The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside

by Jessica Ryn

  No one is looking. Dawn holds her head higher and braces herself for action.

  ‘S’cuse me,’ she slurs as she stumbles inside. ‘The guys from the skatepark said you could sort me out?’ She fumbles around in her shoulder bag as they glance at each other.

  ‘What you want?’ the one with the skinhead asks after the other lad nods at him.

  ‘Depends.’ Dawn sways to her left before sinking down onto the wooden-slatted benches, only inches from the bike. ‘There’s a young lad up near the loos who says he’ll sell for two quid less than what you are, and I’m a girl who likes to shop around.’

  The boys play a frenzied game of verbal tennis, batting expletives back and forth, some of which Dawn hasn’t even heard before, and then they set off towards the toilets. ‘We’ll be back, don’t go anywhere,’ the non-skinhead one says over his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Dawn sings out.

  As soon as the boys’ backs are turned, she pulls the bike up by its handlebars and leaps aboard, her heart skipping with excitement. Now this is the kind of thing she was made for – bringing justice and righting the wrongs for those around her.

  It’s been a while since she’s ridden a bike, especially at this speed, but they do say you never forget and they’re right; she probably won’t forget this in a hurry.

  ‘Get on then,’ Dawn winks at Terry as she scrapes her feet across the damp and dusty grass, coming to a stop next to him. She feels a little bit like Batman. Next time she’ll make a cape for the occasion.

  ‘I told you not to go in there,’ he says into her ear as they swap places and she squeezes behind him, holding onto his substantial frame as they zoom off again. She looks behind her as they’re leaving the park and sees two baseball caps bobbing up and down after them, both balanced on the heads of two angry men. Dawn whacks Terry’s back to make him go faster, forgetting he’s not a horse.

  It somehow works and within seconds they’re hurtling around the one-way system. Dawn had forgotten how much she loved riding a bike. A pink and white one with a wicker basket cycles into her mind’s eye, taking her back to that first ever one she’d got for her eighth Christmas. She throws her head back, allowing the wind to blow loudly into her ears, drowning out the memories. Laughter bubbles up inside her, and she whoops and cheers, using all the air in her lungs, spilling out her relief. She can’t wait to tell Cara she has the bike back and that she’s in the clear. This is exactly the reason she needs to stay at St Jude’s.

  People need her.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Peter says when Dawn wheels the bike in through the foyer, breathlessly telling him that Cara had got it wrong; they’d found it at the bottom of the path. ‘It’s very interesting, and it’s a very nice bike. But it’s not ours.’

  Chapter 12

  Grace

  IT’S ALMOST THE END of the day shift and Grace is still thinking about that damn inspection letter. Peter’s been quiet all day, and she’s barely said two words to him either. The spreadsheet she’s supposed to be working on just feels like a blur of numbers and words. The more she panics about how much there is to do before the inspection, the harder it is to get anything done.

  ‘All right, Miss?’ Jack appears at the hatch with the top-up money for his rent. His eyes sparkle when he smiles, and Grace tries so hard not to look at them that she tears his receipt.

  ‘You look happy,’ Grace says.

  ‘I’ve just been writing my speech.’

  ‘Speech?’

  ‘Peter’s helped me arrange to give some school talks about homelessness. I thought it might help other kids in the care system. If I’d been given some advice about when to ask for help, I might not have ended up in the mess I found myself in.’

  Grace’s heart swells. ‘That’s an amazing thing to do. I’d love to come and support?’

  Jack looks towards Peter, uncertainty etched on his face. ‘Actually, I’ve already kind of told Peter he could…’

  ‘Good idea, Grace, you go. School’s aren’t really my thing.’ Peter shudders. ‘I’m sure it will be great for Jack, having you there. Plus, it’s at the high school up near the castle – didn’t you used to go to that one?’

  Grace opens her mouth to say, yes, she’d love to be there. But something jolts between them when her eyes meet Jack’s again. He’s holding her gaze, something Grace remembers he was never able to do with anyone when he first moved in.

  ‘Love to,’ she sings as soon as she can trust her voice again. ‘I’ll be there with bells on.’ Seriously? With bells on? How old is she, seventy?

  ‘Great.’ Jack nods and walks off with a grin.

