7

~ You can wash children's toys, soap dishes, hair brushes, golf balls, bath sponges, dog collars, flip-flops and keys in the dishwasher.

I woke up on Saturday with a whole new set of aches and three unexplained bruises on my left hand, which were acquired either from Rambo's lead or extracting Lego from the Armstrongs' hoover. Or something I hadn't even noticed happening. It had been that sort of day.

But any thoughts of a recovery lie-in were dismissed by the arrival of two messages: one from Mitch, with a couple more LinkedIn contacts, and another from Mum, checking I was still on for ‘coffee and a catch-up' with her and Cleo.

I'd forgotten about the latter, but I was so thrilled about the former that I was out of bed and into the shower before Tomasz even started his morning grunting.

Mum's brunch venue of choice, St Olaf's Church, was down an alley, off the main shopping street in town. It was Longhampton's oldest church and, to fund the ongoing repairs, the rear half had been converted into a cafe from which you could admire the medieval stonework while eating an organic quiche. It appealed directly to Mum and Cleo's love of multitasking.

They were already there when I arrived, sitting with a coffee and a slice of carrot cake each.

‘Sorry, I thought we should order, you know how slow they can be in here,' said Cleo, gesturing at a waitress who was definitely within earshot. ‘Mum's appointment's at one, so we need to be out of here by quarter to.'

I bridled at the relentless timetabling, even on her day off. ‘I'm not late, Mum said half eleven.'

‘Did I say you were late?'

‘Cleo's treating me to a haircut ahead of the awards,' Mum intervened. ‘I've told her, though, nothing too dramatic.'

Next to her, Cleo did a half-eye-roll, which was her way of being affectionate.

I ordered myself a coffee – no cake, an economy that I pretended was diet-related – and resigned myself to hearing about Cleo's plans for Wes's eighth birthday party in a few weeks. Cleo prided herself on being a mother who could deliver top-quality parenting both on Instagram and in real life, and throwing memorable birthday parties for her three sons was a big deal. Over the years Orson, Alfie and Wes had seen many church halls decorated to look like indoor fairgrounds, as well as bowling alleys, indoor pirate ships, Build-a-Bear workshops, three Super Soaker parties (too popular in the end), the make-your-own-pizza party, laser tag, treasure hunts … Cleo's parties were so successful that most years there were more uninvited siblings, and often parents, trying to gatecrash than there were guests.

This year, Wes had requested a trampoline extravaganza. Mum, Dad and I were expected to act as marshals, of course, as Cleo ‘wouldn't trust Elliot to turn up on time, let alone stop a child from bouncing themselves into A Cleo had read the situation from across the room and was already rummaging in her handbag for her purse as she slalomed round the tables in an athletic effort to reach the bill before me.

‘No, my turn, I'll get this.' I'd checked my current account before I came out, and I had enough, just. ‘Thanks,' I said to the waitress, touching my debit card against the reader, thwarting Cleo at the final second, ‘that was lovely.'

‘Thank you!' We exchanged smiles and waited for the transaction to go through.

It didn't.

My smile stuck a little. The machine was taking a long time.

The waitress waved in the direction of the medieval church pillars. ‘Sorry, it does this sometimes. It's the stone – seems to block the Wi-Fi.'

‘Here, why don't I just—?' Cleo leaned over with her card, but I karate-blocked her arm.

‘No!' I glanced towards the loos. No sign of Mum.

‘I'll try it again,' said the waitress.

We stared at the machine and waited.

My stomach tightened. I was sure there was enough money in there: there were no bills due, and I'd cancelled everything I could. No Netflix, Spotify, gym membership – I was living the life of a Tudor nun.

The machine finally whirred and I breathed out. It was just in time: Mum was making her way back around the tables. When she saw the waitress next to us, she wagged her finger mock-sternly, but her eyes were happy and I felt a warm glow of generous adulthood.

I was also glad to have demonstrated to Cleo that I wasn't totally destitute.

‘You shouldn't have,' said Mum, slipping back into her seat. ‘Let me leave the tip, at least.'

‘ I'll leave the tip,' insisted Cleo.

‘You can leave the tip,' I said, graciously.

