CLEANER: Chapter Seven - Part Four

DAHLIA

When the tool shed was clear I got a broom and went in there, sweeping up the dirt, leaves and other assorted crap that had fallen to the bottom.

It was quite ground in so it was strenuous work, especially because I was keen to do it right. I made a heap of detritus in the middle of the wooden floor then raised the broom and used it to pull down dust and cobwebs from the walls and ceiling and off the window. I hummed a little tune as I worked; something from when I was a girl that my mum used to sing while she was doing housework. The connection of nostalgic memory with simple and honest activity gave me a wonderful feeling of tranquillity.

In no time I’d cleared away the bulk of it and I stooped down to get up the pile I’d made on a shovel. I was unsure where to dump it and stood, pondering, for the better part of a minute.

There were wheelie bins concealed in a tasteful enclosure at the front of the house but I couldn’t go out to them because somebody might see me.

To could I?

What if one of my neighbours was passing and caught sight of me? What if they engaged me in conversation?

But surely in this disguise they wouldn’t recognise me; wouldn’t think to start talking. From their point of view I’d be just a drab cleaner. Those who could afford to live in Pinecrest weren’t the sort to chat to the help. Even if there was someone out there I would... most likely be safe.

And what was the worst case scenario? Who cares what they thought? I could tell them I was trying out a fancy dress costume. They’d believe that sooner than they would think I was swapping places with my cleaner on a daily basis.

Yes. I was going to do this. And as soon as I decided that I got a crackle of sexual energy between my thighs that cinched it.

Nervous and excited, I carried the shovel with the piled up dirt down the side of the house to the gate. I took hold of the catch, took in and held a serrated breath and then opened it and stepped out.

There was a high straight hedge to my left and the side wall of Summertop to my right, a long corridor stretching before me to where it opened out onto the drive. The side door to the house was about ten feet down.

I started walking, each step sending further jolts of regret, panic, dread and sheer bloody ecstasy through my limbs.

Closer I got to the open drive. Closer and closer and closer and closer.

There was still plenty of time to turn back; not risk it; but now that I was on this crazy, risky path I couldn’t bear to turn back for fear I wouldn’t have the gumption to do it again.

One step before the end I faltered.

Then I stepped out in full view and stopped, savouring the moment. The front drive of the house was as wide as the manor with extravagant flowerbeds and shrubbery. It dropped away down-slope and the valley opened up beyond. I felt like I was exposed to the world, though no individuals were in sight.

I was hyperaware of my cleaner’s uniform; my brown bobbed hair; my glasses; the padding round my middle; the shovel in my hands; the dirty job I was in the middle of doing.

In a rush of emotion I suddenly had an intense desire to do this more publicly; to go where I could be seen. I wanted nothing more than I wanted to have people see me like this who would really think this was me. I wanted it more keenly than I remembered ever wanting anything.

And I wanted it now. I longed for someone to walk past the drive entrance and look up to me. But nobody came.

I waited. But no one walked past.

Disappointed, I reminded myself that just doing this at all was an incredible thing. I opened the enclosure built to house the wheelie bins. It stunk in there in a way that I had seldom in my life been exposed to. I guessed that was a smell that cleaners had to put up with on a daily basis. It was disgusting, but I didn’t run clear. I paused, still, and then inhaled deeply.

It was a truly awful smell; it really was. But this was stock in trade of being a cleaner. As long as I... as long as I was one then I had to get used to it.

I lifted the top of the bin and tipped the dirt in, then locked up the enclosure and walked back through to the tool shed, smiling contentedly.

The shed was looking ten times better now but it needed a proper dust before I reorganised the interior.

I glanced toward the house. It was nice being out here and getting on with all this but... it was inside where I had always seen Melissa. I was keen to get back in and go on cleaning properly.

It was a shame there wasn’t more mess. With just one woman living alone there wasn’t enough to engage a full-time cleaner, much as I’d like to.

I frowned, wondering if there was some way I could increase the amount of mess.

I wished I could go and do Melissa’s other jobs, pretending to be her. How marvellous would that be – to be out in the world, pretending to be someone else – someone so anonymous and absorbed?

But that was ridiculous. There had to be a limit to all this, surely.

I just wanted that limit to be a long way off.