  ‘Well, that seems to have put a smile on your face, at least,’ says Peter.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Finally getting Jack’s rent top-up. At least he’s up to date now. He’ll be ready to move out soon – he’s really got his act together that one. I don’t think he needs much support from us anymore, especially now he’s got the hang of budgeting and getting his rent top-up paid. That will look better on our records for when we…’

  ‘When we what? Get inspected?’

  Peter bolts up out of his seat and springs across to the kettle. ‘Tea? Ylang ylang?’

  Grace carries on typing slowly with one finger. She’s really just pressing the space bar and there’s nothing in front of her except for her screensaver: a picture of a dog. Not even her dog, just a random one taken from the Dog’s Trust website.

  Grace stays silent, even after he’s put her tea, no sugar, in front of her. Then she thumps the table, making her tea slop over the side of the cup and onto some half-completed paperwork. ‘We’re never going to get our paperwork up to scratch in time.’

  Peter doesn’t answer. He probably has a pretty good idea where this is going by now.

  ‘There’s never enough hours in the day. One of the residents always needs us, and we definitely don’t have enough staff anymore. Maybe I’m just not up to the job.’

  Peter sighs and takes a large gulp of coffee. ‘Grace. That’s not true and you know it.’

  ‘Now we only have a few days to show that our move-on success rate has risen since last time, and I can tell you without looking, Peter, that it hasn’t.’

  ‘The move-on targets are bullshit anyway,’ he says. ‘The people that set these thresholds from their glass offices have no idea how this stuff works in the real world. We can’t just move people on before they’re ready; it sets them up to fail and they’ll be right back here again within six months.’

  ‘That’s if we are still here in six months,’ she mutters.

  ‘And where do they think we’ll find all these magical landlords, willing to rent to people with bad credit histories and on housing benefit? It takes time. These funding people need to be told.’ Now it’s Peter’s time to thump the table.

  ‘Do you think we should let the residents know in advance? They could help get the place looking a bit fresher. Plus, they might want to interview some of them,’ Grace says, her gaze falling through the gap in the hatch.

  ‘No. It’s not their problem to worry about, and it wouldn’t look good if they’ve been prepped on what to say. We can manage it between us. Just tell me anything you need me to do and I’ll do it.’

  ‘Thanks, Pete,’ she says, squeezing his shoulders as she takes her mug back to the sink. ‘And I’m sorry for screeching at you. I just can’t bear the thought of a single one of our residents losing their beds and having to sleep on the streets again.’

  ‘There is one thing we’ve forgotten though,’ Peter says. ‘We arranged that client interview for today and she should be here in ten minutes. I think her name was Maisie?’

  Grace tuts. ‘I know we need to interview everyone on the waiting list, but sometimes it feels cruel to get people’s hopes up when we still don’t actually have any beds to offer them – especially when we already have so many people waiting for one.’

  ‘Yep. But as you’re always telling me –
policies and procedures are policies and procedures,’ says Peter.

  Twenty minutes later, Maisie McDowell is sitting in the office, already taking a breather from answering her interview questions. She’s enjoying a swivel around on Grace’s chair. ‘So – about the perks.’

  ‘Perks?’ Peter looks up from his clipboard.

  ‘Of living here. You know, like – do we get a morning paper each day, a wake-up call, room service – sell it to me.’ Maisie slouches back in the chair and places her arms behind her head as if she’s about to sunbathe.

  Grace shoots a look at Peter. ‘It doesn’t quite work like…’

  ‘The last homeless hostel I stayed at in Birmingham had a spa.’

  Peter drops his pen on the floor and the thud of it landing on the carpet is deafening in the silence of the room.

  ‘Pah! I’m kidding. The looks on your flippin’ faces.’ Maisie roars as she shakes her head. ‘Seriously, though,’ she starts up again once Grace and Peter have joined in with the laughter, ‘I will need a bit of help. I haven’t lived inside for a while. Last time I tried to live with other people it didn’t go so well.’

  Grace smiles back at Peter. ‘We’ll be here to help with that. St Jude’s is so much more than just a roof to live under. You’ll see.’

  After the three of them have rattled through the rest of the questions, Maisie gets up from the chair. She takes up half the office when she stands, mostly because she appears to be wearing about six layers of clothing. ‘Easier than lugging them around in a bag and my trolley’s already bursting,’ she’d explained whilst parking her Morrisons shopping trolley outside. Her bedding is on the top, hiding the multitude of food she’s collected from the food bins and bakeries. ‘It’s criminal what them shops throw away,’ she’d said. ‘So, I take ‘em and give them out to the ones that sleep in the park. Them lot are always getting thrown out of the soup kitchens for bad behaviour, so at least this way, they’ll get something down ‘em.’

  Grace smiles as she pictures Maisie moving into St Jude’s when a room becomes free. She will fit right in. She wishes they had more bed spaces and a shorter wait.

  Grace and Peter work in silence after Maisie has left, in a desperate attempt to make their paperwork gleaming and error-free.

  ‘Wow, it’s like a morgue in here. Who’s crapped on your cornflakes?’ asks Lorna when she arrives for her sleep-shift. She looks tanned and extremely well for someone who has called in sick for the past few nights.

  ‘One of those days,’ Peter grunts. ‘Too much paperwork and not enough time.’

  Lorna is waving around that sort of smile people wear just to invite you to ask about it, but even Grace is too tired to fake enthusiasm for whatever her answer may be.

  ‘Me and the Mrs have set a date,’ she says. ‘Five months from now at Dover Castle. They’ve had a cancellation. You’re both invited, of course.’ Lorna rubs her hands together.

  ‘Wonderful news. Congratulations.’ Peter puts his jacket back down on his seat.

  ‘That’s what you need to put a smile back on your face, Pete. The love of a good woman.’

  Grace winces inside as Peter turns away, pulling down the shutters bit by bit so Lorna doesn’t see the pain she’s just chucked straight at his chest. Peter’s only ever spoken once to Grace about the first and only love of his life: Jenny. He told her that Jenny’s face haunts his mind whenever his eyes are closed for longer than a minute and that he could never imagine being with another person.

  ‘You should get on that Tinder,’ Lorna says, breaking into Grace’s worries about Peter. ‘Tons of women on there. If you get a match this weekend, you might have someone to bring with you when I tie the knot. Or the noose, as they say.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure that’s really my thing.’

  Lorna is already sitting at the computer tapping away. ‘Here we go, you just need to set up a profile.’

  Peter picks up his coat again, pulling his arms into the sleeves.

  ‘Come on, I’ll help you. It’s how me and the Mrs met, after a few false starts. What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘Right, we need a photo,’ she says after a few more minutes of clicking. ‘Which one do you have on your Facebook?’

  Peter shrugs.

  Grace gets a calculator and types in random numbers, pretending not to listen. She’d deleted her own account after a string of horrible dates. She’d only created it in the first place out of pure loneliness. She’d had one boyfriend before, at uni, and he’d slept with three of her friends by the second semester. Much better to be alone. No time for all that, not when St Jude’s needs her.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, I’ll do a search from mine,’ says Lorna. ‘Gotcha,’ she says before throwing Peter a wolf-whistle. ‘And in scrubs. Great photo, we’ll use that.’

  ‘I really don’t think…’

  ‘I’ll put you down as a social worker rather than a support worker. It sounds more impressive,’ she says. ‘You practically are one anyway and it shows you have a caring side. That ought to go down well.’

  Peter flicks the kettle on, staring wistfully at the jacket on the back of his seat.

  ‘What would you say your interests and hobbies are?’

  ‘I like reading. Crime novels mostly.’

  ‘Nah. They might think you’re a serial killer. I’ll change it to, you “like reading French literature”.’

  ‘But I can’t speak French.’

  ‘Pfft,’ she waves her hands over his shoulder as if swatting away a fly. ‘Just wing it, it probably won’t come up anyway. Ohh, you can put more photos up on here now. You definitely should post one of you with your dog.’

  ‘Lovely. Will do,’ Peter says, downing his drink and picking up his phone from the desk. ‘Thanks so much for your help, but I really should be getting home. I have selfies to take with my dog,’ Peter adds when Lorna looks like she’s going to protest.

  ‘That’s my man,’ she grins.

  After being rinsed of energy by a double shift, Grace had been expecting sleep to grab her as soon as she got into bed. No such luck. She keeps imagining strangers rifling through the client files and digging through the hostel like evil foxes, searching for prey and admin mistakes.

  In between fidgeting and getting her feet twisted about inside the bottom of her duvet, Grace dreams. Broken dreams where her mum arrives to inspect St Jude’s and pulls away their funding because Peter had done the paperwork wrong for Lorna’s wedding list. Then she snogs Jack in the office right in front of everyone before saying, ‘See? Jack appreciates French literature.’

  Grace is back in the office her usual twenty minutes before her shift is due to start. She’s finished her sun salutations and has just opened her morning meditation app when Peter arrives.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ she blurts out before he’s even sat down. ‘I’ve just got a lot going on, and I can’t stop worrying about what will happen to this place if we fail our inspection.’

  ‘So, we won’t fail.’ Peter says, using his most supportive voice. He slides behind the keyboard, and Grace can feel him watching her whilst she chips her way through the ‘client outcome’ forms. ‘Have head office sent you next month’s activity budget yet?’

  ‘I’ve forwarded it to you, didn’t you get it?’ Grace says, turning her head towards him.

  Peter’s computer makes a loud ‘ding’ and a box appears in the middle of the screen, saying, ‘You have four matches!’

  ‘Oh – let’s have a look,’ Grace says with a mix of excitement and nosiness.

  ‘I meant to delete the profile. But I suppose there’s no harm in having a quick look.’

  One of the photos looks as if it had been taken in an old people’s home and the ‘match’ looks as if she’s at least ninety. The other two have photos that are so grainy that Grace can’t even tell what they look like. The remaining one though, she doesn’t look terrible at all. Nice straight teeth; sleek, shoulder length hair.

 
; ‘She looks a bit like Jenny. Same hair,’ Peter says.

  The screen pops up with ‘You have a message’. Peter clears his throat and glances again at Grace before clicking on it. The message is from her; the one with the good teeth. She’s called Caroline and she’s from Whitstable. There are four words next to a little bubble containing her photo. Hi. How are you?

  ‘How to even begin to answer that,’ mutters Peter.

  Chapter 13

  Dawn

  ‘I’M SORRY I CAN’T take you with me,’ Dawn mutters to Shaun as she stuffs everything she might need for the day into her new shoulder bag: £14.99 from Accessorize. A cardigan in case it clouds over, which it probably will do. Sunscreen in case it doesn’t.

  They’re having a hostel day trip to Samphire Hoe, a local beauty spot and nature reserve at the foot of one of Dover’s white cliff faces. It’s at the end of a steep tunnel and there’s remnants of World War Two bunkers and a wildlife centre to look around. Grace feels they would all benefit from some ‘team bonding’. She’d also mentioned something about having something to tell them all, but then Peter had shouted over her, rather unnecessarily in Dawn’s opinion, that there was no need to save an announcement about changing the hostel’s toilet paper until they have their picnic. She’d gone quiet after that, so Dawn had whispered to her that she thought it was a great idea; the current brand was rather abrasive, and she’d heard you could buy ‘word of the day’ toilet roll paper online which sounded very educational.

  ‘But there’s nothing to do in this place when you’re not around,’ Shaun grumbles. ‘Maybe I could just bump into you there? It’s only a forty-minute walk, I don’t get why you’re all going in the minibus.’

  ‘Someone’s donated it to St Jude’s, so Peter said we should use it. We aren’t allowed to go too far away as it may break some of the resident’s bail conditions.’

  Dawn clicks the door to number six behind her, leaving Shaun sulking on her bed. His top lip always curves over his bottom one when he’s peeved about something, just like Rosie’s would. Dawn wonders what she’ll be up to today. Perhaps she’s in a board meeting, wearing a power suit and making compelling arguments about why the company should be going in a particular direction. She’d give a rousing speech before throwing a heavy notebook down on the table in front of her after her concluding sentence. All the other suits sitting around the large oak table would slowly stand to their feet, one after the other and begin to applaud. The person opposite her concedes defeat, telling her she was right after all and then offers her a promotion. Rosie would flick her shiny hair over her shoulder before graciously accepting. ‘It’s all because of you, Mum,’ she’d say when she calls to tell Dawn the news. ‘You’ve always believed in me, which is why I always believe in myself. I love you,’ she’d add after Dawn tells her modestly that her success is nothing to do with her; it’s down to Rosie’s hard work and that she makes Dawn proud every day.