The Housekeeper

by Suellen Dainty

  And then the woman comes in, the one who stinks because she covers herself in pooh and never washes. She screams like a monkey and starts flapping her arms. She terrifies me when I’m on my own, but I’m not scared today because my mother tells her to go away and for once the stinking woman disappears and I am safe.

  I shut my notebook and lay back on the sofa, exhausted by the force and clarity of the memory. I must have been at Kinghurst Place after all. This was the clearest indication I’d had so far that all the things I’d been writing in my notebook could form a blueprint of my mother and myself. I longed to ask Rob about it. But we were no longer intimate.

  21

  Each of us is made up of an inner and outer self. Never ignore the inner self, the true essence of you. Let it inform how you present yourself to the world through your outer self. Try to be brave enough to tell the truth about who you are. That way freedom lies.

  —Emma Helmsley, “Taking the Moment,” September 21, 2016

  “I forgot to tell you,” said Emma, swinging keys around her finger, suddenly shy. “I’ll be back early today. A film crew is coming to interview Rob and me for that series, you know, For Better or Worse. It’s only afternoon telly, I mean not many people will be watching, but it’s silly to miss the opportunity. Particularly as there might be a series for me in the future, if it all goes well today. The producer told Fiona it’s a kind of trial run.”

  So that explained the sharply tailored gray suit, the neat regular waves in her hair, the eyeliner, lipstick, and blusher; everything making her look older and more hard-faced.

  “I’m sure to look like a rabbit in the headlights. Rob is so much more accustomed to this sort of thing than I am. I’ve gotten used to the public talks and the meetings, but on the whole, I like to hide behind my blog and my books.”

  “I’ll make sure the sitting room is extra tidy,” I said. “And you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. If they thought you had nothing to say, they wouldn’t be interviewing you.”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. The vein in her forehead pulsed underneath the wisps of her fringe. “Anyhow, today I’ll have to lie and pretend I’m some kind of domestic high priestess. I won’t be able to say what I really want to, which is that I can’t manage anything without your help.”

  How many times had Emma told me this? And still my response was to almost salivate like Pavlov’s dog, although I tried not to let it show. “Of course you can. You managed perfectly well before I arrived.”

  She fixed me with eyes like Siggy’s. “No I didn’t. It was always a terrible mess. And we all like you so much. I mean, you’re just the perfect person for us. We couldn’t be luckier. Rob is always worried that you’re going to leave and find some much more glamorous family in Notting Hill or Chelsea. Bankers or Russian oligarchs.” There was a forlorn expression on her face. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Rob said something about Theo and a couple of his friends coming to dinner tonight. Is that all right? I mean . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “That’s fine. And there’s no need to worry about anything,” I said. Then she was gone, the front door slamming behind her. Rob was already in his office and I was left to my morning routine. Cool air rushed in when I opened the window in their bedroom, cutting through the smell of them, their bed linen and their discarded clothes.

  Lily’s room, as ever, looked uninhabited. She had taken to tucking her duvet under the mattress in hospital corners. Her desk was empty except for a mug of newly sharpened pencils and pens. Jake’s room was even more chaotic than usual. Two red baseball caps hung off the doorknob. Socks shiny with dirt, jeans, and T-shirts littered the floor. Around them lay pages torn from an exercise book. Some were screwed up into tiny balls. Others were ripped into rough pieces. Flung under his bed was a hard, round cushion with two indentations.

  I set to work, putting the clothes in the laundry basket and picking up the pieces of paper. All had yellow marker pen scrawls on them, crossed out and impossible to read. The pamphlet from the Church of Eternal Truth lay open on his bedside table, one section highlighted with such force that the page had holes in it.

  For He has suffered so much since the beginning of the world, and made so many sacrifices for His followers. Put away sin and dishonesty. Lies, whether to other people or oneself, are sins in His eyes.

  I thought back to that woman preacher, the way those teenagers bowed to her will. If I said something to Emma, it would be an admission that I spied on her children. It would be so much easier if she occasionally ventured into their bedrooms. But she was always in a rush.

  As usual, I distracted myself with food. Half an hour later, pollo alla cacciatora was simmering on the hob. The thing with stews like these is not to overdo the tomatoes. You need an equal balance with the celery, onions, and carrots. Some people use red wine, but I prefer a splash of white, some thyme, and a bay leaf. It’s not traditional silver spoon cooking, but it’s hard to think of any meat dish not improved by these herbs.

  I’d almost finished clearing away when Rob bounced into the kitchen wearing one of his preppy button-down shirts, ready for the television interview. Like a light switched on, an image of him and Theo flashed before me. My foot began to jitter, but I made it stop. I switched off the image, something I was getting good at.

  “You look happy,” I said.

  “Well, I am,” he said. “Things are good. And you? We haven’t spoken properly for ages, and I wanted to ask about how everything is going—the images and how you’re feeling about them. I felt we left things slightly in midair.”

  I closed the dishwasher door. “I’m good,” I said. “And you?”

