by Rose Hartley
Perhaps I had not thought this through.
I walked to Centrelink in Richmond, ducking into a service station along the way to use the facilities and buy a bottle of water. Now that I was kicked out of uni, my student payments would stop. I figured the rumpled dress, mascara-stained cheeks, pasty hangover skin and greasy bed hair would ensure I looked as incapable as possible and make the transition to the dole easier.
They paint the walls of Centrelink in bright colours, purple and yellow and green. It’s supposed to have an uplifting effect. I guess that’s why everyone looked so happy.
I took a number and sat down to wait in the queue among polite pensioners, parents carrying snotty children, and the woman in the long leather coat who I saw every time I came to Centrelink. I looked for bleached hair and long faces, friends in low places, but found surprisingly few of my people. Maybe it was too early for them.
When my number was called I rose and shuffled to a floating desk near the middle of the room. The open-plan virus had infected Centrelink. I didn’t know how anyone could concentrate in that human zoo. My legs were heavy and there was a bad taste in my mouth. My luck had come back, though, because I got a nice young guy with pimples on his cheeks who didn’t seem too jaded yet. I informed him that I was no longer a student and thus needed money from a different source, namely the Newstart Allowance. He looked through my file and then tried to make me fill out some job-seeking forms online.
‘Are you serious?’ I said. ‘Do I look capable of holding down a job?’
‘My brother with Down Syndrome has a job. I’m sure you can manage.’
‘Look, buddy, I can’t fill out these forms. I live in a caravan. I don’t have a shower. I don’t have internet. Next week I probably won’t have a mobile phone. I can’t fill out the forms.’
He eyed the black smudges under my eyes and fiddled with a zit on his cheek.
‘Okay. No problem. Maybe I can help.’
‘Yeah?’
He tapped on the keyboard. ‘If you volunteer at a registered not-for-profit for twenty hours a week you don’t have to apply for jobs or do the Work for the Dole program.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Twenty hours volunteering.’ That was nearly double my university contact hours, but presumably a charity would be a laid-back place to spend the day. ‘And then I get paid?’
‘Yeah. You do have to show up and log your hours online, but the place where you volunteer will be able to help you with that.’
The guy obviously thought I was a basket case. I let him think it. Stared at him.
‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘How about I make a phone call for you?’
‘That would be great.’
‘Okaaaay.’ He tapped a few more keys. ‘So, what would you say your skills are?’
‘I can add. Subtract. I did well in macroeconomics.’
‘So you have a university degree?’
‘A diploma. In accounting. But I do not want a goddamn accounting job.’
‘Administration assistant okay?’
‘Yeah, fine, as long as I’m not the receptionist.’
He picked up the phone. ‘Yeah, hi Agnes, this is Jake from Centrelink calling about your application for volunteers. I have a Maggie Cotton with me who is interested in the administration assistant position. She has a diploma—’
He looked up at me and I shook my head.
‘Er, she has several years at . . .’ he mumbled, ‘the University of Melbourne. Christian?’ Jake flicked a look at me. I shrugged. ‘No problem, no problem at all. Yes, of course, she’s very sensitive towards the homeless. Really interested in social justice.’ He paused. ‘Milo?’ He placed his hand to cover the phone receiver. ‘Do you like Milo?’ he whispered.
‘Huh?’
‘She’s ambivalent about Milo,’ he said into the phone. ‘Great, great. How’s nine am tomorrow? Wonderful. Thanks, Agnes. Bye-bye.’ He hung up.
‘Milo?’
‘That’s what they fired their last administration assistant for. Stealing Milo tins.’
‘Who did?’
‘It’s a charity called the Nicholson Street Angels in Abbotsford. They’re a very nice bunch and they do great work. The office you’ll be working in is responsible for raising money for a church that runs a homeless shelter, and there’s a women’s shelter nearby that they run also. Next door there’s an op shop where they sell donated clothing. Part of your job will be to organise the roster of volunteers who work in the shop.’
