The Turn of the Shoe

Now that their project is finished, now that the wall has been papered in yellow wall-paper and the dust has all been swept up, the bedroom looks noble. The morning sun, untouched by branches, is coming through the attic window, and the room is golden, safe. It’s pure again.

There’s simply nothing more to be done, so the Mother shuts the door and locks it with the brass key. Alone in the master suite, she showers, washing the dust from her hair and letting the water run hot. Once she’s dressed, she sits down at her mahogany desk and dials. After one ring, the little grey agency woman answers, and the Mother takes a breath and begins:

The last employee you sent to my home turned out to be a complete disgrace.

The Mother has had a whole lifetime of dealing with staff, and she knows how to get results. She doesn’t mince words, now or ever, really. Caustically, she explains the old nanny’s immediate abandonment of the Family, the fleeing in the night -- She left no note. It was highly unprofessional. Of course, the agency asks no questions. Instead, they apologize and grovel and clamor; they make all sorts of promises, and vow to send a new, very different, much-improved girl within the week. The Mother almost gets bored, listening to them beg for her business. Anything to make it up to you. We value you as a customer. We are so terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

The room is waiting and ready, and by Wednesday, there the new nanny is at the front gate, trying to figure out the buzzer. She’s young, with homemade clothes, stringy brown hair and scared eyes, and after getting over her initial bubbly excitement about the house’s gorgeous old wood, wow, window seats, is that a bonsai???, she is almost mechanically obedient and eager to please. In weeks to come, she will sweep the floor of her attic room and make her narrow spinster’s bed every morning. She will never take a sip of alcohol or caffeine (being some kind of strange American religion which forbids both). The Mother discovers that she thrives on kind words, so they ration these out to her sparingly. The children don’t seem to like her, exactly, but they are not overtly cruel, and the Father, true to his word, takes no notice of her at all.

Additionally, the Mother is happy to see that the new nanny, when outdoors, alternates between three pairs of sensible clogs, which she trades for house-shoes the instant she comes inside. It’s just another contrast to the old nanny, who seemed to own and wear only one pair of shoes - a perilous espadrille monstrosity in faux blue suede, with tacky ribbon straps that weaved their way drunkenly up the nanny’s white legs. They were the shoes of a 1920s prostitute, yet she wore them with every outfit, seemed never to take them off. She’d clunk up and down all three flights of stairs in them despite being told that the Family did not wear shoes in the house, despite the Mother having given her an old pair of silky house-slippers just to spare the old wood floors.

She was worst at dinner, which began precisely at six each night; ten minutes late, the nanny would clomp over and flounce into her chair. The Mother remembers dreading what would come next: the nanny would chew with her mouth open and her legs splayed. Even the five-year-old ate better, although the Father didn’t seem to notice it. Rice would fall from the old nanny’s plate; sauce would dribble onto the antique placemats. There are probably still breadcrumbs under her chair, crushed indelibly into the Persian rug.

What a blessing, then, to find that not all Americans abandon knives, push food onto their forks with their fingers, laugh with a mouth full of beans. The new nanny is a quiet, reasonable eater and a pleasant conversationalist, one who laughs quietly but does not speak unless spoken to. Moreover, after each meal, she leaps up, clears the plates away and tucks them into the dishwasher, all the while begging the Mother to go and have a rest. With a glass of wine in her hand, the Mother watches, amused, as the nanny energetically finishes up the kitchen and puts the children to bed. Then she comes back downstairs and sits, knitting an oblong brown blanket at the foot of the freshly-washed dining room table, a cup of mint tea by her side.

As a sort of offering, or thanks, the Mother takes to carrying home a bouquet of flowers with her from the florist near her office most days. More than the flowers themselves (which are pansies, water lilies, roses or orchids), she loves the way that the new nanny coos as if she’s never seen a blossom before; the way she takes the fragile stems out of the Mother’s arms, snips their thorns away, and puts them in a cut-glass vase. Their days are a heady success, scented with peonies.

But then one morning the Mother comes down for breakfast, adjusting her pearl earrings, to find the new nanny sitting at the table, a cup of tea in her hand, a frown on her face.

Die Kleine hat nicht so gut geschlafen, says the housekeeper knowledgeably, setting fruit onto the breakfast tray. She seems to be enjoying this, and so the Mother ignores her.

