The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  Mondays are especially busy at St Jude’s homeless hostel and Grace is in its cramped, cluttered office exactly twenty-two minutes before her shift starts. As her Work–Life Balance book says, it’s important to start the week as she means to go on and every minute spent wisely before nine o’clock is an investment in the rest of the day.

  She flicks on the kettle and presses the lotus icon on her phone screen. Nothing happens, and the display freezes as she taps it several times in quick succession before it flashes back at her, Application is not responding. Would you like to close Six-Minute Meditation?

  Stupid, cheap, crappy phone. It’s eight forty-three now and that’s not enough time to do her sun salutations before Peter gets in at eight fifty. Eight fifty is the time for checking emails and the day’s to-do list.

  ‘Morning,’ she beams at Peter as he walks through the office door wearing his usual cords-and-green sweater combo.

  He grunts a few syllables back at Grace as he shuffles past her desk. That’s another reason to be twenty-two minutes early: the acquisition of prime position in front of the office hatch. As hostel manager, it’s rightfully Grace’s spot but Peter, twenty years older than her twenty-five, seems to think he should be the one putting out all the fires when it comes to the residents. ‘I’m well aware you know what you’re doing,’ he always snaps when she says anything about it. ‘It’s just that I know what it’s like to be the other side of this hatch and you don’t.’

  It’s an argument he uses for most things and each time he says it, Grace gets closer to wishing she’d never suggested to head office that they should take on an ex-resident as a staff member. She taps in her password at lightning speed, so he doesn’t have the chance to suggest they switch places, and then logs into her emails.

  ‘Wait till you see the interview list head office have emailed us. Tons of names. Don’t they know we only have one room to offer this week?’ Peter pulls off his crooked glasses and wipes at them with the corner of his sleeve.

  He must have read his emails before he’d even come into work. Grace shakes her head. Some people are so competitive.

  Monday is interview day at St Jude’s. Each week, the staff meet with prospective residents in the hope of hacking away at their ever-growing waiting list. Grace mentally reaches for the first breathing exercise from her ‘Breath of Zen’ app and tries to follow it whilst she stares at the names on the list in front of her. Peter’s not wrong; there are a lot to get through. Monday is also transaction day, so the residents will be queuing at the hatch to pay their rent top-ups and chase late benefit payments. That’s why she always opens up at eight fifty-eight. Two minutes of quiet… just to look out into the empty foyer before the storm begins.

  It’s an entrance hall like no other, the other side of that hatch. A gateway between people’s lives and the big wide world; residents come and go through it, for the first time and the last, often reappearing months or years later. It’s a place where tenants come for help, to read the noticeboard and to pick up their post. It’s the hostel’s hub.

  The shutters roar as they retract upwards and Grace dashes to the kitchenette in the corner of the office to pour the drinks before nine o’clock hits – she will start tomorrow with the whole giving-up-caffeine thing. She’ll just have to reset the goal date on her phone calendar. That way it won’t count, and she won’t have failed. Grace doesn’t like to fail – it’s like her parent’s always said, It’s not what Jenningses do.

  ‘Tea for me, ta,’ Peter says, without turning away from his computer. ‘And none of that flowery shit.’

  Grace clinks the teaspoon with some extra force against the inside of the cups as she stirs the drinks.

  ‘They’ve arranged a relief worker to man – or woman – the office for us today, so we can concentrate on the interviews. It’s her first time, so one of us will need to show her where everything is. Then I thought we could use the residents’ lounge downstairs for the interviews. It’s homelier,’ Grace says, carrying the hot mugs back to their desks.

  ‘Homelier?’ Peter splutters after he’s swallowed his first gulp of tea. ‘Most of them have come from the streets or other people’s sofas. I’m sure any room we use will feel homelier.’

  She ignores him while she scans through the rest of her emails. Quite a few today, all from head office. Why couldn’t they just put everything in one message? All this reading will throw her even further off-schedule. She’s about to start at the bottom of her unread list when a subject line from halfway up catches her eye.

