‘I just wanted to go to bed and stay in bed. I didn’t want to get up. I had no reason to get out of bed. I have always had pets, but not at that stage. I knew that is not the time to get a new kitten. November is the time to go looking for a kitten. Not only that, I questioned whether I was really capable of looking after anything. I was so depressed. I went to my GP, and he doubled my antidepressant medication and my anti-inflammatory for the arthritis because I was in so much pain.’
I ask Marilyn whether she has told her sons about her depression. She says no.
‘I don’t want them worrying at all. I use the word “harassing” me, but they don’t harass me. When I let things get out of hand, I don’t let anybody in the door. I just did not want to do anything. I just lost interest and enthusiasm. Some days I could sleep all day and sleep all night. I used to hide the phone so that it didn’t wake me up. You can see the magazines that I haven’t even read. I had no concentration, no enthusiasm. I would just get up and take another sleeping pill.’
I look at the empty file holders on the far bedside table and a neatly labelled box of folders from the 1990s on her floor. I wonder how many times the house has fallen into this type of neglect, whether it has been a struggle over her life or a relatively recent phenomenon. ‘When would you say that it became harder for you to be as organised as you usually are?’ I ask.
‘It gradually got worse, got to the stage where I just did not want to do anything, nothing at all, just stay in bed all day,’ she answers.
During this period, as per their usual practice, Marilyn spoke to her sons on the phone at least once or twice a week. ‘Usually about what they have been doing, what I have been doing, and if I have not been doing anything, I just say, “It’s been too cold to go out today,” which is not an untruth, I can tell you. It’s been hideous this winter.’
Sandra breezes into the room with a smile and stands with her hands on her hips, assessing what needs to be done while fighting to regain her breath from the walk down the hallway.
‘Do your sons know that Sandra is helping you today?’ I ask.
‘Not today, they don’t. They did last time and that was soon after I was diagnosed with cancer,’ Marilyn responds.
‘That’s right, yes, and your dog had just died; the love of your life,’ Sandra says gently. Marilyn wanted to have her older son over so she could break the news about her cancer.
‘I said, “I can’t let him in because the place is a mess,”’ Marilyn explains. ‘I had not had help for about twelve months, and I was starting to not be able to do things that I would have liked to have done. I did not want to let my son in because he has always threatened that if I cannot look after myself…’
‘She goes into a home,’ Sandra finishes.
‘So Sandra came in with her team for a day on the Friday, and they cleared the decks,’ Marilyn says. ‘And I had my son over on the Sunday.’ That clean involved removing from the floors a foot of rubbish and accumulated faecal matter from the dog that has since passed away. I ask Marilyn whether she experienced any depression after her husband left her with two young children.
‘I don’t remember being depressed then. That was such an upheaval in my life that I had to just keep going,’ she says.
Sandra goes to check on how the kitchen is progressing. When Marilyn talks, her eyes seem to adjust their point of focus, as though she is only sometimes looking outward. When they are out of focus, so too is her face; her mouth slackens, as does her chin, her eyebrows hang low and her breathing slows. There is then a slight delay with her speech as though she is struggling to hear or struggling to take a full breath in order to respond. This makes her appear much older.
Something else I notice about Marilyn is her sheer intelligence; it is undeniable from the breadth of her frame of reference, the size of her vocabulary and the architecture of her phrasing. Marilyn is quick, she is droll; at the height of her powers she would have been exceedingly intimidating and for much of her life she has probably been the smartest person in the room. She is so naturally authoritative that it takes me too long to recognise that Marilyn is an unreliable narrator.
It is not possible to judge how much the state of Marilyn’s home is to do with her current physical illness and related depression and how much may be due to a more entrenched type of mental illness. While her explanations are circumstantial, there are also strong indications of true hoarding, severe squalor, alcoholism. Marilyn is perfectly lineball. But in the end, what does it matter? Pain is pain is pain is pain.
‘I’m a bit out of breath today,’ Sandra says, coming back into the bedroom, smiling as she violently sucks in air, her chest pumping rapidly like a fish on the bottom of a boat.
