We have a maid. In fact, at one point we had two – which, for a couple in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment, is sheer overkill.

The thing is, I’m still not entirely sure how we ended up with one.

It began with a buzz at the door one morning a few weeks after we moved in. Standing there was a young woman whose English was on par with my Hindi – in other words it consisted of smiles and miming.

Given the sweeping motion she was making I got the gist of things. However, the shortcomings of my Hindi phrase book were now becoming desperately apparent. While it could help me order dinner, change rooms in a hotel and ask for directions to the hospital/railway station/embassy, it was somewhat lacking in the basics of dealing with a would-be maid standing in my doorway.

At this point I did what I normally do in these situations – I called for my wife.

Eventually she established that the young girl had been sent by the watchman downstairs and negotiated a price. Having successfully dealt with that situation I headed out.

A couple of hours later my wife called to let me know that another maid would be turning up in the afternoon. Apparently this one spoke English so we were going to try them both out. It was only then that I started asking myself the question that had been nagging me since the first buzz of the doorbell that morning: “Why the feck are we hiring a maid?”

It’s not that I’m morally opposed to the idea of a maid – it’s just that we really don’t need one. While our apartment certainly has cat-swinging potential, it isn’t palatial and sweeping the floor from the bedroom to the kitchen is a job that takes about five minutes.

In fact, there’s so little to do that I spend most of my time while the maid is here finding her jobs. Rather than writing, I’m up and about scouting the house for stuff that needs cleaning, which somewhat defeats the purpose of a maid, especially when I spend the hour or so before she arrives tidying up the joint.

It’s the same story in hotel rooms where I spend most of my time trying to keep the place clean. I’m the antithesis of the rock-star cliché. Rather than throwing the TV out the window and painting a goat in the bath, I dust the stereo and tidy up the magazines on the coffee table. Before going out I put the rubbish in the bin and stack the dirty coffee cups and wine glasses on the desk.

It’s probably a sub-conscious attempt to hide the fact that in my day-to-day life I’m such a slob. I want to prove to at least one person that I’m tidy. Even if I have to pay them.

Be Sociable, Share!

•