The Ugliest House in the World, page 13
It's not easy, either, meeting new people on the dole. You can't ask them what they do for a living, for starters. "The only thing worse than being unemployed is being nosy," Frank told me the first time we met. "It's a lonely old business, all right, on the dole—all three million of us." He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. We were stood in the queue to sign on and I kept my mouth shut. Frank was a big bloke. Even balding and beer-bellied he looked hard. We shuffled forward over the rubberized floor toward the plastic window in front. Frank was ahead of me, and when he stepped up to the counter he hunched his shoulders like a kid at school not wanting anyone to see his answers. All we were doing was signing our names, but when it was my turn I covered up same as Frank.
That was the second time I'd signed on. The first time was awful. I got home and felt exhausted. It was like a day's work—catching the bus, queuing up, signing my name. I lay down on the couch with the TV on and curled myself into a ball. That was about a fortnight after Karen left.
I didn't remember Frank when he introduced himself, but he said he was Lisa's father. Lisa Chambers. We'd met at a parents' evening.
"Oh, Mr. Chambers," I said, but he stuck out his hand and said, "Frank."
"Chris," I said.
Lisa was a student of mine in the fifth-form biology class I taught last year. I took over as a supply teacher the Christmas before their exams and found they'd covered most of the syllabus apart from sex education. Their previous teacher had gotten pregnant and couldn't bear to teach them in her condition. "You know how their dirty little minds work," she'd said.
Frank took me down the pub with him and then had me home for dinner. We sat in his kitchen over a cup of tea waiting for Lisa to come home from her summer job at five-thirty. It felt like I hadn't talked to anyone for weeks. We started with football, but by the time we were done I'd told him so much I was embarrassed. I hadn't really talked to anyone about Karen until then. Most of our friends had been mutual and I'd been too ashamed to call them somehow. We'd been seeing each other for two years before she got the research assistantship at Warwick University. Last spring she was offered a Ph.D. place. Now she's sleeping with the head of her lab.
Frank made it easier by telling me stuff too. He said he hadn't worked for nearly two years, since Ford bought Jaguar and rationalized the plant.
'"Rationalized,"' Frank said. "Like it made fuck-all sense to me."
Frank had this whole philosophy of unemployment worked out. How to handle it. Keeping your chin up was his big tip. "Look, there are no jobs round here. You've just got to accept it. All you can do is try and stay busy, make yourself useful, feel like you're worth something." He cooked for Lisa every evening. She was back by then, and she rolled her eyes when she heard that, mimed two fingers down her throat, but Frank kept on. He did the shopping, he said, and the ironing, and pushed the hoover round the house every morning without fail.
"My job now," he said, "is being the best father I can be."
"I hope it's not just a job!" Lisa broke in.
"More like hard bleeding labor," Frank said, and he gave her arm a squeeze.
Since he'd not had one—or even a sniff of one—everything had become a job for Frank. Looking for work was a job, "just not one I'm much good at." Being a good father was a job. Being a good mate. Keeping his chin up was a full-time job.
"Thanks," I told him at the door when I left that night, and he said, "For what? Listen. We have to stick together." He meant the unemployed.
"No, really," I said.
"Here," Frank said. "Let me tell you. You were one of the few who ever encouraged Lisa at that school. Made her want to stay on and try for college."
I tried to tell him it was my job, after all, but he went on.
"She's going to be better than her old man. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those fellas who says, 'Why should my kids have more than me?' God knows I want her to have more than this."
Lisa had come up behind him to see me off, and I could see her shifting her weight from foot to foot, embarrassed. I nodded to show I was listening. Frank must have sensed her, though—that or the draft through the open door. "Well, anyway," he said, "she always used to tell me how biology was her favorite subject." That made me feel absurdly happy for a moment, but Lisa just blushed.
The pub is a pit—torn seats, yellowing wallpaper, bulges of damp in the ceiling plaster—but it's empty at lunchtimes and it's got a dartboard. Frank doesn't like crowds, and darts are better than bar billiards because you can play for free. Frank taught me that.
