CLEANER II: Prologue - Part One

KATHERINE 

Katherine had told herself that after the fifteenth missed call she would go round there and knock on the door, despite Dahlia’s clear instruction that she didn’t want to be disturbed. Ever again.

But the fifteenth call came and went and still she didn’t drive up to Summertop.

She knew she should, that was the thing. She knew there was the potential for actual physical danger to her employer.

... Former employer...

And certainly danger to her fragile psyche...

But Katherine was just as afraid that any further pressure from her would be enough to split Dahlia’s mind wide open, where up to now there were only hairline cracks.

At the start of each day she told herself she would go but immediately after the resolution she would remember Dahlia’s red-rimmed eyes and desperate expression at the hospital after her brother died, as she told her to leave her alone. It couldn’t have been clearer. And though the admonition hadn’t been enough to stop Katherine sending texts of support and voicemails promising succour, she hadn’t physically made the journey. She hadn’t gone up to Dahlia’s house to see her face to face.

It was the phone call that finally clinched it; that sent Katherine hurtling finally, over the river from Nockton Vale and up the valley wall into Pinecrest village.

Days had gone by since Steven’s death and when it became clear that Dahlia wasn’t getting back to the hospital about his body; that she hadn’t called an undertaker and obviously wasn’t going to; Katherine had interceded. Of course. And happily. Katherine had worked as Dahlia’s assistant for sixteen years and, especially after her husband’s death, she felt as close to her as family. She didn’t have anyone else. And Steven was part of that family; someone she saw regularly and respected immensely.

In fact Katherine had very quietly but unreservedly been in love with him. Not in a way that would have ever made her say anything to him. That wouldn’t have felt... appropriate. But she had enjoyed the sight of him and the sound of him and, if she was lucky, the smell of him when he passed close by, oblivious to her little fantasies. It was why his death had been as awful for her almost as it would have if her own brother had died; why Dahlia’s rejection right afterwards had hurt all the more.

As soon as she understood that things needed doing that weren’t being done, she had called Dahlia, knowing the phone wouldn’t be picked up, and left a message to explain that she needn’t worry; that everything would be taken care of. Then she had ended the call and cried for a little while; only long enough to release the worst of the emotional build-up; nothing indulgent. She wasn’t the type for that; not when there was work to be done. A quick swipe of each eye and it was straight on to the phone again, dialling the number of a local undertaker and getting things organised; calling the hospital right afterwards.

It didn’t matter that Dahlia had fired her. Katherine didn’t need the money. Well over five years had gone by since she had admitted to herself that she would have gone on working for Dahlia for free; admitted that she loved the beautiful young woman like a daughter. But again, she would never have said such a thing to her. Propriety was one consideration; but more, it was the fear that a statement of that nature might imbalance the delicate state their relationship had and irrevocably change it.

How simple words were – just intangible vibration in the air – but their power was immense and oftentimes destructive. Better to continue with the banter and keep the real emotions close and secret, as she always did.

It was heartbreaking to be pushed away now, especially at this time when Dahlia needed her more than ever, but what could she do? It couldn’t be clearer that she wasn’t wanted; that she was making things worse. If the younger woman needed to continue with her... escapism games... then maybe that should be respected.

It was all the cleaner’s fault – Katherine was sure of that.

Melissa.

She wasn’t the cause of Dahlia’s underlying problems – that was the slow accrual of personal loss and the ebbing away of self-worth – but the solution the cleaner was offering could only be transient, and surely did more harm than good in the long run.

Or maybe dressing up and pretending to be someone else was the perfect escape from a fraught life. Katherine didn’t know; couldn’t know; but her instincts had only let her down a handful of times in her long years and they told her three things now like they were screaming at her...

That Dahlia was in serious trouble.

That swapping places with her cleaner, even for brief periods, would do more harm to her than good in the long run.

And that Melissa couldn’t be trusted. That she was only taking advantage of her employer’s fragile emotional state.

And it was while dwelling on this gut feeling for the thousandth time, while she pottered needlessly at the flowerbeds in her neat over-tended little garden, that Katherine received the call that finally pushed her into action; that got her into the car and driving, determined finally to do something; anything she could; to pull Dahlia back from the edge of that abyss she was skirting before it was too late.