When the rest of the girls were going out for lunch she declined because she wanted to get through all the paperwork on her desk. At half three, just as she was putting her signature on yet another notice letter, her mobile on the desk beside her started to ring. The number of her neighbour Rita Maguire flashed up. She knew immediately something was up at home so she excused herself from the office and stepped outside to answer it.
“Rita – is everything all right?”
“Jean, I’m sorry for ringing you in work again but it’s Paul.”
Jean felt her heart sink. She knew where this was going. “What’s he done now?”
“He’s gone and locked the other two out again, I saw them out my window – standing shivering outside in the garden, the poor things.”
“Oh God, are they okay?” I’m going to kill him.
“They’re grand, don’t worry, they’re fine. They’re over here now, having a cup of tea and some bread and jam with me.”
“Right, I’m on my way.”
“You take your time, love. Sure amn’t I glad of the company?”
“Thanks, Rita, I’ll be there as quick as I can.”
When Jean hung up she was trembling with rage. Enough was enough. This was the third time in the last month that he had locked them out after they had come home from school because he wanted the house to himself. Effectively he was barring them from their own home and it wasn’t on. She went back into the office and a sea of heads turned to look at her but she kept walking past her desk and knocked on the glass pane of Sheila O’Malley’s office.
“Come in!”
“Hi, Sheila.”
“Jean, is everything okay?”
“Look, Sheila, I’m really sorry, but there’s a family emergency. I have to leave early.”
“But what about the Gallagher case – you were meant to be preparing a summary for the court case tomorrow?”
“I’m really sorry, Sheila, it’s halfway there. I know that isn’t good enough,” she lowered her gaze, “but I really have to go.”
“Jean, this is the third time this month you’ve had to run home for a ‘family emergency’.” She said the words with emphasis to imply that she didn’t really believe her.
“Sheila, I’m awfully sorry, I really am – I know this isn’t acceptable – but I have to go.” She couldn’t meet the other woman’s eyes.
“You’re right, Jean, it isn’t good enough – do you think I can stand up before the judge, in front of the senior counsel and whoever the hell else in the High Court tomorrow and tell them my summary is half-ready? You can be bloody sure I can’t!”
Jean squirmed awkwardly in front of her boss. She knew everyone outside would be able to hear the exchange.
“Well, you’d better go then if you have to go,” said Sheila curtly. “But we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Sheila,” she mumbled before leaving the office. She could feel her cheeks burning and she knew her colleagues would all have been earwigging and trying to figure out what had just gone on.
* * *
When she rounded the corner to the road where she lived, she saw Paul’s car in the driveway. She parked on the road outside and got out quickly. She knew the twins would be okay with Rita for a few minutes longer. She was livid; she needed to speak to him now. She let herself in and stormed into her living room, where Paul was sprawled out on the couch watching some daytime TV show about police chases. She walked straight over and turned it off.
“What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?” he roared at her, rising up from the sofa.
“I could ask you the same question – what do you think you’re doing? This is my house, Paul – my house. As it is also Chloe and Kyle’s! How dare you! How dare you stop them going into their own home!”
“Ah, would you ever fuck off!”
“No, Paul, no, I won’t. This is the third time this month you’ve done this, left your brother and sister sitting on the doorstep on a bitterly cold day and left me explaining to my boss yet again why I have to run home. Well, that is it. I won’t tolerate it any more. Are you listening to me, Paul – that is the end of it!”
“Whatever.” He got off the couch.
“Come back here, Paul! Paul!”
She was screaming now she was so infuriated but he ignored her and walked out the front door and got into his Honda Civic. He had modified the white Honda Civic Type R so that the modifications were worth more than the car itself. You could hear the sound of the chrome exhaust pipe as it roared before he got near the house and the gears hissed into action when you changed them. He had got the windows tinted, bucket seats fitted, and had recently had enough cash to have a spoiler moulded onto the back. Jean didn’t know how he paid for it all and she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
His indifference enraged her. She just didn’t seem to be able to get through to him. No matter how much she shouted and screamed and ranted and raved, he didn’t pay any heed to her. He didn’t respect her authority any more; he hadn’t done for a while now. The last time he had done this, she had tried getting through to him by taking away the one thing he loved: she had hidden his car keys as punishment but he just went and took her car instead even though he wasn’t insured to drive it.
Of course she knew it was her own fault that Paul was like this. Coming from a broken home and not having his father in his life were bound to have an effect. She knew what the child psychologists and parenting books would say. She had let him down over the years and it was payback time now. Her son had so much anger built up inside and she was his target practice. But over the last year Paul’s behaviour had gone from bad to worse. He was out of control. He lay around the house all day; she had given up on asking him to get himself a job. Then he would go off at night in his car to God only knew where. She had asked her own father, who Paul had always been close to, to have a word with him but to no avail. He wouldn’t listen to anyone; there was no getting through to him. She was at her wits’ end and, what was worse, the effect it was having on his younger brother and sister broke her heart. They were afraid of his mood swings and what they would face each day. Chloe would be watching a cartoon in the sitting room and Paul would just walk in and switch channels and the sad thing was she didn’t even dare challenge him on it any more. He terrorised the whole house. One wrong word and he would rise up, like a lion awakened – it could be something simple like asking how he was that day or serving him his dinner slightly burnt.
