‘It’s a peculiarly British form of angst’
It was a very large spider. A child could have saddled it and ridden to hounds. I hate them so much (spiders, not children) that I’d found the heaviest book in my flat and used it as a weapon. The author stared at me from the carpet outside my bedroom for the next few days because I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the hardback and peel off the spider carcass. In the end, embarrassed, I texted my cleaner, Anna, asking if she’d mind dealing with the crime scene on her weekly visit. She didn’t mind and, when I came home, the book was back on the shelf, all exoskeleton removed. We never spoke of it again.
It’s a peculiarly British form of angst, to worry about one’s relationship with the people who keep our domestic lives ticking over. You might call them “staff ” if you’re over 50 and live in a very large house. To the rest of us, it’s a cleaner or a nanny. Perhaps a gardener. A driver? Jolly well done, you.
My father always told us idle teenagers to tidy up when we’d sling milky cereal bowls in the sink and leave trainers scattered around the kitchen floor as if modern art installations. “Elaine comes to clean, not to tidy,” he’d bellow like Nancy Mitford’s Uncle Matthew.
I didn’t understand his distinction then. I do now. I’m sluttish and tear round my flat scraping yesterday’s clothes from the bedroom floor and tea cups left on the side of the bath before Anna arrives, lest she should think less of me. Although I’m not as paranoid as a friend of mine, who makes her cleaner a cup of tea and puts out biscuits, does the ironing and scrubs her loos before the cleaner arrives each week.
Such behaviour is a waste of time, of course. Those who come into our homes see everything, so our attempts to hide dirty knickers or hide the disgraceful number of wine bottles in the recycling bin underneath the newspapers are mostly to salve our own consciences. Many years ago, it was doubtless easier to bowl through life like Bertie Wooster, deferring to Jeeves in all things and allowing him absolute control of his life (give or take the odd raffish jacket which Jeeves disliked). But these days our middle-class sensibilities make us ashamed and coy about paying someone to make our lives run more smoothly, which is silly; so long as you don’t live in a hovel and pay someone properly, everyone benefits. Apart from the spiders, in my own case.