Hopes & Dreams

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘Oh!’ she said, misinterpreting. ‘’Cos if you hate travel shows that much, I can easily change the channel for you.’

  ‘It’s not the travel show,’ I sobbed bitterly. ‘It’s … it’s …’ Then I looked over to where she was sprawled out under my duvet, looking a lot weaker and more defenceless than she normally would. And so in that second, I made a snap decision. What the hell, having someone to confide in and talk to was better than no one, even if she mightn’t exactly be the most sympathetic of audiences. ‘Sharon, can I ask you something?’

  She just looked at me, puzzled.

  ‘Have you ever had your still-beating heart ripped out and dangled in front of you by a man you loved so much that it hurt? Because if you have, then you’ll know exactly how I’m feeling right now.’

  There was a long pause and I swear I could physically see her weighing up whether or not she could talk to me. Really confide in me, I mean, girl to girl. Then a thought struck me. God, maybe Sharon with her romance addiction did once have a boyfriend, maybe more than one and maybe she too came off worst like I did and just maybe … it could be something we could bond over. Maybe. An outside shot I know but stranger things have happened.

  ‘No,’ she said, firmly.

  Now I could have let this go, but some voice in my head told me not to.

  ‘Well, if you’ve never had your heart broken, never once in your whole life,’ I sobbed, ‘then lucky you.’

  Then it all came pouring out, about how right then I should have been snuggled up with Sam on a flight to Malaga, how much I miss him every day, how I just don’t work without him. Simple as that. Maybe it was just the release of being able to actually talk about him out loud after so long, instead of just having endless conversations about him in my head, but pretty soon the tears started to dry up and the howling abated. I looked over to Sharon, where she was staring back at me, with a funny look on her face.

  There was a long, long pause where I was silently willing her to say something. Anything. After all, I’d just spilt my guts out on the table in front of her, surely this was something that might, in theory, bring us a bit closer?

  Eventually she spoke. ‘Well, if you ask me …’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said, hopefully.

  ‘That fella Sam Hughes is just a big knobhead. With no knob.’

  ‘Oh right. Well thanks then.’

  ‘And his hair is very tufty. I mean, I know I’ve only seen him in photos, but he always struck me as having seriously crap hair.’

  OK, so it wasn’t exactly the Gettysburg address, but nonetheless one small step for mankind and all that. So then I figured, the least I can do for her is ask her if there was anything she needed. Quid pro quo and all that. ‘Emm, do you want me to call a doctor?’ I offered tentatively.

  ‘No, ta. I just drank a bad pint last night. There’s nothing really that wrong with me.’

  ‘Dad’s last words,’ I said and we both smiled.

  But if I thought I’d chipped away at some of her armour and gained an ally here in the Hammer House of Hell for myself, I was sadly mistaken. Because that night as soon as Maggie got home, it was right back to the grunts and monosyllables and horribleness. So that’s my relationship with Sharon for you then. A perpetual game of one step forward, two steps back.

  God I miss my old life. Back then, I used to hold actual, proper conversations with people. We would discuss art, politics, music, culture, whatever was going on in the world. Well, actually, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, as a lot of what I used to talk about was a load of gossipy shite, but you get my point. I once lived a life where you conversed with other human beings and they conversed back and it was all lovely. Now the only person from those glory days who bothers contacting me is Emma. Even though she’s down in Wexford with her family, she still calls regularly, telling me to keep the faith, that everything will be OK. Sending a bright blast of positive energy through my day. Course, that rosy glow only ever lasts for about three seconds or so after I hang up, but you see what I mean. It’s cheering to think that at least someone remembers me and is actually prepared to talk to me. Because the golden rule in this house is that you’re never, ever in any circumstances allowed to talk while the TV is on, which is pretty much most of the time, and basically if my stepsisters aren’t watching TV then they’re talking about it. And nothing else. You want to hear some of the conversations.

  For instance, last night, myself, Maggie and Sharon were tucked in front of the TV watching an old black and white movie on TCM, Brief Encounter. Or rather, they were watching it and I was supposed to be dusting in the background, but then exhaustion got the better of me, so I just collapsed down on the end of the sofa beside them and no one said anything. Wonderful, poignant, romantic tear-jerker of a movie and all Maggie could say was, ‘Could you imagine how much easier life would have been if they’d just all had mobile phones back then? No pissing around waiting on some bloke in a railway station in the back arse of nowhere, for starters.’ Then we watched Pride and Prejudice, one of my all-time favourite books and movies and as the credits rolled, Sharon’s one and only comment was, ‘Jaysus. Imagine living in a world with no gay men.’ So then they switched over to a TV documentary called Three Sisters Make a Baby, about one sister who surrogates for another, so the third can adopt the baby.

