He stopped, puffing slightly. He studied the shop window for a few seconds, as if he was thinking. Then he faced me. ‘You’re right. Okay? You’re right.’
I stared at him.
‘The Shamrock and Clover. It’s a horrible place. And I know I’ve not been the greatest to work for. But all I can tell you is that, for every miserable directive I give you, my nuts are being squeezed ten times harder by Head Office. My wife hates me because I’m never home. The suppliers hate me because I have to cut their margins every single week because of pressure from shareholders. My regional manager says I’m underperforming on units shifted and if I don’t pull it out of the bag I’m going to get sent to the North Wales Passenger Ferry branch. At which point my wife will actually leave me. And I won’t blame her.
‘I hate managing people. I have the social skills of a lamppost, which is why I can’t hang on to anyone. Vera only stays because she has the skin of a rhino and I suspect she’s secretly after my job. So there – I’m sorry. I’d actually quite like to give you your job back because, whatever I said earlier, you were pretty good. Customers liked you.’
He sighed, and looked out over the milling crowds around us. ‘But you know what, Louisa? You should get out while you can. You’re pretty, you’re smart, hardworking – you could get something way better than this. If I wasn’t locked into a mortgage that I can barely afford, a baby on the way and payments to make on a fricking Honda Civic that makes me feel about 120 years old, believe me, I’d be taking off out of here faster than one of those planes.’ He held out a hand with a payslip. ‘Your holiday pay. Now go. Seriously, Louisa. Get out.’
I looked down at the little brown envelope in my hand. Around us the passengers moved at a crawl, pausing at outlet windows, checking for vanished passports, oblivious to what was going on in their midst. And I knew, with a weary inevitability, what was going to happen.
‘Richard? Thanks for that, but … could I still have the job? Even if it’s just for a bit? I do actually really need it.’
Richard looked as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying. Then he let out a sigh. ‘If you could do a couple of months it would be a massive relief. I’m right up the proverbial creek here. In fact, if you could start now I could make it over to the wholesalers to pick up the new beer mats.’
We swapped places; a little waltz of mutual disappointment.
‘I’ll call home,’ I said.
‘Oh. Here,’ he said. We gazed at each other a moment longer, and then he handed me the plastic bag containing my uniform. ‘I guess you’ll be needing this.’
Richard and I settled into a routine of sorts. He treated me with a little more consideration, only asking me to do the Gents on the days when Noah, the new cleaner, failed to turn up, not commenting if he thought I was spending too long talking to customers (even if he did look a bit pained). In turn I was cheerful and punctual and careful to upsell when I could. I felt an odd responsibility towards his nuts.
One day he took me to one side and said that, while it was possibly a little premature, Head Office had told him they were looking to elevate one of the permanent staff to an assistant managerial position and if things carried on as they were he felt very much inclined to put my name forward. (‘I can’t risk promoting Vera. She’d put floor cleaner in my tea to get my job.’) I thanked him and tried to look more delighted than I felt.
Lily, meanwhile, asked Samir for a job, and he said he would take her for a half-day’s trial if she would do it for free. I handed her a coffee at seven thirty, and made sure she left the flat dressed and ready in time for her eight o’clock start. When I returned home that evening, she had apparently got the job, albeit on £2.73 an hour, which I discovered was the lowest rate he could legally pay her. She had spent most of the day moving crates in the back storeroom and putting prices on tins with an ancient sticker gun, while Samir and his cousin watched football on his iPad. She was filthy and exhausted, but curiously happy. ‘If I last a month he says he’ll consider putting me on the till.’
I had a shift change, so on Thursday afternoon we drove to Lily’s parents’ house in St John’s Wood, and I waited in the car while Lily went in and collected some more clothes and the Kandinsky print that she had promised would look good in my flat. She emerged twenty minutes later, her face furious and closed. Tanya walked out into the porch, her arms folded, watching silently as Lily opened the boot and threw in an overstuffed holdall and, more carefully, the print. Then she climbed into the front seat and gazed straight ahead at the empty road. As Tanya closed the door behind her, there was a small possibility that she was wiping her eyes.