Telling other people when to work: a role I was born to do.
‘Cool,’ I said.
‘Okay, you’ve got an interview tomorrow, but it’s just a formality. Do you . . . uh . . . do you have other clothes you can wear?’
‘I’ll borrow some from a friend.’
‘Great. Your interview is at nine.’ He wrote down the address. ‘And, uh, look, I’m not supposed to directly arrange these volunteer positions, so if anyone asks, you went through our job agency, all right?’
‘Sure.’
He wrote down the address, his cheeks flushed with the pride that comes from helping the Unfortunate.
Jen was sipping a coffee in her terry-towel robe when I knocked, her blonde curls foaming around her head like a halo. Her work shifts usually began mid-afternoon, so she must have been having a lie-in. She looked me up and down, a lost fawn on her doorstep. In one hand I held the almost-empty bottle of chardonnay. I still had on the wrinkled dress from yesterday, since until I picked up my clothes from Mum’s place I had nothing else to wear.
‘What have you done now?’ Jen asked.
‘I dunno.’ I walked inside and she shut the door after me. ‘But I feel pretty good.’
Jen’s place was the holy grail of Collingwood: four bedrooms, painted weatherboard, Victorian ceiling mouldings, large backyard with a pair of lemon trees and a passionfruit vine. The two front rooms housed a spare bedroom and an office, while the back two rooms Jen used as a bedroom for herself and a library and exercise room, to house her yoga props and books on gardening and architecture. It was a dream house and she’d owned it since she was twenty-four.
I sat in her sunny kitchen at the cute laminate table with orange vinyl chairs while she made me a coffee.
‘Do you mind if I have a shower here?’ I asked. ‘And borrow some clothes?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘That bad, is it? What happened?’
‘Let me finish my coffee and I’ll show you.’
Jen threw on her trackies and walked with me to the lane behind her house. The caravan glinted in the sun like a spaceship.
‘My new home. All ten feet of it.’
Jen put her head in her hands. ‘Oh my God. What did you do?’
‘You wanna see inside? There’s no bathroom, unfortunately, but it’s pretty cute.’
‘No. Later.’
We walked back past Jen’s corrugated-iron back fence and sat in her kitchen once more, where I glossed over the details of what had happened between her engagement party and this morning.
‘Okay, here’s what we do,’ she said. ‘You shower and eat at my place. You sleep in the van. You can’t move in here, sweetheart. I’m getting married soon and I refuse to bunk with my bestie for the rest of my life. No offence, I love you, all that. But no.’
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘You were going to.’
I might have, if my mother hadn’t threatened to cut me off forever.
‘God, I can’t believe you slept in that thing,’ she continued. ‘Does your mum know about this?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m going to take a wild guess and say she’s not happy about it.’
‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’
‘So she’s kicked you out again.’
‘Yep.’
‘Kicked out of home twice in one week. Is that a record?’
I shrugged.
‘You want me to call her?’ Jen asked. �
��Maybe I can talk her round.’
‘I don’t think she can be talked round this time. She cut me out of her will. And you know what? I kind of like the caravan.’
Jen’s eyes widened. ‘She cut you out of her will?’
‘I have six months to prove to her that I can be independent, and if I fail it’s forever. So I couldn’t move in with you even if you wanted me to. That’s part of the deal.’
Jen shook her head. ‘I’m going to make you some scrambled eggs.’
She fussed about in the kitchen with butter and eggs. When she put the plate of toast and scramble in front of me I started shovelling it into my mouth.
‘Mmm, delicious. Hey, what happened with you and Jono the other night?’
‘Hmm?’ She was already scrubbing the pan.
‘Your fight. At the engagement party.’
‘Oh that? That was nothing. He wanted to put more money over the bar. But it’s kind of annoying, because he still owes me for electricity.’
‘Huh.’
‘He says he shouldn’t have to pay the bill because he’s not here most of the time.’
