My Cleaner

by Gee, Maggie

  Juanita nods without understanding. ‘So what part of Africa did that tall man come from?’ she asks, once they are settled in the warm café, with its view of the street and all its peoples.

  ‘Montserrat, not Africa,’ Abdu tells her. ‘A tiny island. But he knew Bob Marley.’

  ‘I know Bob Marley,’ says Juanita, jealously, eager to recover from any mistake. ‘Everyone knows Bob Marley.’ And she gets up, laughs, and begins to dance, as if she were young again and happy, to the words she is singing, in a high cracked voice, ‘Don’t rock the boat ... Don’t rock the boat,’ and Abdu and Mary sing along with her.

  Abdu recommends the goat curry, and he and Mary order lots of ‘food’, Ugandan-style, big starchy roots of sweet potato and cassava. He tells them about other businesses he has, renting rooms to Ugandans in Forest Gate. ‘I don’t mind them sharing, three to a room, if that is the only way they can afford it.’

  ‘Oh yes, very kind, very nice,’ says Juanita. ‘And that way you make more money, no?’ She orders, with much frowning at the menu, a steak, then tells the waitress the meat is tough.

  Throughout most of the meal, she complains, like a poem. Her sadness is real; her husband is ill, has not worked for years, because of diabetes, her daughter, who was clever, left school at fifteen and got involved with a drug-dealer. The fact that he was black has not endeared her to Africans: ‘I’m not sayin’ nothing, but he was coloured.’ Now the daughter has a baby that Juanita ‘never’ sees (though it turns out that this means every other weekend). ‘Why? Why has God done this to me?’ Then Juanita has a beer and becomes even franker.

  ‘You all do well because you stick together,’ she says, tomato sauce congealing on her upper lip. ‘And now the English give you all the jobs, and all the money, because you coloured. I’m not bein’ funny, you two my friends. But how come you both rich and I’m still poor? I been in England a lot longer than you. Nobody does any favours for Juanita.’

  ‘I am not rich,’ says Mary. ‘And no one did any favours for me. Only my friends, like Abdu and Leanne.’ But she sees Juanita is very unhappy. ‘You too, Juanita. I do remember. When I had to stay home with Jamey, one day, you covered for me, so I got my money.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Juanita, brightening. ‘Is the story of my life. I help everybody, always.’ She tells a few stories to illustrate this, which are very long and incoherent, and then they start remembering their youth, so they are all laughing again, over coffee: about how Mary put salt in the supervisor’s tea: how Abdu locked a sneak in the stock cupboard.

  The conversation becomes sober again when Juanita asks how Jamey is. ‘Clever little boy, innit?’ she says. ‘Lovely dark eyes, just like his dad. Though I never understand how you could marry one of them.’

  ‘Don’t forget that Abdu is a Muslim too,’ says Mary quickly, but Abdu shrugs and smiles. Mary has dreaded being asked about Jamey, but once she starts to talk, it is almost a relief. ‘Ugandan Muslims aren’t strict like Omar. Well he wasn’t at first, but as he grew older ... Remember Omar was Libyan. And he worked for the embassy, of course. Maybe he thought I was holding him back. He changed. People change. He began to believe he could find someone better. Younger, less stubborn. A good Muslim.’ Now the words come less easily. ‘And he thought – it would be better for Jamie too. When we were posted back to London, things really went wrong. Omar grew afraid of all the godlessness here. He thought that Jamil would be sucked in. Maybe find a non-Muslim girlfriend, because what? Because Omar himself had done the same. And so – ’ Mary stops, and takes a gulp of water. It still seems shameful to tell what happened. ‘Omar told me that he was going to divorce me. And before I knew it, he had gone back to Tripoli. Taking Jamil. Then he married again. I met her twice. She is not so bad. Sometimes she tells me things on the phone. In any case, things did not work out. Jamil and his father began to quarrel. Maybe Jamie blamed him for the divorce. And Omar was worrying about him again. You see, out in Tripoli, their rich young men ... they are educated, they all have degrees, but later there is no work for them. They are too proud to do – jobs like ours, so they lie around all day, watching bad films and drinking.’

  ‘So Jamil got into bad company?’ Juanita’s mouth is sorry, but her eyes are excited.

