part0007

M onday morning has arrived at last and I park my car in the free car park at the back of the library and embark the twenty-minute walk into town.

Incredible though it is I am actually choosing to walk instead of parking in the precinct car park which is only a spit away from Moppers. I have my new trainers on, freshly purchased from Foodco, black leggings and black baggy t-shirt. Veronica informed me that I will be supplied with a uniform in the Moppers corporate colours. As she never asked for my size I’ve deduced that it’s probably going to be an apron and I wonder if it will fit around what passes for my waist.

I don’t exactly march along but I don’t do my normal head down shuffle; I put my head up and look straight ahead and swing my arms to build the momentum to propel me along. The jogging on the spot has definitely made a difference and even though it’s only been a week I feel as if my body is responding to the exercise. I don’t get so out of breath and can jog for a little longer every day without feeling as if I’m going to die.

And joy of joy, I got on the scales this morning and I’ve lost eight pounds.

Eight pounds in one week.

I know I won’t lose so much the second week but if I cut down a bit more then I’ll lose it quicker. I haven’t had breakfast this morning and I can feel the hunger gnawing in my stomach but I welcome that feeling because it means I’m losing weight.

I turn into the street where Moppers is located, marvelling at the fact that I’m out of breath but not doubled over gasping for air. Soon I’ll start running outside, I’ll go in the evenings when it’s dark, when Mother’s in bed and there’ll be no one around to see or hear me thumping along the streets.

I arrive at Moppers and put my hand on the door and push; the door doesn’t move. I look at my watch; eight forty-five, I’m early.

I peer through the window and through the murk I can just make out Moira sitting at her desk, engrossed in her knitting. I tap on the glass and she looks up and when she sees me she doesn’t look pleased. She very slowly gets out of her seat and comes over and takes her time unlocking the door.

‘The office doesn’t open until nine.’ She opens it a few inches, standing in front of it so that I can’t get through. ‘Veronica’s not here yet either.’

‘Okay, I’ll stand outside here and stare at the wall, shall I?’ I spit sarcastically. Where did that come from? Honestly, my mouth seems to have a mind of its own lately.

‘There’s no need to be facetious, I’m sure.’ She purses her lips and reluctantly stands aside to let me in. I hear a muffled snigger from behind me and I turn and see the blonde from the interview follow behind me.

Moira returns to her desk and picks up her knitting and the blonde and I stand and look at each other .

‘Hi,’ I say, ‘I’m Alison.’

‘Hiya Alison, nice to meet you, I’m Doris.’

Doris? Really? Her name doesn’t match her looks at all.

She waves her hand and laughs loudly. ‘I know. I don’t mind if you want to laugh, honest. Doris. Fucking awful innit? Dunno what me mum was finking.’

Moira sniffs her disapproval without looking up from her knitting and Doris rolls her eyes at me and mouths old bitch while looking pointedly at Moira.

‘You starting today?’

‘I am,’ I say. ‘You too?’

‘Yeah,’ Doris says. ‘Surprised they wanted me to start so quick, fink they were expecting more people to apply. Ronnie asked me if I knew anyone else who wanted a job.’

The door clanging open interrupts us and Veronica appears followed by a short, red-haired woman of about forty.

The red-haired woman closes the door carefully and hovers behind Veronica. There’s hardly a foot between us all and I feel a bead of sweat trickle down my back. Great. That’s all I need; if I don’t get out of here soon I’ll turn into a sweating mess. I feel like a monster next to these tiny people.

‘Ah, you’re here nice and early. That’s good.’ She beams at me and Doris and drags the red-haired woman to the front.

‘This is Rita, one of our most experienced cleaners, she’s going to be showing you the Moppers Homeclean procedures.’

Rita nods at us both and smiles and we smile back. She’s wearing a bright yellow tabard with Moppers Homeclean emblazoned across the front over a crisp white blouse and a pair of pale blue jeans with such sharply ironed creases that you could slice cheese with them. I pray that we’re not going to go through the procedures out here. The sweat is now running down my back.

