Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

“Er — hallo there, Ness. The lad’s been helping me.”

“I’ve been painting,” smiled Justin. He was proud of himself. “I have worked for six hours. And Dad has paid me! At any rate, he is going to pay me.” But his face started to fall as he saw his mother.

“You bastard, bastard!” she shouted at Trevor. “I’ve been so worried! Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing? I actually phoned you this afternoon, and he must have been there, but you didn’t say a thing—” She was yelling this right in Trevor’s face, but he said nothing, just looked at Justin.

“Er—”

Then Justin started to look unhappy and worried, and said, “I asked him not to tell you. I didn’t want anyone to know. Just in case I freaked out, and was a failure.”

Then the Henman turned round and screamed at Justin instead. “Well you can hardly be a success as a painter! Did I bring you up to be a labourer? Do you want to be a failure like your father? Oh Justin, you were always such a high flyer!”

And then Mr Trevor looked very sad.

And so I thought, time for Mary Tendo to join in, because there was no reason for all this sorrow: at last Justin was working again. And also, I wanted my cigarette.

“Perhaps we should all count to five,” I said. “If Trevor and Justin go into the garden, Vanessa could make us a cup of coffee, and then we can talk about everything calmly.”

But then the Henman started screaming at me. She was turning around like a white tornado, striking at each of us in turn. “Oh and what will you be doing while I make your coffee?” she said very loudly, staring at me.

“I shall go in the garden with Trevor and Justin.”

And so I went there, but they did not follow, perhaps because they were afraid of her. Two big strong men, afraid of a woman. Trevor said, “Better not wind her up. She’s already practically snapped her watch-spring.” But I could not stay inside like a child. I sat outside on the lawn under the moon, which shone on the neat bare earth I had weeded. It was a very big moon, low and orange. Inside the house I could hear her screaming, and Trevor talking quietly, but Justin said nothing, and in the end his mother stopped screaming, and I heard the sound of the front door closing, and then I suppose that she went to bed. And so I smoked cigarettes, three in a row, because my heart was beating loudly, and I was thinking, all this fuss, and I do not make any fuss about Jamie. These people do not really know about sorrow. They do not know about missing someone.

And then at last Justin came out to join me. He had taken his clothes off, like he did before, and his nose was running, and his cheeks were slippery. He clung to me again, like a baby, but I made him sit up, and have a cigarette, and he felt very cold, and was shivering, and I went and got a rug, and wrapped it round him. Perhaps this boy would have died of cold. It is so different in England, the things you die from.

But he still dropped the ash on his naked skin, and yelped like a rabbit before I could shush him. Then the window of the Henman’s room banged open, and she shouted down, “What is going on? You all think I am stupid, but I am not! I know perfectly well what you two are up to!”

I whispered to Justin, “We shall say nothing.” But instead, he called up, “It’s all right, Mums. I couldn’t sleep, so I came in the garden.” And after a bit, she was quiet again.

And I told Justin I was proud of him. Because it is good that he worked for his father. And quite soon Justin stopped shaking and sniffing.

“I just don’t know what to do about her,” he said to me later, as we slept together.

But I said to him, “Justin, I want to help you, but I cannot make your mother too angry, or else I think she will send me away. Perhaps she will send me away tomorrow.”

“She won’t. She can’t. I won’t let you go.”

“Do not forget that your mother loves you.”

But I have an idea, which I am sure will help her. Next time the Henman loses her temper, I shall take all her African masks off the wall, and also all the little dark figures. Some of them are victims of sorcerers who stand there miserably holding their stomachs. But the Henman just thinks they are ‘sweet’ and ‘artistic’.

One day the Henman will lose her demons.

Vanessa Henman

She will have to go. It is insupportable. My house, my son are no longer my own. Even my ex-husband is behaving strangely. And now she has started this weird juju . I almost feel afraid of her, although that, of course, is ridiculous. She is just a simple African woman.

But sometimes she does not seem so simple.

Item one: the blue nightdress in Justin’s bedroom. Anya left a pile of his things on the landing. Why was Mary’s hideous nightdress among them? I asked her about it, but she only smiled, and said, ‘Vanessa, it is an error’, which could have meant anything, and told me nothing. But I thought of the noises in the middle of the night, and the strange thumping I hear in her bedroom.

I must not think like this. It is disgusting. Perhaps it is me who has the problem. I am open-minded, I try to be fair. I know about Oedipus, and Jocasta.

All the same, the thought makes me want to slap her.

Item two: she makes Justin set his sights low. This wretched idea of him helping his father. Of course it will do for a week or two, as a way of getting him back to normal, but in the long run, it is just a nightmare, the thought of my brilliant, gifted son, dragging around as an odd-job man. (Though Trevor got terribly cross with me and forbade me to say any more to Justin. “Leave well alone, I’m telling you, Ness, or I won’t be responsible. He’s very fragile, still, our son. Don’t you dare make him think you despise him. You might hide your feelings about me, as well. Or you can start cleaning out your own gutters.” Those eyes of his were simply flashing fire! For a moment he looked almost handsome.)

So I have decided to say nothing for a bit. But I’m biding my time. And I do blame Mary.

Item three: the African herbs in the kitchen. The food was one thing, but now she is bringing in strange little packets of dried root and powder, glass vials of seed-heads like shrunken pupils, wizened black plant-stuff from another world. I asked her, quite nicely, “Are these herbs for cooking?” But she said, “No, it is medicine for Justin. I have told him to stop taking his Prozac,” and I said, “But Mary, that could be dangerous!” And she said, “Vanessa, Prozac is dangerous. Especially now Justin is working with Trevor. What if he is painting up a ladder? I am sure that Prozac will make him sleepy.”

I really couldn’t argue with that. I have always thought that drugs were dangerous. But obviously I have forbidden her to give him any of her coal-black rubbish. The Health Food shop is one thing: we all use that, herbs and homeopathy in proper labelled bottles. I am open-minded on alternative health. But African witch-doctors are something else.

I wonder if Mary will take any notice. It seems to me she does whatever she wants to.

Item four: she encourages Tigger to smoke. It isn’t good for him. He has a weak chest. He looks terribly robust, but he does get the sniffles, and of course he often works in the open air. No one can say I don’t care about him. He’s the kind of man who needs the odd reminder. I mean, he hardly ever used to change his socks. But Mary has always been soft on men. Why else does Omar have custody of their son? And Mary has always admired Tigger. Now she is around, he is much more — uppity. It isn’t a change that I enjoy.

Then yesterday I smelled smoke in the kitchen, as clear as day, by the door to the garden, when Tigger had popped in after a day with Justin. They were all round the table, talking very loudly. I was in my study, as usual, working, and when I came through, the room went quiet, and I could smell cigarettes quite strongly. “Who’s been smoking?” I demanded, of course. All of them know there is to be no smoking. And then, to my surprise, Justin started laughing, and then they were all giggling like children, and Tigger said, “I’d better own up, it’s me,” and then they all laughed even harder. And I said to Mary, “It is bad for Tigger,” and she said, “Miss Henman, he is not a baby.”