HAPPY ENDINGS

We have a cleaner who comes once every fortnight at 7 AM.....yes that is 7 AM. Steven his name is and my brother usually deals with him. I've continually laid down my objections to help coming at such an ungodly hour but my brother insists on allowing him to attend at such a time ......"as it is the only time he can come and he is very very good. Just deal with it." He is very good and indeed we were on a waiting list for some 12 mths waiting to get him.....someone eventually died and we got the Tuesday 7AM slot. I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON....as most of my friends know. When dawn simmers and mobile phones alarm, I generally wallow in devastation under the dooner for hours refusing to accept the reality of the onslaught of another day. As a result, I generally never see Stephen. My brother gets to deal with him and I lock myself in my room and snooze until he leaves.......which generally makes me quite late for work as he sometimes doesn't leave til nine. VERY ANNOYING.

Anyway my brother has been away the last few days and therefore, I had the task of dealing with Stephen yesterday morning. I didn't get home from work the night before til about 11pm and by the time I got to bed it was about 1am. My alarm sounded at 6.30am. Instead of my normal wallow tactics, I was straight up, put my porridge in the microwave and had a shave and shower. I wanted to have most morning activities down by the time he arrived. I switched on the telly to Today and found Richard Wilkinson coming live from London where he had just been to the world premierre of Sex and The City.....he had interviewed Carrie and the girls and that was going to be on the show at 7.20am. Greash I thought......I will have my porridge whilst watching that. I returned to bathroom activities and the intercom buzzer rang as I was alighting from the shower.

I grabbed my porridge and let Stephen in. Even though I'd showered, shaved, moisturised and performed morning ablutions, I was still very much shell-shocked and disillusioned at being awake. That's the way I am for the first hour out of bed every morning. I liken it to the immediate aftermath of a car accident where you sit there and can't believe it has happened: absolute shock.

So I sat there on my couch refusing to believe I was there, wishing I were still embedded in posturepedic slumber. I smothered my porridge in syrup and focussed on Lisa Wilkinson on the tellie wearing yet another ridiculous blouse. The story on the Sex and the City Movie was minutes away. Richard Wilkins had just been to the world premiere in London and he was coming live from Leicester Square. That was something to look forward to in this shadow of absolute lethargy.

If only I could stop the noise. The noise was Stephen. He talks like a Victor Lawnmower….static in all directions. In the space of about ten minutes he covered the following topics. I interspersed these topics with "Oh really's" "Yeah's" "Awful's" "Oh you poor thing's".

1. He'd been sick with the flu (yes he had been: he cancelled us two weeks ago due to flu). He described the flu symptoms and how he was in bed for three weeks so much so that his water bed burst and he had to buy a new bed. It sounded disastrous but really all I wanted to do was go back to bed and smother myself in porridge and shut the world out.

2. How he lost one client because he rang in sick…. on the Sunday just gone ….his only sick day with her in five years and she sacked him for being inconsistent. V. Rough. Indeed. But not with my porridge and my devastation.

3. He's been painting the side of his house and he fell off the ladder scraping his left calf muscle which has now become infected. He showed me the bandage and apparent limp. Dreadful. Poor thing. But really….most definitely not with my porridge and please mind my devastation.

4. Not drawing breath he then moved onto his bad back which he has always had but was made worse by the water bed bursting in the middle of the night and him waking up at 4 in the morning on the cold wet base of the bed. Add to that the falling off ladders, cleaning numerous houses and subsequently buying the wrong mattress had only exacerbated the back problems.

It was terribly terrible (I backed it up with a number of " how awful Stephen"s) but I could not deal with it. The Sex and The City story was about to start and I had to see it as well as preferrably, hear it. I turned the volume up and started shovelling porridge. Stephen heard the SATC soundtrack and immediately walked into the living room. Maybe he would be quiet for the SATC story I thought. Maybe he was as big a SATC tragic as I was. Richard Wilkins with extraordinary tooth brush hair did his piece to camera and Stephen was quiet. Fingers crossed he was going to remain so. There were shots of SJC (wearing what appeared to be a potplant on her head), Cynthia Nixon (missing her bra), Kristin Davis (with her mouth always opened) and Kim Cattrall (looking suspiciously smooth skinned).

It was at the sight of Kim Catrall, that the silence was again shattered and Stephen started his Victor Lawnmower of a throat announcing:

" She is my favourite. The best episode is when she is going to that women's health club and demands a happy ending off that masseuse."

Me: "mmmmm," I uttered urging him unsuccessfully to be quiet. Richard was talking to SJC. I wanted to know what on earth that was on her head.

Stephen: "I get them all the time" Me: "yeah." I wasn't really listening. SJC was saying it was Vivienne Westwood…the plant or the dress? Stephen: "I go to two every week….one on the Friday and one on the Tuesday just after I've finished here."

Me: "Really." Please shut up. I continued to munch on porridge trying to lip read.

Stephen: " It is the best stress relief. Mark is his name. Phillipino....I thoroughly recommend him...I can give you his card."

I gave up. I was never going to win: " Sorry Stephen what are you talking about?" I asked politely as I could, yet not remotely interested in the answer.

Stephen: "Happy Endings"

Me: "Happy what?"

Stephen: "Endings.....". He looked at me as if I was missing half my brain. Well I was ...it was asleep.

It then woke up. "Oh.....what...after a massage?". I put my porridge down and quickly grabbed my glass of orange juice. Was it wrong to add vodka at 7.30 am? I watched Lisa's Crystal Carrington style blouse shimmy on the television screen and pondered the situation presented to me.Here was my cleaner esconced in rubber glub and cleaning product offering me the service of his own personal "masseuse with benefits". Did I really look that bad at this time of the morning?

Stephen shoved "Mark"s card in my hand and patted me on the back, " He's great. He goes all the way."

I took the card. I smiled. I finished my orange juice. I looked at Lisa's blouse again.I had run out of words and I prayed Stephen had as well.

He had not.

There were more bad backs, bad clients, bad pets, bad bathrooms and bad kitchens but most definitely NO happy endings.

C