‘So he just pockets all his earnings and lives at your place for free.’
‘Well, it’s not like that. It’s our money, and all that.’
‘Sounds like it’s his money.’ I held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t point out that I’d done the same with Sean. Luckily, Jen was too nice to mention little things like that.
It was a strange day. I bought supplies for the caravan with the last of Mum’s cash, but I still could not think of a way around the problem of electricity. The wind picked up in the afternoon and the caravan wobbled gently, the curtains blowing about like sails because of the broken window. People stared at the van as they passed and a group of drunks coming home from the pub in the late afternoon banged on the door, shouting. I didn’t open it. I put a torch beside the bed in case I needed to sneak into Jen’s house during the night to use the bathroom. Just before I went to sleep, lying on a set of sheets I’d borrowed from Jen, light from the streetlights pouring in through the open curtains, a frowning middle-aged man in gold-rimmed spectacles knocked on the door, introducing himself as my neighbour from one of the apartments above.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hello. Just wondering how long you’ll be parking your caravan here?’
‘Indefinitely.’
He coughed. ‘You can’t stay here. It’s illegal.’
‘It’s not,’ I countered. ‘Check the City of Yarra website. It’s perfectly legal.’ It was true, I had checked.
I closed the door in his face and discovered that my hands were shaking.
Chapter 6
On Wednesday morning I woke up, slipped into Jen’s house, used her bathroom to get ready, and put on the job interview outfit she’d set out for me on the coffee table: black skirt, white shirt, red heels. Back in the caravan I ate stale bread with peanut butter and drank half a bottle of warm, flat mineral water. At eight-fifteen I drove to the interview.
The Nicholson Street Angels was just a hole in the wall, a glass door with bars across it in a rundown building, two doors down from what looked like a safe injecting room. A bell jingled when I pushed on the door. Inside, it was about what I’d expected: squiggle-patterned 1990s carpets, stained furniture and an empty reception desk with a framed photograph of a pristine coastline hanging incongruously above it. The place smelt faintly of mildew. After a moment, a middle-aged woman in silver-rimmed glasses and a drooping brown cardigan came hurrying out.
‘You must be Maggie,’ she said. ‘I’m Agnes Sharaf. Come through.’ She ushered me into a small, windowless room at the back of the office that smelt of fungi.
I’d researched the charity on Jen’s laptop and knew vaguely what they did. Their website was awful, but I gathered that their main purpose was operating two safe houses: one was for teenage mothers and women escaping domestic violence, and the other was short-term accommodation for homeless men. The locations of the safe houses were a secret. The organisation was affiliated with the local Anglican church, and raised money via the op shop next door to the office.
I sat down before a jury that consisted of Agnes and another woman who introduced herself as Josephine Potts. Josephine had dyed black hair, powdered white skin and an air of New Age pseudoscience about her. She was wearing a fluffy cream jumper that looked like it had been knitted from somebody’s pet bunny. I bet she’s into crystals, I thought.
‘What made you want to volunteer for the Nicholson Street Angels?’ Josephine asked as I settled into my chair.
‘I just love the work that you guys do,’ I gushed. ‘It’s so important – you know, society’s most vulnerable. I really want to get some experience in a charity.’
I had prepared a few phrases earlier. ‘Society’s most vulnerable’ was one of them.
Agnes folded her hands before her. It appeared she could see through my drivel. My first impression of her had been of a pleasant but careworn woman, of Indian descent I guessed, with the breathless voice and rushed manner of a sweet, middle-aged motherly type. She had the sharp brown eyes of a keen observer, however, and she was watching me closely.
‘Do you have any administrative experience?’ Agnes asked.
‘Not professionally,’ I said, ‘but I’m familiar with Excel, and time management is crucial in a university degree.’
I hoped they wouldn’t ask why I’d been doing the same degree for ten years if I was so good at time management.
‘Can you tell me about a time when you faced a difficult interpersonal situation?’ Agnes asked.
