2005 - My Cleaner

by Maggie Gee; Prefers to remain anonymous

  “Miss Henman, you said we were here before.”

  But this time she is right. It is the same house. Yes, that is her Aunt Isobel’s house, the house where she has always lived with Uncle Stan. It looks different because the trees have grown up, two great dark yew trees which obscure the windows and make the house look smaller than before. Not that it has ever been a very big house. Vanessa’s village does not have big houses.

  Lucy is putting up two of her daughters, so they have to stay with Lucy’s parents. The front door is the same peeling sky-blue it used to be when Vanessa was little. They ring the doorbell. Inside, there is a crash of furniture, and then the slow movement of something living, a shuffle and drag of someone coming to the door, and the minutes exacerbate Vanessa’s nerves, but then the door opens, and there is her aunt, a hundred years older, but wreathed in smiles, her very own aunt, and this is her welcome, she’s enfolded in laughter and soft, solid flesh that smells of lilacs, and something medical.

  “Nessa, dearie. How lovely to see you. We’re all at sixes and sevens here. You know Stan’s not well. He sometimes knocks things over…Who’s this?” She peers puzzledly at Mary, then says, “Oh yes, nice to see you, dear, Lucy did say you would be bringing a friend, but she didn’t mention—I see, never mind. Come in, come in. You’re too thin, Vanessa. We’ll have to feed you up. Of course we hoped that young Justin would come—”

  So they are swept in, and back in time. To smaller rooms and narrower stairs. To unshaded bulbs and yellowed paintwork, to thin, cheap towels in deck-chair stripes. Here they are still living in the 1950s. Nothing, it seems, has been thrown away, though they do have a huge flat-screen television. “We rent it, actually, we ought to buy it but you know how it is, we never quite have the money.” Uncle Stan watches it most of the time, and his contribution to the lunchtime conversation is a lengthy digest of the plots of the soaps, which he delivers anxiously, in his soft new voice, as if his own life is not good enough.

  “It’s the effect of Parkinson’s, the way he talks,” whispers Isobel, in the dark kitchen, which seems like a period film set to Vanessa. Old electric cooker with solid hot plates, enamel bread-bin, little calendar with spaniels, glossy ears drooping over circled dates next to which are pencilled ‘DOCTOR’ or ‘HOSPITAL’. “He’s making a big effort, but he’s very tired. They don’t think he’s got long to go—” And although her aunt speaks matter-of-factly, as if of a race with a gallant jockey, Vanessa realises it’s death she means, death that hovers by the stained formica underneath the wall cupboard with its layers of cream paint. Suddenly that cupboard is very familiar. Was it where her aunt kept homemade ginger biscuits? Sweet and tacky, misshapen as puddles. The taste returns to her, buttery, hot. “—But it’s bound to buck Stan up, seeing you. And your friend. She’s very nice. She seems just like us. You know we’ve never had an African in the house. ”

  It is a shock to Vanessa that they are poor. Oddly enough, she had not expected it, as if the wash of prosperity in London would have flooded over and found every village and changed the lives of the people here. In fact, they are no better off than they were. Indeed they must be worse off, since everything’s the same, just older and darker than before. This house has no videos, or dimmer switches, or mixer taps, or bathroom suites. There is the same curved bath, with rusted feet, which they could have sold for a fortune in London, and the separate loo, with its high dark cistern. The chain is mended with ancient string.

  “I’ll show you to your room,” Aunt Isobel says, after they’ve drunk cups of sweet milky coffee. “Oh, don’t you take sugar?” she asks, too late, spotting Vanessa’s wince of distaste.

  “It’s fine, Aunt Isobel, it’s just that I get toothache. No, never mind, I’m enjoying it.” And she is, in a way. It takes her back in time; her mother used to make the same mild, sweet fluid.

  The two of them follow the old lady upstairs, checking themselves at every step as she heaves and pants her way to the top, then turns and smiles at them; one tooth is broken. “Slow and steady wins the day.”

  And then Vanessa has her second shock. For she and Mary will be sharing a room. Of course, she should have expected it. The house is small, and there are only two bedrooms, for the one where Lucy and her sister once slept has now been turned into a junk room. Isobel explains this as she opens the door to a small bright room with a double bed.

  And so they will be sharing a bed.

