Michael

 

The whole town knows Carrie Wells is staying with Jack. Three different people question me on my way to the office, three nosey fuckers without anything better to be worrying about.

Yes, she’s staying with Jack. Yes, she’s working for him.

The gossips will talk, rumours will ripple. Maybe some of them will even be close to the truth.

I know I’m going to have to face Pam, but I head to my desk first and turn on my PC. I’ve no idea yet what I’m going to say to her, and I’ve never been a man to lie – that’s not my style, but I’m not about to offer up the full, honest truth to her either.

Not when I’m still coming to terms with it myself.

If I weren’t so invested in helping the poor kids on my books that need someone to fight their corner, none of this would bother me.

But there’s no arguing the fact that I’ve stepped over professional boundaries, even if Carrie Wells is a case all of her own. I’ve stepped over lines that would be impossible to justify to co-workers, and my board, and the agencies I work with.

I contemplate resigning, but the thought pains. I’m good at what I do. I work damn hard, give it everything I’ve got.

I care more about my job than anyone else in this building, but that won’t be enough.

Pam heads right on through before my day officially starts. She takes a seat opposite me, her back bolt upright as she clutches a file of paperwork in her lap.

“When did you know about Carrie Wells?” she asks.

I look her straight in the eye. “It moved fast, a couple of days ago. Jack came back from business and she was already at his. She said his fencing was a disgrace and he gave her a shot at fixing it.”

“I see.” She nods. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Rosie and Bill didn’t want to know. The police weren’t interested in locating her, not now she’s an adult, and officially she’s off our case list. I didn’t see what relevance it had.”

“It doesn’t,” she agrees. “But I’m still surprised you didn’t mention it.”

I don’t break the eye contact. “Well, now you know.”

“And this is permanent, is it? Her position on his property?”

“She’s doing a good job, he certainly has no complaints.”

She sighs. “Poor sod. I hope you’ve told him what he’s letting himself in for.”

And that’s it. I can see it in her eyes. She’s no more interested in Carrie Wells than anyone else around here beyond having someone to sigh and gawp over.

“Jack’s making good progress with her. We both are.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she lies. “I hope the girl sorts herself out.” She taps her fingers on her paperwork and I wonder what it is now it’s obviously not my official written notice. “You haven’t been home this weekend, I take it that you’re helping Jack with Carrie?”

“I am.”

She smiles. “You really do take your work seriously, Michael.” The smile disappears as she flips open her file. “Which is why it pains me to say that the official quarter’s budget has been released. It’s another cut, I’m afraid. I only got the memo this morning.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Another cut? But they slashed it to bits last quarter.”

She sighs. “And they’re slashing it again. Donations aren’t what they once were and you know what the state of services is like around here. At this rate we won’t get any funding at all by the end of this financial year.”

Fuck.

It’s not that I haven’t seen the cuts to services. In a rural community like this they affect all of us. I’ve seen the local police cutbacks, I’ve watched smaller charity organisations fold under the pressure or merge with other branches. I’ve been at local school fundraisers, giving my time to fund things that should never have to be funded with private donations.

“We knew it was coming,” she says.

I shake my head. “I didn’t think we’d get hit with cutbacks twice in a row.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well, me neither.” She hands the file across my desk and my mouth drops open as I see the scale of the deficit and the proposals in place to handle our existing commitments.

“No,” I say. “It can’t be.”

“It can be, and it is,” she says. “Two months tops with each of our cases from here on in, fortnightly sessions instead of weekly. I’m going to have to let a few members of the team go. I’ll break it to them after our morning catch up and call a team meeting later in the week to announce all this officially.”

“Fortnightly sessions for two months isn’t going to do anything to help these kids,” I tell her, like she doesn’t already know.

“My hands are tied,” she says. “All our hands are tied, we’re just going to have to do our best.”

But my best will never be good enough, not under these conditions.

My career is turning to dust before my eyes, not because of any dubious choices I’ve made this weekend, but because our whole funding infrastructure is going to the dogs.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she says again. “I know how much this job means to you, I know how much you care about your service users.”

Service users.

She means kids. Kids without prospects. Kids who need us.

