My Cleaner

by Gee, Maggie

  Abandoning her struggle with the dreck on her screen, Vanessa creeps upstairs, and stands listening on the landing. Not a sound emerges from Justin’s room. She feels relieved, somehow, that Mary isn’t there. Nobody in the loo or the bathroom. She pauses by Mary’s bedroom door.

  There is a curious, repetitive noise. A kind of quiet thumping that reminds her of something. But her brain won’t process it. And then she remembers. It sounds like the noise Mary made in the kitchen one night, grinding nuts in a mortar and pestle. Perhaps she is preparing food in her room.

  It must be some Ugandan habit.

  27 MARY TENDO

  All I can do is write about Jamie. On and on, about the thing that happened. Because I talked about him, to Juanita. My heart is stirred up. I am not myself.

  But I am not ready. I cannot do it. I wipe it away: delete, delete. I have to get up and look out of the window until my mind is blank as the sky.

  And now I am back at my dressing-table, in this nice room, and everything is fine. On the whole, when I see my friends, I feel better. I compare our lives, and am not unhappy. I am not living in a small shared room for which I have to pay eighty pounds per week, doing night-work in a factory, without the right visa. I have not fallen into the clutches of Nigerians who sell other Africans for a percentage. I am back in London, but I am not a cleaner. I have certainly done better than Juanita.

  And yet my heart pains me, because of Jamey.

  I will not cry. I smile in the mirror. It makes me feel better to see myself, sitting very straight in the new yellow sweater I bought quite cheaply at Dalston Market. No, I am not going to think about Jamey. Instead I must sort out my thoughts about Justin. This is my job. I have not been lazy.

  I have found out several things about Justin.

  Firstly, a woman has broken his heart. This is why Justin has given up hope. This is why Justin needs me so.

  It was morning. He sat beside me on the bed.

  ‘I wanted her to marry me,’ he said, like a child.

  ‘But Justin, you are not ready to marry.’

  (But then I remembered what I felt for Omar. I was not much older than Justin is. I was alone, and lonely, in London. The money for my grant had not arrived. Every day I phoned my aunt in Kampala. But her husband was no longer the President’s friend. Each time I phoned she became less friendly. In the end I knew the money was finished. But once I met Omar, nothing mattered. I knew we would be in love for ever. I still see his eyes, dark like pools in the forest. And his skin, which was like golden sand, so to me at first he looked like a muzungu. I will never forget his eyes, and his hands. Both of us were lonely, and far from home. In Uganda, Christians marry Muslims. We live together in the same village, so we marry each other because we are neighbours, and the families do not mind. It is ordinary. I did not understand things were different in Libya.

  But Omar wasn’t racist. His heart was good. Yali mussajja mulungi nyo. He found me beautiful. He made me laugh. My life became sunlight, until the storms came. I have never lost my love for Omar. Perhaps things will work out like that for Justin.)

  ‘Is she a nice girl?’ I asked him, very quietly, so that I would not sound like the Henman, always asking things, and interfering. I stroke his soft blonde hair with my hand, so he knows I am not his enemy.

  ‘She was perfect,’ he said, ‘until she broke my heart.’ And then he told me all about her. He met her at university. She is doing the famous MBA, which everyone knows is the way to get rich. ‘She will soon be an international businesswoman. She won’t want anything to do with me. Because I just lie here uselessly.’

  I said to him, ‘You are not useless. You have been ill. I love you, Justin.’

  ‘It wasn’t true,’ he mumbled, at his chest.

  ‘What was not true?’ I asked him, very soft.

  ‘She said I had another girlfriend.’

  ‘She thinks you have another girlfriend?’

  ‘It wasn’t true. It was my mother.’

  ‘It is Miss Henman? I don’t understand.’ But I began to understand.

  ‘I always had to meet my mother.’

  And so I understood the problem. This is what happens to the bazungu. When their children are little, they hardly see them. Later, when they grow, and are no longer any trouble, and the parents start to get old and weak, the parents want the children to love them. By then, the children do not know them. But the parents want to get to know them.

  Then I thought about the evidence I had so far. I said to him, ‘Did this woman give you the necklace?’