‘Sorry,' said the waitress, ‘but this didn't go through.' She offered me the receipt; it said Transaction Cancelled. ‘But it sometimes needs a PIN. For security?' she added, seeing my face freeze.

Mum and Cleo both started to speak but I stopped them.

‘No!' I raised a hand. ‘It's probably a security thing, let me put my PIN in.'

My fingers were trembling as I typed the numbers because I knew it probably wasn't a security thing. I knew what it was: the magazine subscription I'd meant to cancel in the Big Purge, but hadn't been able to find the login for. I'll do it in the morning, I'd thought, mourning the other comforts that I'd just sacrificed. It couldn't have been more than forty quid but that was enough to tip me over into public card shaming.

To add insult to injury, I hadn't even read most of the back issues. They were in a bag in my new flat, unopened. I kept meaning to have an afternoon of magazine indulgence, after which my career, my wardrobe, my skincare routine, my wellness and my gut brain (?) would be completely sorted, but somehow I never had. It was just too overwhelming.

Cleo was staring at me with what looked a lot like pity mixed with curiosity and a dash of triumph.

And meanwhile Mum had trumped us both by whisking out her purse.

‘Don't!' said Mum, as I tried to apologise and Cleo tried to shove tenners at her. ‘I was going to treat you anyway. I wanted to cheer you up!'

Cheer me up? Until recently I was a successful property expert who owned her own flat and was (outwardly, anyway) on top of things. Now I was an Internet laughing stock whose mother needed to ‘cheer her up' and whose big sister was bailing her out by letting her scrub showers. And not even scrubbing them that well, according to Jim.

People on other tables were turning to see what the commotion was.

‘I'll pay you back,' I muttered, hot with embarrassment. ‘I just need to transfer some money … um, the bank …'

‘Robyn.' Mum's voice was gentle. ‘Are you sure everything's …?'

‘Yes!' I insisted. ‘Yes, everything is fine. Fine.' I turned to Cleo. Better to take the bull by the horns, grasp the nettle, etc. ‘So, would you like me to do another week's work?' I asked with as much dignity as I could muster.

Cleo, the cow, took a couple of seconds to respond, in which I could happily have throttled her.

‘I'll see you on Monday,' she said.

Mum beamed. So one of us was happy, at least.

On Monday morning, Jim picked me up for work from the corner of Worcester Road and Wye Street, outside Molly's Bakehouse, one of the few coffee shops in town where I wasn't a regular.

(I had been such a familiar face in Hoffi Coffi that they didn't even bother to ask me want I wanted; they just shouted, ‘Hi, Robyn!' and started making a double shot oat latte, as if we were in Friends . Same in Espresso Bongo, opposite the office. When I'd gone through my bank statements it had literally sickened me to see how much I'd spent on hot milk, just to feel part of a gang.)

I suggested Jim picked me up there because – I know it's snobby, shoot me – I didn't want the neighbours seeing a Taylor Maid van pulling up and me getting in. I'd managed to keep myself to myself since I'd moved, and that sort of key detail would be on the local curtain-twitching spreadsheet before you could say Mr Sheen.

For that reason, I'd also decided to go to work in jeans and a T-shirt, and change into the red overalls when I got to the first job. Nothing wrong with being a cleaner but, as I'd told Mum, I needed to keep myself in a property-developing state of mind. To that end, my nails were now short, but still a glossy mulberry. On Sunday night, I'd sent my CV to both LinkedIn contacts Mitch had introduced me to and the four hours' fussing over the exact wording of the cover letter – charming but professional, concise but comprehensive – had given me time to do a great home manicure.

It was overcast, and my rumbling stomach felt as gloomy as the grey sky: I'd had to skip breakfast in the usual frantic rush to leave on time. Although my alarm went off at seven, I inevitably hit snooze once or twice (or thrice), and before I knew it, I was late. I leaned against the blue striped wall of the bakery and braced myself not to go in. The smell of the coffee and the baking croissants floating out of the door was so delicious that you could almost see it, ribbons of milky sweetness and toasted butter rippling out into the morning air. I stared up the road, looking for the Taylor Maid van while trying to inhale deeply enough to fool my brain into thinking I'd polished off a double latte and a pain au chocolat.