  And it makes her want to throw up her low-calorie granola bar.

  ‘Listen to this,’ she hisses to Peter. ‘“Please be aware that Supporting Futures are carrying out rigorous inspections across all supported housing hostels under their funding schemes. Over the last month, ten projects have been forced to close as a result of having their funding pulled…” Oh, this is bad, I’m not sure I can read any more of it.’ Grace rests her forehead in her hands and counts to ten. Well, she manages to get to five before she looks back at the screen. ‘“These checks are sporadic, but each project will receive a letter approximately two weeks before each inspection.”’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah? Do you realise how behind we are on some of our paperwork? And the laundry room is falling apart. Then there’s the incidents we’ve had lately with the…’

  ‘Grace. Stop. We’ve not had a letter yet. Might not even get one till the end of the year. Let’s just focus on the interviews – who’s first?’

  ‘The first one’s due at eleven thirty. A young lad, Shaun Michaels?’

  ‘You always say that like you think I know every homeless person in Kent just because I used to be one. It’s as bad as someone telling you they’re from Australia and you saying, “Oh, my Auntie Karen used to live there; perhaps you know her?”’

  The office phone rings as soon as the clock strikes nine. Grace answers it, forcing her mouth into a wide smile. People can tell over the phone if you are smiling; it says so in her Women in Leadership magazine. The same issue that had inspired her last week to chop her blonde hair into a sleek bob with an edgy fringe, just like the woman on the front. ‘There’s more to maintaining a successful image than the right hairstyle,’ her mum would have said. Then in the same breath, ‘Be the best version of yourself, Grace. You really should make more of an effort, it’s important to create the right impression.’ It’s always been a bit tricky, getting the balance right. Enough make-up to impress, but not so much that she looks shallow. Professional clothes – not too expensive (she shouldn’t look as if she’s trying too hard) but not too cheap either (she has the family name to uphold after all).

  It’s head office on the line and they want to add yet another name to today’s interview list. Head office oversee St Jude’s as well as four other hostels across the south-east, but they always seem to find the time to give them extra work to do.

  ‘Absolutely. The more the merrier,’ Grace sings, ignoring Peter’s eye roll. She puts the phone down and concentrates on helping him with the small queue that’s formed behind Teardrop Terry from Room 3.

  Teardrop Terry has been a resident of St Jude’s for almost three months following many years of spending his life between prison cells and shop doorways. It hadn’t taken Grace long to notice that – despite his colourful rap sheet, bulky frame and tear tattoo below his left eye – he is, in fact, the least intimidating person you could ever meet.

  ‘Peter.’ Teardrop Terry pulls the front of his baseball cap down a smidgen as if showing some sign of respect. He’ll take that back in a minute when Peter tells him he’s already three weeks in arrears with his rent top-up.

  ‘But they’ve suspended my jobseeker’s again. I can’t pay you nothing I ain’t got yet, can I?’ Terry says at double speed, trying to squash his hat back into place over long voluminous curls that look like they’ve been cut from an eighties band photo.

  Grace’s eyes are drawn to his tattoo as they alwa
ys are. Peter had scoffed when she’d asked if teardrops were inked onto people’s faces in prison to signify remorse for their crimes but Terry had chuckled and told her she was right.

  ‘You could always do a couple of shifts in the café?’ she offers. St Jude’s has an adjoining café for the residents to work in, and they’re short-staffed this week.

  Peter picks the phone up and keys in the number for the job centre before handing it to Terry.

  ‘That was head office,’ Grace whispers into Peter’s ear. ‘They’ve added another one to the list for this afternoon. A woman called Dawn something-or-other. They’re emailing over her referral.’

  Teardrop Terry has got bored with holding the receiver to his ear and has left it on the desk on loudspeaker whilst he stands in the open doorway rolling a fag.

  ‘Wonderful,’ huffs Peter. ‘As if I hadn’t already spent a million hours of my life listening to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I don’t think the job centre has changed its on-hold tune in ten years.’

