I didn’t know how to explain to Harry that I didn’t want a cleaning lady because the house was too much of a mess. That it was disrespectful to bring some hard-working woman into this chaos and pay her £10 an hour for backbreaking work that was worth much more than that. I didn’t know how to make him understand that I couldn’t hire a cleaning lady until I cleaned the house.
Help. Help is complicated, Harry. Help is hard to find. Help has to be trusted to see your inner workings, so why don’t you take your help, Harry, and fuckin’ shov— Stop it, Gigi. Aren’t you tired of your own voice yet?
I shudder.
Yes.
I go to the bathroom, wet a corner of the small towel in the sink, get on my knees and start to scrub at the tiles. He wants to help you. Tell him how. He loves you. I need bleach for the mold so can’t really help that, but I can work on the soap scum. He was there once and he helped, remember? The limescale really needs vinegar, but if I keep working on it, scrape it with a fingernail, it’ll go. Stop living like you’re alone. Why did you do all this—the marriage, the baby—if inside you’re just going to keep living alone? I move to the edge of the bath to work on the hard water stains on the tap. If you don’t have limescale spray you can use toothpaste and rub the metal with a cloth. Look, someone left a little travel one behind. Perfect. Tell him to come get you. Tell him you’re tired of living alone. He’ll help you. See? If you’re just patient and keep at it, it shines up nice.
London, May 2016; Baby, 5½ months old
Harry sent me a text this morning: Stefka, Cleaning Angels, 12 pm, 3 hours. I put Rocky down for a nap and got to work. Two hours later and the upstairs bathroom was spotless. The taps polished, sparkling. The hair pulled out from the plugholes, the shower floor scrubbed, the tub shining. The toilet looked like a fucking diamond. You could eat soup from the sink. I used a grout brush for the floors and the tiles were like new. Cillit Bang and Dettol and Windolene—all these cleaners with their funny English names—they made my eyes water but the smell of chemical clean reassured me. I knew this woman would be appalled at the oven and disgusted by the carpets but she would know what I was about when she saw the bathroom.
I’m not sure how long Rocky’s been crying when I finally hear him. But it was too long, I can tell from the volume, the red fury of his face clenched in baby rage, his little features squeezed like a fist. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I repeat quickly and I pick him up out of the pool of vomit he’s been rolling in, unable to get out of it, like quicksand. He’s rubbed it in his eye and his hair, his cries rising from upset to distress. I hook my hands under his little arms and he vomits again as I lift him out of the crib, so I swiftly hold him like a football under one arm, tip his head downward so he can get it out. The baby bile and sour milk leave a small but violent stain on the light gray carpet. I get him to the bathroom and he gets one more shot at the tile.
I wonder if the orange stuff from that last little puddle—I guess it must be carrots—will come out of the grout that I just spent the last hour scrubbing.
The doorbell rings. He’s stopped crying now that he knows he wasn’t abandoned. But there’s no time to change him. I open the door, half expecting it to be Social Services.
“Hello, Meesus Harreeson? I am Stefka.” I wonder if I’ve forgotten that my house was supposed to be used as an ironic setting for a photo shoot for the Slavic supermodel on my doorstep.
“Meesus Harreeson? Can I help you?” Stefka pulls her bleach blond hair with its black roots back into a ponytail, comes into the house, takes off her cool and tiny leather jacket and reaches for Rocky.
I snap out of it. “Sorry, I’m sorry, he was sick, I…come in, come in. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Meesus Harreeson?” She looks at me sideways, talking to me like she might to an unconscious stranger who’s just fainted in the street.
“You want give me baby and you change your clothes? I make the tea?” she says, smiling.
“Yes, thank you,” I say. I don’t remember handing her the baby but now she’s holding him with her left arm, filling the kettle at the tap with her right. Rocky’s whimpering but she’s distracting him with the tap and the kettle, talking to him in a language I don’t know. I look down at my shirt and now I see why she suggested I change. She doesn’t know that this is what I always look like.
“Is beautiful house, Meesus Harreeson.” She pops Rocky on the countertop and cleans his face with a dish towel. She starts to take off his wet onesie.
“He was vomiting, no? Where is his clothes, for change?” She keeps one arm on him, keeping him safe, while she stretches to the other counter, pours the hot water into a cup for me. Where the fuck did she find the tea?
“Tea for you. Baby is very hard work. Where his clothes, please?”
“His room is at the top of the stairs, first left. Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say.
“Is OK, I love the babies,” she says, and runs upstairs with him. Rocky is smitten. She could walk out of this house with him and never come back and that kid would be like, “Jeej who?” He would totally take the upgrade to this hot, young, nice, competent mom.
Can’t let Harry meet her. He’ll want the upgrade too.
I sip black tea in the kitchen and wonder what will happen next. I hate tea, we know this, but somehow, her tea is exactly what I need. Stefka puts Rocky in the high chair, gives him some water in a sippy cup. Where did she find that?
“Meesus Harreeson, house so clean! He was sick in bathroom, yes? I clean floor there, only a little. You like to change you clothes and I start laundry?” she asks, pointing at the piles on the floor. That’s the second time she’s mentioned me changing my clothes. I burst into tears.
