THE CLEANER

Author: Mary Watson

Publisher: Bantam

Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger

Mary Watson is a very accomplished author. Born in Cape Town, living in Ireland, she was recipient of the Caine Prize for African Writing for her adult publishing in South Africa in 2006. Other awards followed and a series of YA novels have secured her place as an influential writer. With The Cleaner she makes her worldwide adult debut – and what a debut it is.

All the right ingredients: mystery, a touch of magic, mayhem, murder, secrets, infidelity and a young woman at the heart of it – the woman who is invisible in your home – the cleaner. Beware the things you want hidden, she will find them, exposing them subtly, with deadly purpose.

With all these components Watson keeps a tight rein on the unpacking of this story. There’s a softness, an empathy that is juxtaposed with shock and horror; with characters who are complex on the one hand, shallow on the other, ugly on the inside but oh so pretty on the outside, enticing yet repelling; and it is cleaner Esmie who climbs into these three families’ lives – deliberately – uncovering the darkness that embraces them.

Because the innocuous Esmie is anything but. Arriving from South Africa in Ireland she is on a mission of revenge. A payback for the disgraced Nico, her beloved brother, sent back to Cape Town, thrown out of his Irish university place and clearly with a drug problem. His engagement to Simone, Esmie’s best friend, shattered. We are kept guessing as to what put him in a coma; the ugly messages Esmie receives; expectations keep us turning the pages, building the tightness of the story, the righteous anger of the young woman as Watson uses a drip, drip method adding to the tension, the tautness of the writing.

As Esmie, she writes in the first person, creating an intimacy – we think we know her but do we? She reels us in as we understand Nico’s flaws, the seductions of wealth, privilege and the ties that bind. In the third person we are introduced to the lush, gated community of ‘Woodlands’ whose residents hold the secret to his downfall – a woman who had lied. And Esmie has to uncover who, to get her revenge. The beautiful, narcissistic, cheating, spoilt Amber; the restrained, desperate neighbour, Isabelle; the bereft Ceanna, with whom Nico was lodging, mourning her lost family – it’s a mesmerizing cast. Along with Amber’s university Professor husband Linc, obsessed by the lingering ghost of long dead poet Eden Hale – his raison d’ être; Isabelle’s controlling, abusive, doctor husband Paul; they will embed themselves in your head as you strive to think ahead. Don’t. Because as split a family might be they do stick together, don’t they?

Esmie knows that her plan can only work if they trust her. What can she uncover as she delves deeper into their homes, their lives. And who is Esmie, really?

There is a Gothic feeling, an almost Grimms’ fairy tale unwinding as we drift into the cool woods that surround the homes, lean against a gnarled centuries old tree, enter an old cottage filled with memories, ones that are so damaging they will lead to an unexpected climax. And that old adage that Esmie’s mom, the wise Mama Bear, drummed into her children, ‘actions have consequences’. Do they ever.

Watson will tangle you in her web until it seems you cannot escape. Twists, surprises, false leads – it’s an unpredictable, well-constructed story that will make you question, lull you into belief, then shock you into reality. I don’t think I will ever look at a cleaner in the same way!

A real winner.