The Male Nanny

  I am with my friend, Sam, in the park. We are strolling, drifting, talking, laughing. We are doing what everyone should do with their life, every day. A sparse canopy teases us from above: Shade, sun, shade, sun, shade again. We pass an open field, with uninterrupted exposure to the sun, and opt to bask in it. It is a joyous scene; there is beer, smiles and women in bikinis. It is peaceful, mildly windy; the sort of wind that caresses you.

“This is lovely”, says Sam. It is.

The calm is broken by the sound of thumping feet and screaming. I turn my head. A group of teenagers have descended on the green and are interrupting a family’s football game. Poor family.

I look closer. Oh no.

“Sam, the 14 year old is with that group of kids over there”.

“Ha-ha! Do you want to move?”

“Yes. I’ll walk in front of you. Shield me.”

“I’d quite like to meet he-”

“Shut up”.

We stand up casually and begin walking. We are approaching the edge of the green. We are almost off the green. We are off the green. We are on the path. We have turned left. We are out of sight. Phew.

No, someone is screaming my name. Lots of people are screaming my name, adding a ‘y’ at the end, as they do. Sam and I pick up the pace. A public toilet is located about 100 meters ahead of us; shelter, safety. We are on the cusp of running. In fact, we may be running. The screams are running too. My jeans are falling down. Sam is sweating. We are sprinting. We are ridiculous, flapping, flailing in our flip flops. We skid into the toilets and pack into a cubicle. Breathless. We can hear the herd approaching, thudding, and screeching.

“Do you think they saw us turn into the toilets?”

“Dunno.”

The mob have stopped. We can hear them speaking:

“OH MY GOD where did they go? I SWEAR they were running away from us”.

Sam and I are now sweating profusely, panting ludicrously. And it stinks, as toilets do. We wait in sweltering silence for a few minutes. Our breathing patterns return to normal. We open the cubical door. We creep out, tentatively. Sam goes to the entrance and looks out onto the path.

“It’s clear”, he says, and, as he does, a pack of 14 year old girls pile past him, screaming, into the toilets. For a moment, Sam is lost in the stampede. I cannot see him. They circle me, chanting my name, prodding me. I look for Sam again, I still cannot see him. He has escaped. They are saying things to me, all at once. The heat is overwhelming and I begin panting again. I feel dizzy. I am suffocating in a frenzied pissy steam room of 14 year old girls. I am Justin fucking Bieber.

I fight my way out, into the light. I emerge, the girls trailing me. Passers-by stare, in horror. I scan the scene for Sam. I call his name. He emerges, hands in pockets. They circle again.

“Calm down, calm down!” I plead, and relative quiet ensues. “Hello, how are you? And who are your friends?” I ask the 14 year old.

She introduces her friends. I introduce Sam, who looks petrified.

“Right. It was lovely to meet you all. We are walking that way, so have a lovely day”.

“We are walking that way too”, they respond in unison.

For the next ten minutes of our walk we are flanked by this throng of teens, all of whom appear to be high, or on a sugar rush, or just mad.

“Have you got a girlfriend?” They ask Sam.

“Yes”.

“Is she fit?”

“Yes”.

“Has she got big tits?”

And before Sam can answer, a barrage of sexual questions…

“Have you done a 69er?”

“How often do you have sex?”

“Once a day is good for your heart”.

“No just once an anniversary is enough”.

“Have you done anal?”

“Have you got a big dick?”

I spot a boy in the group and I worry he is not being included, so I ask him his name.

“Hershy, and she’s my ex”, he says, pointing to one of the girls.

 “Ex? What happened?” I ask.

They look at each other and he says:

“She was too frigid”, and the girl nods. A bizarre moment, so bizarre it is able to stand out in this utterly peculiar episode.

Eventually, they agree to leave us alone. Their screams gradually disappear into the ether. Sam and I walk in silence for a few minutes. He looks shell shocked. His t-shirt is soaked, sticking to him.

“I told you: Madness. That’s what I have to put up with”, I say.

“One of them asked me if I’d ever put my finger up my arse”, he replies.

