There are some themes in this story that some younger people might find offensive. And again might not, but some older people might think that they might offend the younger people anyway. So if you’re a younger person, below the age of majority in your region, please navigate away to another site, or perhaps ask your parents or guardians if you should be looking at this page: it might enlighten them.

So if the above refers to you, you’ve gone now, haven’t you? And I can write what I like?

Good.

Because it’s been a fucking awful year.

I think it’s immoral to kill, but if I ever change my mind, I will pick grey, jaded, inconsequential bureaucrats and pick them off one by one. But I suppose I won’t change my mind and they’ll carry on their shocking low-key bullying for the rest of my life. Still, I’ve learned a few things – the hard way – and I’ll be more wary and defensive next time.

You see, it’s been a very vulnerable time for me. We lived in a council house, and my sister had moved away to university leaving just my mom and me at home, and that was no problem. It was nice to have a spare room for when Elaine visited – when she could drag herself away from her exciting metropolitan student life – and we stored a bit of junk in there since she was hardly ever home. So when mom dropped dead with a brain haemorrhage last winter it was completely unexpected. She was only 40 and no one had suspected that she’d had a tumour. Her headaches were sudden and unexplained for two months and then – pouf – she was gone.

Elaine came back for a month to stay over the Christmas holidays, and we had both agreed that she should continue her education and I should get a job. I turned 16 at the beginning of January, knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on schoolwork, especially moving up to A-level, and I thought Elaine’s suggestion that a job for a few months would help me, giving me something to do apart from just mourn, made sense – keep busy and think about college later. My aunt Claire, who I had rarely seen up to this point, was going to visit regularly to keep an eye on me, I had my best friends from school not far away and Mr and Mrs Juniper, our next door neighbours, were willing to be a gentle support, but promising to give me enough space too.

I found work with a small agency in late January, shortly after Elaine had gone back down south. They did cleaning and kitchen jobs and placed me cleaning in a hotel for a month. When that finished they quickly got me another doing after hours cleaning in an office. It wasn’t good money but I could just about pay the rent and bills, and it kept a rhythm going in my life as I worked through my emotions. I got a few state benefits too to help with rent and tax. I had just settled into that second job when the letter arrived from the council bureaucrats saying that since I was now alone in a three-bedroomed house, I would have to be moved to appropriate accommodation for a single person. I can hardly remember anything that happened that month except that I was going to lose the family home because of some decision in an office somewhere. I walked around as if my head was wrapped in six inches of cotton wool, and nothing really got through to me.

I know now there might have been things I could have done, but I was too naïve, too emotionally battered, already too downtrodden by circumstances to have any fight left in me. The plan had been to gently grieve while doing some simple repetitive work, but the stress that this emergent circumstance placed me under was simply too much.

A month later I suppose I surfaced: my memory of events, at any rate, continues; that lost month I suppose I outwardly plodded on somehow, but inwardly I must have been deeply depressed and perhaps verging on psychotic: anyway, it’s all gone. Next I remember, I was in a bedsit. I suppose that by not responding in some required way to bureaucratic letters and by not having the concentration or knowledge to handle the situation, or even to ask the right people for help, I had been displaced from the house, and not rehoused in council housing, but in “emergency list” housing, which consisted of private landlords who had supposedly been vetted.

What I had been able to carry of my mother’s effects were stacked in boxes in one corner; what must have been carryable in a couple of taxi journeys, I suppose. I know I would have found it hard to throw anything away which was surely why there was far more in my new flat than I really should have kept. I had almost everything that my sister had left at home in another corner, and it must have taken, presumably, another couple of taxi journeys, leaving my tiny savings pile with scarcely enough to survive on. Among all the other things I’d had trouble coping with, I had failed to tell Elaine of the move, and found that when it had gone through and I came to myself again, I couldn’t find her address or phone number among all the boxes. I had also lost Aunt Claire’s number. So those first memories after losing it all were of the end of a period where I think I cried for days, when I was alone in the flat. I began to realise how cut off I’d become, but even in that vulnerable state, I didn’t blame myself, I knew I was not in any state of mind to be organised. I blamed the council and their mindless heartless paper-pushers; but apart from going and kicking the Portland stone walls of the municipal buildings, I could see no way of doing anything about it.

