Emme had made it from the airport to the mountain train at Bloch with fifteen minutes to spare. The recruitmentagent who had fixed Emme up with the job assured her that it would be enough time.
‘It’s Switzerland, trains run like clockwork,’ she said, when she talked Emme through the route from SW12 to the remote mountain village of Kristalldorf, nestled high in the Swiss Alps.
Emme looked at the screen at the end of the carriage and panicked to see the destination saying Alpentor and not Kristalldorf. As the train pulled out of the station, she realised it was too late. She stared at the screen, hoping that she hadn’t got on the wrong efficient train. She absolutely didn’t want to be late– or worse, end up on the other side of the country and be late. Emme started to panic and wondered whether she should message the mother of the family.
Shit.
The Harringtons were meant to be meeting Emme off the mountain train at Kristalldorf and Emmeline Eversley was never late for anything. In all the years she had been Dominique’s PA she had never missed or mis-scheduled an appointment. She did not want to give the wrong impression when she was so nervous and keen to make a great first one.
Dammit.
There was low chatter in the carriage. Polite conversation in French, German, Italian, Spanish and English.
Shit shit shit.
She imagined the children’s faces, remembering them from their hastily arranged Zoom call earlier in the week. A boy of nine with auburn hair and big brown eyes; his younger sister, seven years old, whose hair was redder, her freckles brighter. Their mother and father had flanked them on the screen, smiling hopefully, backs as straight as rods, asif they were both willing Emme to be the right fit. Emme had smiled warmly and taken diligent notes while the mother told her the expectations of the job: getting the kids their breakfast, doing the school run, taking them to ski lessons, clubs and playdates, overseeing their piano practice and the bedtime routine. She said most of the work would be during the week while the father worked in Zurich, although she would be expected to cover some evening babysitting. It all seemed so manageable, Emme had tried not to look as desperate as the family to make it work.
Emme cleared her throat.
‘Excuse me please,’ she asked the woman with the snowboard. Her wayward hair and well-worn baggage told tales of someone who knew the mountains. ‘Is this train going to Kristalldorf? It’s just it says Alpentor on the screen…’ Emme nodded and swallowed hard.
‘I hope so!’ the woman said. ‘I’m working there tonight!’ She let out a loud and husky laugh and looked over her shoulder at the monitor at the end of the carriage.
‘There are about five stops until Alpentor and then another three to Kristalldorf. The screen must have got stuck. The mountain train always goes to Kristalldorf, unless it’s snowed in. It’s the end of the line.’
The end of the line.
Suddenly Emme was hit with a sense of doom. What had she done? Her dad, mum and sister had all looked at her with sorrow when she announced over lunch last Sunday that she was moving to the Swiss Alps for a season. They had known about her hairbrained scheme to maybe one day take a sabbatical and sublet her flat, but they didn’t think she was suddenly going to become a nanny in Switzerland.
‘Why would you do that, love?’ her mum Marian had asked.
Her sister Lucille was holding one of her five-year-old twins to her chest, while her brother-in-law Ryan had taken the other one into the garden to run around before pudding. It seemed like the right moment to drop the bombshell.
Because I’m too fucking embarrassed to take my lunch break with the love of my life when he’s married to someone else?
She couldn’t tell them that.
‘A change of scene and some fresh air!’ Emme had said with a forced smile.
‘But what will Ms Henry do without you?’ her dad lamented. Geoff Eversley always puffed with pride when he saw Dominique Henry onNewsnightorBusiness Daily.
‘She said I could take a sabbatical. For the season.’
‘But you’ve never skied!’
‘I did once actually,’ she said guardedly. ‘In Colorado. With Tom.’
Lucille furnished her sister with a worried glance.
‘You know I’ve been thinking about a change of scene. Tayla will look after the flat. The agency I’ve registered with called me yesterday morning, about a very short-notice placement with a family in the Swiss Alps. I’ll head out later in the week.’
‘You’re going to be an au pair?’ Marian looked mystified. ‘You’re twenty-eight!’
Emme looked at her sister for solidarity, but she was comforting her niece Zara.
‘A nanny. Not an au pair. And it’s just for a season.’
Emme wasn’t lying, a change of scene was just what she needed. And although it seemed sudden to her family, she had trained to be a nanny in her teens and spent the summer after her A levels with a family in the United States while Tom was teaching a football camp out there. She hadn’t loved nannying, but she’d been pondering this idea since she received her Save The Date last spring. It seemed her only way out.