I drew a blank. ‘Er, can you be more specific?’
‘For instance, have you ever had to defuse a situation when dealing with an irate or upset person?’
I immediately thought of my mother. ‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘I generally try to lower my voice when someone is angry. I find it has a calming effect. And then I explain my point of view in simple words, because angry people are generally not thinking right. And . . .’ I thought of Jen’s torn wedding dress. ‘I like to solve people’s problems.’
Agnes and Josephine nodded as if I’d said something intelligent.
‘Wonderful,’ said Agnes. ‘One more thing.’ They both smiled at me. ‘You are aware this is a Christian organisation?’
‘The Centrelink guy did mention something.’
‘Now, you don’t have to be Christian to work here, but you need to appreciate that our Christian values are very important to us. Is that okay with you?’
‘Well, I am Anglican,’ I said.
The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Why did I say that? Despite having attended a Catholic school, I wasn’t religious. I’d never even been christened. Apart from a brief holy stint as a six-year-old when I played the donkey in my primary school’s nativity play, I hadn’t believed in God for a single minute during my lifetime. However, these words seemed to have a soothing effect on them both.
‘Good, wonderful,’ said Josephine. ‘You’re welcome to join us every afternoon at three o’clock for Prayer Time. It’s optional, of course, but we find that connecting with God is a wonderful way to remind us why we do the work we do.’
‘Great,’ I said weakly.
Agnes looked at Josephine and then back at me. ‘Could you excuse us for one moment?’
They left the room and I fiddled with my hair in the grey silence, vowing to buy a Bible and read it so that I wouldn’t be caught out lying about my religion. The place was all right, I thought. Needed a few pictures on the walls and maybe a fan, but it wasn’t too bad. The two ladies seemed okay as well. Agnes had her head screwed on, at least. The jury was still out on Josephine.
I’d hardly had time to start chewing my fingernails before they re-entered the room.
‘We’d like to offer you the position,’ Agnes said as soon as she’d sat down.
‘Great!’ I said. ‘That’s great. Thank you so much.’
‘It’s three days a week. You can choose the days you work,’ she continued, ‘but we want advance notice if you plan to change them. You’ll be in charge of recruiting new volunteers for the opportunity shop – we don’t go through Centrelink for those, we find it more effective to post ads locally, since the shop volunteers tend to be more . . . aged. You’ll also be rostering the volunteers, interviewing candidates and doing general office administration. We don’t get many phone calls but you’ll be handling the filing system and be in charge of all compliance matters.’
I had no idea what compliance matters were. ‘Great.’
‘Can you start today?’ Agnes asked. ‘We’ve had some volunteers go AWOL and we need to find someone quick smart to come in to work the cash register tomorrow at the shop.’
I opened the door to my office. It was a small room directly behind the empty reception area, a drab rabbit hole with two desks facing each other, each equipped with an ancient computer and a phone. Both desks were otherwise empty, but underneath the one that Agnes ushered me towards was a grey filing cabinet so fat with files the drawer didn’t close properly. I sat down.
‘I’ll get you the folders of prospective volunteers,’ Agnes said, and left the room.
I opened the filing cabinet to see what was inside, and found newspapers. Just newspapers, and the occasional celebrity magazine. Whoever had worked in the office before me had simply shoved manila folders full of crap, and then filed them away. I imagined the Milo thief reading leisurely at their desk and then hurriedly stuffing magazines into the cabinet at the sound of Agnes’s footsteps. I closed the cabinet again.
The smell of mildew was particularly pungent above my desk, and the window, which looked onto a filthy laneway, appeared to be welded shut. I tried to think optimistic thoughts. I could bring a desk fan to work. I could drink from a mug with a cute slogan. I could paint my nails green and watch them tap away on the keyboard like mossy pebbles. And if the job turned out to be as bad as I imagined jobs usually were, I could feign incompetence and head on back to Centrelink when I got fired.