One month later and to Jake’s utter astonishment, Ms. Eloise Elliot had been as good as her word. Surprising absolutely no one but himself, he sailed through his parole hearing and following one kick-up-the-arse pep talk from his parole officer along the lines of I’ll-be-watching-you-and-don’t-think-I-won’t, he found himself a free man for the first time in two long, long years.
He had nowhere to stay of course, only his mam’s, but he didn’t want to go there. At least not yet. It would be too easy for them to find him, too easy to get sucked back in. And if there was one thing he was certain of, it was this; there was no going back for him. Not now, not after everything he’d been through. And he knew of old that it could all happen so frighteningly easily, a phone call here, a recalled favour there and next thing he knew he’d end up right back where he’d started.
Not long before his release date, Eloise called to visit a second time, to ask him a few more questions, again under the pretext of commissioning a feature for her paper.
She couldn’t stay for long she said, as she had to get back to work, even though it was a Sunday and he figured she’d take a day off, like anyone else. No, she told him, no such thing as a day off in her gig, the news didn’t stop and so therefore neither could she. It struck him as funny that even though it was ostensibly the weekend (ostensibly was his new word for that day, he loved the sound of it, loved the way it rolled off his tongue), here was Eloise still dressed head to toe in black, in one of those interchangeable power suits she seemed so fond of. Neat, structured, minimalist cut, no frills or ornamentation of any kind; almost a bit like how a bloke would dress.
The apparel oft proclaimeth the man, Jake thought, looking through the grille at her. (He’d been reading Hamlet for his course at the time, and some of the quotes just stubbornly got into his head and stuck there.) She was still white as a sheet, still utterly exhausted looking; yet another mystery to Jake. What in the name of God did this woman do in her spare time anyway? Did she have any kind of private life, or even family? Or did she really just work, sleep and visit ex-cons whenever she could? Was her life really that empty, almost as empty as his own? Didn’t make sense, but then none of this did. Why would someone this smart, successful and together be bothered with the likes of him?
‘Guess what?’ Eloise told him excitedly. ‘I’ve got news. Well, more like an offer. That is, if you’re interested.’
‘Tell me more,’ he said, smiling even as she uttered the words, if he was interested. Without even hearing what it was, he was just about ready to jump down her throat at whatever it might be and say yes. When did anyone ever offer him anything, bar trouble? And what other offers were there for him on the table at this point in time, only dangerous crap that would surely be a shortcut to him landing back inside in no time?
‘Well,’ she began, ‘I’ve got a sister Helen, who rented out her flat in Dublin a few years ago when she moved down to Cork.’
‘OK …’
Now, I won’t bore you with the details,’ she explained in that enunciated, school ma’am way she had, ‘but basically now my sister’s staying somewhere else in Dublin. Emm … staying indefinitely. Anyway, her tenant moved out months ago and for the life of her, she can’t get anyone else to take the place. You know what it’s like renting in this market.’
Jake didn’t, but nodded politely.
‘Anyway, now Helen desperately needs someone to house-sit for her. She was about to put an ad in the paper, and then I thought of you. So basically, there’s an empty flat that you’re welcome to stay in until she’s able to rent it out again properly. I thought that it might just suit you for a few weeks, at least until you find a proper place of your own. Plus it’s on the other side of town, so at least you’d be out of harm’s way there, none of your, well, let’s just say no one from your past could possibly ever find you. You’d be doing her a favour too and all she asks is that you look after the place. It’s been empty for seven months now, and needs someone to live in it.’
He sat back, digesting this.
‘So … What do you think?’
‘It’s incredibly generous of you and your sister, but Eloise …’
Shit. It was no use. He couldn’t contain himself any longer.
‘I have to ask you something.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Why are you doing this? I mean, why me? You’re a busy lady, you hardly have time for this. What are you anyway, like one of those Victorian philanthropists who spent their time visiting the prisons and helping the less fortunate? Like some kind of angel in disguise? Don’t get me wrong, I’m hugely grateful to you for the offer, but none of this makes the slightest bit of sense to me.’
She blushed at this. And took her time before answering him, he noticed.
