Confessions of a Window Cleaner Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’m bloody near bursting into tears.
    When I come down the next morning Sid is sitting there with his hands wrapped round a cup of tea and he’s giving me an old fashioned expression that tells me Rosie has been getting at him.
    “Morning” I say agreeably. Sid doesn’t answer.
    “You going down the Labour today?” says Mum.
    “I went yesterday” I say. “I don’t want to look as if I’m begging.”
    “Well, don’t leave it too long, dear, you know what your father is like.”
    I help myself to a cup of tea and ask Sid for the sugar. He slides it across very slowly without taking his hand off the bowl. I think Paul Newman did it in ‘Hud’ but I can’t be certain.
    “I had a talk with your sister last night,” he says.
    “Oh, really.”
    “Yes, I thought you’d be surprised.”
    “Well, I didn’t know you talked to each other as well.”
    “Don’t be cheeky” says Mum.
    “Don’t suppose you’ve any idea what we were talking about?” says Sid.
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “Well it was about what we were talking about yesterday.”
    “Really? Oh, interesting.”
    “Yeah. And to stop us poodling on like this any longer I might as well tell you that I’ve agreed to give it a go.”
    “Great!” I say. “Ta very much. You won’t regret it.”
    “Um, we’ll see.”
    “What you on about?” says Mum.
    “Sid and I are going into business” I say. “I’m going to be a window cleaner, Mum.”
    “That’s nice, dear. Do you think he’ll be alright, Sid?”
    “No” says Sid bitterly, “but you don’t expect much from a brother-in-law do you?”
    “Now Sid,” says Mum, all reproachful, “that’s not very nice. That’s not the right spirit to work together in.”
    “It’s alright, Mum,” I say, “he’s only joking, aren’t you, Sid?” Sid can’t bring himself to say ‘yes’ but he nods slowly.
    “Today, you can do your Mum’s windows” he says, “It’ll be good practice for you. Tomorrow we’ll be out on the road.” He makes it sound like we’re driving ten thousand head of prime beef down to Texas.
    “That’s a good idea” says Mum, “I was wondering when someone was going to get round to my windows.”
    Sid gives me a quick demo and it looks dead simple. There’s a squeegee, or a bit of rubber on a handle, that you sweep backwards and forwards over a wet window and that seems to do the trick in no time. With that you use the classical chamois and finish off with a piece of rough cotton cloth that won’t fluff up called a scrim. It seems like money for old rope and I can’t wait to get down to it. Sid pushes off to keep his customers satisfied and I attack Mum’s windows. Attack is the right word. In no time at all I’ve put my arm through one of them and I’m soaked from head to foot. The squeegee is a sight more difficult to use than it looks. Whatever I do I end up with dirty lines going either up or down the window and it gets very de-chuffing rearranging them like some bloody kid’s toy. When I get inside it’s even worse because the whole of the outside of the windows look as if I’ve been trying to grow hair on them. That’s what comes of wearing the woolly cardigan Rosie knitted for me last Christmas. I get out and give the windows a shave and then I find that there are bits that are still dirty which you can only see from the inside. I’m popping in and out like a bleeding cuckoo in a clock that’s stuck at midnight. Inside at last and I drop my dirty chamois in the goldfish tank and stand on Mum’s favourite ashtray which she brought back the year they went to the Costa Brava. By the time I’ve cleaned up and replaced the broken window-pane – twice – it’s dinner time and I’m dead knackered.
    Sid drops in to see how I’m getting on and you can tell that he’s not very impressed.
    “At this rate,” he says, “you might do three a day – with overtime.”
    “Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s a knack. It’ll