‘Absolutely not, it has to be rewritten and that’s all there is to it,’ he could hear her whispering urgently, phone clamped to her ear. Then he found himself smiling when she added, ‘because a review that pretentiously bollocky is exactly the kind of thing that puts people off going to the theatre. And another thing, about your TV review of the Jane Austen drama series, it’s way too harsh. What, may I ask, is wrong with a good, corsety, bonnety drama anyway? Rewritten and on my desk by four p.m., thanks.’
The barber caught Jake’s eye and gave him a conspiratorial wink that seemed to say, ‘Glad I’m not on the receiving end of that call, mate.’
Half an hour later, and he was done and dusted, ready to see the final result. And Jake, who only ever looked in a mirror about once every six months, barely recognised himself by the time the barber was finished with him. He was, no other word for it, transformed. His longish fair hair was now neater, tighter, his skin looked shiny and glowing and healthy, the scruffiness was gone, the just-fell-out-of-bed-unkemptness vanished. In short, he looked, as his mam would have said,
cleaner.
‘Good work,’ Eloise said to the barber approvingly as Jake fixed up, making sure to include a decent tip, as he figured you were expected to do in posh places like this.
‘Better service than you get from the prison barber, I’ll say that much,’ he hissed to Eloise as they left. ‘The last haircut I had was a number one.’
‘A what?’
‘Shaved head. Though some of the lads get corn circles cut in as well. All the rage inside. Prison chic, dontcha know.’
‘Shhh, enough of that. All in the past and time to move on.’
She had to get back to the office, so he walked with her for company. Well, you never really walked with someone like Eloise, he’d learned, she power marched everywhere and you just kept pace as best you could. Even the way she walked was a battle. Jeez, didn’t this one ever slow down? For anyone? Ever?
‘What’s your rush?’ he asked her as she strode down College Green, like Apache Indians from an old black-and-white Western were chasing after her. ‘It’s Saturday. It’s a gorgeous sunny day. It’s lunchtime and for God’s sake, you haven’t even eaten.’
‘Oh Jake, if you only knew how much I have to do this afternoon …’ she panted back at him, expertly weaving her way round the shoppers laden down with bags who were blocking her path, delaying her.
‘Ah get over yourself, I’m not listening to you any more,’ he said, firmly gripping her by the arm and steering her into the Lemon Tree coffee shop on Dawson St., almost lifting her off her feet.
‘No, would you stop it please? I told you, I don’t have time for this,’ she protested, but he’d learned by now that if you just firmly ignored her, she’d eventually give up.
‘I can eat back at the office, you know.’
‘Yeah right, eat what? By the look of you, I’d say you live off a couple of celery sticks and coffee. Now either you can shut up and eat, or else I can ram it down your bony throat, the choice is yours.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she sighed.
So Jake ordered her a large egg, cheese and bacon crêpe with two coffees to go, paid up, then handed hers over to her so she could at least eat walking down the street on her way back to work.
‘Out of curiosity, do you ever take time off, ever?’ he asked her as they headed towards the
Post
offices on Tara St.
‘I mean, just look at you. It’s the weekend. Normal people all over the world are relaxing and recharging their batteries, and here you are, racing back to the office so you can stay on schedule. On a Saturday. Jeez, what do you want for your next birthday anyway Eloise? A nervous breakdown?’
She was munching hungrily into her crêpe and had allowed her pace to slow down to a gentler stroll, he was pleased to see.
‘Would take time off I could, but I can’t,’ she said, mouth full. ‘Believe me, you’ve no idea the pressure I’m under. Even though it’s a Saturday, we still go to print tonight …’
‘I know, I know, I’ve heard it all before, the
Post
holds up the sky and you’re single-handedly holding up the
Post
, and the whole world will crumble if you work anything less than an eighteen-hour day. All I’m saying is that sometimes it’s okay to stop and smell the roses for a bit. Graveyards are full of people just like you, who were indispensable to their jobs, you know. I’m only saying.’
It was almost painful to hear the deep, long-drawn-out sigh she gave.
‘I hear you,’ she nodded. ‘But I keep telling myself that one day I’ll have time to do all the things I want. One day.’
‘Like what?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Yes you bloody well could. Go on, tell me. A day in the dream life of Eloise Elliot.’