The Male Nanny

  The sink in the 5 year old’s bedroom is ugly and impractical. It is too high for her to use properly. When she has finished brushing her teeth, she must adopt a Napoleonic pose, cock her head backwards and spit upwards, in the direction of the sink. Like her mother, she is striving to hit a spot that is not hit-able, because the angle of her approach is entirely misjudged. The sink is a testament to the rotten bordeom resulting from excessive wealth. When you can have anything, nothing feels good. So you buy increasingly unnecessary things, desperately trying to quell your sadness with possessions. It is only when you relinquish your obsession with possession that the sadness will be quelled.

The family have the required fixtures for the successful function of each room. A cooker in the kitchen, a table in the dining room, a piano in the music room and so on. But this isn’t enough. They have TVs in bathrooms, sinks in bedrooms, DVD players in cars and speakers in steam rooms. I cannot envisage where it might end. Perhaps with a swimming pool in the laundry room. It is a pursuit that can be personified by its relentless futility and illogicality.

The most insensible aspect of all this mindlessness is the newly installed phone in the 5 year old’s room. Now, after I put her to bed, she calls her mother, whose mobile number she has memorised. I listen in on these conversations and they usually start with a lie:

“Mum, my tongue is a funny colour and he says he doesn’t care”.

“Mum, he sent me to bed without dinner”.

“Mum, he has locked me in my room”.

Last night, having put her to bed, I headed down to the kitchen, ready to chuckle at some elaborate accusation. I hear her breathing into the phone, then I hear her dialling the number, slowly, saying each number as she taps it. It starts ringing…

But something else is ringing. It must be the mother’s phone. I scan the room, looking for a glow. Nothing. She must have left it here! Brilliant. I compose myself, and my ears lead me to a cushion. I lift it up. Bingo. I think fast, probably too fast, and answer, and this is what I say, in a gruff voice:

“Hello, police”.

There is silence at the other end of the line. Then, some breathing. Then, cool as a cucumber:

“He has locked me in my room. My tongue is blue. Come quick”.

The Male Nanny

  I put the 5 year old to bed and head downstairs. I am clearing the table when I hear her calling. I give it ten shouts, then head up. As I make my way through the floors, it becomes clear it is the 14 year old calling, not the 5 year old.

I go into her room. She is lying on her bed, staring at her laptop. It is her favourite pose. I am in there for no more than 3 minutes. I present to you a gift: A transcript of our conversation.

Me:         “Are you calling me?”

14 YO:   “Yeah, come in, talk to me”.

Me:         “Okay. What are you doing?”

14 YO:   “Looking at the guy I got off with on Facebook. Come have a look”.

Me:         “Okay”.

14 YO:   “He’s hot isn’t he?”

Me:         “Yeah he’s quite handsome”.

14 YO:   “You are such a fag”.

14 YO:   “Want to see the girl everyone fancies in our school?”

Me:         “Sure”.

14 YO:   “She’s hot isn’t she?”

Me:         “She’s pretty”.

14 YO:   “You are such a paedo”.

14 YO:     “Want to see the girl who sucked off two guys in one night?”

Me:          “Sure”.

14 YO:    ”Would you let her give you a blow job?”

Me:         “No, she’s 13”.

14 YO:   “You are such a loser”.

14 YO:   “Want to see my ex-boyfriend?”

Me:         “Okay”.

14  YO:  ”He’s ugly isnt he?”

Me:         “Yeah he is”.

14 YO:   “Shut up. When will you accept my friend request on Facebook?”

Me:         “Never”.

14 YO:   “Go away”.

I feel we have a connection.

The Male Nanny.

  I arrive at the school fair. I stand by the gates and call the mum, as instructed. She appears and, rather than pay for me to get in, pleads with the woman at the gate:

“He is our nanny”.

