The Nanny Read Online Free PDF

possible. The lounge and dining room had been made one room, so what looked from the outside like a tiny front room was in fact a very comfortable sitting room and adjoining dining room with extremely high ceilings.
    The living room was furnished with large, deep, white sofas on the varnished real oak floor. The walls were a different shade of deep, rich red, and a stunning Victorian fireplace stood in the center of the wall, framed by minutely detailed, shining Victorian tiles. Above it was a painting in vivid primary colors that Jo imagined must have been done by one of the children.
    In the dining room stood a splendid, vast wooden table with matching vast wooden chairs. On the walls, wrought-iron sconces held fat, misshapen candles, as did the central chandelier-style fitting. The only electric light was in the far corner, over the polished upright piano, on top of which sat two descant recorders. Next to them languished a slow-blinking cream cat, staring at her. Jo started at its first blink, feeling she’d been caught red-handed, spying. She smiled shamefacedly at it before tutting at herself and looking away.
    Every window was a sympathetically updated sash, and the curtains were a sumptuous, even darker, richer red than the walls, tied back by dramatic wrought-iron fittings.
    Jo heard the sound of a man and a young woman saying their good-byes in the hall, the woman very obliging, the man monosyllabic. Then the front door shut and after a moment of silence she heard the man say loudly, “Sweet mother of Jesus.”
    Jo sat down quickly as the living room door opened and the man appeared. She stood up again.
    â€œJo Green?”
    â€œYes.” Jo walked toward him, and the man nodded briefly, before saying, “Follow me.”
    Jo had already put her hand out to be shaken, and the man seemed somewhat taken aback.
    â€œOh,” he said, coming forward into the room and shaking her hand. “Dick Fitzgerald.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, Mr. Fitzgerald,” said Jo.
    â€œOh, Dick, please. Pleased to meet you too. Um, do follow me.”
    Dick led Jo down a narrow corridor to the back of the house, where he opened the door for her and followed her into the kitchen.
    â€œMy wife will be along in a minute,” he told Jo’s back.
    Jo hardly heard. She was standing in the biggest, brightest kitchen she’d ever seen—the size of her parents’ entire downstairs floor. Ceiling spotlights shone in the distance onto a glass table in a separate dining area from which enormous, elaborate French doors led onto a perfectly proportioned, perfectly manicured, long, narrow garden. Upon the table languished another cream cat, staring at her like a frosty queen, and Jo wondered uneasily whether this was a twin of the cat on the piano or the piano cat’s idea of a joke. Unnerved, she edged farther into the room. The kitchen was painted a color she didn’t even know the name of. Was it purple? Lavender? Blue? Lilac?
    She kept on walking, and round the corner in an extended conservatory to the side was a matching (purple? lavender? blue? lilac?) two-seatersofa. Opposite it was the biggest television she had ever seen in her life. She tried not to gasp. The television was so large it was practically another presence in the room. Her dad would be in paradise in this kitchen. All he’d need was a toilet attached and he’d never want for anything. Sod it, he’d make do with a potty. She noticed that the two-seater opposite the television had a throw folded over one arm—the room’s one concession for life with children. This must be the nanny’s habitat. She found herself grinning. She could be very happy here.
    Dick offered her a seat and she sat down at the glass table. She tried not to look at her legs and feet through the glass, but it was a most odd sensation. She followed Dick with her eyes as he tidied some mugs away into the dishwasher. This kitchen had