‘Well … I dunno … In my dream life, I’d like to actually be able to sleep for starters. And to eat actual meals. And to go a whole day without once using my mobile. And to read a book right the whole way through. And drink a glass of wine in the afternoons if I was in the humour. And go to the movies midweek because I feel like it. And … take an actual holiday to somewhere like EuroDisney. Where I could take my lit …’
She stopped herself from finishing that sentence, he noticed. Odd. He picked up on it, but said nothing.
‘What I mean to say is,’ she corrected herself, ‘I feel I’m working this hard now because in a funny way, I’m storing up time that I can enjoy later on, down the line. Does that make any sense?’
He took a giant glug of his coffee and nodded.
‘Does to me. I know all about storing up time alright.’
She smiled up at him. ‘To be honest with you,’ she added, ‘I feel like I’ve spent the past couple of years just waiting on the storm to pass. But one day it will. Won’t it?’
‘Life isn’t about waiting on the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.’
They chatted easily and walked on as far as the
Post
offices on Tara St., when suddenly …
‘Eloise? That really you? I thought I was seeing things.’
It was Ruth O’Connell, the
Post’s
Northern editor, wiry and alert as ever, looking curiously at Jake, then at Eloise, then back to Jake, just waiting to be introduced.
‘Ehh, oh, sorry,’ said Eloise, mouth full of cheese crêpe, suddenly flushing like a wino in an off-licence. ‘Emm … Ruth, meet Jake, Jake, Ruth. Well I’d better get going, busy afternoon. You heading back in Ruth?’
‘Jake, was it?’ said Ruth, taking everything about him in with beady-eyed curiosity, missing absolutely nothing.
‘That’s right,’ he nodded amiably, going to shake hands.
‘Friend of Eloise?’
A trick question. Ruth knew Eloise didn’t have any friends, just people who didn’t despise her.
‘Yes,’ Jake answered evenly, looking down at her. ‘Yes I am, as a matter of fact.’
Eloise, for no reason, flushed even more at this. ‘Okay, so that’s that then,’ she said in a panicky voice, several notes higher than usual. ‘Come on Ruth, let’s get going …’
‘So, how exactly do you two know each other?’ Ruth asked Jake in her deadpan Norn Iron accent, in absolutely no rush to go anywhere.
Eloise semaphored a flustered look across to Jake, but there was no need. He was expert at reading people, sensed Eloise’s discomfort and wasn’t about to give anything away or let her down in public.
An awkward pause while they all stood around the busy street corner, waiting to see who’d blink first.
‘Perfectly simple question,’ said Ruth, breaking the now awkward silence, bony arms folded, giving Jake her best head-girl glare. ‘I’m just curious to know where you two met, that’s all.’
‘Err, well … you see,’ Eloise began to stammer, for once not quick enough on her feet to think up a fast answer. ‘The thing is … I met Jake through … emm …’
‘Very simple as a matter of fact,’ said Jake smoothly taking over from her. ‘I’m renting an apartment belonging to Eloise’s sister.’
With that, she shot him a
thank you
look of deepest gratitude.
‘I see,’ Ruth nodded, sounding unconvinced. ‘And how long have you known …?’
‘You know, much as I’d love to stay here and natter for the rest of the afternoon,’ Eloise interrupted her briskly, sounding a bit more like herself now, ‘we’ve got a news conference in exactly ten minutes Ruth. You haven’t forgotten? Come on, better get going.’
‘Oh, right then,’ said Ruth, a bit wrongfooted.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Jake nodded casually at her.
‘We’ll be seeing lots more of you in future, I’m sure,’ was Ruth’s parting shot, accompanied by one last incredulous glance back at him.
He grinned his wide, happy grin, kissed Eloise lightly on the cheek, told her that he’d chat to her soon, and like that, was gone.
Eloise insisted on rehearsing, prepping and grooming him over and over again for the interview like they were training him for an Olympic hundred metres, and not just a half-hour chat in a language school on Camden St. Ever meticulous, the night before the interview she even called round to Jake’s flat late one night after work, so she could role play the part of the interviewer and really put him through his paces this last and final time.
‘Right then, so tell me what first made you want to teach English as a foreign language?’ she asked, sitting opposite Jake at the tiny kitchen table, legs crossed, hands neatly on her lap, interrogation style.
