Cleaner

As I come out of the toilet,

Marla sees me and screams.

Who are you?

She covers her face with her fingers

for protection.

I step into the hall light,

holding up my hands,

about to tell her

I am Toffee.

Marla steps back.

Who are you?

I stare at her.

Who am I?

Who? Who?

Think, Allison, think.

I was just here to clean, I mutter.

I sit at the bottom of the stairs and

slip on my trainers.

Cobwebs hang beneath the hall table.

Marla reaches for an umbrella,

waves it at me.

I don’t need a cleaner.

Don’t come back here.

I’m well able to do my own polishing.

I understand.

She holds the umbrella aloft

and clumsily,

unluckily,

it opens.

I step closer.

I haven’t been paid.

I hold out my palm.

She seems to smirk at my audacity.

Do I look like a bleedin’ cripple?

I’m not.

I can push a broom around the place

and I’d break someone’s back with it

if they messed me about,

don’t think I wouldn’t.

You haven’t been cleaning.

I’m owed twelve quid, I tell her.

I’ve no idea why I’m insisting,

why I don’t just go away

and come back later.

She chews her tongue.

Your handbag’s in the sitting room.

My voice is lined with ridicule,

my expression hard.

Leave, I tell myself.

What the hell are you doing?

You aren’t getting any money from me.

She isn’t messing around.

I march past her

into the sitting room

where I collect her bag

then come back out and hand it to her.

Twelve. Pounds.

My knees are shaking although

she is watching me less confidently,

perhaps with a thread of fear.

How many hours were you here?

Two. It’s six pounds per hour.

She looks up at the ceiling,

puts the open umbrella aside.

I don’t want you back here, madam.

Don’t let me see you in this house again.

You hear me?

If I see you back I’ll get the guards.

Don’t think I won’t.

She glances at the rotary telephone.

It is black, dusty.

I shrug.

She hands me a tenner and two coins.

See you later, I say.