A LIFE MADE OF LAVA Page 5

  I’m still on the phone when Amy arrives. She shakes my hand with confidence and, within five minutes of talking to her, I know that Evie’s done well. Amy is self-assured and assertive. Even better, when the phone rings mid-conversation, she picks it up. “Danvers Inc., this is Amy speaking, how may I help you?” She’s already reached for a pen and pulled Steph’s diary toward her. “Of course, Sir, we’d be happy to give you a quote.” She pauses, glancing at the printed calendar on the desk, where, under our logo, our unique selling point is highlighted in red. “Yes, we do offer free quotations. Could you give me your name and number and I’ll get someone to contact you as soon as they’re available?”

  “I’m impressed,” I admit when she sets the receiver down.

  She shrugs it off. “I like to use my initiative. Although I will have about a hundred questions once I really get into things.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Do you mind if I clean things up a bit first?”

  I can’t help but grin.

  9

  Julia

  There are three things I notice when I arrive for my interview ten minutes early. The first is that the Danvers have a truly beautiful home – it’s classy but not ostentatious, the type of home that is filled with more love than money, but by choice. The second thing I notice is that there’s a mangy black cat lying in the fruit bowl. The third is that Evie Danvers is dying.

  She has the ghost of a once beautiful woman wrapped around her like a shawl, fuelled by the sparkle in her mischievous eyes. Those eyes belong to a girl, not to a woman at the end of her life.

  “I’m Julia,” I say, shaking her hand firmly. I don’t avert my eyes from her face. I can tell she’s expecting me to, that it’s something she’s become accustomed to, but there’s nothing to be feared from a bald head or the dark shadows beneath her eyes. “You have a beautiful home, Mrs Danvers,” I say truthfully as Evie leads me through the entrance hall and into the living-room. The sofas are a dark grey – the perfect colour for hiding spilled juice stains and muddy footprints, but the cushions which litter their surfaces are bold and colourful, a defiant middle finger to the practical restrictions of parenthood.

  “Thank you,” Evie says. “Can I offer you anything to drink before we begin?”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.” I shift on the sofa, toying with the delicate silver bracelet at my wrist.

  “Before we start, I need to ask, why do you want to be a nanny?”

  I sit up straighter. “I adore children and it’s something I know I’d be good at.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m used to taking care of people.” The answer springs forth without any thought.

  Evie sits back in her chair, a small crease between her eyes. “Your resumé shows no previous experience in care-taking,” she says, her eyes sliding toward the papers beside her.

  “That’s because I haven’t done it formally. I… I take care of my father. He was involved in an accident three years ago and his left leg had to be amputated. He was confined to bed for months and then there were months more of physiotherapy.”

  “And you nursed him through it?” She sounds dubious. “Surely your mother…”

  “My mother died,” I intercept, before she can finish. “She didn’t survive the accident.”

  Evie falls silent. I can’t blame her – even as the words leave my mouth I feel bad about it. This woman is dealing with a lot, she shouldn’t be made to feel guilty, but I felt the sting of her suspicion and I’d known what she was thinking – that my mother would have been the one to take care of my dad and that I was simply taking credit for her hard work. Not true. If only it were.

  Evie slides my resumé away from her and leans forward, her bright eyes boring into mine, assessing, evaluating, searching – for what, I can’t begin to guess. Then, inexplicably, she grins.

  “Let’s get to the interview questions, shall we?”

  It takes longer than I expected, which I try to take as a good sign. At times, Evie doesn’t even consult her notes, she just fires off a random question as if it only occurred to her right this moment. I answer everything as honestly as I can, even though most of her questions don’t make much sense. I wonder if she downloaded them off some obscure website, or if she was on a cocktail of medication when she wrote them down and couldn’t be bothered to check later. When the interview is finally over, Evie fixes me again with that unnerving stare. I try desperately to hold my own but, in the end, I blink first. Evie’s grin is in danger of dancing right off her face. When she gets to her feet I exhale a disappointed breath.

  “Would you like to see pictures of the children?” she asks from where she’s stopped beside the mantel.

  I nod, blinking in confusion, and move toward her.

  “This is Jesse,” she tells me, proudly showing off a photograph of a nine or ten-year-old boy who looks like he’s keeping too many secrets for his tender age. “And Dylan.” The second son is Evie in miniature, his hair a shade lighter than his brother’s. His eyes sparkle just like hers do, but they’re open and honest. This boy keeps no secrets. Casey is the only blonde, but her eyes are blue, too. A beautiful, blue-eyed family. I wonder if the husband has blue eyes, but then I catch sight of a close-up of the two of them and my heart flip-flops in my chest. His eyes are brown, but that’s not what captures my attention. It’s the way he’s looking at Evie, laughing down at her, every single feature on his handsome face drawn toward hers. They are beautiful, even more so together than I imagine they would be apart.

  “That’s my husband, Nick.” Evie catches me staring and I look away from the photograph in haste.

  “You have a beautiful family, Mrs Danvers.”

  “Oh, call me Evie, please. And thank you.”

