Coming Clean – I

We pulled up into the driveway. The sky was the colour of tarnished silver, with a weighty, oppressive atmosphere that threatened rain. Tracy and I always hated cleaning the Thompsons’. We soon realised it was the sort of street where the simple lilt of a car radio would leave the neighbours twitching their curtains to shreds. We didn’t dare switch the Hoovers on for fear that they’d be knocking down the doors with banners and pitchforks. 

As soon as we walked inside, Mary Thompson would stop us in our tracks like a doorman in a nightclub, possessively guarding his red rope. She’d make us take our shoes off and leave them outside. I was certain that Mary had never been on public transport before – who knew what disease she might catch. Then she’d escort us into the living room, where every braid on every rug was straight as a sunbeam, every votive candle glazed in crystal. Mary would hand us a picture of how the room was supposed to look, and let us examine it like a docile architect. She was the kind of person you’d watch on an episode of Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners – cool, kohl-lined eyes and a mental disorder masked as sociability. 

At Christmas, she would hover over the kids as they tore open gifts, brandishing a black bin bag like a makeshift Santa Claus. Any peel or whorl of wrapping paper would be snatched up before it could hit the cream carpet. Once all the presents were unveiled, she’d be straight in there with an empty Marks and Spencer’s box, swiping angel ornaments from the mantelpiece; the plastic tree would assume its position back up in the attic, just in time for Christmas day. All that was left was a clean, naked room. 

I never saw the kids much. They were always at school when we came to clean. Dillon was eighteen and had dreams of going to university to study film. He never could though. He was obliged to join the family business – that sounds like a line from The Godfather – except their family business was paper distribution. Mary thought it would be better for him to have a substantial job to fall back on. Every morning, she would leave a beige tie and blazer hung up on the back of his door for him. He was the only kid in sixth form to wear a shirt and tie. The teachers thought it was a confidence thing. 

Mia was sixteen. There was always a smell of decay coming from her room. The fog of bubblegum body spray had left it with a bite of dissolving fruit flesh. Tracy would always leave it to me to clean. She couldn’t even walk up the stairs without gagging; she’d cover her mouth with her palm and breathlessly scream “I’m not going in there. Smells like Willy Wonka’s bloody nightmare.” I asked Mary if she’d noticed the smell, but she just accused us of not cleaning Mia’s room thoroughly enough. I’d tried everything: baking soda, coffee grounds, white vinegar, Boots Pure&Co. It was always my first job of the day. As I swung open the door my eyes would sting with tears, red-rimmed like in those anti-drug videos teachers would show you at school. “Bloody hell, I can smell that from down here! You don’t think she’s pulled a Dahmer, do you?” Tracy gasped from downstairs, sucking for air.