I wondered if Jim would bother to hide his annoyance that he'd been allocated me as a partner again. I'd made the point to Cleo, when she phoned me with my rota details.

‘He clearly prefers working alone. Could I maybe pair up with someone more … fun?' I suggested. I'd seen the other teams at Margaret Jennings' house. Some of them looked as if they were even having a laugh.

‘No,' Cleo had said. ‘And don't ask me again, the rota is a nightmare.'

Spotting the Taylor Maid van approaching, I walked down the road so Jim didn't pull up right outside the bakery – again, not sure who might be in there. He leaned over and opened the door for me.

‘Thanks,' I said, sliding in.

Unlike me, Jim was already in his overalls, pressed and smelling of Persil. I wondered if he'd ironed his own overalls. He suited the uniform; again, unlike me, he made it look clinical, rather than penitential. A clean white T-shirt peeped out underneath the first button, and his short dark hair was damp. He had that ‘just been to the gym!' glow about him.

‘You look fresh!' I said. ‘Been to the gym?'

‘Six a.m. spin class,' he replied. ‘Gets the blood flowing.'

I stared at my thighs, relative strangers to a spin bike despite five years' direct-debited membership. Another reminder of money I'd forked out for the pleasure of imagining myself ‘on a health journey' while never actually plucking up the courage to book an induction.

Five years. How many thousand pounds was that, exactly?

‘Grabbing some breakfast?' Jim checked his mirrors before indicating and pulling away.

‘No,' I said, then said, ‘Yes,' because why else would I be asking him to pick me up from outside a bakery?

He glanced at me quizzically. ‘Which?'

I decided on yes.

‘What did you have?'

I shot him a side glance, but he was intent on the road ahead, maintaining a safe distance from the car in front.

‘A croissant and a double latte,' I said, because that's what I used to have. In the Old Days when I happily splashed the best part of a tenner before I even got to work.

I don't know why I lied. I think my brain just wanted to be someone else.

‘You must have eaten it very quickly.'

I felt my cheeks redden. ‘What is this, Twenty Questions?'

‘Indigestion is no way to start the day.'

‘Where are we going this morning?' I asked, to change the subject.

‘We've got a regular clean at Pembroke Terrace, followed by a quick hour at Macklin Street. Then forty-five minutes for lunch. Then this afternoon we've got two hours at the Armstrongs'.'

‘Again? We were only there on Friday.'

‘They have a twice-a-week booking.' A sidelong look. ‘I did tell you that last week.'

I ignored the faint reprimand. ‘How much mess can they make in two days?'

Messy didn't cover it. I reckoned they were only a few scribbles on the wall short of turning that lovely house into a kindergarten. It pained me, knowing how much repainting they'd have to do if they ever came to sell.

‘All the details are on the sheet.'

He indicated towards the footwell, where there was a clipboard with several laminated cards attached. Cleo had paperclipped some notes to the top: Check medication for Ivor, 30 min walk: Goldie and Badger; avoid park or roads with buses/cats .

‘Goldie and Badger?'

‘Dogs. Ivor is a corgi. He has arthritis.'

‘We're vet nurses now?' I asked.

‘We do whatever needs doing,' said Jim, and pulled up outside 12 Pembroke Terrace.

According to the laminated sheet, 12 Pembroke Terrace belonged to Bill and Helena Corrigan and it required a whole raft of cleaning, from floor-mopping to dusting of light fittings to corgi medication. Everything was listed in room-by-room sections with a checkbox next to it. The laminated card was, I discovered, for me.

‘Tick each task off as you go.' Jim passed me a pen. ‘It's wipe clean. Make sure you do everything in each section before you move onto the next.'

I stared at him. For some reason I found the basic instruction of it weirdly insulting. First, I'd done this for two days already, and second, how hard was cleaning? ‘Seriously?'

He stared back. ‘Seriously.'

I didn't reply. I also refused to be the first to break the staring deadlock.

‘Are you saying you don't think I know that you're supposed to …' I glanced down at the endless list of microtasks. ‘… empty dishwasher in a kitchen?'

He held up a hand. ‘Don't take it personally. We give these sheets to all new starters, so you can get into a rhythm.'

