The Girl You Left Behind (58 page)

‘I wasn’t expecting
you.’

‘I got fed up at home. I thought maybe
we could do something.’

He looked sideways at me. There was a fine
film of
sweat on his face. ‘The sooner you get another job, babe,
the better.’

‘It’s all of twenty-four hours
since I lost the last one. Am I allowed to just be a bit miserable and floppy? You know,
just for today?’

‘But you’ve got to look at the
positive side. You knew you couldn’t stay at that place forever. You want to move
upwards, onwards.’ Patrick had been named Stortfold Young Entrepreneur of the Year
two years previously, and had not yet quite recovered from the honour. He had since
acquired a business partner, Ginger Pete, offering personal training to clients over a
40-mile area, and two liveried vans on the HP. He also had a whiteboard in his office,
on which he liked to scrawl his projected turnover with thick black markers, working and
reworking the figures until they met with his satisfaction. I was never entirely sure
that they bore any resemblance to real life.

‘Being made redundant can change
people’s lives, Lou.’ He glanced at his watch, checking his lap time.
‘What do you want to do? You could retrain. I’m sure they do a grant for
people like you.’

‘People like me?’

‘People looking for a new opportunity.
What do you want to be? You could be a beautician. You’re pretty enough.’ He
nudged me as we ran, as if I should be grateful for the compliment.

‘You know my beauty routine. Soap,
water, the odd paper bag.’

Patrick was beginning to look
exasperated.

I was starting to lag behind. I hate
running. I hated him for not slowing down.

‘Look … shop assistant.
Secretary. Estate agent. I don’t know … there must be something you want
to do.’

But there wasn’t. I had liked it in
the cafe. I liked knowing everything there was to know about The Buttered Bun, and
hearing about the lives of the people who came through it. I had felt comfortable
there.

‘You can’t mope around, babe.
Got to get over it. All the best entrepreneurs fight their way back from rock bottom.
Jeffrey Archer did it. So did Richard Branson.’ He tapped my arm, trying to get me
to keep up.

‘I doubt if Jeffrey Archer ever got
made redundant from toasting teacakes.’ I was out of breath. And I was wearing the
wrong bra. I slowed, dropped my hands down on to my knees.

He turned, running backwards, his voice
carrying on the still, cold air. ‘But if he had … I’m just saying.
Sleep on it, put on a smart suit and head down to the Job Centre. Or I’ll train
you up to work with me, if you like. You know there’s money in it. And don’t
worry about the holiday. I’ll pay.’

I smiled at him.

He blew a kiss and his voice echoed across
the empty stadium. ‘You can pay me back when you’re back on your
feet.’

I made my first claim for Jobseeker’s
Allowance. I attended a 45-minute interview, and a group interview, where I sat with a
group of twenty or so mismatched men and women, half of whom wore the same slightly
stunned expression I suspected I did, and the other half the blank, uninterested faces
of people who had been here too many
times before. I wore what my Dad
deemed my ‘civilian’ clothes.

As a result of these efforts, I had endured
a brief stint filling in on a night shift at a chicken processing factory (it had given
me nightmares for weeks), and two days at a training session as a Home Energy Adviser. I
had realized pretty quickly that I was essentially being instructed to befuddle old
people into switching energy suppliers, and told Syed, my personal ‘adviser’
that I couldn’t do it. He had been insistent that I continue, so I had listed some
of the practices that they had asked me to employ, at which point he had gone a bit
quiet and suggested we (it was always ‘we’ even though it was pretty obvious
that one of us
had
a job) try something else.

I did two weeks at a fast food chain. The
hours were okay, I could cope with the fact that the uniform made my hair static, but I
found it impossible to stick to the ‘appropriate responses’ script, with its
‘How can I help you today?’ and its ‘Would you like large fries with
that?’ I had been let go after one of the doughnut girls caught me debating the
varying merits of the free toys with a four-year-old. What can I say? She was a smart
four-year-old. I also thought the Sleeping Beauties were sappy.

Now I sat at my fourth interview as Syed
scanned through the touch screen for further employment ‘opportunities’.
Even Syed, who wore the grimly cheerful demeanour of someone who had shoehorned the most
unlikely candidates into a job, was starting to sound a little weary.

‘Um … Have you ever
considered joining the entertainment industry?’

‘What, as in pantomime
dame?’

‘Actually, no. But there is an opening
for a pole dancer. Several, in fact.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Please tell me
you are kidding.’

‘It’s thirty hours a week on a
self-employed basis. I believe the tips are good.’