‘Because … Well, I mean, just look at you Jake, you’ve got such potential. All your brilliant exam results? You could easily make something of yourself outside of here, build a whole new life, a better one. I just … I really believe in you and if there’s any way I can help out, I’m here. That’s all.’
He looked intently back at her.
‘And that’s the whole truth? Just look me in the eye, Eloise. If you’re holding back, trust me, I’ll know.’
‘Well …’ she said a bit shiftily. ‘It’s partly the truth.’
‘Partly?’
‘Look … Put it this way. I’m someone who’s always getting accused of putting work ahead of everyone and everything. I constantly hear that I never do anything good for other people. So now, I figure, well maybe here’s my chance.’
He nodded, but still couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to all this than met the eye. Considerably more. What though? That was the million dollar question.
‘Anyway,’ she went on in her usual back-to-business way, ‘what do you think about flatsitting?’
‘It’s an incredibly generous offer, but I’d only take it on one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’d insist on paying your sister rent. Upfront and from day one. And that’s not negotiable.’
Eloise nodded, and seemed happy enough with that. Then she started to probe around a bit more.
‘And another thing Jake. I wanted to ask you if you’d thought about how you’d manage for money once you get out?’ she asked directly.
‘Jesus! Like if it’s not too personal a question?’
‘Sorry, I just wondered, that was all,’ she said, biting her tongue and looking flushed that she’d maybe overstepped the mark.
Jake sat back and shook his head. Because even just being asked that made him feel about two inches tall. She didn’t mean to humiliate, of that he was certain. It was just unfortunate that this was her manner. He’d learned by now that if there was a wrong way to get around people, Eloise would pretty soon light on it. You could see it in the way she spoke to the screws, snappily, brusquely, like someone who was used to barking orders while all around her jumped to.
A real shame, Jake thought. Because underneath all of that toughness, there was a good heart there, if you only took the trouble to furrow down deep for it. A genuine warmth and a caring side that for whatever reason, she took great pains to conceal from all around her. Not for the first time, it made him wonder why exactly she’d chosen him to be on the receiving end of all this altruism. (Another new word for the day.) Because why pick a soon-to-be ex-con when she could easily help those with far more need of it? It was a mystery, one that baffled him, but if it was the last thing he did, he’d somehow get to the bottom of it.
‘Look, I didn’t mean to be rude or nosey Jake,’ she cut across his thoughts, ‘I just wondered if you were okay for money, that was all.’
And at that point, he’d have sworn on a stack of Bibles that no bank manager on earth could have done it quite as probingly, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in seconds flat. If this one had an animal image, he thought, looking evenly through the grille at her, it would have been a bird of prey; an eagle or a hawk. She was that alert, that keen and clued in; she’d sound out any tiny detail you were not one hundred per cent sure of. In fact, she’d not only sound it out, but be on top of it in a matter of seconds.
So he paused, waited for a bit, saw that she wasn’t going anywhere till she got the answers she was looking for, then finally realised there was nothing for it but to open up to her. What the hell, she seemed to have found out everything else about him from the governor, what had he to lose?
‘I’ll be just fine, thanks for asking,’ he told her, coughing and keeping his voice deliberately low, hoping she’d just drop the subject and move on.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. As it happens, I’ve a few quid put by, not much but enough to tide me over for a few weeks till I find work.’
‘What do you think you’ll work at?’
He sighed. Because he’d been giving that one a lot of thought lately and the options didn’t exactly appeal.
‘Thought I might hire out a taxi plate,’ he told her, but she didn’t exactly look impressed. But then neither was he, particularly.
‘It’s a gig plenty of the other lads in here do as a kind of stepping-stone when they first get out,’ he went on to explain. ‘You don’t have the expense of running the car, tax or insurance or any of that, the guy who owns the taxi plate looks after all that. So as long as you pay him his cut out of whatever cash you make, he’s happy. Means I can do the odd night shift for some overworked driver who only wants to work more sociable hours during the day.’
‘Oh Jake,’ she said sitting back, deflated. ‘That’s really what you want? To ferry home a load of drunks out of their head on alcopops at four a.m., after all the nightclubs close?’
‘That wouldn’t really particularly bother me at all,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘To be honest, I’d just be glad of the cash and can put up with anything, as long as they don’t puke in the back of the car.’
