The Three Halves of Martyn Manning--Chapter Thirteen: Induction - Part One

August
sank into September, though you wouldn’t have known. A little
chillier perhaps, a little cloudier maybe, dusk came slightly
earlier, but nothing that would make you particularly notice. He
still went to the office every day, still walked to The Curlew Cafe
at one o’clock to buy a sandwich to eat at his desk for lunch. His
PA, Suze, still brought him coffee at eleven and tea at four.
Margaret still served the Three Amigos (as she called them) in The
Feathers on a Friday night. Charlie was still in work at the building
contractor. Simon had sacked his useless assistant and replaced her
with another young girl, a girl without a first class degree in
marketing from Oxford Brookes. She was as keen as mustard and Simon
was very happy with his decision. The Tyler-Morgan’s never did
respond to Monika Radountcheva’s requests for a meeting or chat
with Martyn.

Then
one day in the second week of September Elena came to the Old Rectory
and a week later Caroline left for St Andrews. The handover week was
a great success. Immediately on Elena’s arrival Caroline sensibly
took a back seat and let Elena take control, and from what Martyn
could see the kids loved her and everything ran so smoothly you would
never have known there was a new hand on the tiller. Martyn’s
impressions were confirmed by Caroline who not only praised Elena’s
professional skills but said that she really liked her, would like to
think they could become friends, and would keep in touch from
university. On a couple of occasions Martyn even found himself
feeling guilty and disloyal when he caught himself comparing Caroline
and Elena and wondering if Elena was actually the better nanny. There
was only one incident where things didn’t go entirely to plan. Back
in Somerset Elena’s Skoda had a manual gearbox and she hadn’t
ever actually driven an automatic since passing her driving test in
Timisoara seven years before. Caroline’s Focus on the other hand,
which she was bequeathing to Elena, was automatic. On the day after
her arrival at The Old Rectory Elena was driving Caroline and the
kids back from school through the country lanes and was chatting to
the kids so perhaps she wasn’t concentrating as much as she should
have been. Then without thinking she went to change gear,
inadvertently stepping quite harshly onto the brake rather than the
intended clutch and executing a ferocious and completely unexpected
emergency stop in the middle of the Oxfordshire countryside. There
was no-one following behind to shunt them and all of them were
wearing seat-belts so no-one was hurt and they all made a joke of it.
In fact the kids thought it hilarious and laughed like drains as they
recounted the story to Martyn, who in turn found the whole episode
amusing rather than disturbing. Other than that everything went like
a dream and Martyn was very happy. In fact, he was so happy that when
on her third day Elena pulled Martyn aside and asked that the week’s
hand-over not be counted toward the two week orientation period he
acquiesced without a thought.

The
Friday night of the hand-over week found Martyn, as usual, in The
Feathers with Charlie and Simon, who were both of course agog to hear
his news. The pub was more crowded than usual, with a grouse shooting
after-party of late middle-aged men loudly and drunkenly declaiming
their heroics. The three of them had to raise their voices to be
heard. Martyn tried his best to avoid the subject of Elena as long as
he could, partly to tease them, partly because he didn’t want to
listen to Charlie’s salacious innuendo, and partly because he was
tired and just couldn’t be bothered. Unfortunately for Martyn, both
Charlie and Simon had already had a couple of pints before he joined
them and at the first brief lull in conversation Charlie could no
longer contain his curiosity.

“So
Smeggie, what’s going down with that new nanny of yours? I saw her
in the drive the other day when I was walking past your house. She
looks pretty smart. So come on, spill the beans to the boyz! Tell us
all about her. We need to know! We have a right to know!”

“You
have no rights Charles. But if you insist, what do you want to know?
She’s twenty-six, Romanian, she’s been nannying here for about
five years. She was working for a family in Somerset who are moving
abroad but they gave her an outstanding reference and so far she
seems to be doing a great job. I’m really happy with her.”

“And?
Go on. What’s she called?”

“Her
name is Elena, Elena Florescu, for all that it matters to you
Charles. ”

“Oooo!
Pretty name. And any chance of….you know…”

“ ‘I
know’ what Charles?”

“You
know, any chance of a bit of the old rumpy-pumpy? Christ, I would if
I got half a chance.”

“No
Charles, not a chance. Absolutely not. You never shit on your own
doorstep. You should know that. And anyway, you know me, I never mix
business and pleasure, it never ends well.” (Not really a lie, he
thought, it was a business relationship, not an affair.)

As
Martyn finished speaking a disembodied voice interrupted.

“Are
you talking about your new nanny Mart?”

The
three of them all turned to look in the direction from which the
voice came and saw a stockily built young man of about thirty sat at
a nearby table, alone except for a half drunk pint of lager and a
tabloid newspaper folded in front of him. He was still in his oily
work overalls. None of the boys would ever have called Billy a close
friend of theirs, but they all knew him from their days with the
village football team, and certainly no-one would dream of objecting,
in fact he was welcomed, when he sometimes joined them on their
Friday night drinking sessions. He was the village mechanic from the
garage across the road, and he was actually highly respected by the
locals for his work. Having said that, in a village environment you
have little choice but to provide an efficient and cost effective
service. Otherwise word would get round in minutes and you’d be
dead in the water.

“Hi
Billy. How you doing? And how the hell did you know it was my new
nanny?”

“I
just saw her going past the garage in Caroline’s car. You said you
were getting a new nanny and I presumed it must be her. She looked
like she might be pretty fit.”

“I
wouldn’t know mate. She’s just the nanny to me. But why are you
asking? I thought you were seeing that Jane bird from Dempsey Road?”

“Nah,
that’s all finished. Too much baggage. What’s your new nanny’s
name anyway?”

“Well
it happens to be Elena, not that it’s any of your business. You
keep away from her young man. She’s got enough on without you
sniffing round. Anyway, have you had any good scraps recently?”

Billy
had a certain reputation, for both women and violence. Get enough
villagers together with enough beer inside them and it wouldn’t be
long before someone would bring up the time at the Oxford United
ground when he’d single-handedly charged a large group of Wycombe
Wanderers fans waving a pick-axe handle. Martyn himself had seen
Billy get sent off in the first minute of a match against their local
rivals for punching their centre-forward in the throat then stamping
on his head as he lay on the ground.

“Oh
leave it out Mart. Those days are over. You know that. I’m a
reformed character.”

“Yeah
right. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

At
which point someone from the grouse shooting party knocked over a
pint and after enjoying the ensuing recriminations the conversation
moved on.