What seems to be the problem, Deborah? the Mother says. Did you not sleep well?

Well, oh no. Not badly, says the new nanny, toying with her teabag. I was just a little disturbed by the noise, is all. But it’s totally cool! No problem! And she smiles an unusual, quavery smile.

What noise? says the Mother, receiving her freshly-steamed morning cappuccino from the housekeeper and sipping it, the froth rustling against her lips. She notices that it’s lovely outside.

Oh, nothing, the girl is saying. It’s just – those darn stairs are so loud! What were you working on? You kept walking up and down the stairs the whole night.

The Mother is puzzled. She slept exceedingly well, and says it. You must have been dreaming. She plucks an orange slice out, and pops it into her mouth.

I don’t think I was dreaming, the girl says, it didn’t feel like a dream. And anyway, high heels walking up and down the stairs would be sort of a boring dream, wouldn’t it? She laughs. I don’t know what it was, then. Pipes, maybe.

Don’t be ridiculous, the Mother says, meanly, of course it was a dream. I’m off to work. She abandons the coffee; she gets up, she pulls on her coat, she tugs on her pumps and drives to the office where, an hour early, she sits at her desk and tries to keep the world from shaking. It has to be the pipes.

Unbidden, she thinks: if she is going to be perfectly honest with herself, what was really the trouble wasn’t the shoes or the eating, but rather the way it kept happening, night after night. And now there it was again, the steps on the stairs.

The Mother insists that she didn’t particularly care who her husband was sleeping with (the nanny) and who he wasn’t (her). Their marriage had been past that, in a way; she’d just wanted the pair of them, the Father and the nanny, not to be so ostentatious about it, so obvious about everything. The whole thing had just been so glaringly hard on the children, was all. Her poor kids had been forced to listen to their father’s footsteps head up to the nanny’s room, to hear night after night after night of him tramping through the big old house to go to his whore. With those stairs, it was as clear as if it had been in the room with her, and she’d lain awake for all of it, most nights: the knock, the murmured greeting, the giggling. The noises. And they’d thought they were being so sneaky.

At one point, the Mother had started to whisper it as the Father crept out of their room each night. “You must not wake the children,” but still he would walk away, leaving her there, her back to the doorway. “You must not wake the children…” If he ever heard her whispering, though, he gave no sign; his steps stayed as loud as ever, a fatal ear-splitting heartbeat in the center of their home.

It’d become increasingly clear to her that she had to do something. These night-time ramblings were taking a clear effect on her two darlings, who kept coming down in the mornings with little dark rings around their eyes. They never said anything, of course - to mention it would have been gauche, a coarseness they did not have. But you could tell that they heard it, all of it, and you could tell that it was hurting them – so she chose to take care of the problem. She doesn’t regret it, not for a second – she fixed things, and they’re better now, so she really has no choice but to ignore the new nanny’s theatrics. Noises or none, the really horrible part is all over – it’s been settled, and she wouldn’t do things differently, were she to do them again. That being that, the Mother gets to work, and forgets.

But three nights later the Mother wakes up with a jolt. She stares around the darkened bedroom, the Father snoring next to her, before she realizes what she’s hearing.

Coming down the stairs, there they are: uneven American footsteps. She listens as they pass her room, thunder down to the main floor, where they stop.

For a second she considers panicking, but then she takes herself firmly in hand. Ignore it, she says. Stay here. What is wrong with you? So she falls back into an uneasy sleep, full of dreams of footsteps and something sharp; she is relieved when it is morning, and even more relieved to come down the stairs and find the new nanny asleep on the eight-thousand-euro leather couch in the living room. Of course they were her footsteps. How could the Mother have thought anything else? The girl, in plaid holiday pajamas, has pulled the decorative throw over herself, and the couch’s folds are creased on her face.

Staff, the Mother thinks, and sighs. Then, loudly, she says, What are you doing down here? ice in her voice. What is wrong with your room?

The nanny wakes up; her eyes creak open; she gazes around, disoriented. Then she focuses – she sees the Mother standing over her, and a rather satisfying sort of panic comes over the girl’s face. She sits up, jerkily, and stammers. I – I just – can’t – She begins and then aborts several sentences. Her shoulders are shaking. You can’t win them all, the Mother thinks, resigned, and she waits for whatever crazy reason the nanny is going to give.