At the bar he pulls out Lisa's tenner, folds it lengthwise, making a sharp crease with his nail, and asks me what I'm having. After a second I say, "Bitter shandy."
"Bugger that," he says. "Two pints of bitter," he tells the girl, and we wait in silence, watching the glasses fill. When she puts them back on the bar, I try to slip her my half, but Frank says, "Gerraway! I'm getting these in."
The barmaid looks at us blankly. "Fine," I say, and then, "la," and finally, "Cheers."
We've been coming here right through the summer, every couple of weeks after signing on, and this is the first time either of us has bought the other a drink. I take a sip while Frank pays. I should be buying him one. I got a job offer last week, but I still haven't told Frank and now's not the time. The man's buying me a drink. Besides, it's up north and I don't know if I'll take it yet.
"She made that up," he says now, when we've sat down and he's had a good drink. "Lisa did. About God and that."
"Really?"
"Bastard."
"She thinks on her feet, Frank. She's good at her job." I try to sound bored. Frank doesn't know about Lisa and me.
"She's asking for trouble. That thing about the poll tax is something she just threw in there. She says she has to do something to make it interesting. Says it's boring otherwise. Next thing you know she'll be telling the wrinklies Peeping Tom was getting his leg over."
I take a sip of beer and watch Frank over the rim of my glass as he raises his own. Frank needs a pint after signing on to give himself something to look forward to. He closes his eyes to drink.
Wrinklies is what Frank calls Lisa's OAPs. She says that's rich coming from him. "Don't go lumping your dad with them," he tells her. "I've taken early retirement, see. Early." Frank is forty-six. Lisa told me once that he'll never work again, and for a moment I thought she said he'd never walk again.
When Frank finishes his beer I say, "My shout," and grab the empties quick as I can. We can't afford a tip so we take our glasses up when we're done. Frank taught me that, too. He follows me over to the bar, but I don't give him a chance to pay. Then when the barmaid gives me my change, he says to her, "An' a couple of whiskies, luv."
"That tenner's burned a hole in your pocket," I tell him, and he throws the whisky down without even bothering to take it back to the table. It makes me wince, but he just sighs contentedly.
"Cheers, big ears," he says.
We play darts for a bit, but neither of us can hit a double to save our lives.
"You know what you need," Frank says when he finally gets out. "You need glasses, pal." This is an old one. He's been after me forever to get an eye test. They're free for the unemployed.
"My eyes are fine."
"Next game on it," he says, on his way to the bar for another couple of pints and two more doubles.
"You're on," I say, taking up the darts, but Frank beats me hollow. I've not had more than a pint at a time for weeks, and the whisky's ruining my game.
A couple of Frank's mates, Tony and Don, come in as Frank is finishing me off. "Good arrows," Don calls. Tony has a tightly rolled-up newspaper under his arm, which he waves in our direction. They get their pints and pull up chairs. Don asks, "What's the crack, lads?"
Frank's mates are about the same age as him, and the first time Frank brought me down here they didn't like the look of me. I was young. I had a degree. What the fuck was I doing there? It was as if they didn't expect to see me again, and they hardly bothered to say a word in my direction. They've warmed to me over the weeks, though, especially since they found out I was Lisa's teacher.
"Did you ever teach that Debbie Jackson?" Don wanted to know, and I said yes. Debbie had been in Lisa's class but dropped out for a career as a topless model for the Sun. The idea that I'd taught sex education to a page-three girl entertained Frank's friends no end.
Tony's got a big grin on his chops today as he unrolls his newspaper and says, "Got a nice picture of your girlfriend in here, professor." He likes to let on that Debbie had a crush on me. ("Stands to reason. You being an authority figure, teaching her the ways of the world and all that.") He smoothes the paper down and we all lean forward to have a look.
