Fear in the Cotswolds Read Online Free PDF Page A

her head to stare at them shamelessly. This, more than anything, forged a bond between Thea and the young woman. Instinctively she closed the gap between them.
    ‘How many children are there?’
    ‘Two. Benjamin is six and Nicholas is almost four. He is to have a birthday party nextSaturday.’ The gloomy resignation in her voice made Thea snort with a brief laugh. ‘Yes, it is funny, I know. A party should be happy, with games and a lot of food. Perhaps that will be how it is, but only if I make it so.’
    Thea murmured an encouraging syllable. ‘His mother hates me,’ Janina announced. ‘Because she is stupid and I am not. Because she has made big, big mistakes and is now in a trap. She can see that I know her to be a fool, and that makes her hate. I understand it all, but what can I do? Every time I look in her face she can see what I know.’ This emerged as a prepared speech, and Thea wondered whether the hour in church had been spent in thinking it through. ‘She is a terrible mother, with no love for the boys. She pays me to love them for her.’
    ‘Where’s their father?’
    ‘Hah! The father is Simon, who works in a hotel near Stow-on-the-Wold. He is always working, but at home I never saw a more lazy man. He drinks beer. He watches football on the TV. He says he is tired from the guests who bother him every moment of the day.’
    Probably true, thought Thea. She had always considered hotel work to be amongst the most demanding and exhausting imaginable. ‘What does their mother do?’ she asked.
    ‘Oh…she works in advertising. She abandonsher boys for such worthless work. Worthless,’ she repeated. ‘It brings no good to anybody. It is about lies and deceit and nothing more. Stupid woman.’
    ‘What’s her name?’
    ‘Her real name is Beatrice, but we call her Bunny. Call me Bunny , she says as if that were a sort of gift. A grown woman, forty years old, named Bunny. That is stupid.’
    Thea began to feel a flicker of sympathy for the maligned employer. This high-minded nanny must be rather a strain to live with, if indeed her scorn was as visible as she believed it to be. There was an uncomfortably obsessive element in this outpouring of bile to a total stranger.
    ‘My name’s Thea Osborne and this is Hepzibah,’ she said. ‘We’re here for a month.’
    Janina paused, as if arrested by a firm hand laid on her arm. ‘Ah, I am sorry,’ she breathed. ‘I have talked too much. How rude. Thea,’ she repeated. ‘And Hep—?’
    ‘She answers to Hepzie. It was a silly choice of name. I’ve regretted it ever since.’
    ‘So change it,’ said the Bulgarian, as if the obviousness of this was almost beyond any need to state it. ‘A dog cares nothing for a name.’
    ‘Too late,’ said Thea lightly.
    Janina shrugged. Not my problem , was writ large on her face.
    ‘Did you qualify as a nanny in Bulgaria? Your English is excellent.’ She stopped. Any more questions and it might sound like an interrogation.
    The girl pouted contemptuously. ‘ Qualify! What need for study to care for young children? It is crazy. I have four young brothers – that is my qualifying . I mean qualification ,’ she said the word emphatically, even boastfully. ‘My mother took a new husband when I was twelve and…’ she made a hissing zipping sound, flicking one hand in a horizontal sweep ‘…then there were four small brothers, all in four years, like a magic trick.’
    ‘Gosh,’ said Thea faintly.
    ‘Fortunately, I like small boys. They are funny and warm and brave and wild. I was happy to come here to take care of Nicholas and Benjamin, for money. It is good money, I think. And the food is not bad. But the woman is…’ she looked around as if afraid of eavesdroppers ‘…she is a monster. I am sorry to say it, but it is true.’
    ‘Well…’ said Thea helplessly. ‘I’d better go back now. I suppose I’m rather like you. I have to take care of a woman’s animals, and her house, while she’s