Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

Vanessa Henman

Oh shit oh shit it has all gone wrong. Just when everything seemed so hopeful. That is the thing, they’re unpredictable. Even though I have known Mary for years. You never really know what they’re thinking. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

It all began with the problem with the mornings. Except for the days when Mary goes shopping, she really is quite hopeless in the mornings. She rolls down, yawning, around eleven, when I have already been working for hours. My study is next door to the kitchen, and I have tended to stay out of her way, because it is annoying to find her there, still in her slip-slops and a thin cotton nightgown through which you can see too much of her body. She really has the most enormous breasts. What if Justin should walk in and see her? She is hardly setting him a good example.

And then today I smelled something. I am sure I smelled cigarette smoke in the kitchen. I am allergic to it, which makes me notice. I am mildly allergic to a number of things, though Tigger always laughed at me when I said so. But even a hint of smoke, and I know. It is not that I blamed Mary Tendo at all. I am sensitive, I have been to Kampala. I suppose nearly all Ugandans smoke. Bad things come from the west, and they jump at them, because they do not realise the dangers. It’s a cultural thing. One understands it. One tries to be culturally aware.

When I said this to Mary, she became sulky. She did not deny that she had been smoking, but she pretended it was rare in Uganda. I felt sorry for her, and did not argue. But Mary had better not smoke in my house.

Moreover, the bitch should get up in the morning .

No, I’m not angry. I did briefly lose my temper when Mary said something inflammatory, but now I am completely calm. This whole disaster is not of my making.

I suppose I felt she was taking advantage. Taking advantage of our distress.

It wasn’t as if I rushed into anything. I hadn’t been able to sleep last night: too many comings and goings on the landing.

What were they doing all night long? Why did nobody but me get up in the morning? I was unable to concentrate on my marking, so I sat in the kitchen and waited for her, and that was when I caught it, that faint smell of burning.

By the time she came down, I was a little cross. I think I had been looking at the house with fresh eyes. Without my noticing, it had got filthy. The kitchen was cluttered with monstrous vegetables. That dirty black cooking pot of Tigger’s was always sitting on the Aga. The rest of the house was even worse. No one had bothered to dust or vacuum. (We do have a Dyson. It’s not exactly hard.) The lavatory bowl, which is always in use, has developed brown stains, and the shower is blocked. The dust on the window-sills is thick as fur.

She shambled in around a quarter past eleven, yawning and smiling, and I had to say something.

“Mary Tendo, we must have a talk.”

“Yes, Vanessa.” (I distinctly remember I had not asked her to call me Vanessa, she just suddenly did it, as bold as brass.) “But it is not Saturday today.”

Saturday is the day she gets paid. I felt all she cared about was the money. She was only thinking about herself. I did not invite her here to be selfish.

“Mary, do you know what time it is?”

She shrugged. “There is a clock in the kitchen, Vanessa.” She was smiling a lot, but I think she was nervous.

“Somebody has been smoking here.”

She sniffed, disdainfully, then laughed a little. “Perhaps Mr Justin has been smoking.”

“I know my son. He never smokes.”

She looked at the ground, as if I didn’t know him.

I couldn’t put up with it any more. “Mary why do you never get up in the morning?”

“Because I am tired,” she said, rather sulky. Her eyes had gone dead, in a way I remembered from a few little quarrels when she worked here before. It made it impossible to know what she was thinking.

So she was tired. But I was tired, I was tired from working and not really sleeping because of the noises I heard on the landing!

“Mary, why are you tired? You are not really working. I hoped you would do your bit with the cleaning. This is a big house. There is a lot to do. I am obviously very busy at the college. I cannot do everything here as well.”

“You did not ask me here to do the cleaning.”

I saw she was going to be aggressive. “Mary, I am paying you very well. I brought you here to look after Justin, and obviously help in the house as well. And now you do nothing and pretend to be tired.”

And then she looked at me, full in my face, and said something terrible I cannot remember, and I lost my temper — I regret I lost my temper, I hardly ever lose my temper, except with Justin, of course, and Tigger — and I am afraid I shouted at her, “How dare you say such disgusting things! You are my cleaner! You are just my cleaner!”

And now Mary Tendo is upstairs, packing. It is all over.

But what shall I tell Justin?

Mary Tendo

Iam upstairs, pretending to pack. I have done this twice at the Nile Imperial, letting them see that I was emptying my locker, and each time, they have raised my wages.

I have always known Miss Henman is crazy. But still this morning she has surprised me; I did not expect her to be quite so angry.

I told her I was sleeping with Justin, and suddenly she was screaming at me. “You are my cleaner! You are just my cleaner!” Which shows you she thinks cleaning is something easy, and cleaners are stupid people, not worth listening to.

And yet, she asked me here to look after Justin.

(It is something strange about the bazungu : many of them fear us, or do not like us, and yet they give us their children to care for. They say very often how they love their children, even Henman, who used to call, ‘Kissy kissy kissy’ to Justin, every day, after she finished her writing, and stretched out her hands. Though often he ignored her, and clung to me.)

She should have been pleased I am sleeping with him. (It is what we always say about the bazungu . They speak very nicely, but you do not really know them; you never know what they are thinking.)

Justin begged me to, and I thought about it. I thought about it, and then I agreed. I knew if I slept with him it would help him.

Besides, I enjoy it, although it is tiring. The Henman does not know how tiring it is.

When I tried to tell her, she screamed even louder.

And so I have come and started my packing. I am banging my case about on the floor. Soon she will come and apologise. I hope she will come and apologise. I cannot leave now. I have to earn more money.

(£2,000. That is what I need. £2,000 is six million shillings. I do not much want to buy land or build houses, because I have seen it go wrong for others without quite enough money to bribe the officials. My friend Charles thinks he knows all about the system, the bibanja and poloti and the KCC, though sometimes his fingers have been burned, as well. My kabito puts his fingers in too many pies. He is an accountant, but he deals in cement, and sometimes lends money to other businessmen, and sometimes gets it back, and sometimes not. Still, let him get rich for both of us, and rent rooms to thieving tenants, if he wants to. I have my own plans for the six million shillings. I will not say why I need it for Jamey, but I need it for Jamey, most of all.

It costs a lot of money to find people. And some people can never be found—

I must think of the other things I shall do. Buy smart new dresses at Garden City, instead of going to Owino Market. Fill up Charles’s car with sugar and paraffin, with tea and coffee, with rice and aspirin, with shoes and hats and shirts for the children, and English books for the primary school, and my friend the accountant will drive us to the village.