There was only one disadvantage to the plan and he knew it only too well, though he kept it to himself. If he went back to driving, his old gang would surely find him. Chances were they’d track him down in no time. Nothing could be easier. If they wanted to, they could get to anyone, but a taxi driver was a particularly useful animal to them. They’d get you working like a courier, and before you knew where you were, you were back in trouble, back in court, back inside, back to square one, back where you swore you’d never go back to.
Eloise didn’t actually say as much, but seemed distinctly unimpressed with the plan. It was in the slightly disdainful sniff she gave when he mentioned taxi shift work and in the way she impatiently tapped the tips of her skinny fingers off the metal counter in front of her, when he talked about night shifts and soilage charges. But then, he’d noticed she was good at communicating disapproval without even having to open her mouth. For a split second he wondered what life was like for all the legions of reporters and editors who worked under her. Were they all afraid of her? He’d nearly put money on it.
Jake knew so little about her, but could already guess that in a work situation, her bark was as bad, if not fifty times worse, than her bite. Idly, he found himself sitting back, arms folded, wondering when the last time was someone had used the word ‘no’ in front of Eloise Elliot.
‘But you have a TEFL qualification,’ she reminded him insistently. ‘You got first class honours, you did really well at it! Why are you throwing all that away so you can sit on some taxi rank for hours in the middle of the night? Why not put your qualification to good use? And you’re studying for your English and psychology degree. Surely pursuing these goals would give you a far more promising future then schlepping round night clubs in some borrowed taxi at some ungodly hour in the morning? Course, I know that your future is in your own hands and that it’s none of my business,’ she added, ‘but it seems to me that you’ve got a real chance to make something of yourself here. To really start over, turn a new leaf, not look back.’
At that, he sat forward, starting to listen more intently now. Because without her even realising it, that last sentence had chimed a deep chord. He wondered if Eloise knew that was exactly what he needed to hear at this point in time. Wondered if she knew that the very thought of making a fresh start, of even taking a step up in the world was like music to his ears … Who knew?
All he knew was that he found himself suddenly paying alert attention to what she was saying. She had a way of making everything sound so easy, so achievable. God, he thought, this one was far, far better than any parole officer at encouraging you, guiding you to haul yourself up by the bootstraps and make something out of what was left of your life.
‘You know what you could do Jake?’ she went on, really warming to her theme now, ‘You could apply for a job teaching TEFL courses to overseas students, maybe at one of the language schools that are springing up all over town. After all, education is the one recession-proof business,’ she went on enthusiastically. ‘I’d put money on it that you’d be well able to get work, even part-time.’
So Jake let her chat on, finding himself listening interestedly at first, then intently. Because she just made it all sounds so easy, so doable.
‘You could be a proper TEFL teacher,’ she encouraged him. ‘You could do it, easily, I know you could. I’ll even be a referee on your references for you. We can gloss up your CV,’ she said, like it was already a done deal. ‘I’ll help you, I’d be delighted to. And in your spare time, you could finish your degree. Who knows what wonderful prospects it might lead on to in time? Streets ahead of doing night shifts in a taxi. So come on, what do you say?’
Jake said nothing, but just listening to her filled him with an utterly unfamiliar sensation. Hard to put a name on, but when he analysed it later on back in his cell, he knew exactly what it was. It was hope, plain and simple. No two ways about it, she was offering him a lifeline.
And he’d have been a fool not to grab at it like a sinking man about to be saved.
So this was it then, this was freedom. For the first time in two years, Jake had no one to answer to only himself. And it was – no other word for it – intoxicating. Delirious enough to get high on, if he hadn’t sworn off all that years ago. He felt invincible, like William Wallace at the end of the movie Braveheart, as played by Mel Gibson with a faceful of Avatar-blue paint all over him, where he just wanted to yell out at the top of his lungs over and over again, that one delicious word … freedom.
Astonishing the things you missed when you’d been away. Ask any of the lads inside, and they’d all tell a different tale: some missed their wives, girlfriends, kids, others the little things like being able to stroll into a pub on a Sunday afternoon, order a pint, read the paper, maybe watch a match on telly. But for Jake, what he’d missed most was that rare thing, privacy. Never for one second were you left alone inside, even in the showers you were supervised, always being watched. It was a thing he vowed never to take for granted again, not as long as he lived.
