Outsourcing: A short story by Philippa Gregory
She is a fashion editor on the internet. I don’t really know what She does – I didn’t like to ask. She wears funny shoes: sandals in Winter, rigger boots in Summer. Once, I thought She had her coat on back-to-front and didn’t know whether I should say anything; but no, it buttons at the back. And She always wears orange lipstick. She didn’t tell me what to call her so for the last three months, since I’ve been their nanny, I just say ‘Her’. He says he is a soi-disant commentator/critic of the new media. I said how interesting.
They have two children, Caspar and Dolores. Dolly is two and beautiful, except she will make mad faces and cross her eyes. The first time I saw her do it, I thought she was having a fit, but She said, ‘Oh Dolly, get real,’ and put away her camera. When Dolly was a baby they did photoshoots with her, but now She says Dolly is ‘Facebookphobic’.
She pats Caspar on the head as he lies in his vibrating bouncer, buzzing slightly like a tired bee. ‘Nobody’s going to pap you.’
His head is very big for his body and he has fine fair hair so he looks quite bald. She makes him wear a toddler helmet, just to hide this.
‘You’ll love this trip,’ She says. ‘It’ll be such fun for you.’ The bright orange lips part in a smile.
She holds up her camera and takes a selfie. In the background, Dolly lolls her head to one side and crosses her eyes as if she’s being strangled. Luckily, her mother doesn’t notice.
It is not such fun for me. It’s a long drive to Dover and when we get on the ferry our cabin has two tiny bunks, no cots. He says: ‘Get whatever you like in the café,’ and then we don’t see them again till the morning. I spend the night holding the children into the one tiny bunk. They wake up and cry alternately. They cry again as we get back in the car for the long drive south. He switches on the satnav.
‘Don’t you know the way by now?’
‘I’ve outsourced my memory,’ He laughs.
Caspar whimpers, and Dolly says loudly: ‘Baby is crying!’
‘Can’t you do something?’ He asks her. She nods her head towards me. ‘I’ve outsourced motherhood.’
We drive for hours before we stop at a little town for breakfast, but they don’t have a proper cooked breakfast, and the children eat croissants. He says it was expensive. She says it wasn’t. He asks what the exchange rate is and when She doesn’t know, He taps her phone and says, ‘Outsource! Outsource! Nobody needs to know anything any more.’
Caspar is fretting. ‘Give him some Calpol,’ She says. ‘It’s probably his teeth.’
It isn’t. But I do. We drive for hours. Both babies sleep so I close my eyes too, and then we are drawing up outside an enormous house that looks like Buckingham Palace and this is where we’re going to have lunch. I bring my cool-bag with me because it might look like the Queen’s house but I don’t mind betting they won’t have organic rice cakes or line-caught fish fingers.
By the time I’ve got Dolly and Caspar in the buggy, it’s all going wrong at the reception desk. She can’t speak French and neither can He. Then He brings a little gadget like a camera out of his pocket, and he holds it high and says very loudly: ‘One table for two in the dining room, and one table for our Nanny and two high chairs in the bar. Do you understand me?’
The manager behind the desk and the receptionist look at us as if He is quite mad, as He points this thing at them, and it booms out, loudly, in French. The manager can’t stop laughing as he waves them forward.
‘Result,’ She says.
They go into the posh dining room overlooking a rose garden and Caspar and Dolly and I have lunch in the bar. They eat almost nothing because they are doing baby-led weaning; I am not allowed to mash anything up or spoon-feed them. They suck on carrots and I watch them, praying they don’t choke.
Lunch takes a long time in France and then we all get back in the car, which is like an oven, and drive some more. Beyond the walls of the motorway are huge fields of sunflowers with their faces all turned to the right. Then we are on a smaller road running alongside a sea – amazingly blue, brilliant blue – and then there is a jumble of a tiny village, and we turn into a driveway with huge gates and She says: ‘I’m completely trashed.’
Out of the house comes an old lady, white hair drawn back into a bun, in a long flowing black silk tunic and trousers. She has bare feet and silver bracelets on her arms. This is his aunt, they stay with her every year because it’s free.
‘Welcome!’ she kisses them on both cheeks as if she were French, and she crouches down to see Caspar. ‘You’ve grown!’ And then she says something that makes me like her a lot: ‘Handsome boy.’
‘And you must be Elizabeth,’ she rises up as I get out of the car with Dolly in my arms. ‘You’re very welcome, my dear. You can call me Madame Just.’
She leads the way into the house and it is suddenly cool and quiet. The house faces the sea, but all the shutters are closed on the windows that overlook the dazzling bay so that the room is striped with shadows.
He sits down on a white leather sofa and says how glad he is to be here at last, and how much they enjoyed last year. She agrees: ‘It was very real.’
Madame blinks a little at having her reality confirmed; and says that she is giving a party to celebrate the publication of her novel. He says quickly that it’s mega.
‘You read it? I thought you never read more than 140 characters?’
‘I outsource,’ he says without shame. ‘Zadie read it for me.’
I know for a fact that she didn’t.
‘You’ll want to wash,’ Madame says. ‘You’re in your usual rooms. You must show Elizabeth the pool. I bet the children will love it.’
Caspar goes to sleep easily, like he always does. Even Dolly is overwhelmed by the cool quietness of the high-vaulted room and her long eyelashes flutter on her cheek until she is still, one hand stretched out to Caspar in the cot beside her.
Reluctantly, I leave the peace of the nursery and go down the curving marble stairs towards the chatter of a small party. Everyone’s out on the terrace, overlooking the sea. It’s warm, the golden stone of the house reflects the sun as it slides behind the mountains. The sea grows darker, and there are swallows swooping round the high roofs.
Then He comes out with Her behind him and they are both stiff with anger. I am terrified that they are looking for me, as their piercing gaze rakes the party and their heads turn with one movement, but then I see that they are looking beyond me, at Madame Just.
He stalks over. ‘What do you mean by it? Is it supposed to be some sort of joke?’
She is calm. ‘I take it that you have looked at my new novel. I rather hoped you would read it before publication.’
‘When do I have time?’ he demands. ‘I’m time-starved.’
‘We’re 24/7,’ She agrees. ‘365.’
‘The Times called it a biting analysis of the emptiness of modern life,’ Madame says steadily.
‘It’s my life!’ He shouts.
She butts in, flicking her black fingernails to count. ‘The main character’s wife is a fashion editor, she wears orange lipstick. They live where we live, they have two children, that they ignore. She’s a bitch. He’s a fool.’ She breaks off, her fingers raised, as if she has just realised what she is saying.
‘You’ve taken us!’ he explodes.
‘You have taken us and put us into your bloody novel. That’s plagiarism. It’s identity theft.’ He flings her novel down on a sun lounger and I see the pages flutter in the mild wind.
Madame smiles at him, gently, as if his rage is interesting. ‘I watched you, and I took the worst of you and made it into a fiction,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t you call that outsourcing?’
Philippa Gregory is an internationally renowned author of historical fiction and holds a PhD in 18th-century literature from the University of Edinburgh. Works that have been adapted for television include A Respectable Trade, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. Philippa Gregory lives in the North of England with her family. Her latest book is Normal Women, out now.
You Might Also Like
