by Heide Goody
That bit at least had actually happened.
“Crap.” In the living room, I took the cushion off Lexi. “Lexi, how would I know if I was going mad?”
“Do you want to listen to I’m Going Slightly Mad or would you like to know The Top Signs that you Might be Going Mad?” she asked.
“The second one. Quickly, before Cookie comes out.”
“‘In this day and age,’” recited Lexi, “‘the stresses and strains of modern life cause many of us to worry about our mental health. Dr Julian Mannheim discusses –’”
“Skip the intro, just tell me the symptoms,” I said.
“One, confusion,” said Lexi.
“Well I can tick that box. I lost my house,” I grumbled.
“Two, paranoia.”
I kept silent but made a mental note to check with someone other than Lexi whether it still counts as paranoia if your every move is being monitored by an absent brother and his houseful of electronic gadgetry.
“Three, conversations with people who aren’t there.”
I nearly burst with the irony of having that read out to me by a machine pretending to be a person, but then I thought about the conversation I’d had with Ashbert, who was quite clearly a figment of my imagination and gave a soft moan of despair. I nodded along with the others as Lexi read them out. I’d need to be on the lookout for them.
“Four, feeling persecuted. Five, thinking that people are judging you. Six, stress and anxiety. Seven, hallucinations, and eight, being at odds with social norms.”
“At odds with social norms? What does that mean?”
“It means behaviour that breaks the rules of society and may cause embarrassment or indignation.”
“Well, that doesn’t apply,” I said and piled the rocks into one of the outer boxes from the Amazon delivery. I also needed to get my thinking cap on about what to do with all those condoms.
Cookie came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped round her torso and another round her frizzy hair.
“Bathroom’s yours.”
“Thanks, Cookie.”
Cookie sorted through last night’s clothes, sniffing them for smoke.
“Cookie,” said Lexi, “Lori tells me you have become a lesbian. Would you like to discuss this?”
“Lori!” said Cookie indignantly.
“Lexi! I said no such thing.”
“You said she was coming out. Have I misunderstood?”
“Yes,” I snapped, stomping into the bathroom. “You are so embarrassing.”
“Not cool, ghost butler,” said Cookie. “Not cool.”
Dressed and ready, and listening to Cookie explain why she would be an excellent lesbian and why I’d be lucky to have her, I carried the box of rocks down to the communal bin area. I flung it in the top of a dumpster and felt pretty pleased that I’d accomplished something with my day while it was still officially night by normal people’s standards.
We walked through the city centre while it was silent, which was a strange new experience.
“The quietness,” said Cookie, with a wave of her hand.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Really?” How strange. I was just thinking that this is how things would look after a zombie apocalypse.
“Yeah, that you’re at one with nature and your mind can be at peace. Let’s not talk, let’s commune.”
We communed all the way to the museum. Cookie gazed up into the branches of the trees that we passed, but I was a bit scared to look up after I thought I saw a big rat scuttling under a bench. We got there in good time – I could tell because Rex was waiting, with only a moderate scowl on his big beardy face, when we walked in.
“Morning Rex!” I smiled, pretending that I was happy at being out of bed at six a.m.
“Good morning. Straight to work now, there’s lots to do,” he said. He guided me over to a trolley. “Here’s your equipment. You should find everything that you need, and we trust that Melissa will accompany you for the first hour or so.”
I gazed at the trolley. “All this is for me?” I said. “Cool! Can I pimp my ride?”
Rex gave me the sternest look, and I could see the question forming on his lips before he stopped himself, and turned away. “No,” he said. “Tabard.”
He passed me a cleaner’s tabard. I looked at the name tag.
“Who’s Consuela?” I asked.
“Your predecessor. We can’t get any new nametags until we’ve concluded the un-retendering process. You will start in the Greek and Roman gallery. Follow.”