I was still reading, outraged. ‘… or that I should dust from left to right?'

‘Yes! It's so nothing gets missed.'

‘But left to right ? I didn't realise there were rules ! What happens if I dust right to left? The world spins in the opposite direction for ten minutes?'

He sighed. ‘Look. I've been watching you clean and it's …' Jim seemed temporarily lost for words.

‘It's what?'

‘It's not normal.'

We were in the kitchen – where else? – of the Corrigans' house, being observed by their chunky corgi, Ivor, from the sofa. Ivor was basically a custard slice in dog form, and he took great delight in flipping up his water bowl. He'd done it twice already, just for the LOLs. And now he was giving us almost human levels of side eye.

‘What do you mean by that?' I demanded.

‘You've got absolutely no system. I was watching you mop the floor at the Armstrongs'. You were all …' He mimed someone jerking a mop around as if chasing a rat. ‘Like you were curling, not cleaning. Curling as in the Scottish ice sport, not …'

‘I know what curling is,' I interrupted. ‘I'm not stupid. You don't have to explain everything.'

‘It's just better if you learn to do it methodically.'

‘Does it matter how I do it, as long as the floor's clean?'

‘Yes, it matters!' Jim looked pained. ‘Otherwise the floor ends up swirly. There are lines to help you! Squares! Just follow the tiles! Don't just swish the mop around and hope for the best – use the lines and do it properly. Have a bit of pride in your work, for god's sake. Focus .'

I flinched. It hadn't occurred to me that someone would actually pick me up on being bad at this job. It was one thing telling my mum I was a terrible cleaner; it was another thing being told by someone else that I wasn't coming up to scratch.

‘I hadn't realised I was annoying you so much with my erratic mopping,' I said huffily.

‘You're not annoying, you're just making life so much harder for yourself. And for me,' he added.

‘For you?'

‘Well, I couldn't leave the Armstrongs' kitchen looking like someone had skidded round it, could I?'

I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Was that what you were doing when you said you were checking the locks? Re-mopping the floor?'

‘Yes.'

‘I spent half an hour on that! There was nothing wrong with it!'

‘You honestly think that?'

‘Yes! I do! It was fine!'

‘Fine isn't good enough!' He stopped and ran a hand through his hair, as if controlling his temper with some effort. ‘We're paid to leave the house spotless, not do the sort of haphazard bodge job clients can do themselves. It might be fine at home, but you're not at home. You need to lift your standards for work.'

There was a sharp edge to Jim's voice, and his criticism stung. Who did he think he was? We were both cleaners.

I placed the laminated card on the kitchen counter, ostentatiously ticked ‘unload dishwasher' – and started emptying the Corrigans' dishwasher.

Ivor regarded me from the sofa, his soft mouth curled in apparent amusement. I couldn't believe I was trying not to meet the eye of a dog, but it seemed I was.

We worked through the rest of the day with An Atmosphere. Jim was cordial, but I couldn't shake my irritation, my feelings of inadequacy not helped by the fact that I was wearing a red jumpsuit with a cartoon of my big sister on the breast pocket.

This mood, I knew from bitter experience, could go two ways; either I slumped into a sulky, self-sabotaging spiral, or martyrdom drove me to productive heights of effort. Fortunately for Jim the latter kicked in and we exercised Goldie and Badger, of 20 Macklin Street, so efficiently that they ran and hid in their baskets after their seething, sniff-free power-walk around the block. I spent the whole day planning how I'd tell Cleo and Jim that I was leaving at the end of the week, possibly by writing SOD OFF in bleach on Jim's front lawn, then I worked my way through the bathroom list at the Armstrongs' to the absolute letter. The tiles sparkled. I got toothpaste out of cracks I doubt they'd even noticed it had got into. I barely had time to register the fact that they had a bicycle pump and a bottle of gin in their undersink cabinet. (Why? Why?)

At the end of the day, Jim informed me I'd done a great job but I had to pretend I'd done nothing I wouldn't have done otherwise. He dropped me outside Molly's Bakehouse with a terse goodbye and I couldn't even go inside to drown my sorrows in doughnuts because I hadn't been paid.

If I lasted the whole week it would be a miracle – but on the plus side, I had never felt more motivated to find another job.