Cleaning

'Your drinking has got out of control' my cleaner tells me filling a bin bag with Grolsch cans, opening the windows for fresh air.

I had hired her to come in once a week when my divorce came through. Sometimes she'd wake me up on the settee and say 'sweetheart you should go to bed.' A couple of times I'd still be up when I heard her key in the lock
'Do you want a go?' I'd ask, handing her a Wii controller but she'd just get started with the ironing and later hoover around me, put the pizza boxes out with the recycling.

One day she said 'Let's get you away from here,' put me in the back of her car. I woke up and we were in Bury St Edmunds.
'Should we find somewhere for a pint?' I asked
'I'm not one for drinking' she said and I saw my reflection in the rear view mirror and realised she had a point.

My cleaner started to come over more regularly. Thursday morning, 8 am
'You're only supposed to be here on Mondays' I slurred. I was wearing a suit, practising a best man's speech on the off chance I was ever asked.
She didn't say anything, just loaded the dishwasher, put covers on the bed she'd stripped three days earlier.

I was hiding from life. I was like the guy on a stag do, too haunted by the memory of PJ being blinded to go paint balling with the others.
'Eye protectors are only 99.5% safe' I'd tell Ray from Ray's Burgers as the stags shrieked with pleasaure, Anton with the oppositions flag in his hand, dancing like it was Jane Torvill.

And then one day my cleaner cooked for me. And then night she stayed. Now everytime she clears away after me there is a strange sense of nostalgia.