Finally the new girl manages it, her head in her hands and her eyes filling with tears. Do you have a different room I can stay in? There’s something really wrong with that one.

What on earth do you mean? says the Mother, disdainful. We just refurbished it. It is a beautiful room. It was my room when I was a girl here. Are you cold? If you’re cold, you can bring up the space heater from the basement.

I d-don’t… and now she’s really trying not to cry, her face contorting. It’s hideous. Her voice is hoarse and she says, Look, this is going to sound crazy, but. Did you ever – hear things when you slept there?

No, said the Mother, flatly.

I do, though, says the girl. I hear a tapping. It always starts with a tapping on the inside of the far wall. I used to think it was leaky pipes, but recently someone’s been saying things, too – the tapping’s, like, to get my attention, and then I hear this voice.

I am not interested any more, says the Mother. But the nanny continues, disobedient and unable to stop.

The voice says what are you doing, get out of here, get out of this bed, get out of my bed. Things like that – just all night. It’s like she’s right there next to me, whispering in my ear. I think it’s a demon. It must be. I’ve been ignoring it, but last night I saw her; she was horrible and real, she was coming at me, saying something, and … Her voice fades, and her head sinks into her hands, and she sits there, waiting for a verdict.

You know, the Mother says casually, I think we have to get you psychiatrically evaluated.

No, and the nanny is hysterical, no – I’m so sorry – really, I’m not crazy, forget I ever said anything. Look, she says, standing up, I’m fine! I’m going upstairs!

Please keep your voice down. This house has been in my family for years, the Mother announces, and I can say with certainty that it has no demons, or ghosts, or anything of the kind. And if I hear my children talking about spirits, you will be fired. Is that understood?

Yes, croaks the new nanny, quaking with tears, and she flees up the stairs.

There are some qualities, the Mother thinks, sitting down, unsteady on the warm leather, which are simply unacceptable in a staff member. There are some things which just necessitate cutting them loose. You know, she of all people deserved it, she reminds herself. She was a greedy messy baby who needed to be punished. Against her will, the Mother remembers that final night, the night that had come after a particularly trying day, a particularly loud shoe-clomping rice-spilling Father-fucking day. The night the old nanny left.

After everyone had gone to bed, the Mother walked up the spiral wooden stairs herself. She had learned, as a little girl, to place her feet at the corners in such a way that she could travel completely silently up all three flights. She was pleased to find that it still worked – nobody would know she was coming. She travelled slowly, caressing the banister, listening to her house settle and creak; the night was gentle, somehow. It had known what needed to be done, and so did she. On the top floor, she neither knocked nor stopped, but twisted open the old metal doorknob and walked in.

The nanny, mixed in with a pile of clothes, was slung sluttishly in the moonlight upon the Mother’s childhood bed. Her sexy nightie (how the Mother had shuddered to see them drying on the laundry line downstairs, in plain sight of the children) revealed bush, too much leg. It had a lace back, and was ripped in places. Topping it off, the nanny drooled slightly, and her spiked hair was askew.

Despite everything, it was weirdly vulnerable and childlike, and the Mother stood there for a second considering – but there, in the corner, were the shoes, waiting. So she’d done it: put one hand on the nanny’s warm cheek, raised the kitchen knife and brought its sharpened edge calmly across the nanny’s throat. It had been just like slaughtering a calf, really – the smooth parting of skin, the gushing redness. Of course the nanny had woken in a panic, and of course she’d tried to speak and move and thrash, but the Mother gave her the final courtesy of holding her close, of staring into her eyes as the blackness took her. The best part was that it had all been perfectly quiet – so quiet that, as the nanny’s limbs stopped thrashing, she could hear the Father’s soft knock, and the “Meg?” that came every night.

Shocked, she’d released the pile of dead meat that had been the nanny. She hadn’t known what would come next, she remembers realizing. How dumb was that? There was no plan for afterwards. In chagrin, she stared dumbly; then she walked to the door. It was impolite not to open a door when someone knocked, so she put her hand on the doorknob, she opened it wordlessly, and she held up her red, dripping hands. Please, they said, although that hadn’t been her intention. Please. Her face, realizing the humor of it all, had worn an off-kilter smile.

