His mam’s magic novenas to St Michael and St Joseph were answered and not long after, Jake got a letter from one of the many language schools where he’d applied to teach English as a foreign language, requesting – he thought he was seeing things – an interview. An actual interview. For a decent, respectable job and not driving taxis or flipping burgers or selling the Big Issue outside late night supermarkets like most of the ex-cons he knew.
He called Eloise immediately and even though she was in her office and couldn’t really react, he swore he could hear the delighted triumph in her voice. ‘We’ll plan this all out later,’ she hissed down the phone.
Planning, scheming, devising, taking total control, he’d learned, were Eloise’s favourite pastimes in the whole world. The woman was utterly wasted at the Post, he reckoned, she should have been head of the CIA – she’d have the place running effortlessly smoothly with one hand tied behind her back.
True to her word, she popped into the flat late that night, on her way home.
‘Okay, we’ve just got one problem,’ she told him decisively, whamming her briefcase down on the tiny coffee table, whipping off her too-tight jacket and gratefully taking the glass of white wine Jake offered her.
‘You’ve only just got in the door! Would you ever relax and tell me a bit about your day first?’
‘Can’t Jake. This is too important for us … I mean, for you. Have you any idea the amount of prepping we’re going to have to do to get you ready in time? And while we’re on the subject, there’s something that’s been worrying me …’
‘You mean what to say if they ask what I’ve been doing for the past two years?’
‘No, no that’s not it,’ she interrupted. ‘At least, that’s not just it.’
They’d been over and over the subject of how best to gloss over his past and Eloise had stressed time and again that any potential employer was bound to run background checks, even for a part-time job. So with that in mind, she advised Jake he’d no choice but to openly and honestly tell them the whole truth and nothing but. It was a huge gamble and they both knew it, but somehow she believed in him and genuinely hoped that his personality and passion for the job would sway things his way. Not to mention the fact that his score on his final TEFL exam was one of the highest in the country. Besides, from sitting on the far side of an interviewer’s desk, she claimed to know from bitter experience that an employer was always far more concerned about the potential future of the candidate sitting down in front of them, and considerably less about their past.
‘What’s up then?’
‘There’s no easy way to say this, and you’re not to take offence, but – it’s your appearance.’
‘What about it?’
‘Ehhhh … Jake, to date all I’ve ever seen you in is either a black or a blue T-shirt and the same pair of jeans day in day out. Two T-shirts does not a well-dressed interviewee make. Not good enough. There’s an awful lot riding on this, so you’ve got to give yourself the best shot possible.’
‘Ahh Christ, don’t say what I think you’re going to say.’
‘You need a suit. You need a whole new wardrobe, in fact.’
‘No way.’
‘Yes way.’
‘Suits are for bankers, developers who’ve gone bust and gay magicians on TV. The one and only time I was ever in a suit in my whole life, I was up in front of a judge in Circuit Court number six.’
‘Jake, I interview people all the time and first impressions count. You have to trust me.’
The following Saturday, Eloise called him to say that as it was a relatively quiet news day, she could grab a short window away from the office to take him shopping.
‘What, don’t you trust me?’ he’d teased her down the phone. ‘Afraid I’ll come home with stonewash denims and a shiny shirt with Megadeth written on it?’
He swore he could hear the smile in her voice.
‘Just meet me at the bottom of Grafton St. at half one.’
‘Fine, there’s a tattoo parlour close to there, you can help me pick out a new one that says, “done time and proud”.’
‘Please tell me you’re messing …’
‘You have to ask?’
‘Just stop acting the eejit and don’t be late!’
Strange, he thought, being made over by someone with actual taste when it came to labels he’d never heard of and designers he’d only been vaguely aware of from TV shows, where stick-thin models cavorted down Parisian runways wearing what looked like their knickers and not much else. The lads sometimes watched that stuff inside so they could salivate over the models, but more often than not, they’d take one look at the get-ups on them and crease themselves laughing.
And now here was Eloise taking him into shops he’d never set foot in before in his life, making him try on clothes that looked poncey and totally gak on the hanger, but when he put them on, somehow miraculously worked.
She insisted on his stepping out of the changing rooms so she could give him the once over after he’d tried anything on. When he stepped out in an elegant pair of charcoal-grey trousers teamed with a pale blue shirt the exact same colour as his eyes, he could read the approval on her face.
‘You’re sure I don’t look like a gay hairdresser?’ he asked uncertainly, hating the way the male sales assistants were eyeing him up. ‘I feel like a gay hairdresser.’
‘Definitely not. You look,’ she paused, eyeing him up and down from head to toe, thought for a second, then added proudly, ‘you look … like a teacher.’
Jake nearly passed out when they got to the till and he discovered that he’d just spent close to three hundred Euro. His worst nightmare. Palms sweating, he realised that ate into most of the little stash of cash he had to tide him over till he found work. And so, mortified, he stammered at the sales guy in the upmarket boutique that he’d made a mistake and would have to put something back.