“Meesus Harreeson? Is OK, is OK.” She pats me on the back while Rocky bashes his cup on his tray. She smells nice.
“Call me Gigi, please,” I say, completely at a loss for what to do next. This girl must think I’m crazy.
“Meesus Gigi, baby is hard work. I see you have big child too? Is boy also?” She points at Johnny’s drawings on the fridge. “Yes,” I say, “that’s Johnny,” and I point at his framed school photo from last year hanging on the kitchen wall. I remember buying the frame, putting the picture inside, hanging it. Last year. When Rocky was the size of an apple in my belly. I had a full-time job. I cooked dinner for Johnny every night and I put pictures in frames and I changed the sheets once a week. I ordered groceries online and kept a box of presents in the closet so that we never had to buy something overpriced at the last minute when Johnny was invited to a birthday party. I never forgot if he was invited to a party, not like I do now, showing up halfway through or almost at the end, saying we forgot the gift at home and we’ll bring it to school but then we never do.
Stefka’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Is lovely boys. Beautiful house. Do not so worry. You very lucky.”
She’s right, I am lucky. But I don’t want to be lucky. I want to take Johnny with me back to my apartment that was small enough to be cleaned in half an hour. Back where I knew how to do things, how to run my life, how to take care of a baby.
“I’m sorry, Stefka, I just met you like, five minutes ago, and look at me, I don’t know what’s happened to me.”
“I am mother too. Two boys. Is OK. Some days is blizzard in house and some days is nice breeze.” That must be a direct translation that hasn’t gone right, but I get what she’s saying. I probably don’t sound that different from her when I talk to British people.
I watch Rocky play with a Tupperware box and a wooden spoon that Stefka also instinctively knew where to find. I watch her unload the dishwasher, which I don’t think is part of the service, but I guess she can see I need all the help I can get.
I learn about her life. Her boys are five and seven.
“Where do they
go to school?” I ask, expecting her to name somewhere local.
“Bulgaria. They live wis my parents.” She says it matter-of-factly, but I feel a stab in my heart. There’s a pause and I look at her to let her know I feel it.
“How often do you see them?” I ask.
“Once in summer for two weeks and two weeks in March.”
“Twice a year?” I stop myself before I say, That’s all? because that is all and I don’t want to emphasize it. She knows.
“Yes, is hard. But they is happy boys. Very handsome.” She smiles at me but as soon as she looks down to the dishes she’s stacking the smile is gone.
I watch her quietly. This woman is standing in my house, working in my house and somehow still breathing. Even though the pain of being so far away from her boys must be killing her. She sparkles when she shows me the pictures on her phone, two tough little guys with buzz cuts, dark eyes like hers, in matching Nike tracksuits. Another one of them in Ralph Lauren polo shirts, one in navy and one in orange, crisply ironed, both buttons done up to the neck, the older boy with his arm around his little brother, smiling a tight-lipped smile.
“They’re very cute. You dress them really nice,” I say, noticing the aging communist wallpaper in the background.
“I buy the English clothes for them. They always handsome. If you know where to buy, is good price and my parents don’t know what is style. I send package maybe every three month, for birsdays and Chreest-mus, of course. Chreest-mus is most expensive time to fly so I make package instead, beautiful clothes, toys, and I send card that this one is from Father Chreest-mus in UK.”
She works in the kitchen, now and then going over to Rocky, who gives her huge smiles. “Do you mind if I sit here? Am I bothering you?” I say. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to hang out with the cleaner when she’s working. I think the etiquette is to leave the house, or at least I overheard Fiona saying that’s what she always does.
“Of course, Meesus Gigi. Is hard be alone all day. Cleaning is this way too, work alone all day.”
She tells me about how her husband was working in the UK too but now he drives long-haul trucks around Europe so that’s why he’s not around and the kids have to stay with her parents. She talks while she works, telling me about how to get rid of the rest of Rocky’s cradle cap but I don’t really listen. I’m embarrassed at the state of my carpeting, the crust around the stovetop, ashamed that I can’t find the energy to ever play with Rocky or be affectionate or do anything other than meet his most basic needs. I never coo at him or make him smile like this total stranger has been able to do within an hour of meeting him.
Ashamed that what I want—really, if you really went down deep into what I really think and feel—is to get away from this beautiful house and my beautiful boys. Get away from them. But this woman who is scrubbing the crusted mounds of old baby food off Rocky’s high chair—disgusting dried mounds of it that I never noticed, that any good mother would’ve noticed, would’ve never let get to that point because she would’ve cleaned up after breakfast every morning—this young woman, prying old baby food off the designer high chair, only wants to be with her kids. And she can’t be.
When Stefka leaves the kitchen I follow her. I carry Rocky on my hip and lean on the doorframe of whichever room she’s in, sometimes talking, sometimes not. She tells me a lot about her boys. Her pain and pride are palpable. I show her my trick for using vinegar to get the hard water stains off the chrome in the bathrooms. She shows me how to change a duvet cover in one fluid motion, without struggling to make it fit. We do the pillowcases together. I gather up more laundry and start a new wash and I mop the kitchen while she vacuums the hall. The mess I’ve allowed to accumulate—it’s not a one-woman job.
