EIGHT
As may be imagined, it was a very different Sophia that returned to her house on the river after that weekend in July. As chance would have it, she had a day to sort herself out, as Peter had been unable to return on Sunday, as planned, owing to an extra visit being added to the Americans' itinerary. She had left the inn early on the Sunday to avoid being seen in the vicinity of Veronique's room. She had to go back to the old rectory, where she had left her overnight bag, to change her clothes. Fortunately, Clare's mother and stepfather were up and about and asked her to have coffee with them. Sophia took advantage of the opportunity to establish her alibi. She told them, as casually as she could, that she had dropped by the inn at around eleven o'clock on the off chance that there might be a room available. As is happened, there had been a cancellation earlier that evening. After the receptionist had showed her up to the room, she had made the mistake of lying down 'to take the weight off her feet.' The next thing she knew it was half past four in the morning.
'That should stave off all the wagging tongues,' she thought, so long as no one had seen her enter or exit Veronique's room. Then there was the noise, of course, she thought. 'Oh, well, sod it! Que sera sera.'
When she got home at about one o'clock, Yvonne told her that Chloe had got her appetite back and that her four-year-old Ollie had got into a bit of a scrape chasing a duck.
'Oh, he loves doing that. Thank goodness we don't have any swans on this part of the river. I don't know why he won't kick balls like other little boys.'
The arrangement had been for Yvonne to stay until five o'clock but Sophia told her she could leave a couple of hours earlier, if she wouldn't mind watching the children -- who were currently napping -- while she freshened up and dealt with a few emails and other bits and pieces. Peter hadn't messaged her yet today, which was a bit odd, but she put that down to the Americans, who hadn't been unable to pass up the opportunity to visit a stud farm and horse training facility down Newmarket way. So she thought she'd let him know she was back, that the wedding had been fun -- even if it missed the extra something he would have brought -- and that she was looking forward to seeing him on Monday evening.
In the time left her before Yvonne went off, Sophia thought about the nanny situation. She had been told about an app that matched employers with aspirant helpers and decided to download it and try her luck. The friend who recommended the app had told her that she should be careful who she hired, as some of the young women from Eastern Europe were not too fussy about sleeping with the man of the house. Some had been known to break marriages up, hitching up with the man or bleeding him dry, as the whim took them. As Sophia had mentioned to Veronique, she had no reason to have doubts about her husband. Plus, the nanny wouldn't be living in, so opportunities for any funny business would be severely restricted.
She identified a couple of people she thought might fit the bill. One was a Polish woman, who wanted to spend a year in London before starting a master's programme in Lodz; the other was a Czech woman, who said she was willing to stay for up to two years if she could find the right opportunity. She had a degree in psychology and was among other things a yoga instructor. Unlike some of the other applicants, she wished to work only five days a week, Monday to Friday, 'with some flexibility'. Sophia liked her approach; the way she presented herself as someone who wouldn't let herself be pushed around and who knew how to bargain. She left a message asking her to call her. Feeling happy with her afternoon's work, she went downstairs, settled with Yvonne and went to wake up the children. The rest of her afternoon was spent playing with them and acting as arbiter over their myriad squabbles and contretemps. Few tears were shed, so all in all she considered it a positive experience, even if they did punctuate the time by asking where daddy was. She knew they preferred being around him, and it didn't bother her too much. After all, it was only ten years ago when people were saying of her that she had no maternal instinct and was unlikely ever to have children.
After making tea, bathing the children and finally getting them settled and tucked up in bed, Sophia checked her phone. There were a bunch of messages, at least a scrolling page of them. She read Peter's first. All was good, except the Americans would insist on travelling in style and the minivan had had to be jettisoned in favour of two deluxe sedans. It was only when she got onto the second page that she saw a message from an unfamiliar name: Valentýnka. Impressed at the speed of her reply, she was pleased to learn that she was available to start on the first of October and had all the necessary permits and visas, as she was already in England, on the books of an employment agency. She was available for interview on the following day, if that was convenient. Sophia asked her to come at ten o'clock.
Buoyed by the ease in which things were falling into place, she made herself a light dinner of avocado on toast followed by some fruit and retired to bed earlier than she was accustomed to do, unsurprisingly given the amount of sleep she had enjoyed the night before. She thought about contacting Veronique but decided against. She was sure they would be in touch soon and didn't feel any pressing need to speak to her. She had a lot to think about as things stood and needed to prepare some sort of agenda for her meeting in the morning. Not least, she needed to decide exactly what Valentýnka's duties would be and how much she ought to be paid.
'I'll call Lucy in the morning. She always knows about these things,' she decided. Almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, she was out like a light. She slept the sleep of the just.