‘Now don’t you do too much,’ Marilyn warns, shaking her finger at Sandra from the bed. The undersides of Marilyn’s manicured nails are grey with dirt. ‘I don’t want to have to pick you up off the floor.’
‘Oh God, leave me there, love!’ Sandra says, waving her concern away. She pushes aside a pyramid of unopened mail from the corner of the bed and plonks herself down next to Marilyn. Retrieves two pillows from under the rubbish on the bed, both of them visibly dirty, pumps each one like an accordion, flings them against the headboard and reclines against them, crossing her long legs over the side of the bed.
‘She looks better than I do,’ Marilyn says to me.
‘Full of Botox and filler,’ Sandra says with a theatrical sigh, nonchalantly picking up a sealed envelope from the top of the pile she displaced, squinting at the sender and then employing one exquisitely long French-manicured nail as a letter opener. Extracting a phone bill from two years ago, she places it on the bed next to her and throws the envelope into an empty rubbish bag near her feet.
‘Just think of Jane Fonda,’ Marilyn says solemnly.
‘She looks fantastic, doesn’t she?’ Sandra inhales reverentially. ‘I think she’s seventy-eight.’
‘And look at Joan Collins,’ Marilyn says.
‘She is plastic upon plastic; you could call her Miss Tupperware,’ Sandra says, pulling out another bill and adding it to the last.
‘If she had one more facelift, she would be wearing a beard,’ Marilyn deadpans.
‘Or talking out of her arse,’ Sandra adds, chuckling. Sandra is queen of the one-liners. She once said to me, ‘I always felt like I had to be the court jester. It’s probably an illusion or a mask that I put on to be accepted by everyone, masking myself to be comfortable with people.’
Another bill goes on the pile, another envelope gets stuffed quickly into the bag. Again and again and again. This is Sandra’s gentle genius: the trauma clean that she is at this moment both overseeing and actively progressing looks and feels completely desultory. Everything she is doing appears incidental to the schmoozing going on between her and Marilyn. Anyone who glanced in at this scene would see only two friends, completely at ease, having a natter. They would not know that Sandra has calculated a precise timeframe in which she will clear the room around Marilyn; that she intuitively knows exactly how far she can push Marilyn to throw out what is broken, useless, rotten or infested; that she is keeping one eye on the employee disinfecting the stained bathroom surfaces; and that she is aware of how much progress her other two cleaners are making in the kitchen.
As she inspects another unopened envelope, Sandra’s gift is to appear as though she is simply keeping her hands busy, the way someone would pick the label off a beer bottle on a lazy Sunday afternoon at the pub with friends, when she is, in fact, expertly negotiating a logistically complex emotional minefield. At her most effective, it will look like Sandra has completely forgotten that she is at work. And this is because part of her has.
‘Have you got a phone bill to pay? What’s the date of this?’ Sandra says, holding up a sheet of paper, alarmed.
‘No, it’s all by direct debit,’ Marilyn replies, waving it away.
‘OK. While I’m sitting here, I’m going to put these newspapers in the
bin,’ Sandra says lightly, gesturing to one of the myriad stacks of gossip magazines populating the bed.
‘Hang on, have I read that one?’ Marilyn asks pointing to one of the covers.
‘Pick out which ones you have read,’ Sandra suggests, selecting a magazine and contemplating the cover. ‘What about that Jen? Finally getting married. And having twins,’ she marvels. For the next few minutes, Marilyn specifies which magazines can and cannot go into the recycling. Under one of the cleared magazine piles, Sandra finds a miniature stylus and mentions to Marilyn that it’s the same as the one she uses for her phone. Marilyn explains that she doesn’t like using it but that she has trouble operating her phone without it.
‘If your nails are too long, you can’t press the screen properly,’ I offer.
