Grace’s eyes are drawn to his tattoo as they always 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’.