“Have you noticed how much lighter it is in here?” Lottie asked, pausing to put the kettle on before she turned round to address Sue.
“I thought it was, yes, what have you done?”
“We finally got around to washing the windows, inside and out, and then I took that dirty net down from the kitchen window.”
“Ah yes, well it looks much better. You should have waited and I’d have given you a hand.”
Lottie poured the now boiled water into the mugs. “Its fine mam, we both had yesterday off and it didn’t take long. Well, actually it did, considering there aren’t that many windows. Guess how many washes it took to clean the living room and lean-to windows.”
“Three.”
“No, five.”
“Five? Good grief.” Sue took her mug from her daughter as they headed to the lounge, perhaps the best room in the flat, as it was bright, large and airy. “But how come you were off yesterday when you’re off work today and tomorrow?”
“Oh, well…” Lottie had the expression of someone who has inadvertently revealed the timing of a surprise birthday party. “…I didn’t want to say because I know you’ll just worry, but the cocktail bar hasn’t been doing so well lately and they’ve cut my hours.”
“What? I’ll…but what about your rent?” Sue asked. Her first response was to have been, ‘I’ll pay your rent,’ but the words hadn’t even formulated before her brain had interrupted to ask how on earth she would be able to do that.
“It’s okay, Luke’s still picking up plenty of hours and anyway they’re hoping things will pick up.”
Sue took a sip of her tea, and breathed out slowly, trying to abate the panic that constricted her chest. “Is that very likely, I mean I can’t imagine an evening cocktail being a priority for most people the way the economy is.”
“Mam, it’ll be okay,” Lottie repeated. Sue nodded, she would have liked to say the words, just let me know if you need help paying your bills, it would have made her feel better, but it would have been a pointless and empty statement because they both knew if it weren’t for Sue’s parent’s help, she wouldn’t be paying her own bills. “Anyway, let’s just enjoy today, I bought some squidgy cakes for after lunch.”
“Lovely, now tell me what you’ve been up to,” Sue replied.
And so Lottie did, she told Sue about the scandal and rumours now current in her workplace, about the couple upstairs who left the bin lids open so they could just throw their rubbish down from the fire escape, leaving her and Luke to pick it up when they inevitable missed or the wind emptied the whole thing out, and about Luke’s inability to understand the need to put the loo seat back down when he’d finished. And all the time Sue thought, my baby girl is a grown woman, she’s truly independent of me now because I couldn’t help her if I needed to, and she clung onto her smile until her jaws and head ached as she wondered what the future would hold. What if Lottie lost her job, what if they couldn’t pay the rent, what if she and Luke had children and Sue was too useless to even look after her own grandchildren, what if…what if…It was a long afternoon, but maintaining a façade for any length of time is never easy.
Chapter thirty-three
Right, Sue thought, it’s time to say something. All the literature tells you if you’re feeling down you should talk about it, and for a month now she’d been unable to drag herself back from the brink. She was becoming depressed and didn’t know how to stop herself sinking further down the black hole. The effort of her daily performance, one of appearing in control and positive about the future was simply becoming too exhausting to maintain. I mean, there were times when she found it impossible to re-arrange her seemingly permanent dour expression into something more acceptable, and family and friends had asked if she was okay, but she’d just nodded and said her back was particularly bad because she couldn’t get the words out and just the thought of trying to, had her blinking away tears. Maybe that was what stopped her, the fear that if she spoke of her true feelings it would come at the cost of an avalanche of hysteria she simply wouldn’t be able to stop.
But she couldn’t break out of the quagmire, and so she needed to talk, would force herself to talk. They were seated in Rachel’s sitting room, it was comfortable and cosy, yet Sue felt herself isolated and detached. She felt as if her whole body hummed with sickening fear, as she waited for a pause in the conversation.
“I think I’m going to go for a gentle rose pink for the bridesmaids,” Kay said.
“That’ll be lovely, I still can’t believe you and Simon are actually going to get married, it still doesn’t seem like two seconds since you started going out,” Rachel commented.
Kay smiled back at them both. “Well, it has been a bit longer than that, but I think it’s true what they say, you just know when it’s right.”
Say it now, Sue thought, just say it, I’ve been feeling a bit down lately, and then take it from there.
“I agree, I definitely knew when it was right to divorce my husband.”
“Oh Rachel, that’s a dreadful thing to say, isn’t it Sue?”
“Yes,” the other Sue answered, the one in the room, sitting with her friends, not the one watching the proceedings, her mind and body filled with emotion. Rachel and Kay looked at her, now, say it, actually I’ve been feeling a little down lately.
“In fact…” Kay continued. “Simon’s father is single.”
Too late, she’d missed her chance, but the next time there was a pause in the conversation, she would say something, her palms felt damp to the touch.
“Cheeky sod,” Rachel laughed as she spoke, “that would make you my step-daughter-in-law, or something, anyway what about Sue?”
She heard her name, but not the context, what about me?
