The blocks caretaker has just changed, and the new one works like a dream, sweeping the entrance hall spotless and giving the stairwell a regular wash. Everything follows the schedule, and honestly theres nothing I can complain aboutexcept for one odd detail.
Before the switch, the job belonged to a woman named Evelyn Harper. She turned the entrance of our ninestorey block into something that resembled a grand foyer of a manor house. Right by the door of the oftenbattered stairwell she always laid out a rug, which looks rather comical and completely out of place. Yet someone constantly tears that rug, and she simply finds a new one and carefully covers the cracked concrete and the jutting rebar, saving residents shoes from broken heels and bruised ankles.
Each of the nine windows on every floor sports pot plants, quirky ceramic figures and unusual little turtles, and not a speck of dust ever settles on those sills.
One afternoon, a group of lads moves into a flat on the sixth floor. They celebrate life with cigarettes, pints and probably something stronger. The pot plants become ashtrays, the pile of bottles looks like a cheap, colourful jumble, and the shelladorned figurines end up smashed and ground to dust under their boots. The other residents skirt around the noisy bunch, fearing an unreasonable reaction. Somehow Evelyn manages to befriend the lads, not only preserving her pots but, by some miracle, persuading the boys to shift their raucous club to an unknown direction. The boisterous parties in the stairwell stop, and now a tidy ashtray sits among the pots, which Evelyn cleans and polishes every day.
What impresses me most isnt just her rare diligence today. She starts her shift at the crack of dawn, humming to herself while she tidies the stairwell, and she scrubs the lift doors and railings with an alcohol solutionlong before that became a mandatory health measure.
Even more striking is the friendly way she talks to the residents, whose occasional requests tend to expand her workload. When she spends her mornings clearing cigarette butts and dandelions from the garden behind the buildingwork Im not even sure belongs to a caretakerEvelyn chats politely with the smokers on their balconies, never scolding them for their uncouth habit of flicking ash onto the pavement. She simply comments on the everyday bustle while calmly sweeping away the evidence of their mischief. After a while, the discarded butts stop carpeting the back garden. Then our caretakerperhaps now properly called a caretakerladybreaks up the flowerbed, and tulips, marigolds and lush chrysanthemums begin to bloom beneath the windows.
The most astonishing sight is Evelyn when shes not in her orangecoloured work coat. She wears flawless makeup, a stylish hairstyle, sensible heels whatever the weather, and clothing exclusively in pastel tones. It feels as if, after sprucing up our stairwell, shes on her way to meet the Queen herselfonly missing a hat.
Every day her husband picks her up from work. He steps out of his car, hands her a tiny flower, and kisses her forehead gently, every single time.
At the end of August, the chatty grandmothers on the bench gossip, Our Evelyn is finishing work tomorrow, then shes off to retirement! What will happen to the stairwell now? The next morning I buy a bouquet for Evelyn. I really want to give her something pleasant, even if its just a small token. To my surprise, a crowd gathers by her little storeroomwhere brooms, dusters and mops are kept and where her appearance changes dramatically. Some of us bring flowers, others carry a bottle of champagne and a bottle of cognac; the grandmothers shout and hand trembling Evelyn pies and jars of pickles.
Then the lads from the sixth floorthose who once turned her pots into ashtrays and terrified the whole stairwellpounce on the newly retired lady. They teach 65yearold Evelyn how to take stylish selfies and show her something intently on their phones. I think they even register her on Instagram and TikTok.
Evelyns husband, the unlikely organiser of this spontaneous retirement party, looks a little bewildered as he stuffs flowers, cognac and the grandmothers homemade treats into the boot of their car.
Evelyn herself seems the most confused. Dressed in a classic almondcoloured dress threaded with pearls and a slightly brighter makeup than usual, she listens to the neighbours halfheartedly, fighting back tears.
Perhaps she realises that no one else has ever seen a colleague off like thisnever, anywhere.
Or maybe she instinctively knows that, without aiming for any grand result, her modest, unglamorous work has made us, the ordinary residents of a ninestorey block, a little better and kinder.