Having been prepped by Lucy on all the ins and outs of hiring domestics, Sophia was ready when the doorbell rang a couple of minutes shy of ten o'clock. She had taken some care in her dress, not wanting to be outshone by the help. She wore a white blouse and a pair of tight-fitting blue jeans that showed off her figure to good effect. Valentýnka, as most Czechs seem to, spoke excellent English with little accent. She was dressed in a turquoise smocked midi dress with dusty pink leather sneakers. Not stuff you pick up at the market, Sophia thought. She must have been in her mid-twenties. Her family came from Brno but she had attended university in Prague, where she had graduated with first-class honours. Sophia thought she was over-qualified and told her so. Valentýnka laughed and said that the younger generation didn't think so linearly about careers. She wanted to experience many different things rather than tying herself down to a life as a lawyer, say. Now it was Sophia's turn to laugh. She told the Czech girl that not only was she not a whole lot older than her but that she was also a lawyer. Valentýnka didn't seem fazed at all.
'You don't look like a lawyer,' she said.
'I don't wear my wig in the house,' Sophia replied, not quite sure she got the joke.
They got to talking about Valentýnka's interests, which included, besides yoga and meditation, dress-making and candle-making. While she was talking about some new trends in wholeness and wellbeing, Sophia studied her face more closely. She was hardly what you would call conventionally pretty, but she was attractive. Her features were angular and spare, as if she would benefit from a few square meals, her complexion a little wan. Sophia wondered whether she was vegetarian. Her hips were narrow -- almost boyish -- and her breasts shapely but not large. Sophia caught herself appraising her as she expected a man would and chastised herself without any real conviction. Was her would-be employee appraising her in the same way? There was certainly no overt evidence of this.
Sophia brought the conversation around to the job and her expectations for Valentýnka. The latter's breezy response made Sophia think that perhaps she had pitched too low, but then she thought it was probably just a function of the serenity she seemed to embody. Well, she would need that when she was dealing with Ollie and Chloe. They went to the children's playroom, which did not seem to overly impress her prospective nanny.
'I can get them making things. It will be good for them. Simple things from cardboard first and then maybe soap and fans. They get such a feeling of achievement and pride from showing their mum and dad.'
'Wow! I seem to have a veritable Mary Poppins on my hands!' thought Sophia.
'My girlfriend is an artist. I can get ideas from her on how to tap their creative potential.'
'Girlfriend!' thought Sophia. 'Oh my God, everywhere I turn I'm meeting lesbians. Or does she just mean her friend who also happens to be a girl?'
'That would be wonderful,' Sophia replied after a slightly awkward silence. 'So may I take it that you are interested in the position?'
'Can I call you back tomorrow? I need to talk it over with Piri first.'
'Of course,' replied Sophia. 'I discuss everything with my husband too.'
Valentýnka gave her a funny look and Sophia muttered something about getting lunch ready for the children.
'Strange girl,' Sophia thought after she had seen her to the door and bidden her farewell. 'She might prove quite a challenge, but I never much minded challenges.'
When Peter finally came back, she had just finished reading the children a bedtime story and was putting the final touches to a salad she had made with his favourite apple cider vinegar dressing.
'You must be exhausted, darling,' she said, after they had shared a hug and a long kiss.
'Never seen anything like it,' he replied, as he took off his shoes, sitting on the bottom stair. 'One of the fellows has only gone and bought a racehorse. Turns out he owns half of Kentucky.'
'You must have eaten well, at any rate. All those swanky restaurants. You'll have to get used to quiche and salad all over again, I'm afraid.'
'Anything in sensible portions. Anything!'
After talking about the kids, the subject turned to the wedding. Peter was keen to know who had been there and if she had met anyone new. She told him about the service, the speeches -- all the usual things -- the people on the table she had sat with, about dancing with Ed, about having coffee with Clare's parents before setting off back home; about everything, in fact, except the main event. That is, the main event for her.
'Andrew said you made a new friend,' Peter said cryptically.
Sophia's heart missed a beat.
'New friend? Nobody special comes to mind. Oh, unless he was referring to a randy old buck who'd had a few too many!'
'No,' Peter said with a smile -- a genuine smile as far as Sophia could make out, 'he said you were getting very pally with a mysterious French woman.'
Sophia's mind raced back to the wedding and the time when Andrew was most likely to have seen them together. Surely, he hadn't seen them in the conservatory? Or by the fountain? Sophia decided that attack was the best form of defence. If Andrew had really seen them making out then the game was up, anyway. Then again, she'd been around men long enough to know that a lot of banter flew around between them that, unlike typical women's gossip, was low in detail and high on badinage. The trick was to roll with the punches, give as good as you got and keep smiling. Never show you were bothered in the slightest by even the most scandalous insinuation.
'Oh, Veronique. He must have got that from Ed. We were talking about her and he said something about her being a society hostess in Paris who had a place in London near us.'
'He said you two had quite a chat.'
'Well, so what if we did? But she's not really the talkative type. Fiona Talbot, who was on her table, thought she was a stuck-up bitch. When I spoke with her I actually found she was quite interesting, in a rather Gallic kind of way.'