But just as the sales guy was looking snottily down his bony nose at him, dismissing him for the time-waster he was, Eloise calmly slid up beside the till and smoothly handed over her own credit card.
‘No,’ Jake hissed firmly at her under his breath, purple in the face at this and mortified beyond belief. ‘No way. Not a chance. I’ll shop in Penneys or Dunne’s rather than let you fork out for this. This is not happening.’
‘I insist,’ she said cool as a breeze. ‘Besides, it’s only a loan. These clothes are an investment in your future. Trust me, when you get the job, you can pay me back out of your first month’s salary. Deal?’
It wasn’t one bit okay with him, as it happened. He felt deeply uncomfortable and had to fight the urge to smack the sales assistant right square in his patronising gob when he caught him smirking snidely, but on the condition that it was to be a loan and nothing more, he eventually swallowed his pride and gave in. Besides, he’d pay her back, even if he never got the job and ended up driving taxis for the rest of this life. If it was the last thing he did, he’d pay her back every shagging penny.
But if he’d thought Eloise was finished with him there, he’d another thing coming. Next stop was the men’s barber shop in Brown Thomas, and he nearly baulked like a kid when he saw how intimidatingly posh it was. Designed to terrify. Like a gentlemen’s club with copies of the Financial Times dotted around the place, where all the sofas were green leather and where even the cushions had cushions. The type of place Supreme Court judges would meet to have a shave and pause to brag about how much their individual wine collections were worth. For a split second, he had a mental image of himself sitting in a swivel chair while the same judge he might have appeared in front of sat down beside him, peered out over the top of his Irish Times and said, ‘Excuse me young man, your face is familiar, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’
‘I’m out of here,’ he muttered, turning on his heel.
But Eloise was having none of it. ‘You’ll thank me in the long run,’ she whispered to him, then swooped in like she owned the place and made an on-the-spot appointment for him to have a haircut and then a shave, in that order.
‘But I know a bloke on Liffey St. who’ll cut hair for a fiver,’ Jake protested, ‘and for feck’s sake, I’m able to shave myself, thanks all the same.’
He’d even made it back out as far as halfway to the door, but then he felt her ice-cool grip on his arm.
‘First impressions count,’ she told him firmly. ‘And when you walk into that interview, I want their first impression of you to be that you’re groomed, elegant, articulate and ready for the job. I’ve done my fair share of hiring in my time and trust me, I know what I’m on about.’
So, against his better judgement, he went along with it, while Eloise waited for him, tapping away at her mobile, firing off emails and having low, hissy conversations down the phone with someone called Marc, something about a review in that weekend’s culture section. God only knew what the poor guy had written, but from what Jake could gather, Eloise was far from impressed.
‘Absolutely not, it has to be rewritten and that’s all there is to it,’ he could hear her whispering urgently, phone clamped to her ear. Then he found himself smiling when she added, ‘because a review that pretentiously bollocky is exactly the kind of thing that puts people off going to the theatre. And another thing, about your TV review of the Jane Austen drama series, it’s way too harsh. What, may I ask, is wrong with a good, corsety, bonnety drama anyway? Rewritten and on my desk by four p.m., thanks.’
The barber caught Jake’s eye and gave him a conspiratorial wink that seemed to say, ‘Glad I’m not on the receiving end of that call, mate.’
Half an hour later, and he was done and dusted, ready to see the final result. And Jake, who only ever looked in a mirror about once every six months, barely recognised himself by the time the barber was finished with him. He was, no other word for it, transformed. His longish fair hair was now neater, tighter, his skin looked shiny and glowing and healthy, the scruffiness was gone, the just-fell-out-of-bed-unkemptness vanished. In short, he looked, as his mam would have said, cleaner.
‘Good work,’ Eloise said to the barber approvingly as Jake fixed up, making sure to include a decent tip, as he figured you were expected to do in posh places like this.
‘Better service than you get from the prison barber, I’ll say that much,’ he hissed to Eloise as they left. ‘The last haircut I had was a number one.’
‘A what?’
‘Shaved head. Though some of the lads get corn circles cut in as well. All the rage inside. Prison chic, dontcha know.’
‘Shhh, enough of that. All in the past and time to move on.’
She had to get back to the office, so he walked with her for company. Well, you never really walked with someone like Eloise, he’d learned, she power marched everywhere and you just kept pace as best you could. Even the way she walked was a battle. Jeez, didn’t this one ever slow down? For anyone? Ever?
‘What’s your rush?’ he asked her as she strode down College Green, like Apache Indians from an old black-and-white Western were chasing after her. ‘It’s Saturday. It’s a gorgeous sunny day. It’s lunchtime and for God’s sake, you haven’t even eaten.’