Kids who have been let down by the system.

Kids who’ve never known anyone to be on their side.

“We can’t work like this,” I tell her but she shrugs again.

“It’s not my call,” she says. “Please keep this to yourself until after the official announcement.”

Luckily, I’m good at keeping confidences.

I try to think of ways to reverse the funding decision right up until my first meeting.

But I have nothing.

Pam’s right, we can only do our best.

But my best isn’t going to be enough any longer. It’s going to be nowhere close.

 

* * *

 

Jack

 

It’s the same old office with the same old team in it. The same old faces asking me about my weekend out of politeness.

I give them the same old bland answers and wonder how I didn’t realise my life was so flat and dull before Carrie Wells came tumbling into it.

I normally struggle to give too much of my time to this business, but right now, with that delicious girl waiting at home for me, I’m struggling to give it any time at all.

I’ve never been so pleased to jump back in my car at the end of the work day. I’ve also never been so pleased to pull up onto my driveway to find Mike’s old car already parked in my space.

I’m grinning as I step through the front door, whistling a stupid tune as I head straight through to the kitchen.

“Someone’s happy,” Carrie says, but it seems like I’m the only one. She gestures at Mike, head resting on his palm as he flips through the local newspaper.

He looks like he’s had a pig of a day, but as I step closer it looks like it’s even more than that.

He’s on the job pages.

My mouth dries up. Surely Pam Clowes didn’t grill him that fucking hard about Carrie being here. Surely the prick didn’t fess up to fuck knows what.

“What’s going on?” I ask and it takes him a moment to meet my eyes. “What did you tell them?”

“Nothing,” he says. “None of this is about Carrie, it’s about the quarterly budget.”

I take a seat. “But they cut it last time round, they said it would hold for at least another six months.”

“Yeah, well they changed their mind. We’re forty percent down.”

“Forty?!”

That’s fucking ridiculous. That office is strapped enough for investment as it is. We’ve talked it through plenty of times. Mike’s even considered giving up some of his retirement fund to help out a little.

But this. This is something else.

“They’re letting George and Diane go at the end of this week.”

“And what about their workload?”

“Client funding is down from a six-month plan to two. Fortnightly instead of weekly. We’ll have to take on the backlog between the few of us left.”

“What do they expect of you? You’d have to be a miracle worker to get anywhere in that kind of window. You won’t even be able to liaise with the agencies, the conversation chain will be over before you’ve even had a chance to action the paperwork, you’ll be starting afresh each time.”

He sighs. “I know.”

Of course he knows. I feel like a jerk for pointing out the obvious.

Carrie looks worried for him. She’s dithery as she flits about the kitchen, making up a fresh pot of coffee as we talk.

I smile to see the mud stains on the knees of her jeans. They suit her.

“What you gonna do?” I ask Mike, and he shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. “What can I do?”

“You can quit,” I tell him. “Find something to do where you don’t have your hands tied with crappy budgets and tick boxes.”

He holds up the job page. “That’s exactly what I’m doing, but there’s not much out there where I’ll be genuinely able to make a difference for a living. In fact, there’s fuck all.”

Another job’s not quite what I mean, but he carries on scanning the ads obliviously.

I watch Carrie as she pours the coffee, noticing the way she glows after a good day of work on the land.

She’s nothing like the hissing little bitch I walked in on just a few weeks ago. She’s nothing that any of her previous carers would recognise.

And that’s not from Jack’s little sessions with her every week, talking her through her options in a stuffy little office.

It’s this place, it suits her. We suit her. And as much as I’d like to think it’s a good hard fucking that brings her in line, that has little to do with it.

Trust, responsibility, hard work and a little bit of freedom along with a healthy amount of discipline. Those things have everything to do with it.

And love.

That has the most to do with it of all.

Love and respect.

I have an idea exactly what Michael can do with the rest of his career, but I don’t blurt it out right then and there.

It’s going to take some careful thinking about first.

“You’ll sort something out,” I tell him and he smiles sadly.

“I’ll have to, I can’t work under those conditions, and I won’t.”

I nod.

He closes the newspaper as our beautiful girl brings us coffee, and the topic is officially closed.