Free Secret Nanny Club by Marisa Mackle Page B

have had a hard life living behind the Iron Curtain so maybe she wasn’t used to smiling. But our new Filipina girl is just wonderful. She even runs me hot bubble baths in the afternoon so I can relax for a while.”
    I found myself fantasising about long leisurely midday baths with scented candles and trashy magazines. To hell with the sense of humour – if I wanted to laugh I could always hire a funny DVD. I didn’t want someone funny but I did want someone kind.
    Yvonne promised she’d ask her au pair whether she had a twin. Or failing that, any relation at all. “I pity you though,” she said after we had all analysed A Thousand Splendid Sun s over a glass or two or three of wine. “Before we got our East Berliner who never smiled we had a lassie from South America who would put odd socks on our children, regularly forget to comb their hair, and leave her own dirty dishes in the sink for us to clean up after her. One day she even forgot to collect the kids from school. Total nightmare!”
    “Our girl was from Scandinavia and used to walk around in her underwear,” another lady from the book club, Heather, said with a disgruntled sniff. “I swear she did it on purpose just to tease Jimmy.”
    I said nothing. I’ve met Jimmy a couple of times and he is no oil painting. I mean, I’m sure he’s very nice and everything but he’s bald, bespectacled and pudgy. Why on earth would a young Scandinavian set her sights on him? I didn’t believe it for a minute. Honestly, some women can be far too paranoid when it comes to their other halves.
    Then some of the other women joined in our discussion on childminders and the stories became more hair-raising as more wine was consumed. I heard about one girl who left her vibrator in the family bath and another girl who regularly shaved her legs with the daddy’s good razors and destroyed them. I heard about the girl who was so hungover she threw up in the kiddies’ paddling pool, and another who set the kitchen cooker on fire while trying to light a cigarette from one of the rings.
    And worse was to come. I was told about a girl who left used sanitary towels on the bathroom floor, the girl who ‘borrowed’ condoms from her employer’s wardrobe before nights out, and another girl who watched X-rated movies on the family DVD player while the parents were out. By the time I finally arrived home to relieve my mother of the evening’s baby-sitting duties, I had convinced myself to be a stay-at-home mum. How could I possibly ever go back to full-time work and leave my pride and joy at home at the mercy of some crazy au pair?
    Being a mum is tough. I don’t care if you’re single or happily married with a wonderfully devoted husband who puts you on a pedestal and helps out with daddy duties, it is not easy for any of us. That’s why I hate mums who are just unbelievably competitive. I mean, come on, it’s not a race!
    “My son is almost walking,” said a smug-looking platinum-blonde mummy in the park the other day. Her little cherub, dressed head to toe in Ralph Lauren, was roughly the same age as mine. “What about yours?”
    I looked down at John in his little pram playing peacefully with his teddy, and I then looked back up at the woman with a sort of half-smile on my face. “Almost walking? My baby’s practically running marathons!”
    She laughed.
    I laughed back, a kind of hysterical high-pitched squeal. “Oh, and he’s already throwing the javelin,” I boasted. “Like, hello?”
    Actually no, I didn’t say anything that obnoxious Instead I just smiled through gritted teeth and merely congratulated the woman on her wonderful child. I also neglected to mention to her that my child wasn’t even crawling. Let her think she was the world’s best mummy if she wanted to. Mind you, I don’t know why John isn’t crawling yet. Maybe he just can’t be bothered. I leave him on the floor and he chooses just to stay in the same position.
    Anyway, it’s not a