He just let her talk on and on, quietly listening, correctly sensing that this was a woman who’d never in a million years lie on an psychoanalyst’s sofa Woody Allen-like and spill out her innermost thoughts. So therefore, he instinctively knew she must really be at break point to even consider opening up to him. She left nothing out either; told him the awful things that were said behind her back at work, when all she was trying to do was keep the show on the road and keep everyone in a job. And how she tried not to let it get to her but how much it all hurt her deep down. That in spite of what everyone thought about her and in spite of all the bitching that was done about her, she was actually a human being underneath it all, with normal human emotions.
‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’ he murmured under his breath.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said quietly. ‘From
The
Merchant of Venice
. Go on. What other bitching are they doing about you? Say it aloud, we’ll have a laugh at it and then it’ll go away. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.’
She was on the verge of tears now, he could tell by the tiny wobble in her voice. And by the cut of her, you could tell that this was someone totally unused to crying.
‘Latest is, courtesy of Seth Coleman, that I spread unhappiness wherever I go.’
‘I know I don’t know the guy and have never met him and would never want to, but Jesus, give me five minutes with him down a dark alleyway with a golf club.’
In spite of herself she sniggered, in a laughter-through-tears kind of way.
‘Not as bad as the time he said that I’d had all human emotion surgically removed from me, but, yeah, certainly right up there in his top ten insult hit list.’
‘Where I come from, we have ways of sorting out a git like that very fast, let me tell you. Nothing terminal of course, just a bit of a going over … Say the word, and I can have it taken care of for you. That guy needs teaching a lesson and I know a few lads who’d gladly take care of it in a heartbeat. Seth Coleman would never walk straight again.’
For a split second, she looked up at him horrified, then caught the cheeky glint in his eye.
‘You’re messing,’ she half smiled.
‘Course I’m messing. You think I’m ever going back to you-know-where?’
She grinned even wider his time, as ever he thought, completely softening her whole face.
‘Eloise, will you tell me something else?’
Feck it, it was bothering him and he might as well ask her now, when she seemed to be opening up a bit.
‘What it is?’
‘No offence, you know I’m happy to talk to you any time, but why are you telling
me
all this? Isn’t there anyone at home waiting for you who’d want to know all about your day?’
And like that, she immediately clammed up again. Not for the first time either. Whenever he as much as broached the subject of her home life, she turned back to stone. As if the temperature in the room suddenly just dropped down about ten degrees.
‘Jake,’ she said, suddenly tuning out. ‘I’ll make you a deal. I won’t ask you about your past or your personal life and you won’t ask me about mine. Okay?’
He shrugged.
‘If that’s what you want.’
‘You have to trust me. It’s just better that way.’
She got up to leave then, looking shattered and probably aching for sleep.
‘Look, it’s nearly coming up to eleven,’ she said, as he stood to help her pull her coat back on and looking gratefully up at him. ‘And I’ve to be up and back into work for six tomorrow morning, so I better hit the road. But look … I just want to say thank you. Just being able to talk through such a shitty, awful, crappy day was a huge help. You’ve no idea.’
‘Any time,’ he said evenly, arms folded, towering over her by at least a foot. ‘Least I can do. Look at all you’ve done for me.’
‘You’re more than welcome, you know that.’
‘Doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad for accepting all this help from you. But I promise you this Eloise, the day will come when I’ll pay you back. I mean it.’
‘Just concentrate on getting a good job that uses you to your best ability. Seeing that happen would be payment enough for me,’ she smiled.
He couldn’t resist.
‘Just let me know whenever you want to start work on the feature you were talking about.’
‘The what?’ she asked, and he guessed that exhaustion was momentarily clouding her normally perfect recall.
‘The feature for your paper? About guys like me and how they fare on the outside?’
‘Oh yeah, the feature, of course,’ she said unconvincingly he thought, her involuntary glance down to the left giving her away again. ‘Not now, but another time, okay?’
A minute later, she had gone back out into the rainy night and all Jake could do was stand there, utterly baffled, thinking … why? Why was someone like her putting herself out like this just for someone like him?
