The adventures of mop bucket Mary

As I stood with my double chin held high, looking out through the kitchen window, I watched my husband of forty years walk away forever. The truth is, most of my marriage to Martin Postlethwaite felt like trying to house train a child. So, I suppose it was only natural that...

...in that moment, it felt less like watching a husband leave and more like waving a teenager off to university.

Whilst I had thought about being by myself a lot during my marriage, I never actually thought I would be divorced and starting again at the age of 56. But, here I am living that fantasy and I can honestly say that the reality does not match the escapism that has got me through what has to be the most unhappiest time of my life.

I feel like I have been on my arse for longer than I can remember. Only now I’m not being dragged along by an old horse and cart — I’m just on my arse.

My arse, I decided, was as good a place to start my new life, so I decided I was going to become a cleaner. Cleaning was, after all, something I’d been doing on a daily basis for the last forty years, a role I felt overqualified for. But I was too soon to realise it was a role I wasn’t mentally prepared for. Because the more I scrubbed away at other people’s mess, the more of myself I revealed.

I was forced to confront just how sheltered and outdated my life had become the moment I started looking for a job. I honestly thought the normal thing to do in the absence of any jobs in the paper was to walk into businesses and ask if they had any work going. Turns out, that’s practically Victorian behaviour now. Nothing has aged me faster than hearing, “Applications are done online these days.” No wonder the receptionist looked at me like I had poo in my fringe when I asked for a paper application form.

Work history?... Hmm, other than lying about having orgasms I have never lied in my life, well, other than to myself. So, I chose to be honest and I told them I'd had one job for the last 40 years and that was cleaning for an OCD man child. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

I've not worked the whole time I have been married and I've never had my own money. And the by-product of that coercion meant I never had independence or identity either. I felt a bit lost, a lot scared and I think I preferred it when I was married at least my future was certain. Had I not got pregnant at the age of sixteen then maybe my life would have taken a different path. The only solace I can take from that is that our child died. At least then one of us was saved.

The saying goes that "you can't miss something that you never had" I have never had any qualifications and I feel like I am defying all the laws of educational gravity because I miss them.

I wasn't even a week into Martin leaving when family and the friends I had accumulated in the time I was married had started to take pity on me. And that is when my brother and his wife asked me to clean for them. It didn't matter to me at that time whether or not they were trying to help me, pity me or demoralise me, money was money and I was going to need a lot of it if I was going to survive on my own. So, I blind heartedly agreed to something I was to later regret.

If going through a divorce will certainly sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to figuring out who your friends are then cleaning for family will certainly kill off any relationships that might be left.

My brother has always been the golden child of our family. Successful career, perfect reputation, the whole package. His wife on the other hand is like a nasty version of Miss Piggy with a chocolate addiction, she is a matron at our local hospital which has always been a worry to me because she has the bedside manner of a traffic warden. But still my mother thinks the sun shines out of her back side. When they asked me to come and clean for them I was so desperate for the money I didn't think things through. So, I said "yes" when I should have said "fuck off".

The day came when I was to clean for my brother and miss piggy and I woke up feeling positive. Every day of my married life was spent not thinking about myself at all. It was as if I’d been wearing a fake but smiley mask since the day I was born. Only now — with days lived on my own terms and nights spent reading about narcissists — do I realise I don’t need that mask anymore. And underneath it, I’m exhausted but excited about the future. I felt like that day was the first day of the rest of my life. I was finally getting to do something by myself I and was actually making my own path and nobody was going to reprimand me should I decide to leave my wet bath towel on the floor.

Miss Piggy was at home when I arrived at my brother's house, and she made sure I knew she'd "taken the day off" just to show me what to-do. The guilt trip started before I'd taken my coat off and within minutes, I understood exactly why she and my mother were such a double act. You'd think being told what to do wouldn't bother me-I'd had fifty six years of training shared between my mother and husband. But something inside me had shifted. Every instruction she barked felt like sandpaper on a fresh wound. I wasn't expecting sympathy, but I also wasn't expecting to feel like I'd stepped back into the role of obedient child or wife. And the small fire in my belly was already warning me...

