Clean Freak

It happened about 30 years ago now.

Dan and I had been together for a while and were living in rural Victoria - about 2 hours drive from Melbourne. We were both restless.

One day, we packed up the old Kingswood station wagon, filled it with the contents of a yurt that had been our home for a year, and headed North to Queensland. It took us 24 hours, with Dan pushing the old car to its limits. I didn't drive then, but I made sure I kept him fueled with cheap coffee and the best takeaway food I could find to sustain him. Eventually, bone-shaken and weary, we crossed the border from New South Wales into Queensland and drove down the Cunningham's Gap to the strains of The Eagles playing Hotel California in the cassette recorder.

It's always a shock entering Queensland in the dry season. It was then. The land was achingly barren. Fields with stretches of dirt showing through the bleached tussocks. Cattle so thin you could count their ribs (if you could bear to). We wondered for a moment whether we'd made the right decision. But Dan isn't one to entertain doubts for long.

"Fuck it, Deb - we'll make it work for us!"

And we did. Within another 24 hours Dan had a job as a farmhand on a sprawling rural property. The nearest town was some 50 kilometers away. Stan, the manager, gave us the briefest interview either of us could recall. The previous workers had been useless 'no hopers' Stan claimed, and warned us that the little cottage that came with the position needed ' a bloody good clean'.

He looked me up and down. "It needs a woman's touch!" he added with a sly grin.

Dan grinned too.

"No worries Stan, that'll suit Deb down to the ground. She's a clean freak!"

I laughed. "Guilty as charged!"

It's true. I love cleaning. To me, it's almost an art. Thorough cleaning can transform the most neglected of places. But boy, was this place neglected! In fact, it was one of the biggest challenges this clean freak had ever faced.

The day after we'd taken up the job, Dan occupied himself with clearing up the grounds and garden in the immediate vicinity of the old weatherboard house, while I concentrated on the inside.

Oh my god! Who'd lived here before, I wondered. I tried to remember what Stan had said. Something about a couple of 'no hopers...' ? A father and son? Anyway, whoever they'd been, they'd had some very bad domestic habits. The walls needed to be scrubbed with sugar soap. The floors took several goes to lift the layers of grime from the surface. The bedrooms had to be aired, a mattress tossed out. And as for the kitchen...

I'd like to say I was in my element - up to the task of a rigorous clean - but at the end of the first week, I was buggered. Barely up to putting together a proper meal for us both. Dan was exhausted too. Stan was a bit of a taskmaster and the work was mucky.

"I'll be able to start putting in a garden soon," Dan said one night as we settled down to a meal of baked beans and cheese on toast. "Get some greens happening.."

"Oh, that'd be so nice darling." He's got a green thumb, my man. I was looking forward to a few months down the track when I could harvest some lettuce, silver beet, spinach, kale..."I'll be making pesto in no time!"

Dan pushed his plate aside and leaned back in his chair. He surveyed the dining room - which I have to say was looking much the better for my efforts. "Have you cleaned out that cupboard yet?" He pointed at the narrow broom cupboard just outside the kitchen doorway. "Might be a good place to keep my golf clubs - if I ever get the time off to play, that is."

"No, I haven't around to that yet. Actually, I'm going to need a hand to open it. I did try earlier but it seems to be jammed. Why don't we give it a go now?"

"God Deb, no, just relax...Try putting things off for tomorrow for a change."

"Well, I'm going to give it another crack." I got up from the table and saw a screwdriver lying on the kitchen bench. "This might work!" Dan watched with amusement as I tackled the narrow gap between the door and the frame, sliding the screwdriver up and down to create a bit of give. "Don't wreck it honey!"

With a burst of energy, I wrenched the door open. It was dusty and cobwebby...ugh! I peered into the murky depths of the broom cupboard, making out the shape of a bulky plastic-wrapped mound. "Dan, there's something down there. It looks heavy.."

Dan ambled over. "Oh? What is it - a body? Or worse still, body parts? Let me see..." He gently moved me out of the way, crouched down and reached into the cupboard. "Christ, it's heavy!"

He dragged the plastic covered package out of the cupboard and into the dim light of the room. It was caked with dust and grime. It was also very well sealed.

"I'll get the breadknife!"

We sawed open the package with the breadknife and surveyed the contents inside. We were both silent for a moment. Then..

"Jesus Christ!!"

"Oh my god!"

We found ourselves staring at several bags of what looked like cannabis and then beneath that, rolls and rolls of banknotes.

"Oh my god Dan! What are we going to do?"

"We'll have to think about that..." but Dan was already starting to unpack the contents with increasing speed and enthusiasm - almost feverishly strewing the bags and rolls of notes around him like a dog digging up dirt.

"Stop!" I said. "We've got to get this organized!" And so we did.

I divided everything into piles. Dope piles and dollar piles. Then I found the kitchen scales and the Tupperware containers we'd brought up from Victoria. We weighed the cannabis and neatly stacked the notes into the containers.

Of course, later we helped ourselves to a little of the 3 kilograms of cannabis. And predictably, after that, it took us a while to estimate how much money we had stumbled upon. We had a few recounts, but eventually, we established that whoever had occupied this grubby house before us, had gifted us with the princely sum of twenty thousand dollars!

And a moral dilemma.

Well, a moral dilemma for me.

But not for Dan. "Deb! This is our lucky break!"

I said he was decisive that man of mine. On his first day off, we drove into town and replaced the Kingswood with a Holden ute. A couple of months later, we gladly gave Stan the flick, and moved out into our own little flat - one that required absolutely minimal cleaning. Though of course, I gave it my customary, loving once-over.

That was over thirty years ago, as I said. We've done very well for ourselves since then. From gardeners, to landscapers, to property developers. And we help other people get a break now, too. A hand up. As Dan likes to say "Everyone deserves a little luck sometimes..."

I agree with him, as I tend to agree with him on most things.

One thing I've never told my husband though, is what I found at the very bottom of that broom cupboard the next day, when I did my 'thorough clean'. Even further down into its murky depths, I found a little black book. A little black note book that was itemized with dates and dollar amounts and some very revealing snippets of information.

It appeared that those drug-addled 'no hopers' - the authors of this diary - had as little love for Stan as he had for them. And they had in fact, documented some very detailed descriptions of his habits and behaviors. Habits and behaviors that were unsavory to say the least. Even criminal.

But, as you know, I have no love of dirt. I just don't see the point of digging it up, smearing it around, making things grimier, messier. I didn't see the point then, and I don't see it now.

As Dan says, I'm a clean freak. I've wiped the slate. It took a while, mind you. It took a while not wonder about the fate of those 'no hopers'. Sometimes over the years, unbidden images of them and a leering Stan, would rear up at me like ugly blots on an otherwise spotless horizon.

But, as a clean freak, I know some things. I know that dirt is impermanent. I know that any blot can be erased by elbow grease, persistence, and the passage of time.

So, yes I've wiped that particular slate.

I've wiped it squeaky clean.