Page 27 of Days You Were Mine

‘You’re just saying that to make us feel better,’ I said, and Alice laughed.

‘Luke, it works for all of us. You need someone you can trust and I’m ready for a change in my life. It’s perfect.’

On our last night before Hannah returns to work, I cook fillet steak and open a bottle of our favourite Rioja. Candles burning on the table, Samuel wide awake and passed across the table from one to the other as we take turns to eat.

‘I’m going to miss him.’

‘Of course you are, but it’s only for three days. And once you’re in the office, working on a piece, you’ll forget about him.’

‘I will not,’ Hannah says, a little fierily. ‘But at least I won’t have to worry about him. We couldn’t find a safer pair of hands if we tried.’

‘Are we asking too much of Alice?’

‘No, I think she genuinely wants to do it. She’s so close to Samuel already. It’s almost uncanny.’

‘I hope it brings Alice and me closer too.’

‘Alice has bonded so quickly with Samuelbecausehe reminds her of you.’

‘Far easier to deal with a baby than the weird, fucked-up grown-up version.’

Hannah laughs. ‘Exactly.’

We’re making tea and getting ready to go up to bed when the phone rings. It’s 9.30, which means it’s my mother, also making her last-minute preparations for bed, including her nightly phone call.

‘Hello, darling, just ringing to wish Hannah good luck tomorrow.’

‘Hi, Mum. Would you like to speak to her?’

‘No, no, I’m sure she’s busy getting ready. Send her my love. So the new au pair is starting in the morning? What’s her name?’

Duplicity is hard. It steals the words from your tongue, the breath from your lungs.

‘Alice.’

‘Alice?’ my mother says, and I wonder in my coldly alert, paranoid state if her mind is whirring with all the Alices she has known. Alice, Alice, now where have I heard that name before? ‘Alice who?’

‘Oh, er, God, I can’t remember her surname.’

‘Darling, you are hopeless.’ My mother is laughing. ‘How old is she?’

‘Um, fortyish, I think.’

‘Oh, quite old then. What’s her situation?’

If only I’d insisted on passing the phone to Hannah; she would have dealt with this inquisition so much better than me. She is sitting on the bench, Samuel asleep in her arms, watching me intently.

‘How do you mean, Mum? She’s a part-time painter. Looking to supplement her income, I guess.’

‘But what’s her experience with babies? She is a proper au pair, isn’t she?’

‘Of course she is. Mum, let’s talk tomorrow. Hannah is keen to get an early night.’

I hang up and join Hannah on the bench, bent double with the drama of it all.

‘Oh babe,’ she says, ‘this is so complicated, isn’t it? But the moment your mum knows about Alice, it’s going to feel easier.’

‘I can’t tell her.’

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