  He looked down at the ground, and shook his head, so my fingers, which were caught inside his curls, pained him, and he winced and frowned as if I had hit him. He looked as he did when he was a child and the Henman asked him too many questions.

  This is when I showed my detective skills, for I have not read Agatha Christie for nothing. Sometimes Miss Marple could be very gentle. ‘Perhaps you borrowed it from her?’

  He was quiet for a moment, but then he nodded.

  And so I know this girl is important.

  And I said to him, ‘You must visit her,’ but he said, ‘She does not want to see me again.’

  It does not matter, I am going to find her.

  And here is the second thing I know about Justin. I know he was given the sack from his work. He did not steal things, or come late to the office, or tell lies about the other workers. He did not get drunk, as many young men do. He got the sack because he was not a woman.

  He worked for an advertising agency, which paid him good money to invent advertisements. (Later I will ask him how much they paid. Probably he was paid more than me, although I am older and more experienced.) He told me the advertisements were all for women. They advertised perfume, and clothes, and cars, and cigarettes, and alcohol. And young women were their ‘target market’, because young women had all the money, so they wanted a young woman to write the advertisements. The reason why young women have all the money must be because they have all the jobs.

  ‘I tell you, Mary, that’s the way things are. This city is made for young women. They don’t need men. We are obsolete. Just look in the papers. It’s the same there. All the columnists are young women. And they spend most of their time slagging off men. We’re all useless, and feeble, and wankers, apparently.’

  I smiled and said to him, ‘Do not worry. Young women still need men for babies.’

  But he looked sad and obstinate, like a goat, and he said, ‘You are wrong. They do not want babies. My ex said all men were wimps and liars.’

  And this is the third thing, and the most important. I know the phone number and address of his girlfriend. I know this because I interviewed the cleaners, and had to listen to the phone messages. But one young woman did not want the job. One young woman had called for Justin.

  She had a soft voice. She was called Zakira. She said she had called for him twice already. She did not leave her telephone number, but fortunately it was the last message, and I know how to find the last number.

  I told Justin that the woman had called. At first he looked happy, but a minute later he turned over in bed, and groaned into the pillow. ‘It is all useless. Zakira hates me.’

  ‘If she telephones you, perhaps she doesn’t hate you.’

  ‘I know she hates me, because I am hateful. Because I am hopeless. Because I am disgusting.’

  I said to him again, ‘You are not so bad. I think I should telephone Zakira. She has a nice voice. It is educated.’

  But he groaned again and made me promise not to. Still I did not promise not to find her.

  The next night, when he was fast asleep, I got up and put the bedside light on, then dug my way through the heaps of clothes that cover Justin’s bedside table. Then I started looking in his drawers. In my own bedside drawers I have pictures of Jamil, and the letters he sent me, and his school reports. They always say how hard he works. I must not start comparing Jamil and Justin.

  Justin’s bedside d
rawers were like a litter bin. Old receipts, old tickets, old bills from restaurants. So once he went out like other young men. Once he bought music and expensive clothes. At last I found some letters in careful black writing, folded neatly together, unlike the rest. They were signed with a beautiful, flowing ‘Z’. Of course it was her, not Zadam, or Zargaret! But the first two letters had no address. I was very tired, and I might have given up, but God gave me patience to look at one more, and there was her address, at the top of the paper! 20 Canaan Gardens. Or maybe 30. Or even 26. It was not written clearly. But all the same, I felt so happy.

  Yes, most things are going splendidly.

  28

  Mary and Trevor are smoking in the garden. Vanessa is at college all day on Friday, and Trevor has popped round to see how things are going. He finds Mary weeding, in her blue cotton nightgown, looking for all the world like a farmer. She smiles at him joyously. ‘I like this work. It reminds me of home, when I was a child, and watched my father. But the soil is so dry. In Uganda, we have real rain. Rain that can wash your house away.’ She thinks, maybe this house should be washed away, and then all the people could escape, and Justin could swim up, with his curls in the sun.

