Cleaner: Chapter One - Part Eight

DAHLIA

It felt strange to walk down the stairs wearing Melissa’s oversized dress; almost as if... as if I were a stranger here? I paused, exploring that in the confines of my imagination. I tried to really visualise myself as a visitor; an employee; and found it surprisingly easy. The new attire helped immensely.

I went on walking down to the hall, enjoying that. Already I felt a tremendous release of tension that I hadn’t even been aware of. Becoming somebody else, even when just pretend, was a tonic of rejuvenation. Aside from the few small acting roles I’d had in my heyday, this was the first time I’d really pretended since I was a little girl. It was wonderful!

I walked round to the cleaning cupboard under the stairs and opened it. It was very dark inside. I don’t think I'd had more than once glance at it before. My personal assistant, Katherine, had organised all the more mundane aspects of the house purchase and organisation of the help. She hired and fired. She monitored quality. She ensured all the necessary materials were purchased when required. She was a Godsend to somebody as disinterested and complacent as myself.

But I wasn’t the aloof rich woman who owned this place anymore – not this morning. Right now this was my cleaning cupboard where all my detergents, bleach, mops, brooms, etc were kept. There was a wooden chair inside at a tiny table made from a spare section of kitchen worktop. A kettle stood ready beside a single cup. I considered slipping inside and shutting myself in to enjoy that sparse pleasure, but it wasn’t want I burned to do. I wanted to do what Melissa had been doing when I was still myself. In the pool room.

Her equipment was still in there so I closed the cleaning cupboard and made my way to the back of the house and the great airy glass-walled pool room.

Melissa’s broom and dustpan were where she had left them when I proposed this craziness. As I approached them I got a real sense of otherworldliness but it was ruined by the accompanying swish of the overlarge dress. Perhaps I’d made a mistake wearing her clothes. All they did was emphasize how little alike we were. But I wasn’t about to let that ruin this moment.

I took up the broom and held it for a moment, enjoying the significance. I was the cleaner now. My employer was languishing upstairs, watching TV while I had to slave away down here.

My face broke into a guilty grin.

Then I started sweeping the floor, working carefully; slowly, as Melissa had done it.

I imagined my hair was brown and straight. I imagined this was my job and I needed it to get food on the table. I imagined I was struggling to see through Melissa’s thick glasses.

I continued working along the foot of the glass wall as she had done, pleased that I was doing it as she had. It was harder than I had thought it would be to get all the dust. There was a surprising amount of it, shed from all the foliage and trees inside the great room. I moved it into a little pyramid of grit then worked my way on, creating a second pile of detritus. Soon my mind entered a blankness of muted concentration, lulled by the tranquillity of the repetitive motion. It was relaxing; a way of stepping outside my head that I wasn’t used to.

It was better than every therapy session I'd ever had.

The shoes were a little uncomfortable but I told myself I had to keep working anyway. I had no choice in the matter.

A lazy smile curled my lip.

The piles of dust from the length of the north wall were dotted long in the grid of shadows the window panes made. I swept one pile into the next, gathering them up, then I stooped, struggling to get it all onto the dustpan with a brown instead of a hand brush.

Melissa had brought in a black dustbin bag. When that section was complete, I tipped the pick-up into it and put the backs of my hands on my hips, the dustpan still in my right.

I was so glad I'd done this. It was really enjoyable. And there was plenty more to go. I checked my watch. Still an hour and a half before Melissa’s shift ended.

I retrieved the brush and started working my way up the far side of the pool, then I heard something that made my heart stop.

“Dahlia?”

I froze.

“Dahlia? Are you in?”

I looked toward the open door into the house proper. The woman’s voice came from far down the central corridor,  but I could tell from the pitch it was issuing in my direction.

It was Katherine, my PA. And not only was she in the house but she was heading straight for me. In less than ten seconds she would get to the pool room door and want to know why I was dressed in my cleaner’s oversized clothes!