Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden

And the only It she felt like going for now was the sort you put in gin.
    She decided to go for a walk. A walk would clear her head, Cassandra thought, emptying the last of the Bombay Sapphire down her throat.
    “Just going to the library,” she called to Lil, now busy bashing the paint off the skirting boards with the Hoover.
    “I ’aven’t done in there yet,” Lil thundered over the vacuum cleaner.
    “No, not our library,” Cassandra screeched. “The local library.”
    She rarely, if ever, made an appearance in the mock-Victorian Gothic book repository Jett had had built for himself for his fortieth birthday—or what he claimed had been his fortieth birthday—the year before. God alone knew what he wanted it for, certainly not for reading. Jett’s idea of quality fiction was the front and back pages of the tabloids. He had never read a single one of Cassandra’s novels, although she derived some comfort from the fact that she was up there with Tolstoy and Dickens in that he had never read one of theirs either.
    A walk round Kensington Library, Cassandra decided, was what she needed to stir her into action; the sight of all those volumes by other writers would ignite the petrol-soaked rag of her latent competitive spirit. It would also be interesting to see how many of hers were out on loan. All, hopefully.
    Cassandra pulled on a shiny zebraskin mac and, conscious of the thick-waisted Lil watching her from the end of the hall, dragged the belt round her thin middle as tightly as it would go. Who cared if she had writer’s block, husband problems, and a galloping staff crisis? She had the waist of a sixteen-year-old, didn’t she? And the bottom of a twenty-year-old—Jett was always telling her she had the best arse in the business. A frown flitted across her face as she wondered for the first time what business he meant exactly.
    Cassandra negotiated the front steps as well as she could in her high-heeled leopardskin ankle boots. She trotted unevenly down the street, glorying, as always, in the fact that it was one of Kensington’s most recherché roads and her house one of the most expensive. They can’t take that away from me, she thought, sticking her scrawny, plastic-covered chest out with pride and trying not to dwell on the fact that, if she didn’t keep up with the mortgage payments, they most certainly could—and would. She simply had to get on with this book…
    And to do that, she simply had to sort out a new nanny. The only slight hitchwas her usual agency’s flat refusal to supply her with any more staff. Cassandra twisted her glossy red lips as she recalled that morning’s conversation with the head of Spong’s Domestics.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Knight,” Mrs. Spong had told Cassandra. “I’m afraid we’re unable to recommend you to our clients as employers anymore.”
    “What the hell do you mean?” Cassandra had raged, embarrassed as well as furious. Spong’s was the smartest staff agency in the area. To be treated like this by them was humiliation of the first order, or rather it would be if anyone found out. She’d heard of employees being struck from agency books, but never employers .Really, this Spong woman had the most ludicrous airs. “Do you know who I am ?”
    There had been a polite silence before the agency head had, downright insolently, Cassandra considered, informed her that yes, she knew exactly who she was. “So what’s the problem?” Cassandra had demanded.
    “The problem, Mrs. Knight, is that we have supplied five nannies to you in the last twelve months, none of whom have managed to stay with you—or, more to the point, your son—for a period any longer than two months. It would seem that, ahem”—Mrs. Spong cleared her throat—“perhaps we are unable to supply quite the, um, calibre of staff you are looking for.”
    “Well, do you have any suggestions as to who might?” Cassandra had demanded. “I suppose it’s back to trawling through The Lady