I don’t know how this plea works, but I am in and I haven’t paid the £2 admission fee. The fair is being held in the grounds of the school, and it is heaving. The mother rushes off to tend to her stall, asking me to find the four year old as she flees. People everywhere, talking, do not notice me. It is refreshing. I am normally the subject of stares. I am a deer, passing through the aftermath of slaughter: the lions do not smell me, their noses are too deep in dead flesh. I saunter around, blissfully unnoticed. I catch tail ends and opening gambits of conversation. I try to piece these morsels together, a verbal jigsaw, to form full conversation, but nothing fits. I should be looking for the four year old, but I am distracted and enthralled. This is a world that will never truly embrace me, but I can penetrate it. Faces pass me at an alarming rate. They are pale and bald, or pale and grey. I squeeze through, I am not a parent, nor a child. This event does not cater for me. I pass stalls. Children are running them and there is no queuing system; rather, a clamour. Prizes are being given out when they shouldn’t be, and withheld wrongly. A tension exists. Good money is being turned away as the young proprietors are too flustered to find the change. Failures in this sense cheer me up – the private school is raising money to build something. Never has there been a more unworthy cause. Someone is calling me:

“Over here!”

It is one of the four year old’s friends. She is standing by a football game. She rushes over to me, grabs my hand and leads me to it.

“This boy is so good at football. He will get loads of points”, she announces. Then, an aside to me:

“I really want the teddy bear. Will you give it to me if you win?”

A small crowd has gathered. People have heard the girl’s announcement. I do not want to do this, but I cannot pull out. A dad, thinking I am a dad, slaps my back and says:

“The pressure’s on here mate”.

I hand over 50p. This gives me 5 shots. The ball is placed right in front of the goal. I take it upon myself to move it back, to make it harder. A ripple of excitement goes through the crowd. My confidence has startled them. There are various targets to hit within the goal, with different points available for each. The friend of the four year old does not look at me as I line up my first shot – her eyes are on the teddy.

My first shot it good, but not good enough. It grazes a target. The crowd remain. My second shot goes into the goal, but not via any targets. My third shot misses the goal. Some of the crowd dissipate. The four year old’s friends narrows her eyes at me. My fourth shot hits the post and my fifth is a frustrated whack which goes over. The four year old’s friend says nothing, and marches off. The crowd do not quite boo, but they turn away: A very middle-class boo. I hang my head.

There is still no sign of the four year old. I spot a cake stand and guess she might be there. I begin walking towards it when I feel a smack on the back of my legs. I turn around. It is the four year old, arm in arm with her unhappy friend.

“Why didn’t you win the teddy for her?”, demands the four year old.

“I tried, I was just unlucky”.

“Well you promised her the teddy”.

“I didn’t”.

“Well you did, and you didn’t get it. So now you must buy it”.

“I can’t buy it, it’d be unethical. It’s got to be won”.

“What?”.

Her friend remains silent, but is clearly still annoyed with me. I give the four year old a pound. She accepts this compensation and they both run off.

I am need a drink, but the squash is 20p a cup and I have no change. I spot a half empty cup of squash, sitting on a bench. I walk over, casually. I sit down and survey the scene. No-one is looking. Quick as lightning, I grasp the cup and throw the squash down my neck. I instantly feel better. There is a rustle in the bush behind the bench. An angry blonde boy of about 6 appears:

“Why did you just drink my squash!?”

The Male Nanny.

  Today, as is often the case, I had a mission. I was to get the four year old to make a card for her friend. I was informed of this mission yesterday, so purchased some nice, expensive card to work with.

The four year old hates lots of things, but her top three hates are:

1. Doing what she has been told. 
2. Making cards.
3. Criminals.

I approach the mission with some reverse psychology, which often works on the four year old.

“Today, I really don’t want to make a card for your friend”, I say.

“Let’s make a card for my friend!”, she says.

I hand her a piece of card.

“What could you draw on the front? What does your friend like?”

“I know”, she says. She begins drawing with her left hand and covers her work with her right.

When she is done, she lifts her hands up gleefully, revealing that she has scrawled the word ‘poo’ on the front of the card. I explain that the paper is very precious and that she cannot waste it. She seems to understand. She takes a new sheet and begins drawing some pretty flowers. I leave her alone, to check on the pasta.

When I return, she is chuckling, and the word ‘bum’ has been scrawled over the flowers.

“Okay”, I say, calmly. “You haven’t listened, so we won’t make your friend a card”. I take the nice card with me to the kitchen, where I begin cooking the broccoli.