  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 Cosmo that’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 Cosmo quiz 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, I barely 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.

  God, just standing here in this queue is the most monumental reality check you’ll ever get. Dole queues really are the great leveller. By the look of these people, I’m guessing some of them have mortgages to pay and young families to look after. Some of them might even have bought houses at ridiculously over-inflated prices at the height of the property boom and now find themselves in dreaded negative equity situations with absolutely no hope of ever getting out of it. Loads of young people are queuing up as well, looking like they just left school. In fact, there’s more boob tubes and hoop earrings here than you’d normally see in late-night bars in town any night of the week. A few enterprising barrow women from nearby Moore Street have come round too and are now working their way down the queue selling everything from pineapples to kids’ toys.

  ‘Six mandarin oranges for the price of five, only one Euro, Dolebusters’ Special’ one of them is yelling. But they’re not doing much in the way of trade. The business types just bury their heads in their newspapers, desperately trying to blend into the background and look invisible. Just like me, hoping and praying that no one sees them.

  Tell you something else: I’m bloody glad to have Sharon with me. Turns out she was on the dole, or ‘the scratch’ as she calls it, for almost two years. Then they threatened to stop it on her, unless she did a CERT back-to-work course.

  ‘But can they do that?’ I ask her innocently.

  ‘Course they can, you eejit,’ she says, lighting up her third fag since we got here. ‘The whole point of being on the scratch is that the government want to get you off it as quick as they can. They made me go on a personal development course with a load of women who were out of their heads on methadone half the time. A few of them had even been in prison. Then I got the job at Smiley Burger which paid me more than I ever got on the scratch anyway, so that was the end of that. Best day of my life, the day I was able to tell the aul’ bitch of a welfare officer where to shove her personal development course.’

  To Sharon’s credit, she’s really keeping up her side of our little Faustian pact and has been amazing about all this whole signing-on lark. I hate to put a hex on it but I think we’re actually starting to get on reasonably well. But then, I figure, if Robbie Williams and Take That can put their differences aside, why can’t we?

  Anyway, according to her, the doors don’
t even properly open until 9.30, so to pass the time in the queue, I start to ask her loose, broad questions about her dating history/ideal man/perfect relationship. Fair’s fair and I’ve gotta keep up my end of the bargain. Least I can do after she’s sacrificed her lie-in and more importantly, all her early morning TV shows.

  ‘Right then. The way I look on the whole dating game,’ is my opener, ‘is that it’s a bit like buying a house. You’ve got to work out a list of what you absolutely refuse to compromise on, versus things that may drive you mad in the short term, but that you’re ultimately prepared to put up with.’

  ‘Is that what you did with Sam?’

  Sam. Although he’s never out of my mind, just hearing someone else say his name still is like a kick right in the solar plexus. Funny, how a heart can be broken and yet still beat. ‘No, no it was never like that with Sam,’ I eventually force myself to answer her. ‘He was … well … pretty much perfect.’

  Well, OK, so maybe not perfect, I mean, come on, what bloke is? Yes, he was a bit work obsessive and yes, all his talk about winners versus losers and mental discipline could drive me scatty at times, but then … but then in the end, he wasn’t the problem, was he? I was. And now the best I can hope for is that he’ll get bolter’s regret and come crawling back to me. It’s been weeks now and yet every single time my mobile rings, I keep silently hoping that it’s him to say that he’s made a terrible mistake and that he wants nothing more than for us to get back together again. Whereupon I’ll finally get a chance to vent my anger and chew the face off him for ignoring me/airbrushing me out of his life running to the papers etc. Whereupon he’ll grovel and crawl and declare undying love … whereupon we’ll both live happily ever after and treat this whole miserable episode as an amusing anecdote to tell our grandkids. I’ve the entire fantasy conversation all worked out in my head. But then that would be asking for miracles wouldn’t it? And miracles don’t happen in dole queues.