JENNY GETS STUCK IN!

COPYRIGHT@GERRYROSE

 Jenny never did think much of Bob. She had read his really nasty little, small-minded review and thought he deserved the roasting he got. Bob was a hypocrite and he had come over as a pervert. All she had been doing was trying to find a way of making extra money and was doing a free clean for a friend. Perhaps she had been a little bit nosey. How was she to know that Bob and Marsha liked to film their bondage sessions. She did think that having camera’s in every room was the mark of a true voyeur. Bob would probably regret writing that review and she wasn’t surprised to find out that others knew about his reputation. She hadn’t known that the death of his first wife had been a little suspicious. This was something Marsha had glossed over. The older she got the more she realised that people were always economical with the truth. Marsha wanted to pretend that she was ‘living her best life’ but she was stuck with a tosser like Bob who had a huge libido which needed servicing.      

 Jenny had been very touched by Harry’s endorsement. She rang to thank him and checked that he was still ok for her to start the cleaning tomorrow. Harry said he was and told her his key safe number. Jenny always felt that the moment someone bought a key safe they were acknowledging that their descent into decrepitation had begun. Getting a key safe was acknowledging that one day you would need someone to enter your house because you couldn’t go to the door to let them in. That person might be coming to perform personal care. Jenny wondered if she might just be a little ageist. Harry was probably only about 2 years older than her. Her experience in the NHS must have tainted her view of key safes. Jenny did not relish growing old, as far as she was concerned there was really nothing to look forward to. Jenny felt that once you reached 70 it was all downhill from there. She hated those puritanical people who waxed on about ‘ageing well’, this always seemed to demand a lot of effort and not a lot of fun. She wondered what was really to be gained by eating rabbit food and counting your alcohol units? Jenny had known women who had lived healthy lives who still ended up with some god awful disease which blights older people, like Parkinson’s Disease and other nasty stuff. All this moving to the country when you retire was another load of codswallop. Imagine being unable to drive and reliant on two buses a day in some terminally dull village where everyone knows your business. She knew people who were forced to move into a care home. Who do you know who has ever woken up and said that what they really wanted to do, was move into a care home? This was never going to be on anyone’s wish list or vision board. No one was going to try and manifest that, unless they were desperate or crazy. She had a fear of those cheap retirement flats too, the ones which had a warden attached to them. She had heard that they were hotbeds of dispute as the residents invariably had all kinds of issues, resentments and hang-ups. However she had a feeling that once she divorced Tim this was the only sort of place that she would be able to afford. Jenny realised that she was having another of her internal rants which she noticed seemed to happen quite frequently these days. She pushed these thoughts away and focused on Harry’s deep clean.

  She checked what time Harry was leaving and he confirmed that he would leave at   9am to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic. His sister lived in Margate, which he told Jenny was far enough away for her not to know too much about his business. Jenny wondered what Harry had to hide. Jenny felt that everyone had something that they wouldn’t necessarily like someone else to know. She had a few things but they didn’t involve red rooms of pain and dildoes.

 Jenny got to Harry’s flat at around 9.30. She had worn her old black track suit bottoms and a black t shirt as she expected to get pretty grubby. She was a bit old school and always turned her phone off when she was working. She had brought some folded boxes with her and her rucksack was full of her special cleaning potions. She had put her tabard in the rucksack but felt that her oldest clothes were more suitable for this job.

 The first thing she tackled was the seriously awful taxidermy animals. The squirrel which was permanently posed in the position it had died in with its front leg splayed awkwardly in front of its head was particularly fragile. It’s tail fell off as she picked it up and put it in one of her boxes. The rather flat hedgehog which Jenny guessed might have been Harry’s first attempt at taxidermy almost disintegrated as she tried to lift it off the shelf. The rabbit was rock solid and she wondered what on earth Harry used to stuff it, she suspected he had removed its internal organs and had inserted one of those foam fillers in its anus and had only stopped when the animal had appeared to be inflated and vaguely resembled its former self. The wood pigeon’s legs had been stuck to the shelf with blu-tack. She managed to get them all into her box and covered them with some tissue paper and sealed it with tape. Jenny was pleased that she had accurately assessed which additional equipment she had needed for Harry’s deep clean. She wrote ‘Taxidermy animals’ on the box with a black marker and found a temporary spot for it in the cupboard in the hall, which she would rearrange at some point in order to make best use of the space. She stripped the bed and combined cleaning the bath with soaking the sheets. The soaking solution she used for removing the stains in the bath would remove the stains from the sheets too. She was quite pleased with this idea as it was very economical. The spirit of salts solution for the lavatory demanded that she put her gloves and goggles on. She would not be able to use Harry’s Lavatory for several hours after putting that solution in the bowl. She would have to go to a café if she needed to use a loo.

 She removed everything from under Harry’s bed and was surprised to see how many dust balls lived under there. She could tell that Harry had never thought about cleaning under there. In her experience a dust ball was usually a mixture of hair, skin and fibres from clothes and bedding. If you empty a vacuum cleaner bag this is what you find as well as other stuff such as food debris. She examined what Harry had under his bed and felt he really would benefit from some of those under bed storage boxes which have wheels, as what was under his bed seemed to be stuffed into carrier bags and there was no sense of order to it. She would use some of her folded boxes in the meantime and started sorting Harry’s stuff into categories. She knew that the service she provided was above and beyond what some cleaning companies would be prepared to do. She felt she was offering a unique service and felt there were people who would pay for this. There was nothing shocking under Harry’s bed. He seemed to have a lot of photo albums. She glanced at a few of the photos and marvelled at how absolutely drop dead gorgeous Harry had been in his youth. He also seemed to like hats. There was a pile of books which told their own story. Harry had quite a full book shelf in his sitting room but the books under his bed told other stories. Harry seemed to be addicted to self-help books. There was another bag which contained diaries which dated from 1972 to 2016. Jenny felt she needed to take a break. She sat on Harry’s sofa’s and read his diaries.  Jenny found them quite enlightening. Perhaps Bob had been right about her after all.

 She popped out for lunch and the chance to go to the loo. When she got to the Salvage Café she ordered a panini and a cup of Earl Grey tea and turned her phone on and felt the weight of the world fall upon her. She would have her lunch and return to Harry’s flat to put his sheets on a high temperature wash. She would do what she felt was essential but felt a bit sad and maybe a bit guilty. Her new line of work had taken on a whole new perspective and she had never imagined that it could have had this outcome. There was a new comment on the neighbour next door page. Solly from central Brighton wanted a quote for a deep clean with a kinky overlay. He asked her to contact him via his mobile as he wanted to discuss this with her. Jenny had absolutely no idea what this meant but felt that as always, life was full of ups and downs. Although she lived in Hove, she was willing to embrace the craziness of Brighton if it made her ‘running away fund’ grow.