  There is a vase of roses on the bedside table. “Your Aunt Becky crocheted that bedspread,” says Isobel. “I had to clear their house out after she died. She would have liked to be here to see you.” And then, seeing something stunned in Vanessa’s expression, she says, “Will this room be all right for you? I thought, seeing as the two of you are such friends…In any case, it’s all we’ve got.” And just for a moment there’s a flash of something that Vanessa remembers from when she was younger, when she went to college and her cousins did not, when her aunt thought she’d got above herself, and told her mother, and there was a row. Hurriedly she says, “That’s quite all right.”

  “It is very nice,” says Mary, laughing. “I do not mind sleeping with Vanessa. Though sometimes Omar says I kick people.”

  Vanessa does not laugh. She takes most of the hangers, and the side of the bed with the bedside table.

  In the evening they all go to Lucy’s house, except Uncle Stan, who ‘has a programme to watch’, or so he says, but his wife whispers, “Well, the old boy never goes out.”

  Lucy lives in one of the modern houses that have appeared along the lanes. It has an air of recent ruthless tidying; the beds in the garden are freshly dug over, spanking new winter pansies in brilliant islands upon a background of immaculate brown. They are building an extension at the back: it is large and white and nearly finished, with a round conservatory on the end.

  Lucy is nervous, but full of laughter. Pretty from a distance, with a cap of yellow curls, close up her fine skin is wreathed in smiling wrinkles, Vanessa is relieved to find, as they kiss. Her blue eyes are kindly, but not the cornflower pools that used to lure Vanessa’s boyfriends away. And I am slimmer than her, thinks Vanessa. And surely I dress decades younger. She begins to feel better, to relax.

  Lucy welcomes them into her pink front room, rather too pink, but very bright. There is a rose three·piece suite and a low carved coffee-table covered with a sheet of gleaming glass. It is loaded with things on cocktail sticks, sausage rolls, olives, bijou gherkins. There is a bottle of sparkling wine on the table. The late sun flashes on a set of crystal flutes. Lucy shows them her house with self-deprecating pride: it is light and bright and well-organised, a world away from Aunt Isobel’s (though Vanessa notes there are very few bookshelves, and she would never live in a 1980s house, with cubes of rooms and double-glazed windows). There are sunshine-yellow fitted units in the kitchen, with matching blinds, kettle and toaster. Vanessa says, “Lovely,” but thinks too yellow. “You don’t think it’s too yellow, do you?” asks Lucy. The floor is an eye-popping yellow and white check. Vanessa is determined to be nice to everyone. “Lovely, Lucy. You must clean it every day, how marvellous” (but 1 would be far too busy).

  Lucy gives her a slightly quizzical look. “I’m afraid not, Nessa. I have a cleaner. Nearly as old as Mum, but she keeps going.”

  It turns out Lucy pays half as much as Vanessa, and the cleaner comes for twice as many hours as Anya. “One day I’m moving to the country,” says Vanessa. “You can’t imagine how hard it is, in London. I mean, cleaners have us over a barrel, they aren’t even English, and we pay through the nose—”

  Of course it’s OK to say this to Lucy, who lives in the country, and will understand. Then Vanessa remembers, with a sinking heart, that Mary is standing listening in the doorway. “I don’t mean you, Mary, of course,” she blusters.

  Mary smiles at her, enigmatically. “Of course not, Vanessa. You cannot mean me. I am not your cleaner. And remember—when I was your cleaner you paid me very little.”r />
  Vanessa hopes that Lucy did not hear her.

  “I hope you’ll be all right at Mum’s,” Lucy says. “She does her best, bless her, but Dad is exhausting, it’s not his fault, but she has to do everything. I would have had you here but then the girls said they wanted to bring the kids for the knees-up, and I have to say, I’m the original doting grandma—I think that’s them!” And she rushes to the door.

  And there they are, the next two generations. The daughters are stylish, handsome women; one is a solicitor, one a doctor; one is a Chloe, the other a Serena. They are warily friendly, at first, to Vanessa, as if they have heard too much about her. The grandchildren range between two and eight, and all have cut-glass middle·class accents, and either have nannies or go to prep school. The daughters are protective of their mother Lucy, and make a fuss of her, and praise her food, and admire her garden, so Vanessa does too, and they all get mildly tipsy together. Mary chats intensely to Serena, the solicitor, who turns out to have done VSO in Kenya, and Vanessa ends up with a grandchild on her knee, and there is a lot of shouting and laughter.