‘We doing it in here Ronnie?’ Doris asks. ‘Cos I ain’t being funny but there ain’t room to swing a cat in here.’

Veronica frowns at Doris. ‘No of course not, and it’s Veronica, not Ronnie. We’ll go through to my office and run through the relevant health and safety procedures and then Rita will take you to one of her regulars to show you how we, at Moppers, clean.’

Thank God. I unclench my toes and quietly let out the breath I was holding. Veronica marches into her office and the three of us follow meekly behind and stand in a squished line in front of her desk. Still cosy, but manageable.

Heel tapping her way importantly to a large metal filing cabinet, Veronica yanks open a drawer, pokes around for a moment then pulls out two plastic bags and brings them over to us. You can tell a lot about someone from the way they walk; Veronica’s rat-a-tat-tat heel tapping walk and pursed lips tell me she has a very high opinion of herself and a pretty low one of everyone else. Much different from my own lumbering, flat footed walk which tells you all there is to know about me and my low opinion of myself. That’s going to change. I too, will have a super important walk one day.

Veronica studies the labels on the bags and then hands one to me and one to Doris.

‘Your tabards. If you lose them I will have to deduct fifteen pounds from your wages for a replacement. If you decide to leave the company and don’t return them we will deduct it from your final pay packet.’

I rip open the plastic and pull out the tabard. I pull it over my head and let it hang; there’s no way the straps that fit around the waist will do up so it sticks out in front of me like a giant bib. Doris pulls her on and snaps the poppers together on the straps; the yellow clashes with her hair making her skin look sallow and jaundiced.

‘Now you’re suitably attired,’ Veronica says, casting a disgusted glance in my direction. ‘I’ll give you a brief rundown on health and safety and Moppers Homeclean policy.’ She turns her wrist and looks at her watch. ‘Should only take ten minutes and then you can be on your way.’

We arrive at a grand looking house on the other side of town and Rita parks briskly and efficiently on the driveway in front of a double garage. The houses in the street are very well spaced out with big driveways between them, some are completely hidden behind tall hedges and gates and no two houses look the same. This one looks a lot newer than some of the others I can see and the front garden has been totally blocked paved in grey stone.

‘I’m parking here because I know my clients and I know that they’re both at work. Never presume,’ Rita says as she turns to look intently at Doris and I in the back seat, ‘that you can treat a client’s home like your own.’

‘Of course not.’ I say positively.

‘As if,’ Doris says.

‘Now, make sure that you bring your cleaning kit and anything else that you need and we’ll enter the premises. Did you bring a drink with you?’

‘No,’ we chorus.

‘Okay. Well it’s acceptable to have a drink of water at a client’s house as long as you wash up and put away the glass afterwards. Strictly NO helping yourself to any other beverages. Although, personally, I always bring my own.’

Here we go again. In the twenty-minute drive from Moppers, Rita hasn’t drawn breath.

‘Can’t be too careful with my allergy. Could be fatal, you know, if a peanut were to pass my lips.’

Yes, we do know, having been told about a million times. Rita has a peanut allergy and if the merest trace of a peanut were to pass her lips she’d be jettisoned into anaphylactic shock and certain death. Her words, not mine.

‘That’s why I always bring my own.’ She holds up a small bottle of water and gives it a little shake. ‘Never take a chance, I always need to know exactly what I’m eating and drinking.’ To prove a point, she unscrews the top and takes a gulp then screws the lid back on again.

I don’t say anything and call me fussy but if I had an allergy as dangerous as hers I don’t think I’d be swigging straight out of a bottle of water bought from Foodco, even though I can’t actually think of any drinks that contain peanuts. Suppose the person stacking the shelves had a trace of peanut on their hands and it got onto the bottle? If the merest hint of peanut could prove fatal, would you take the chance? I wouldn’t.