‘It’s impossible that nails are too long,’ Sandra snaps, and I adore her. ‘OK, this is an old tax receipt for something you bought at an electrical store…’
Sandra’s phone rings. ‘Good morning, Sandra speaking. Hi Jesse, how are you? I tried to ring you this morning because the Dean Street property…It has been flooded, the wood has all puffed up, so that will have to be taken out. Then it’s also got to be treated for cockroaches and you’re probably better off to get Housing to get that done because they get that at a cheaper rate than what I will, because Prozac—maybe I need Prozac—Propest, yes, they’ve got the government contract, so they get it done much cheaper…Yes, there are major holes in the walls…Right, because that girl that lived there, we’ve done her several times, I think she’s a patient at the psychiatric department…I don’t know whether the bed is damaged…All righty, I’ll work on that tonight and get that over to you tomorrow. OK darling…thank you, bye-bye.’
Sandra opens a TV magazine from 2012 with Ronn Moss on the cover. ‘That is it. Gone with the wind. Ridge is out,’ she sighs, reflecting upon his face. ‘I watch The Bold and the Beautiful every day.’
‘Me too,’ Marilyn says.
For Sandra, watching The Bold and the Beautiful is an act of mental hygiene that provides her with the type of sanctuary others might get from taking a holiday or a walk or some deep breaths. She picks up another magazine and reads out the headline, ‘Love in the Boardroom…Huh!’ She peeks inside, momentarily losing herself, before casting it, too, into the rubbish bag.
‘Be careful what you throw out there,’ Marilyn warns.
‘OK, I will,’ Sandra promises.
‘Because there is my will and testament there,’ Marilyn says.
‘Oh, good, I’ll just change it and put my name on the bottom, shall I?’ Sandra smiles and then squints to read the small print on a receipt. ‘Now this is…As seen on TV…pure silk…Kelly’s Kloset Cold Shoulder Embellished Kaftan…Shit!’
‘Have a look at it!’ Marilyn urges with pride, pointing towards her walk-in closet opposite the bed.
‘Is it one of the Katherine Kelly Lang ones? Oh you bitch,’ Sandra says, hurrying over while explaining for my benefit that, in addition to playing the role of Brooke on The Bold and the Beautiful, Ms Lang captains her own line of kaftans. Over the sound of squeaking hangers, Sandra’s muffled voice calls out, ‘Hang on, you’ve got two!’ Sandra appears in the doorway holding two kaftans aloft. ‘They’re gorgeous and they would flow lovely over the body,’ she muses, appraising the jewel-coloured silk between her fingers.
‘This is when I was feeling good last spring,’ Marilyn says, motioning towards the kaftans.
Sandra returns the garments and settles back on her side of the bed, where she starts investigating a stack of documents. ‘That is from the lawyers; that’s your will, is it?’ Sandra asks, holding up the papers.
‘Yes, those are the ones I want,’ Marilyn replies. One corner of the bed has now been cleared and tiny mites are jumping around on the fabric.
‘You’ve got bugs on your bed,’ Sandra says matter-of-factly.
‘They don’t seem to do any harm,’ Marilyn answers, and turns to the pile of mail that Sandra has prepared for her to sort through. ‘I’ve got mail here I haven’t even bothered to open.’
Having cleared more space on the bed, Sandra now finds another silk kaftan crushed against the bedspread. She tries to smooth the deep wrinkles out with her palm, reunites it with its belt, arranges it on a hanger and swoops it back into the closet.
‘Have you got a leak in your roof?’ Sandra asks with concern as she emerges, pointing at a tea-coloured stain on the ceiling next to a fan wearing a grey wig of dust on each of its blades. ‘I reckon you’ve got a cracked tile, and you’ve got water coming through.’
‘No, it’s been that size for about three years.’
‘OK. I’d better give that fan a clean, it’s looking a bit gruesome there,’ Sandra says. She then hefts a plastic laundry basket up onto the bed and starts considering its contents. I ask Marilyn what she likes to read.
‘The Six Wives of Henry VIII—I’m a bit of an expert on Henry VIII,’ she says. ‘Elizabeth I…It just fascinates me. I used to be an avid reader, and I’ve got piled up there Bleak House by Charles Dickens, which is about that thick,’ she says, gesturing with her purple-tipped fingers, while nodding to her bedside table on which there are no books, thick or otherwise, amid the various air fresheners and alarm clocks old and new.