“Yeah, but Sue’s not as-“
“Not as what,” Rachel interrupted, “not old enough to be matched up with your future father-in-law.”
Kay laughed, Rachel laughed, and then they looked at Sue. She returned their gaze, as her friend’s faces become serious and a long pause stretched out. Rachel reached over and put her hand over hers, Sue felt the sting of human contact.
“Sue, are you alright?” she asked.
Thank god, Sue thought, she could say it now, and her eyes welled with tears. “Well, I have been feeling a little down lately.” The words forced through, as she sought to elaborate. “I’m finding it a little difficult to…well, to stay positive, I suppose.” There she’d emptied her mind of the festering words, she had nothing more to add.
“That’s completely understandable, I don’t know how you’ve stayed positive for so long,” Rachel replied.
Sue nodded, what was she supposed to say now? She’d put her feelings out there and now she didn’t know what else she was supposed to say. What was the magical formula that was now going to make everything okay because that was how it worked, right? She shared her worries and now she was supposed to feel better, lighter somehow, but instead she just felt wretched.
“Do you think you perhaps need to go and see someone, to talk about things?” Kay asked, which just confused Sue because wasn’t that what she was doing?
“Or maybe you should go and see your GP,” Rachel commented.
“Yeah, you’re both right of course, I’ll see how it goes,” Sue murmured swallowing back her tears. She looked down into her lap, clutching her cold cup of tea.
“Anyway how did your book sell? You’ve never told us how much you got in your first royalties pay,” Rachel said.
How much she earned? If Sue had the energy she’d laugh; her great scheme to earn money, to become a writer, all those dreams, all that certainty that this was the way forward. She felt a fool.
“I earned about eleven dollars.”
There was a silence, maybe her friend’s would have laughed if Sue had led the way, it was after all a great big joke, she’d thought she could make it and she hadn’t. After the first flush of her novel being accepted Sue had penned several more, all of wh
ich had been taken up with E-Love; but the editing had become a chore and not a source of excitement.
“Maybe we should have a trip out at the weekend. I know the weathers not great, but we could go for a ride in the car and stop somewhere for lunch,” Rachel suggested, going for a change in conversation in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“That’ll be great, gives me a chance to talk more about the wedding,” Kay agreed.
“As long as you leave your match making skills behind, what do you think Sue?”
Her head felt so heavy, but she lifted it and forced her eyelids open. “That would be lovely, yes.”
*****
Sue lay in bed, staring into the darkness, her pillow damp beneath her head. She should be able to stop this, pull herself out of it. It was ridiculous, she wasn’t meant to crumble and allow the DWP to win, their decision to declare her fit for work despite her worsening condition should mean nothing, did mean nothing in fact because it wasn’t rooted in any understanding of her problems. Of course she wasn’t alone in suffering their incomprehensible decisions; everyone in her pain management group had either gone through it or was going through the same thing. Every other Wednesday, John, Claire, Barbara, Jenny and herself would meet for a cuppa and a chat, Geoff had attended on the first few occasions but had since decided to do his own thing. As a group they tried to stay away from matters relating to their health, but the spector of the DWP would inevitably darken their conversation. It had been Barbara who had fallen victim to their demoralisation first. She’d sort of quietly faded away, one for neither leading nor indeed initiating a conversation, she tending instead to listen, observe and comment where necessary, and so the change in her demeanour had not been obvious. In fact it had taken Sue a while to warm to her, at first she’d mistaken her composure for aloofness, and her peaceful nature as an unwillingness to join in, but as the weeks had passed they’d all found their rhythm within the group. So, it wasn’t unusual for the five to meet up with Barbara only making the odd contribution to the conversation in the few hours they spent together, but looking back to the weeks before she started not turning up, there were signs; small signals, easily missed, that meant, help me.
The first week she was absent she’d sent a message to say that she had to wait in for a plumber, then it was an electrician, and then someone to clean her guttering; all perfectly reasonable reasons, and so two months easily passed before her continuing absence was commented upon. Even then it was hard to know what to do, no-one wanted to be the one to phone in case she merely no longer wished to meet up with the group, in which case any conversation would be awkward. So, it was decided to wait, and if she didn’t turn up for the next two gatherings, but did send some sort of message then perhaps an intervention was needed. It wasn’t as if Barbara were completely on her own, her husband had passed away almost five years ago, but she had mentioned a daughter and son, and two grandchildren, who while not living locally, were still less than an hour away.