‘Right! Let’s go ladies and I’ll show you how to clean the Moppers way.’

Doris and I scrabble out of the back seats and Rita holds the front passenger door open while we haul ourselves through the gap; not easy when you’re my size. Doris gets out first and after a lot of huffing and puffing I finally emerge from the car like a cork out of a bottle while Rita and Doris avert their eyes to mask their embarrassment. For some reason I wasn’t allowed to sit in the front seat, that space being reserved for all of our cleaning kits.

Rita stands at the front door and rummages around in her pocket, then produces a key and holds it up for inspection.

‘The client has been good enough to allow us to hold a key to their property and it’s our duty to make sure that we look after the key and not let it fall into the wrong hands. When not being used it must always be kept in a secure location within your own home.’

Doris and I stand mutely while Rita solemnly unlocks and opens the door.

‘Now, before we go in I’ll remind you of the procedure. Do NOT move from the doormat until you are wearing your foot covers.’

One at a time we enter the house, first Rita, then Doris, then me. In turn we stand on the doormat and cover our shoes with the paper foot covers provided by Moppers. Suitably wrapped we pick up our cleaning kits and follow Rita through to the kitchen.

‘I always start in the kitchen as it usually takes the longest,’ Rita says as she puts her kit down on the floor.

‘Never,’ she straightens up, ‘ever, put your cleaning kit on a table or any furniture in case it causes damage or scratches. Always the floor.’ She taps the floor with her paper wrapped toe in case we don’t understand her.

We place our kits neatly next to hers.

‘We’re not paid to wash up but as these are my regulars if they’ve left anything out I do stack the dishwasher for them and put it on.’

I look around the kitchen to see that every worktop is littered with dirty dishes; it doesn’t look like they’ve washed up for days, in fact they could probably give me a run for my money. Well, how I used to be, not now.

‘Fuck me, doesn’t look like they’ve washed up for a week,’ Doris says as she surveys the kitchen in disgust. ‘They might be posh but they ain’t very clean.’

‘Doris! Please don’t use language like that. We Moppers have a reputation to think of. And remember, our clients have busy lives and that’s why they hire us. They don’t have time to clean. Now, you scrape the plates and I’ll stack.’ She pulls open the dishwasher which is full of clean crockery and starts to unload it.

Doris and I start scraping and stacking the plates. The kitchen is lovely, like something out of a glossy magazine spread. Chunky wooden worktops with shiny cream cupboards, all smooth curved edges and brushed aluminium handles. And a dishwasher; how fantastic never having to wash up again. Just open the door and hide all of it away and when you open it later on it’s all magically clean and sparkling.

Once the dishwasher is loaded Rita turns it on with a twist of a knob and starts running hot water into the sink.

‘Assuming there’s no washing up to be done the next job is to wipe all of the worktops, clean the cooker top – not the oven; if they want the oven cleaned that’s an extra and has to be paid for, and when you’ve done that the floor needs to be mopped. Once I’ve done the rest of the house the floor will be dry by then and I’ll then thoroughly clean the sink. Remembering,’ she frowns at us to emphasise her point, ‘to use the correct cloths at all times.’

Ah, yes, the correct cloths. We have packs of different coloured cloths; blue for the kitchen, pink for the bath and hand basin, green for the toilet and yellow for dusting. On no account are we to use the same cloth for say, toilets and sinks or God forbid, different houses. We are to wash the cloths at our own expense in our own washing machines at a wash of at least sixty degrees and will only be issued with new packets of cloths when we produce the worn-out ones they’re to replace. Any infringement of these rules will result in disciplinary action although how they would know I’ve no idea.

