My Cleaner Page 9

  The rose has produced some last small red flowers. He remembers, wryly, that he put the thing in, maybe twenty years ago, maybe nearer thirty, when he still believed he would be living here. He sees his own reflection in the window. He still looks like a man who can get things done. He comforts himself that he is not old. When you’re self-employed, you cannot grow old. He still looks strong, sturdy, doesn’t he? Soraya even says he is handsome, but then, she’s an art-teacher, and short-sighted.

  He takes a deep breath, and rings on the door. Vanessa insisted that he keep his door key, but each time they get burgled, she changes the locks, and by now he is several sets of keys behind.

  A strange blonde girl answers the door. For a moment, his heart soars like a song bird. My boy has a girlfriend, he thinks in that flash. He’s got himself a girl, he must be back to normal.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, very doubtfully, with a foreign accent and a big white smile.

  ‘And you are?’ he says, grinning back at her, plonking his bag of tools on the doormat.

  But straight away he realises he is wrong. She looks too shy, and she says, ‘Please. I am nobody, I am just here for job. Can I help you, sir?’

  Then Mary Tendo appears behind her. Last time he was here she was standing in the hall surrounded by her bags and Justin and Vanessa, and the enormous row was going on, so Trevor didn’t really notice what she looked like. Now he sees Mary is plumper, older than before, but still attractive, still very much a woman. Her hair is even shorter now, which might look boyish, but her neck is long and soft, and she is curvy, bosomy. Once Vanessa had accused him of fancying her. He blushes, suddenly, and looks away. He has known Mary for years. Of course he doesn’t.

  ‘Hallo, Trevor. I hope you are well.’

  ‘Hallo, there Mary. How’s it going?’

  And then she is off, talking loudly. Trevor smiles at her benignly, but doesn’t listen. Of course he doesn’t listen when women go on. Vanessa has gone on at him for over two decades, so Trevor had to find his own way of coping.

  But Trevor has a lot of time for Mary. Little Justin would have been buggered without her. She must have put up with a lot, from Vanessa. What must it be like, working for her? (But then, of course, Trevor knows what it’s like. He’s been working for his ex for over twenty years. Coming round to fix whatever needs fixing. Unpaid and rarely appreciated.) So despite what Vanessa has said about Mary, he views her with understanding and pity. To come back here, she must be desperate for cash.

  She is still full of vim, talking for Britain, or Africa as the case may be. ‘I am very busy. I am interviewing people. We need a new cleaner, and Miss Henman is at work, so I am taking care of everything. This girl is from Australia – ’

  ‘Austria – ’ the blonde girl corrects her.

  ‘And her name is Anna – ’

  ‘Anya, Miss.’

  Mary looks as though she enjoys that ‘Miss’, and smiles at her encouragingly, and at Trevor. ‘I just gave her a test, to open the door. Trevor, did you think she was good at it?’

  ‘A1,’ says Trevor, obligingly. ‘Very good door-opening, Anya my dear.’

  ‘I think that Anna will be good at cleaning,’ says Mary Tendo, with a queenly smile.

  ‘Well, you get on with your interviewing,’ says Trevor, tickled by this turn of events. ‘I’ll just go and make myself a cuppa in the kitchen and then I’ll get going on that toilet.’

  ‘Trevor, you cannot go to the toilet. The toilet is blocked,’ says Mary, firmly.

  ‘Just a turn of phrase,’ Trevor grins. ‘Come to unblock it. Madam called me.’

  In the kitchen there is another surprise. Justin is there, sitting shelling peas, shucking one after another into a big white bowl, ping, ping on the shiny china, and he is freshly shaved, and looks young again, because last time his scruffy ginger minge of a beard made him look like an ageing down-and-out.

  ‘Oi up cock,’ says Trevor, and punches him fondly. ‘Making yourself useful, Justin lad?’

  ‘Um ...’ says Justin, but he smiles at his father, that enchanting smile that once made teachers melt, and girls swoon, and his employer take him on (for the mere six months when he has been in employment) and his mother more doting than was good for him, Trevor reflects, sitting down beside him.

  ‘Maybe one day you’ll come and help your father.’ Justin says nothing, but his eyes move slightly in a way that does not dismiss the idea. Trevor hurries on, encouraged, not pushing it. ‘Have a cup of tea, boy. I’ve brought my own as usual, it won’t be some of your mother’s rubbish.’

