‘An unqualified one, I understand, which I think you’ll find makes you an au pair.’
It was hard but Charlie held her tongue. Now was not the time to start a fight.
Jonathan introduced himself again and pulled forward a chair for Ruth to sit down.
‘I’m sorry but this is a family matter, you shouldn’t be here.’ Ruth was pointing at Charlie. She was clearly not one for sugar-coating what she thought.
‘Your father asked me to come,’ Charlie gave a smug smile and turned away from Ruth.
‘But he’s in a nursing home…’
‘Yep, he calls every week. He’s seized up with arthritis, Ruth, but he still has all his marbles.’
‘Well, really…’ Ruth shook her head, but said no more.
Jonathan waited a moment and when nobody else objected he cleared his throat and proceeded to read through the highlights, if you could call them that, of Helen and Toby Cobley’s wills. Written shortly after they’d had Millie, the mirror wills appointed Felix Cobley and Ruth Talbot as joint guardians and trustees. The wills were very clear that the children should be kept together, despite Toby not being Ted’s natural father.
Ted was frowning as he took in the information. The sudden loss of his parents meant he had quickly become the adult he so longed to be.
‘We’re going to be looked after by Felix?’ asked Ted.
Eleanor blew her nose and cried quietly into a tissue as Charlie tried to comfort her with one arm and restrain a bored Millie with the other.
‘Who’s Felix?’ asked Charlie, having not heard him mentioned before.
‘Will you stop interrupting?’ said Ruth, followed by a series of tutting noises.
‘How rude!’ said Charlie, but Ted was already answering her question.
‘Felix is Dad’s loser of a brother who flipped out and ran off years ago,’ explained Ted, throwing himself back into the office chair and making it topple precariously. Jonathan opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by Charlie.
‘Where does this leave us right now?’ she asked, more than a little confused by the information overload.
‘Well,’ cut in Ruth, although she was speaking directly to Jonathan. ‘As we have no contact details for Felix, that makes me effectively sole guardian.’
Jonathan gave her what looked like a very practised smile. ‘Not exactly. We have finally managed to track down Mr Cobley and we’re awaiting a response.’
‘Good luck with that,’ snorted Ted.
‘We don’t have to move house, do we?’ asked Eleanor, her eyes wide.
‘For now it’s best if everything stays as it is. We will pay all essential bills, including your salary,’ Jonathan nodded reassuringly at Charlie. ‘As long as you are happy to carry on in your role as primary care giver until a guardian is appointed. It is an unusual situation but Social Services will be able to help you through this.’ Charlie felt her stomach clench at the mention of Social Services and bile rose in her throat. Jonathan quickly passed her a pre-poured glass of water.
‘Thank you.’
Ruth was checking her watch and frowning. ‘Would you put all of this in writing and confirm what powers we have over the estate. ‘We’ being the family, obviously.’ Ruth gave a withering glance in Charlie’s direction as she stood up.
‘Only the executors, which is us, Sedgley, Steeple and Thomas, have the power to administer the estate until guardians and trustees are formally appointed. And the guardians’ appointment will be subject to Social Services’ approval.’
‘Do Aunt Ruth and Uncle Felix have to fight to the death?’ said George, leaning forward as Eleanor automatically recoiled.
‘How ridiculous!’ said Ruth. She turned to Jonathan, ‘I’ll be expecting you to send minutes of this meeting,’ she said, before addressing the children. ‘Take care of each other, and call me if you have any problems.’ This successfully made Charlie bristle but she didn’t react; instead she gave her sweetest smile as Ruth left.
Ted looked at Charlie, colour rising in his cheeks. ‘So basically, we’ve been left in their wills like an old tea set. Worst still, we’ve been left to two people, neither of whom has done anything for us in the past.’
‘Aunt Ruth sends book tokens at Christmas,’ added Eleanor, ever the voice of diplomacy, as George snorted his derision.
Ted was shaking his head. Charlie could feel the frustration emanating from him but before she could attempt to allay his fears he stood up abruptly.
‘This is bloody ridiculous!’ he bellowed before roughly pushing back his chair and stomping out of the room.
‘Bloody ridiculous!’ repeated Millie as she lifted her skirt and flashed at the solicitor. Charlie let a heavy sigh escape.
Looking back, Ted had been more than a challenge to care for; underneath his couldn’t-care-less exterior was a boy who longed to have more of his mother’s time. In Ted’s eyes Charlie’s arrival had further displaced his mother. At the start there were full-blown shouting matches between them, and Charlie had placed Ted at the top of her ‘Kipper List’.
The ‘Kipper List’ was a long list of people that Charlie would like to beat around the head with a wet kipper. Yes, a wet kipper was her weapon of choice. Over the years she had been offered various suggestions for how to manage her fiery temper and she had found this the most effective. The original suggestion had been a lot less colourful and nowhere near as effective, but Charlie’s variation seemed to work a treat. Charlie could happily visualise slapping the offending individual with a wet kipper and she felt it was a fitting approach to those who upset her, whilst unlikely to get her into any serious trouble. Charlie had only ever told one person about her ‘Kipper List’ method of anger management; a particularly uptight therapist who looked like she needed her own stress-release mechanism. However, when Charlie had explained the process the therapist had unhelpfully pointed out that kippers were not large and wet, as Charlie had described, and had provided a detailed account of the herring-to-kipper process, during which Charlie had visualised the therapist being battered senseless with a giant wet kipper whilst she herself stayed completely calm, which proved beyond doubt that the method truly worked.
Charlie made her apologies to the solicitor over the top of Millie’s repetition of ‘Bloody ridiculous!’ There were much simpler words she struggled to pronounce like ‘banana’ or ‘cereal’ but ‘bloody’ and ‘ridiculous’ evidently weren’t causing her any such issues.
As Charlie tried to herd the children through the waiting area as quickly as possible a tall blonde-haired man strode past them. He glanced at Charlie, but as he saw the miserable-looking children surrounding her he quickly turned his head away. Still, he wasn’t to know that she was only the nanny.
Back at home Ted and Charlie stared into their respective mugs.
‘What do you know about Aunt Ruth and Uncle Felix?’ asked Charlie, trying to sound relaxed, but it still came out like the start of an inquisition. Ted sighed heavily.
‘You’ve met Aunt Ruthless,’ he said, and looked up as if that was explanation enough.
‘She seems… okay,’ said Charlie, sipping her drink and avoiding eye contact.
‘Okay?’ questioned Ted. ‘Yeah, if you were stuck next to her on a train for an hour, perhaps, but okay to take the place of our parents?’ Charlie pulled a face like someone discovering a maggot in an apple.