The Paying Guests(8)
The very heaviest of the housework she saved for those mornings and afternoons when she could rely on her mother being safely out of the way. Since today was a Monday, she had ambitious plans. Her mother spent Monday mornings seeing to bits of parish business with the local vicar, and Frances could ‘do’ the entire ground floor in her absence.
She began the moment the front door closed, rolling up her sleeves, tying on an apron, covering her hair. She saw to her mother’s bedroom first, then moved to the drawing-room for sweeping, dusting – endless dusting, it felt like. Where on earth did the dust come from? It seemed to her that the house must produce it, as flesh oozes sweat. She could beat and beat a rug or a cushion, and still it would come. The drawing-room had a china cabinet in it, with glass doors, tightly closed, but even the things inside grew dusty and had to be wiped. Just occasionally she longed to take each fiddly porcelain cup and saucer and break it in two. Once, in sheer frustration, she had snapped off the head of one of the apple-cheeked Staffordshire figures: it still sat a little crookedly, from where she had hurriedly glued it back on.
She didn’t feel like that today. She worked briskly and efficiently, taking her brush and pan from the drawing-room to the top of the stairs and making her way back down, a step at a time; after that she filled a bucket with water, fetched her kneeling-mat, and began to wash the hall floor. Vinegar was all she used. Soap left streaks on the black tiles. The first, wet rub was important for loosening the dirt, but it was the second bit that really counted, passing the wrung cloth over the floor in one supple, unbroken movement… There! How pleasing each glossy tile was. The gloss would fade in about five minutes as the surface dried; but everything faded. The vital thing was to make the most of the moments of brightness. There was no point dwelling on the scuffs. She was young, fit, healthy. She had – what did she have? Little pleasures like this. Little successes in the kitchen. The cigarette at the end of the day. Cinema with her mother on a Wednesday. Regular trips into Town. There were spells of restlessness now and again; but any life had those. There were longings, there were desires… But they were physical matters mostly, and she had no last-century inhibitions about dealing with that sort of thing. It was amazing, in fact, she reflected, as she repositioned her mat and bucket and started on a new stretch of tile, it was astonishing how satisfactorily the business could be taken care of, even in the middle of the day, even with her mother in the house, simply by slipping up to her bedroom for an odd few minutes, perhaps as a break between peeling parsnips or while waiting for dough to rise —
A movement at the turn of the staircase made her start. She had forgotten all about her lodgers. Now she looked up through the banisters to see Mrs Barber just coming uncertainly down.
She felt herself blush, as if caught out. But Mrs Barber was also blushing. Though it was well after ten, she was dressed in her nightgown still; she had some sort of satiny Japanese wrapper on top – a kimono, Frances supposed the thing was called – and her feet were bare inside Turkish slippers. She was carrying a towel and a sponge-bag. As she greeted Frances she tucked back a sleep-flattened curl of hair and said shyly, ‘I wondered if I might have a bath.’
‘Oh,’ said Frances. ‘Yes.’
‘But not if it’s a trouble. I fell back asleep after Len went to work, and —’
Frances began to get to her feet. ‘It’s no trouble. I shall have to light the geyser for you, that’s all. My mother and I don’t usually light it during the day. I should have said last night. Can you come across? You’ll have to hop.’ She moved her bucket. ‘Here’s a dry bit, look.’
Mrs Barber, however, had come further down the stairs, and her colour was deepening: she was gazing in a mortified way at the duster on Frances’s head, at her rolled-up sleeves and flaming hands, at the housemaid’s mat at her feet, still with the dents of her knees in it. Frances knew the look very well – she was bored to death with it, in fact – because she had seen it many times before: on the faces of neighbours, of tradesmen, and of her mother’s friends, all of whom had got themselves through the worst war in human history yet seemed unable for some reason to cope with the sight of a well-bred woman doing the work of a char. She said breezily, ‘You remember my saying about us not having help? I really meant it, you see. The only thing I draw the line at is laundry; most of that still gets sent out. But everything else, I take care of. The “brights”, the “roughs” – yes, I’ve all the lingo!’
Mrs Barber had begun to smile at last. But as she looked at the stretch of floor that was still to be washed, she grew embarrassed in a different sort of way.
‘I’m afraid Len and I must have made an awful mess yesterday. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Oh,’ said Frances, ‘these tiles get dirty all by themselves. Everything in this house does.’
‘Once I’ve dressed, I’ll finish it for you.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve your own rooms to care for. If you can manage without a maid, why shouldn’t I? Besides, you’d be amazed what a whiz I can be with a mop. – Here, let me help.’
Mrs Barber was on the bottom stair now and clearly doubtful about where to step to. After the slightest of hesitations, she took the hand that Frances offered, braced herself against her grip, then made the small spring forward to the unwashed side of the floor. Her kimono parted as she landed, exposing more of her nightdress, and giving an alarming suggestion of the rounded, mobile, unsupported flesh inside.