And now here he was, Jake Keane, living the life of a respectable man. It was like some kind of strange, surrealist dream come true and in his darker moments – of which there were many – he worried about the tap on his shoulder, the unwanted phone call, or the midnight hammering on his hall door that would land him right back at square one. But he tried his best to tune those thoughts out and instead to focus on the positives. God knows, for once in his life, there were an abundance of them to choose from.
He owed Eloise so much, and Jake was a proud man, unused to either being helped altruistically or being under a compliment. Particularly to someone who’d just brush all his badly articulated expressions of heartfelt thanks aside. But if it was the last thing he ever did, he swore that somehow he’d find a way to pay Eloise back.
For starters, there was this gorgeous flat he now had the run of, for a reasonable rent he could just about afford. It was tiny, admittedly, a one-bedroom apartment just off the main Sandymount Road, in one of those new developments that had shot up like mushrooms during the property boom. Course now half of the apartments in block after block were little more than negative equity millstones round the neck of owners who had taken a punt on them in better times, and now they just lay empty and deserted. Kind of like living in a ghost town, with very few neighbours and even fewer lights dotted round the block whenever it got dark.
But to Jake, it was like crashing out in the penthouse suite of the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Sheer, unimagined luxury. And here, in his own tiny little space, he was finally, finally free.
He could do as he pleased, when he pleased. Go out for long solitary walks down Sandymount Strand any time it suited him, with no one’s permission to ask. No sirens blaring that heralded a fight breaking out in some far-away wing, meaning lockdown for one and all, no lights-out at a time when you could still hear small kids out playing on the still sunlit streets, no handcuffs, no iron security gates to pass through every five metres, no clinking of keys … There was just him and him alone and there were times he thought he was drunk on the sheer high of it.
He felt like a proper adult, with a normal life all ahead of him, something he’d scarcely dreamt of only a few weeks back.
And all he had to do was not f**k it up.
Eloise continued to astonish him with her random acts of kindness, all done in her usual brusque, businesslike manner. He’d actually never expected to see her again. As soon as he’d moved into the flat and given her a month’s rent plus a deposit upfront for her sister, that technically should have heralded the end of all her dealings with him. And yet still she kept coming back. Just for friendly chats, just to see how he was doing. Lately she’d taken to dropping in on him at the oddest times, like very late at night when she’d just have finished up work for the day, or early on weekend mornings, when again, she was only about to start her day’s work.
Initially, she never stayed for more than half an hour at a time, just long enough for her to check what work he’d done on his CVand which language schools he was applying off to. Like a teacher looking for progress reports, he thought. As if she hadn’t done enough for him, she’d even helped him out there too. She’d glossed up his resumé for him and had added on loads of embellishments he’d never even thought of. All the skills that he’d learned in Wheatfield, she’d pounced on, made an asset of.
And so now, under ‘outside interests and hobbies’, he had listed a not-unimpressive array of accomplishments, from carpentry to cooking. She’d even thrown in metalwork. Fleshes it all out a bit, she’d told him, makes you sound more interesting, more three-dimensional. Spoken with all the authority of a woman who’d not only scanned through thousands of CVs in her time, but who could also freely quote – in some cases dating from years back – examples from the ones that had impressed her and horror stories from the ones that arrived on her desk stained with coffee mug rings all around them.
‘Photographic memory?’ he’d asked her at the time, wryly grinning at her from the corner of his mouth.
‘Comes in very handy in my gig, believe me,’ she grinned back and as ever, it astonished him how approximately ten years fell off her face when she allowed herself to crack even the tiniest smile.
Not only that, but she’d encouraged him to open up a library account too, so he could borrow all the English and psychology books he needed to study for his Open University exams, which were only round the corner. She’d even earmarked a couple of language schools in town that she’d heard on the grapevine were stuffed to the gills with students and suggested he apply off to those first. Chances were they could do with having a few substitute teachers on their roster.