He’d meant what he said to her, he didn’t feel one bit comfortable at all with the help she was so freely giving him. True, he was paying his own way in the flat, but then there was all that work she was putting into his CV.
And another thing. Was the girl really that lonely, that he was the only person she had to talk her in off the ledge after a bad day? Where were her friends, her family?
Or was he really the only person in the world she had to open up to?
His mam’s magic novenas to St Michael and St Joseph were answered and not long after, Jake got a letter from one of the many language schools where he’d applied to teach English as a foreign language, requesting – he thought he was seeing things – an interview. An actual interview. For a decent, respectable job and not driving taxis or flipping burgers or selling the
Big Issue
outside late night supermarkets like most of the ex-cons he knew.
He called Eloise immediately and even though she was in her office and couldn’t really react, he swore he could hear the delighted triumph in her voice. ‘We’ll plan this all out later,’ she hissed down the phone.
Planning, scheming, devising, taking total control, he’d learned, were Eloise’s favourite pastimes in the whole world. The woman was utterly wasted at the
Post,
he reckoned, she should have been head of the CIA – she’d have the place running effortlessly smoothly with one hand tied behind her back.
True to her word, she popped into the flat late that night, on her way home.
‘Okay, we’ve just got one problem,’ she told him decisively, whamming her briefcase down on the tiny coffee table, whipping off her too-tight jacket and gratefully taking the glass of white wine Jake offered her.
‘You’ve only just got in the door! Would you ever relax and tell me a bit about your day first?’
‘Can’t Jake. This is too important for us … I mean, for you. Have you any idea the amount of prepping we’re going to have to do to get you ready in time? And while we’re on the subject, there’s something that’s been worrying me …’
‘You mean what to say if they ask what I’ve been doing for the past two years?’
‘No, no that’s not it,’ she interrupted. ‘At least, that’s not
just
it.’
They’d been over and over the subject of how best to gloss over his past and Eloise had stressed time and again that any potential employer was bound to run background checks, even for a part-time job. So with that in mind, she advised Jake he’d no choice but to openly and honestly tell them the whole truth and nothing but. It was a huge gamble and they both knew it, but somehow she believed in him and genuinely hoped that his personality and passion for the job would sway things his way. Not to mention the fact that his score on his final TEFL exam was one of the highest in the country. Besides, from sitting on the far side of an interviewer’s desk, she claimed to know from bitter experience that an employer was always far more concerned about the potential future of the candidate sitting down in front of them, and considerably less about their past.
‘What’s up then?’
‘There’s no easy way to say this, and you’re not to take offence, but – it’s your appearance.’
‘What about it?’
‘Ehhhh … Jake, to date all I’ve ever seen you in is either a black or a blue T-shirt and the same pair of jeans day in day out. Two T-shirts does not a well-dressed interviewee make. Not good enough. There’s an awful lot riding on this, so you’ve got to give yourself the best shot possible.’
‘Ahh Christ, don’t say what I think you’re going to say.’
‘You need a suit. You need a whole new wardrobe, in fact.’
‘No way.’
‘Yes way.’
‘Suits are for bankers, developers who’ve gone bust and gay magicians on TV. The one and only time I was ever in a suit in my whole life, I was up in front of a judge in Circuit Court number six.’
‘Jake, I interview people all the time and first impressions count. You have to trust me.’
The following Saturday, Eloise called him to say that as it was a relatively quiet news day, she could grab a short window away from the office to take him shopping.
‘What, don’t you trust me?’ he’d teased her down the phone. ‘Afraid I’ll come home with stonewash denims and a shiny shirt with
Megadeth
written on it?’
He swore he could hear the smile in her voice.
‘Just meet me at the bottom of Grafton St. at half one.’
‘Fine, there’s a tattoo parlour close to there, you can help me pick out a new one that says, “done time and proud”.’
‘Please tell me you’re messing …’
‘You have to ask?’
‘Just stop acting the eejit and don’t be late!’