  It is suddenly too hard for Mary to go on. Because what can Juanita understand about her life? The little Spanish woman has still got two children, whatever may be wrong with them, and one grandchild. It seems like such riches. Mary is too proud to show her cupboard is bare.

  She makes herself smile. ‘No, his father imagined it. He worried too much. Jamie has always been a good boy. He has got a place to do Veterinary Studies, at Al Fateh University, in Tripoli.’

  ‘Ha! Very clever!’ says Juanita, but she pouts, and is restless, inspecting her gold bracelet. ‘My kids, they don’t need to be brainy, do they? No importa, they both earning money.’ Reluctantly, she returns to Jamil. ‘So now he is going to be a student, you are happy, even if you don’t see him for a bit.’

  And Mary nods and changes the subject, because she cannot bear to finish the story, though its empty sadness runs through her body. She tries, every day, not to think about it, except at night, when she says her prayers. For although she has told Abdu and Juanita no lies – Jamie has won a place to do Veterinary Studies, Mary does believe he is a good boy – she has not told them the whole story. Indeed, she does not know the whole story. Her heart yearns towards him: Jamie, Jamie.

  ‘Ladies, I am going to pay for lunch,’ says Abdu. ‘Juanita, I admit I am rich! As rich as Donald Trump, at least. England has been quite kind to me. I have my family. I like my weekends. And my kids, you know, they are Londoners. Though they like to check out Club Afrique, and Kabira.’

  ‘Don’t you ever miss Kampala?’ Mary asks. ‘It is OK where I am. The room is nice. The work is very easy for me. But I miss Uganda. I miss my language. Tugenda kwelabiila baani betuli.’

  ‘Honestly?’ says Abdu. ‘I only miss the weather. How could I go home again, and sometimes not have electricity, for hours on end? Nowhere to shop, no opportunity? You see, Mary, Uganda is here. In Forest Gate and New Ham, it is Uganda. So many Baganda here, it is like home. We have even got our own football team! Simba FC is a brilliant team. And our own radio station, every Sunday!’

  ‘It’s just like I said,’ Juanita nods but without venom, she is even smiling, this proves her point. ‘You Africans are taking over, in London.’

  Abdu sees that Mary is looking sad. ‘Things have been different for you, Mary. Because you married a husband from another country.’

  ‘I married a husband from another country,’ she repeats. ‘It is true, Abdu. So far away. I married for love – ’

  ‘So did I,’ says Juanita. ‘I got nothing but trouble from that man. If my girl goes wrong, is because of ’im.’

  ‘It’s my son,’ says Mary, but then can’t continue. ‘I am only sad about our son.’ And because Mary will not cry in public, she smiles a brilliant smile, and gets up from the table.

  Abdu pays the bill, and then looks at them, his two friends, these two different women. ‘God,’ he says, ‘will take care of them, inshallah. God will look after all lost children.’

  26

  Vanessa does not notice when her house is clean; she only notices when it is dirty. But in fact, the house is better now Anya is cleaning it. The bathroom smells of lemons again. The wastepaper baskets shed their ragged crowns of newsprint. The flowers in the dining room are fresh, and the vases are no longer surrounded by brown petals, lying on the table like a ruff of spilled tobacco. The dado- and picture-rails are white, where once they were traced with long smears of soft charcoal.

  Anya likes cleaning. She is glad to have a job, and she thinks that Justin is mysterious and handsome. She wipes the mouthpiece of the phones, which she thinks must be bubbling over with germs. As she puts it down, it rings, insistently. This morning it has rung a lot.

  Vanessa is irritated by the phone,
because she is getting too much marking from the new Creative Writing intake. It is her day off from college, but she hasn’t left her desk. The dark-eyed boy, Derrick, is quite good, and very keen, one of those who are constantly submitting writing. He has two obsessions: pigeons and knives. They have not yet started to drive her to distraction. She scrawls, ‘Well done again, Derrick. Juxtaposition of central motifs once more consistent and compelling.’ If the telephone shrills when she is at her desk, encouraging, describing, validating, Vanessa tends to be ruder than usual, and slams the receiver back into its cradle.

  It is the foreigners, the foreigners again. They ask for the wrong people, in uncertain intonations, either very tentative or very bossy. They ring with news of prizes for ‘Mr Henman’, or offers of new kitchens, or phones, or loans, or cheaper gas or electricity, and Vanessa gets mad, and begins to cut them off as soon as she hears a voice that isn’t English, although she would be shocked if this was pointed out.