  She walks me to the front door. I can feel her eyes on me again and I flush under the intense scrutiny. I’ve been weighed, I’ve been measured and, by the polite way she’s escorting me to the door, I suspect I’ve been found wanting.

  A welcome breeze washes over me as she opens the door. I step out of it, desperate to get away from here so I can deal with the embarrassment of not being able to find a job, not even as a nanny. I should plead my case, but the bite of humiliation stiffens my jaw.

  “Julia.” Evie’s voice is low and musical. I round on her slowly, not daring to hope. Evie’s lips pull upward, reaching for the amused crinkle of her eyes. She regards me steadily for a second and then she opens her mouth to speak. I find I’m holding my breath.

  “The floor’s lava.”

  It’s the last thing I expect, but something clicks inside my head anyway, an impulse that I don’t for one second consider fighting. My mother and I played this game endlessly when I was a child. My eyes dart around as Evie starts to count backward from five, but there’s nothing for me to climb up on to. I didn’t bring a car and Evie’s must be locked in the garage, not that I’d vault onto her car… not unless I was desperate, which right now I am. I briefly consider a terracotta pot filled with posies, but I’d never be able to balance on its brim, so instead, I lunge upward and grab the top of the door, lifting my legs and clinging to the wooden frame like a god-damned chimpanzee.

  10

  Evie

  “You can come down now,” I say. I’m not sure if Julia can even hear me through my cackle of unsuppressed laughter. I’ve never seen anything so funny as Julia hanging from that door as if her life depended on it. Slowly, she slides back down to the ground, looking mortified and dusts her hands across her linen pants.

  “I’m sorry,” she stammers, her cheeks aflame, “I don’t know why I did that.”

  I reward her with a smile. “So, when can you start?”

  It was that final leap that sealed the deal, but I’d already made up my mind to hire her. Julia reminds me of… well, me. There’s a light that shines inside of her that I recognise, that I miss. She is, quite simply, perfect, and exactly what I’ve been looking for.

  “You… you’re hiri
ng me?” She looks up at the door as if it might hold the answer to her question.

  “I am. That is, if you still want the job?”

  “I do!” It’s a breathless rush that hints at just how desperate she is.

  “You do understand it’s a live-in position?”

  She nods.

  “Will your father manage all right without you?”

  “Yes. He’s physically able and at this stage his needs are more… financial.”

  “Ah. He’s not working, then?”

  “He was a jockey,” she says, a flash of defiance crossing her pretty face. “It’s difficult to win races with only one leg.”

  “I can relate,” I reply solemnly. “I was a hair model.” She narrows her eyes, not sure if I’m joking or not and I can’t help but smile. “I’m kidding, Julia. And I think your father is very lucky to have you. Now, can you start immediately, or do you need a day or two to sort things out?”

  “I’d need to pick up my things, but I’m available right away.”

  I make a mental note to let Nick know I’ve found a sitter for Saturday night. “What do you say you start tomorrow? Around nine?”

  “Nine is perfect.”

  “Good. I’ll see you then.” I pause, looking toward the deserted street. The absence of a car is only dawning on me now. “Where did you park your car?”

  Julia looks flustered. “I don’t have one,” she stammers.

  “You don’t have a car?”

  “No, I took the bus.” A tense silence. “The advert didn’t stipulate…” she trails off, looking like she might be about to burst into tears.

  “It’s okay. You can use mine when needed until we… we’ll sort something out.”

  “I can get a car,” Julia says shyly. “The bank said all they need is a letter of employment.”

  “I’ll get Nick to mail one over immediately,” I say, sensing her renewed embarrassment.

  “Thank you, Mrs Danvers. I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity.”

  “It’s Evie,” I insist. “If you’re going to be living here, please, call me Evie.”

  She tries it out. It still sounds stilted, but it’s a start.

  “Are you sure I can’t give you a lift home?” I ask as she starts to walk away. “I’m picking up the kids from school soon so I can drop you on my way. It’s no trouble at all.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” It’s an attempt to cling to her independence and I hide a smile as I watch her departing figure. Then I glance at my watch and almost scream. I’m going to be late and Casey has a ballet rehearsal. Her first recital is in a few weeks and we’ve already missed two practices. I head back inside to snatch up my keys and my purse and shove my phone into my pocket. I’ll call Kat from the car to let her know that, for once, her waters were right.

  “I told you!” Kat is as smug as I expected her to be.

  “I know. I don’t know why I ever doubted you.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m on my way to fetch the kids.”

  “Good, I’ll be over in an hour.”

  “Make it an hour-and-a-half. Casey has ballet.

  “I’ll meet you at home, I can get supper started.” Kat has had a spare key since we moved in.

  “Oh God, please don’t.”

  “Very funny. You know what this means, right?”

  “We finally get to drink the Dom Perignon?”

  “It’s about freaking time. Now hurry up, will you?”

  “Put it on ice. I’ll see you soon.”

  11

  Nick

  I stick my head into the bathroom for the third time in twenty minutes to yell at the distorted creamy figure behind the frosted shower glass. “We’re going to be late, Evie!”

  “I’m almost done,” she replies, sticking her nose up to the glass and giving me a grin that isn’t even a tiny bit apologetic. Her voice is muffled. She sounds like a mischievous mermaid. “Besides, who cares if we’re late? It’s not as if being on time is going to change your mother’s opinion of me.”

