Why won’t my cleaner leave me the Watchtower?

‘Hi I did Put it on It needed more’ is the pleasingly obscure haiku I find on my kitchen table.

It is from Denise, one of the most wonderful people I know. To give Denise a title — such as cleaner, cleaning lady, home help — would be disingenuous or even downright rude. Because it is fair to say that, in the years I have been privileged to know her, I have not only had my flat cleaned by Denise, I have had my mind broadened, my spirit fortified and my soul set on a path to a place where she assures me I shall surely find peace when the judgment day comes.

Denise, from Kingston, Jamaica, is a Jehovah’s Witness, though in all the time she has been coming to my flat she has never once left me one of those Watchtower leaflets on my kitchen table. I’m sometimes a little hurt that she hasn’t, especially since I came home one day to find she had foisted a set on Stefano the Albanian, when he had been there at the same time as her, fitting some shelves.