  Sometimes they ask for unfamiliar people. A man has rung several times for ‘Mistendo’. He has a faintly rasping, Arab-sounding voice, but the person he is asking for must be Japanese. Vanessa does not connect it with Mary. She never thinks of her as having a surname. Because she is a cleaner, she is only ‘Mary’. Vanessa cuts him off, with a terse ‘Wrong number’.

  Someone has been calling for Justin this morning, a soft woman’s voice, pretending to be shy. Vanessa snaps, ‘Justin’s asleep.’ ‘Please will you wake him?’ the woman asks. ‘Certainly not,’ says Vanessa, and puts the phone down. As soon as it’s down, she has a twinge of misgiving, but the girl did not even give her name, she is certainly someone from these horrible companies, ringing up to exploit Justin’s illness, and Vanessa thinks, ‘I was right to be firm.’ But in case he gets cross with her, she might not mention it.

  In any case, Justin is still hardly speaking to her. He is not impolite, he does not lose his temper, he just leaves any room Vanessa enters. On the surface, things have worsened since her small tiff with Mary. Vanessa rehearses words she’ll never say, of inquiry, apology, entreaty, but he slips away while her mouth is still opening.

  In other ways, Justin is certainly improving. He is somewhere in the house, vertical, not naked! For some weeks now, he has been opening his curtains, and appearing, dressed, around the house before noon. Vanessa has managed to bite her tongue and not ask him if he has any plans, though in some respects it is more difficult now than it was when he was tucked away upstairs. He does seem to like watching Anya clean. When she comes to the house, Justin gets up earlier, and even offers her cups of coffee. This is rather a relief to his mother, who was never sure that he knew how to make one. ‘Could you make some for me too, while you’re at it,’ she had called through to Justin this morning from the study, but the grunt that came back was discouraging. She had to get up and make her own.

  The phone rings again. ‘Yes!’ Vanessa snarls, and feels silly when she finds it is Fifi. Vanessa pulls herself up in her ergonomic chair, and fills her voice with animation. ‘Lots and lots better, thank you darling. Oh yes, having Mary here was a great decision. Not mine, by the way, it was Justin’s idea. As you know I have always been a listening parent. My whole aim has been to empower my son. Well no, he’s not actually back at work. It all takes time. You can’t rush things. When you are a mother, you learn to be patient.’ – This is a subtle thrust at Fifi, who at forty-eight will never be a parent.

  Yet Vanessa has come to depend on Fifi, now she doesn’t have a man, and her son has grown distant. There is a little story she wants to tell Fifi, wants to tell someone, at any rate. So she changes tack, and flatters her. ‘Darling it’s so kind of you to ring. Sometimes you’re the only person I can talk to. I do think Justin and I are making progress.’ And she tells her about the mobile phone.

  Vanessa recently found what must be Justin’s mobile phone, on top of the bookshelves in her bedroom. It is small and sharp, shiny and modern, and opens and shuts like a silver shell. Although Vanessa’s not a big fan of mobiles, it seemed like a symbol of the old Justin, the one she once felt proud of, and had such high hopes for, who went off to work each day in a suit. Also, he had left it on her special bookshelves, which could only mean he had been borrowing a book, though Vanessa can’t pin down which one has gone. Most important, her son had come into her room, he had actually come into his mother’s room, after so much rejection, so much shouting, after actually saying that his mother was ‘toxic’!

  ‘Justin never asked for the phone,’ she tells Fifi. ‘He never came looking for it, either. I just slipped the thing back into his room, next day, at the foot of the bed, without saying anything.’

  Fifi, after six years of therapy, falls eagerly upon this incident. ‘I love it,’ she gasps. ‘You see, it was a message. He was trying to slip back into your body. The mother’s bedroom means her body – ’

  ‘I don’t know about that – ’ says Vanessa, uneasy.

  ‘– well not in a pervy way, of course. Think womb, darling, not vagina. Womb and room, that’s rather good! And borrowing your book, well that was a tribute. It’s terribly touching. I’m so happy. And your reaction was perfectly judged. By giving it back, you acknowledged his autonomy. My therapist would be proud of you both. By the way, what shape was it?’

  ‘Well, mobile-phone-shaped,’ says Vanessa.

