The writer isn’t at home today. He must be travelling or have a radio interview or be working in a library. He told her last week, when he gave her a set of house keys, he’d said, I’ll be away next week. She’s all hot and sweaty when she reaches his house, nervously swings her bags this way and that. At first it’s an effort to open the door and she gets panic-stricken at the idea she can’t get in, won’t be able to clean, and the writer will conclude that he turns his back and she does what she feels like doing and is quite irresponsible. Her pulse is beating fast and she feels queasy in an odd kind of way and felt she might almost fall off the stairs that had no rail. However, in the end she was relieved when she heard the sound of the lock mechanism giving. As soon as she was inside she put her bags down, stood still, and looked down the passage. She can’t decide whether cleaning the writer’s house when he’s not there will be liberating or a drag. While she is thinking about that, her eyes inspect every corner of the house, and she can hear high heels echoing over the pavement stones and into the distance.
She decides to make the space her own, to clean with that freedom of movement she usually has at home, when nobody is watching. She walks over to the writer’s sound system and presses the on button. There’s a record of classical music in place. So predictable, a writer who listens to classical music. She glances at the collection of CDs next to the system and can find nothing familiar. It’s all very odd. She could switch on the telly, put on the afternoon programme she normally watches when she doesn’t go to the writer’s house, but she thinks that if she does that it will take her longer to finish and she might get to the factory late. No, she decides to find a channel with those pop songs you hear everywhere, she can sing while she cleans. She must remember to change it back. She jots the number down on a scrap of paper so she doesn’t forget. She turns the volume up slightly, very slightly. Then looks in the direction of his study and remembers that for sure the writer isn’t around. She turns it up even higher until she can hardly hear herself think.
Well, what do you expect, if you’re not here, might as well make my work more enjoyable, right? Besides I was particularly happy that day. While I cleaned and danced I was remembering opening my eyes in a dark, dark room. Don’t laugh, but swathed in that deep, warm darkness I thought to myself, yes, I’m inside myself. You must think that’s strange, I expect. I had slept through the night and so peacefully. It was a room with no cracks in the shutters, no noise of cars in the background or mobiles going off in the silence. I was in Mr Impotent’s house in a bed that smelled of lavender. I want to go on waking up like this for the rest of my life, I thought. I would like to be happy like this for the rest of my life and I tried to memorise every detail just in case. If that wasn’t happiness… at least nothing could be more comforting than knowing that I was lying in a bed, my skin cradled warmly by the sheets and his body that smelled so good. His body was like Mr Ethereal’s, though lighter and longer and his skin was white and delicate. Very hairy, soft skin. I stretched my arm out and coiled it round his waist, all tangled in sheets that, now in the dark, I remembered were high quality white cotton. I thought how in the future I would only need a sprig of lavender to remind me of my first days with Mr Impotent. The pillow was to blame. A pillow for back pain you warm up in the microwave and put over your shoulder. The evening before He’d run to get that pillow when I arrived with my whole week’s aches and pains and complaining about the twinges from one muscle. I’d fallen asleep gripping it tight, not letting go. Mr Impotent was such a relief, as if I’d been wanting that all my life. I must be fair, you know, in spite of everything, it was a great relief. When he kissed me for the first time in that Sunday light I simply felt like crying. In fact I’m not so sure I didn’t, just a little. Because he was so tender, so respectful, so gentle in the way he held my chin before he put his lips on mine. Just imagine, I’m so soppy. You are very, very pretty, he’d told me, and he said it not as if he was intent on rushing me into bed or persuading me to do something. He said that because it was what he really thought and I simply laughed and turned my eyes to look elsewhere and laugh as if I were a little girl hearing those words for the first time. The day I’m telling you about, that I was remembering when you weren’t there, he hugged me and ran his finger along the bottom of my belly that was as soft as those bags of dough balls in the factory fermenting rooms. Hello, love, I heard him say as he turned over and I immediately thought what a breath of fresh air early in the morning. I remembered our candle-lit dinner the night before, like a postcard, him in his apron in the kitchen frying strips of meat, the wine glasses that seemed rimmed with gold. I’d looked at the curtains with embroidered flowery hems, and the snow-white orchid on the kitchen sideboard. A clean, tidy house. I felt at peace.
