*****
I look at the clock radio. It is almost six o'clock and I haven't gone to sleep yet. What the hell have I been doing for the past seventy five minutes? Oh yes, thoughts have been happening in my brain. Yet again I can't switch them off. I remember now. My brain has selected more random, meaningless memories to taunt me with.
I left school after getting mediocre A-level results with no plans for the future. The only advice I ever received from my parents was “You have to get a job, we're not going to keep you”, or “You can't just sit around at home costing us money”. It was never said explicitly but it was definitely hinted at that, when my child benefit ran out the following month, I could not automatically expect to be fed.
Standing alone on the street corner outside the school after chatting to several people who had all got very good results and were all cheerily off to university, I wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Then another thought struck me: “What am I going to do tomorrow?”
With no money to my name apart from forty pounds in an old post office account and a pendulum of Poe-esque proportions hanging over me, how was I going to survive with absolutely no support from anyone? It was just before eleven o'clock. Unless I could find a job before my parents got home that evening things were looking very bleak.
Just as I was about to head off to the job centre, one of the many people I had been pretty good friends with but would never see or hear of again passed by.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said gloomily. “I need a job or I'm fucked.”
“They're hiring down at the cash and carry,” she said, referring to a place we had both worked one Saturday the previous year. Sometimes they would ask at the school for sixth formers to work there during busy periods. It was boring, repetitive work but it was work. Perhaps the fact that I had worked there before doing stock taking would prove an advantage and make up for having no experience, employment history or decent qualifications.
“Thanks, I'll go down there. Good luck with University.”
We hugged briefly and then I hurried away. I used to go to her house for tea on a Friday before a group of us went to the pub. I would read 'Thomas The Tank Engine' to her hyperactive younger siblings while they threw toy cars at my head. Then we would go to another girls house where they would put loads of make up on so that they could buy cigarettes in the shop on the way.
I wonder what became of her. I wonder what became of any of them.
I had been graciously given the money for a bus ticket for today. The cheapest ticket was a 'day to go' you could use all day within a certain area. The cash and carry was within that area so I ran to the nearest bus stop to get home and change.
I had a quick shave, combed my hair as flat as possible, put on a clean shirt and my black school trousers and borrowed a matching suit jacket and tie from my father's wardrobe. Surely even he couldn't object to that? Mind you, if I came home without the job, he would find a reason.
It was probably over the top to wear a suit but she hadn't mentioned what type of job was going. It was almost certainly something lowly and low paid but it might be an office job so it was better to be over than under dressed. Or at least that's what I thought at the time. What did I know? Nothing, that is precisely what I knew of the world and how to get on in it. Nothing.
As I had been there before I knew that the entrance to the office was round the back. Just as I was approaching the door a man came out, yawned, stretched his back and then lit a cigarette. I remembered him from when I had been there the year before.
“Excuse me,” I said, “sorry to bother you but I hear you have some jobs going? I worked here last year as a student. I've just left school and I badly need a job.” Shit. I'd rehearsed my introduction on the bus but my real feelings had slipped out in the heat of the moment. “I can start tomorrow and I'll do as much overtime as you can offer. I'm happy working in the warehouse but I also have an O-level in computer studies so I could do office work as well.” I hoped that I hadn't blown it by being too pushy. I shut up and waited for a response.
He took a long drag on his cigarette and looked me up and down.
“Didn't get the A-levels to get into Uni?”
“No, it's not that,” I blurted out, “I never applied to anywhere. I just want a job, I need to earn money.”
“Well, you don't exactly need A-levels to work here mate.”
Mate. Was that a good sign?
“As it happens I've been dropped in the shit by a couple of people. We have advertised anyway for more stock takers but there are now two of us running the whole place when it needs four or five.” He looked at his cigarette then reluctantly crushed it under his foot. “I haven't even got time to smoke a whole bloody fag! Come on, let's see if you can brighten up my day.”
I followed him into the office.
“What's your name, son?”
“Brian.”
“I'm Rob, that's Kev.” He pointed to a harassed looking man on a phone who glanced up and made brief eye contact with me before turning back to a sheet of paper and the voice on the phone who I could hear from the other side of the room.
Rob took me over to a desk which contained an old, monolithic computer.
“You can do all this stuff?” He sounded quietly hopeful.
I looked at the screen.
“Spreadsheets, yes. And database and word processing.”
“What's your typing speed like?”
“Copy typing forty plus words a minute.”
He looked momentarily as if he thought I was lying. In fact I was usually much faster than that but didn't want to sound like I was boasting.
He took me over to an electric typewriter and motioned for me to sit down. Then he put a letter in front of me.
“Copy that out, Brian, I'll be back in a minute.”
