Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

But now he thinks Mary might often be right. For example, she believes that his father is clever. Justin has been brought up to despise his father, but Mary claims he is interesting.

“But as Mother says, he is not educated,” he said to Mary, a few days ago.

“Sometimes education makes you stupid. Your father is not a stupid man. Your father is clever, but also kind. You, Mr Justin, are very like your father.”

“My mother says I am the image of her.” But even as he’d said it, he knew it wasn’t true. He is big, not bony: he is slow and lazy, not jerky and speedy, like his mother. ( Now he is lazy. Once he was not. Once he worked so hard that his brain burned out.)

“I think you should get to know your father.”

As he lies in the dark, he remembers Mary’s words, and thinks, “I shall try,” and falls asleep gently.

But half an hour later Justin wakes up sweating, his heart thumping, from a terrible dream. His mother has discovered him down on the lawn, which is dry as straw, in midsummer. He’s drinking beer with his father and his father’s girlfriend, who is nine years old. She is pretty, and happy, and Justin is as young as her, and he suddenly knows that this is his sibling, the sister he has always wanted, and his mother has kept him away from her. They are pouring the beer on to the yellow grass, and it pushes up instantly, dark green and shaggy, a wonderful game they can go on playing, but suddenly they hear his mother screaming, and she bursts from the house, yelling, “Justin, get up! Get up and get on! You are all useless!” and he sees that the glass door she came through is shattered, and daggers of glass stick out from his mother, and she is bleeding, and it is his fault, and everything that happens is always his fault.

He reaches for the sweets underneath the bed, and then he remembers that they are not there, and turns over, and reaches out for Mary.

Mary Tendo

Every night, Justin is frightened of demons. He cannot sleep deeply, he dare not wake.

When I was a child, I never slept alone. Of course, all the children slept together. And later when I was at Makerere, whenever I went home I slept with my sister. The English make their children sleep alone. It is not surprising that demons attack them. Of course, I am educated, and do not believe in demons, which are a projection of the unconscious mind. Belief in spirits drags us back into the darkness that hangs like a shroud over the north of my country, where Kony listens to spirit voices and then makes children eat other children. His army cuts off lips and noses. The war in the north goes on for ever, too terrible to think about, for no one who travels that way is safe—

The people of Uganda must escape from spirits! And yet, they can attack you when you sleep alone.

Every night when the Henman is asleep I fetch my duvet and my pillow and take them along to Justin’s room. He puts a low couch beside his bed. The first night he told me to move it myself. I told him no, I would go back to my room. So after that, each night Justin did the moving, and put it back each morning, in case the Henman saw it.

I lie beside him and comfort him. For the first few weeks, each night he sucked my breasts, which gave me a sharp feeling like pain in my belly. It was like pain, but also like wanting. I said nothing, I accepted it. I have always wanted another baby. Now I have no milk, but I can still give comfort. Soon Justin will no longer need to do it.

When I was here, Justin was like my baby. He was three years old, but I suckled him. Because he butted at me like a goat, like the skinny goats back home in the village who push their muzzles at their mother’s teats.

I did not do this when the Henman was watching. I knew from my friends who were also nannies that the mothers did not like us to do this. But many of us did it. I had plenty of milk, I was still feeding Jamil, though because of my work, I could only feed him in the evening and the morning. Maybe Justin drank more of my milk than Jamil.

I know he drank more of my time than Jamil. When I remember this, it makes me angry, and so I shall not think about it. Yet this is what happens to very many women. We look after other women’s children, not our own.

I dream that in heaven it will be made right. Our children will be young again, and we will care for them. God will put Jamie in my arms .

The Henman is very proud of feeding Justin. Some English women do not feed their children. She told me this, when she finished in her office, she took Justin from me and tried to hold him, though he wriggled and kicked and reached out to me. “We are very close, as you can see. I breastfed Justin for two whole years. It was very tiring, but I’m glad I did it.” I smiled and said, “Very nice, Miss Henman.”

I did not tell her that in Uganda, we breastfeed our children till they are four or five.

There are many things that I have not told her. One day I am going to speak my mind, once Justin is better, and I have earned my money. In the meanwhile, I will write everything down on my precious computer, which is sitting in my bedroom.

I have decided I do not hate her. She is old and alone, and will not live long, because she told me she will soon be sixty. Though some of the bazungu live for ever. I hope she will learn something before she dies.

I have told Miss Henman that she needs to hire a cleaner. It was easier to say because Trevor was here, and when Trevor is here, there is one sensible person. We were drinking tea after the argument. Trevor always smiles at me as if he likes me.

When I said, “Miss Henman, you must hire a cleaner, because I think your house is dirty,” her face went very red, although I smiled politely. But after a bit, she said, “Very well.” Then I told her that I would help her to find one, and she said, “This beats all.” Which must mean, “Good idea,” so I told her, “Please write an advertisement, and then we shall stick it in the newsagent.” And then Trevor laughed and said to Vanessa, “I bet you would like to tell her where to stick it.”

But in fact she stuck it where I suggested, which is where I found the postcard, all that time ago. And she wrote the same thing, about the ‘nice family’, though she didn’t say the nice son stays in bed, and walks around all day without any clothes on. Since then many people have been calling the house, and I have a shortlist of seventeen. I have told Miss Henman I will interview them. I thought she would be pleased, but she did not look happy.

Trevor Patchett approaches the house rather gingerly.

Last time he was walking up the path he heard screaming inside, at the same moment as the rose scratched his arm and made an awkward triangular tear in his new work shirt. He is still wearing it: a battle scar. Last time he arrived they were all crying except Mary Tendo. It hurt to see his tall son crying, big teardrops running down and soaking his beard. And Vanessa screeching and crying with temper. And Mary Tendo wagging her finger and talking in her sing-song African way. All of them turned and stared at him. “I’ll make us a cuppa,” he had said, as usual, and made a pot of her Earl Grey rubbish. By the time he left, everything was calm.

They were mad, of course. All of them barmy. But most women are. He is philosophical.

The boy, though, he cannot abandon the boy.

And so he is here again, as usual, on call, with his tools, his teabags (since he can’t stand Earl Grey, and Vanessa will have nothing else in her kitchen) his sugar-cubes, his phlegmatic patter. It was her own word for him: ‘phlegmatic’. At first he thought it was another insult. Then he looked it up, and saw she had a point. You couldn’t say she was a stupid woman (though he often does, and will again).