He froze. He stood.

And then he knelt. Without hesitating, her husband took the antique key out of the door – without aplomb, he locked her in. She heard his footsteps go down the stairs, all forty-two of them.

So that was it. He would go downstairs, now, to do whatever it was witnesses did – and she would stay here, with her bloodied hands, and wait, helpless, for the police to come. It had been worth it; seizing her last few moments of freedom she went and sat on the bed, the dead nanny companionable now that she was silent. The view out the windows was still the same view it’d been when she was a girl. Sitting here on this bed, one could imagine flying out and over the treetops; conversely, one could open the sash and, in one dirt-smackingly-harsh second, end it all. How close one was, in this room, to flying or death.

She didn’t hear the key turn in the lock but she did hear the footsteps. She turned around slowly, ready for it all to be over, and found that it was just him, her husband. Holding another knife, and gloves, and a garbage bag, and a tarp, all he said was: I’m sorry. I didn’t think you cared.

Quite suddenly, it was all different.

Working together, flashing knives quick in the night, they’d hacked her up like a cow. Neither of them flinched; they turned her into cutlets, ribs, steaks, breast, a pile of meat on a tarp, although the Mother surprised herself by needing to cover the sightless head as they worked. They stopped at dawn, and locked the door; the key rested in the Father’s pocket, and the children didn’t ask questions.

In nights to come, they remodeled extensively. Together, using hand-saws, they removed a section of the wall, and they put the tarp-covered nanny meat inside. The Father experienced a moment of weakness and wanted to keep the blue suede shoes, but when the Mother shot him a glance that said you are endangering this family, he tossed them behind the wall too.

It’s over, she reminds herself now. It is all walled up. The matter has been taken care of, and the wallpaper has been put on, no matter what the new girl is seeing or feeling. We can just – we can remove her, if necessary. We can fix it. We’ve fixed one, we can fix anything. We can do it together. She tells this to her husband, that night in their bed. They are holding hands, like witches, for it’s a pact that they’ve made, and for this she’s got to be grateful. She’s got to tell him everything.

I think the new nanny’s seeing the old nanny, she says, the words ridiculous but necessary. I think we have a – staff problem. She doesn’t say ghost problem.

He just nods.

What? Fix it, she demands, enraged. Her voice whines. We’ve got to. We’ve got to try.
I thought this might happen, he says somberly. I thought we might have had it coming. But I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.

There always is! You can always fix things! she insists. You can’t just give up!

We can’t undo what’s been done, he says, looking at her. The knowledge that he’s disappointed and hurt and hiding it breaks her heart as, from far above, she hears it: a terrible noise like a thousand birds smacking a single windowpane. It’s a thudding and a tearing, a cracking and a breaking; ice in spring. As one, they freeze. They look at each other to see if either of them is imagining it.
By this, they know it’s real, what’s happening above them.The wall is breaking down, and things are coming out.

I can’t, said the Father. I can’t go. He looks, helpless, at her. I’ve done too much already. I’m sorry.

You coward, the Mother hisses. She is throwing on her bathrobe, the knife in the pocket clanging against her leg. You are hopeless! she yells behind herself and runs out of the room. And she loses herself in this anger once again, because anger is better than being hopeless, anything is, really, and she takes the stairs two at a time, screaming, Stop it! Stop it! You’re waking the chil –

But then there are loud footsteps above her, coming towards her. Fate is running down the spiral staircase.

The new nanny is naked. Her hands are bloody, and the fingernails are worn down to stubs; her wraithlike arms and face and chest are covered in dust and something else, something horrible that smells of rotted cheese and damp wood. It takes the Mother a second to realize that she is more than a few inches taller. On her feet, the laces inexpertly tied and swimming around her ankles, are a certain pair of blue shoes, back to wreak havoc. On her face, there is not fear nor wrath; she’s past those. Instead, the new nanny wears condescension.

The Mother suddenly notices that the children, standing in the door of their room, have seen it all, know it all, and so the knife is helpless in the Mother’s bathrobe pocket as the nanny walks past her and heads down the stairs, feet clomping, to call the police and do whatever it is witnesses do.