I don't know whether or not he was surreptitiously watching me because I was solely focused on the typing and not making any mistakes. When I had finished I looked around and he was standing next to me.
“That's a lot bloody quicker than forty,” he said. I shrugged diffidently. “Okay, Brian, I'll level with you. I have reservations about hiring someone as young as you but I am deep in the shit. If you can stay here until six tonight and get stuck in I'll pay you for the whole day and take you on on a one month trial basis. It's two pounds an hour.”
I remembered that a few weeks ago I had gone to the job centre and most of the jobs were one pound an hour. I had no idea why this paid twice as much but I wasn't about to question it.
He held out his hand. “Are you onboard?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I said enthusiastically.
He quickly showed me around the office and the filing cabinets and everything that was done on the computer. After ten minutes he left me with a huge pile of paperwork that needed to be transferred onto spreadsheets. The work was simple but I concentrated hard because this wasn't an exercise in a class room, this was the real world and real money I was dealing with.
Half an hour later I had finished the first pile of paperwork. Rob was out in the warehouse so I asked Kev what to do with the completed papers.
“Fuck me, have you done all that just now?”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
He showed me the tray where they went before being filed away.
“Tea, coffee?” he asked.
I initially wondered if he was expecting me to make it but he picked up the kettle and began filling it.
“Tea, please.”
Rob came back in.
“He's only fucking done all that already,” he said, pointing at the tray.
Rob picked up the papers and walked over to the computer. I pretended not to notice that he was checking my work.
“Excellent work, Brian,” he said. “It would have taken me over an hour to do that, and Kev would be there till Christmas.”
“Fuck off,” said Kev, lighting a c
igarette and offering me one. I shook my head.
The kettle boiled and we stood around for a couple of minutes until the phone rang and Kev, cursing like a docker, went back to his desk.
Rob looked at the rest of the files he had given me.
“When you've done them you can go home. That's an afternoons work to me but I reckon you'll be finished by four. If I'm not here when you finish come and find me and I'll give you some cash.”
I wasn't sure what that meant but I nodded and took my tea back to the computer. It was against all common sense to put my mug next to the computer and paperwork but they were both smoking cigarettes so sod it.
As I continued typing I couldn't help wonder what he meant by 'some cash'. Was this whole job dodgy, 'off the books'? Then again, I was only just out of school, I could always claim ignorance and nobody could prove that I had ever heard of National Insurance contributions. I decided that as long as they paid me by some method I didn't care.
I did indeed finish just after four and went into the warehouse to find Rob.
“I've put them in the tray,” I said.
“Brilliant, you've made my day.” He took out his wallet and gave me a twenty pound note. “A little starting bonus, for saving our bloody bacon. Are you happy to turn your hand to anything, shift some boxes, stack some shelves, stock taking?”
“Yes, anything.” I said. “And I'll work weekends if needed.”
“Fantastic, I might hold you to that one day soon. I'll put you on the books tomorrow, shall we say nine 'till six with an hour for lunch, overtime to be discussed as and when? And you'll be paid weekly in areas, overtime a week later.”
“That's great,” I said, already doing the mental arithmetic on my wages.
“See you tomorrow then.”
I got the bus home in something of a daze. I had been on two pounds a week pocket money for years, which was just enough to keep me in deodorant, razors and other essentials. It was only thanks to the money I received in cards from various relatives at Christmas and birthdays that I was ever able to buy any clothes, never mind records, books or anything for myself. Now I would be earning sixteen pounds a day! Even after tax I would have way more than I'd ever had before.
One the way home I bought jumbo fish and chips, a rare treat, and ate them in my room with a massive smile on my face.
My parents always came home from work together so when I heard the key in the door I braced myself for any holes they would pick in me and went downstairs.
“I won't be needing tea tonight,” I said before either of them could speak, “I've already eaten. I didn't do very well in my exams but it doesn't matter because I've already got a job. I started today and I'll get my first wages at the end of next week.” I didn't mention the twenty pounds. “I'll take money out of the post office to cover my bus fare so I don't need anything else from you from now on.”
Perhaps there was a sour tone to the last sentence but they didn't seem to notice.
“What's the job?” asked my father. No congratulations or enthusiasm or anything I noticed, trying not to be bitter.
“Computer stuff in an office.”
I didn't elaborate and they didn't ask. I don't know why but I didn't want to tell them where I was working in case they turned up and embarrassed me or caused problems with my employer.
My mother immediately demanded ten pounds a week, which I thought was a lot, but neither of them ever asked how much I was earning. I never told them. After three months of incessant overtime and parsimony I moved into a flat. It was tiny but it was all mine and my life as an independent adult had finally begun.