  Trevor waves his Typhoo teabags in front of his son.

  ‘We’ve got some, actually,’ says Justin.

  ‘Never,’ says his father.

  ‘Yes. Mary Tendo likes strong tea.’

  Trevor feels vaguely affronted. Ness has always refused to have it in the house. The system is changing behind his back, the insane system he has always known. And the kitchen looks different, full of fruit and veg, great bottles of oil and jars of grain, huge hairy brown things and bulgy green things. It isn’t quite what Trevor is used to, and he has been coming here for over two decades. It even smells different. And Justin is here, out in the daylight. The prodigal son, the golden boy who one day slipped back into babyhood, wetting his bed and crying and sleeping. The brilliant spark who got lost in the dark. Oddly, the grief had brought them together, the sudden crushing blow of his breakdown. Vanessa, who thought she knew everything, suddenly knew nothing, and turned to Trevor.

  And I didn’t have a bloody clue, thinks Trevor. But maybe Mary Tendo does.

  Mary Tendo appears, looking bright and masterful, trailing Anya, who looks pale and skinny beside her, just as the kettle boils for tea. ‘Anna is going to do a tea-making test,’ says Mary, handing her the teapot. Anya makes tea, nervously, and spills a little on the work surface. Mary tuts kindly as she hands her a cloth, and Anya wipes it up, too carefully.

  ‘Aren’t you going to give the girl a cup?’ asks Trevor.

  ‘She would be embarrassed,’ says Mary, drinking. ‘Cleaners do not drink with their employers.’

  ‘Have I got the job then?’ asks Anya, rather sharply. She has noticed Justin, and is staring at him hard. Trevor checks that his son is wearing both parts of his pyjamas, but for once he is, and the girl is still staring.

  ‘First a washing-up test,’ says Mary Tendo. Trevor notices a certain glint in her eyes. He wonders why she’s chosen such a very blonde woman.

  Vanessa comes home at half-past seven and Justin at once goes back to bed.

  ‘Miss Henman, I have found you a cleaner,’ says Mary.

  ‘Vanessa,’ she reminds Mary, irritably. ‘But is she experienced? Is she good? Will she clean my house till it sparkles?’

  (‘I don’t want to get landed with another African,’ she has whispered to Trevor, in the hallway. Several of the candidates have been black, and Vanessa is afraid they will gang up on her.)

  ‘Anna is Australian,’ Mary says. ‘I think it is a very clean country. Also, I have given her several tests. Trevor heard me interviewing. I was excellent.’

  ‘You were red-hot,’ says Trevor, laughing. ‘She really gave her the third degree.’

  ‘There’s not a lot to it, is there?’ says Vanessa, irritated by all this praise. ‘I mean, they only have to be sane, and honest. Cleaning, you know, it isn’t brain surgery.’

  ‘Cleaning is hard work,’ says Mary Tendo. ‘To do it well is not so easy.’ She looks to Trevor for support, but he only smiles and looks away.

  ‘I’m not an expert. Blokes never do it.’

  ‘Men are so lazy,’ says Vanessa, but half-heartedly, as if she has her eye on other prey.

  ‘I’ll be off then,’ says Trevor. ‘I’ve fixed the toilet and got that shit out of the gutter.’

  ‘There’s a tear in your shirt,’ Vanessa says, critically. ‘This Indian person doesn’t look after you – ’

  ‘Soraya’s from Iran,’ Trevor corr
ects her. ‘And I’ve never asked a woman to mend my shirts. Look, I’ve really got to go, Vanessa. Got to read a book.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  (But he’s always talked about reading like this, as if it is an urgent need, something he has on a timetable and might lose forever if he misses a moment. When he lived with her, briefly, he kept his books in a wooden chest he had crafted himself, ingeniously fitted with internal folding shelves and adjustable compartments, a cross between a tool-box and a nineteenth-century writing desk, but big enough to contain twelve dozen books, as he had told her proudly, no more, no less. ‘One hundred and forty-four books,’ he said. ‘That’s all the books I have in the world.’ At which her lip had curled, slightly. Poor man, he thought he was a great reader. ‘I have four thousand or so,’ she replied. ‘But you haven’t read ’em all, have you?’ he asked. ‘Nobody does,’ she said, amused. ‘I do,’ he told her. ‘Then I pass them on. To a friend who might like it, or a charity shop, so the good books keep on doing the rounds. And then I buy another one, and read that. Reading’s the breath of life to me.’)

