Compassion for the help begins at home
Has the way we treat cleaners changed in 200 years, asks Tessa Boase
Two lives running in tandem, never colliding. That’s how my expat friend Kate describes her relationship with Su-Lee, her Filipina cook-housekeeper in Bangkok. For years now, Kate has lived the expat existence – and a housekeeper is an unquestionable part of that life, along with a maid and a nanny. I’ve been thinking a lot about Kate over these past three years, mostly with mounting resentment. Writing a book about historical housekeepers, without having a housekeeper myself, has been something of a bitter irony. Sometimes I ask Kate for more detail. Yes, the laundry is always crisply ironed and stowed away. Yes, Su-Lee walks the dog. And no, Kate doesn’t do much cooking, only when she entertains (but since Su-Lee is renowned for making the best spring rolls in Bangkok, why bother?). Would Kate ever have a cup of coffee with her? “Good God, no! I don’t want to get involved in her life! I want her to do her work, silently and unobtrusively, then disappear.” I might be eaten up with envy, but would I want this abhorrent, Downton Abbeystyle relationship with my cleaner? No – but I’m not sure the chummy alternative really works, either. At least Kate feels none of that woolly benevolence mixed with rage that usually characterises our relationship with our cleaners. Live-in help was a given for the British upper-middle classes right up until the Second World War, yet we seem to have lost all confidence in navigating this fractious, frequently complicated relationship. In the countryside, good cleaners are fought over, and they know it. We’re humble, over-grateful, terrified they’ll leave. We bite our tongues when they fail to spot the cobwebs. In the city, most cleaners are immigrants with poor English, so it’s easier to avoid all personal contact and just leave the money for them. We don’t know where they live; all we have is a mobile phone number. And when they disappear without warning, we quickly find another Jurgita or Svetlana at £8-£10 an hour. Marcia came to me through a friend. Our previous cleaner, Claudia, had disappeared abruptly back to Brazil; the separation from her young children had been too much. Marcia was another Brazilian: energetic, smiley, newly married. Her English was bad, but she was a phenomenal cleaner. I smiled back and made her cups of tea, weakly grateful she was able to bring order once a week to a house filled with toys and foodencrusted furniture. But then it all began to unravel for Marcia. Out of the blue, she asked me for £400. Her cousin in Portugal had died, leaving a two-year-old boy. Marcia had been named custodian: she had to travel to Lisbon and bring the boy back. Where would she keep him? How could she work? This seemed like a fantastic tale to me, but what did I know of the unskilled immigrant’s precarious existence? I lent her the money, and an old cot – and it was the cot that drew me in. I kept thinking about this child, and how his sudden presence in Marcia’s life was likely to be the undoing of her. At this point, our professional relationship began to get messy. Bizarrely, at the same time I was researching the story of a 19th-century housekeeper who lost her job for being pregnant, despite being married. For 14 years, Dorothy Doar had worked for Britain’s richest family, the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, running Trentham Hall. This put her at the top of the ladder for a working woman of her time. All she requested was six weeks’ leave to have her baby and put it “out to nurse”, but this was judged an inconvenience. The Duchess of Sutherland had no scruples about sacking Mrs Doar in 1832. So what sort of a modern mistress was I? Was I going to keep Marcia, or dump her? The baby was sent to its grandmother in Brazil (we lent her more money for the flight). Then her husband revealed he’d been having an affair. He walked out with all their savings: Marcia was left destitute. She moved from flat to flat, occasionally turning up, smiling bravely, and cleaning. I grew increasingly (but silently) furious. “This has got to stop,” my husband kept saying, as we were let down again and again. “Just get another cleaner.” All her old clients fell away. I’m one of the few to have stuck with Marcia through her ups and downs, often with mounting desperation. But I can’t dump her. Writing this book has made me more alert to her plight – and the fact that very little has changed for women at the bottom of society. Just like Dorothy Doar in 1832, they live hand to mouth. Life offers few choices. For the Marcias of this world, a crisp uniform and a safe berth within an expat household might actually seem like a lifeline. ‘The Housekeeper’s Tale’ by Tessa Boase (Aurum Press, RRP £20) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £18 + £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk