by Linda Green
‘It is possible to apply for an advance if you’re struggling to cover basic needs, but that has to be paid back out of your benefits, so you’ll need to ensure you can live on reduced benefits in future weeks.’
‘Well that’s no good, is it? You’re giving him a choice of being skint now or skint later.’
Denise sighs. ‘I’ll print you out the form for an advance payment. It’s up to you whether you apply or not. What other household income do you have?’
‘We haven’t got owt now. I lost my job on Friday. I need to sign on while I’m here, too.’
‘I’m afraid you can only do that if you’ve made an appointment.’
‘I thought I could do it at same time as our Terry.’
Denise shakes her head. ‘No. The next available slot is on Friday afternoon at four thirty. I can book you in for that if you’d like?’
I shrug. It doesn’t look like I have any option.
‘Fine. We’re screwed, whenever it is.’
Denise ignores me and looks back down at the form.
‘I see your last job was as a cleaner, Mr Allen.’
‘Yeah, in a restaurant,’ says Terry. ‘I didn’t like it because there were rats. I could hear them running across floor in kitchen.’
Terry starts singing ‘Rat in Mi Kitchen’ by UB40 under his breath. It makes a welcome change from the Pet Shop Boys, to be honest. Denise looks at me.
‘I’ll go and get those forms,’ she says.
*
Terry is quiet on the bus home. It’s all still going on in his head, though. I can see it from the expression on his face. He leaves me when he gets like this. It’s like he’s gone to another place where I can’t reach him. That’s what worries me most. Not being able to help him. It’s the one job I have as his big sister; to protect him. After what happened when he was little, I vowed I’d never let another person hurt him again. I managed to keep that promise but what I couldn’t do is protect him from himself. I cried the first time he was sectioned, because I knew I’d failed him. I’ve cried every time since. And every time I hear her voice, cackling with cruelty and alcohol. ‘What kind of big sister are you?’ She said sorry afterwards, when she was sober. More times that I care to remember. But I never hear that voice. Only the mocking one. ‘What’s he done to deserve a big sister like you?’
*
Denise rings the following morning when Terry is still in bed. She seems surprised when I answer.
‘Can I speak to Mr Allen?’ she says.
‘It’s Kaz, his sister. I met you yesterday. He’s still asleep so you’ll have to make do with me.’
‘It is Mr Allen I need to speak to. Is it possible to wake him up, please?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘I’m not going to do that because he hardly got any sleep last night. Spent most of it walking round flat with a torch looking for rats. I know because he weren’t quiet about it and light kept coming under my door. You’ll have to talk to me, and I’ll pass it on.’
She hesitates, seemingly still reluctant.
‘Well, it’s good news. We’ve found a position for him.’
‘You what?’
‘A job. As a toilet attendant in the shopping centre.’
‘Is this some kind of joke?’
‘No. I didn’t expect to find anything so quickly but it’s a work programme for the long-term unemployed. Sometimes these things fall into place.’
‘But he’s not long-term unemployed.’
‘He hasn’t worked for five years.’
‘Because he hasn’t been able to, not because he’s a lazy scrounger.’
‘Well, it’ll be difficult for him to find work without recent experience, so it’s ideal for him.’
‘Yeah, it’s perfect for someone who hallucinates about rats to be working in public toilets.’
‘They’ve always been very clean whenever I’ve been in.’
‘Jesus, he’s mentally ill. It’s not about reality. It’s what’s in his head that matters. He hears rats. Voices tell him that there are rats. It doesn’t matter that there aren’t really any rats there. He can’t do it. He can’t work there.’
‘I’m afraid he will be sanctioned if he turns down a work programme placement. It would be a minimum of four weeks without benefits.’
‘You can’t do that to him. He needs that money. He’s already got to wait five weeks to get it. What’s he supposed to live on for nine weeks?’
‘Please understand that it’s not my decision. The government sets the rules and we merely apply them.’
I sigh. ‘Well, doesn’t he need to go to an interview or owt?’
‘No, we’re placing him there. It’s all been agreed.’
‘Not with him, it hasn’t. You saw what he were like yesterday, he’s not fit for work.’
‘As I explained, you can still request the mandatory reconsideration, but in the meantime, Mr Allen has entered into a contract with us in order to receive his benefits. If he breaks his contract, he loses his benefits. It’s as simple as that.’
I don’t know what to say. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was only signing on to get some money while we appealed against the assessment.
‘Well, it’s not going to work out, I can tell you that now. And they’ll see that on his first day, so you’d better be prepared for phone call. When is he supposed to start?’
‘Thursday.’
I snort down the phone. ‘You really are having a laugh, aren’t you?’
Denise is having none of it. ‘There’s a letter in the post with the full details. If he has any queries, he’s welcome to call me. I’d be grateful if you could pass that on to him. Goodbye.’
She hangs up. I can imagine her at the job centre, complaining to her colleagues that nobody wants to work these days. She has no idea. No fucking idea at all.
*
I wait until the following morning when the letter arrives before I say anything to Terry. Partly because I need to see it in black and white myself before I believe it, and partly because I know it will send him into a hell of a state and I want to put that off as long as possible.
I open the letter and read through the details, hoping to discover they’ve somehow muddled him up with someone else. They haven’t though. Terry Allen, my kid brother, is supposed to be turning up for work tomorrow. It really is happening.
Terry is in the living room watching Bullseye. It’s his second favourite TV show. He cried when Jim Bowen died, said it was like losing his father. To be fair, he’d seen a lot more of him than his actual father.
Terry turns to me. ‘Can’t beat a bit of Bully,’ he says. Normally it would make me smile but not today. I feel like such a cow, breaking into his safe little haven to throw him kicking and screaming out into the real world.
‘Denise from job centre sent this,’ I say, holding out the letter.
Terry frowns.
‘Have they admitted they cocked up?’
‘No love. She’s found a job for you. Some work programme thing that you have to go on to get your benefits. It starts tomorrow.’
Jim Bowen is unveiling the star prize of a caravan. No one would want a caravan these days. They probably wouldn’t play for anything less than a Porsche, but back then, caravans always got a big ooohhh from the audience.
Terry looks up at me.
‘Where?’
‘At shopping centre in town. As a toilet attendant.’
I brace myself for what is to come. I wouldn’t blame him if he threw something or burst into tears. He doesn’t do either of those things, though. That’s what makes it so awful. He simply goes back to watching Bullseye without a word. Fiddling with the buttons on his cardigan.
AFTER 5
5
Finn
As soon as I wake up, I check the Garde
ner’s Year calendar opposite my bed and see that as well as being a good time for dead-heading, it’s also finally the day I have been waiting for. The last day of the summer term, and therefore my last day at primary school.
The trouble is, now it is here, I don’t want it to be, because I have to get through the Year Six Leavers Assembly before it is over. We all have to sit at the front of the hall and go up in turn as they show old photos of us when we were in reception and wearing silly costumes in nativities, and they say nice things about us and everyone is supposed to clap at how wonderful we are, including all the kids who have been mean to me all the way through school (apart from the last half-term when they had not been mean to me and that’s actually been almost as bad as them being mean, because I know why they have done it).
The other thing that happens at the Year Six Leavers Assembly is that all the mums cry and talk about how it doesn’t seem five minutes since we were in reception. They only say that because they have not actually been to school during that time; just dropped us off and collected us and been to a few celebration assemblies. To me, it feels like I’ve been here about fifty years.
Dad was going to come. He tried to get the time off work but then an important meeting came up that he couldn’t get out of and he was very sorry, but it was just one of those things. When I told Kaz, she offered to come instead. I was pleased about that because quite a few grandmas come and Kaz looks a bit like a grandma, apart from the plaits. I have never seen a grandma with plaits.
‘Is she your real grandma?’ asks Lottie, when I tell her I have someone coming.
‘No. But my real grandma lives in Devon, and that’s too far to come and my other real grandma died when I was seven.’
‘My mum’s coming,’ says Lottie.
‘Is she?’ Lottie’s mum has only been to a celebration assembly twice as far as I can remember, and both times she had to leave early to get to work and waved to Lottie as she left, which embarrassed her, and Lottie didn’t mind her not coming after that.
‘Yeah, she says it’s a rite-of-passage thing, so she’s not going to miss it.’
‘A passage where?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. She didn’t say that.’
‘What do you think Mrs Ratcliffe will say about me?’ I ask.
‘She’ll probably talk about your ukulele-playing.’
I think Lottie is right. At least I won’t have to play it this time. It’s bad enough that everyone still remembers the last time I played it.
‘Yeah. That’s sort of like the polite way of saying I’m weird.’
Lottie smiles. ‘You’re a good weird, though.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes. You’re only weird compared to that bunch of idiots. Actually, they’re the weird ones but because there are loads more of them than you, they can make out you’re weird and get away with it.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘So, what I really need is to find loads of good weird boys like me, so that none of us are weird any more.’
‘Yeah,’ replies Lottie.
‘But have you ever met any other boys like me?’
‘No.’
‘So, I’m always going to be the weird kid and it doesn’t matter that I’m good weird because I’ll always still be weird.’
‘I suppose so. But at least you know.’
I am still trying to work out if that is a good thing or not as our class walk into the hall. They are playing ‘Simply the Best’ and I try not to think about how much Mum would hate it and how rude it was of Mrs Ratcliffe never to reply to her email. Instead of sitting at the back of the hall as usual, they have put benches for us at the front facing everyone. Me and Lottie sit in the back row, but it still feels like everyone is staring at me. Lottie’s mum is crying already and a couple of the other mums are passing tissues along the row to her. It is not Lottie she is looking at, though. It is me.
Kaz is sitting in the back row of the mums. I think we are both back-row kind of people. She gives me a little smile but doesn’t wave or do anything embarrassing. I am trying very hard not to think about the person who is missing. The trouble is I can still see her smiling at me. I can feel her green cardigan soft against my face and hear her clapping louder than anyone when they call my name. Lottie gives my hand a little squeeze, but she makes sure that no one else sees it.
Mrs Ratcliffe stands up and starts jingling and jangling as she waves her hands about. She is acting like she’s very excited, but I don’t know why, unless she is that pleased to be getting rid of me. She talks about what a wonderful year group we have been, which is a lie because half of the boys have been dead annoying and spent most of their time messing about and getting into trouble.
And then she gets her little controller for the PowerPoint out and presses the button and the embarrassing photos start and everyone is laughing. I look a bit sad in all the photos, probably because I have pretty much hated every minute of it.
The next thing is that we are all called out to stand at the front one at a time while Mrs Ratcliffe says nice things about us and our achievements. It must have been hard to think of them for some of the boys. She says Jayden is ‘popular and a valuable member of the school football team’, but she doesn’t mention the time he threw a burger at my face or pulled my hair until he made me cry.
When Tyler goes up, she says he is ‘fun-loving and always the first to finish his lunch’. I don’t really understand how that is supposed to be an achievement, because it means he gulps his food down without chewing properly, but his mum is crying so I suppose she must think it is.
And when it comes to my turn, I stand there and stare straight out at Kaz, while Mrs Ratcliffe says I have ‘demonstrated courage and resilience and am also a talented musician’, and for some reason all the other mums are crying and all the other kids, even the ones that hate me, are clapping. I stand there not knowing what to do. What I want to do is shout at them to stop because it is all my fault and if they knew that, they wouldn’t be clapping. But I can’t do that, so I just stand there and count in my head until it finishes.
Afterwards, when it is all over, there is a little sort of tea party where the mums and grandmas and the one dad who came stay in the hall and there is tea and biscuits and we are allowed to have one biscuit each.
Kaz comes up to me and gives me a hug. ‘I don’t think you liked that one little bit, did you, pet?’
I shake my head.
‘What’s up with your head teacher? Does she think she’s auditioning for children’s TV or summat?’
For the first time that morning, I manage a smile.
‘She used to be a policewoman,’ I say, ‘she jangles too much and thinks I’m weird and Mum had quite a few arguments with her.’
‘I’m not surprised. How does a policewoman end up as a head teacher?’
‘Well, we have got a lot of naughty boys, so maybe that’s why they gave her a job.’
Kaz looks around at the other children. ‘So which ones give you bother?’ she asks.
‘All the boys have been mean to me, but Jayden, Ryan and Tyler are the worst,’ I whisper, pointing them out.
‘Do you want me to tread on their toes on my way out?’ she asks.
I do a little laugh.
‘Well, at least one good thing about going to your posh new school is that you won’t have them to deal with any more.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And is that your friend Lottie?’ she asks, nodding towards where she is standing with Rachel, both of them still wiping away tears.
‘Yes. How did you guess?’
‘Because she were sitting next to you and she looks different to other lasses. Got a bit about her, I’d say.’
I realise as she says it that it’s the last day I’m going to be at school with Lottie and I’ll really, really miss her. I am trying hard not cry ag
ain when Mrs Ratcliffe comes over.
‘Hello,’ she says to Kaz. ‘Are you one of Finn’s relatives?’
‘No, I’m a friend,’ says Kaz. ‘His dad couldn’t make it because of work.’
‘Well, we’re all very proud of how he’s coped with . . . everything,’ she says, avoiding looking at me and continuing jangling and trying to smile, although her face doesn’t look very smiley.
‘Just a shame it’s taken something like this for most of the kids to stop being mean to him,’ replies Kaz.
Mrs Ratcliffe pulls a weird face and shifts her feet before turning to me. ‘And you must be looking forward to going to your new school, Finn.’
I don’t know what to say. I don’t think it would be polite to say no. I look to Kaz for help.
‘I tell you one thing,’ Kaz says, turning to Mrs Ratcliffe. ‘He can’t wait to get out of this dump.’
Mrs Ratcliffe stares at Kaz, opens her mouth and shuts it again before walking away without a word or a jangle.
‘Should I have not said that?’ asks Kaz.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply with a little smile. ‘But I’m glad you did.’
*
I walk back to Lottie’s house with her after school. Her mum is looking after me until Dad gets home from work. Our polo shirts have been signed by everyone in our class. I ask Lottie to check that no one has written ‘weirdo’ or ‘fanny boy’ on mine but she says they haven’t.
‘It feels weird, doesn’t it?’ I say.
Lottie nods. ‘At least you won’t have to see them again. I’ve got five more years of putting up with them.’
‘I wish you were coming to my school,’ I say.
‘You’ll make new friends there.’
‘I won’t though, will I?’
Lottie shrugs. ‘There might be some decent kids.’
‘Good weird ones, you mean?’
‘Yeah,’ she replies with a smile.
*
When Dad arrives to pick me up later, I know that this is the last time I will get picked up from Lottie’s house after school. Her mum has already told me that we’ll still see each other lots in the holidays and maybe we will, but it won’t be the same as going to school together.