part0021

We’re seated at the kitchen table drinking coffee that Bella’s just made. I’ve only been offered instant, not the good stuff that comes out of the thousand-pound coffee maker sitting on the worktop. In coffee hierarchy cleaners obviously don’t merit the good stuff.

She tries to say it casually, as if what she’s saying isn’t important but she doesn’t fool me; her mind must be in a whirl. She’s a cool one that’s for sure; when I arrived, she was crying hysterically and screaming at Justin and now she’s calmly pretending to make small talk with me so she can find out what he’s been up to.

I make her wait and delay my answer by slowly twirling my cup around on the chunky table top that exactly matches the worktops, whilst biting my lip to make her think I’m not sure if I should tell her or not.

‘Most of the time,’ I blurt out and then immediately clap my hand over my mouth as if to take back what I’ve just said. ‘Gosh, I haven’t said something I shouldn’t have, have I?’ Honestly, I deserve an Oscar.

‘No, no, of course not.’ Bella laughs unconvincingly. ‘I just need to have a word with him; he gets so stressed about work and it’s not fair if he’s rude to you. You’re only trying to do your job.’

‘Mmm.’ I take a sip of my coffee, which actually, is pretty vile; bitter and tasteless and she’s put milk in it even though I don’t take it. She never asked how I liked it, just assumed. Or didn’t care. She poured the water into the cup while the kettle was still boiling which has tainted it. But it’s good enough for the cleaner, obviously. I notice she hasn’t touched her own.

‘I know how stressed people get over work, especially when it’s top secret. You have to be so careful these days.’ I say quietly.

Bella gives a tight-lipped smile and speaks through gritted teeth. ‘Yes, he does have a very demanding job.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ I take another sip of coffee, God it’s vile. ‘Alison, I said to myself, Mr Willoughby can’t have just anyone walk into his study and look at the screen when his job is so confidential. He wouldn’t want to be shutting his laptop every five minutes just so you could do a bit of dusting, would he? I quite understand that he didn’t want me in there and shouted at me. He obviously didn’t want me seeing something that I shouldn’t.’

I take a sly look from under my eyelashes at Bella to see that she’s got the message and I pick up my cup again and pretend to concentrate on my coffee. Get out of that one smarty-pants Willoughby. Bella keeps her face impassive, only the slight flaring of her nostrils betraying her feelings. See, there’s always a tell-tale sign if you know where to look; mine’s holding my breath which I think is better because no one can see that I’m doing it. As long as I don’t hold it too long, obviously. I do admire Bella, she still looks stunning even after the crying and screaming; she has absolutely flawless skin even without any make-up.

‘Do you have many other people that you clean for, Alison?’ She’s looking at me with a polite smile and the sudden change of subject makes me think that she’s heard all she needed to. I can sense that any minute the coffee cups will be whisked away and I’ll be banished back upstairs again. She’s found out what she wanted to know and my company is no longer required. So now we’ll have a few minutes of chit chat to throw me off the scent and I’ll be dismissed to resume my skivvying. Why am I surprised? Did I think we’d become friends? I suppose I did, I’d sort of hoped she might confide in me; maybe break down in floods of tears and use me as a shoulder to cry on. I could have been a sympathetic listener too, I’d have agreed with her about what a total bastard Justin is. Realistically, I knew that wasn’t going to happen but you can’t stop yourself from hoping.

‘Not too many,’ I say. ‘I’m fitting it around my Open University course so I have to leave plenty of time for studying. I don’t want to mess up getting my degree.’

This is her cue to ask me what I’m studying, twentieth century literature, I’d decided, as I’ve read lots of books so can pretty much wing it. I haven’t seen any books in this house, just glossy magazines so I’m taking a guess that Bella’s not a reader and is unlikely to catch me out. I want her to know that I’m not your average lowly cleaner, that I’m on her level. Well, above it actually, because she doesn’t have a degree and her A levels are worse than mine.

But she doesn’t bat an eyelid when I say it and doesn’t ask and actually, I don’t think she even listened to my answer. I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed in her, she could have shown some interest if only to be polite. But I should forgive her I suppose; she has just found out her boyfriend’s addicted to porn and has been viewing it at every opportunity on his laptop. She then surprises me totally by what she says next.

‘My grandparents live near you.’

‘Do they?’ I say in surprise. How on earth would Bella know where I live?

‘You live at Duck Pond Lane, don’t you? My Nan and Grandad live at number one.’

Ah, the ancient crones who’ve been there forever. I’m surprised that her grandparents live in a terraced house; I’d expected better, thought she came from a classier background. They could be the poor side of the family I suppose; maybe one of her parents married up.