‘What about TV?’ I ask, gesturing to the enormous screen opposite her bed.
‘Oh yes,’ Marilyn agrees with some enthusiasm. ‘I love my television.’
‘You weren’t watching Last Tango in Halifax?’ Sandra asks, looking up from the laundry basket.
‘No. I saw Last Tango in Paris and I thought it would be a bit like that,’ Marilyn says with disappointment.
‘It’s actually quite interesting,’ Sandra replies. In addition to regularly watching a broad range of TV shows, Sandra reads the papers every day, both state and local, and also enjoys magazines about cooking and interior decorating. She is, she says, ‘not a book reader’, but if she was, she would gravitate to biography. ‘I love the Packer story; I love Bondy; I like Gina Rinehart. I like how these people think and how they get ahead,’ she told me once.
Motioning towards her bathroom, Marilyn says, ‘Once the fridge is cleaned out, there are a couple of jars of stuff in there to put in it.’ Sandra nods and asks for permission to dispose of some of the food on the bed.
Permission is denied. ‘No. Those are all things I bought at the supermarket today,’ Marilyn answers. This seems unlikely, but not impossible. Sandra accepts it and pushes on.
I once asked Sandra about how physically demanding her work was. ‘I do come home exhausted from a day of hoarding, I am absolutely wrung out,’ she answered. ‘Because there’s constant bartering and getting them to agree but trying to turn it that it’s their idea and not my idea. You’ve got to be very manipulative to a degree.’
‘So, it’s actually the people who are alive that are more problematic?’ I asked.
‘Oh, bingo. I’d rather a dead body any time.’
A bird sings outside the bedroom window. A cleaner from the kitchen comes in to ask Sandra a quiet question. ‘We are slowly getting there,’ Sandra nods, turning her attention back to the papers on the bed. ‘I’m just making sure there’s nothing in there, but I think it’s just bullshit letters,’ she says, moulding the pile into a neat brick and then flipping through it. ‘Standard letters…urgent action, shareholders, payment dividends…do you need that?’
‘Yes,’ Marilyn responds and picks up another flyer. ‘Community conversations…spotlight on mental health. That’s me!’ she smiles.
‘Yes, me too, I get a guernsey,’ Sandra says wryly. She picks up a grey plastic lid lying on the bed.
‘That goes on my NutriBullet, that is not to go in the dishwasher,’ Marilyn instructs regally.
‘They’re doing everything by hand in the kitchen,’ Sandra reassures her.
Marilyn finds a letter from a social group of ‘professional business people’ she used to regularly attend.
‘At the moment, I’ve put my membership on hold because to go and sit in an unreasonably cold church hall…’ she explains. ‘When the weather gets warmer, I will think about pulling myself up by the bootstraps. We always have Christmas in July.’
‘And she’s a Christmas junkie here,’ Sandra says.
‘I’m a Christmas tragic,’ Marilyn allows.
‘This year her aim is to have all the family here for Christmas, because she missed last Christmas,’ Sandra explains lightly. ‘Yes, that’s her goal. We are setting goals to keep us on the go.’ Rule of Pankhurst: small, achievable goals.
‘Even if we don’t have lunch here, or even if everybody brings something,’ Marilyn adds and then urges me to go get a good look at her Christmas room. This is the other bedroom, into which it is impossible to walk because of the sheer volume of items stored there. While it is true that Christmas decorations and various rolls of wrapping paper are visible from the doorway, Christmas is not readily identifiable as the distinguishing theme. There are just piles of appliances and electronic items and pet products and cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, entirely obscuring the floor and forming a swampy situation that reaches halfway up the walls.
‘Isn’t it a Christmas extravaganza?’ Sandra bubbles when I return. I can’t tell if she’s humouring Marilyn or if, from her higher vantage point, she saw more than I could. She moves around to Marilyn’s side of the bed, stopping to transfer a large Ziploc bag full of brightly beaded jewellery from the floor to a shelf in the closet. She then drags out a pink shopping bag from behind one of the drapes, removes from it a small cardboard box and briskly swipes a layer of dust off the lid and into my hair.
The Trauma Cleaner Page 20