We walked through the museum. Past the big bronze statue of the angel with no underpants, past glass cases full of teapots, samurai armour and silverware, round through the galleries of old paintings (featuring such fine art staples as Tired Woman with Jugs, Bored Man in Hat, Ugly Child and Bodybuilder in a Loin Cloth) and to a service lift. This took us up to the first floor where they keep all the history stuff. There was a bunch of stuff from the university’s and the city’s history, a surprising bunch of Egyptian things – mostly painted death masks and surprised-looking cats (I suppose being mummified would surprise anyone) – and then there was the Greek and Roman stuff.
Well, the exhibits certainly looked old. Most of it was broken plates and the kind of clay models you’d expect a class of six-year-olds to make.
“Right!” said Rex, loudly. “A really thorough job needs to be done in here. You’ll see that there is dust on the skirting boards. A white cloth will be used to check them later, so it will soon be obvious if you’ve skipped any part of them.” He swivelled the door and peered behind. “You will observe that there is a paperclip in the gap between the wall and the door. It was placed there as a test three weeks ago, and its continued presence is irrefutable evidence that your predecessor, Consuela, did not clean it up. Do better.”
He turned on his heel and left.
Cookie pulled a face at his back and then waved a hand across the broom and the dusters. “You know how to work this complicated equipment, right?” I nodded. “Well you don’t need me on your case. Time for the first fag break of the day. Gotta pace myself.”
Cookie disappeared and I lifted the broom off the trolley so that I could start sweeping. I picked up the paperclip that Rex had pointed out. Could I sell a paperclip? I was conscious that I still had no money, and I wasn’t going to be able to get food without some. Nobody would buy a single paperclip, but who knew, maybe there were more? Had Rex concealed paperclips throughout the gallery spaces to test his cleaners? Finding them would be a mildly diverting game of hide and seek and if I managed to collect fifty or so, maybe I could sell them for a quid? I popped the paperclip into my pocket and ignored the restless growling of my stomach.
I swept the floor and then mopped it. I’d never swept or mopped before but I’d seen it done, usually in musicals. I’m not sure if dancing with the mop and pirouetting were essential but I’m a perfectionist. I stopped a couple of times to scrape chewing gum off the floor. I couldn’t recall any dance routines that feature gum-scraping but I did my best.
When I’d finished the floor, I looked across the gallery and gave myself a mental pat on the back. It looked pretty good, all glistening and shiny. I hadn’t imagined that I’d get a lot of satisfaction from a cleaning job, so I relished this little nugget. My bubble burst when a man walked straight across the middle, leaving footmarks as he went.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I yelled. “I’ve just cleaned that!”
He glanced up at me. I realised that I’d met this man before. Twice. Those brooding eyebrows like two slightly sexy caterpillars. The old-man-in-training clothing. It was Mr Corduroy, the paper delivery man.
“Oh, it’s you. Shouldn’t you have a little yellow sign thing?” he said. “Cleaning in progress.”
“I’ve finished cleaning.”
“Wet floor then.”
“I haven’t been given a sign. It’s my first day.”
“Not yet.”
“Keep looking. I’m sure they’ll turn up.”
He opened a cabinet, nonchalantly, like the world’s laziest burglar.
“You can’t touch that,” I said, approaching the cabinet. I read the label. “It’s, er, it’s a statue of a man from the second century CE, whatever that means. Anyway, it means that you shouldn’t touch it.”
He looked up at me then and he rolled his eyes at me. Actually rolled his eyes at me. Lots of people can’t do it; it takes practice. “I wrote the sign,” he said. “I curate this gallery.”
Whether he curated this gallery or the whole tooting museum (not that I was a hundred percent sure what curating was) I wasn’t going to have someone roll their eyes at me like I was an idiot. I was determined to bring him down a peg or two. “Well you should take more care,” I said, “you’ve spelled AD wrong. Or maybe BC. It’s wrong anyway.”
“It stands for Common Era,” he said as he altered the position of the little pottery man.
“What? Like when everything got really chavvy?”
“It’s the same as AD.”
“After Death.”
“Anno Domini. The Year of Our Lord.”
“Not my Lord, sunshine.”
