hard at work
Cecilia is six years old and at the height of her powers. Master of all her angelic little eyes survey; the eldest of my three charges lords it over the family flat in her parents’ absence. With a single barked order, her sisters play baby, pupil, patient, or any member of society that happens to take her fancy. Although Toñi, the simultaneous cook, nanny and cleaning lady very occasionally presents a tougher challenge to Cecilia, not always bending to her will as easily as her siblings. However with a short burst of screams, an brief yet intensive shedding of tears, Cecilia usually gets her way. Cecilia, in short, leads a good life. Or at least, she used to. Little did she know, at the end of August, that her years of domination were nearing an end; and that her authoritarian regime would soon topple. She had not fretted away much of her busy life thinking about this new member of the family. Indeed, why should she be worried by this jeune garcon au pair? Granted, boys were stupid, and in fact hardly worth her precious time, but she was confident that this new arrival would pose no great problem to her. How wrong she was.
You will have understood, by now, that Cecilia and I were destined to have a somewhat rocky beginning to our relationship. I would describe her as having a bossy streak, if that were not misleading: more accurately, she might have a streak about her personality which is not bossy. This streak is fairly complex, and worth examining. Cecilia is an intelligent girl who seems to do very well at school. She works hard and, as you may have gathered, is exceptionally strong-minded. Nevertheless, underneath the severe dictatorette façade, there is a more fragile and, to be frank, nicer side to her personality. But let us leave the best until last, and concentrate for the moment on her more obvious traits. Cecilia is the kind of six year-old who is cute at first sight. In the right photo, she can look adorable. Her blond curls and blue eyes atop her stout silhouette can hardly be said to imply a tyrannical character.
When I arrived, my first impression was that of a shy and reserved girl who just needed a bit of friendliness. Yet, to my surprise, I soon grew accustomed to the sulky and determined face she reserved for persons as patently treacherous as me. For Cecilia is not one for uncertainty: she has to know where she is going, what she will be doing, how long it will take and what colour it will be. And don’t you dare say you don’t know. Importantly, Cecilia organises everything meticulously, and her acquaintances are similarly filed exclusively under MALO/TONTO or BUENO. Needless to add which category I found myself in. For Cecilia, I was basically the older brother she never really wanted to have. She was doing fine without me, thank you very much, and didn’t need any silly boy, no matter how tall, to tell her what to do. She has an aversion to even the merest pretence of authority. Indeed, for a while, I could only pick up a very limited vocabulary from the six-year-old, most of it dropping into my bulging “childish insults” folder. As a determined au pair, I tried every trick and strategy I could think of, and for weeks on end faced harm and humiliation in a hundred different ways while trying to win the ferocious little blond señorita’s heart of steel.
For obvious behavioural reasons, I cannot reveal all on this blog, yet the fact is that I somehow managed to get round Cecilia. We now get on well: she rarely berates me quite as badly as before, and often begs for me to pick her up, carry her or tickle her. She shares secrets with me, and explains the quite obvious facts of life to this stupid Belgian boy. Our relationship remains always on the edge of Armageddon, however, and the occasional “random tantrum” does arise. Nevertheless, this story can be said to have a sort of happy ending. I have three weeks to avoid a tragic epilogue.
