Ruby Lewis cleans up after her bosses’ dirty habits – from sex to booze to extreme cheese consumption
Forty-five years ago, in ‘A Day’s Work’, Truman Capote wrote a brilliant essay about a day in New York, following his cleaner, Mary Sanchez, around her other clients’ homes.
The cleaner knows EVERYTHING about her clients, he discovers.
In the essay, published in Music for Chameleons (1980), Mary is an admirable figure. She even prays for her clients in a little Catholic church on Lexington Avenue and 86th Street:
‘Please, Lord, help Mr Trask to stop boozing and get his job back. Please, Lord, don’t leave Miss Shaw a bookworm and an old maid; she ought to bring your children into this world…
‘And please don’t let Mr Smith’s family send him to that retirement home; he don’t want to go, he cries all the time.’
A new BBC1 series, The Guest, also looks into the strangely close connections between a cleaner and her boss.
Working as a cleaner, I too met a variety of characters who insisted they lived in different worlds to the ones they invited me into.
One, a German bariatric named Benjamin tried convincing me his weight issue and slow gait were down to his sitting in his upstairs office, working at his three computer screens 23 hours a day, seven days a week.
The kitchen facts – he’d clearly been cooking and eating everything with cream and cheese again; not to mention towers of takeaway boxes and crates of empty booze bottles – suggested otherwise.
I liked to think the small camera in one corner of his bedroom was a simple security device, rather than anything else. When I’d find a pair of women’s panties or empty lube tubes under the bed, I very much liked to think the camera, whatever its purpose, was broken.
The note he’d posted on his back door told a more accurate truth: ‘Slow, fat bastard lives here. Please be patient.’
In the next village to him lived Josie, a small skittish Scottish divorcee who was either dashing upstairs for another critical Zoom meeting or rushing out to meet a client for a face-to-face one. Her penchant for all things girly extended to a pink tassel apron with ‘Kitchen Princess’ emblazoned across it in sequins.
When she wasn’t in a vital meeting, Josie donned her royal apron to prepare her meals.
To complement her healthy vegan diet and eco-friendly cleaning products, she washed down vitamin and CBD tablets with cans of Monster or Red Bull and rented out her spare room to a chubby, pasty-faced chef who smoked copious amounts of weed.
‘His job is a strenuous one,’ she explained when I commented on the smell. ‘We all have our little foibles.’
One of Josie’s little foibles – until she bought an air fryer – was her forte: pan boiling something – anything – up with lentils until it resembled a mush. Every week, I’d have to scrape off the burnt spills from her hob and vacuum escaped legumes from her kitchen floor.
A few weeks into my working for her, Josie gushed about her purchase of the air fryer as an absolute game-changer.
Now, apparently, she could not only make lentil slop with less spillage but, to judge by the leftovers she plated on the side, she could also dry roast vegan sausages until they resembled dog turds.
I was very welcome to help myself, if I wanted to. Yum.
If I didn’t (which I didn’t), she wouldn’t be offended but would instead tell me she would plate up for pasty face.
He seemed to be permanently hungry, but lacked the energy to cook when he was home. ‘He would stay shut in his room all night, watching TV, if I didn’t tempt him out with nibbles. All those hours he works, poor thing.’
She was either tolerant or naive – I’ll give her that.
Josie also thought she was a good driver. This conclusion came from her fortnightly weekend dashes up to Edinburgh to see friends and family.
‘Oh, it’s nothing for me to drive hours at a stretch,’ she said. ‘It’s become second nature.’
One weekend, she generously invited to treat me – by way of an apology for what had happened during my first visit to her place (more about that later) – to a visit to the Manchester IKEA.
Foolishly, I had admitted I’d never been to one. She had insisted I must.
She had recently bought a new Mercedes.
Wow.
Think posh, shiny, fast car, driven by a menopausal woman on acid.
Was she on acid? As she stalled, started, braked, slowed, accelerated, hurtled, meandered, forgot to indicate, beeped and cursed, a thought crossed my mind: maybe she’d shared a spliff or two with pasty-face after sharing breakfast nibbles.
She had three speaking satnavs on the go – one on her phone, another on the built-in GPS, a third on a portable tom-tom – all just a few seconds out of sync with each other and all with automated American accents.
Another day I never want to repeat is the first day I went to Josie’s – it became the reason for my treat day. She had gone away the night before, had left her key in a safe spot, and sent me a series of text messages explaining a few important tasks.
Ned, her odd-job man, a retired neighbour, had recently replumbed her sink. Apparently, it dripped a bit when draining – so please could I be aware.
Despite my awareness, I flooded her kitchen with dirty washing-up water. A label stuck to her dishwasher read ‘Dangerous. Do not use. Ned – Please mend.’
Ned had also replaced the lock on her front door, the one I had a key for.
Apparently, it could be a bit sticky and might require jiggling.
Ready to leave later than expected because I’d been mopping her kitchen floor again, and despite gentle and then frantic jiggling, I couldn’t unlock it.
Checking the back door, I could find no key for it.
Trying to call Josie, I failed to connect, sent a message and waited.
And waited.
Forty minutes of waiting later and Josie called me, explaining where the back-door key was.
Having let myself out, I posted that key through the letter box and sat in my car. I lit a cigarette, inhaled, exhaled and relaxed.
Searching for my phone, I realised I had left it on Josie’s dining table. Risking the front-door key’s working from the outside, I used it to re-enter the house. Leaving the door wide open, I walked through and retrieved my phone. Just as I was about to leave, I heard a strange noise upstairs.
Investigating, I saw bird feathers first.
Then I heard a cat. Then I saw and heard a bird head-butting the landing window.
Then a man’s voice came from behind me. ‘It’s me – Ned. Everything all right in there?’
Never had I been so terrified – as I turned to see a retired neighbour-cumrubbish plumber-cum-rubbish locksmith wielding a screwdriver in my direction.
I raced home – leaving behind Ned with all his re-repairs, a feral cat, a panicked starling and a messy stair carpet lined with bird feathers – quicker than you can say sink plunger.
And yay! Little did I know I still had that wonderful treat day to look forward to in recompense.
I know how Truman Capote’s cleaner felt about her clients – but I’m not sure I will pray for mine any time soon.
