Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger

Author:Zoe Pilger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books

Twelve

I woke up to the sound of crying. It was midday.

They were in the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry, Ilka,’ Steph was saying. Steph wasn’t the one crying.

‘But she can’t clean like I can,’ cried Ilka. She was changing out of fluffy dinosaur slippers into a pair of high, cheap court shoes. ‘I am a professional.’ Her accent was Eastern European.

‘I said I’d pay you for today, didn’t I?’ Steph saw me. ‘Good morning.’ Her voice was flat. ‘The early bird arises.’ She turned back to Ilka. ‘I paid for your fairy princess wedding on Lake Balaton, didn’t I? That was very expensive. Those swans were very expensive. I let you record a few songs in the studio, didn’t I? I helped you achieve your dreams of becoming a singer.’

‘But I’m not a singer,’ said Ilka. ‘I’m a cleaner.’

‘You’re not my cleaner any more, unfortunately,’ said Steph. ‘Look, I’ve loved having you around.’

I reached for the cafetiere, but Steph gripped my arm so hard that I couldn’t move.

‘No,’ she said.

Ilka left.

‘No coffee for you,’ said Steph. ‘No stimulants. I want you to be clean for tonight.’

‘What’s happening tonight?’

‘There.’ She pointed at a plate of half-eaten pancakes and syrup that had been left on the table. It had congealed. ‘That.’

I stared at it.

Steph crossed her arms. Today she was wearing a loosefitting Indian smock. ‘I told Raegan deliberately not to clean up after herself this morning. She was up early.’

‘Who’s Raegan?’ I said.

‘Raegan is Marge’s daughter who you’ve met like a gazillion times! So don’t just stand there! Clean it up!’

‘Why should I do it?’

‘Because I’ve fired my gorgeous cleaning champion Ilka now, and she was good. She was real good. The first lesson of feminism is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ She laughed. ‘Did you think you could stay here for nothing?’

I didn’t move.

‘Don’t you like cleaning?’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I hate it.’

‘Excellent,’ said Stephanie, and went outside to smoke.

Raegan the satanic ballerina had been enlisted to make a mess of the toilet. Now I was on my hands and knees, cleaning that shit up. Steph had bought me a brand new bottle of power bleach. She hadn’t bought me a pair of rubber gloves, however. The bleach was burning my knuckles, burning me all the way up to the wrist. My hair trailed over the toilet bowl. I was still wearing my pyjamas. Steph was sitting on the edge of the bath, watching me.

Marge was spraying her curls in the mirror. ‘You know this reminds me so much of all the superb days I spent in the ashram in Rishikesh back in ’79,’ she was saying. ‘That was the summer after my first year at Harvard.’ She seemed a hell of a lot happier than usual.

There were undigested marshmallows in the shit.

‘Yeah,’ said Steph. ‘It’s a Buddhist thing.’

‘It’s a Hindu karma thing,’ said Marge. ‘We did five hours of selfless service every morning at dawn, before chanting and prayer. I was hesitant at first – me being the little WASPy sorority girl with only a sense.

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