Jake gladly took her advice and was astonished to find that in no time at all, his days had become far fuller and busier than he ever could have anticipated. He would get up early each morning, cook a proper breakfast (cooking came easily after a spell inside; everyone was required to spend at least three months of the year working in the prison kitchens and what you’d learned stayed with you), then start into the books, which he loved far more than he could ever hope to put into words.
For hour after hour, he’d sit at the tiny desk in the one-roomed studio flat and pore over his course texts, cup of coffee beside him, feeling like a real, proper student. Feeling so very deeply privileged; as though all the chances he’d never had as a kid, or as a teenager, all the opportunities that he’d missed out on, had by some boomerang of a miracle, come back to him.
As it happened, he was studying Pygmalion by one of his favourite writers, George Bernard Shaw, for his English exam. And he found it ironic and funny at the same time, that a guy like him, an ex-con, a criminal with a past who’d been in and out of correctional facilities all his youth, could relate so easily to a character like Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl with a rough background whose main problem in life was that she said ‘cuppa tae’ instead of cup of tea and yelled obscenities at racehorses on Ascot opening day.
And yet in spite of everything, he could all too easily identify with this character. He’d even written a bit about the subject in one of the essays he’d had to hand in to his course tutor. He and Eliza Dolittle both despised where they’d come from and didn’t want to get sucked back. They both wanted more out of life, without being dragged back into the past any more. The past was another country, Jake had learned, one he never, ever intended revisiting.
Enter Eloise Elliot, like a female Henry Higgins in a black power suit and high heels, who was good enough to provide a halfway house for him, all the time encouraging him onwards and upwards. And education, she impressed on him time and again, was the key to the unlocked low door in the wall, the one that led to a better life.
His mam laughed at him when he took two buses on the long trek out to Darndale to see her one Sunday afternoon, as did his nana. ‘You always had notions about yourself,’ she’d said, though he liked to kid himself that he caught a flash of pride in her eyes as she said it. ‘Always too good for the likes of us, always wanting better for yourself. With your fancy books by writers none of us ever heard of by Russian writers that aren’t even alive any more, sure what’s the point in that?’
Jake smiled to himself at this, knowing his mother would think that reading anything more challenging than OK! magazine was akin to reading a treatise on sewage management in the fourteenth century.
‘Sure I remember you as a teenager,’ his nana reminded him, through her whistling teeth that she then whipped out and stuck on the dinner table in full view, like she always did whenever they were at her. ‘You were always writing out fancy to-do lists for yourself: must learn to speak better, must try to dress better, must study harder. How you didn’t get the shit kicked out of you more often round here was a minor miracle,’ she cackled at him toothlessly, the breath whistling out of her.
‘I remember,’ he smiled his warm, slow smile at her. ‘I was reading The Great Gatsby and I wanted to be just like Jay.’ But his nana just looked blankly back at him, the reference utterly lost on her, then grinned gummily and told him she really believed he’d do well no matter what. ‘I wouldn’t worry a bit about anything love,’ she’d told him kindly. ‘Sure look at you, you’ve the same hands as me. Intelligent hands. You’ll do well for yourself, you’ll be OK. Just don’t forget us when you land some big fancy job in town for yourself. And no running off with any tarty little gold-diggers when you’re rich and successful either, do you hear me?’
She was gently teasing him and all his notions of getting on in the world, but deep down Jake knew that of all people in his family, Nana probably understood best.
Understood that he’d had enough of the life he’d been born into. That he wanted to kill it as fast as possible and start over. Quickly, before they got to him and dragged him back in, like they always seemed to, just when he’d stumbled on a chance of getting up and on and out. And the invisible noose they had around his neck was already beginning to tighten, he knew only too well. Already, his ma said a few of the old gang had phoned the house, faux-casually asking where he was staying since he got out. He could trust his ma not to give him away though. ‘In town, that’s as much as I know’ she’d told them firmly, and that seemed to suffice.
At least, for the moment.
In his coursework, he was reading about the Sword of Damocles and in his darker moments, that was exactly how he felt these days. Like he was enjoying a rare and spectacular piece of undeserved good fortune right now, but the sky was surely about to fall in on his head.
Like it usually did.
And it was just a matter of time.