So another month passed before it was decided Claire would be the one to phone, which she duly had, and then reported back to the group. Barbara had been re-assessed for her disability living allowance, as well as her incapacity benefit, and the usual desperate and awful story unfolded from there. The health care professional who had gone to her house had reported back that she had no trouble negotiating the stairs despite the fact that she lived in a bungalow, that she could walk unaided for at least two hundred metres because she’d walked from the door in her home to the lounge (with the use of two sticks), and could prepare and cook a meal even though she paid to receive meals on wheels because her arthritis was so severe in her hands that she couldn’t grip anything, and severe enough in her spine that she couldn’t stand for long. That judgement alone would have been enough to fell the strongest of people, but she’d then, at the age of fifty-seven been declared fit for work under the new ESA ruling. On a purely practical level it meant all of her benefits had been stopped and she was now trying to exist on a meagre civil service pension, where she had worked for thirty years before ill-health had forced her to retire. When Claire had finally teased that part of the story out of her she’d gone to Barbara’s house and been shocked and distressed by the change in what had once been a proud and independent woman. The reason she had missed so many coffee mornings was because she couldn’t afford the bus fare. She hadn’t known where to turn for help because her pride had stopped her from visiting the citizens advice bureau, and a phone call to the jobcentre plus had left her bewildered; so she did nothing and told no-one. Claire, through personal experience, could lead her through the appeal process, and ensured Barbara asked for her benefits to be paid in the meantime, it didn’t amount to much but it was better than nothing. She’d then sat with her as she made the phone call to her son and daughter she’d been unable to face on her own. As Claire had relayed all this to the group, ahead of Barbara’s return to the fold, the atmosphere had been laced with guilt and an overwhelming outpouring of empathy, all of which was contained behind a barrage of welcoming smiles when Barbara had finally walked back into the café. She would not have appreciated a fuss, and so Sue had clenched her hands to stop herself from jumping up and enveloping Barbara in a hug.
It should be a rare example, Sue thought, where the system failed a deserving individual but it wasn’t, it was the norm, as each and every one of them could testify.
*****
The Following day Rachel was on the phone, she wanted to know if Sue was feeling better. She said she was, because what else do you say?
Chapter thirty-four
May 2012
It was the same room, with its drab interior and windows that refused to open. It was all exactly the same, just the faces waiting to be processed were different. Her mam and dad had dropped her off for her ESA appeal, just as they had in the past, except there had been no telling her it would be fine, and no jocular wishes of good luck. Her dad had looked her straight in the eyes, an intense expression on his face as he’d told her to phone when she was done and they’d be back to get her. His demeanour said it all, I wish I could do this for you, I wish I could say something to make it better.
And now she sat and stared at the floor once more, with no desire to make small talk with her fellow inmates, no raising of her head to wish them good luck. Instead she focused upon not allowing the pressure in her head and the tightening of her throat to manifest itself in tears of frustration. She had to keep a grip of her anger, think of all the injustice and inhumanity trotted out to those on ESA, and she had to think, without emotion, needed to concentrate upon every word she said. She’d gained twelve points through her medical, as far as she could see she should reach the magic fifteen, if she were believed, and she had to be because then her benefits would be backdated and she’d be able to survive without financial support from her parents, for a few months at least.
“Hi Sue, is it? Yes, right, I’m Neil from welfare rights and I’ll be representing you today. Have you been to one of these before?”
“Yes, yes I have.”
“Okay, so you know what to expect. I see you are challenging on the walking, and sitting and standing criteria, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well the judge is Mr David Philips, and then we have Dr Vetch. The results have been…mixed, but you only have to get an extra three, so that’s something.” As he spoke he kept watching the man who had obviously been in before Sue and was now awaiting his sentence. He broke Sue’s heart, he seemed to be in his mid-forties, with a long, emaciated body, yet he had managed to curl it into a ball and almost seemed to be trying to push himself into the far corner of the room. Anger rose in Sue’s stomach.
“You know, I just wish those people who cheat the system could see the pain it causes to those with a genuine claim,” Sue said, her gaze fixed on the bundled shape.
Neil paused before speaking. “Actually I don’t care about the people who cheat the system. It was Jennifer Strike
r who started the whole benefits ethos when she was PM. I worked in welfare when the pits closed and we were instructed to encourage ex-miners not to go on unemployment, in order to keep the numbers down, but to take incapacity. I sat there persuading men that they were too sick to work, even when they were fine, because we all knew there weren’t jobs for them. It was she who created whole communities who grew up on welfare, and knew no different, families who are now fair game because of the economic down turn. The amount of money claimed by, so called, benefits cheats, is a drop in the ocean compared to the taxation large companies, and wealthy individuals, avoid paying every year.”
Sue sat, a little stunned, it was not an argument she’d ever heard before. “Right, well, I never really thought-”
“They’re ready for you,” a woman said, popping her head around the door and interrupting her response.
“Okay, thank you.” The welfare rights officer stood and walked over to the man in the corner, he hadn’t moved. “It’s time to go back in Richard.”
The man uncurled himself and left the room, head down avoiding eye contact, and Sue’s anger rose further. She would keep hold of it, guard it against the system and use it during her appeal. She was determined to win.
As for Neil’s comments it was another example of how easy it was to judge without knowledge. Sue remembered at the beginning of this when she’d tried to distance herself from others on welfare because she was different, wasn’t she? And now she felt nothing but shame over those ideas because she and her friends were the ones on welfare, looked down upon by others and they weren’t cheating anybody, they were instead persecuted by a government hell bent on destroying them all, emotionally, mentally and physically.
An Ordinary Working Man Page 20
