Chapter One

      Not today. Just please not today. I can’t tell you how I so do NOT need this today.

      It’s barely five thirty in the morning and already my whole life seems to be spiralling dangerously out of all control, something that’s happening with all-too alarming frequency these days. For starters, while I’m trying to slip out the door at the crack of dawn (nothing unusual there, this is when I have to leave for work every morning), Elka, my Polish nanny, picks today of all shagging days to have an out-and-out meltdown.

      There I am, sneaking downstairs in my bare feet, trying not to wake anyone, already running late for the early morning news briefing. Never, ever a good start to the day. Next thing, madam stomps out of her bedroom, still in her dressing gown, not so much asking, as demanding, to have a ‘queek word with you.’

      ‘Emm … yes, of course, Elka,’ I say, instantly smelling trouble and deliberately keeping my voice down to a low hiss, so as not to disturb Lily.

      Lily, by the way, is my little girl; almost three years old now and the light of this exhausted, knackered-to-her-very-bone-marrow mummy’s life.

      ‘Is everything OK?’ I ask politely, biting my tongue and bracing myself for the answer. Elka is the one nanny we’ve had who Lily adores and behaves beautifully for, and for her part, Elka herself genuinely seems fond of her too.

      ‘I neeeeed to speak with you, and this crazy hour of morning is only time I am seeing you all this week,’ she tells me in her still-rubbishy English, in spite of the small fortune I’ve forked out on audio books and private lessons for her over the past few months.

      Please don’t tell me you’re about to leave. Please for the love of God, don’t let another one leave …

      ‘Go ahead, Elka,’ I manage to say calmly, but with bowels clenched, only dreading what’s going to come out of her mouth next.

      ‘In my contract, it say that you am paying me to look after Lily,’ she says crisply, arms folded, ponytail swishing back, nostrils flaring. ‘But you must understand me when I tell to you, this mean during reasoning hours.’

      ‘I think you might mean reasonable hours,’ I tell her. ‘Can I ask you what’s suddenly brought all this on?’

      ‘You have huge nerve to ask that of me!’

      ‘Shhh! Can you keep it down please? You’ll wake Lily.’

      ‘I have many, many problem with the hours you expect me to be working. None of the other nannies who am my friends work as long days as I must.’

      ‘But Elka, your hours are hardly long. At least, not compared with mine, they’re not …’

      ‘Look at time now! Five thirty a.m.! And already you are going to office, which mean I am in care of Lily. You meant to be home at seven in the night times so I can have free time for me, and you never are. Ever!’

      Okay, I’m momentarily silenced here. Because actually, the girl does have a point. Technically I’m supposed to be home at seven-ish in the evening so she can clock off, but … well, for the past while, it’s been a tiny bit later than that. Like eleven p.m. Or even midnight.

      ‘All other nannies have evenings free! They am all meeting for coffee and beer and movies. All having good time in Ireland! All have boyfriends and days off and nights out! But never me! No fun for me, ever. I tell you I am sick of it, have enough! Is total crap!’

      ‘Shhh! Elka, please will you keep your voice down,’ I stage whisper at her, but madam’s having none of it. Instead she’s whipped herself up into a right frenzy and there’s no stopping her now.

      ‘No, you must be listening to me. Because you am working late, I must too. It’s too much and I want to quit!’

      ‘I hear what you’re saying and I completely understand but can I also remind you that this is the nature of my job?’ I tell her as soothingly as I can, knowing full well she has me backed into a corner now. Because if she walks out on me … Oh dear God, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.

      ‘And if you don’t like the schedule I have to work Elka, well … I’m really sorry but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Believe me, I don’t like working such long hours, any more than you do. So if you’re looking for someone to blame, then take it up with … Eurozone leaders and the global economic meltdown. Or … blame the Arab Spring in the Middle East, which is hardly my fault, now is it?’

      ‘I no understand … you must use little words for me!’

      I take another deep breath.

      ‘I’m so sorry Elka,’ I tell her as calmly as I can, given that I should have been out the door ten minutes ago and even though the day has barely started, I’m now already well behind schedule, ‘but if there’s a big news story, the editor has to be there to oversee it. That’s my life. News doesn’t take time off and therefore neither can I. Editors at the Post don’t sit around. In fairness, I did make this perfectly clear to you when I hired you. Plus, can I point out that I pay you far and above the rates all your other nanny pals are earning? But of course,’ I tack on brightly, hoping against hope that this might just work, ‘if it’s a question of giving you yet another salary increase, I’d be perfectly happy to discuss it with you later.’

      No, not even that sways her though. In fact, I might as well be talking to the back of my hand.

      ‘You work too long days and it no good for Lily, as well as no good for me,’ she lobs in, a cheap shot if ever there was one. The old emotional guilt-card thrown at a busy working mother.

      ‘She miss her mama so much when you not here. All the time she ask me, when is Mama coming home?’

      ‘Come on Elka, that is blatantly ridiculous and deeply hurtful …’

      ‘Even at the weekend time, when you should be with her, you am still in the office. Always, always working.’

      Now that bloody stung, and just as this conversation was heating up, temporarily stuns me into silence. I mean, yes, of course I wish I could spend twenty-four hours a day with Lily, I mean, who wouldn’t? But how can I possibly?

      I get a lightning-quick flashback to the first year she was born, when somehow, I seemed to manage just fine; got to spend whole weekends with her, even managed to get home relatively early most nights. I can do this, I thought; I can have the best of both worlds. I can be Superwoman. I had my whole work/life balance sussed back then and can honestly say it was the happiest time of my life. By far.

      But then the recession hit hard and the staff cutbacks started and that was the end of that. Suddenly I was expected to do the work of three people for the same money or else get out, that was it. Well, it was worse than Sophie’s bleeding Choice. Because much as I love and adore the ground Lily walks on, work is a hugely important part of my life too and if these are my new working hours, then bar resigning, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.

      In brutal moments of introspection, I just know I’m someone who’d go off her head in less than a week without a full-time career to nourish my soul. Sure, parenthood is a huge high, but then so is my job. Peppa Pig and Barney videos could never possibly give me the same buzz. So, if it’s not too much to ask, can’t I just have both? I mean, plenty of other women do, don’t they?

      But I have at least established clear boundaries with the office and made it perfectly clear to everyone that my Sundays with Lily are sacrosanct. The one day out of an otherwise mental week when I get to read her stories and make pancakes with her, then maybe take her to a Disney movie, or else to feed the ducks in the park. You know, spoil her rotten. Be a proper mummy.

      Mind