On Sunday, because I had had to work that Saturday, I went to see Mr and Mrs Juniper, but they weren’t in. I sat on the step for hours, but eventually returned to my bedsit. The following week the same happened.

Soon after the move, the benefits agency had suspended payments, which had been helping on the rent and council tax, because of my change in circumstances and I’d had to fill in five 40-page application forms and then wait for my claims to start again, including my housing benefit and council tax support. This period finally broke the bank with me, and I knew I would be short on the bills until the benefits started paying again. Still working extra hours when I could get them had a welcome numbing effect, leaving me with no energy except to collapse into the bed when I got back to the bedsit. The following week, I managed to visit Mr and Mrs Juniper’s house on the Saturday, but when again they were not in, I became despondent. I tried again six weeks later, and when I missed them again, I gave up.

I knew my aunt would be concerned, and Elaine would probably be frantic with worry. I thought of catching a train to see if I could find her at the university, but there simply wasn’t the money. It didn’t occur to me to ring instead and see if they could locate her; absurd, I know, but it didn’t cross my fumbling mind.

I was probably in my fourth job now for the agency, cleaning again. This job was for a large hotel and they had insisted on a uniform and an ID badge. My name badge just said “Chris”. The uniform consisted of shapeless black nylon trousers and shirt and a green tabard, which fastened with Velcro. The trousers had an elasticated waist and no fly, which I found sort of embarrassing inside my own head, if you know what I mean. No-one else seemed to notice at all, but it seemed to me they weren’t really men’s trousers, though when I asked the agency about wearing different trousers, they just said the uniform was compulsory.

Despite not really liking it at first, it did save a lot of wear and tear on my own clothes, and lot of laundry too, since the hotel we were working in laundered the uniforms for us. This added up quite quickly to a distinct benefit financially, so I grew to appreciate it. I was still awaiting the expected state benefits to come through and every penny, quite literally, was counting.

I was at work one Friday, late in my shift, having been doing this cleaning job for over a month, when I was called to the hotel front desk.

“It’s a call for you, Chris,” said Natalie, who was starting on night reception for the evening.
“For me? Oh, um, thanks.” I spoke into the receiver: “Hello?”
“Hi Chris, Claudia here from Service Placements.”
“Oh, hello Claudia.”
“Look, there’s a little bad news. The hotel won’t be renewing the contract for us at the end of the month, they have filled their vacancies now; but there’s nothing else available next week.”
“Oh…”
“Best thing is if you keep calling us, as long as you’re available for work, then we’ll have you back in work as soon as we can. I know you’re keen.”
“Um, yeah, yes, very keen, Claudia.”
“Good then,” she said cheerfully, “talk to you soon. Could you ask Mary to come to the phone?”
“Oh, okay, thanks Claudia.”

I left the receiver on the desk, unsure how Claudia had managed to make the news, which was disastrous for me, sound so upbeat towards the end. But my voice had been becoming softer and weaker and more apologetic as recent events bore down on me and my self-esteem and sense of personal power had ebbed to almost nothing, so the control of the tone of the conversation had been all hers.

A little later, just as I was getting ready to go, Kelly, our supervisor, asked me if I was okay. I told her the news, and she admitted she’d already known.

“I can’t afford not to have any work, Kelly.”
“Oh a youngster like you will find something in no time.”
“But I can’t afford even a week off, really.”
“Look, tell you what,” she said with a slightly conspiratorial tone, “I know a couple of hotels that might be hiring. Give me your number and I’ll call you if there’s a job.”

Her beaming smile fell when I explained that I hadn’t got a phone, couldn’t afford one. She frowned and seemed to realise how despondent I really was.

“Can you call me? Next Tuesday, would be best.”
“Well, I could drop in, it’s probably easier.”
“Okay,” she said looking at me slightly sidelong, “do that then, at 4.30.”
“Thanks ever so, Kelly,” I said, and even managed a smile.

