Gold Digger

Lottie

Posh people were weird. They lived in huge houses with too many bedrooms and way too many toilets. I mean, the toilets in this house outnumbered the people five to one. It was ridiculous. But I wasn’t complaining. Let them be weird if it meant I earned a decent wage. Because posh people might have liked a vast array of bogs to choose from, but they sure as fudge nuggets didn’t like cleaning them. That’s where I came in. Only on that particular day I had a small problem with my posh-bog-cleaning gig, in the form of a skinny, eight-year-old girl who had a tummy ache and didn’t want to go to school. Just before we turned the corner into the square of posh people’s houses, I squeezed her hand gently and then squatted down in front of her. My heart clenched when I saw a tear track down her cheek. She was all bundled up in her puffa coat but with her pyjamas underneath and clutching Keith, her very-much-in-need-of-a-wash soft toy pony.

“Right, lovebug,” I said, carefully wiping the tear away and then settling my hands on her small shoulders. “Remember the plan? It’s going to be like when we play hide and seek. Only you’ll be hiding for a really long time. Still got some of that book left to read?”

Hayley nodded at me, her big, brown eyes huge and serious in her small, freckled face. I sighed, and my heart clenched again. Hayley had been through enough. If she had a tummy ache then she deserved to have a day at home with me, snuggled up on the sofa drinking Lucozade in the warm, not trudging through freezing London and having to hide in a scary, huge, posh-person house whilst I cleaned toilets. But I knew that Hayley’s stomach ache had more to do with how much she hated school than anything, and I was not about to risk this job. These particular aristocrats paid well above the odds, and I simply could not afford to be labelled as unreliable. Even if I could afford to drop today’s hours, which I could not, the risk of losing the job altogether was too great. We were edging towards desperate, and there was no safety net, not for Hayley and me; there never had been.

“I’ve put loads of snacks in your bag. All your favourites plus a bottle of Lucozade, but if you feel like you’re going to throw up, it might be better to wait to eat at home.” Please, please, God, don’t let her throw up in that house. I’d been there when the interior decorator came last week. The woman had recommended a four-thousand-pound chaise longue. If a weird, extra-long chair for one person cost four grand, then an eight-year-old vomit disaster could take me years to pay off. “How’s your tummy feeling?”

Hayley scrunched her freckled nose as her hand came up to make a so-so gesture. I sighed again.

“Use your words, lovebug,” I gently reminded her. Her eyes dropped from mine as she looked to the pavement, toeing a piece of gravel with her fluffy boot. I hated having to nag her, but I worried that if I didn’t make her speak, at least to me, her vocal cords would atrophy from disuse.

“It’s okay,” she said eventually, her voice so small that it was almost drowned out by the city noises around us, despite the fact that we were on a quieter London street (posh people live on quiet, leafy streets in London – the bus noises, exhaust fumes, screeching tyres and shouting were for us lesser mortals). “I won’t throw up. I promise.” I felt my nose start to sting and pulled her into me for a tight hug, smushing Keith the Pony between us. Blinking rapidly, I forced the tears back. I tried to never cry in front of Hayley if I could help it. She needed to believe I was strong, reliable. She’d been let down enough already by adults who couldn’t cope. I would not have her believe I would let her down too.

Once I was sure that my tear ducts were back under control, I pulled back to stand up. Taking Hayley’s hand in mine again, I squared my shoulders and turned into Buckingham Square. Nestled in the heart of Kensington, Buckingham Square was beautiful. The large, ornate buildings surrounded a small central private garden in the centre. You had to be a resident of the square to use that gated piece of land. It was nothing like the common around the corner from our block of flats – rather more in the way of well-maintained roses and mature trees, and fewer used needles, burnt-out patches of grass, beer cans and homeless people. I’d yet to pluck up the courage to ask for the key so that I could maybe eat my lunch in there, restricting myself to only longing glimpses over the fence. It was like a little oasis of nature right smack in the middle of London. Even looking in from the outside fed my soul. Hayley froze outside the imposing Buckingham House, and I glanced down to see her eyes wide and her mouth open.

“It’s huge,” she whispered, her unprompted words a testament to her shock. “I thought you said they weren’t the royal family?”

“No, lovebug,” I said, tugging her along towards the side staff entrance. The longer we were out here, the more chance there was of us getting caught. “Remember, that’s Buckingham Palace ? Buckingham House is different.”

What I didn’t say was that the residents of Buckingham House weren’t that far down the line of succession. The duke was about thirty-fifth the last time I Googled him. I shivered at the thought of the duke. My obsession with him was way out of hand. But I challenge any red-blooded female to work for someone like that and not indulge in some light internet stalking. The man was almost inhumanely attractive – powerful, a multi-billionaire if Wikipedia is to be believed, practically fucking royal and, to top it all off, he had a dry sense of humour that rivalled even my own, which was of the desert variety. Not that he would ever share his humour with me. He barely even ever looked at me. I was staff and, therefore, practically invisible to god-like beings such as the Duke of Buckingham.

But there were a couple of times when I did feel seen. Last week I’d been emptying the bin in the corner of the kitchen as the duke and his creepy brother-in-law, Blake, came in. I was ignored, as usual, as they discussed the meetings they had on that afternoon, but then Blake said:

“I’m sorry, old boy,” his posh accent booming through the space, “but it simply won’t fit. You can try to squeeze it in, but it’ll be unbelievably painful for everyone involved.”