  So she doesn’t wait for him to give an answer. It’s just the way he is, and always was. ‘Did you paint that chip in the bath enamel? I’ve been asking you to do it for ages.’

  ‘No, too lazy,’ he says. ‘Ta ta. Nice to see you, Mary. Keep trying with Justin. He looks a lot brighter since you arrived.’

  ‘Cleaning is hard work,’ Mary doggedly repeats, but neither of them is interested. They have wandered, gently squabbling, into the hall, and Vanessa is seeing him off into the twilight. The toilet is working, the gutters are clear, Justin’s peas are eaten, Anya is hired. Things seem to work better when Trevor is around.

  Vanessa pats him on the shoulder with her thin pale hand, which he has been familiar with for half a lifetime. Unconsciously, he always checks for the ring. ‘Bye bye Tigger. See you soon.’

  ‘Not if I see you first,’ he says, and manages to kiss her on the cheek before she backs away from him, laughing and protesting, into the dark house where Mary waits.

  23 MARY TENDO

  I have nearly finished showing Anna how to clean. She tells me she is experienced, but I see as I watch her that she is not. She brushes towards her with the long brush, when you should push the dust away from you. She begins her work by emptying the waste paper tins, though as she is cleaning she will fill them up again. She vacuums the floor before she tidies, though when she tidies she will find more dust. She does not look under the cushions on the dining room chairs, but of course crumbs always creep under cushions. Still she is very quick and she smiles all the time and when she does not know, she does not worry me with questions, and her hair and her skin are very white and clean. I am surprised that I chose a white-skinned cleaner, but it is good for them to learn a new skill.

  Now that I have settled the cleaning question, I can concentrate on two things which are more important. I shall do my detective work, for Justin, and make a beginning on my new project. I have set up my laptop on the dressing-table. It makes me smile to watch myself, sitting there writing in my rose-pink room. I did not have a mirror until I was fifteen.

  I shall write my Autobiography and Life. In Kampala, of course, I would be too busy. I took the name from some papers that Miss Henman left on the table in the kitchen. It is the new course she is teaching at her college: ‘Autobiography and Life Writing’. The description used show-off words, of course, which is not her fault, as I know myself from the years I spent at Makerere University. You cannot pass exams if you do not show off (though some people enjoy it more than others).

  ‘There is a pervasive discontent with the traditional convention-driven narratology of novels, and people are turning to life writing to reappropriate their own narratives. This is especially evident in a post-colonial and post-imperial context.’

  I am ‘post-colonial’ and ‘post-imperial’, and so I have exactly the right context. Though if anyone else said it, I would be annoyed. I do not want the empire and the colonies attached to me like a long tail of tin cans. I am going to write about my life in England, Uganda and all over the world. My Autobiography and Life. Or perhaps, The Life of Mary Tendo. Everything will be finished by Christmas. I find myself wondering who will read it. Sometimes I think, thousands of people, sometimes I think only my kabito.

  I hope it will end with an adventure, once my work as a detective comes to a climax.

  24 FROM THE LIFE OF MARY TENDO

  Everything begins with the mango tree. We sat under the mango tree and told stories. Sometimes I could not wait for my turn. I hope our tree has not fallen down.

  In London mangoes were very expensive when I first came here, all that time ago. My employers used to buy them, and leave them to rot. They hardly ever ate the fruit in their fruit bowl. It was me who had to throw it away. In the end I started taking the fresh fruit for my baby.

  I dreamed that England would make me rich. Instead, it made me a fruit thief and a cleaner.

  I cleaned up other people’s mess.

  Hair-balls, chewing-gum, pellets of snot.

  Sperm-stiffened towels, cigarette butts, blood.

  Baby sick, nappies, sanitary towels.

  My professor said to me, ‘Remember, Mary, you always have choices,’ but once you are a cleaner, there are no more choices. Every kind of dirt becomes your business. Some people would say I was less than my parents, but I know how much I paid to get to London. I am proud, not ashamed. I am a Ugandan.