‘I pop in and see them most weeks and I’ve seen you when I’ve visited them, you live in that huge, cream, stone house, don’t you?’

She’s noticed me! Bella has actually noticed me. I feel elated and I experience a rush of pride that we live in a detached house and not one of the tiny terraced cottages. From the outside our house looks quite grand and imposing, and even though a little run down there’s no hint of the ghastly seventies brown and orange interior. This must surely be fate; a sign of yet another connection between us. Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the possibility of becoming friends .

‘I do,’ I say with enthusiasm and maybe putting on a slightly posher accent. ‘I often see your grandparents pottering around in their front garden. I sometimes stop and have a chat with them if I’m passing.’ A complete lie; I have attempted to wave to them on occasion but they just stand and stare miserably at me. They’re so decrepit they’re most likely senile so Bella’s hardly going to know I’m lying, is she? She doesn’t look disbelieving so I think I’ve got away with it.

‘I’ve often seen you going out running when I’ve been visiting.’

‘Yes, I go out most evenings for a run, it helps me de-stress, what with my coursework and looking after Mother.’

I feel I need to tell her this to explain why I’m a cleaner and I’m still studying for a degree at my age. Not that she knows how old I am but I’m obviously not eighteen.

‘Mother can be quite difficult,’ I lower my voice and continue in a confiding tone, ‘what with her dementia getting worse every day. But of course, I’d never let her go into a home. That would be unthinkable.’

‘With your physical job and all that running you must be super fit.’ She smiles her tight-lipped smile again which never reaches her eyes and I realise that she’s not really interested at all. Although she’s obviously noticed that I’m in good shape; I think we’re pretty much the same size now. I decide to take the compliment and enjoy it even though it was said in a half-hearted way; make the most of it. I’m still basking in it when she ruins it. Absolutely ruins it .

‘It’s hard to believe you were once so, erm, big. I didn’t believe my Nan when she told me you were the same person - I honestly thought you had a sister. You look so different.’

She means it as a compliment, she thinks I should be flattered and has no way of knowing that she’s spoilt everything.

In Bella’s eyes I’ll always be the giant fat person who managed to lose weight; that’s all I’ll ever be. She’ll never think of me as her equal now. I’m the fat girl who went on a diet and lost loads of blubber but one day, probably not too far in the future, I’ll explode and put it all back on again. And more.

‘Whatever diet you’ve used you should market it.’ Is that the hint of a sneer I can see? As in you’re a big fat pig and always will be inside.

How can she prattle on about my weight when she’s just discovered her partner is a porn addict? I stretch my mouth into the semblance of a smile and get up from the chair.

‘Thanks for the coffee but I must get on.’

‘Yes of course,’ she says with disinterest. ‘Time’s money and all that.’ I can tell from the faraway look in her eyes that I’m forgotten already and she’s back to thinking about Justin. She gets up from the table and wanders out of the kitchen and into the lounge and I hear the sound of the lounge door closing. She does this all without speaking another word to me.

Feeling dismissed I pick up the cups from the table and carry them over to the dishwasher. Her cup is still full, she never even took one sip from it. I have an urge to hurl the cup at the wall and imagine it hitting the pristine paintwork in a crash of broken china and coffee. I take a deep breath and carefully pour the contents of the cups into the sink. I pick the discarded spoon up from the worktop where Bella tossed it when she’d finished making the coffee and I wipe the coffee stain away from underneath it with the dishcloth. It’s a nice spoon; probably really expensive, shiny, sleek and elegant, like Bella actually. I hold the bowl of it in one hand and the handle in the other and twist it roughly. Not so nice now, slightly bent. I twist it a bit more; definitely bent now. I walk over to the bin and press the button on it and the lid flips up. I launch the spoon into the bin with all of the force I can muster and it lands with a thud on a mush of teabags and discarded magazines.

I turn around and study the kitchen; it’s beautiful, a dream kitchen that must have cost a king’s ransom and anyone would love to have a kitchen like this but Bella and Justin can’t even be bothered to look after it, they treat it with contempt. They don’t appreciate all that they have because they know no different. Born lucky, that’s what they are; money, good looks and no doubt they both have doting parents who lavish love and affection on them and gave them idyllic childhoods and the very best of everything. I’m quite sure that Justin will manage to hang onto his highly paid job and wriggle his way out of the porn on a works laptop charge and it’ll all just be a minor blip in his brilliant career. Probably be turned into an amusing after dinner anecdote in the future. Bella, of course, will have him back when he’s done the required amount of grovelling and their perfect life will be restored. She knows which side her meal ticket’s buttered on that’s for sure.