...this wasn’t the kind of “healing journey” I had in mind for myself.

I was busy working my way through what looked like sedimentary layers of dust on the skirting boards in the hallway when there was a knock at the door. I went to answer it when Miss Piggy barged past me and hissed "staff are not to answer the door" Whilst I stood there drinking that comment in like a sour and scolding hot chocolate my sister in law opened the door to another muppet show character, of which I am still to find a name for, and said "Come in, don't mind the domestic" the laughter that cackled between them felt like lighter fluid on my already simmering stomach.

I stood there awkwardly trying to figure out if I should punch Miss Piggy in the face or go home and cry. I held in my overwhelming need to burst into tears and I decided on the latter on account that the former may incur unwanted legal consequences. I decided to create an unintentional slosh in my bucket of water with the cloth I decided to slam in it, got my coat and walked out without warning. Me and brother have not spoken a word since.

I received a phone call from my mother within two hours of walking out of my brother's house which I thought was a long time, even for her. If I wasn't feeling low enough, that decision to clean for my brother meant my mother now knew about my divorce. Whilst I am not completely estranged from my mother our relationship is strained to say the very least. You would think another woman who has also been on her arse because her husband left her too would understand. But my mother's memory is selective and it certainly is the governing factor when it comes to her controlling the narrative.

"Well, we all have days like that Mary, you will just have to put on your big girl pants and get on with it like the rest of us"

"I am trying mum"

"Sitting around moping about it won't bring him back, he has found someone better so you just need to accept that"

"I don't actually want him back mum, why would I want to do that to myself, he was cheating on me for the last 10 years of our marriage"

"Maybe you need to smarten yourself up a bit, then maybe he wouldn't have looked elsewhere"

"We have not seen each other for 2 years mum how would you know what I look like"

"I was speaking to your brother, he says you've let yourself go"

"I was speaking to myself and we both agree that there was no self to let go in the first place"

"See, there you go again with your smart arse attitude, and you wonder why nobody likes you. I was speaking to Shirley earlier and she said she is coming to see you."

Ugh Shirley...! Before I tell you what happened when Shirley arrived, I will give you a bit of "Shirley" context.

My mum was Shirley's cleaner for many years before her retirement last year. Shirley is a regional manager for a very well-known makeup company that only used to come to your doorstep back in the days before the internet.

I used to call Shirley "Dollybird doorstep rep" on account that she looked like an aging prostitute with unlimited access to makeup.

Shirley is far from having to call on people on their doorstep anymore as she has worked her way up to the top of what is commonly referred to today as a pyramid scheme. Her house and car reflect this pyramid success, yet she professed to be poor enough to get away with paying my mother to clean for her a pittance per hour for over twenty years. My mother is still friends with this woman even though she is retired from cleaning for her and she treats this woman like the daughter I never was and her kids even grew up calling my mum auntie.

I only ever met Dollybird doorstep rep a couple of times in passing and she never really had the time for me. We did however get to have one… well it wasn’t really a conversation as that would imply the interaction was two way, and this was when she was invited to one of my mum’s "parties." Dollybird doorstep rep just looked at me and said in front of ten other people “you can put makeup on that."

So, I figured upon Shirley hearing my news that I had apparently let myself go that she had been waiting for this moment for a long time. I could just imagine her sitting there waiting to pounce on my face and smother it with make up like Jackson Pollock to a blank canvas.

Despite my protests about Shirley coming to my house she came anyway.

And before I tell you what happened, let us skip forward a month and you would be justified in wondering why I am sat on a bus suffering from concussion-in tears and on my way to the hospital. All whilst sat next to an old man having a conversation that was to change the course of my life.