  The first night, Vanessa says, aside, to Mary, “Mary if you don’t mind, I will have a bath. As you know, I have headaches when I don’t get my exercise, and the hot water helps me to relax.”

  Mary doesn’t demur, though she is sweaty from driving.

  But when Vanessa makes the same speech to her hostess, Aunt Isobel’s mouth tightens on a drawstring. “Oh no, we don’t really have baths at night. The water’s gone cold again by now. I expect we could manage one in the morning.”

  Vanessa washes glumly in the bathroom. She’s asleep by the time Mary joins her in the bedroom. Vanessa jerks awake and looks at her watch. It is nearly midnight. “Mary, what have you been doing?”

  “I was talking with your aunt and uncle. They are very interested in my life in Uganda.”

  “Really?” asks Vanessa, disconcerted. She feels vaguely cheated by this news. Surely Mary should talk about Uganda to her? “I too am very interested, Mary, you know. Particularly as I have been to Uganda.”

  “Yes, Vanessa, you have mentioned it.” Mary goes to sleep smiling, and does not say, “But you never asked me about life in Uganda. You were always too busy telling me about it.”

  When Vanessa comes down to breakfast next day, Aunt Isobel is in the kitchen. She gestures conspiratorially at the garden, smiling, showing stained and broken incisors. “Look who’s managed to get outside. And your friend’s with him. Heart of gold, that girl.”

  “Really?” Vanessa goes out to join them. She has a heart of gold, as well.

  Stan and Mary are propped against the garden wall, looking down the path towards the bird-table. And they are smoking. Mary’s doing it again. Vanessa stares at her, mute, accusing.

  “Ah, Vanessa.” Mary smiles, and blows smoke. “Stan has asked me to join him for a cigarette. Although, as you know, I have given up smoking. But of course, I respect your uncle very much. I think it is a cultural thing, to join him.”

  “She’s a laugh a minute, this girl,” says Stan. His voice sounds stronger, although he is coughing. “See, Izzie’s given up, so it’s nice to have company. I’m showing her my birdies, look there, down the garden.”

  “I like the blue and yellow ones,” says Mary, indicating them with a flourish of her fag.

  Not to be outdone, Vanessa joins in. “Your tits are absolutely wonderful, Uncle.”

  And Mary quickly seconds her. “Very nice tits.”

  Both of them are puzzled when Stan bursts out laughing, choking and heaving against the wall. But this visit is going really well.

  Soon after, the day dissolves in grey rain. Mary and Vanessa try to wander round the village, but Mary has no Wellington boots, and the traffic soon sprays them with thin slurry. After a bit they give up and go back. The house feels small for the four of them.

  Mary Tendo volunteers to help Aunt Isobel with the ironing, though Vanessa whispers, “You don’t have to, Mary.” She demolishes a mountain of linen in an hour. “I am an expert,” she says, when Isobel thanks her.

  After tea they get ready for the village party.

  “My outfit is OK?” Mary asks Vanessa. Her dress has a high neck, and a knee-length skirt, but to Vanessa it seems slightly too red and too tight, and generally makes Mary Tendo look too—what?

  Too pretty, she realises, ashamed. Mary looks really pretty in her smart red dress. It shows off her curves, which have surely grown curvier. Surely, in London, her bosom has grown? Vanessa inspects her own spare, lean form. ‘Tensile, like a dancer’, she remembers. Men didn’t like women who were—blowsy. Did they?

  43

  “So nice to meet new family,” Chloe shouts at Vanessa, trying to rise above the noise of the band in the revamped village hall, which is fast filling up with people. “We really enjoyed yesterday evening at Mum’s. And you are, you know, from the old village. I don’t know who half these people are.”

  Vanessa is flattered, pleased to be welcomed. “Well Mary and I don’t know a soul.” (But in fact, Mary has quickly made friends with two men who are laying cable under the road, men with shadowy jaws and big muscles and sharp, metropolitan haircuts. They are the best-looking men in the room. She is dancing energetically with both of them, shimmying her hips in a frank, rhythmic fashion that makes Vanessa wince and look away. Though Vanessa can dance with the best of them, and so she would, if anyone asked her—Why don’t they ask her? She is looking nice. She isn’t so much older than Mary.)