  In the village, my family was considered rich. We had a square house of plaster, with a flat roof of tin. You could see the bricks of the inside walls. But most people still had mud huts, roofed with straw, little round huts like baked chocolate, with lizards dropping from their thatch like rain. My mother told me not to laugh at them. We had boys who fetched water and helped with the crops, aunties who sewed and made clothes for us, cousins who helped to cook and clean. What was there to clean? Only the cooking pans, the cook-house. No rows of books, no polished floors, no expensive carpets to brush with soft brushes. Just dust and insects when it was dry, mud and frogs when the big rains came, splashes from the cooking, ash from the fire. The bedding to be washed and dried in the sunlight, and spread flat as paper, to kill the jigger flies. Life in a village does not have to be dirty.

  And in London, Paris, Tripoli, also, all the rich cities where I have cleaned, I found what? I found dust, and mud, and insects. More dust than at home, because the things were everywhere. All of the houses were stuffed with things, mirrors, pictures, toys, money, left lying around, mostly white people’s money. And the dust was grey, mostly white people’s dust. It came from their skins, their hands, their heads. It wasn’t sand. It wasn’t earth. It wasn’t alive. It was dust from their faces. The city is dirtier than the country.

  I cleaned in the city for ten years or more. And so I learned many things about cleaning.

  Miss Henman believes that cleaning is easy. Men like Trevor and Justin cannot do it at all, and some African men never enter the kitchen, though my friend the accountant goes where I ask him.

  But all my life I have tried to be clean. African people are clean people. I knew that even as a small girl. I watched the aunty who helped my mother, crouched on the ground outside the house. She washed the dishes in a big metal bowl. She used cold water and hard blue soap. Scrubbing and rinsing till they shone in the sunlight. It was quiet in the village. She sang as she worked. You could hear small sounds of water lapping and little grunts of pleasure as she finished something, and shook it in the air, gold drops flying. She did it every day after food.

  I must have learned my lesson well from the aunty, because I cleaned this house for years and years. I cleaned offices too, with heavy machines, with an army of foreigners, in the early morning. Some of them clean well, some are lazy. The Australians were not lazy. I made one friend who was Australian, a tall young woman called Leanne, from Brisbane. She had big muscles, and she helped me move furniture,
and she was always singing, and very clean. This is why I did well to choose Anna to work here. The Portuguese were good, but complained too much. The Spanish were proud. They did not do the work. I liked my friend Juanita. She was very funny, but she was always waiting to be rich and famous. The Africans were grateful to be working, at first. But later some became like the Spanish. The Nigerians were very loud, always shouting. The Ugandans tried to call home on the phones. The Rumanians were racist, with many prejudices.

  I myself am not prejudiced. I learned this at Makerere, where everyone teaches that racism is bad. And the Bible says we are all God’s children. But English people are too lazy to be cleaners. I never met English people cleaning. Only one man I remember who was mad, and had to take medicine every morning. When he did not take his medicine, he was always laughing, so of course we knew he was really crazy, because the English do not laugh very much, and never do their own cleaning. I think they must be bad at it.

  All over the world people live by cleaning. I did not understand this until I was in England. In Kampala, most families do their own cleaning, except for the bazungu and the very rich. Most of the bazungu are working as ‘donors’, for organisations and countries that give money to our government, but to make up for it, they are mean in private. In my church I became friendly with two women, Grace and Martha, who were house servants in the same row of houses. All the people who lived there were embassy families. The houses were large and beautiful, but my two friends lived in dark quarters in the garden. My friends’ children were not allowed to visit them. It broke their hearts not to see their children, but if the employers caught sight of them, they docked the wages. These people were supposed to be ambassadors, but they were frightened of Ugandan children! Do they think our children are bad, or dirty? Have they never seen them dressed for church on Sunday? One family took Grace to London for the summer. She was very excited before she went. But in fact, she spent all her time here cleaning, then babysitting nearly every evening, so she did not get a chance to see London. And afterwards the woman docked her wages, because ‘it cost more to feed you in UK’! And whenever the employer’s spoiled children got ill, it was another reason for docking Grace’s wages, and when Grace complained, the woman gave three reasons: first because Grace had looked after them badly, and that was why they got the infection: second, she probably infected them: and third because, now the children were ill, it would be easier for Grace to look after them. And this is the way these bazungu stay rich. Compared to them, Miss Henman is an angel.