The week after, on Monday, I went to the dole office to sign on. They gave me an appointment date and told me to fill in a form and come back on Wednesday. I had never signed on for full benefits before, but I knew enough to know that I would be on very little money indeed. I had saved a small amount from the last few weeks’ working and carefully spent it before being told I would be laid off. It had been enough to buy a completely essential pair of comfortable shoes, styled like trainers actually, but unbranded and in a one-colour leather-like fabric, that were comfortable and simple to work in. After that I only had a few pounds in spare cash, and had had to stitch up one of my pairs of trousers. I had planned on some new clothes, which though essential, were something I had to look forward to and was about to start saving for. With the news that the work was drying up and still no decision on the benefits I’d been waiting for, I began to panic. Too late I began to realise that now I’d signed on they might have to reprocess all my claims. I suppose I suffered what they call a panic attack, the sort of thing that happens to people when they’re stressed beyond their limits and I suppose I should have gone to the doctor. But I didn’t know that.

The weekend had been hell, sitting in a room staring at all the reminders of my mom and my sister, with nothing else to do for hours on end. I did trawl the agencies, and I could see the looks that the air-headed air-hostess look-alikes in several of them gave me: “Scruffy little thing, not good enough for us.” I didn’t strike an imposing figure at the best of times. But I couldn’t afford new clothes or a haircut and I knew I was starting to look pretty shaggy. Shaggy enough or unlucky enough that six agencies told me there was nothing, leaving me confused as to how they could run their businesses if there really was so little work around.

On Tuesday I turned up at the hotel at 4.15 desperately hoping, and there was no sign of Kelly. Jason was on reception and was not nearly as friendly as Natalie. I hung around the front for a while, then went round the back. After seeing no-one I went back round the front. Suddenly, Kelly rushed out.

“Where have you been? I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I asked Ja…”
“Listen, there’s a vacancy for a cleaner at the Sherlington on Station Street. They were going to advertise and I told them about you, said you were keen and a really good worker. They’ll be expecting you tomorrow at 2, can you make it?”
“Uh…” I thought about my signing on interview, but decided this was more important, “Yes.” I said.
“Good.” She leaned back and looked me over. “You’d better tie your hair back and try to look a bit smarter – just for the interview. The Sherlington’s smart and they have a uniform too, so once you’re in it’s easier. You poor thing, I know you can’t afford anything.”
“Thank you so much, Kelly…”
“Look, Chris, I could maybe lend you something to wear if you don’t have anything … if you like?”
I gave her a look that was probably of mild consternation and confusion. “I, I think I’ll be okay, thanks, Kelly.”
“I hope so, they’re definitely looking for someone, and I think you’ve got first refusal. Chin up – be confident!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, thanks Kelly, I’m so grateful.”

She watched me as I walked away. Thinking back, guessing, I suppose she felt sorry for me and wasn’t sure I could pull off the interview with my low self-esteem. I wasn’t sure either, but I intended to try every trick in the book.

At home, I looked in my pitted mirror, after washing my hair. I had no hairdryer, though my hair was long enough by now to need it, dampening my back and shoulders as it dried. Nor had I anything to hold it back with. I had a few pounds, not enough for a haircut but surely enough to follow Kelly’s suggestion and get something to tie it back with: I would just have to spend some money tomorrow. I looked at my clothes. The clean chinos were not so clean: I mean, they had several freshly cleaned stains on them, ones that wouldn’t wash out. Jeans were usually considered unacceptable for interviews, as were shorts. My black trousers were the ones I’d had to stitch last week, but my skills are poor and I had had no matching thread. I would have to wear what I was wearing now, but they were definitely starting to look crumpled after all the walking around I’d done the last couple of days. Wearing clothes for more than two days was simply a matter of necessity for me, but it showed. I had several tee shirts, in similar condition to the trousers; and my best shirt which used to be my school shirt and which still fit perfectly well, had an ink stain on the breast pocket which I suspect my mom could have removed, but my attempts had failed. I had no jacket apart from my old school blazer, which wouldn’t give the right impression. A feeling of ennui started to come over me. There was no point, I was starting to feel, in going to the interview.

I managed to snap myself out of that thought, though the feeling lingered. I tried to think, but the bedsit was not conducive to that. So I went for a walk. Two hours later I came home puzzling over what it might have been that Kelly might have lent me for the interview. I should have accepted. She might have some perfectly unisex trousers or jackets. My gaze fell on the boxes of my sister’s clothes. I mooched through and after about ten minutes found a white shirt.

