07/08/08 10:53
Am I the dirtiest woman in the world?
Sometimes I wonder, would it be simpler just to clean the house myself? But then I rick my neck trying to get fluff out from under the bed or break a nail extracting gunk from behind the cooker and I think, No. Pay the danger money.
And over the years I’ve paid, if not lavishly then at least handsomely, at the top of the market. But here’s the news. Everyone hates cleaning. Specially cleaners.
There are the cleaners who like to lightly buff over the dirt, so that the hob assumes the kind of patina usually associated with Roman remains, grime sanctified by Sparkle. There are cleaners, au contraire, who enter a trance-like state and spend an hour slowly and methodically scrubbing away the paint on a grubby radiator. And there was Bridget.
Bridget came to help me spring-clean the house against the arrival of my super-clean American friends – or as they might see it, bring it up to a minimum of environmental health. We got on reasonably well on the first day, distressing though I found it that the china display cupboard (it’s wedding presents, ok?) took about six hours of work. I also now know about her love life, but better I don’t share those details. On the second day I had to leave halfway through, giving instructions about dusting the bookshelves, the light-shades, the pelmets and hoovering behind the sofa.
I returned that evening, a spring in my step as I joyously anticipated a spotless living room. But no. The living room was just as I had left it, feather duster forlorn on the desk, sofa pulled out from the wall and, the crowning insult, the hoover left next to a pile of dust. I tested it. It picked up the dust, no problem. I put it away. I ran my finger along the books. Yuk. I flicked the feather duster round the light-shades. A catastrophic cloud of dust whirled out. I got the hoover back out. Damn and double damn.
Three days later, Bridget came to get her money. She had no phone. I had had some time to think.
“Hello.”
“Hello. You’ve come for your money?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Well, I’m sorry to say that I will pay you the agreed amount for the first day, but I’m not paying for the second day, after I left. It was clear that you hadn’t done anything else. You left the living room just as dirty as you found it.”
She glared.
“You’re a fucking bitch.”
I was reasonable.
“Well, I can see how you would feel like that, but I’m not going to pay you for work you haven’t done. And which I had to do, in fact.”
She lunged for the money and tucking it in her bag, turned to go.
“You’re a dirty cow and I wouldn’t clean your filthy house for any money.”
“Is that why you didn’t?”
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