Jean went across the street to Rita’s house. The woman was in her mid-seventies and lived alone. She had been widowed young and all her children had grown up and moved on. She loved making a fuss of Chloe and Kyle and often gave Jean a hand to keep an eye on them if she had to go out somewhere. Jean didn’t know what she would do without her. She let herself in through Rita’s back door.
“Hi there, Rita.”
“Come in, love, they’re in here.”
The twins were seated around Rita’s kitchen table eating freshly baked Madeira cake and washing it down with cups of tea.
“Hi, Mam!” said Kyle.
They both smiled up at her and Jean felt her heart twisting with guilt for them again.
“Will you have a cup yourself, love? God knows you could probably do with it – you look exhausted!” She eyed Jean’s bruised face but made no reference to it.
“I’m okay, thanks, Rita – are you two ready? We need to get cracking on your homework.”
The disappointment on their faces at having to leave Rita’s homely kitchen and the feast in front of them was obvious.
“C’mon,” she said firmly so they knew there was no point protesting.
As Chloe and Kyle walked ahead of her over to their house, she stood on the step with Rita.
“Thanks again, Rita.”
“Will you stop – sure isn’t it nice for me to have their company for a while?”
“No, I mean it, Rita, thanks for keeping an eye out for them.”
“Well, y’know how fond I am of the pair of them and they don’t stay small for long – don’t I know it from all of mine?”
Jean smiled at the older woman whose lined face was the very essence of human kindness.
“Look, Jean, is everything okay? I’m not prying and you can tell me to mind my own business if you think I am but . . . well . . . just with Paul?”
“I’m doing my best, Rita.”
“Heavens above, I know you are, love, I know you are. That’s not what I meant! It’s not easy on your own – but just give me a shout, any time, if you need anything, you know where I am.”
“Thanks, Rita. For everything.”
* * *
When Paul came home that evening he was his usual gruff self. He ate the dinner put in front of him without so much as a thank-you. Of course Jean knew better than to expect an apology for what had happened at the weekend or even today. And she was too worried about Sheila’s parting words to push things further with Paul. Sheila’s ‘We’ll talk in the morning’ had seemed ominous.
* * *
The next morning, as Jean walked into the office, she braced herself to face her boss. Knowing Sheila, and knowing she’d had even more time to stew, she knew she would be in for a severe telling-off. Oh well, she would just have to grin and bear it, she thought to herself. She sat down at her desk and, while the rest of them chatted about last night’s Coronation Street, she kept her head down and tried to finish off the summary for Sheila’s case in the High Court in the afternoon; she hoped it might appease her a bit. As she typed out a list of precedents she could feel a presence and she looked up to see Sheila standing at the side of her desk.
“I’m just finishing off that summary for you, Sheila. Sorry, I know I’m cutting it fine but I should have it for you within the next hour.”
“There will be no need, Jean –”
“No, honestly, I’m almost done now.”
“No, Jean, I don’t think you understand. We need to speak with you in my office.”
Jean wondered who the ‘we’ were? She began to feel flustered and her heart was beating wildly. She walked behind Sheila and made her way into the office to see the managing partner, Billy Walker, already sitting there waiting for her. Sheila shut the door behind them before taking a seat alongside Billy so that the desk divided them from Jean. Jean knew things were serious if Billy was here.
“Jean, firstly I would like to thank you for coming in to see myself and Billy.” Sheila was being overly formal. “Now . . .” She cleared her throat before proceeding “The last few weeks, Jean, have seen you need to leave work early on three separate occasions.”
“Sheila – and Billy – again I apologise, I admit I haven’t been very professional over the last month or so but . . .” she lowered her voice – it killed her to bring her personal life into things, “well, I’m having some family difficulties at the moment.”
Silence descended upon the room.
“Jean, we don’t wish to delve into your private life but we need someone who is reliable, not someone likely to have to run home after only starting work five minutes beforehand. We have clients’ deadlines to meet, legal deadlines that have to be fulfilled. You of all people will understand that.”
She found herself nodding in agreement.
“Now, we both know you are a very valuable employee, in fact you are our most capable secretary, but your behaviour over the last few weeks has left us with no option and it is with great regret that we have to inform you that unfortunately we will no longer be able to keep your position open for you. Jean, I’m sorry but we have no choice but to let you go.”
Jean felt as though this was all being said to her from afar. She was being fired? She hadn’t been expecting that – she thought she was in line for a warning at the most. A warning – she would have understood that – but surely they were overreacting by firing her? In fact, they couldn’t. Legally, they wouldn’t be able to do this. There had been no written or even verbal warnings and a solicitor especially would need to be seen to be going through due process.
These thoughts flew through her mind. Then, “I understand,” she found herself replying although she wasn’t sure why. She only knew she had no energy left for a fight of this kind. And she knew in her heart that, inevitably, there would be more crises with Paul in the very near future.