  Grace rushes downstairs to get the room ready at eleven twenty-eight. She rearranges the cushions on the sofas and switches on the lava lamp to provide a psychologically enhancing environment for the interviews. She glances at the time. Eleven thirty-one. Not only is Shaun late but so is their relief worker. If he turns up before she does, they’ll have to close the office.

  She bounces back upstairs to join Peter as he collects the clipboards and interview paperwork from the office cupboard. She peers out of the window onto the long driveway to see if anyone is on their way. St Jude’s sits up on the clifftop, and its entrance is around the back, facing away from the sea and towards the twisty road that leads back to the high street. It’s fifteen minutes’ walk from town and accessible by a quiet road that leads only to the hostel, the café and the cliffs.

  Two figures appear at the bottom of the track and are walking towards the building. At least they’ve arrived together and Grace won’t need to put the shutter back down.

  ‘Are you here for the interview?’ Peter asks the boy after Grace has buzzed the two people into the foyer. His referral form says he’s eighteen, but with his short, skinny frame that’s drowning in that XL hoody, he looks at least four years younger. ‘Shaun Michaels? Is that right?’

  The boy nods and blushes as he studies the posters on the noticeboard, avoiding the eyes of the crowd around the desk.

  ‘Grace,’ she introduces herself as she shakes the young man’s hand. He may be anxious, but it’s a good handshake and there’s a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. Good start. Putting people at ease is important when interviewing potential tenants. As is, according to Peter, doing a proper background check and switching on one’s bullshit radar.

  The woman with the wild curly hair who’d walked in behind him, skips around Shaun and sidesteps to the front. ‘Mrs Brightside,’ she says with a smile, huge dark eyes and a handshake Jean-Claude Van Damme would be impressed with. ‘Your head office said you’d be expecting me?’

  ‘So glad you’re here, we really need an extra pair of hands today,’ Grace answers with a smile. She asks Shaun to take a seat for a few minutes in the foyer so she can show their new relief worker where everything is.

  ‘Have you worked in places like this before?’ Grace asks her. She shows her the code to the fire panel and the filing cabinet where the resident’s files are kept.

  ‘Umm… yes, a few. Not for a while, mind. I don’t think I’ll need to see those files though. Other people’s lives are none of my business.’

  Grace wonders if head office has checked this lady’s references. Most new staff members like to have a quick scan through the files so they know what to expect to be dealing with.

  ‘Okay, if you’re sure. We’ll be downstairs if you need us. There’s an alarm button you can press if you’re worried about anything. Don’t look so panicked, they’re a lovely bunch here at the moment.’ Grace picks up a pen and her cold coffee, ready to leave.

  ‘Don’t you want to ask me any questions?’ Mrs Brightside asks as Grace is walking out the door.

  Honestly, the staff getting sent to this place just keep getting stranger, Grace decides as she downs her drink and heads back down the stairs, two at a time.

  Chapter 3

  Grace

  SHAUN MICHAELS IS PULLING hard at Grace’s feel-strings. Most interviews in this place err on the side of sad. Stories that have broken people’s lives apart. This boy though, life has dealt him so much shit she’s surprised he’s not leaving a trail of it everywhere he walks.

  ‘Do you have any contact at all with your mum?’ Grace asks Shaun in her gentlest voice. She shuffles forward on the lumpy sofa and leans towards him. They should really think about getting some new furniture in the resident’s lounge if they’re going to be inspected. And some fresh wallpaper. The wall behind Shaun is peeling in several places. Perhaps paint would be better. She’ll grab a colour chart next time she’s in Homebase.

  ‘I go to her flat sometimes, but only when he’s not there. He pretty much broke my jaw last time. She don’t remember when I visit anyway. Too pissed.’

  According to Peter, Grace is too easily shocked and needs to work on her face during client interviews, as if she needs to plug it up with some sealant to stop all that pesky emotion leaking through. It’s because she’s led a sheltered life, he always says. And she has in way; growing up in a nice bungalow with just her nan for company. Her parents had been around for the odd summer and almost every Christmas. As cosmetic surgeons, they used to turn up with harrowing stories about botched boob jobs and free scar-cream samples from their many cosmetic enhancement clinics scattered around the globe. Most parents brought sticks of rock or lame postcards when they came to visit. Or even better, didn’t leave their kids behind in the first place.