‘Please, please tell me you have not
just advised me to get a job that involves parading around in front of strangers in my
underwear.’

‘You said you were good with people.
And you seem to like … theatrical … clothing.’ He glanced at
my tights, which were green and glittery. I had thought they would cheer me up. Thomas
had hummed the theme tune from
The Little Mermaid
at me for almost the whole of
breakfast.

Syed tapped something into his keyboard.
‘How about “adult chat line supervisor”?’

I stared at him.

He shrugged. ‘You said you liked
talking to people.’

‘No. And no to semi-nude bar staff. Or
masseuse. Or webcam operator. Come on, Syed. There must be something I can do that
wouldn’t actually give my dad a heart attack.’

This appeared to stump him.
‘There’s not much left outside flexi-hour retail opportunities.’

‘Night-time shelf stacking?’ I
had been here enough times now to speak their language.

‘There’s a waiting list. Parents
tend to go for it, because it suits the school hours,’ he said apologetically. He
studied the screen again. ‘So we’re really left with care
assistant.’

‘Wiping old people’s
bottoms.’

‘I’m afraid, Louisa,
you’re not qualified for much else. If you wanted to retrain, I’d be happy
to point you in the
right direction. There are plenty of courses at the
adult education centre.’

‘But we’ve been through this,
Syed. If I do that, I lose my Jobseeker money, right?’

‘If you’re not available for
work, yes.’

We sat there in silence for a moment. I
gazed at the doors, where two burly security men stood. I wondered if they had got the
job through the Job Centre.

‘I’m not good with old people,
Syed. My granddad lives at home since he had his strokes, and I can’t cope with
him.’

‘Ah. So you have some experience of
caring.’

‘Not really. My mum does everything
for him.’

‘Would your mum like a job?’

‘Funny.’

‘I’m not being funny.’

‘And leave me looking after my
granddad? No thanks. That’s from him, as well as me, by the way. Haven’t you
got anything in any cafes?’

‘I don’t think there are enough
cafes left to guarantee you employment, Louisa. We could try Kentucky Fried Chicken. You
might get on better there.’

‘Because I’d get so much more
out of offering a Bargain Bucket than a Chicken McNugget? I don’t think
so.’

‘Well, then perhaps we’ll have
to look further afield.’

‘There are only four buses to and from
our town. You know that. And I know you said I should look into the tourist bus, but I
rang the station and it stops at 5pm. Plus it’s twice as expensive as the normal
bus.’

Syed sat back in his seat. ‘At this
point in proceedings, Louisa, I really need to make the point that as a fit and
able person, in order to continue qualifying for your allowance, you
need –’

‘– to show that I’m trying
to get a job. I know.’

How could I explain to this man how much I
wanted to work? Did he have the slightest idea how much I missed my old job?
Unemployment had been a concept, something droningly referred to on the news in relation
to shipyards or car factories. I had never considered that you might miss a job like you
missed a limb – a constant, reflexive thing. I hadn’t thought that as well
as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel
inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than
when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the
people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that
you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street. The
first time I had seen the Dandelion Lady wandering past the shops, looking as aimless as
I felt, I had fought the urge to go and give her a hug.

Syed’s voice broke into my reverie.
‘Aha. Now this might work.’

I tried to peer round at the screen.

‘Just come in. This very minute. Care
assistant position.’

‘I told you I was no good with
–’

‘It’s not old people. It’s
a … a private position. To help in someone’s house, and the address is
less than two miles from your home. “Care and companionship for a disabled
man.” Can you drive?’

‘Yes. But would I have to wipe his
–’

‘No bottom wiping required, as far as I
can tell.’ He scanned the screen. ‘He’s a … a quadriplegic.
He needs someone in the daylight hours to help feed and assist. Often in these jobs
it’s a case of being there when they want to go out somewhere, helping with basic
stuff that they can’t do themselves. Oh. It’s good money. Quite a lot more
than the minimum wage.’

‘That’s probably because it
involves bottom wiping.’

‘I’ll ring them to confirm the
absence of bottom wiping. But if that’s the case, you’ll go along for the
interview?’

He said it like it was a question.

But we both knew the answer.

I sighed, and gathered up my bag ready for
the trip home.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said my father.
‘Can you imagine? If it wasn’t punishment enough ending up in a ruddy
wheelchair, then you get our Lou turning up to keep you company.’

‘Bernard!’ my mother
scolded.

Behind me, Granddad was laughing into his
mug of tea.