I caught Mrs. Blackmore’s gaze and she shrugged and gave me a glum look.
“Zackary, we’ll be going out to play today,” I said to him. “Are you excited? I think you’ll have an amazing time.”
“I’m not allowed to play outside,” he responded.
“But we played outside yesterday. Didn’t you enjoy it?”
“It upset Mummy.” He shook his head before lifting his glass of freshly squeezed organic orange juice for a sip. “I don’t want to anymore. I’ll get dirty and there are creepy crawlies in the grass.”
“Mummy said you could,” I quickly clarified before he ruined such a prospective day for me. “She visited my room last night and said I could take you out for a little while.”
The way he watched me was too controlled for a five-year old. “She did?”
“Yes, Master Zackary.” I whipped out the most matron-ish voice I had. “She absolutely did. And as for creepy-crawlies. Do you know what I used to do to them when I was your age?”
“What?” he asked, big eyed.
“We used to catch them in matchboxes and feed them to my pet bird.”
“What kind of bird was it?” he asked, intrigued in spite of himself.
“A baby sparrow. It had fallen out of its nest and my friend and I rescued it.”
“Where is it now?”
Of course, it was dead. Nearly twenty years had passed since I fed Billy Face with worms and insects I had caught. “I don’t know. One day when it had grown bigger and stronger it flew away.”
“Do you think we might find a baby sparrow too?” he asked hopefully.
I smiled. “Maybe, but we have to be out and about to do that.”
“Okay.” He smiled shyly back at me and I felt a surge of happiness. What a beautiful, but careful soul he was. My goal from then on became to unwind him as much as I could before my time as his nanny came to an end. I knew without doubt that I had very little time left too.
He returned his attention to his meal, while I discreetly pulled away a blade of his hair to lessen the polish that I had taken such pain to attend to earlier in the morning.
“Where do you plan on taking him?” Mrs. Blackmore asked me.
“Today we’ll spend it in the grounds,” I replied. “Maybe next time we will visit the park again.”
“The grounds are empty,” she reminded me. “Are you both just going to play with the grass?”
I grinned at her snappy question. “No. I’ll run out to the store for some makeshift supplies until he gets his proper playground installed.”
“Oh, he’s getting a playground, is he?”
“That’s what his dad said.” I turned to look at Zackary, but once again he had lost interest and was concentrating on eating without soiling his clothes.
“Are you taking the little one with you?” Mrs. Blackmore asked.
“Of course. He can help me choose the stuff he wants.”
“That’s a good idea, love. He’s never been to one before. There’s a big new American style store a few minutes away.”
“Yes, I know. I googled it this morning.”
In half-an-hour we were in Bright Buy. I chose a huge cart despite not needing much so that he could ride in it, but when I asked if he wanted to ride inside he had looked at me as though I were out of my mind. When I glanced behind I met the carefully blank look from the suit and tie bodyguard/chauffer Henry.
I shrugged. You couldn’t say I didn’t try.
On my way to the crafts aisle I passed by the toys area to see what he would be drawn to, but he just walked passed everything with a look of great disdain. As if toys were beneath him.
As we made our way through the aisles we came across other kids sitting amongst produce in the carts and being pushed around by their parents, and one little girl who was writhing in tears on the floor obviously to protest her mother’s behavior. That was the good and bad of child behavior, but the child beside me watched them as though they were all nothing but uncivilized lesser mortals.
Our roles almost switched when we arrived at the arts and crafts aisle. I found quite a few things that I wanted to check out and Zackary kept up his disinterested attitude. I didn’t let it bother me. As I picked this and that, I could see his interest slowly peaking. When I put two bundles of string into the cart, he could no longer hold his curiosity.
“What are you going to make, Miss Conrad?”
“Not me. We are making a kite,” I said.
Chapter 16
Charlotte
With my supplies stashed away in the boot, I took on a crash course on how to build a kite on You Tube on the way home.
When we got in I scattered the materials on the floor of the great hall and began opening all the packages. I had the sticks in hand and was ready to begin when I met Zackary just watching me, a frown on his face. I felt a bit guilty then as though I was the one sourcing the most entertainment from this.
“You have to help me make the kite,” I said to him.
“It’s dirty on the floor,” he said.
“It’s not. Frances just cleaned it this morning.”
He looked at me doubtfully and I wondered how long it would be before I got him to act like a child, less concerned with dirt than play.
“I tell you what. If we get our hands and clothes a little dirty, we’ll just quickly go upstairs and have a bath before lunch."
“What if Mummy sees me?”
“She’s out. She sent me a text that she will be back after lunch.”
Before he could think about it too hard, I jumped up and pulled him down beside me. And so we began our first project together. Zackary helped out as I instructed him to and the time went by like a dream. A little while later, our simple kite was done and stood crooked and gloriously frail against the ancient walls.
But Zackary was not ashamed of the messy contraption we had made. His smile stretched into a full grin and his eyes shone with pride and appreciation. For a moment he looked the way a little boy should again. I just prayed it would fly, even if for only a few seconds.
Zackary turned to me excitedly. “Do we fly it now?”
“Uh, not yet,” I replied, drawing the remaining bag of supplies towards me. I retrieved some paint and brushes, and laid them all out before him. “You have to make it pretty first.”
“Why?” he asked genuinely clueless. Now he was sounding more and more like a little boy.
“We have to paint the kite and take a picture for your parents. They won’t be very impressed with such a plain kite.”
I laid out some colors for him on the palette and then handed him the brush.
“What do I paint?” he asked, his forehead crinkling with a new anxiety.
“Hey?” I said, placing my hand upon his. “Are you nervous?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
He turned to gaze at the blank kite. “I want my mummy to like it.”
“Ah,” I understood then.
“This is your kite, so paint whatever you wish on it.”
But that only served to paralyze him more. It was clear how desperately he needed his mother’s approval.
I knew I had to do something to break the impasse. Perhaps if I stimulated his over-developed need not to act like a child. I reached forward and whispered in his ear, “Should we just splatter paint all over it? Maybe just dip your hands in paint and plop it all over —”
“Finger painting is for babies,’ he said scornfully.
I held both of my hands up in defeat. “Yes, Sir.”
I laid the kite on the ground and watched as he lowered his head and got to work. I paid close attention and a little while later could see the picture as it began to form in a corner. At first was the sun. A bright yellow circle with precise strokes coming out of it, then green blades of grass which he meticulously and carefully filled half the kite with. On the second half of the still blank space he painted a small round face with a stick body.
He gave himself a swirl of yellow hair, and then moved on to his mother. She was also a stick figure but for her legs, he thought in the last moment to dot with a blob of red representing her shoes. He did the same to her lips while her blonde hair received the same yellow swirls as his had done.
I thought he would stop there but then some distance apart he began to draw an even taller figure. My heartbeat slowed down as I watched silently. He painted two black blobs for his shoes, but then he kept going with the brush and painted his father’s face black.
“Why?” I turned to him. “Why did you paint his face black? I can’t even see his lips.”
“It’s a mask,” he stated quietly, as he dipped his brush in white paint. With it he marked a smile across the black face. He made a startled sound when the paint smudged and looked up at me in confusion.