  “You do this on purpose.”

  “Stop being so melodramatic. We’ll just tell her I was washing my hair.”

  I stomp out of the bathroom without responding. I’ve been on edge for two days ever since I came home to find Julia Soanes mixing egg whites, her pert ass shaking prettily in time with the beater. The sight had jolted me. For a second she looked so like Evie that I was tempted to smack that ass and plant a kiss on the nape of her neck, where dark tendrils were flattened by damp sweat from the heat of the kitchen. It was the hair that brought me to my senses and, when she turned around, the differences between them became obvious. Julia’s brown eyes were narrower than Evie’s, her lips fuller, her cheeks suffused with a healthy glow.

  “You could’ve consulted me before hiring her!” I’d raged at Evie in a rare temper later that night.

  “Why?” she’d asked innocently.

  My justification that this woman would be living in our house didn’t faze Evie in the slightest.

  “She’s going to be great,” she’d replied glibly. “You wait and see.”

  I follow the sound of children’s laughter downstairs to find Dylan and Casey doing Julia’s face with Casey’s Disney make-up palette. One of her eyes is blue, the other a glittering purple and pink streaks zigzag across her forehead. Her laughter dies on her lips when she catches sight of me.

  “Come on, let’s get your shoes on,” she tells Casey, scooping her up and brushing past me on her way to the stairs. This is another thing that isn’t helping. Julia seems to sense my annoyance and bolts like a frightened rabbit every time I enter a room.

  “You ready?” I ask Dylan. He nods. “Where’s your brother?”

  “He went outside already.”

  I find Jesse slumped in the back seat of Evie’s Ford sedan. “What are you doing out here already?” I ask.

  “You said we were leaving at seven.”

  I glance at the clock on the dash. “It’s only ten past.”

  “Grandma’s going to be mad.”

  “Grandma will be fine.” I settle into the driver’s seat and we sit in companionable silence while I prepare myself mentally. Having Evie and my mother in the same room is never easy. The first time I bought her home to meet my parents, Evie was wearing an I love Eddie Vedder shirt, cinched at the waist with a studded belt, and little else. Her nails were painted black and she had a small piercing through her nose. She had another piercing too, though not many people knew about it. The nose ring didn’t last long, but she kept the other for a few years, until I almost choked on it one drunken night after we’d been celebrating Kat’s birthday. My mother hadn’t liked the Eddie Vedder shirt. Worse, she hadn’t a clue who Eddie Vedder was, which was like waving a red flag in front of Evie. I’d made the mistake of leaving them alone for a few minutes while I spoke to my dad about my college fund. After I’d dropped Evie back at her dorm my mother told me that it was very inappropriate for Evie to wear the face of her ex-boyfriend across her chest.

  “Eddie Vedder isn’t Evie’s ex,” I had laughed. “He’s the lead singer of a band called Pearl Jam. She was only messing with you, Mom.” It turned out that when my mother had told Evie how inappropriate the T-shirt was, Evie had claimed she would only let go of her ex when she was one hundred percent certain it wasn’t his child she was carrying.

  We’d had a massive argument about that. Sometimes Evie could go too far and I had really wanted my parents to like her. The problem was that Evie simply didn’t understand, nor did she feel the need for anyone’s approval. She’d been orphaned since the age of three when her parents had been killed in a railway-siding accident and she had been placed in the custody of her paternal grandfather. While he had provided for her financially, the old man hadn’t been the most suitable person as a role model for a young girl. When Evie was seventeen her grandfather had passed away and, rather than go into foster care, Evie had had herself legally emanci
pated. As an orphan living independently and financially self-sufficient, the process had been relatively simple. Evie had softened as she had grown older, and, ironically, spending time with my family had gone a long way toward teaching her how to curb her wild ways, but the damage had been done and her relationship with my mother would never overcome that initial first impression.

  I’m roused from my thoughts when Dylan yanks open the back door and climbs into his car chair. He buckles himself up after only a few clumsy attempts. Evie arrives five minutes later with Casey bundled in her arms.

  “I’m ready!” she sighs, once Casey is safely secured and strapped in. “Let’s do this.”

  My mother is wearing her pearls, the ones my father got her for their twentieth wedding anniversary. She’s worn them at every family occasion since and has a habit of twisting them around her fingers when she’s irritated. Right now, the pearls are so entwined in her hands it looks like they might cut off the blood supply. The kids rush right past her with only a cursory “Hello granny” and her lips pucker in disapproval but I don’t have the energy to call them back.

  “Mary-Anne!” Evie cries enthusiastically, throwing her arms around my mother’s stiff frame. “It’s so lovely to see you, how have you been?”

  “I’m very well, thank you, Evelyn.”

  Evie flashes me a grin as she turns around and, from the glint in her eye, I sense trouble brewing, but her smile is so infectious I find myself grinning back.

  My mother greets me with far more warmth. “Nicholas, darling, you look exhausted. Have you been eating properly?” An accusatory glance at Evie’s back.

  “I’m fine, Mom.”