Okay, Justin didn’t actually do anything wrong, it was me, but it just proves that some people are non-stick, slippery like Teflon so that nothing bad or horrible sticks to them. I’ve been quite restrained really; I could have used his credit card details to access a child porn website and even he would never have recovered from that. I didn’t do that because I couldn’t stomach it myself, I couldn’t even bear to search online for it.

How strange that something that seemed so important to me suddenly seems such a waste of time and energy. An hour ago, my obsession with Bella – and I can see now that it was an obsession – took over my every waking moment. It spurred me on to lose weight and change my life, and for that I’m thankful. But she hasn’t actually done anything to help me, it was all in my mind and I’m struggling now to understand what I thought was going to happen. Did I honestly imagine that Bella and I would become friends?

I really don’t know what I was thinking; I’ve had too many years of just me and Mother when I should have been having a life and maybe I’ve gone a bit mad. I can blame Mother all I like but I allowed her to treat me like a skivvy and belittle me for all of those years. I could have stood up to her sooner if I hadn’t been so feeble. I allowed her to dominate me because I felt weak but I’m different now; I’ve changed and I don’t need someone to idolise or to use as my lucky charm. I don’t need Bella anymore .

There are some things I’ve done that I maybe shouldn’t have but I’m not going to waste time worrying about them now; I can’t change them and there’s no harm done. Hopefully. Anyway, Justin deserved bringing down to earth even if it’s only for a short while.

I rinse the sink and then take a last look around the kitchen before I go back upstairs to finish the cleaning. As I pass the closed lounge door I can hear the murmur of Bella’s voice; she’s talking to someone on the phone. Most likely Justin.

I realise with a feeling of incredulity that I don’t care anymore if she takes him back or not, although I’m sure she will. I’ve completely lost interest in Bella, almost as quickly as I became obsessed with her. I climb the stairs and maybe I’m imagining it but I feel lighter, as if I’ve been set free. I go into their bedroom and resume picking up the discarded clothes from the floor.

Why did I ever think Bella was so special? Yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s also lazy and content to let someone else pick up her dirty knickers and clear up her mess, which makes her slightly grubby in my opinion. Pride wouldn’t let me allow someone to handle my soiled underwear. She has a good job but I know from her emails that her looks certainly helped her, she didn’t get there on talent or merit alone. It’s quite possible that she slept her way up the career ladder and not just with anyone, but with her ex-boss serial killer, the Frogham Throttler, too.

Is she a nice person? I don’t think she is; it didn’t take a lot to turn her against her partner. Once the taint of porn touched Justin she was ready to jettison him and believe the worst of him which shows that she has no loyalty.

I’m not a nice person either so I have no right to judge but if I’m going to idolise someone surely they should be better than me, and she’s not. I know that I haven’t treated Mother very well lately; I’ve stolen from her and made her a prisoner in her own home but that’s no different to the way she’s treated me. She’s stolen ten years of my life and I became a prisoner trapped in an obese body. Not totally her fault; she didn’t actually force the food down my throat but she contributed to making me so miserable that my only solace was food.

No, I don’t feel bad about the way I’ve treated her; I still feed her and look after her and her life hasn’t really changed, well apart from me not letting her have a stair lift to come downstairs. She only has herself to blame because she brought me up and I learned from the best; I’m the way I am because of her.

I go into the bathroom and throw my armful of dirty washing into the laundry hamper. I clean the scummy ring from around the bath and scrub the sinks and toilet until they’re gleaming. I have a little chuckle to myself as I remember using Justin’s flashy electric toothbrush to clean the toilet bowl. Yes, extremely childish but immensely satisfying as well. The burning hatred that I felt for Justin is starting to diminish. Not enough to make me regret what I’ve done. I know he’ll be fine but he needed teaching a lesson. I’m sure no long-term harm has been done; his charmed, lucky life will continue unchanged after the porn smudge on his copybook .

Bathroom finished I go back into the bedroom and remake the bed and vacuum the carpet. Into the dressing room where there are clothes hanging out of the wardrobes and the doors are flung wide. I tuck them back inside and re-hang the dresses trailing from the hangers and close the doors so that the room looks tidy. I know now that I’ll never wear the green dress again; it somehow feels tainted and although it’s by an expensive designer and probably cost a fortune, if I’m being honest it looks slightly cheap. Maybe I’ll give it to Doris, she’d love it although she’ll never believe it’s real designer; she’ll think it’s a knock off from the market.

I dust and clean the rest of the rooms and I know it’ll be the last time because I’m saying goodbye to this house, I’m going to request that someone else takes this house on until Rita comes back to work.