“Which is why we use CE and BCE. We like to be inclusive with our signage, although cleaning staff weren’t necessarily the demographic we had in mind when we designed it.”
“I’m not cleaning staff!”
“You work here, don’t you?”
“Yes, but…”
“You clean?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” He moved the little pottery man further, unhappy with its positioning. “The name’s James.”
“That’s not a very Roman name.”
“Me. Not the statue.”
He took a nice-looking SLR camera out of a case and started to photograph the exhibit.
“You don’t work here at all,” I said. “You deliver newspapers for Mr Patel.”
“Who’s Mr Patel?”
“I mean Norman.”
He looked at my name badge. “For your information, Consuela. I have been delivering newspapers for Norman because my Uncle Phil would normally do it, but he’s recovering from a hip operation. So, you can see why I’m very busy. I’m photographing specimens for an academic paper as well as juggling everything else.”
“My name’s Lori.”
“It says Consuela.”
“Yes, but that’s because we’ve not been un-retendered yet.”
“I see,” he said, confused. “So, you were Consuela but once you’ve been retendered –”
“Un-retendered.”
“– then you’ll be Lori. Well, I’ll hope you’ll be happy with whoever you choose to be.”
It was said as a farewell, a dismissal. He couldn’t have been more dismissive if he’d said “Good day, sir!” and jammed a pipe in his mouth.
I couldn’t believe he was talking to me like that. Feeling persecuted was on the list of symptoms that Lexi had reeled off this morning, but I really was being persecuted, wasn’t I? By a shameless tweed-wearing mansplainer.
“You’re lying,” I said.
“Oh?” said James.
“It’s After Death. Everyone knows that.”
He nodded and packed his camera away again.
“So, it was BC, Before Christ? And then it was After Death, presumably after Jesus’s death at the age of thirty-something?”
“Exactly.”
He considered this deeply. “And what about the years when Jesus was alive? What do we call them?”
Ooh, that was a stumper. I thought about it while he moved on to another display case.
“They just take a break,” I said.
“A break?” said James.
“They’d celebrate New Year and then they’d stick their heads out the window and ask, ‘Is that Jesus still alive?’ And, if he was, they’d just repeat the year.”
“A bit impractical,” he suggested.
“It would save money on calendars,” I pointed out.
“Bad news for calendar makers.”
He finished off fiddling in that case and, without a word of farewell, left. I was happy to have the gallery to myself again, and looked around at all the things I’d need to clean to impress Rex. The glass cabinets had a lot of fingermarks on them, so I gave them all a good polish. I came to a cabinet containing the little pottery man and found that the door was slightly ajar. Presumably I was to clean inside as well, I could clearly see the dust on the plinth. The pottery man was naked and reclined on one arm but, sadly, half of his other arm was missing. I was struck with a sudden thought. I could go above and beyond the call of duty here and really help out. I retrieved the paperclip and the gum that I’d cleaned up and fashioned a replacement arm for the tiny figurine. I even gave him a ‘thumbs up’. I attached it to the elbow and stepped back to admire his new look. He had a whole new demeanour – he looked really cheerful.
Buoyed by my success, I looked around at the other exhibits. They all suffered from one main drawback – they were a bit dull. I walked over to look at another statue. It was three women all hugging each other, and their heads were missing. The label blathered on about them being a representation of the Three Graces. I thought for a moment and then got my bag from the bottom of my trolley. I had my pencil case and sketch pad, so I was able to create a better label. It read: The Kardashians’ heads exploded after they all turned up to a party wearing the same dress. I put the label inside the cabinet and moved on.
There was a large plate on a stand. It had pictures on it and the one at the top was a man sitting on a chair blowing into some pipes. They looked like some sort of ancestor of the recorder except there were two of them in his mouth. I paused for a moment imagining how hellish that must have sounded. I remember being able to empty a room with a single recorder, what on earth would have happened if I’d ever tried to play two? I gave it a label saying Ancient Greek vaping lounge and closed the door of the cabinet. The last one that I made a label for a was a model of some sort of mythological creature. It looked to me as if the sculptor had suffered a bad acid trip after looking round a zoo. It had bits of rhino, bits of camel and a face that dared you to look at it wrong. I labelled it: Hi, I’m a Cameloceros. I’m always horny, but I often get the hump.
