I must make this job work.
I must make the family love me.
Crunching across the gravel, she followed the path around the side of the house, past the noisily rushing river. A heavy wooden door led directly into the kitchen. Magda knocked loudly, but there was no answer. Tentatively, she tried the handle. It opened with a creak.
‘Hello?’
She stepped into the flagstoned room. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of fresh flowers and something baked and sweet and delicious. Something with cinnamon. For a moment she panicked that Lady Wellesley had already found a cleaner. But that couldn’t be right. Magda had received an email only yesterday confirming today’s arrangements.
‘Helloo?’ Setting down her suitcase, she ventured into the hall. The house appeared to be empty. A set of narrow, winding stairs led off to the right. Magda walked towards them. If there were a part of the house for servants, this was probably it. Suddenly she froze. A noise was coming from upstairs; a dreadful, primal moaning sound, as if someone had been injured.
Instinctively, Magda moved towards it. She heard it again, a woman’s voice. Her heart was pounding nineteen to the dozen. What if an intruder had attacked Lady Wellesley? What if he was still in the house somewhere? But she couldn’t run, nor could she call the police. At the top of the stairs now, her palms sweating, she burst into the room. ‘Are you all r …?’
A naked blonde with a phenomenal figure was lying on the bed, her back arched and legs spread. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. On the floor at the foot of the bed knelt a boy, also naked, his head very firmly planted between the girl’s thighs. The girl saw Magda first. Letting out an ear-piercing scream, she pulled the bed sheet around her like a shield. Startled, the boy turned round too.
‘Hello.’ He flashed Magda a sheepish smile. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Magda blurted, blushing to the roots of her hair. ‘I didn’t mean to … I thought someone had been hurt.’
Just then all three of them paused at the unmistakable sound of the front door opening and closing downstairs.
Seconds later a man’s voice boomed through the house like a giant’s. ‘Milo!’ Eddie roared. ‘Where are you? I want a word. Now.’
The smile melted off the boy’s face like butter on a hot stove. ‘Fuck.’ He turned back to the girl wrapped in the sheet behind him. ‘Dad’ll go ballistic if he finds you here. Hide!’
‘Where the fuck am I supposed to hide?’ demanded the girl. Not unreasonably, thought Magda, as – other than the bed – there wasn’t a stick of furniture in the room. Clearly this was a largely unused part of the house. Magda also noticed that the girl’s accent was distinctly EastEnders. Unlike the boy, who seemed to have a whole handful of plums in his mouth.
‘Please. Help us.’ He looked pleadingly at Magda. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least that he was still stark naked.
‘I … how?’ Magda stammered. Sir Edward Wellesley’s heavy footsteps could be heard thundering up the stairs.
‘Stall him. Please. Just till I can get Roxanne out of here.’
Magda stepped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her.
Eddie was so engrossed in finding Milo – after a difficult journey home with Annabel he needed someone to take out his frustrations on – he didn’t even notice the young woman standing in the hallway until he’d almost bumped into her and knocked her flying.
‘Sorry! So sorry.’ He threw his arms wide, like a footballer admitting a foul. ‘I was looking for my son. Are you the new cleaner?’
Magda nodded meekly. ‘I arrived a few minutes ago.’
‘Marvellous. Lady Wellesley’s going to be terribly pleased to see you. Did Milo let you in?’
‘Er …’ Magda hesitated.
‘My son. Seventeen-year-old boy? Lazy, irritating, probably still in his pyjamas?’
‘I haven’t seen anyone.’ Magda’s heart thumped at the lie. ‘I came in the kitchen door. It was open.’
Annabel appeared at the other end of the hallway.
‘Ah darling,’ said Eddie. ‘This is the new cleaner. I’m sorry, I forgot to ask you your name.’
‘Magdalena Bartosz. Pleased to meet you, Lady Wellesley.’
If this was Lady Wellesley looking ‘delighted’, Magda dreaded to think what she might look like annoyed. She was a beautiful woman, but her entire body seemed clenched, and her mouth was pursed in a tight ‘o’ of disapproval, like a cat’s arse.
‘What are you doing upstairs?’ she demanded suspiciously.
‘I … I thought I heard a … er … a cat,’ Magda stammered.
‘A cat?’ Annabel frowned.
‘Yes.’
‘We don’t own a cat.’
Magda blushed again. ‘I must have been mistaken. I checked all the rooms in case it was shut in but they’re all empty.’
‘Hmm,’ said Eddie. ‘God knows where Milo’s got to. Darling, why don’t you show Magda to the cottage? I’m sure she must be tired after her journey. He turned to Magda. ‘Do you have a case?’
‘Yes, a small one. It’s in the kitchen.’
‘I’ll carry it across for you.’
‘Really, there’s no need. I can manage.’
‘I insist,’ said Eddie.
Five minutes later, following her new employers across the lawn towards the gardener’s cottage that she hoped might become her home, Magda looked over her shoulder. The girl, Roxanne, was clothed now and sprinting for her life away from the house towards the woods leading out to the lane.
Good, thought Magda. She made it.
It wasn’t until that evening that she bumped into Milo again. After an exhaustive tour of the house and a veritable bible of instructions from Lady Wellesley about laundry, fireplace-sweeping and hand-washing crystal, Magda was washing up in the kitchen when Milo sauntered in. In jeans, bare feet and a dark green fisherman’s sweater with holes in it, he looked lanky, like a young giraffe still not quite sure what to do with its legs.
‘Thank you for before,’ he said. ‘I owe you one.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Magda didn’t meet his eye. He seemed nice enough, but she didn’t want him to think she was some sort of co-conspirator. His mother had the power to hire or fire her. Magda could not afford to offend or upset Lady Wellesley, for anyone.
‘My mother’s not a fan of Roxie’s,’ Milo went on. ‘She thinks she’s beneath me.’
She
