What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill Page A

summer, of course.”
    “I’m not sure,” said Ali, again a little nervously, because it wasn’t clear whether he was making a statement or asking a question, and although Bryony had mentioned family holidays in the interview, she didn’t specify the destination or whether she would be invited.
    “The nanny usually brings the children for a month,” explained Foy, “and Bryony and Nick join us for the last couple of weeks, although Nick generally spends more time with his BlackBerry than he does with us.”
    His tone was jokey, but no one laughed apart from Ali, who quickly stopped. Bryony looked offended. Ali assumed it was because Foy had criticized her husband.
    “You know I work pretty hard, too,” said Bryony defensively.
    She muttered something about going in search of Nick, who was now delaying lunch by heading back downstairs to recover another bottle of wine from his cellar. The twins were nowhere to be seen. Ali was unsure whether she should go and look for them.
    “Maybe I could help with the olive harvest?” she suggested politely.
    “That happens in the winter,” said Foy. “It goes on for months.” To Ali’s relief, Foy excused himself and went back upstairs, muttering something about a weak stream and the perils of a dodgy prostate.
    “The honey would be lovely.” Ali turned to Tita. Tita smiled benevolently but it was her piercing green eyes, not her lipstick-smudged mouth, that captivated Ali. They were eyes that saw everything but revealed nothing. Even through the unforgiving glare of youth, Ali could appreciate that Tita was a woman whose life had been defined mostly by her beauty. Her hair might be gray and scooped up into an unfashionable bun at the back of her head, and the way she stood with her legs slightly too far apart may have made her look rather sturdy, but she was still a woman who commanded attention.
    “Ignore him, my dear,” said Tita. “He’s like a child in a sweetie shop when he meets someone new, but he quickly loses interest. It’s all about the first five minutes. He means no harm. Foy is a very obvious person.” She sounded dismissive, but the comment was said with pride.
    “With a big personality,” agreed Bryony, who had come back into the room with Nick and another bottle of wine.
    They could hear the Big Personality thumping back downstairs with the twins in hot pursuit.
    “Look at this,” he said loudly. He was holding a picture that usually hung on the wall of the upstairs bathroom, a location that was meant to lend it an air of casualness that it wouldn’t have had if, for example, it had been hung in the drawing room. It was a framed photograph of Foy taken in the 1980s, outside 10 Downing Street, after a meeting of business leaders with Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher, dressed in a blue skirt and jacket, was leaning toward Foy, ignoring the person on her left-hand side. It looked as though she was asking him an im-portant question. He leaned toward her so that her face almost touched his neck.
    The photograph had appeared in a couple of broadsheets. Foy had managed to get the original picture and had written a small caption at the bottom that read, “Let them eat fish!” He had given it to Bryony “for inspiration” after she set up her own financial public-relations company sixteen years earlier. Bryony had been touched until she realized that he had given a copy of exactly the same photograph to her sister, Hester. But by then it was too late to remove it from the bathroom wall without offending her father.
    Foy held the photograph up in its frame and urged everyone to come closer. A small group gathered around the bottom step. At the front were the twins, sucking intently on sweets they had found in their grandfather’s pocket. Behind them stood Bryony and Tita, standing in exactly the same pose, arms crossed and feet sticking out at right angles. Izzy hung behind with Jake, who had obligingly taken the iPod headphone out from his ear.