half the houses didn’t answer and Rob wouldn’t even approach the ones where there was barking. Will have to plan more carefully next year.

       NOVEMBER 99

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Albert has spotted staining on living-room ceiling and is very gloomy about it. He says ‘given time’ it will definitely fall down. Pointed out to him rather tersely, given time all ceilings eventually fall down & I am sure ceiling will be perfectly fine as water merely ‘rushed through’.

      

      Any snow yet? Thank God it’s v mild here at the moment although house still feels bloody freezing in the middle.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      No snow, better get some as I’ve spent a fortune on snow boots and snow pants for all of them.

      

      The school has sent invitations to parent/teacher night. Extremely ominous, for Ollie and Josie they are printed and a 15-min time slot is allocated but Rob’s has a handwritten note attached saying we’ve been given an extra 15 mins for him. Don’t think it’s because they have so many good things to say about him that 30 mins is required. Oh God.

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Mustn’t always jump to negative conclusions. Probably some perfectly innocuous explanation.

      

      Central heating is FINALLY working. Can’t believe living hell is over. Keith & Gerry here till past midnight in final push to finish (can’t fault them for lack of hard work – through obviously the several gallons of water pouring through living-room ceiling last week presented something of a ‘glitch’). I am so pathetically grateful to have fully functioning heating on ALL floors plus the unutterable luxury of hot water that has not come out of a kettle or saucepan. Dan & I quite unwashed (till this morning) as has just been too unpleasantly cold to barely get our buttocks wet in an unheated bathroom. Not sure what Ana Frid has been doing but has managed to look relentlessly clean & wholesome. Feel like Scarlett O’Hara, swear I’ll never go unwashed again (am sure I smelt a little bit last week – Dan certainly did). Now have to clean up house for Lou & Walt’s visit though not quite sure how to address living-room smell (wet dog).

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      Why not get a dog and keep it fairly wet, then you’ll have a perfect explanation for the smell?

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Weather’s turned bloody freezing, even fully functioning central heating is no match for the force 9 gale blowing off the heath & through the v gappy spare-room windows. Have had to buy & install window cling film, a sort of instant/disposable double glazing that you stick round your windows with v high-tech double-sided tape & then heat with a hairdryer till becomes taut and according to instructions ‘invisible’. Never seen anything less invisible in my life – you can see it from the bloody street. Cling film stuff bulges alarmingly every time wind blows & am slightly concerned big gust of wind might cause it to burst from its moorings, fly onto the bed & suffocate Lou & Walt while they sleep.

      

      From: Nell Fenton

      To: Charlotte Bailey

      

      Quite the reverse here, when you open a window you hear a sort of sucking sound like an airtight seal being broken. All double poss triple? glazed. Only air actually coming into the house has been preprocessed through huge machine in the boiler room where it is cooled/heated, cleaned and humidified. Feel like we are living in Brave New World.

      

      From: Charlotte Bailey

      To: Nell Fenton

      

      Am worn to a ravelling (like vv tired person or Tailor of Gloucester). Preparing for Lou & Walt visit like preparing for state visit but without the fleet of servants to help. Ana Frid and I worked like maniacs all day doing marathon clean-up ready for their arrival tonight. House was in even more dire and muddy state than usual this morning due to fireworks party last night. Also had to rewash & iron all Lou & Walt’s bedding as rather disastrously