We got into bed after brushing our teeth and putting our pyjamas on. I told him I hadn’t brought any and he gave me a T-shirt. That slightly put me out, I have to say. It was the first time I’d been with a man who only kissed me on the lips, the cheeks, and caressed me behind the ears, and so calm and smiley. It was lovely. I was expecting that to be the first phase, the peaceful beginning to a relationship that was different to the ones I’d experienced up to that point. I thought, tenderness before sex, great! I imagined the follow-up, I imagined him exploring my skin at a similar rhythm, caressing me slowly, turning slowly towards me. I imagined him sticking it in calmly and only when I was sufficiently aroused, and no brusque moves or gestures. I imagined a velvety sex that wasn’t invasive, that didn’t hurt when it filled me up. I imagined all that while he ran a finger over my lips and smiled. How happy I am! Maybe I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether such gentle sex might not be boring, whether I wouldn’t miss the intense thrusting of other men, their bites, and the way they beat my buttocks.
However, we’d washed up together, put on soft background music, drunk a little hot chocolate and soon gone to brush our teeth. That was his idea. He was next to me all the time, a body I could hug, could enjoy and now the tingle wasn’t only in my stomach, it was also between my thighs that wanted him. However, he’d just said we should brush our teeth and put our pyjamas on. Are we simply going to sleep? We’d got into bed well wrapped up, him in long trousers and a long-sleeved top and I thought how lucky I was to be with a man who doesn’t want to start groping straightaway, who respects you. You can bet sex with him will be very special. I kept hugging him and giving him sloppier and sloppier kisses under the sheets, but he said goodnight and put my head under his chin as if to stop me. I am sure that while he was going to sleep I could still feel my eyes wide open in the dark, and my eyelashes touching the skin on his neck whenever they opened and closed. Good night, love, he repeated, and I thought that maybe it was better like that, that he really loved me, and not just my body… So I gripped the lavender pillow tight.
As the writer isn’t there today she will decide what she will do first and second. She always has, but it’s such a bother when you are cleaning… Today she will wash his clothes whether he wants her to or not. She goes to the gallery and sees clothes that have been in the washer for days. She opens the round door that makes a clicking sound before the water empties out. The clothes on top are dry and wrinkled, the clothes underneath grey and sticky. She re-shuts the door, fills the little compartment with soap, and softener and ups the temperature to forty degrees. And puts on pre-wash as well, so the clothes are inside a good long while. If she were old-fashioned she’d boil up some water and soak the whole pile of dirty clothes. What an odd guy, what strange ways. She knows the writer won’t like what she’s doing, that he will complain he told her not to touch his washing, but that’s all. If he protests she will tell him she can’t work in a house where that nasty smell is always hanging in the air, that however much she cleans the house it never seems clean and always smells as if something is rotting. She’s sure that when he walks in and smells how clean it is he will be pleased and won’t get angry with her. While the washing machine goes round and round, she does the kitchen, the toilets, sweeps and mops the floor. She mops the floor the way she prefers, barefoot and dancing to music. She thinks how today she can do the study that’s always occupied by the writer. He never wants her to, he keeps the door shut, but a little dusting and mopping won’t come amiss. She thinks it over and finally decides to open the door. A dark room, with a table at the back strewn with papers. A small room crammed with shelves, and books and papers covering the floor. A high-backed chair facing the table under a shuttered window. She could read things he’s written, if he’s left them around. That’s why she has always tried to avoid private houses, because she’s not sure whether she could stop herself from gossiping and prying into the things belonging to the people who live there. And if you find out things about strangers that means you somehow become involved, that they are part of you. She decides she won’t, no, she won’t read anything by him and goes off to his bedroom. She stretches out to rest for a while. She soon falls asleep.