‘Funny you asked me that,’ he replied lazily, legs stretched out, yawning. He’d been studying for his looming exams since early morning, his head was melted and frankly the last thing he was in the mood for was yet another game of interview charades with Eloise.
Didn’t she ever give up? Or even, God forbid, clock off early from work? Ever?
‘Come on Jake, answer me.’
‘Ah well you see, I was doing a two-year stretch in Wheatfield and figured that doing a TEFL course would be a far jammier way of passing the time than working in the prison laundry, washing manky, cack-stained underpants.’
In one lightning, quick gesture, Eloise immediately whipped her briefcase up off the floor and stood up to go.
‘If you’re not going to take this seriously, then neither am I,’ she all but snapped. ‘Are you aware that interview coaches out there charge up to two hundred and fifty euro an hour for this? And here I am, wrecked after yet another endless day and you seem to think I’m doing all of this for the good of my health? Honest to God, sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting myself through all this for you, if you’re not even prepared to make an effort …’
‘Sit down for feck’s sake, will you relax?’ he said, arms folded, blue eyes teasing her. ‘I was only messing. Come on, you’ve had a long day, can’t we just chat normally like people do, instead of working the whole shagging time?’
‘Now that’s another thing I’ve been meaning to say to you. Your language. Talk like that in the interview and you’ll be out the door so fast …’
‘Eloise, will you calm down? You think I don’t know all that? You think I’m going to go in there and tell them I’m looking forward to teaching Spanish students how to say feck off and call each other gobshites, so they can really blend in on the streets of Dublin? Just chill out for two seconds, will you? Everything’s going to be fine. I haven’t come this far to let you down now. Now come on, it’s half ten at night,’ he continued smoothly. ‘You’ve had a killer of a day by the look of you and so have I. Just have a glass of wine and relax. The interview will be fine; sure I’m prepared upside down, inside out and sideways. I’ll end up grilling the interviewer and not the other way around, you have me so primed for it.’
‘Need I remind you the interview is
tomorrow morning
,’ she answered curtly in her best don’t-even-think-about-contradicting-me tone of voice. ‘After that, you can relax and chat all you like, but don’t think you’re getting off any hooks for tonight.’
Jake did a fake Nazi salute at her and just shrugged when she glared furiously back at him. By now he’d learned that whenever she got up on her high horse like this, the best thing you could do was tease her out of it. Laughing at her seemed to make her see how loony she was acting, far more so than taking up the cudgels with her.
‘Jake,’ she turned to ask him wearily, red behind the eyes by now. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like out there at the job-hunting coalface? I know you’ve been out of circulation for the past two years, but let me tell you something. We’re in the throes of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, there are virtually NO JOBS and you’re going in there tomorrow up against the crème de la crème; candidates with diplomas and MBSs and masters degrees hanging out of their earlobes. And another thing, none of them will have, let’s just say, the inkblot on their past that you’re dealing with. So you take this seriously or else I’m out of here, I’m not coming back and you can go back to driving taxis, or working in an all-night garage, or wherever your ambition takes you. And you can spend your spare time daydreaming about getting a degree and having a better life, but that’s all it’ll ever amount to. Tuppenny-ha’penny daydreaming. And by the way, don’t think my walking out of here is an idle threat on my part either, because, I don’t make idle threats. My head is splitting and I no more want to run through interview questions than you do, but you’re going to and so am I.’
‘Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,’ he said softly, arms in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. ‘Right then, I’ll run through the whole shagging thing if that’ll make you happy, yet again …’
‘What did I tell you about your LANGUAGE!’
‘For the thousandth time, if you’ll just have a glass of wine and chill out a bit first,’ he brokered gently.
By now Jake understood this driven side of her character, the ruthless, stop-at-nothing side. He knew just where she was coming from and could see that she only had his own best interests at heart. It still didn’t mean he liked it particularly, but at least she did what he asked and sat back down again with an exasperated sigh. He took that as his cue to go to the fridge and pour her out a glass of that fancy white wine she drank.
‘Out of curiosity,’ he asked, passing the glass over to her and watching her take a big, nerve-calming gulp, ‘do you ever, just once, switch off?’