  Sighing, Vanessa turns back to Chloe. “I wish you could have met my Justin. All of you children would get on so well.” She realises that she actually means, “You have all become middle class, you children, everything about you, your voice, your style, whereas your mother and I…” It was a small miracle.

  Then Serena comes up. “Someone’s dying to meet you,” she says, and leads Vanessa towards the kitchen.

  On the way, they pass Vanessa’s first boyfriend. It is Raymond Biggins, now fat and red-faced. She recognises him by his fleshy lips. He surely looks twenty years older than she does. But he stops and stares. “It can’t be Vanessa. Hallo there, darling…Bloody hell, you’ve aged.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, he’s fucking pissed,” shouts his equally fat wife, slapping his bottom.

  “Ah,” says Vanessa, a little shaken. She swigs at her drink, and tries to smile. Ray Biggins always was a loser. And aggression could be a sign of desire.

  In the kitchen, a large grey-haired woman is sitting drinking on her own. When she sees Vanessa come into the room, she puts down the glass, slowly, deliberately, and peers at Vanessa, and then she smiles.

  “Do you recognise me?” she asks Vanessa.

  The woman has a long face like a bloodhound, and deep brownish bags under her eyes, but there is a familiar curl to her lip, and that horse-toothed smile—Vanessa struggles to place her.

  “I’m a wreck now, of course, but when I taught you, Vanessa, I was a hopeful young sprig of thirty. And now we’re both old biddies, eh?”

  “Miss Tomlinson,” Vanessa gasps, struck. “You taught me English. You encouraged me.” But she is unsettled by that ‘old biddy’. She bolts the last of her gin and tonic.

  “Yes well, I thought you had talent, then. I retired, of course, five years ago. But I hear you’ve gone and become a teacher. Always told you girls never to teach.”

  “Oh I don’t really teach,” says Vanessa, ashamed. “Just part-time Creative Writing, you know. Really I’m a writer, as you said I should be.”

  “Read your first novel,” the woman says. A silence follows. And extends. She seems to be swaying slightly on her feet. Vanessa remembers they all called her ‘Tommers’.

  “You didn’t happen to read my second?” Vanessa is sure the second is better. “Shall I send you a copy? It’s not a problem.” Because I have three hundred copies at home.

  Tommers holds up her hand as if to ward off demons. “Don’t bother. In fact, you sent o
ne for the library.” She hiccups, and smiles, her mouth crooked.

  “Did you read it?” asks Vanessa, breaking her own rule: never ask people if they’ve read your books. If they have, and like it, they will let you know.

  “Started it.” Tommers leans closer to Vanessa, as if she is going to confide a great secret. “Not sure anyone else took it out. The girls will only read famous names. Or things which are, you know, exceptional.” Now Tommers is breathing into her face, a ghastly cocktail of wine and cheese. “Do you mind me asking, did you mean it to be funny?”

  Neither ‘Yes’ nor ‘No’ seems a promising response. Vanessa decides to move away, but her old teacher sees her escaping.

  “Jus’ got myshelf a bottle from the bar. Would you care to take a glass with me?” Her accent is suddenly very genteel.

  Vanessa is slightly too drunk to say no. Besides, Tommers’s rudeness has a riveting quality, like watching a juggernaut run you down.

  The two of them find a seat in the corridor. Vanessa tries to drink as fast as her old teacher. They discuss many things: Jane Austen, diaries. Tommers becomes quieter and less abrasive. Vanessa starts to dominate the conversation. Soon her old teacher falls totally silent. She seems to be asleep, but Vanessa prefers it. She hears herself say what she’s never said before. “I think I might write about my life. I’m teaching an Autobiography course. I’ve just given a chapter or two to an agent. A fairly high-powered one I happen to know. I do sometimes wonder what’s the point of novels—”

  At which, the older woman jerks into life, waving her arm wildly and splashing her wine. “Thash right,” she says, staring straight at Vanessa, although her eyeballs aren’t moving quite together. “There’s no bloody point. Unlesh you’re fucking Cackfa. Kafka. Cackfa. Whish you’re not.”

  Vanessa realises Tomlinson is paralytic.

  “Autobiog. Og. Og. Ogra. Ography,” the woman says, triumphantly. “You’d shertainly have a lot to write about.”