The woman looks affronted. “I thought for a moment you were for me. Are you for upstairs?”
“Maybe,” says Mary, cunningly. “Is anyone there?” But she senses there isn’t. The house has a hollow, silent feel.
“You’re a Witness, aren’t you. I knew you were.”
And with that, the woman closes the door. Mary stands outside, in her orange coat, her smile fading, her heart sinking.
She tries the other numbers, with no success. She will have to go back and re-read the address.
By the time she reaches home, she is composed again. Retreat three paces to advance one more. As she comes up the path, she cuts four red roses with the nail scissors she has in her bag, and when she is inside, she puts them in a vase.
She sits in the sitting room, her shoes beside her, wriggling her toes, which hurt from walking, and Vanessa comes through and gives her a look, down her long thin nose like an ant-bear’s proboscis, so Mary lifts her foot and waves her toes at her, and Vanessa disappears into the kitchen, vanquished.
But Mary has things to say to her. “Are you making tea, Vanessa?” she calls to her employer.
There is a pause, and then, “I suppose so.”
Vanessa brings it through with a pale cross face. She is not used to seeing Mary in the sitting room, with her garish yellow dress and clashing blue cardigan, so very un-English, so African: and yet she is plumped down in the middle of her sofa. “Will you be cooking soon?” she asks Mary, curtly.
Mary smiles at her. “Do you like the roses?”
“Yes,” says Vanessa, catching sight of them, scarlet, four bright grace-notes on the dark piano. She smiles back at Mary, mollified.
“Do you see I have been digging the back garden? And I have been weeding. I am good at weeding.” And Mary smiles again, her sweet, child-like smile.
Vanessa thinks, one can’t stay angry with them. Things have been better since Mary arrived. The garden had really been going to seed, but now there are long stretches of freshly weeded earth, though she hasn’t had a chance to look at it closely. Still, she can’t let Mary behave like a house guest. Vanessa tries again. “What are you cooking today?”
“Thank you for my tea.” Mary waits for a moment, and then begins, sounding almost shy. “Vanessa, it is Sunday.”
“It’s Sunday. And?”
“Vanessa — I think I will not cook on Sunday.”
“I’m sorry? You have cooked every other Sunday.” Vanessa begins to boil up with frustration. There is no reasoning with Mary Tendo.
“Vanessa, this is why I must ask for more money.”
“Ah. You are going to ask for more money.”
Vanessa has been afraid of this. It has happened to several of her friends. People come over here to work, the wages are agreed, everything is dandy, both sides are happy, but then people claim that life is more expensive than they thought.
Mary starts again, talking faster and louder. “I have been working all day for Mr Justin. And recently I talked to Trevor. He assures me most people do not work on Sunday. And besides, I have also been talking to Justin. I learned how much money he was earning at his work. And so evidently, I must ask for more money.”
Vanessa sits down beside Mary with a sigh. “Mary, Justin is hardly an expert on work, he has only done it for a week or two. And trust Tigger to make trouble,” she adds, crossly. “He knows nothing about it, he has never had a cleaner.”
But Mary sits up straight, and looks her in the face. “I was your cleaner. I am not your cleaner.”
“Oh sorry. Sorry. I forgot for a moment.” Those wide black feet on her pale carpet.
It is all so difficult. Vanessa wants to get it right. She knows, in her heart, that the money is too little. After all, when she does a freelance lecture or workshop, she never charges less than two hundred pounds a shot. Not that there is really any comparison. How can you compare a writer with a cleaner?
They sit side by side on the edge of a gulf.
But Mary smiles at her, and tries again. “I think Mr Justin is getting better. I think he will soon want to go back to work.”
“Yes, yes, Mary. You are doing well.”
They sit in silence, staring at the carpet. They are a breath apart, with the world between them.
Mary is wondering how she can ask for six hundred pounds per month instead of five hundred. The Ugandans she knows here earn more than that, but they are not living in, with everything paid for. Besides, this job is not very hard. Perhaps it is too much. She will ask for five hundred and fifty. That is only about ten pounds more per week. But the Henman is unpredictable. She has stopped looking cross, her face is kind. Mary turns towards her, and says very softly, “If I have more money, I will cook on Sunday. And next week, I think we shall all go to church. It is good for Mr Justin to go to church.”
“Oh never mind that,” says Vanessa, alarmed. “I don’t think so, really, Mary.” She looks at Mary’s shoes. They are wide as boats. They are made of rope and canvas, hopeless for winter. The weather is changing. Mary must be cold. Perhaps she doesn’t have any winter clothes. And since Mary arrived, she does spend less on food, since Mary buys everything from the market. “How would it be,” Vanessa says slowly, “if I were to pay you two hundred pounds?”
Mary’s face becomes blank with disappointment. So Henman thinks she can put the money down. “Two hundred pounds. No, Miss Henman. Two hundred pounds is not enough.” She shakes her head so hard that her neck starts hurting.
“Not enough? Two hundred pounds a week not enough? But Mary, it is double what you have been earning. Two hundred and twenty a week, then. That’s my last word. And I really don’t know how I will manage to pay it.” (But in fact, Vanessa knows she can pay it. Her mortgage will be paid off next year. She has money in the bank from Fifi’s videos. And after all, it will not be for long. Justin will get better, and Mary will leave.)
But suddenly Mary is laughing beside her. It is a beautiful, infectious sound, a laugh full of happiness. And life. And humour. Vanessa wonders, do I ever laugh like that? I used to once. Tigger made me laugh.
And then she is squashed in Mary’s arms, and Mary is kissing her on both cheeks. “God bless you, Vanessa. I love you, Vanessa.”
And for an hour or so, she really feels it. The money is real. Such a lot of money. In a month, she will earn more than in a year at home.
Soon the stewpot is boiling loudly in the kitchen.
That night, they both go to bed feeling happy, but Mary wakes up weeping at three am.
30
Mary Tendo
Through my own hard work, I am becoming rich. My wages have gone up, through my own efforts. I have saved just under a thousand pounds. That is three million Ugandan shillings! I have put it in the top right-hand drawer of the dressing-table. A beautiful fat envelope. I blow on the notes so they don’t stick together. When I count them, I always hope to find one more. They rustle like the wind in the tall golden trees that wave at me from across the road.
Now I look at the planes taking off through my window and am happier, because I do not miss Kampala, or my sparkling white flat, or Charles, my kabito, since I know I shall go back to them soon. (And Jamie will come back. He must come back.) The planes jump like fish into the red-pink sky as they take off from Heathrow every evening. They swim like tilapia towards Uganda. And I shall go back, with a case full of money. This is because I have been so determined. I think I have excelled at all I am doing.