  Before he could answer, the front door opened. There was the clack of Emma’s high heels in the hall and then her voice. “Just in here.” Then she was in the kitchen, covering Rob’s cheek with feathery kisses. Siggy flung himself out of his basket and jumped up on her. “Not on my good skirt,” she said, pushing him gently away. I picked him up. He squirmed in my arms, his heart racing under his coarse coat until I calmed him by tickling his ears.

  “The crew is here for the program,” she said, looking pleased and embarrassed at the same time. I offered to take a tray of tea and coffee into the sitting room.

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’ll come out in a minute or so.” I got it. She didn’t want the interviewer to know she and Rob had a full-time housekeeper, and it would be clear from the way I presided over the kitchen, stirring and tasting, that I was more than a casual cleaner or grown-up au pair. Emma needed to give the impression that she was competent in all aspects of her life. It was part of her job.

  I prepared the tray, and clipped on Siggy’s leash for yet another drag around the block. The hall was barred with a camera box and a tripod, so we went out the back door and along the side path. When I unlocked the front gate, I saw that the cameraman had taped opaque paper over the front window. There was a bright light behind the paper. Rob and Emma’s profiles were sharply outlined like characters in a shadow theater.

  Siggy followed me dutifully along the street. While not exactly bounding about, he was more accepting of exercise these days. He had stopped cringing when other dogs passed and occasionally wagged his tail as I bent down to pick up his droppings. We headed for the river, following the faint smell of mud at low tide.

  A bus stopped on the corner and a group of teenage boys rushed onto the pavement. Siggy cowered as one of them stopped in front of us. His school blazer strained over his shoulders and pimples broke through the fuzz on his cheeks. He was carrying a bunch of wilting yellow chrysanthemums.

  “Sorry, lady.” His voice cracked like Jake’s and he went to pat Siggy. He backed away, his tail between his legs.

  “He’s a bit shy,” I said.

  The boy smiled. “No need. I like dogs.” His friends had already crossed the street, gathering at a corner piled high with bunches of fading flowers. Posters were taped one on top of the other. WE LUV YOU BROTHER and NO MORE GANGS. T
he words were written in neon yellow spray paint. A week ago, a gang from a nearby school had chased a pupil chosen at random, and stabbed him to death as part of an initiation rite.

  “Was he your friend?” I asked. The boy didn’t reply but his chin wobbled. “I’m sorry,” I continued, but he had already dashed across the road, waving his flowers like a flag. I walked down to the river, scuffing my shoes with each footstep, despondent that the need to belong in a group of boys had caused the death of another. Wasn’t that what gangs were all about? Needing to belong to something, somewhere, so you weren’t prowling the perimeter like a lone wolf? Jake wanted to belong somewhere. Somehow, I had to make Rob and Emma aware of this.

  I reached the towpath. Sometimes Siggy liked to chase seagulls, but today he pulled on the leash to get home. The opaque paper was still fixed to the window, so we crept in through the back door. After I inspected the chicken, I hung about the entrance to the hall. A querulous female voice told Emma and Rob to relax.

  Then a young male voice called, “Testing, testing . . .” and the interview began. I sidled into the hall.

  “So, Rob.” The female voice was no longer querulous. It had turned into a soft lilt. I imagined the interviewer as being sharp and urban, with a well-groomed charm. “A successful television program, another book about to be published, and a committed family man. Who or what gets top priority?”

  There was that pause that worked so well on television. It was hard to know why, because the pause was impossible to comprehend. Did it mean that Rob was thinking carefully about his reply because the question was so clever? Or was the question so stupid that it took time to formulate a comment that was neither insulting nor condescending? Lately I’d concluded the whole thing was just an act, but a plausible one nonetheless.

  “Impossible to answer that,” replied Rob. “Because everything feeds into everything else. I couldn’t do my television work or write my books without Emma’s support, and I hope she’d say the same about me. And I just couldn’t imagine life without my children, which is the main reason I work from home as much as I can, so I can spend time with them.”

  Was there an afternoon when he’d been in the house waiting for them when they came home from school? I didn’t recall.

  “And Emma, what about you?” the female voice asked. Emma cleared her throat.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m taking too long to answer. Should we start again?”

  The female voice said it wasn’t necessary. Any mistakes or pauses could be edited later.

  “Do you follow your own advice? You must be very well organized.” The voice was seductive, inviting confidences. I stood bolt upright, like a stage mother in the wings, wanting Emma to give a good performance. I thought of the effusive way she thanked me at the end of each day, as if she was scared I might have second thoughts in the night and not return the next morning. Behind me, Siggy turned in his basket. I recalled the chaos everywhere when I started. Clothes flung on the floor, food left to rot, overflowing laundry baskets.

  From the sitting room, Emma spoke in a clear, authoritative voice I’d never heard before. “Organization is absolutely vital in every house,” she said. “Everyone here does their share of housework. A family is just like a small business. We all have to pull our weight. I live by my lists.”

  There might have been an impostor in the sitting room, someone so skilled at playing this charade that I almost believed her.

