“I got that outfit from an Oxfam shop in Stoke Newington, I recall,” says Natasha. “We wanted her character to be kind of sixties-looking, you know, a bit Marianne Faithfull. I had so much fun shopping for her. And she was a great clotheshorse; everything just looked fantastic on her.”
“Was she nice?”
“Nice?” Natasha pauses and narrows her eyes. “Gosh, no. I wouldn’t say she was nice. But she had something. Something magnetic, you know. You wanted to be around her, even when she was a pain.”
Jane smiles wryly to herself. She is pretty sure that this is exactly what anyone who’d spent time with her in her youth would say if asked.
“Have you ever seen anyone else you made this film with? Since? Anyone you think might still know her?”
Natasha shrugs. “No. Jessamine was the only person I stayed in touch with after making this film. Well, and hubby, too, of course! There!” Her eyes dart back to the screen as a young man appears from the left. “There he is. My Jacob. Wasn’t he beautiful? Gosh, so much hair!”
But Jane can’t take her eyes off Jessamine, those wide-set eyes, that confident glare at the camera, the dips beneath her high cheekbones, the untold story lurking behind her eyes.
chapter twenty-two
NAOMI
I am shown to a room at the top of the house. It isn’t as nice as the rooms in the rest of the house, but it’s a hundred times nicer than the dingy room in a Paddington backstreet where I’ve been raising money to fund my time in London for the past three months. I make the room look as nice as I can with what few possessions I have: throws, a few books, my stripy duvet cover, a couple of plants.
The daughter, Jessamine, who looks about twelve or thirteen, comes up to my room and sits on the edge of my bed.
I smile at her. “Hello,” I say.
She looks at me thoughtfully and picks at the corner of my duvet. “The last au pair got sacked.”
“Oh yes?” I respond, surprised to hear that there had been another au pair. “Why was that?”
Jessamine shrugs and lets the duvet drop. “My mum didn’t like her. I think she thought she was too fun. We played a joke on Mummy, pretended I’d had my ears pierced. She didn’t like it. Daddy drove Sandra away the same day. So yeah, you need to be not fun.”
I nod sternly. “Right. Got it. Don’t be fun.”
She gives me a half smile. “And also,” she says, “my brother is weird. Really, really weird. He thinks he’s a clown.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I noticed that. I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Just ignore him though. He’s harmless. At least I think he is.” She winks at me, and I laugh. I like her. She has a twinkle in her eye. She looks as if she might be a handful, just as I’d been at her age. All the best kids are a handful in my opinion.
“And your mum?”
“Yeah. Just do what she tells you to do and keep out of her way.”
The mother doesn’t like this arrangement, it’s clear. She knows why I’m here just as well as I know why I’m here. I’m here to service her husband and tidy her house and feed her children. All jobs that she should be doing, quite frankly, and I have no idea why she isn’t. In Brazil, where I am from, it is a patriarchal society, but here I thought that women had more power. Annie has no power from what I can see. Annie is a prop in her husband’s stage play. But whatever, I don’t want to be in that dirty room anymore, with those dirty men. I would rather be here. Here, I believe, I have more options. Less money, but more choices.
“I noticed there’s a computer in your dining room,” I say to the girl. “I mean, do you think your mum and dad would let me use it? I was thinking I might get back into some kind of studying?”
She shakes her head. “No,” she says. “They definitely wouldn’t. They don’t even let me use it.”
“Fair enough. Is there a library round here?”
“Yes, up the road. It’s only small though. But listen, I don’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings, but honestly? I don’t think you’ll have time for studying. Mum will work you to death.”
I let out a snort of laughter, but the girl looks at me seriously. “No,” she says. “Being an au pair here. Seriously. It’s a full-time job.”
She turns then at the sound of footsteps coming up the wooden stairs. “I need to go,” she says. “I’m not meant to be in here. They said I can’t talk to you.”
She jumps to her feet and straightens out the duvet where she’s rumpled it, then she backs toward the door and opens it. “Daddy,” she says, “I was just telling Naomi about our crazy family.”
“Very good,” he says, squeezing his daughter’s shoulder. “Very good. See you downstairs.”