As I am draining the broccoli, the four year old dashes in, snatches the expensive card off the table and sprints upstairs. She has her back facing me and is ripping up the card. I am tired and pissed off. I do what anyone would do in this situation: I flick her the finger. It is a victimless de-stressing tool. My middle finger is still aimed at her back, when the 12 year old returns and looks at me though the kitchen window.

 I have some explaining to do.

The Male Nanny.

  Every so often, the dad likes to get involved. One of the things he likes to say is: “Take the 12 year old for a run”.

The 12 year old puts his trainers on. We run to the end of the road, then we walk to the shop for sweets. We walk to the local park. We sit on a bench and chat.

Girls in his year have started dishing out blow-jobs, and he is keen on one.

“What is your advice?” he asks.

“For what?”

“Blow-jobs”.

“Enjoy them”.

“What should I do with my hands?”

“Massage her head”.

I steer the conversation towards their previous nannies. He tells me several have left after accusing the mum of bullying them. Several have stolen things and never been seen again. None have lasted more than six months.

“My mum is a bitch though, don’t you think?”

“She is… particular”.

He steers the conversation back to girls.

“They only give blow-jobs to guys with six packs. I don’t have a six-pack”.

“Why”?

“I don’t do sit ups”.

“No, why do they give blow-jobs to guys with six-packs”?

“Because they look good.”

“I don’t think they look good”.

“They do”.

I steer the conversation back to his mum.

“Why do you think she is a bitch?”

“She is always in a bad mood so she thinks everyone else should be”.

“Why do you think she is in a bad mood?”

“Because she is bored. What is lube?”

We begin ambling back home. When the mansion is in sight, we sprint towards it, so we are convincingly out of breath when we return.

“How was the run?” asks dad.

“Hard”, says the twelve year old.

“He’s improving”, I say to the dad.

The Male Nanny.

  I am at another birthday party. It is in a park and it is beautifully sunny. A patchwork of rugs makes up the hub of the party. On it, there is celery, crisps, fruit, squash and adults. The children play around us, on the grass. An old man begins to talk to me. He is the grandfather of the birthday girl. He has a season ticket at Fulham and he enchants me with football tales from the 50’s. I like this old man. Our chats are punctuated by sips of beer and glances at the children, who are playing nicely. One adult is trying to orchestrate a game of Frisbee. I watch as the Frisbee is fumbled by every child. But not my one - she catches it with ease and distributes it with grace. I taught her that.

“Please take off my jumper”, says the old man.

“Excuse me?”

“Could you please take off my jumper. I find it very hard to do on my own”.

“Of course”, I reply, and remove his jumper.

The old man doesn’t ask me what I do, and I do not ask him. He asks me about my interests instead. He knows that one’s job does not define oneself.

When the kids are sweaty and knackered, lunch time is called. They all pile onto the rug and plough into the food. Re-fuelled, the children roam back onto the green and continue to have fun. The old man once lived in New York, but he tells me you cannot see the sky there.

It is nearing time to return to the house for present opening and cake. The birthday girl’s mum gathers all the children on the rug, in an attempt to calm them before they are let loose in her home. They sit obediently, expectantly, their noses and foreheads moist, their hair matted.

“Right”, says the mum, “who has a song they’d like to sing?”

I panic. The four year old knows Rude Boy by Rihanna. But she is too tired to embarrass me. A child suggests Twinkle Twinkle, and everyone joins in.

“What about nursery rhymes? Does anyone know any of those?”

There is a silence, before one boy belts out Baa Baa Black Sheep. A classic - concluded with a cheer.

“Any other songs or rhymes that anyone knows?” asks the mum.

The old man removes his glasses, and places his head in his hands. He rubs his brow. He tuts and clicks his fingers. He is trying to summon something from his brain. The children look to him, we all do.

“Ohhh what is it?”, he mutters, with a brain mustering slap of his knee.

“I think granddad has got one”, says the mum, “Come on granddad, or someone else will choose”.

Some of the children now have their hands up.

“Granddad? I’m going to have to hurry you…”

He closes his eyes and casts his memory wide…

“Ah”, he says, “I cannot remember it. I know it ends with one little nigger boy left all alone. But I can’t remember the rest. No, nevermind, move on”.

The Male Nanny.