  “But Rob and Emma, surely you have some help in the house?” asked the female voice, angling for a slipup, a chink in the armor. “The shopping, the cooking, and the cleaning,” the voice continued. “Do you do everything yourselves?”

  Part of me wanted Emma and Rob to tell the interviewer what they constantly told me: that the family couldn’t manage without me, that I was the lynchpin of Wycombe Lodge. But there was another part of me that knew authors, particularly bestselling authors of books on life management, and their clever media personality academic husbands, didn’t make public confessions about their sloppy domestic habits just to placate the housekeeper.

  “Nearly everything,” said Emma.

  “We divide it up,” added Rob. I heard the smile in his voice, and I knew he was looking at the interviewer with that same steady gaze he fixed on me, the one that used to make me feel so much better about myself.

  “But we stick to simple things during the week—casseroles that I’ve prepared on the weekend, or something quick like pasta,” Emma continued. “As I say in my books, it’s all down to priorities and organization, and valuing oneself and one’s work, not being afraid to ask your partner for help if you need it.”

  A small creep of hurt made its way down my back until I told myself not to be stupid. But I couldn’t help feeling a bit cheated. It was my organization, not theirs.

  “I’m not Superwoman,” Emma went on. “We do have a cleaner, and if things get really frantic, I’m not above ordering a takeaway meal if we’re having friends to dinner. I mean, life is to be lived, and family time is very important. Rob and I, our children, we’re very close. Our lives are busy, so when we’re together, we like to concentrate on just us.”

  There was talk of shared online diaries and weekly date nights. This last word was drawn out so it sounded lascivious. Family outings were just as important. Emma and Rob spoke like they were handing down the Ten Commandments for Happy Families. Were there times when Emma and Rob went out, just the two of them? Had I ever heard of any family outings? Again, I didn’t recall, although there was the Majorcan holiday planned for next summer.

  There was silence, and the other female voice, no longer seductive but businesslike, announced that all had gone very well. There was a sound of a mug being replaced on a tray. From my eavesdropping position in the hall, I did not move. Again I told myself not to be stupid. Did I expect that Emma and Rob would waltz out to the kitchen and introduce me as their very own Woman Friday, make sure I was included in the interview, hand over a recipe or two? Was I waiting for a declaration that I was a fully paid up member of the family?

  I was the housekeeper, the hired help with a messy past who cleared up other people’s messy present, the one who protected their messy little secrets.

  22

  The housekeeper must consider herself as the immediate representative of her mistress.

  —Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, 1861

  Two hours later, Emma strode into the dining room, face scrubbed clean of makeup and wet hair dripping onto her shoulders. She hovered on the other side of the counter, not taking up her usual cupboard door bashing position.

  “That chicken smells so good.” She sniffed the air with what looked like elaborate appreciation, but I knew she would push most of it around the plate later. “What a nerve-wracking afternoon! All those lights blazing in my eyes and that scary woman telling me to relax. I was absolutely terrified.”

  “I’m sure you were terrific.” I wiped down the bench, my default reaction to almost everything. Emma’s face was silhouetted against the faltering light in the garden. At that angle, the resemblance to Jake was uncanny and I couldn’t resist. It seemed the perfect quiet moment before everyone clattered into the room for dinner.

  “Will Jake be back soon? He seems so busy these days.” A breath, and then it rushed out. “I guess it’s this interest in religion, you know, the different texts that he’s studying.”

  “Religion?” Emma laughed, a loud honk that I’d never heard before. “Texts? What on earth do you mean? Jake isn’t interested in religion or anything like that. I don’t know where you got that idea from.”

  “Well, it was just . . . I mean I thought once or twice when I was tidying his room . . .” My sentence trailed into rebuffed silence and started up again. “I must have got the wrong impression. It probably was something to do with homework.”

  “Jake’s like every other kid in his class,” she said. “You know, they like music and parties and concerts. He’s going to Glastonbury n
ext year.” Emma said this with a flourish, like a ticket to a rock festival was certification of a well-adjusted urban adolescent. “No, Jake isn’t religious. None of us is. Now, time for me to lay the table and light the candles. Where did I put the matches?”

  I produced them from a drawer and gave them to her.

  “Thank you, Anne. I know I say it all the time, but I can’t imagine how we’d cope without you.”

  There was something about her fulsome praise so soon after her swift retort that made me feel like a dog that had been kicked away and then patted. As for the matter of Jake, she’d made it clear that my concerns about him were not worth further discussion. It rankled. But maybe Emma was tired. It was hard to think clearly when you were tired.

  An hour later, they were all at the table—Jake next to Emma, then Theo, the woman with the cat’s-eye glasses from the party, and a portly man with a salt-and-pepper beard in between Lily and Rob.

  The woman, who introduced herself as Sabine, was already onto her second helping. She had a quirky way of dressing—ankle socks with high heels. Their conversation drifted into the kitchen. “I’m not so sure about logical positivism anymore,” she said. “I think Wittgenstein might have had his day.”