The page won't lie flat, but Debbie is clearly recognizable. She's posed, topless, perched on the front of an ice cream van. She's laughing, wearing bikini bottoms, her head thrown back, about to take a big lick of an ice cream she holds in her hand. Don reads us the caption: "De-lovely Debbie Jackson's ambition is to be a journalist. Here she is getting her first big scoop."
Debbie is all tits and hips, Lisa slim and a little flat-chested.
"Why do they always have to pretend that those girls want another job?" Frank says. "It's like when they ask the beauty queens what they want to be. She's got a job. She's a model. What's she want to be a journalist for?"
Debbie's become a bit of a celebrity in recent weeks. The city holds a Lady Godiva parade every year and the lord mayor usually chooses some local beauty to ride through town in a body stocking. This year, though, a Labour councilor's put her own name forward for the job, because she thinks she can use the ride to protest the poll tax. The Sun picked up the story as an example of loony left politics and suggested that Debbie, as a local girl, would be the better choice. Beside the article they printed pictures of Debbie ("local lovely") and the councilor ("stick to politics").
"Your Lisa should have a go," Tony tells Frank now. He gives Don and me a broad wink. "She's a little cracker."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Frank says. I feel myself tense. Tony stares at his newspaper. "What's that supposed to mean?" Frank leans into the table and it rocks. Tony's pint slops a little, and he puts his hand around the glass. "I would die of shame," Frank says, "if that was my daughter riding around starkers. I hope I've brought her up better than that." He looks over at me and tells me to sup up so we can get to the optician's. He raises his glass—it must be two thirds full—and drinks off the rest of his pint. His Adam's apple throbs in his neck, and a little beer runs down his cheeks.
I look at the half pint sitting in front of me and feel sick at the thought of drinking it, but make myself any-way. Wasting it would make Frank wonder what was wrong with me. Don gives us a mock salute as we leave. "See you in a fortnight," he says, meaning the next time we sign on. "Same bat-time, same bat-bar."
Tony looks up, briefly, and goes back to studying his newspaper.
I was all right sitting down, but when we come up the steps I reel a little from the booze, and Frank has to take my arm for a moment. It occurs to me that I won't be able to tell him about the job now, and I lean on him in relief. I wouldn't be able to make a decision about it in this state and I don't trust myself to say it right. I'd start on about the job, but I'd end up telling him about Lisa and me.
Instead, I say I'm busting for a piss, and he stands guard while I go behind a skip.
I often wonder what made Frank pick me. Of course, we've got more in common than Lisa or just being unemployed. We're both big footy fans, and I go round there most Sunday afternoons to watch the game. When Frank talks about his old job he never says he was "sacked" or "fired" or "laid off." He says he was "given his marching orders" or he "took an early bath"—like a footballer who's gotten sent off. When I talk about Karen, I say she "kicked me into touch."
What we really have in common is that Frank's been sacked and I've been dumped. In the beginning I thought Frank's philosophy—keep busy, believe in yourself—would help me get over Karen.
I haven't talked to her for two months. She's still with him, her boss. He must be twenty years older than her. I suppose I've been hanging around all summer waiting to see what'll happen there. "You'll get over her," Frank tells me from time to time, but some nights, when I can't sleep, I walk out to the university and look up at her window. I wrote and asked her to explain it to me once and she just said she hoped we could be friends. I don't believe in that, though. I don't think it's possible—staying friends after you've been lovers. It's just one of those modern myths.
I suppose Frank's lonely himself—his wife died five years ago. But he likes to see himself as a thinker. "Boredom," he says, "is our black hole. The center of the unemployed universe. It'll suck you up if you're not watching." He's started to go down the library and the museum, but he doesn't like to go alone, and he doesn't know anyone else who'll go with him.
Lisa says her father's just a snob. "He likes to hang out with a better class of unemployed people." Meaning me.
The optician's is behind the cathedral, and as we're walking between the new cathedral that they built in the fifties and the ruins of the old one bombed in the war, we see Lisa again with another party. Frank waves but she ignores him, and he makes us follow her inside and lurk on the fringe of the group. She smiles at me a couple of times, but when she sees her father looking she scowls. The walk has cleared my head some, but dealing with Lisa and Frank is too much and I take a seat in a pew. The cathedral is cool, almost cold, after the sunlight outside.
