Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

“Oh you know, a writer needs time on her own.”

But the journey back is rather subdued. They agree that amassing possessions is pointless. Fifi makes a note of this in her expensive new palmtop, whose merits she then explains to Vanessa. Vanessa declares she is going to have a clear-out. She sits and lists things to do in her notebook, the one in which she had planned to write. But while Mary is there, she may as well make use of her. Together they can really make a difference. Mary can hardly say she is busy—

Vanessa only half-knows she is fending off depression. “Kissy kissy kissy,” they say at Waterloo, but Fifi feels Vanessa hasn’t been supportive, and Vanessa is restless and frustrated.

It isn’t so easy, facing up to the past. Tomorrow she has to go back to teaching. The precious empty week is gone.

She comes home in a black taxi at three pm. The driver complains about immigrants, and they have the mandatory argument. The fare of twenty-five pounds is outrageous. She walks even faster than usual up the path, bumping her suitcase along the concrete. She rings the bell, but they’re too lazy to answer, so she drags her keys out of the bottom of her handbag and jerks them irritably into the keyhole.

“Mary!” she shouts as she comes in through the door. “Justin! Where is everybody?”

In fact, she finds Mary out at the back, standing on the lawn, wearing a winter coat of Vanessa’s, which blows open to show the annoying blue nightdress that Anya had found in Justin’s room. “Hallo, Vanessa.” She seems friendly, but startled. “I thought you were not coming back until this evening. Sorry, I have put your coat on.”

“That’s quite all right,” Vanessa says, but she can’t quite get rid of the feeling that Mary isn’t totally glad she is back early. (She’s right: Mary had been planning to call Libya on Vanessa’s phone.) “That is rather a smart coat for the garden, Mary. Why don’t you borrow my anorak?” Or else put more of your own clothes on , she thinks to herself, but does not say it.

“I shall make you a cup of tea, Vanessa,” Mary Tendo says, with a queenly smile.

On the way back in, Vanessa pauses and takes a proper look at the garden. She is dismayed to see that a lot of it is bare. It is certainly tidy, but where are her peonies? What has happened to half her roses? Her heart sinks as she realises. Besides, there are sticks all over the place, thin bamboo sticks at odd angles which she supposes must mark new plants. Some of them project from the fence like spines. She pulls one out: it is oddly barbed. It looks familiar, but she can’t take it in. It almost looks like a kind of arrow. This must be a technique of the Ugandan farmer. Or else Mary has been murdering squirrels.

“Mary, I didn’t ask you to garden . Just a little pruning was all I wanted.”

“No, Vanessa, but I knew you would be happy. Because you said your mother liked the garden to be tidy, I finished the gardening while you were away.”

“I see.”

Mary Tendo has her back turned, boiling the kettle, unaware that there is anything wrong.

Vanessa swallows rising fury. After all, Mary was trying to be helpful.

“How was France?” Mary asks her. The tea she has made is too strong and black. Sighing, Vanessa pours herself more milk.

“Oh well, you know, it was just Paris.” She has been to Paris a dozen times. There have been better and worse trips to Paris.

“Vanessa, I have never been to Paris. I think that one day I would like to go.”

Vanessa thinks, it’s maddening how she makes me feel guilty. Even when she’s blatantly in the wrong.

“I have come back with lots of new resolutions,” she says briskly, swilling down the tea in one gulp, burning her throat unpleasantly. “I want you to help me clear everything out. We’ve got too much rubbish. Far too much stuff, I think you once said something like that yourself, that English people’s houses are full of things . Well I want to get rid of a lot of it. But first do you think you should put some clothes on? And where is Justin? Justin can help.”

“I want to talk to you about him, Vanessa.” (Mary’s feeling happy, and proud of herself. The meeting with Zakira was a huge success. Justin and Zakira were in each other’s arms within three minutes of their arrival. While the two of them were kissing and hugging in the kitchen, Mary had filled Trevor in on the back story. “I thought that boy was a bloody fast worker,” Trevor said, but she could see he was worried. “What is the old girl going to say?” After two hours with Zakira, he had relaxed. “She’s a lovely girl,” he told his son. Soon the necklace was back on Zakira’s neck. The amber glowed on her blue-black skin. The tap was mended, the sink no longer leaked, and Justin stayed behind at the end. Mary is ecstatic. She has pulled it off! Justin’s up and dressed, with a job and a girlfriend. She cannot wait to tell Vanessa.)

But Vanessa’s in the grip of the hyperactive state that is her only way of fending off depression. “Not now Mary, we have to get on.”

In this mood, Vanessa carries all before her, but Mary and Justin seem slow and stubborn.

When Vanessa asks Mary to clear out the cupboards in the sitting room, ready for Vanessa to sort, Mary says, “But Vanessa, that will make a mess, and Anya — there is a little problem with Anya. I am not sure she is coming on Wednesday.” (The problem is that Justin’s slept with Anya, the night before his reconciliation with Zakira, and Anya is in love with him. Whereas Justin just thinks she is quite a nice girl with whom he has made a little mistake. Or not so nice a girl, once she has kicked his television, and said he is a Dummkopf , and a loser. Justin thinks Anya might not be coming back.)

“Mary, we are clearing up the mess. If we make a little dust, there are dusters in the cupboard. I hope you know where the cleaning things are.” Vanessa is aware that she sounds rather sharp, and makes a last-ditch attempt to sound reasonable. “I myself am not too proud to clean up. By the way, I really think you should take my coat off.”

Mary removes the coat, which reveals the maddening nightdress, which is semi-transparent and looks — slatternly.

“It is Anya’s job,” Mary says, politely. “It was Anya’s job, to do the cleaning. It seems her name was Anya, not Anna. If she has gone, we will find another one. In fact, she was not even Australian.”

“For God’s sake, Mary, put some clothes on. Are you saying you are not willing to help me?” Vanessa’s voice is beginning to rise, to steer its way up through the unstable octaves. Her heart begins to beat unsteadily. There is a certain blind pleasure in losing her temper.

“I am not saying I am not willing,” says Mary, but her jaw juts mutinously.

Vanessa is too cross to listen properly. Mary’s double negative just sounds like ‘No’. “I think I have been fair with you,” she says. “I have treated you like a friend, Mary.”

Mary’s eyes go dead. It is starting again. “Yes, Miss Vanessa. We are like friends.”

“So don’t you think that you ought to help me?”

Mary looks at the floor. “I ought to help you.” She thinks of the money. She is still hundreds short. She has to survive in this house until Christmas. And yet, the Henman is a madwoman. You do not start cleaning in the afternoon.

“So do we understand each other?” Vanessa victorious. She’s full of adrenalin now, she is speeding. Sometimes these points just have to be made. She can’t let these people walk all over her. When you are too soft, this is what happens. She rides her crest of unhappiness; nobody likes her, not even her son, nor Mary, nor Miss Tomlinson.