I made improvements throughout the gallery and finished the cleaning and then reported to Rex’s office. The big metal electrical cabinet on the wall behind him fizzed and crackled alarmingly but he barely seemed to notice. He ran his fingers through his grey locks and gave me an appraising look.
“All done? Good. The quality of your cleaning will be inspected in due course. One hopes your best efforts have been sufficient but it’s taken you much too long. You should be cleaning two galleries in this time. Speed up tomorrow. Take your break now and then report to the tea rooms, they’ll want some help clearing dishes.”
With that, he returned to his files and papers as though I had suddenly ceased to exist.
I found Cookie looking industrious among mannequins sporting ‘clothes through the ages’ on one of the lower levels. Looking industrious, not really doing anything.
“How am I going to bear being in the tea rooms?” I wailed. “I haven’t eaten for nearly two days, and there’s going to be food everywhere.”
“The universe never closes a door without opening a window.”
“Surprised it’s never been burgled,” I said.
“Your problem is its own solution,” she said, strolling through a corridor and spraying a faint trail of furniture polish as she went in lieu of actual cleaning. “You won’t believe the things that people don’t eat. Trust me.”
The tea rooms were in a big hall on the ground floor, all big windows and ironwork balconies and plump leather chairs. It was like an old gentleman’s club had moved into a Victorian swimming baths and decided to serve go
urmet sandwiches and cream teas. I got my orders from a woman with an unfortunate skin complexion and set off to clear tables from those who had come into the tea rooms for a spot of breakfast.
And Cookie was right. I cleared up some plates from a couple of skinny students, who’d nibbled half a teacake each. I wolfed down the rest on the way to the kitchen. I don’t think I’d ever eaten anything so very delicious, I was so hungry! I went back out and looked around to see what else needed clearing. A lecturer type sat reading a newspaper with half a bacon sandwich left on a plate. I licked my lips.
“Can I take the plate for you?” I asked.
“I haven’t finished,” he smiled.
“We should eat until we’re full, not until the plate is empty.”
“How do you know I’m full?”
“I’m a good judge of character,” I said. I pointed at the paper. “Has it got that news article in it about processed meat knocking five years off your life?” I asked. “Five years! Or maybe it was ten, actually.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, hesitating as he reached for his plate. He sighed. “Go on, you take the plate, I’ve had enough.”
I made sure I was out of sight before I sank my teeth into the delicious sandwich.
When I came out again I scanned the room. I was in the mood for something sweet now. Yes, beggars can be choosers. A woman sat on her own with a selection of cakes. I plucked a style supplement from the newspaper rack and walked over.
“Can I offer you something to read?” I said.
I walked away and waited for the magazine to work its magic. Stick-thin models, fashion spreads and lifestyle articles create their own toxic blend. Ten minutes looking at that stuff can generate enough self-loathing for a week in my experience. Sure enough, I passed by shortly afterwards and she asked me to take away the remaining cakes. I managed to inhale a millionaire’s shortbread, a Bakewell tart and a cream slice during the short walk to the kitchen.
After dealing with the morning rush in the tea rooms, I cleaned the gallery with the interactive kids’ zone in it (clearly the university aimed to get students signed up when they were young). After I’d done the cleaning I pulled out the new, improved wanted posters I’d been working on, depicting my parents more thoroughly. I’d drawn my mom weeding the garden. I thought it might jog people’s memories if she was living off the land now. What would my dad be doing? Same as always, spending time in the shed or the garage. He’d almost certainly be working hard on something for their new lifestyle so I’d drawn him creating an irrigation system powered by my old bike. (It hadn’t made it to Adam’s flat which I thought was significant. Admittedly I haven’t ridden it since I was eight.)