I held it up and looked at it. It was a slightly different shape to my own, but it was simple white cotton, and looked fine. Looking through the rest of that box, I realised these were Elaine’s old school things, and I looked no further and turned to the other boxes. Half an hour later the shirt was all I’d found that I could use. I turned and looked at my mom’s boxes. Two hours later, after having a good hard cry because of looking through my mom’s things, I sat on my bed. I’d found a pair of black slacks. Trying them on, they were just a little long. While they didn’t drag on the ground, the smart front crease crumpled at my instep. But they would have to do. I tried on Elaine’s shirt with it, and it fitted fine, sort of. The mirror was too small to see myself in it properly, but I realised that the shirt was too short to tuck in, though it covered the trousers’ hipster waistband; so it would have to stay untucked. The trousers zipped and, like the shirt, buttoned, on the wrong side, but otherwise they seemed fine. My hair was still shaggy, I would drop into the chemist’s on the way to the interview and ask for an elastic or something, and it was the best I could do, I just hoped it would be smart enough.

The chemist shop was a small place, but it still had a bewildering array of hair accessories though none seemed to be what I wanted.

“Excuse me,” I said sheepishly, “I need something simple, to hold my hair back for an interview.”
“Let’s see dear,” said the smiling retailer, moving from behind the counter and towards a display.
“This would look very smart on you,” she assured me, holding up some sort of curved toothed device that reminded me of a dinosaur’s lower jaw.
“Er, no thanks,” I felt myself frown at her, “just an elastic is all I need.”
“Oh, I see, well, we have…” she paused. “We have several scrunchies, but I can’t see any elastics.”
I didn’t like the sound of “scrunchies” and was wondering whether I should go to the stationers for simple elastic bands, though I’m sure Elaine swore that that did terrible damage to her hair: I never understood why they would, but I could remember her insisting they had to be “hair elastics”, when she used them.

“Oh here we are, my dear,” the lady said, pulling me from my reverie, and held out a piece of cardboard. I took it and saw that around it were wrapped two pieces of black and gold covered elastic with small pink and gold plastic butterflies attached.
“I’m going to, to an interview,” I said, emphasising the last word.
She frowned, “Well, I suppose they’re a bit playful. I think the most conservative thing would be a black scrunchie, and maybe secure it with some hairpins,” she said.

I frowned again, but time was running out, and when she held up the black scrunchie, it did look fairly low-key.

“Um, okay, I’d better have that,” I said.

She handed it to me, and I looked at it with consternation and yet determination, as I handed over a fiver. I safely stashed my meagre change in my sister’s bumbag, something I had had to raid from one of Elaine’s boxes that morning when it had dawned on me that mom’s trousers had no pockets. All the money I had in the world now was in there, and it came to much less than £5.
I was about to turn and leave when the shop lady said: “Here, let me help you with it, so you can look your best.”
I halted my turn, realising that that was a more than helpful offer.

“Oh, thank you,” I said, handing her the scrunchie.

I might have refused if I had realised how rough she would be. She produced a spiky plastic hair brush, brushed out my hair, parted it, brushed it some more, gathered it, pulled the scrunchie over it, tight on my head, and then produced from heavens knows where at least six hairpins – “on the house” – and finally she said: “There.”

There was a full-length mirror in the shop, partially obscured by encroaching racks of products on either side. I had a look at the narrowed reflection and was really not sure what to think. I hadn’t looked like this before. The fit of the slacks was different to my own trousers, and there was something about how the blouse looked, even with my school tie at the collar, it looked somehow soft and the sleeves were oddly taut. My hair pulled back did look much neater, but quite severe.

“A fringe would look a little softer,” the lady suggested.

I looked at her, and at my mirrored self, back at her and then at my watch. For a moment I felt a great weight of indecision, but another look at my watch and I threw the thought away and realised I’d better hurry.

“Well, thank you.”
“Good luck, dear.”
“Um, thanks.”

The trainers weren’t the ideal look, though in leathery fabric they were at least smart casual, but I was very grateful for their springy lightness as I walked the two miles to the Sherlington Hotel. It was a semi-posh hotel gone slightly to seed, but quite large, and still prominent because of its proximity to the station. I stood outside for a few minutes to cool down, but with my hair off my face, that happened more quickly than usual.

