I’d felt for them when all they had to deal with was one or two at the most, but now I realized what they’d been talking about. It wasn’t as physical as the work at the nursery, or as intense, but it was the way it stretched, endlessly, the way the needing never stopped, and there was never a moment when you could hand them over to your colleague and run away for a quick fag break to just be yourself.
I was never off duty here. Or at least, not for the foreseeable future.
“I tell you what,” I said at last, seeing Ellie’s chin wobble. “How about I put on an audiobook?”
Pulling out my phone, I managed to navigate to the Happy media system, and then to the audio files, where I scrolled through the list of titles. The organization was confusing—there didn’t seem to be any distinction between the different file types, and Mozart was listed alongside Moana, Thelonious Monk, and L. M. Montgomery—but as I scrolled, I felt a little warm head thrust up under my arm, and Ellie’s small hand took the phone.
“I can show you,” she said, and pressed an icon that looked like a stylized panda bear, and then another icon that looked like a flattened out v, but which I realized, as Ellie pressed it, must be supposed to indicate books.
A list of children’s audiobooks flashed up.
“Do you know which one you want?” I asked, but she shook her head, and scanning the list, I selected one at random—The Sheep Pig by Dick King-Smith, which seemed perfect. Long, calming, and nice and wholesome. I pressed play, selected “Girls’ bedroom” from the list of speakers, and waited for the first notes of the introductory music to come out of the speakers. Then I tucked Ellie in.
“Do you want a kiss?” I said. She didn’t reply, but I thought I saw a little nod, and I bent and swiftly kissed her baby-soft cheek before she could change her mind.
Next, I went across to Maddie. She was lying there with her eyes tightly shut, though I could see her pupils moving beneath the paper thinness of her lids, and I could tell from her breathing she was nowhere near asleep.
“Do you want a good-night kiss, Maddie?” I asked, knowing what the answer would be, but wanting to be fair.
She said nothing. I stood for a moment, listening to her breathing, and then said, “Good night, girls. Sweet dreams, and sleep well for school tomorrow,” and then I left, shutting the door behind me.
Out in the hallway I breathed a tremulous, almost incredulous sigh of relief.
Could it be true? Were they really all safely in bed, washed, brushed, and no one screaming? It seemed, compared to last night, anyway, deceptively easy.
But perhaps . . . perhaps I had turned a corner with them. Perhaps that first angry protest was just shock at being away from their mum, with a comparative stranger in charge. Maybe a nice day together and a phone call from Sandra was all it had taken?
My heart softened as I checked the lock on the utility room door, did battle with the front-door panel and the lights in the hall, and then climbed the flights of stairs to my own room with a weariness I was having increasing trouble overcoming.
I was passing Bill and Sandra’s room when I thought I heard something. Or perhaps saw it—it was hard to know. A little flicker of movement in the sliver of darkness between the door and the frame. Was it just my imagination? I was so tired. It could be my mind playing tricks on me.
Very, very quietly, not wanting to disturb the girls, I pushed the door with the flat of my hand, listening to it shushing across the thick silver carpet.
Inside, the room was quite empty and still. The curtains were undrawn, and though in London it would have been getting dark, here we were so far north that the sun was only just sliding behind the mountains. Livid squares of reddish light slanted obliquely across the floor, turning the carpet into a kind of fiery chessboard, though the corners of the room were in deep, impenetrable shadow. I let my hand slip over the thick, crisp cotton of their duvet cover as I passed their bed, glancing into the shadows, feeling my pulse quicken with the audacity of this intrusion. If Sandra were watching through the monitor now, what would she see? Someone prowling