‘Yes,’ I say as my stomach continues to churn. ‘One o’clock is fine by me.’
According to the blue and green sign beside the main doors, Four Oaks is a long-term respite and residential care home. The building itself looks exactly as I’d expected, a fairly modern two-storey block set in relatively attractive landscaped grounds. It looks just the sort of place where an anxious family member could leave a relative and not feel overly guilty as they watched their loved one waving goodbye to them in the rear-view mirror as they drove away.
After buzzing my way into the home, I explain at reception who I am and who I’m here to see, and the cheery receptionist picks up her phone and informs the person on the other end of my arrival. After a short wait a freakishly tall, acne-ridden man some ten years my junior appears in front of me. He’s wearing an ill-fitting grey suit – too short on the arms, too long on the legs – and smells strongly of freshly sprayed deodorant.
‘You must be Danny,’ he says, shaking my hand. ‘I’m Dean Tromans, trainee deputy manager here at Four Oaks. If you’d like to just follow me, I’ll introduce you to my colleague, Pat.’
I’m led along a long corridor, the air of which reeks of pine-scented disinfectant, to a door marked General Manager. Sitting behind a desk near the window is a plump middle-aged lady with short dyed red hair.
‘You must be Danny,’ she says, shaking my hand. ‘I’m Pat, General Manager of Four Oaks. Please take a seat and we’ll get things started.’
Over the course of the interview, Pat and Dean ask me precisely two questions: do I have a UK passport and when can I start? Other than that all I do is respond to their request to tell them a bit about myself. I tell them what I always tell people. I tell them how I’m a local lad through and through and then move on to discuss my distinctly lacklustre education and extremely patchy work history. I’m also pretty frank about why I’m applying for the role (‘I’m broke,’ I explain, ‘the dole cut off my money this week and if I don’t bring in some cash soon, I’m pretty sure my girlfriend’s going to leave me’), and equally blunt about my cluelessness with regard to what this job actually entails (‘I’m guessing it’s looking after old people’). It’s almost as though nothing I say can take the shine off their enthusiasm for me. ‘Sometimes, Danny,’ says Pat as she idly picks at her nail polish, ‘it can take people a while to discover their true vocation,’ and then Dean adds, ‘Sounds to me like someone’s just found themselves the career they never knew they’d always wanted.’
There’s an awkward pause before Dean glances at Pat and then leans forward, resting his chin on his hand, and his elbow on his knee. ‘I hope I’m not speaking out of turn here,’ he says with a smile, ‘but I think it’s safe to say that you, Danny, are absolutely one hundred per cent the right person for us. Wouldn’t you, Pat?’
‘He couldn’t be more suited,’ says Pat.
‘In that case, Danny,’ says Dean, sitting up straight in his chair, ‘I have no hesitation in saying that we’d like to offer you the position of a grade two temporary trainee care assistant. So what do you say, Danny? Would you like to become a vital member of the Honeywell International stable of residential care homes?’
The fact that Pat and Dean aren’t even remotely put off by anything I’ve said makes it abundantly clear that the interview process has been little more than a cursory check to make sure that I have the requisite number of arms and legs needed for the job while double-checking that I’m desperate enough to accept their exploitative working conditions (zero hours contract, two days of compulsory unpaid training, and unpaid lunch breaks), which of course I am. I also get the feeling that Pat and Dean have in recent times interviewed an awful lot of people for an awful lot of jobs, suggesting a regular turnover of staff because of appalling working conditions. I want so desperately to tell Dean and Pat what they can do with their job that it hurts, but I can’t because this right here is my last chance, and no matter how awful it might turn out to be, I need this job badly.
‘I’ll take it,’ I say, and I go to smile in Pat’s direction but I can see behind her lifeless expression that she’s already switched off, more than likely thinking about the next poor sucker she and Dean will have lined up to take my place when I leave.
When I reach home, I’m a little unsure about what to do with the rest of my day. Maya’s on a late shift at the call centre and won’t be home until after eleven, and so I have a good six hours or so to kill before she comes through the door. Even though part of me feels like celebrating, because for the time being at least I seem to have averted disaster, I’m oddly reluctant to text Maya. After all, it’s not as though I’ve just scored the job of the century. We’re not suddenly going to be rolling in cash just because I’ve got some low-paid job wiping strangers’ arses. We’re not going to morph overnight into one of those deliriously happy couples you see in magazine adverts just because I’ve managed to fix one item from a long list of things that are wrong with me. In fact, chances are things are more likely to get worse between us rather than better, especially once Maya realises that working hasn’t changed me, that I’m still broken inside, that there really is no hope for me.
And yet despite all this, I do feel sort of good about myself, or at least enough to want to share my news with someone who might care. Helen was always great for times like these. Occasions when you want to celebrate something that isn’t really much of a big deal to anyone but you. I remember the first time I took my driving test. I was eighteen and not particularly car minded and so it was no surprise that I failed. When I came home to break the news, however, the first thing I saw was a huge banner that Helen had made from an old bed sheet and then hung out of the bedroom window. On it she had painted the words, ‘Well done, Danny!’ for all to see and even though I’d failed, she never once stopped encouraging and assuring me I’d do better next time. When I returned home from my second failed driving test, that same banner was hanging in exactly the same position and when I broke the news of my failure, Helen gave me a hug and told me she reckoned I must only have failed because I’d had a really strict examiner. When I finally passed on my third attempt, I hurried home to tell everyone and sure enough that same banner was hanging from the upstairs window. I’ll never forget the way she reacted to the news that I’d finally passed. She was happier than I was, laughing and crying at the same time as she hugged me out in the street. It’s the best feeling in the world knowing there’s someone in your corner. That no matter what and no matter how badly you mess up, they will always be on your side.
If Helen were here now she’d be happy for me, just like she was then. She might even have hung a little ‘well done’ banner from the window of the flat or perhaps, given that she’d be older, brought out a bottle of champagne. She would’ve told me this was the beginning of something special, that this was proof I could do anything I wanted if I just put my mind to it. I think if she’d said that, I might actually have believed her too.
But Helen isn’t here. If she were, I would never have got myself into this mess in the first place. I would’ve been somewhere else, someone else, living the life I’d been meant to live, instead of the flimsy imitation I’d scraped together over the years since she’d gone.