  ‘You’re not short of water, then,’ says Trevor. He thinks of the Africa he sees on TV: flat yellow desert, with flyblown skeletons. But then he remembers one of the books he most enjoyed from his folding book chest. In fact, Trevor had enjoyed it so much that he did what he very occasionally does, which is to cheat on his usual system of passing books on as soon as he has read them, and deflected it to some bookshelves he’s put up in the garage, where he sometimes sits and reads and potters on Sundays: My African Journey, by the Rt Hon. Winston Spencer Churchill M.P. The cover has a picture of a young Churchill in a solar topee, by a cross, dead rhinoceros. ‘Source of the Nile, Uganda, isn’t it? I know that from old Winston Churchill.’

  ‘The villages are short of clean water,’ says Mary. ‘People give them wells. But they forget to care for them. Maybe the problem is, they do not know how to. We do not look after things enough at home.’

  ‘Well, Winston was impressed with the Uganda railway.’

  ‘It is broken now,’ says Mary. ‘Do you like his book?’

  She makes Trevor strong tea, with milk and three sugars, and he offers her a fag, and they sit by the rose-bushes, which have grown too tall, for Mary has only snipped off the dead bits, by the little blocked fountain with its skin of black leaves, which English people have forgotten to look after. At the end, a stand of silver-green willows, just starting to ripple with gold, for autumn. Leggy pale yellow chrysanthemums. Honeysuckle that could do with pruning, but still bears twined crescents of pink and gold, as well as semi-transparent red berries. Not long ago, this was a beautiful garden, before Vanessa grew too busy to garden, before Justin was ill, when their world was lighter.

  ‘I did like it,’ says Trevor. ‘I really did. Dunno why, I just liked the cut of his jib.’ Seeing her uncomprehending face, he says, ‘You know, I kind of took to him. He was an enthusiast, was Churchill. I’d like to go to Uganda,’ he adds. ‘Didn’t Winston say it was the Pearl of Africa? I’m going to look that book out again.’

  ‘Maybe I will borrow it,’ says Mary. ‘I would like to see what he says about us. It is a famous book, but I have never seen it.’

  ‘Done,’ says Trevor. ‘I’ll bring it round ... You know that Nessie went to Uganda.’

  ‘She tried to tell me about it,’ says Mary.

  ‘I bet she did.’ They both sit and laugh and blow out white smoke on the bright autumn air. Trevor notices the roses have got black spot. ‘You know you can never prune too hard, with roses. You want to have a real go at them. You have to be ruthless with a garden, Mary.’

  Mary absorbs this advice, and smiles. She will enjoy being ruthless with Vanessa’s garden. ‘Trevor, I like the cut of your jib,’ she says, and pats him on the shoulder.

  But Trevor sits lost in his own thoughts. Trevor has never been ruthless with anyone. Trevor has given Vanessa her head. Perhaps he should have done more for Justin. Perhaps it is not too late to try. ‘You know the boy, Mary. You’re close to Justin. Do you think he’s well enough to give me a hand?’

  ‘I think it is good for him to see his father. I think it is good for him to get up and work.’

  ‘Only problem is, the old girl won’t like it.’

  They puff reflectively. She says, ‘Never mind. Mr Justin is young, he should be working.’

  ‘See, she’s always been terrified he’d be like his father. He was always the wonderkid, you know, super brainy. She always insisted he took after her. Whereas I was a bit of a dunce at school.’

  ‘Once you are a man, school is not important.’

  Trevor thinks, Mary is very wise. ‘Well, Nessie has never got to grips with that thought. See, for her, being brainy was the only escape route.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ says Mary. The truth is, she doesn’t want to hear about Vanessa. It is enough that she puts up with her.

  But Trevor keeps talking about Vanessa’s family. How they were ordinary country people. Her father was a farm labourer, who lived all his life in a tied cottage. ‘The mother was ill, as I remember. Ness told me all about it when we were first together. By now I don’t remember the details. Vanessa never wanted to go and see them. Not after we were married, and not before. So we went and got hitched in a register office. I asked my brother and my parents, but we didn’t tell her lot till afterwards. She said she couldn’t get married if they had to be there. Pity, really. I did love her. I know her Dad never had any money but I wouldn’t have minded footing the bill, you know, if she’d wanted to push the boat out, have a church wedding with all the trimmings ... When I first met the mother, I thought she was bonkers. Poor woman, she kept asking if I was cold, and making cups of tea, but she hadn’t boiled the kettle. The father seemed to have given up. In any case, Nessy was a swot, and brainy, so she managed to get away from all that. So far as I know, she’s hardly looked back.’