  Still, Grace tries to be patient with Peter. Patience is the highest form of wisdom, it says on the canvas plaque on the wall behind her. And it must sting for Peter, being answerable to someone twenty years younger than his forty-five. Even if she does have a social work degree.

  Grace makes some notes on Shaun’s ‘Social and Family Network’ section of his interview form, already knowing that this is the client she wants to offer this week’s room to. Peter will insist they stick to the scoring system and wait until they’ve gone through today’s list. Grace can’t help but wonder about what would have happened to Peter this time last year, if she’d done that when it had been him lying in the corner of Tesco’s car park in a puddle of his own piss.

  ‘Where have you been sleeping?’ Peter asks Shaun.

  ‘Sofa-surfing. I’m staying with a mate at the moment, but I can’t much longer. Landlord said he’ll kick him out.’

  Damn. He has shelter. That will mess with his vulnerability score. Grace glances at Peter as he scribbles away and thinks of ways to bump up Shaun’s numbers. Peter’s bound to notice though, and then she’ll have to put up with him accusing her of being a do-gooder and wanting another pet project. He’d do well to remember how well her last pet project had gone. The one she now has to share an office with every bloody day. At least the residents love him. Grace thinks it’s because he always seems to know what to say and do when it comes to them, and he’s never fooled by people’s smokescreens. He says it’s because ‘you can’t bullshit a bullshitter’.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she says to Shaun as she shows him out, hoping she’ll be able to call his pay-as-you-go with good news at the end of the afternoon. ‘Keep your phone charged – the library can help with that – and don’t lose those food bank vouchers.’

  As she walks back through the foyer, Grace starts thinking again about that email. Where would people like Shaun go for help if St Jude’s wasn’t there anymore?

  She joins Peter back in the office to find the poor relief worker still dusting the spotless desk as if she doesn’t know what else to do with herself.

  ‘Thank you for holding the fort for us today. It’s a massive help that you could co
ver at such short notice. Don’t worry about doing that, I’m sure you’ve had enough to do dealing with this rowdy lot.’ Grace grins at Teardrop Terry, still at the hatch with the office phone against his ear, and she prises the cloth from the woman’s chipped nails.

  ‘I’ve met a few of your residents,’ Mrs Brightside says. ‘I helped one of them fill out a form to register at a doctor’s surgery. I hope I did it right, I’m not too good with things like that.’

  Grace and Peter share a quick look at each other before she carries on.

  ‘I hope all this won’t go against me getting a room. They didn’t tell me I’d have to do any role play.’

  Grace’s mind starts to wobble, and the question falls slowly out of her mouth. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘Mrs Dawn Elisabeth Brightside. Brightside, one word.’

  The office hatch is now closed, and head office have been notified about the absent relief worker. Grace and Peter have ten minutes to squeeze in Dawn’s interview before the next one arrives.

  ‘You got family?’ Peter asks that one this time.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ she tells them and stares out of the window. ‘I have a daughter but she’s living in Saudi Arabia at the moment. She works in finance. She’ll work herself into an early grave, I always tell her.’ One of Dawn’s clasped hands has gone white in the areas pressed tight against her fingernails.

  ‘How old?’ asks Peter.

  ‘Twenty-two and two months,’ she answers without missing a beat.

  Grace tells her she looks too young to have a daughter that age and Dawn reaches across and squeezes her wrist.

  ‘Thank you,’ she beams.

  Grace had mostly just been being polite, but when Dawn smiles like that the years do fall away from her face. The date of birth on her referral form places her at forty-two. She’s dressed like someone younger; her clothes too big for her angular frame. Her dark brown eyes are overpowered by the thick smudges of eyeliner beneath them which draws attention to the sharp hollows of her cheeks.