I tried, I really did, but it was too tempting. So, before I managed to rein myself in, I muttered, “That’s what she said,” under my breath.

The problem was, although I used to swear like a sailor, I’d managed to train myself out of it after Hayley came to live with me, but leaving a perfect That’s What She Said joke hanging was just too much for me to manage. I bit my lip, hoping neither of them had heard (staff were, after all, supposed to stay as invisible as possible – much like the house elves in Harry Potter ). I tried to make a quick exit, but when I turned around and flicked a glance in the duke’s direction, he was closer than I thought he’d been, and his blue gaze was pinning me to the spot. Blake clearly hadn’t heard, thank God, and was blabbering on about some other nonsense, totally unaware that his brother-in-law was staring at me or that I even existed. But the duke wouldn’t stop staring, and I couldn’t seem to move. Eventually, one of his dark eyebrows winged up, the corner of his sexy mouth quirked on one side, and I swear I almost passed out with a lust head-rush right there in the kitchen, holding a bag of rubbish which smelt like last night’s curry.

Then, just like that, the moment was over. He looked back to Blake, and I sucked in some much-needed oxygen, having held my breath throughout the entire unspoken exchange. As I scurried out of the kitchen, I felt my face heat with embarrassment. Why did I have to draw attention to myself? I mean, if I was going to draw the duke’s attention, I’d rather it hadn’t been whilst I was wearing leggings and my cleaning t-shirt, which proclaimed my love for Take That and had a tear in the collar, with my hair piled on top of my head like I was some ridiculous pineapple, and holding a smelly bag of rubbish. And anyway, getting your employer’s attention when you were in a service role was never good. The last cleaning job I had proved this when the husband, who I’d thought a pretty nice guy up until then, started invading my personal space. For a while, I thought I was being paranoid or overly sensitive, right up until the day he grabbed my arse.

That’s where friendly banter with employers had got me, and was one of the reasons I now kept my head down, even if the thought of the duke grabbing my arse – or any other part of me – made me lightheaded. The man was a walking wet dream. I should know as my dreams were full of him. That was another result of my late-night internet stalking, falling asleep to dreams of him calling me into that dark-wood, oldy-worldy, big man office of his, grabbing the scarf I wore in my hair off my head, sealing his mouth over mine and bending me over his thousand-year-old priceless antique desk. Ah, the consequences of an over-active imagination and the frustration of a non-existent sex life. There was no room for smoldering blue-eyed, tall men with muscular frames, wearing immaculate suits and designer beards in my life. I needed to concentrate on survival.

Anyway, The Stepladder Incident a few weeks ago had taught me that the duke, rather than finding me irresistible like my last employer, in fact had a full-blown allergy to touching me. Which, whilst mind-blowingly embarrassing, was fine. At least, that’s what I told myself.

The only interaction I allowed myself with him now was through our daily game of chess. Not that we sat down together to play. It’s just the chess set was always out in the snug, and whenever I cleaned the room it was in, I made my move. There was always a countermove the next day. So far, I was winning three games to two.

Hayley and I scurried in through the kitchen. Luckily, the catering staff weren’t here this early. Either posh people made their own breakfast, or they were happy to subsist on strong coffee from their fancy coffee maker until noon – I suspected the latter. I hurried down the massive corridor to the double doors of the drawing room. No sitting room from these peeps – no, it was all drawing rooms and snugs . There were multiples of both; depressingly, the smallest snug had more square footage than our entire flat. Slipping inside, I towed Hayley along to the spiral staircase in the corner of the large, high-ceilinged room. There were various armchairs and uncomfortable-looking brocade sofas facing each other in the centre of the huge space, a large fireplace on one side and tall windows with views over the gardens on the other.Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.

“Up here,” I whispered to Hayley, motioning for her to climb up first – it was steep, and I was known for my clumsiness. If she fell, I’d rather she landed on me; and if I fell, I’d rather not take her down with me. The mezzanine had rows of bookshelves, and a billiards table sitting in the middle. Since the bookshelves were largely filled with encyclopedias, which, thanks to the internet had been surplus to requirement for years, and I didn’t think anyone had played bar billiards since the 1800s, Hayley was likely to remain undiscovered up here. She tucked herself into a corner with the cushions I’d swiped on the way up, and snuggled into Keith whilst I helped her out of her coat and laid it over her like a blanket.

“We made it,” I whispered, trying to sound excited rather than the acute relief I was actually feeling. “That was fun, right? Secret mission complete.”

I wanted Hayley to think this was all a bit of a game and not to worry too much. The problem was she was an observant little thing – just like me. We could both read people and atmospheres with almost supernatural accuracy. The social worker called it hypervigilance. Apparently it was common in people with our background. Hayley would have picked up on the tense line of my shoulders, the worry in my eyes. My bright, fake smile wouldn’t be fooling her.

My hand pressed to the centre of my chest before I pressed it to the centre of Hayley’s. It was our non-verbal I love you . Hayley was smiling a small smile by the time I was done, which was the most I could ask for. Big bright smiles, giggles and such were not part of Hayley’s make-up anymore, but I was determined to change that. So I kissed her forehead and straightened up from kneeling to start back down the spiral staircase.

Unfortunately, I’d only managed to get halfway down when a rich, deep voice sounded from the corridor, getting closer. When the double doors opened and those blue eyes locked with mine, I did what I do best – I tripped, and fell arse over tit down the steps.