Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

“Leave him, Mary,” Vanessa gasps. “Just let him go.”

“But he is a thief. In Kampala, we deal with them! Every week, the crowd catches someone on the street. Next day they report a death in the papers!” Mary is shouting this at Derrick. “Villain, I will kill you if you take my money.”

“He hasn’t taken anything.”

Now he is limping away down the path. Mary is torn between following him and running upstairs to check on her money. But she sees the outside broom in the porch and snatches it up and throws it after him, whirling the head like an Olympic hammer-thrower, and hits her mark, and he yelps again, and then he is gone, and the tall hedge hides him.

Vanessa has crumpled on to the floor, and sits in the hall, her head in her hands. Mary is erect, regal and glowing, full of the passion of the fight.

“Thank you, Mary, I don’t know how to thank you—”

“Are you all right, Vanessa? You are not bleeding?” Mary crouches, briefly, and looks her over. “Now, Vanessa, I will check my money.” Mary goes upstairs two at a time, faster than Vanessa’s ever heard her move. Indeed she did not know that Mary could run, but she returns in her normal leisurely fashion. “I was in time, he did not take my money.” When Mary tries to lift her, Vanessa collapses.

The rest of the day passes in a dream-like fashion. The police, Trevor, Justin all come. Mary is heard giving stirring descriptions that always end with the rescue of her money. Everyone is full of praise for Mary. Vanessa is taken off to hospital for an X-ray on her painful leg, not in an ambulance, as she had expected, but in Trevor’s van, which is white with plaster dust, and she is not too ill to complain. “Sorry, old girl, no one gave me notice.” But Trevor is loving, worried, kind, and Justin is almost too upset to talk.

Still Vanessa is left with a puzzled feeling that somehow Mary is the centre of all this, that the heroic role, which was surely hers, the stoical, plucky victim of attack, has passed to Mary, and will not come back, however much she tells her own story.

The police pick up Derrick not far from his lodgings. He turns out to have a history of violence, and has been seeing a psychiatrist since he was eleven.

And most people begin blaming themselves. Justin is frantic that he gave him her address. “No, it’s my fault for giving him my telephone number,” his mother tells him, meaning it. But Vanessa cannot bring herself to confess that she did it because Derrick was young and handsome. Because she wanted him to feel special. A little flirtation varied her day. The trouble is, flirting wasn’t what he wanted. My fault, my fault . “It’s my fault, Mother,” Justin groans, insists.

But Mary tells him not to talk nonsense. “All over the world there are villains,” she says. “At least this young man did not steal any money. You just be thankful for Mary Tendo!”

“He told me he had a psychiatrist,” says Vanessa. “I took no notice. I just thought, they’re all mad.”

She is sitting in Emergency with Trevor. The NHS does not think she’s an emergency, despite Trevor’s best efforts on her behalf, though they say, “You could fetch your wife a cup of tea.” They seem surprised when he asks directions, as if most of the patients come with maps. “It’s downstairs, turn left, left again, cross the courtyard, in through the red door, not the first, the second; then upstairs, straight down, across the next landing, you’ll see it after the children’s ward. If you get to surgery, you’ve gone too far.” But Trevor decides he cannot leave her. Her back is hurting, and her face, and her neck. Her left leg makes her limp, and sigh.

“You’re all right, old girl,” he keeps telling her. “Thanks to Mary. She was a cracker.”

“I kept my head,” Vanessa assures him, but he does not take the hint and praise her.

When a doctor finally examines her, he is sympathetic, and briskly thorough, but “It could have been worse,” he assures her, annoyingly, after she and Tigger have told their story. “You’ve got some bad bruises. Time will see to that. If you like I can prescribe something strong for the pain.”

“Will I be all right by Christmas?” she asks.

“Oh yes,” he says, startled, as if it is obvious. “I wouldn’t advise you to drive home today. But of course, your husband will be able to drive you.” Normally Vanessa would be the one to correct him, but this time it’s Trevor: “Ex-husband,” he grunts. Vanessa feels the doctor is taking it too lightly; she wonders if she’ll ever recover. The police have offered her counselling, but she doesn’t want to talk to someone stupid. Still, the tired young doctor, as they struggle through the door, with Vanessa leaning heavily on Tigger, manages a final moment of kindness. “You ought to be right as rain by Christmas.”

“How right is rain?” Trevor asks, rhetorically. Outside the door it is raining, hard, and Vanessa clutches him uncomfortably as they limp together across the carpark, like some eternal three-legged race. She weighs upon him. He needs to escape.

Besides, he is feeling a little bit guilty. He’s been talking to Mary about village wells. As a plumber, he knows a lot about water. She has had an idea that he could come out to Uganda and train villagers to look after a well, but she’s made him promise not to tell Vanessa, in case she decides she would like to come with him. Tigger felt disloyal agreeing to this, but he’d love to do something good in the world, and he’d love to have a look at the Pearl of Africa. Soraya knows he’s never got beyond Calais; she’s happy to spare him for a month or two. It would be good for Justin to run the business. And as for Vanessa — he needs a clean break.

The weather worsens rapidly. The British are glad, in their aching bones. It gives them something to complain about. Also, a proper cold snap will kill the mosquitoes that make it feel like somewhere foreign, the new clouds of fruit flies in airless kitchens, the whispering indices of climate change. This is Great Britain, not Africa. December should be a chilly month, then they can show character by putting up with it. Pleased, they rush out to buy hot-water bottles, and middle-aged men are indignant to be offered winsome covers like small furry animals. “Sorry, sir, it’s all we’ve got.” Trevor walks away shyly with a garish Pooh Bear, which he thinks at least will give a laugh to Soraya. He intends to pay her more attention. She’s a lovely girl, bright and loyal. Soraya wants to have his children. Now trade is so good, he could almost afford it. After he’s done his bit in Uganda.

Mary Tendo, however, looks grey and grim. She wears all her clothes and still feels cold. Vanessa goes out and buys her a jumper, since Mary ignores hints to do this herself. There has been no more mention of Mary leaving. The jumper is pretty, and very expensive, a peach-coloured mohair that tickles Mary’s neck. It has a matching scarf. Vanessa feels generous.

But she is no longer in charge of the future. Justin seems evasive when she talks about Christmas. Mary Tendo reveals no plans. And Tigger almost seems to be avoiding her, now the bruising has faded, and her leg is better. Though the college was horrified about what happened, and sent memos about ‘putting in place new safeguards’, the Dean said privately that you can’t protect women stupid enough to give out home phone numbers. There is a meeting of Convention (Vanessa isn’t present) where scathing things are said about Creative Writing and the mental state of both staff and students. “It never was a real subject, in my view,” says die-hard Dr Harding, Social Studies, who has never been offered a Readership, who tried to write a novel, twenty years ago; besides, Vanessa once snubbed him, in the bar. All round the room, there are murmurs of assent.