I put my key into the ignition.
‘When I grow up,’ Lily said, and perhaps only I could have detected the faint tremor in her voice, ‘I am not going to be anything like my mother.’
I waited a moment, then started the car and we drove in silence back to my flat.
Fancy the pictures tonight? I could do with some escapism.
I don’t think I should leave Lily.
Bring her?
I’d better not. Sorry, Sam x
That evening I found Lily out on the fire escape. She looked up at the sound of the window opening and waved a cigarette. ‘Thought it was a bit mean to keep smoking in your flat, given that you don’t.’
I wedged the window open, climbed out carefully, and sat down on the iron steps beside her. Below us the car park simmered in the August heat, the scent of hot tarmac rising into the still air. A car with the bonnet up thumped bass from its sound system. The metal of the steps retained the warmth of a month of sunny afternoons and I leaned back, closing my eyes.
‘I thought it would all work out,’ Lily said.
I opened them.
‘I thought if I could just get Peter to go away all my problems would be solved. I thought if I could find my dad I would feel like I belonged somewhere. And now Peter’s gone, and Garside’s gone, and I know about my dad and I have you. But nothing feels like I expected.’
I was about to tell her not to be silly. I was about to point out that she had come such a long way in a short time, that she had her first job, prospects, a bright future – the standard adult responses. But they sounded trite and patronizing.
At the end of the road a bunch of office workers huddled round a metal table by the pub’s rear door. Later tonight it would be packed with hipsters and strays from the City, spilling out with drinks across the pavement, their raucous calls filtering in through my open window. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I’ve been waiting to feel normal again since your dad died. I feel like I’m basically going through the motions. I’m still in a crappy job. I still live in this flat, which I don’t think is ever going to feel like home. I had a near-death experience, but I can’t say it gave me wisdom or gratitude for life or anything. I go to a grief-counselling group full of people who are as stuck as I am. But I haven’t really done anything.’
Lily thought about this. ‘You helped me.’
‘That’s pretty much the one thing I hang onto most days.’
‘And you have a boyfriend.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Sure, Louisa.’
I stared at him.
‘The Shamrock and Clover. It’s a horrible place. And I know I’ve not been the greatest to work for. But all I can tell you is that, for every miserable directive I give you, my nuts are being squeezed ten times harder by Head Office. My wife hates me because I’m never home. The suppliers hate me because I have to cut their margins every single week because of pressure from shareholders. My regional manager says I’m underperforming on units shifted and if I don’t pull it out of the bag I’m going to get sent to the North Wales Passenger Ferry branch. At which point my wife will actually leave me. And I won’t blame her.
‘I hate managing people. I have the social skills of a lamppost, which is why I can’t hang on to anyone. Vera only stays because she has the skin of a rhino and I suspect she’s secretly after my job. So there – I’m sorry. I’d actually quite like to give you your job back because, whatever I said earlier, you were pretty good. Customers liked you.’
He sighed, and looked out over the milling crowds around us. ‘But you know what, Louisa? You should get out while you can. You’re pretty, you’re smart, hardworking – you could get something way better than this. If I wasn’t locked into a mortgage that I can barely afford, a baby on the way and payments to make on a fricking Honda Civic that makes me feel about 120 years old, believe me, I’d be taking off out of here faster than one of those planes.’ He held out a hand with a payslip. ‘Your holiday pay. Now go. Seriously, Louisa. Get out.’
I looked down at the little brown envelope in my hand. Around us the passengers moved at a crawl, pausing at outlet windows, checking for vanished passports, oblivious to what was going on in their midst. And I knew, with a weary inevitability, what was going to happen.
‘Richard? Thanks for that, but … could I still have the job? Even if it’s just for a bit? I do actually really need it.’
Richard looked as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying. Then he let out a sigh. ‘If you could do a couple of months it would be a massive relief. I’m right up the proverbial creek here. In fact, if you could start now I could make it over to the wholesalers to pick up the new beer mats.’
We swapped places; a little waltz of mutual disappointment.
‘I’ll call home,’ I said.