They nodded at her, obviously relieved that she seemed to be taking it without protest.
“Now we will of course pay you one month’s notice and we’ll give you a good reference.”
“Thank you,” was all she could think of to say. She stood up to go, and let herself out.
As she walked back to her desk, she was stunned. Why had she been so complicit in all of this? As usual she had done what she was told. When was she ever going to learn how to stand up for herself? But instead she found herself standing at her desk packing up her things.
She went home a broken woman. She tried her best to hold back the tears but she was devastated. Her work was important to her; it was the one thing that gave her a sense of self and made her feel like she wasn’t just scrounging off the state. It afforded her a small bit of independence, things like having her car or being able to buy little things for the kids. It was only small money but it meant so much for her to have it. Plus the routine of going into an office every day and not just meeting the same depressing faces from the estate did her good. She knew if she sat at home all day long, looking out the windows, the hopelessness would eventually get to her. But it went beyond her own personal reasons – she had desperately wanted to save up enough to get Paul out of the estate; she was trying to save up to rent a house in the town and to take him away from all his friends and the trouble. That was her goal, to get out of the bloody hell-hole where they were living. Without her job, she knew her future was bleak. All her dreams of giving her children a better life had just been wiped out. She didn’t know how she would ever get out of the poverty trap now.
23
Ballydubh Village, 1991
Jean had met Gavin Grimley when she was just fifteen years old. She vaguely knew who he was; he was one of them, the gang of lads that hung out on the wall outside the school. She and Louise had to walk past them every day on their way home. She knew their faces – they had been a couple of years ahead of her in school, but one by one they had all dropped out. They had never bothered to look for work, it was easier just to draw the dole. They now filled their days hanging around the town and would always be waiting on the school wall at the end of the day. They would shout down at the sisters from where they sat on top of the railings. Sometimes they would even throw things at them, but never anything that would hurt, just random objects like sweet wrappers or pieces of paper. They always singled Jean out because they knew they got the best reaction from her. They would make a comment about how she looked or what she was wearing, anything at all that they knew would embarrass her. She was painfully shy and her cheeks would go bright red until her whole face felt as though it was burning up to match her wine-coloured gabardine. Her reaction egged them on even more. She wished they would leave her alone, she didn’t want their attention. Louise would tell her to ignore them, that they were just looking for a reaction, but she couldn’t help it. She felt as though Louise thought it was her fault, that she was drawing it on herself. She began to dread their journey to and from school and, if for some reason Louise wasn’t able to walk with her, she would lower her head and quicken her pace almost into a run until she was past them.
When Louise went to university, Jean knew she would have to walk home alone every day so she began to heed Louise’s advice and tried to act cool as she walked past them, pretending not to hear them when they shouted at her. On the first day she tried it, they kept on shouting but on the second day, the shouts were fewer and by the end of the week they never shouted again. She was amazed when this had the desired effect. She slowly began to get used to them and, although they would watch her and ta
ke a drag on their cigarettes as she passed, for the most part they left her alone.
One day just after she had walked by them, she heard heavy footsteps running behind her. She felt her blood run cold; there had been no one else on the path but the boys. She swung around in panic and immediately saw it was one of them. He was dressed in baggy jeans with a hoody pulled up over his head. She tried to break into a run but found herself rooted to the pavement, her legs were frozen in fear.
“Hi, there.” He came up beside her and slowed down to walk on the path next to her. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He pulled down his hood.
He was smiling and he didn’t seem like he was going to hurt her.
“You didn’t,” she lied. She felt a bit silly now.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Can I walk with you?”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
Jean was startled by his forthrightness. This was the same boy who had tormented her since the age of fifteen and now he was telling her he liked her!
“But you always tease me and shout!”
“Yeah, sorry about that. It was only a bit of fun. What’s your name?”
“Jean.”
“I’m Gavin.”
They walked the rest of the road in silence. Jean didn’t know what to make of him. She wondered if it was a dare from the lads and tomorrow she’d be the subject of more ridicule. When they reached the top of her road, she told him he had better go. She didn’t want her mother to see her with him. She knew she’d be in trouble.
The next day, the lads had stayed quiet as she approached and Jean inwardly said a prayer of thanks that she wasn’t going to be mocked for having fallen for one of their stupid pranks. When she walked through the convent gate, Gavin hopped off the wall and walked up beside her again. He continued doing the same thing each day, until it became a daily routine that he walked her home.
When it became clear he wasn’t trying to cause trouble for her, she began to lower her guard with him. She was surprised to find herself thinking that he was a nice guy; he was completely different to what she had thought. Plus, because she was so shy, she didn’t have too many friends in school, so she enjoyed their chats. As she talked to him and got to know him she learnt that he was from the town. He was very open with her and he told her that his mother was dead and he lived with his father who had hit the drink very hard after his mother had passed away. He wasn’t violent or anything but he was just buried under his grief. Jean was shocked by his story and felt so sorry for the childhood he’d had but he just shrugged his shoulders at her and said “That’s life!”
In a Moment Page 11