Nanny McPhee Returns (7 page)

The Diary 13

Beautiful weather. It’s 1st June, so that bodes well. We’re doing a bunch of pick-ups, just to mop up all the stuff we didn’t get earlier this week. We’re doing Celia being spattered by the mud. This involves a wonderful contraption composed of a big tyre inside a metal sheath, which is switched on so that the tyre whirls around in the air and is then lowered on to a big pile of mud so it spatters whoever’s in front of it. There’s a large man in a white cover-all and sunglasses standing in for Rosie Taylor-Ritson, the girl who plays Celia.

Rosie is a miraculous girl who seems to have come from another world where girls are made of bone china, strawberries and cream. Within, she is very strong and capable of doing whatever you might ask her to do. In this case, stand still with her eyes open in front of a gigantic tyre which is about to splatter her with pretend mud. We are all full of admiration.

Nice and relaxed feel today. Miracle, really.

The Story 13

Back at the shop, Mrs Green was just getting her coat on to leave when she heard noises behind the counter.

‘What’re you doing back there, Mrs Docherty?’ she enquired nervously.

‘Oh, nothing at all, dear. Just putting away the treacle.’

Mrs Green gasped and flew round the counter to find all the drawers oozing stickily.

‘Goodnight, dear! See you tomorrow!
What
a good day it’s been!’ sang Mrs Docherty as she floated into the back of the shop and out of sight.

Mrs Green, feeling utterly defeated, slumped against a barrel of oats.

‘What am I to do? What am I to do about the farm? What am I to do about the children fighting all the time? What am I to do about the harvest? What if Rory –’ but she couldn’t finish that thought and quickly moved to an easier one. ‘And what am I to do with SEVENTEEN DRAWERS FULL OF TREACLE!!!??’

Then something very strange happened. One of the treacly drawers opened all by itself. From within it issued a deep, syrupy voice which said:

‘The person you need is Nanny McPhee.’

Mrs Green got such a shock that she dropped her coat in the puddle of treacle. ‘What?’ she whispered.

Another drawer, a littler one this time, now opened and a smaller voice came out of it. ‘The person you need,’ it said, sounding slightly irritated that she hadn’t heard it the first time, ‘is Nanny McPhee.’

‘Who?’ said Mrs Green, in a very high voice owing to fright and general surprise about the fact that she was having a conversation with the furniture. Then all the smallest drawers started to open and shut, all squeaking, ‘The person you need – the person you need – the person you need –’

Mrs Green picked up her sticky coat and ran.

As she flew out of the door, Mrs Docherty appeared. She looked at the drawers approvingly. They’d all fallen silent.

‘– is Nanny McPhee,’ said Mrs Docherty, quietly closing the drawers.

Mrs Green legged it home as fast as she could. There was a high wind blowing and as she came into the yard she heard a loud squawk. Looking up, she came face-to-face with a raggedy jackdaw. It was staring at her as though they had, at some point, been formally introduced and she ought to recognise it. Spooked and puzzled and buffeted, she turned away and saw something unfamiliar trodden into the mud. It looked furry. She bent down and saw two beady little eyes peeping up at her. Giving a slight shriek, she was about to run into the house when she realised that the eyes were, in fact, beads and that they belonged to a fox-fur tippet which she now gingerly pulled out of its squelchy ditch.

What in heaven’s name was a fox-fur tippet doing in the farmyard?

Mrs Green gave a sudden gasp of realisation and horror. There was only one person she knew who could afford such an expensive item and that was Prunella. But it was such a teeny-weeny tippet that it must be a child’s. It followed, therefore, that Prunella’s child Celia must be nearby. And it also followed therefore that she and her brother had arrived early and must have been attacked in some way.

And lastly, it followed that the noises she now heard issuing from the farmhouse, loud enough to be heard above the howling wind and squawking jackdaw, were the noises of battle.

‘Oh no!’ gulped Mrs Green. ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’

She went to the door. Huge thuds and screams came from behind it. She opened it, her heart in her mouth.

The sight that met her eyes was little less than catastrophic.

Norman had Cyril in a headlock and was dragging him around in circles, letting out the most dreadful war cries. Cyril was kicking at Norman, while above them, on the landing, Megsie was pulling pieces off Celia’s dress and trying to tie her to the banisters with them as Celia made violent attempts to escape, shrieking, ‘Let go, let
go
, let GO.’

‘All right then,’ said Megsie, letting go and causing Celia to catapult down the stairs as Vincent appeared with his father’s cricket bat, thumping everything he could see and yelling, ‘Death, death, death and hurting!’ over and over again.

Taking a deep breath, Mrs Green walked in and was immediately spun around by the battling boys.

‘Celia! Cyril! You’re early!’ she screamed. ‘How’s your mother?’

The children took not the blindest bit of notice and continued to wrestle and screech until Mrs Green had to stop her ears and thunder, ‘STOP! STOP FIGHTING!!!’

But no one could hear her. Just at that moment there was a thundering rap at the door. Lightning illuminated the room and Mrs Green whirled to see a very odd, lumpy silhouette through the glass bit of the door.