I entered the foyer, which was predominantly a maroon colour where it wasn’t dark polished wood. Glass doors on either side gave onto corridors and a large staircaise swirled in an anticlockwise curve along the wall to my right up to the first floor. I approached the desk on the left where a lit up sign on the front of the dark wood seemed to say: “Snerlington Hote”. I tried not to show my amazement that they hadn’t mended the sign, one of the first things one saw on entering.

“Can I help you?” said a smart looking young woman, in a rather broad local accent.
“I, I’ve come about a job.” I said, and then felt I should add: “My friend Kelly said she had spoken to someone here.”
“Kelly? Oh, the two o’clock appointment with Mrs Jennings. What’s your name?”
“Chris Tertullian.”
“Good. If you’ll follow me Mister Tullian.”

People often got my name wrong, it was no surprise. They had such trouble with the surname that I never ever used my full Christian name which would have added two more syllables, though some would say even my surname was a very Christian name.

We walked through the corridor to the right of the entrance, which turned sharply left after the glass door and curved, following the wall the staircase was set into. There were two doors on the right before the one the receptionist took me to. She knocked sharply on the door.
“Mister Tullian for you Mrs Jennings.”
“Ah thank you Julia,” came a smooth voice from inside the room.

Julia stepped aside, and gestured for me to enter, which I did, gingerly and nervously moving into the room. I heard the door gently click behind me as I quickly took in the faded glory of the office.

“Miss Tertullian, nice to meet you,” she said, and her clipped pronunciation made it sound quite clear that she had said “Miss”. I felt my stomach flip and felt even more nervous.
“Ah…” I started.
“Please, let me tell you what we are looking for and how we do things here, then I will hear any questions.” Quite firm. Then she said, not really meaning it: “Is that alright?”
“Yes. Yes, Mrs Jennings.” I said, trying all my politeness tricks in one sentence.
“Good. Miss Harvey told me all about you, and she said you were very reliable, very punctual and hard working. I like those qualities and expect them of all my staff, but expected though they may be, those who show those qualities are treated well and valued.
“The positions we have at the moment are for a room attendant and a washer-upper in the kitchen. Kelly told me you had been cleaning for her, and so I suspect the room attendant is the most suited position, unless you would prefer to try the kitchen work?”
“Oh, room attendant would be fine, Mrs Jennings. I haven’t worked in a kitchen before.”
“Quite, that would require training prior to your starting. So room attendant it is.”
Her mouth smiled before going on: “Guests leave their rooms by 9 am, and by then you will have organised your trolley. Cleaners go in teams of two down a corridor; you will go with one of the other girls and in each room where the guest is staying longer, change the sheets, make the bed, hoover, clean the en-suite, wipe down the mirrors and that’s it. If he guest is not staying longer, then check for anything left behind, strip the bed, clean the ensuite and the mirrors and give the room a thorough clean. If a guest has not left their room by 9 am, check back again at the end of the shift. If they are still there at that time, then we must presume they are happy to not have their cleaning done that day.”
She smiled again. “Sound simple enough?”
“Ah, yes, I think so.”
“Good. We pay at the minimum wage, uniform provided, except for the shoes. It’s six hours a day to start, but prove yourself invaluable and there may be more work. I will know you’re a good worker if I have to remember to ask how you’re getting on.” She caught my eye. “I hope your progress will not need to be brought to my attention.”
“No, no, Mrs Jennings.” I gulped inwardly. The woman frightened me, partly because she was as stern as my French teacher from last year, from whom I learned almost nothing except how to be silent, and partly because I needed this job so badly.
“Jolly good. If there are no questions, then, take yourself back to Julia and she will give you a uniform and have you start training.” A quick smile, and she was looking at her correspondence again, discouraging any questions.
“Yes, thank you, Mrs Jennings,” and I quietly left the room.

I had thought her unutterably rude, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I was certainly on the verge of beggardom. I would simply have to keep my head down and work. Part of me was elated, in spite of her manner, and in spite of everyone getting my name wrong: there was no competition, they just gave me the job, simple as that.

Of course, I was under no illusions. I had to prove myself, and I was also slightly shocked at there being only 6 hours work a day. I would be forced to do weekends if possible, and I needed to be the best room attendant they had ever had to be sure of more hours. But it was better than dole, and with the benefits top-up I hoped I should still be entitled to, helping with rent and council tax – when the paperwork is one day finally processed – I should be able to manage … just.