  ‘You see?’ Fifi is triumphant. ‘I told you so. I won’t say it’s phallic. But it’s yin and yang. You are getting into harmony. In any case, I must rush off for my Reiki.’

  ‘I’m never quite sure what Reiki is.’

  ‘Oh universal life-force energy, darling. You know, the universe is made up of thought. We just have to manifest joy and abundance.’

  Vanessa tries to find this reassuring.

  Once Fifi is prone upon the massage table, she finds herself talking about Justin and Vanessa. It is easier to talk, somehow, hanging in a void, staring at the floor through the padded face-rest. The masseuse says, ‘You always talk about them. Sounds like they’re almost family.’ A long pause, and then Fifi replies, ‘Well I virtually have no family. My mother is dead. My brother’s in Canada.’ Suddenly the face-rest feels uncomfortable, hot on her face, pressing on her. She squirms and rears up like an irritated serpent. ‘How are you finding the new face-rest?’ the masseuse inquires, anxious, pausing for an instant. ‘Actually I preferred the old one.’ ‘This one’s more modern. It’s top of the range. In fact it’s the Cloud Comfort Memory Foam model.’ ‘Oh right, it must be me then, don’t worry.’ But Fifi feels less joyful, and less abundant. All afternoon, she reflects on her life.

  Before supper, she phones Vanessa again. ‘It’s true, Vanessa, I’ve neglected my family. Mimi, as you know, is like my child, Mimi is warmer than the average Siamese, but there’s still a strain of selfishness. The truth is, anyone could fill her bowl. I do have a family, aunts and uncles and things, but I never see them, since my parents died. Of course they’re mostly in France, my lot. As a matter of fact, I have a living grandma. But I should go and see them – I’m going to go and see them. And I wanted to ask – will you come with me?

  Vanessa feels flattered to be needed – her own house seems to do quite well without her – and says, rather grandly, ‘Delighted to help. Why not a little holiday in France?’

  But Fifi presses on, disconcertingly, ‘I started thinking about you and Justin. You’re really in just the same boat as me.’

  Vanessa is speechless for a second. She prefers to feel compassion for Fifi. ‘Justin is not a Siamese.’

  ‘You don’t see your family either, do you? And of course, Justin is all on his own.’

  ‘Nonsense, Fifi, he has always been sociable.’

  (Yet now he lies in a room alone. She doesn’t admit it, but Vanessa feels vulnerable. She has no siblings, and she never sees her cousins. Who is there to hold her to the ground? Sometimes, when she lies there in the middle of the night, she feels she and Justin could be lost in the darkness, two atoms
of dust, empty, meaningless. Perhaps she and Fifi could help each other. She decides she will confide in her.)

  ‘As a matter of fact, just a month or so ago, I had a birthday card from my cousin in Sussex, who I haven’t seen since I was a schoolgirl. It started me thinking, and I wrote to Lucy. And I really have been hoping she’ll get back to me. Not that I myself feel lonely, of course. I don’t know, I thought it might somehow help Justin. To have more of a family than just me. In any case, Lucy hasn’t written back.’ The truth is, Vanessa is still hoping.

  ‘Let’s go to Paris!’ Fifi says again, laughing. ‘My grandma still has a house in Paris.’

  ‘Why not?’ says Vanessa, only half meaning it.

  But as the evening draws on, she thinks about Paris: a little rosy gleam on the horizon. She’s in need of a gleam. She’s done eight hours of marking. She is still wading through the new intake class. It annoys her that Beardy, the silly old man (who, to make matters worse, is younger than she is) is arguably better than her favourite, Derrick. But Beardy has a tendency to cheap satire. After all the effort Vanessa puts in! It’s that little grin she keeps seeing on his face, twitching away under the white fungus ...

  But perhaps she is becoming paranoid. She turns with relief to her own writing.

  And sits on for hours, in her autumn study, where unread books use up the air. She stares at the unforgiving slopes of her laptop, wondering if the book of her dreams, which would sketch out the truth of her life like a theorem, a silver vapour-trail behind her plane, might rise into being, clear and entire, but the screen shows only burnt droppings of phrases.

  She finds herself wondering what Mary is up to. She heard her come in, around five pm, and then the usual hammerings and slashings and thumpings that meant she was putting the dinner on. The smell of cooking floats through from the kitchen, but Mary herself has disappeared.