The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths by Harry Bingham Page B

commercial property.
    I like it, like everything about it. I like the early starts. I like the routine and the pressure. I become quite good at it, definitely one of the better cleaners. I’m still a bit forgetful, especially in the big open plan offices, but I enjoy doing the floors and I’m ace on bathrooms and toilets. I like the sparkle from a properly cleaned mirror and the gleam from a row of clean white ceramic loos. I also like the invisibility. The way no one notices you when you clean around them. People might slightly lower their voices when they speak to each other in my presence, but not much. I’ve become like one of those minor modern inconveniences: a swipe-card entry system or a telephone menu. Something that irritates briefly and is then ignored. My best friend is a Filipina, Juvy Barretto. She has six teeth and bad English, but we smile a lot. She helps me with the big offices, telling me what to do when I get confused. I help her with the bathrooms, where she doesn’t move as fast as I do.
    So I mop, I clean, I dust, I hoover. I’m seldom late. I never complain. I don’t pick stupid fights with anyone. I’m issued with a new tabard – smart, polyester, navy blue – and I take good care of it. Wash it. Iron it. Keep it nice.
    I make sandwiches at the hostel and eat them for lunch. Abs has got me a single room to myself – tiny, but I don’t mind that.
    And she’s got big plans for me, Abs has. She wants me to get my own place. I’m not on any kind of priority housing list because I’m single, no kids, no health issues and no recent connection with the area. On the other hand, I’m earning good money now. After deductions, I’m making £189 a week. I have to pay £28 to the hostel – quite a lot, but I’m in work – and then meals and transport costs another £55. I try to avoid expensive stuff, meat especially, and walk as much as I can, but there are limits.
    In any case, I’m making money and I start looking for properties to rent. Find a place on the A470 North Road, just by the intersection with Western Avenue. It’s a studio flat. All-in-one bedroom, living room, kitchenette. Shared bathroom down the hall. The bed is a single with a lumpy mattress. The living room part of the set-up consists of a giant brown velour armchair, a Formica table and two folding metal chairs. The kitchenette comprises a tiny sink, a two-ring hob and a microwave. There’s a big brown wardrobe of the sort that grandmothers used to keep in order to give small children nightmares. It smells of mothballs and something else, I’m not sure what. I’m on the second floor and my window looks out onto no fewer than nine lanes of traffic. The A470 itself, plus slip roads leading on and off the main ramp. There are always lights, always noise, always traffic.
    I like almost everything about it. I like the roads outside, their neon brightness. I like the way there isn’t too much of anything: one room, one bed, one armchair, one table, one sink. I like the smallness, especially. If I sit in my giant velour armchair, I can touch the bed with my right arm and, almost, the little kitchen range with my left. It’s harder for me to get lost, physically or metaphorically.
    Because the only address I can give is a homeless shelter, my potential landlord wants two and a half months’ deposit from me upfront. That’s a lot more than I can afford, but Abs helps me take out a loan from a social housing fund. The loan doesn’t just cover the deposit, but also things like bedding. When I get the money and sign my rental agreement, she’s genuinely thrilled for me. I’m thrilled for myself, actually. Proud. She tells me about a Freecycle place which helps people starting out or, like me, restarting. I get as much as I can for free. A nice man drives the stuff over to my place in his lunch break. I try to give him two pounds, but he tells me not to worry. He calls me ‘love’.
    Abs makes me promise to come in for weekly