Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

Vanessa goes to the door, her eyes still half-closed, and bellows “MARY!” at full volume. “Telephone! From Africa!” Mary seems to appear from the wrong direction, from Justin’s bedroom rather than her own, and brushes past her without a word, sits down on her bed, and takes possession of the phone, leaning back on Vanessa’s pillows, smiling and swinging her feet up cheerily.

After three or four minutes, which feels like an hour to Vanessa, standing there frowning and rubbing her eyes, Mary Tendo rings off, and says, “Thank you, Miss Vanessa.”

“It was very early ,” says Vanessa, meaningfully.

“It is all right, Miss Vanessa, do not worry. I was already awake, relaxing.”

“I hope the phone-call was important. Is somebody ill? Has someone died?” Vanessa is not at her best in the morning, but the edge of irony is lost on Mary.

“Thank God, my friend is very well. This was my friend the accountant, Charles. One day you will meet him when he comes to London!”

“Oh really.” Vanessa’s voice contains a wealth of meaning, but Mary has already gone back to bed, smiling a broad and kindly smile. Vanessa cannot get to sleep again.

Mary Tendo

Three hundred and sixty-six pounds and fourteen pence. £366.14.

I have been here three weeks and things are still going well. The money I have earned is growing like a mango pip dropped on the ground in the forest at home: by morning, there is a mango tree. Soon my life will be full of mangoes.

It is true I have had a small financial setback. I bought myself a mobile phone, for £49.99. It was one of the cheapest, pay as you go, but still it looked fine, small and neat and shiny, and the salesgirl described it as a ‘clamshell model’. Of course it seemed like a good investment, so I could contact old friends in London, and also call up Charles, in Uganda. I bought it in Harlesden and on the bus home I sat listening to the ringing tones. Several seemed nice, I couldn’t quite decide between ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Ave Maria’, so I played them over and over again until a man with a miserable face and glasses leaned over from the seat behind, tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to stop. “I’ve got a sodding headache already,” he said. “One thing I don’t need is ‘Amazing Grace’,” His face was very red, his breath smelled of wine and there was something sticky on the lens of his glasses. So I stopped playing my ring-tones, but scrolled on down and was pleased to find they had ‘When the Saints’. I forgot about the drunkard and started to play it, but suddenly he snatched the phone from my hand. “This is a British bus and you can’t do that.”

“Give it back!” I shouted. “Not till you get off.”

“I am getting off now.”

“I don’t believe you.” I threatened him a little with Vanessa’s umbrella, because we know how to deal with thieves in Uganda, and he said ‘Mother of Jesus’ and gave the phone back. I was playing ‘When the Saints’ as I walked back home, only as soon as I got in, Vanessa came and asked, “Did you happen to borrow my umbrella, Mary?” While I was busy pretending to look for it (I eventually ‘found’ it by the bookshelves in her bedroom), I somehow managed to lose my phone. Every so often, I search for it. In the meantime, I use Vanessa’s phone, which was awkward on the morning my kabito rang. She stood rudely by the bed, and would not go away. What if we had wanted to sweet-talk each other?

I am carrying on my detective work, all the while helping Justin get better. And I myself am quite well again, though a little heavier from eating so much. Now we all defecate every morning in order, including Miss Vanessa, although she would not like me to say so. I make these Londoners shit like Ugandans!

I am earning my money by shopping and cooking. It seems like easy work to me, but I know Miss Vanessa thinks cooking is hard. On my first week here she was doing the cooking and sighing and swearing as she did it. She left the kitchen looking red and exhausted, like a muzungu who has been in the sun, though all she had done was take food out of packets. I hope she is glad I have taken over. But sometimes she comes and interrupts me and tries to talk about Uganda. She is very proud she has been to Uganda. She went last year, and she stayed for three weeks. She claims she was teaching Ugandan students to write. The British Government sent her there, together with some other British teachers, though I cannot imagine why they chose Vanessa. They stayed in an American hotel, with air conditioning and no mosquitoes. She wants to talk to me about Kampala, but the things she has seen seem ordinary to me. She is very excited by the smelly old storks which drop white birdshit all over the city. We do not like those ugly karoli . Ugandans think they are common, and dirty.

She also pretends to like the taxis. She calls them matatus , a Kenyan word. I tell her that we just call them ‘taxis’, even if they carry twenty people, but she thinks I do not understand. “Oh no, I didn’t go everywhere by taxi. I wanted to live like the natives, you know. I wanted to do everything like you.”

I pretend to sneeze, and go on with my cooking.

But soon she will be back again. This time she wants to talk about western Uganda.

The guests of the Nile Imperial all went there, and talked non-stop about western Uganda. They told the staff, very proud, at breakfast, “Tomorrow, you know, I’m going to the west. I’ve heard it’s very beautiful, western Uganda.”

“Oh yes, Madam. Very beautiful.”

“I am excited. First time on safari.”

“Oh yes, Madam. Enjoy your safari.”

Then some of them would ask us, “Have you been there recently?”

And we always said, “No, Madam. Enjoy your safari.”

Kampalan people do not go on safari. Only the bazungu go on safari. I talked about this to my friend the accountant.

“Charles, why do we not know our own country? I too would like to go to western Uganda.”

My kabito had never thought about it. “Mary, why do you want to go there? There were enough animals in my village. The bazungu like animals more than people. They even like lions and crocodiles.”

But I am stubborn and do not agree. For a start, I myself like animals. (Jamie and I, we both liked animals. When I was a child, I grew very fond of goats, because I liked the boy who was the goatherd, and I liked Jamie’s pets, even the mangy hamster, and I took him to London Zoo on Saturdays.) I told Charles, I want to see my country. It is our country; it does not belong to them, these old bazungu in their four-wheel drives, wearing pale brown clothes all covered in pockets, which makes them look like ancient soldiers hung about with battle-kit, with cine-cameras and walking-sticks and water bottles and binoculars. They go on safari with polite black drivers. Without the drivers they would be too frightened (yet they think they own them: they always say ‘my driver’, “Could you go and see if my driver is waiting?”).

One day I will have money, and time for a holiday. Most Ugandans do not have holidays. And then I too will go on safari.

But until I have been, I will not talk about it. The lion who roars too much catches no game. I will not discuss it with Miss Vanessa. She thinks she will show me she loves my country; she believes she will please me with all this ‘knowledge’. But why should she lecture me on western Uganda when most Ugandans have never been there?

She gabbles on, but I say nothing. I make a loud noise with the spoon in the saucepans. After a bit, Miss Vanessa gives up. It is not her fault. She is ignorant.