Pascale Smets - And God Created the Au Pair

From: Nell Fenton

To: Charlotte Bailey

Am v envious. Cynthia continues to exceed my expectations and I think may prove to be the worst cleaner I have ever had. She has told me that she’s here in Canada on refugee status and although she wants to get more work it is very hard (possibly because she’s so useless?). Means she is completely reliant on the money she earns from me and can’t get welfare. Obviously this means if I sack her I will burn in hell.

From: Charlotte Bailey

To: Nell Fenton

Bloody hell, Keith and Gerry have worked all w/e and central heating still not fixed. Interestingly, while it is working v well in basement & on top floor, middle 2 floors are still freezing. Children have all caught nasty colds, no doubt caused by sharp climate change as you walk through the house. Although now v nippy out don’t dare crank up existing heating any more as am fearful that downstairs warm front will meet middle-floor cold front precipitating rainfall in hallway. Have hot water in the basement but am not prepared to bath in kitchen. Also Albert very huffy about Keith the interloper and keeps lifting floorboards to inspect his work and then shaking his head disapprovingly. Unfortunately am quite certain it is only a matter of time before Albert shares his misgivings about Keith & Gerry’s workmanship with me & I really don’t think I can stand another conversation about pipework or ‘rads’ though at least Albert calls them radiators.

From: Nell Fenton

To: Charlotte Bailey

Any builder worth his salt thrives on delivering bad news. Probably wise to prepare yourself for the worst about the job they’re doing. We’ve been preparing for Hallowe’en which is a lot of fun here, much bigger deal than in England. Shops have been full of pumpkins, hay bales and eight-foot bunches of corn on the cob stalks for ages (purpose is rustic decoration). I’ve bought all of the above in rush of excitement. Children are going to attend school in costume (racks of them in every supermarket so trouble-free). Ollie is going to be a Teletubby – Tinky Winky? the gay purple one at any rate, Rob is a dinosaur, and Josie is a witch.

From: Charlotte Bailey

To: Nell Fenton

Don’t think Tinky Winky is v scary unless you are a homophobic anorexic, frightened of the colour purple. Hugh is accompanying the girls to a friend’s Hallowe’en party. I’ve made him an excellent miniature dracula cape. He looks adorable in it & is v proud. E & M skeleton & witch respectively.

From: Nell Fenton

To: Charlotte Bailey

Different here, you can dress up in any costume, doesn’t have to relate to Hallowe’en. Bit of a shame I think but have compensated by putting lots of spiders and bats on all the window sills round the house.

From: Charlotte Bailey

To: Nell Fenton

Albert & Keith have finally come face to face. Not good. I didn’t really understand their conversation but I think Albert asked Keith some provocative questions about BTUs & stopcocks. Anyway Keith is really pissed off and asked me if ‘that old geezer’ will be around much. Was mendacious enough to say no as although Albert at the moment spends all day, every day here, Keith is working evenings & weekends so am reasonably confident I should be able to keep them apart.

From: Nell Fenton

To: Rachel Lockwood

Re: Happy Birthday

Dear Rachel, hope you are having a lovely day. You will no doubt be impressed that I am emailing you on the ACTUAL day of your birthday AND I have also sent your present (several days ago in fact) instead of my more usual practice of storing it in a drawer for 4 months. Hope you like it, would say you can change it if you don’t, but that would be a lie. Love Nell

From: Rachel Lockwood

To: Nell Fenton

Dear Nell

It’s true I am deeply impressed, and the beautiful sweater arrived today. I absolutely love it and only one day after my birthday, which is frighteningly competent of you (but we mustn’t underestimate the pleasure of getting a birthday present at a totally random time of year – I say this in self-defence as I can never live up to the new you). I wish I could say Jack had put as much thought into his present, but actually he gave me some CDs and a coffee-table book on historic houses (yes, a coffee-table book though I am in fact his wife and not his hard-to-buy-for great-uncle). He’d clearly bought the presents on his way back from work the night before and quite frankly I’m so fed up with him generally, I don’t think I’d even have bothered to feign delight if it hadn’t been for Jonathan’s eager little face watching me across the breakfast table. I think he felt a bit guilty because he promised to come home early and take me out for dinner but of course he phoned later and said he’d been held up, so that was that. Sorry for the long whine and thank you again for my lovely present.

Fondest love to all

Rachel xx

From: Charlotte Bailey

To: Nell Fenton

Hate people who talk about being stressed out, consider it to be poofy middle-class whingeing & v naff, so have come up with different expression to describe current state of mind. Think I will say am feeling very highly strung (good as this also implies v well bred & posh). Anyway am feeling v highly strung about central-heating situation as Walt & Lou arrive next week & last night after much hammering followed by silence followed by ‘FUCK, FUCK, FUUUUUUUCK!’ water started pouring through the living-room ceiling. Keith says ceiling will be fine as water ‘rushed through’ rather than trickled. Not quite sure why that’s better but according to Keith it is. As Keith & Gerry are moonlighting all work takes place in the evenings or at weekends. Laying pipes etc necessitates great deal of hammering, fine during the day but tricky at night when you are trying to get offspring to go to bloody sleep. Can’t exactly tell them to stop, as then they would stop. Floorboards up all over the house, a great hazard for someone as clumsy as me (narrowly missed putting my foot through spare-room ceiling). Furthermore, Hugh has discovered untold delight of lifting unsecured floorboards & placing girls’ (& my) cherished possessions under them. When we realised he was doing this subsequent under-board hunt turned up several items including my diaphragm, rather embarrassingly found by Gerry who feigned not knowing what it was – thank God it was in its case so we could both pretend it was my dentures.

From: Nell Fenton

To: Charlotte Bailey

Dentures a very clever deception, after all would be terrible if Gerry suspected you sometimes have sex with your husband. Much less embarrassing to have lost all your teeth by your mid-thirties.

From: Charlotte Bailey

To: Nell Fenton

Re: Hugh’s debut as Count Dracula

I allowed Ellie to be in charge of painting his face & slicking back his hair in Dracula-type mode. Unfortunately she was unsupervised when she did it so instead of using large pot of gel, prominently placed on basin for this exact purpose, she elected to scrabble through my bathroom cabinet until she found ancient pot of Vaseline which she used instead. Ana Frid has now washed Hugh’s hair about 1000 times (so convenient in a tin bath) but to no avail as he still looks like a v short bouncer from Stringfellow’s.

From: Nell Fenton

To: Charlotte Bailey

Our Hallowe’en was something of a partial success. There was trick or treating at our fancy local mall where bored and snooty shop owners stood in the doorways of their shops handing out candy, then we moved on to the houses in our neighbourhood. Called at Suzette’s but couldn’t linger as Rob traumatised by the crazed barking of her vile, jumpy, licky dogs. Suzette was in full costume, dressed as a serving wench and she told me with a trill of girlish laughter that she’s ‘crazy about Hallowe’en and the kids would be so mad at her if she didn’t dress up’ (surprising as Sophie had opened the door for us with her usual morose expression and wearing grungy jeans and a sweatshirt). This episode has proved that Suzette is much more young-at-heart than me (even my own treacherous children asked how come I didn’t dress up like Suzette). Also she is a crafty dresser because wench costume perfect for someone like her who has quite decent boobs but a really fat arse. Anyhow we soon gave up, so many people out half the houses didn’t answer and Rob wouldn’t even approach the ones where there was barking. Will have to plan more carefully next year.