‘Oh. Here,’ he said. We gazed at each other a moment longer, and then he handed me the plastic bag containing my uniform. ‘I guess you’ll be needing this.’
Richard and I settled into a routine of sorts. He treated me with a little more consideration, only asking me to do the Gents on the days when Noah, the new cleaner, failed to turn up, not commenting if he thought I was spending too long talking to customers (even if he did look a bit pained). In turn I was cheerful and punctual and careful to upsell when I could. I felt an odd responsibility towards his nuts.
One day he took me to one side and said that, while it was possibly a little premature, Head Office had told him they were looking to elevate one of the permanent staff to an assistant managerial position and if things carried on as they were he felt very much inclined to put my name forward. (‘I can’t risk promoting Vera. She’d put floor cleaner in my tea to get my job.’) I thanked him and tried to look more delighted than I felt.
Lily, meanwhile, asked Samir for a job, and he said he would take her for a half-day’s trial if she would do it for free. I handed her a coffee at seven thirty, and made sure she left the flat dressed and ready in time for her eight o’clock start. When I returned home that evening, she had apparently got the job, albeit on £2.73 an hour, which I discovered was the lowest rate he could legally pay her. She had spent most of the day moving crates in the back storeroom and putting prices on tins with an ancient sticker gun, while Samir and his cousin watched football on his iPad. She was filthy and exhausted, but curiously happy. ‘If I last a month he says he’ll consider putting me on the till.’
I had a shift change, so on Thursday afternoon we drove to Lily’s parents’ house in St John’s Wood, and I waited in the car while Lily went in and collected some more clothes and the Kandinsky print that she had promised would look good in my flat. She emerged twenty minutes later, her face furious and closed. Tanya walked out into the porch, her arms folded, watching silently as Lily opened the boot and threw in an overstuffed holdall and, more carefully, the print. Then she climbed into the front seat and gazed straight ahead at the empty road. As Tanya closed the door behind her, there was a small possibility that she was wiping her eyes.
I put my key into the ignition.
‘When I grow up,’ Lily said, and perhaps only I could have detected the faint tremor in her voice, ‘I am not going to be anything like my mother.’
I waited a moment, then started the car and we drove in silence back to my flat.
Fancy the pictures tonight? I could do with some escapism.
I don’t think I should leave Lily.
Bring her?
I’d better not. Sorry, Sam x
That evening I found Lily out on the fire escape. She looked up at the sound of the window opening and waved a cigarette. ‘Thought it was a bit mean to keep smoking in your flat, given that you don’t.’
I wedged the window open, climbed out carefully, and sat down on the iron steps beside her. Below us the car park simmered in the August heat, the scent of hot tarmac rising into the still air. A car with the bonnet up thumped bass from its sound system. The metal of the steps retained the warmth of a month of sunny afternoons and I leaned back, closing my eyes.
‘I thought it would all work out,’ Lily said.
I opened them.
‘I thought if I could just get Peter to go away all my problems would be solved. I thought if I could find my dad I would feel like I belonged somewhere. And now Peter’s gone, and Garside’s gone, and I know about my dad and I have you. But nothing feels like I expected.’
I was about to tell her not to be silly. I was about to point out that she had come such a long way in a short time, that she had her first job, prospects, a bright future – the standard adult responses. But they sounded trite and patronizing.
At the end of the road a bunch of office workers huddled round a metal table by the pub’s rear door. Later tonight it would be packed with hipsters and strays from the City, spilling out with drinks across the pavement, their raucous calls filtering in through my open window. ‘I know what you mean,’ I said. ‘I’ve been waiting to feel normal again since your dad died. I feel like I’m basically going through the motions. I’m still in a crappy job. I still live in this flat, which I don’t think is ever going to feel like home. I had a near-death experience, but I can’t say it gave me wisdom or gratitude for life or anything. I go to a grief-counselling group full of people who are as stuck as I am. But I haven’t really done anything.’
Lily thought about this. ‘You helped me.’
‘That’s pretty much the one thing I hang onto most days.’
‘And you have a boyfriend.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Sure, Louisa.’