When Veronica was lecturing us on the use of the cloths Doris started to laugh which she quickly turned into a cough when Veronica glared at her. On our way out to Rita’s Ford Fiesta Doris put her hand in front of her mouth and whispered to me, ‘I’ll be using the same fucking cloth on everything. Not like it’s my house. I won’t be washing them neither. ’

We stand and watch as Rita shows us the correct way to wipe a worktop and cooker. I stifle a yawn. I’ll be glad to get this over with and get on with it; tomorrow I have my first client. I wonder if the house will be as nice as this one.

‘Now,’ Rita announces, ‘bathrooms next! Then the bedrooms and lastly, the lounge. Then the kitchen sink and last of all, the vacuuming.’

We follow Rita’s brisk little bottom up the stairs and into the main bathroom. We watch while she plunges the toilet brush down the toilet, furiously scrubbing, red curls bobbing with the effort, then the pink cloth is rubbed in fast and furious circles around the hand basin and bath. She’s value for money, I’ll give her that, and very quick and thorough.

I think she’s enjoying showing off and I do wonder if she’s normally this particular. Every so often she pulls her bottle of water from her trouser pocket and takes a tiny sip from it to remind us of her allergy.

We follow her as she flies around the bedrooms in no time at all; four bedrooms altogether with one of them being used as a study; bundles of wires spill over a desk with a laptop still open next to it. Another bedroom has a huge running machine in it and the second biggest is set up as a guest room but clearly hasn’t been slept in recently.

The master bedroom is gorgeous, a walk-in wardrobe filled with clothes, his and hers rails each side with a bank of drawers in the centre. I gaze at in awe; what sort of life must these people live? How many clothes can one person wear? Just two people living in a house this size, how do some people get to be so lucky?

Doris and I stand and watch as Rita flits around the room, Doris yawns loudly and then winks at me when Rita looks at her disapprovingly.

I think Rita is bored with showing off and fed up with us watching her and, as we come downstairs, Doris is directed to clean the kitchen sink thoroughly while I’m given instructions to dust the lounge while Rita vacuums.

The lounge is minimalist but none the less stunning; glass doors the length of one side of the room open out onto the back garden which is huge; wooden decking gives way to a large expanse of grass which is bordered by trees. I’ve no doubt that these people have a gardener too. In front of the glass doors sits a chrome and glass dining table with eight chairs arranged around it. The chairs are made of chrome and beige leather and are almost deck chair like in design. A massive cream sideboard sits alongside and I wonder what it’s made of to have such a glossy shine.

Two cream velvety sofas face each other across a vast glass topped coffee table, the sister to the dining table, glossy magazines scattered over the top. An enormous television dominates the wall opposite the doors; I can’t imagine these people watching normal programmes like me, certainly not soaps and reality tv. I expect they watch the news and documentaries and arty films.

I begin to dust; I sweep my yellow duster over the coffee table and arrange the magazines into a tidy pile. I carefully trail my duster over the television screen, afraid to press too hard in case I damage it. I pick up the sumptuous cushions from the sofa; velvety and plump I hold them to my nose and inhale; they smell sweet and flowery. I plump them and arrange them symmetrically on the sofa and stand back and admire them and then do the same to the other sofa. It’s such a lovely house I can see why Rita takes such a pride in making it look clean and pristine.

I spray the table and polish it, making sure to get every smear out of it so I can see my reflection. I stand back and admire my handiwork and feel ridiculously pleased with myself. I run the cloth up and down the chrome legs on the chairs and table making sure there are no smears.

‘My word, you’ve done a good job and so quickly too.’

Rita is standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips watching me.

‘Just the sideboard to do and that’s it,’ I say, thrilled. A good job, she said I’d done a good job. I realise that I can’t remember the last time I received a compliment.

‘Well done, Alison, keep it up.’ She turns and goes back into the hall.

I turn to the sideboard and pick up a picture frame to dust with a huge smile on my face. I run the duster around the frame and over the photograph of the couple with film star looks smiling back at me; he has dark hair and twinkly blue eyes, perfect teeth and a deep tan. She is blonde and beautiful, every man’s dream girl; the perfect couple who live in this perfect house.