Then it’s time for her to go. I’m relieved that the house is livable again, but I panic when I see the stacks of papers and clutter and toys that remain. I can’t face the rest of it without her. “Wait, um, so, what do I owe you for today?” and I prolong the conversation with questions that have obvious answers so that she doesn’t leave. If she leaves I’ll be in here alone again.
“Meesus Gigi,” she says, holding both my hands in hers, “I come back next week. Please do not worry so much. And you do not have to clean before I come. Also, you do not have to clean wis me. Is my job, OK?” She winks at me. “You are good mother. Is happy boys. Baby is small, is hard time. Very soon you will do what they say in America—push your shits together. I see you next week.”
I hug her. It’s probably not very British to hug the cleaner on her first day but I do it anyway. She hugs me back. I pass Rocky over to give her a baby hug. He slaps his hand a little too hard on her face the way babies do. I close the door and put Rocky in a playpen in front of the TV. It’s just him and the smell of Dettol to keep me company now. I admire the clean kitchen and pour some wine into a teacup.
London, June 2016; Baby, 6 months old
“I thought we should review your progress and set some goals for the coming weeks as today is our penultimate session,” Lorraine says to me, as if I was expecting this. As if I’m fixed now, postpartum depression all cleared up.
Lorraine. The kind of older woman who looks like an ad for age-defying skin cream, one where they show three generations of women, and she’s the last one, representing mature skin, except she thinks she should be the one in the middle. In her M&S wrap dress with her glasses on a string, I watch her check off the details of my postnatal crisis on her little NHS form.
“What does that mean?” I say, as I push Rocky’s stroller back and forth with my foot, trying to focus on the wall above her head in this windowless, dingy examination room in the community surgery that serves as her “office.”
“It means that next week will be our last session.” And she pulls out the anxiety/depression questionnaire that I have to fill out every week. The anxiety scale asks me on how many days have I felt nervous, anxious or worried; had trouble relaxing; been so restless that I can’t sit still; and, finally, felt afraid that something awful might happen. OK, all of those, every day, but that’s because, hello, I’m a mother. So they should really just condense this shit down to: Do you have children? OK then, you have an anxiety disorder.
Then I do the depression scale. Do I feel tired; have little energy; overeat; feel bad about myself; or have trouble concentrating? Um, for answers see above. But my favorite question is: Have you been moving or speaking so slowly that other people have noticed? I feel like if that was my problem then I would be having a stroke and getting here to see Lorraine wouldn’t be my first priority. And let’s not forget the last question, about suicide. Because if I was contemplating suicide, definitely one of the things I’d want to do is fill out this questionnaire.
“But I still need help, Lorraine, I’m not done.” I keep my foot on the stroller, nudging it rhythmically while I circle the numbers on the scales.
“Yes, well, you’ve been allocated six sessions and unfortunately you missed two of those as you canceled with very short notice. We cannot reallocate those sessions to you if you do not adhere—”
“Lorraine, the baby was sick. You’re taking sessions away from me because my baby was sick?”
“Part of our work has been helping you to find people you can rely on.”
“But I’ve explained that I don’t have any family here.”
“We’ve discussed that [audible sigh] at length,” she says, trying not to roll her eyes. “We’ve also discussed that you need to look for support in other places.”
“That’s why I come here, Lorraine, for support.”
Lorraine turns to face me, pulls her glasses down on the bridge of her nose so I can see her eyes, a gesture of her great understanding of the human condition.
“Gigi”—she leans in, elbows on both knees—“I see many women in this area who are just like y
ou, they’ve had their first baby, sometimes traumatically, and that can be diffi—”
“He’s not my first baby. Have you listened to me at all?” I close my eyes, foot still on the stroller, keeping it in motion like an extension of my leg. Then I turn down her volume. She’s still talking, something about resilience, but it doesn’t matter. There’s some NHS trigger word I’m supposed to say that will make her keep me on but I don’t know what it is, and even if I did, I don’t know if it means they’ll continue my counseling but also send Social Services to the house.
When they said I could get free therapy I thought it was so progressive, so not American. But it took three months to get the first appointment, weeks and weeks of distress piling on top of me. And then I ended up in a dirty doctor’s office because no one listened to the part about the fluorescent lights and medical settings triggering my panic. I got Lorraine, watching the clock, checking boxes, deciding I’m better in four sessions that could have been six but that’s my fault. Just like everything else.
I could find a private therapist, but that means I’d have to talk to Harry about it and I can’t face that conversation. And it would have to be somewhere I could bring the baby, and I’d have to go during school hours, and I’d have to get on a train or a bus and go to Wimbledon or Mayfair. But these simple steps—a matter of a Google search and a phone call—are overwhelming and impossible in a world where a choice between doing the dishes and the laundry leaves my chest tight and my heart beating so fast that sometimes I sit on the front steps of the house with the baby so that, in case I pass out, someone walking down the street will find us and call for help.
When I Ran Away Page 21