I was talking about.
I feel invaded and bruised by her company, but she is all that I have. And, to be fair, she is also bright, hardworking, cheerful, inquisitive and anxious to learn. When she wormed out of me that I had been a teacher – of literature! – she wouldn’t let go of it. She was apparently well read in the classics of Bulgarian literature, and reeled off a list of -ovs and -ics, none of whom I had heard of.
‘I want to read books,’ she said, ‘improve English. Who is good writer?’
‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ I said, holding my hand to my ear, and making my voice louder. ‘Bad day for hearing. Not getting you at all.’
‘Want to read! You tell me books!’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘you’re not getting through to me at all,’ and left her to my ironing.
Suzy had history with cleaners. She’d collected them over the years, bonding with one after another, though they frequently disappeared without notice or trace. You can’t count on cleaners. Not in London anyway. I think she was unconsciously nostalgic for country servants, like bleached ayahs, but instead all she got were unreliable refugees from old countries. She enquired of agency after agency for robust Indians or sturdy Bangladeshis – even Pakistanis at a pinch – but they were never on offer. Presumably most of them were employed by the NHS. They probably run the damn thing by now.
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