  Mary stubs out her cigarette in the grass. She has tried not to listen to what Trevor says. She does not intend to feel sorry for Vanessa. She remembers his advice and weeds with vigour, pulling up the cosmoses, the seeded delphiniums, the dull-leaved peonies, the Nerine lilies, but leaves the splendid pink spires of willow-herb, which she has never seen before.

  ‘Miss Henman always wanted Justin to be clever,’ she says, after a while, thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps this is why he was always studying, at this class, or that class, or doing his homework. Sometimes I thought his head would burst.’

  ‘Well, maybe it did,’ Trevor replies. ‘Maybe that’s just what happened to the lad. But you, Mary, are a sensible woman. You just carry on the way you’re going. And let me know if I can help you out.’

  Mary knows at once how she wants him to help her. ‘First, you must help me to print my writing.’

  ‘Blimey, you’re not another writer.’ Trevor is joking, but Mary doesn’t laugh.

  ‘Yes, so you must find me a printer. Next, tell me everything about London wages.’

  ‘Do you mean, for a cleaner?’

  ‘I am not her cleaner.’

  She goes into the house and returns with a notebook, and listens attentively, and writes it all down.

  29

  Mary rings on the door as loudly as she can, to hide the nervousness she feels. Canaan Gardens is smart, in an expensive part of London, though the door itself is scruffy, with several bells beside it. It is number 20, which she thinks is right. Today November feels like winter; she knows she must go and buy more warm clothes – in Uganda, of course, she did not need them – but Mary is waiting for her next week’s money. In fact, her money seems to go quite quickly, once she has topped up the credit on her mobile, which she finally found in Justin’s room, and bought relaxer for her hair, and cocoa butter, all of which cost five times what they would in Uganda, and sent money to her sister through Western Union, though the no
tes in her bedroom are still mounting up, the delicious little stack is getting thicker.

  Perhaps it is the cold that makes her feel sick. Since she came to London, she has often felt sick. Perhaps it is the grey cloud that hangs over London. It must be heaving with dirt and pollution. And perhaps Mary ate too much English porridge before she went to church this morning. She has started cooking it for her and Justin, since Vanessa told her it was ‘energising’. Because it is true, the Henman has energy, always running everywhere, upstairs and downstairs, and being bossy, and doing her sit-ups, quite unpredictably, anywhere, so that Mary opens doors and steps on her hair, and then Vanessa screams, and says, ‘Sorry, sorry’, though really Mary sees she is annoyed. All this takes a lot of energy. But porridge just seems to make Justin sleepy, and today even Mary is feeling lethargic.

  Still, she knows she must make a good impression, and tries to stand straight on the tall white steps. She is wearing her best dress, which is yellow, and her best cardigan, which is blue, and her best shoes, which are summer espadrilles, no good for walking or Ugandan rains, so her feet hurt, but she ignores them. She is carrying her notebook, like a good detective, in case there are things she must write down. There is silence inside. The big windows stare at her.

  She stands even straighter, and rings again, all three bells in succession, since she does not know which one, and makes herself smile, like someone important, a private detective, a Linen Store Keeper, an Autobiographer and Life Writer. She reminds herself she bears a message from Justin, even though Justin does not know she is here. Like Cupid, she thinks, in the romantic stories, and then she thinks how unalike they are, because Cupid is white, and sweet, and fat, and this makes her laugh, as she stands on the pavement, so when the door opens, rather fast and hard, Mary really is smiling a joyous smile.

  But the woman who stands there is not Zakira. She is young, and beautiful, but she is black. Less black than Mary is, but still black. She has an orange scarf knotted round her forehead. She is clutching a large plant in front of her body, with mauve daisy-heads, and earthy black roots. She has been gardening, then. She looks annoyed.