CLEANER II: Chapter Three - Part Four

DAHLIA  

I worked hard on the smooth corridor floors, using hot water and a mop.

I was getting some aches – my body wasn’t used to this kind of intensive activity – but it was pleasurable in its simplicity.

What would I have been doing in my real life right now? Would I even be up?

Having a leisurely breakfast? Swimming in the pool? Maybe getting ready to go shopping?

Was this really me here? Was I still myself at all anymore or had I become a different person?

“You’re doing it wrong.”

I looked round. A woman dressed in a cleaning uniform like mine was leaning against a wall pillar, arms folded, ankles crossed. She had thick, curly, black hair tied loosely in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her skin was dark but she wasn’t a native. Her uniform hadn’t been washed enough or it had been washed too much. Its colour was faded and worn. She was sneering at me and at the work I’d done. Beside her was another cleaner; this one Greek and a lot older with reeds of grey in her hair. She was smirking, a bent cigarette in her lips.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You’re doing a crappy job,” said the first one. “Your water isn’t hot enough and you should have changed it already. You’re going to leave streaks.” He accent was British but severely provincial.

“You’re from England?”

“For my sins but I got away from that rat hole. Now I live in this rat hole.”

“Oh. Yeah. Hi. My name’s Da— Melissa. I’m Melissa.”

“I don’t care who you are,” she replied. “I’ve got enough friends.”

The Greek cleaner giggled, taking a drag from her cigarette without touching it and piping the smoke out the other side of her mouth like Popeye the sailor man.

The enthusiasm of my greeting stumbled and fell on its face. I didn’t really know how to react. This kind of schoolyard hostility was something I’d never been faced with, even in my schoolyard. At school I’d always been one of the pretty girls: perfect and popular.

“You better learn quickly or else they’ll get rid of you,” said the nasty Brit. “If you do a bad job then the rest of us will have to end up doing it again and I’ll be fucked if I’m going to do your job on top of my own. Get it right the first time.”

I looked down at the floor I’d done. I could see the streaks she was talking about.

Part of me wanted to tell her where to stick her snide comments but the hair and glasses had worked some magic already, as had the normalising of my figure. I suddenly realised that the qualities I’d always relied upon to give me confidence; my looks and my money; were no longer there, and it felt scary. Without that stability to hold onto I realised I didn’t really have anything else. And this woman was right about the quality of my work. Maybe I should just do what she said.

“This place runs on a hierarchy,” said the Brit. “The housekeeper’s a waste of space. She won’t teach you anything. Because you’re new you answer to us. You go that?”

I looked back at her, feeling as intimidated as she wanted me to. I didn’t know whether I should nod submissively or try to flash some show of force but I had no confidence for the latter. Instead I found myself doing the former.

The Brit saw my dutiful nod and smirked. “Get that water changed and do this whole floor again. You got that?”

“Okay,” I replied, moving to do as I was told.

These women weren’t supervisors or managers; they were just other cleaners; but they were still higher up the pecking order than me. It made me realise how low I was now; made me accept it in a way I hadn’t before.

This was still just a game – I could call an end to it all whenever I wanted by going back to Melissa and telling her I wanted it to stop – but it was frighteningly realistic as long as it was playing out.

It made me imagine how I would feel if this really was me; if I really had no alternative to this life I was dipping into; but then, for the length of time I was here; as long as I didn’t pull the emergency brake; I was effectively trapped at this level by my own choosing.

As I hurried back up the corridor with the mop bucket to change the water, the two nary cleaners sniggering in my wake, I realised that no part of this was going to be easy, not for as long as I let myself be stuck in it.

Life had a different set of rules now. I wasn’t one of the untouchable rich beauties anymore – I was one of the ordinary masses – and for now I was well and truly down at the bottom of the scale of importance.

I wanted this fantasy to play out – I wanted it to succeed – and to do that I had to go on playing the part; allowing myself to fall into the role of the plain-Jane cleaner I had become. If that meant being bossed around by the other cleaners then that was just my lot in life for now.