The Golden Horn

Dear Daniella,

In response to your letter, I would strongly discourage you from employing Fiona McCann as your nanny. She started worked for me at the end August last year. In the beginning, Fiona was an exemplary employee. She worked hard, five days a week and she was always punctual. She had no problems taking on extra duties such as light cleaning and helping me out around the house in various ways. She took care of my son Felix while my husband and I were at work. We had only recently relocated from Australia to this city. We were extremely busy and we desperately needed an extra pair of hands. Fiona was very proactive. She took Felix shopping, to museums, to the movies and to the park. This went on for about three months. I did notice that Fiona was a smoker and I could smell the smoke in her clothes. I made it that clear to her that I didn't want her smoking in front of Felix as-obviously-it would be a bad influence on my son. And she said fine, no problems at all.

One day I was in a taxi going to meet a client and I looked out the window. I saw Fiona coming hand-in-hand out of a bar with Felix. This place was in the city which was unusual. I thought maybe she'd gone in there to use the toilet. The taxi jerked forward in traffic before I had time to roll down the window and call out to her. I texted Fiona about 20 minutes later and asked, what are you and Felix doing now?
We're at the park, she texted back. I thought, okay, maybe in her mind, she was heading to the park and this little diversion wasn't worth a mention. I could see how that made sense.

I got caught up with my meeting. My job was very pressurised at that time. That is not to say I wasn't suspicious. Of course, I was. On the other hand, I'll admit that I was afraid of losing her. As you know, it's hard finding a good nanny these days. Besides, you give people the benefit of the doubt and Fiona was great with Felix. I would go as far to say that Felix adored her.

I got my friend Jack to follow her the next day. I kissed Felix goodbye and went to work like usual. My friend Jack discovered the following things: Fiona and my son spent most of the morning in the bar I previously mentioned. The one I'd seen her walking out of. She had four or five drinks while Felix sat in the restaurant section doing his colouring. She mainly talked on her phone, to the bartender and later on, when her boyfriend showed up, to him. My husband and I had no idea about any of this. We were vaguely aware of her boyfriend but only in passing. We only ever really seen him as a silhouette behind the wheel of his car, waiting at the kerb to pick her up after work. And I'm not saying my son was neglected. According to my friend Jack who is a very astute person, if anything, Felix was treated like the bar mascot. How did he put it? Felix was nestled in the sour bosom of daytime drinkers. It was like a bloody Eugene O'Neill play in there. At various points, Felix was bounced on the knee of a pissed taxi driver who had a nose which was almost completely comprised of broken blood capillaries. Felix was given a pickled egg from giant jar kept behind the bar. A snaggletooth crone in a blonde wig and a sparkly boob tube sang a song with him after which they played pattycake, pattycake. Felix saddled up and rode on the back of a fat ex-biker type across the carpet as if he were riding a horse while a Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers song played on the jukebox.

This all started to make sense to us. Over the weeks Felix had been vaguely referring to people we assumed were imaginary friends. And for some reason he had assigned all these fictional people family titles: Uncle Clyde, Uncle Waldo, Aunt Charlene. We assumed Felix was talking about some characters from one of his books. Or from a TV show he'd been watching. I remember distinctly asking him one night, who are all these uncles and aunts Felix? Felix just shrugged and said they come from the Golden Horn mommy. Again I just thought he was talking gibberish: you know the way children exist in fantasy worlds and how those fantasies often overlap with the more concrete aspects of their lives? Of course, now we know the "Golden Horn" was, in fact, the name of the bar.

Jack told me that after Fiona had gotten her mid-morning buzz on, after she had a brief fight with her boyfriend and then she and Felix left the bar. They caught a bus to the park near our house. She set up by the swings and got Felix to play in the little fenced off area before becoming preoccupied with her phone. Ten minutes later she seemed to run into a friend. A man in his mid-twenties dressed in active wear. After a brief conversation, she ran into another friend. Like the first one, this person was noticeably on edge. My friend jack was sitting on a bench nearby, pretending to be absorbed with his own phone. This running into friends continued for quite awhile. On the surface, it seemed like Fiona knew a lot of people. It was plausible enough. Fiona is a charming young woman, full of character. These friends or acquaintances were difficult to lump into one category. Men and women ranging from 20 to 40 years of age. The only defining factor was that each person was "edgy". And each meeting was near enough the same. A brief, seemingly stilted conversation, both Fiona and her acquaintance looking around, scouting the corners of the park, as if expecting someone else to show up. Then Fiona would go over to Felix's stroller and retrieve something from the compartment where the nappies are stored. This was followed by what a casual observer might mistake as a handshake, after which the edgy friend would move swiftly on to be replaced by another one 15 or 20 minutes later.

My friend Jack is a very plugged in person. Very factual in the way he sees the world. We trust his opinion. And he did his time in the party scene, especially when he was younger. Clubs and raves...all that running around, late at night business. Without a doubt, Jack concluded, she was dealing coke. Jack didn't tell me this in the moment, blow by blow, because, he didn't want to worry me. Felix was perfectly alright, he said. Jack kept his distance and kept an eye on them for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening I was beside myself. I thought my god! My nanny is a drug dealer! How did this happen? My husband (and a very full glass of white wine) calmed me down. I knew exactly what we had to do. There was no doubt about it. I told Fiona that we would give her the following day off because I wasn't feeling great and I wanted to spend some time with Felix.

The following morning we dropped Felix off with Jack and then my husband and I went to the Golden Horn. The thinking behind all this was that we didn't want to confront Fiona in our appointment. Depending on how it went, we wanted a clean break.

There she was, sitting at the bar, just the way Jack had described. We came in and sat down next to her. My god, you should've seen this place. The people in there. We confronted her. Weirdly, I felt like child services investigating my own abilities as a mother. I'm sure you understand, trying to have a career and raise a child in the city is difficult. At times, some of the compromises you make...it makes you feel guilty.

Anyway, Fiona was completely and immediately honest about what she been doing. I'll give her that. And as always, she was charming and charismatic. We told her this was the end of her employment with us. Effective immediately. Obviously, we could not continue to allow our son to be in this situation. She nodded and said, I suppose you're right. We listened to her side of things because we figured Fiona was probably an addict and that she needed help. And she was quite reasonable about the whole thing. Personable. I think this threw us. She had been living this double life and we expected her evil alter ego to come bubbling up to the surface but it wasn't like that. Depending on how this conversation went, one of our options was to report her to the police. Somehow, as soon as Fiona started talking, that option quickly faded away. We'd gone in there angry, incensed at what she'd done and ready for a confrontation yet somehow, 20 minutes later, we walked out with a kind of blasé attitude about the whole thing, like, oh well...I guess this is just one of those things that didn't work out. Better luck next time. I'm not quite sure how Fiona turned us around but she did. She is one of these individuals that you can't help but like despite her behaviour. And, as you probably can tell, she has a way with words. Anyway, we said goodbye to her and now we have a live-in Dutch nanny.

So in answer to your question Daniella, no I would not employ this individual to take care of your children. Fiona is a very charming person but unless you want your children acquiring drinking buddies before they enter primary school and becoming accomplices to a drug dealer, I would put her resume in the bin.

Kind regards,