Strange, he thought, being made over by someone with actual taste when it came to labels he’d never heard of and designers he’d only been vaguely aware of from TV shows, where stick-thin models cavorted down Parisian runways wearing what looked like their knickers and not much else. The lads sometimes watched that stuff inside so they could salivate over the models, but more often than not, they’d take one look at the get-ups on them and crease themselves laughing.
And now here was Eloise taking him into shops he’d never set foot in before in his life, making him try on clothes that looked poncey and totally gak on the hanger, but when he put them on, somehow miraculously worked.
She insisted on his stepping out of the changing rooms so she could give him the once over after he’d tried anything on. When he stepped out in an elegant pair of charcoal-grey trousers teamed with a pale blue shirt the exact same colour as his eyes, he could read the approval on her face.
‘You’re sure I don’t look like a gay hairdresser?’ he asked uncertainly, hating the way the male sales assistants were eyeing him up. ‘I feel like a gay hairdresser.’
‘Definitely not. You look,’ she paused, eyeing him up and down from head to toe, thought for a second, then added proudly, ‘you look … like a teacher.’
Jake nearly passed out when they got to the till and he discovered that he’d just spent close to three hundred Euro. His worst nightmare. Palms sweating, he realised that ate into most of the little stash of cash he had to tide him over till he found work. And so, mortified, he stammered at the sales guy in the upmarket boutique that he’d made a mistake and would have to put something back.
But just as the sales guy was looking snottily down his bony nose at him, dismissing him for the time-waster he was, Eloise calmly slid up beside the till and smoothly handed over her own credit card.
‘No,’ Jake hissed firmly at her under his breath, purple in the face at this and mortified beyond belief. ‘No way. Not a chance. I’ll shop in Penneys or Dunne’s rather than let you fork out for this. This is
not
happening.’
‘I insist,’ she said cool as a breeze. ‘Besides, it’s only a loan. These clothes are an investment in your future. Trust me, when you get the job, you can pay me back out of your first month’s salary. Deal?’
It wasn’t one bit okay with him, as it happened. He felt deeply uncomfortable and had to fight the urge to smack the sales assistant right square in his patronising gob when he caught him smirking snidely, but on the condition that it was to be a loan and nothing more, he eventually swallowed his pride and gave in. Besides, he’d pay her back, even if he never got the job and ended up driving taxis for the rest of this life. If it was the last thing he did, he’d pay her back every shagging penny.
But if he’d thought Eloise was finished with him there, he’d another thing coming. Next stop was the men’s barber shop in Brown Thomas, and he nearly baulked like a kid when he saw how intimidatingly posh it was. Designed to terrify. Like a gentlemen’s club with copies of the
Financial Times
dotted around the place, where all the sofas were green leather and where even the cushions had cushions. The type of place Supreme Court judges would meet to have a shave and pause to brag about how much their individual wine collections were worth. For a split second, he had a mental image of himself sitting in a swivel chair while the same judge he might have appeared in front of sat down beside him, peered out over the top of his
Irish Times
and said, ‘Excuse me young man, your face is familiar, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’
‘I’m out of here,’ he muttered, turning on his heel.
But Eloise was having none of it. ‘You’ll thank me in the long run,’ she whispered to him, then swooped in like she owned the place and made an on-the-spot appointment for him to have a haircut and then a shave, in that order.
‘But I know a bloke on Liffey St. who’ll cut hair for a fiver,’ Jake protested, ‘and for feck’s sake, I’m able to shave myself, thanks all the same.’
He’d even made it back out as far as halfway to the door, but then he felt her ice-cool grip on his arm.
‘First impressions count,’ she told him firmly. ‘And when you walk into that interview, I want their first impression of you to be that you’re groomed, elegant, articulate and ready for the job. I’ve done my fair share of hiring in my time and trust me, I know what I’m on about.’
So, against his better judgement, he went along with it, while Eloise waited for him, tapping away at her mobile, firing off emails and having low, hissy conversations down the phone with someone called Marc, something about a review in that weekend’s culture section. God only knew what the poor guy had written, but from what Jake could gather, Eloise was far from impressed.