Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

Waking, she remembers that rush of pleasure that came with the sense that she had written brilliantly. Her headache is gone, the voices have vanished. Full of resolve, she goes down to her study.

But there are so many books in there. The piles seem to loom like cliffs all round her, the base eroding, the summits frowning. She picks up a novel she has never read which is touted on the front as ‘The book of the century…Brilliant writing, subtle, heart-piercing.’ She reads a few pages. It is banal. Sighing, she returns to her own writing, but she finds her mind wandering over to Mary. At five o’clock, she telephones Tigger.

“Mary seems to have made some friends,” she tells him. “She brought this Ugandan person to the house. They were nattering away when I came home.”

“Good for her,” says Trevor. “She’d get bored, otherwise. You’re busy with your teaching, N’essie.”

“Don’t call me Nessie,” she snaps, at once. “It’s a stupid nickname, honestly, Tigger. And please don’t talk about me like that. I’m not a teacher , you know, always teaching people. I’m a writer. It would be frightful to be a teacher.”

“It was the summit of my ambitions,” he says. “I always wanted to teach history. But as it turned out, I was better with my hands.”

Some dim memory is stirring in Vanessa. “Do you know I’ve just remembered something. I think Mary once wanted to be a teacher. May even have trained as a teacher, over here. I think she didn’t finish, the money ran out.” Which makes her feel better — Vanessa has the job that Mary Tendo always wanted.

“It’s not over yet,” says Trevor, gnomically. “There’s more to Mary than meets the eye. Toodle-oo, Ness. Got things to do.”

“What are you up to?” Vanessa asks. She has always unconsciously kept tags on Tigger.

There is a pause, which in another man might have sounded guilty, and something which might almost be whispering, and then he says, “Got to read a book.” That ridiculous urgency, as she should have predicted, as if otherwise the book might escape him.

He was like that about reading, he did it on purpose, he had to stick out and be difficult. They might have made a go of it if he had been more normal. But as it was, poor Justin did not really have a father, not a normal, useful father, that is. Justin did not have a normal family.

And then she remembers this morning’s letter. She gets up and runs back up to the bedroom. It is still on top of the duvet, unopened. She sees, as she sticks her nail into the envelope, it comes from the village where she was born. The letter is from Lucy, her country cousin. Her heart lifts with real excitement. She settles against the pillow to read.

To her surprise, Lucy writes well, although she is not educated, just a housewife. Vanessa thinks, writing well must be in our family. She feels a little twinge of pride. It is stuffed with news: very little is bad. Uncle Frank, the husband of Aunt Isobel, has been an invalid for years with Parkinson’s. “I pop in and see Dad every day, but we think he can’t go on forever. He’s had a good innings—83!” The rest of it is a kind of social diary: who has married, who has children, the village scandals, the new village hall, which they have been building on the site of one three hundred years old, which Vanessa remembers: dank lath and plaster. And Lucy is inviting her to the opening. “Why don’t you bring Justin down to see us? We’re having a knees-up at the end of October. My place isn’t a palace, but you’re very welcome.”

Vanessa is shocked by how pleased she is. They still remember her. They might even love her. There is still a world to which she belongs, although she has neglected it for half a lifetime. The silent world of her mother and father. Though once she had longed above all to escape it, time has rinsed it in reminiscent sunlight. She imagines: overlapping leaves of oak trees, the soft green body of a hilly landscape. Her mother’s garden, with its vegetable beds. A place where she need not be busy.

Then she checks herself. She is being sentimental. The party will be a fluorescent-lit bore, where people will get drunk and do karaoke. And no one will know what to say to her. Of course she won’t go. She will get on with her novel. And what will she say, if they ask about Justin? Her contemporaries’ children will all be working, dropping babies like rabbits, chubby grandchildren; bragging about sales targets, cars, trampolines, plans for camper-van trips to New Zealand…She pushes the letter away, firmly.

But the past whispers on from the blue letter.

Mary Tendo

The Henman is spoiling my plans again. Last night she lost her temper with Justin and Trevor. The woman should have been praising them. And me, as well, for encouraging Justin. A son must see his father, whatever the cost. ( I did not take Jamey away from his father. If he ran away, he chose like a man .)

Sometimes ‘I think she is possessed by spirits. Of course, I do not believe in demons, and yet she has invited them into her home, with the many hideous masks and figures that she brought back from her trip to Uganda, although most of them were not made in Uganda, they were made in other African countries which are at a lower level of development, on the Gold Coast, in Mali, in Guinea. I have said to her several times already that these masks are not good to have in the house, but she only laughed at me, and said, “Mary, you are funny. I can’t believe anyone still thinks like that. But of course it is a cultural thing.” And with that she laughed more loudly than ever, so her grey eyes turned into tiny metal buttons.

But last night she did not laugh, she screamed.

Of course I am not a person who smokes, because I know smoking is unhealthy, but occasionally I have a cigarette — in fact, every evening before bed, in the garden.

I buy Ugandan cigarettes, from Harlesden, Rex and Sportsman cigarettes, from the Mugalu Brothers. Once I know Vanessa is in bed, or in the bathroom, I pop out through the kitchen door, and light up. Recently Justin has come and smoked with me. Although I consider this to be a good thing, because it gets him out of his bedroom, the Henman is unreasonable about smoking, and so I have not mentioned this achievement.

But last night after I had finished my writing and came downstairs to sit in the garden, the Henman was still in the sitting room, and so I hid my cigarettes in my pocket.

“Mary, I am out of my mind with worry. Is Justin up there with you, in your room?”

“No, Miss Henman.”

“I thought I heard noises.”

“No, Miss Henman. He must be in his bedroom.” And then I remember, he was not in the house when I brought Zakira back to see him.

“Of course I’m not stupid, I’ve looked there, he isn’t.”

And then I saw how frightened she was. And I realised that she does love him. And I too was frightened, but I did not show it. It is always best to be brave and cheerful.

“He never goes out. You know he doesn’t.”

She is looking very old, and thin, and white. I said, “But Miss Henman, he should go out.”

And she shouted, “Do not tell me things I know already!” and then she said “Sorry, I am just upset.” Justin has been missing for several hours. But this was only the beginning of her shouting, because at that moment the doorbell rang, and she ran to the door, on her thin little legs, and threw it open, and there was Justin, in the bright porch light, and behind him was Trevor. And to me Justin looked lovely as an angel, with the light shining down from heaven on his curls, and his cheeks were rosy, and I tried to embrace him, but the Henman was screaming and hitting her chest: “My God, Trevor, what have you been playing at?”