‘What on earth . . .’ she breathed, when there it was again. RAT-A-TAT-TAT. A heavy, no nonsense, answer-this-door-immediately kind of knocking.

Mrs Green went to the door feeling a trepidation quite unlike anything she had ever experienced before. She took hold of the door knob and threw open the door. As she did so, lightning blazed across the sky, allowing her to see in intense detail the person who was standing in the porch.

It was female, of that there could be no doubt. A vast and hideous female, dressed from head to foot in rusty black stuff trimmed with jet. But the face! Her face was so UGLY, so ugly you could hardly believe it. Her nose was like a giant pocky old potato. Her eyebrows met bushily in the middle and she had two enormous black hairy warts like spiders! Out over her lip stuck a gigantic and discoloured tombstone-shaped tooth and she stared at Mrs Green out of ancient glittering eyes.

Mrs Green was entirely unable to speak. Even though she had been taught from a very early age that it was rude to stare, she simply couldn’t help it. She stared and stared and then she stared some more.

The fierce-looking female stared back for a short moment. Then she opened her mouth to speak. It seemed strange that anyone with quite so many enormous teeth should be able to speak at all, but when she did, it was in a calm, almost mellifluous way.

‘Good evening, Mrs Green. I am Nanny McPhee.’

Mrs Green realised she had stopped breathing, took in a big lungful of air and tried to address her visitor as politely as she knew she ought.

‘Oh,
you’re i
t
! I mean him – her – the Nanny they – I do beg your pardon – who?’

Unperturbed, and casting a glance at the violence that continued without interruption behind Mrs Green, the strange person spoke again.

‘Nanny McPhee. Small
c
. Big
p.
’

Mrs Green felt that the last thing she needed was someone this scary-looking trying to interfere.

‘Yes, I see, righto, but the thing is – the thing is that I haven’t hired a nanny – you see? I don’t – I’ve never – I don’t actually like nannies and I’m managing perfectly well here –’

This was the moment Norman chose to pick Vincent up and throw him bodily at Cyril. Nanny McPhee raised her single bushy eyebrow at poor Mrs Green.

‘It’s the war!’ said Mrs Green, somewhat hysterically. ‘It’s not a very good influence.’

All the children were now in the best parlour, bashing each other and screaming louder than ever. Mrs Green backed away from the front door and closed the door to the parlour. When she turned around, Nanny McPhee was in the house with the front door closed and even though Mrs Green knew she hadn’t
exactly
invited her in, something very deep inside her seemed to be saying, ‘Yes, do come in, please do come in.’

‘Tea?’ said Mrs Green, trying to lead Nanny McPhee away from the parlour into the kitchen.

‘Perhaps later,’ said Nanny McPhee calmly. ‘Let me just introduce myself to the children.’

Mrs Green panicked.‘Oh no! No, no – I mean – wait – I mean – have you got any references?’

Nanny McPhee turned and fixed Mrs Green with a penetrating stare.

‘I am an army nanny, Mrs Green. I have been deployed. Why don’t you put the kettle on?’

And again, while every conscious thought inside Mrs Green’s head was screaming, ‘Get out of my house you scary thing’ another voice, deep inside her, was saying gently, ‘Yes, let’s put the kettle on. What a good idea.’

So she turned to put the kettle on, and when she turned back the kitchen was empty.

The Diary 14

Back in the studio now. Hot in there, but I’m surviving. We took three days to shoot the Greens fighting over the lemon drop and now we’re starting on another three-day marathon. Maggie Gyllenhaal, our beautiful, harassed Mrs Green, had to shout so much during the lemon drop bit that she lost her voice! She was heroic. The children coped gamely with the heat and all the smoke they pump into the set to make it look more real. (I know that sounds peculiar but it’s true – the smoke softens everything somehow and makes it look lived in. They call it ‘atmos’, which is short for ‘atmosphere’.)

Simon’s set is genuinely breathtaking.

Maggie G., by the way, has come all the way from America with her husband and her little girl (who is only four) to live on our rainy island for THREE MONTHS. We are all very proud she is here with us, and when Susanna, Lindsay and I sit at the monitor to watch her, we sometimes gasp and hold on to each other because she is so, so beautiful.

We’ve had some seriously bad news – Rhys Ifans, our Phil, has broken his foot showing some six-year-olds a few nifty football moves. It’s always something tiny that causes an accident, but the implications for the shoot are enormous. David Brown’s rushing around trying to sort it out. We can’t shoot on him until August and it’s only June! Yikes.

Shepperton Studios is its usual collection of huts, stages and car parks but very pleasant even so. And no problems with the weather, of course, because we’re shooting indoors. I am in the full Nanny gear, with the cape and everything. So far it hasn’t been too hot.

Later: I spoke too soon. Nose has peeled off and refuses to be re-stuck. Paula will have to put on a new one. Did I tell you she keeps them in the fridge? Because she does.

I can’t eat or laugh in this get-up. Talking’s hard too. Let’s face it, this costume does inhibit most of life’s major pleasures. It is, however, one of the most effective costumes I’ve ever worn, so hats off to the Costume Department (see Glossary).