Maggie Gee - My Cleaner

Within the seminar group, people are appalled and thrilled. A garbled version of the story gets about where Vanessa was raped and nearly murdered. Daisy is responsible for these embellishments. It must be true: Derrick has disappeared. The men look at Vanessa assessingly, tenderly, trying not to imagine the scene in detail. She has said the least that she can get away with, attempting to sound neutral, like a policewoman: “You may have heard that some events took place involving a member of this class. He is having psychiatric help. There is no reason for anyone to be anxious.” Yet she herself is still jumpy at night, and prefers it when there are people in the house.

But Justin seems to be staying away. His mother senses he has hardly been here, ever since the strange night when she met him on the stairs, perhaps ten days after she was attacked, and his eyes were shining, and he was wreathed in smiles, and when she said, “Justin, you do look happy,” he hugged her so hard that she gasped with pain and he backed away saying, “Sorry, sorry, I am just so clumsy, what’s the matter with me?” And yet, he went on looking radiantly happy.

“Would you like a cup of hot chocolate?” his mother had inquired. She was curious, and she wanted to talk. But he said, vaguely, “I’m just in and out. I’m actually staying with — a friend. Two friends!” And then he laughed out loud with pleasure. Perhaps he was drunk, but he didn’t seem it, although there was definitely wine on his breath. “I just popped back for some, uh, some blankets.”

And before she could ask any more, he was gone. Vanessa went back to her bedroom, thoughtful. She is not afraid, because she knows that Mary is somewhere, down in the kitchen or out in the garden, having the bedtime cigarette that she no longer tries to conceal from Vanessa, and which Vanessa accepts is her due.

But minutes later she’s convulsed by fear to hear Mary Tendo screaming, loudly.

It seems the screams go on and on, and Vanessa gets ready, she pulls her shoes on, her heart is thumping like some straining engine—

But then she hears that Mary is laughing. Mary is laughing and shouting with Justin. And this time Vanessa feels more sad than envious: Mary Tendo and Justin are friends. Perhaps all that time Mary spent with Justin, all those years ago, when Vanessa was busy, have given them something both precious and ordinary. (It wasn’t her fault. She was always so busy. She didn’t choose it, she had no choice. Surely, though, Justin’s love for her is special?)

For several days the house seems full of laughter. Vanessa would like to be a part of it. But since what happened, she’s felt oddly muted, incapable of going on the attack. The world seems to have become illogical, surreal, as if she is living at an angle to it.

One day there is a phone-call from a bubbly, husky-voiced woman who says a loud, two-tone “Ha-llo!” like an old friend, but then asks to speak to Justin.

“He’s rarely here at the moment,” sighs Vanessa, at which the woman says, with odd intimacy, “No, of course, I quite understand…My name is Jasmine. Call me Jazz. And you must be — let me see — Vanessa! Vanessa it’s so nice to talk to you. I have excellent news for you and Justin. You have been selected from hundreds of callers to take part in next month’s ‘PARENT SWAP’!” She delivers this announcement on an ear-bursting crescendo.

“This is some advertising thing,” says Vanessa, but Jasmine forges on, cheery, brazen.

“Look at it this way, Veronica. This is great opportunity. It’s your chance to tell your side of things to thousands of people who only know Justin’s—”

“Stop bothering me,” says Vanessa, and puts the phone down. When it rings again, three times, she ignores it. Of course, it is just another nuisance call, and yet it is disquieting. She sits there for a few minutes, puzzled. Justin’s side of things, indeed! How would ‘thousands of people’ know about Justin? What could it mean, a ‘parent swap’? She means to tell him about the call, later, but is overcome by a strange inertia.

Small candle-flames brighten these dark days. First, in a simple, childish way, Vanessa is looking forward to Christmas. Once she realised that Mary would not be leaving, Vanessa has simply asked her to join them, and Mary agrees, demurely, saying only, “But Vanessa, I am waiting for a call from Uganda. It is possible that my friend will come.” Vanessa doesn’t take much notice of this, since Mary has been waiting for a call for weeks. Lucy seems happy for Mary to come. So the three of them will drive up together, Vanessa thinks, with some contentment. A real Christmas. A country Christmas.

Secondly, in the last session of term, bearded Alex takes the bull by the horns. He stays behind and hands over a Christmas card. “Look, this is probably not the best time for this, not after, you know, whatever happened, which we are all sorry to hear about, but I’ve put my phone number on this card, and if you felt like going out for a drink…I promise not to talk about writing. Maybe we could do a film, or a show.”

It is sweetly old·fashioned, this talk of a show. Vanessa blushes with pleasure and smiles. The smile keeps warming and extending, on its own, and their eyes meet; older eyes; briefly unguarded. They like each other: a man, a woman. Maybe this time they will get on.

She takes the card without committing herself, but she knows she will give him a ring after Christmas. Perhaps they will go to a pantomime. Something non-verbal, unintellectual. Perhaps she can get him to shave off his beard…but she catches herself, and changes her mind. She will only suggest the lightest trim.

But Vanessa’s new calm is badly shaken by two events in the run-up to Christmas. She is sitting in the dining room one morning, ripping open cards with her usual elan, trying to get through ten envelopes a minute, when she realises one of them isn’t a card. It is a letter from the high-powered agent, suggesting a January date to meet the class, and responding to the extracts she’s seen. Vanessa’s heart starts to beat unsteadily, thumping at her ribs, drumming at her temples. She spots ‘Emily Self in the middle of the page.

She forces herself to read from the beginning. “Several very talented students…tribute to your teaching methods…” Then something that makes her choke on her coffee. “Perhaps the most gifted, as I’m sure you’re aware, is the African writer, Mary Tendo. Marvellously fresh, vivid descriptions of growing up in Uganda…certainly like to see more of it…though strictly between ourselves, Vanessa, the multicultural bubble may have burst…could be, frankly, just a little bit ‘last year’…Not that it’s relevant, but is she photogenic? It will be very good to meet her…and Emily Self. Thank you for drawing her to my attention. The second extract was the better of the two. She doesn’t, of course, have anything like the panache and style of Mary Tendo, but I really do think I could do something for her. The feeling is that ‘poor white rural’, sort of post-Cold Mountain with a nod to Deliverance , is going to be very big next year. That father with the henhouse is wonderfully sinister.”

Vanessa reads it again and again, at first unable to understand. Coffee and bile rise in her throat—

So Mary is a secret writer. Mary Tendo has been writing a book . She has smuggled some chapters in, like a cuckoo. Mary has charmed someone yet again. Mary Tendo ‘the most gifted’!

It is all too much for Vanessa to bear. And Emily Self “doesn’t, of course, have the panache and style of Mary Tendo…” It was the ‘of course’ that hurt so much.