Lisa is telling the OAPs about the tapestry of Christ—the world's largest tapestry—which covers one entire wall of the cathedral. It shows Christ seated, but from straight on the chair is hidden by his robes and the perspective is lost. It looks as though Christ is standing, as though his body is a long oval. Frank says he looks pregnant, but to me, when I can get my focus, it looks like Christ has a thorax and an abdomen. He looks like a great, stinging insect. That's the biology teacher in me.
Lisa points out details. Her suit jacket rides up as she raises her hand, and I catch a glimpse of white blouse at her waist. The tapestry was woven in France, where it took two hundred women over a million hours to complete.
"Waste of effing time," Frank whispers.
Suddenly I think I'm going to throw up, right here in the cathedral. I have to put my head between my knees to steady myself.
Lisa begins to lead her group back outside, and Frank helps me up. At the door she stops and slips some coins into the donations box. Most of the tour party does the same, but Frank and I walk past quickly. Lisa gets a special allowance for this from the tourist board. It's by arrangement with the cathedral, a way of raising some revenue for the upkeep of the place.
"Fucking sheep," Frank says as we walk away. He hates the OAPs because they're allowed to do nothing.
The first time Lisa came by my flat was about two months ago. It was a Monday, her day off, she said, and she was out cycling. I told her I could see that. She was flushed and wearing cycling shorts and a tight white T-shirt. She asked if she could have a glass of water and I helped her pull her bike inside and she followed me upstairs.
"Don't look at the mess," I said, hurrying ahead of her to push my job applications into a neat pile and cover them with the phone book. I wasn't sure whether I was worried about what Lisa might think if she saw them or what she might tell Frank.
I offered her a seat, but she preferred to bend over and study my bookshelves.
"You have a great collection," she said.
"I've not got much to do with myself but read," I called back from the kitchen. "You're welcome to borrow any of them."
"I'd like that."
When I came back she pretended not to be looking at the photograph of Karen on one of the shelves and I pretended not to have caught her. I passed her her glass. My fingers were wet with condensation and I dried them on my jeans.
The receptionist at the optician's is on the phone when we arrive. She is perched behind her desk, twirling a pen in her long fingers. We loiter under the bright fluorescent lights and I try on a few frames and pull faces at Frank. I'm trying to distract him. The girl is clearly making a personal call, and I can see Frank getting tense. It's not that we don't have the time, of course, but Frank hates to see a job done badly. "There's no reason," he hisses. "Not with so many people in need of work."
Eventually she looks up, covers the mouthpiece, and asks brightly if she can help us. Frank tells her I'd like an eye test.
"They're free if you're unemployed, right?" I ask, and Frank looks daggers at me.
"Uh-huh," the girl says and tells us to take a seat. The optician is with someone. She goes back to her conversation. Frank flips through the pile of magazines on the table—back issues of The Optician—and finally sits back, crosses his arms, and glares at the girl.
I nudge him and whisper, "Doctor, recently I keep imagining every woman I see naked. On a horse." It's a stupid thing to say and makes me think that I'm really drunk, but Frank just grunts. The receptionist looks over at our whispering, but he stares her down.
Frank hasn't looked for work in a newspaper or at the job center for six months. In one week, he's told me, he went to twelve interviews and didn't get a single offer, and he doesn't believe in job creation anymore. "There are no new ones round here," he says, "just fewer and fewer of the old ones." What he does now is to watch other people at work in shops or restaurants, wherever he goes, and decide if he could do their job better than them. He lives for bad service—especially if he thinks someone is treating him badly because he's unemployed. Quick as a flash he'll write off a letter of complaint, and always at the end, often in a P.S., he'll offer his own services. He thinks if he makes the complaint vicious enough, they'll sack someone and consider him for a job. I find myself defending people just to stop him sending a letter that'll do him no good and only land someone else in hot water.
