In the mirror above the fireplace, I caught a glimpse of the reflection of the three of us. Three sisters can make a baby together and look at the state of us. We couldn’t make a cheese toastie together without the riot police being called in.
Come nine o’clock, we went over to RTE One to get the news headlines and Maggie’s comment was, ‘Why do they let ugly people read the news? I don’t pay a TV licence to watch complete mingers.’
I had to bite my tongue as I looked over at her. God made her in his image, I reminded myself, and I’m sure he doesn’t regret it that much.
Then later that evening, at about 10 p.m., Joan breezed in with Bacardi breath and a whole stack of magazines from the hair salon which she filches from time to time on the grounds that here is the only place she gets to read them properly. I knew she was in one of her better humours; it’s getting so I can usually guess by how loudly she clatters her handbag down on the hall table.
‘Nothing but bloody bad news in the papers,’ she said kicking off her shoes and lighting up a fag as she flung herself down onto the spare armchair. ‘Recession. Global warming. Plane crashes. The Britney miming scandal. So I brought these home for us to have a laugh at. Look Jessica, I found a wonderful article in Cosmothat’s right up your alley. It’ll give you great hope. And there’s some wonderful advice for the newly unemployed too.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, half relieved not to be talking about TV for bloody once.
She flicked through the index until she found the right page, then read it aloud, ‘Losing your job is like being given a gift.’
‘Joan, that better make sense soon, because otherwise there’s a good chance I might start self-harming,’ I said, wondering if she was even aware of the sheer number of calls I’d made to my agent begging and pleading for work. Something, anything. At this stage, I’d gladly welcome a 5 a.m. radio gig broadcasting to a North Sea oil rig. Complete waste of time, of course. Every time I call the office, his secretary says he’s ‘out at a meeting’. To the point where I was starting to get a mental picture of Roger holding up a placard whenever I rang saying, ‘If that’s Jessie Woods, tell her I’m NOT IN. And that I’ve left the country with no immediate plans to return.’
‘Let me finish, will you? It says here, “Starting at rock bottom is a precious bequest”. So don’t knock it, will you? Eh…oh yes, here’s the bit I wanted you to read. Says here that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Then it talks about Simon Cowell.’
‘What about Simon Cowell?’
‘Bit here about how he was a millionaire in the 1980s, then he lost it all and ended up moving back into his mother’s house. And look at him now, for God’s sake, richer than the Queen.’
‘I don’t understand, Joan. What exactly are you saying? That I should go on X Factor?’
‘If you pair want to talk shite, can you go into the kitchen?’ Maggie snarled at us, looking like she was about to have an embolism. ‘Some of us are trying to watch telly here.’
‘The point I’m trying to make, if I could be allowed to finish my sentence please, is that there are some great pointers here about hauling yourself back up from the depths again. All you have to do is follow a few simple steps. Listen to this: “With a positive mental attitude, you could be back in the game in no time.”’
I grabbed the magazine from Joan to see for myself what this wonderful advice for the newly unemployed was, but all I could see was a Cosmoquiz where question one says, ‘Describe your life in a single word.’
Hmm. Is ‘shit-hole’ one word?I wonder.
‘Not the quiz, you eejit,’ said Joan, getting up to go to the drinks cabinet and pouring herself out another Bacardi chaser. ‘Read down to the bottom of the page. The bit where it tells you the first things that you should do in the short term.’
‘Joan! What?’
‘Well sign on the dole, of course.’
Hours later, long after the others had dragged themselves up to their comfortable beds, I lay on the sofa, still wide awake. Dole. Brilliant. Genius. Never thought of that. My mind raced. I mean, I paid taxes all my working life, surely I must be entitled to get something back from the system? Then I’d have cash. Actual cold, hard cash. Then I could pay some money towards the housekeeping here. Then I wouldn’t have to wash industrial-size knickers day in day out any more. Then I could…My thoughts were interrupted by the light streaming through from the kitchen behind me. Maggie probably, getting one of her late-night snacks. Because sometimes the wait between supper and breakfast just gets too much for her. It wasn’t Maggie though, it was Sharon. She came into the TV room and plonked down on the armchair beside me.
‘You awake?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Jeez, all the grunting in this house must be contagious.
‘It’s just that…well…if you were going to sign on the dole then…well, I can help you.’
‘What did you just say?’ I sat up, stunned.
‘I’ve signed on loads of times. I can tell you where to go, what to bring with you, which welfare officers are nice and which ones are the bastards. If Ma gives us a lend of the car, I’ll even drive you.’
It took a beat for all this to sink in. ‘Sharon, that’s really nice of you to offer, but why are you doing this for me? I don’t get it.’
‘Because I need a favour in return. And if I help you, then you can help me.’
‘Help with what exactly?’
There was a long pause before she eventually spoke.
‘I’d like you to help me get a boyfriend.’
‘You would?’
‘Yeah. Remember the other day when you asked me if I’d ever had my heart smashed and I said no? Well, I’ve been thinking, maybe it’s…you know…time that…I did. I don’t want to spend the next twenty years sitting at home getting pissed on cider and watching TV, night in, night out. Sure I’ve my twilight years for all that, haven’t I?’
After she’d gone, I was left staring in disbelief into the dying embers of the fire.
Well whaddya know? Breakthrough.
Chapter Nine
If anyone I know sees me here, I will die.
Mind you, that equally applies if anyone recognises me, but I think I’m fairly well camouflaged, with my trusty baseball cap pulled so low down over my eyes that I keep inadvertently bumping into Sharon. Add to that a pair of shades so huge they disguise most of my face, along with my hair scraped back into a tight ponytail and, for God’s sake, Ibarely recognise me. Besides, as Sharon keeps on saying, there’s no shame in signing on the dole these days, not with almost twelve per cent of the country out of work. OK, so maybe most of them were made redundant through no fault of their own and didn’t necessarily make holy shows of themselves live to the nation like I did, but the fact is we’re all in the same boat now. Plus, Sharon, who turns out to be something of a welfare expert, tells me that I can qualify for €204.37 every single week for a full twelve months. A king’s ransom where I’m coming from. Then I get a lightning-quick stab to the heart when I think back to the money I used to make in Channel Six, and how €200 would barely have lasted me a morning, forget about a full week. But the guilt quickly passes. That was then and this is now. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my life in the last few miserable weeks, it’s this: when fate teaches me a lesson, it really goes the whole hog.
Anyway, true to her word, Sharon got me up and out the door early this morning and even paid my bus fare all the way here to the gates of hell. Sorry, I mean the dole office. Unbelievable. It’s not even 9 a.m. and already the queue is snaking half-way down the street. And that’s not the queue to sign on by the way, that’s just the queue to get in the door. It’s like humanity’s giant melting pot here. I’m not messing, there are be-suited and bewildered-looking business people, all pale and stressed, looking like they don’t belong here, shell shocked as to how this could have come to pass. It’s a mystery all right. One minute, our economy is the envy of Europe, next thing it’s like a flashback to Depression-era America. It would break your heart to see these people. A lot of them look like they should be on their way to senior management meetings in boardrooms, not standing on the pavement in one of the roughest parts of town, on a chilly Monday morning, utterly dependent on welfare to get them through the week.