‘Oh Jake, if you only knew how much I have to do this afternoon …’ she panted back at him, expertly weaving her way round the shoppers laden down with bags who were blocking her path, delaying her.
‘Ah get over yourself, I’m not listening to you any more,’ he said, firmly gripping her by the arm and steering her into the Lemon Tree coffee shop on Dawson St., almost lifting her off her feet.
‘No, would you stop it please? I told you, I don’t have time for this,’ she protested, but he’d learned by now that if you just firmly ignored her, she’d eventually give up.
‘I can eat back at the office, you know.’
‘Yeah right, eat what? By the look of you, I’d say you live off a couple of celery sticks and coffee. Now either you can shut up and eat, or else I can ram it down your bony throat, the choice is yours.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she sighed.
So Jake ordered her a large egg, cheese and bacon crêpe with two coffees to go, paid up, then handed hers over to her so she could at least eat walking down the street on her way back to work.
‘Out of curiosity, do you ever take time off, ever?’ he asked her as they headed towards the Post offices on Tara St.
‘I mean, just look at you. It’s the weekend. Normal people all over the world are relaxing and recharging their batteries, and here you are, racing back to the office so you can stay on schedule. On a Saturday. Jeez, what do you want for your next birthday anyway Eloise? A nervous breakdown?’
She was munching hungrily into her crêpe and had allowed her pace to slow down to a gentler stroll, he was pleased to see.
‘Would take time off I could, but I can’t,’ she said, mouth full. ‘Believe me, you’ve no idea the pressure I’m under. Even though it’s a Saturday, we still go to print tonight …’
‘I know, I know, I’ve heard it all before, the Post holds up the sky and you’re single-handedly holding up the Post, and the whole world will crumble if you work anything less than an eighteen-hour day. All I’m saying is that sometimes it’s okay to stop and smell the roses for a bit. Graveyards are full of people just like you, who were indispensable to their jobs, you know. I’m only saying.’
It was almost painful to hear the deep, long-drawn-out sigh she gave.
‘I hear you,’ she nodded. ‘But I keep telling myself that one day I’ll have time to do all the things I want. One day.’
‘Like what?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘Yes you bloody well could. Go on, tell me. A day in the dream life of Eloise Elliot.’
‘Well … I dunno … In my dream life, I’d like to actually be able to sleep for starters. And to eat actual meals. And to go a whole day without once using my mobile. And to read a book right the whole way through. And drink a glass of wine in the afternoons if I was in the humour. And go to the movies midweek because I feel like it. And … take an actual holiday to somewhere like EuroDisney. Where I could take my lit …’
She stopped herself from finishing that sentence, he noticed. Odd. He picked up on it, but said nothing.
‘What I mean to say is,’ she corrected herself, ‘I feel I’m working this hard now because in a funny way, I’m storing up time that I can enjoy later on, down the line. Does that make any sense?’
He took a giant glug of his coffee and nodded.
‘Does to me. I know all about storing up time alright.’
She smiled up at him. ‘To be honest with you,’ she added, ‘I feel like I’ve spent the past couple of years just waiting on the storm to pass. But one day it will. Won’t it?’
‘Life isn’t about waiting on the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.’
They chatted easily and walked on as far as the Post offices on Tara St., when suddenly …
‘Eloise? That really you? I thought I was seeing things.’
It was Ruth O’Connell, the Post’s Northern editor, wiry and alert as ever, looking curiously at Jake, then at Eloise, then back to Jake, just waiting to be introduced.
‘Ehh, oh, sorry,’ said Eloise, mouth full of cheese crêpe, suddenly flushing like a wino in an off-licence. ‘Emm … Ruth, meet Jake, Jake, Ruth. Well I’d better get going, busy afternoon. You heading back in Ruth?’
‘Jake, was it?’ said Ruth, taking everything about him in with beady-eyed curiosity, missing absolutely nothing.
‘That’s right,’ he nodded amiably, going to shake hands.
‘Friend of Eloise?’
A trick question. Ruth knew Eloise didn’t have any friends, just people who didn’t despise her.
‘Yes,’ Jake answered evenly, looking down at her. ‘Yes I am, as a matter of fact.’
Eloise, for no reason, flushed even more at this. ‘Okay, so that’s that then,’ she said in a panicky voice, several notes higher than usual. ‘Come on Ruth, let’s get going …’
‘So, how exactly do you two know each other?’ Ruth asked Jake in her deadpan Norn Iron accent, in absolutely no rush to go anywhere.
Eloise semaphored a flustered look across to Jake, but there was no need. He was expert at reading people, sensed Eloise’s discomfort and wasn’t about to give anything away or let her down in public.
An awkward pause while they all stood around the busy street corner, waiting to see who’d blink first.
‘Perfectly simple question,’ said Ruth, breaking the now awkward silence, bony arms folded, giving Jake her best head-girl glare. ‘I’m just curious to know where you two met, that’s all.’
‘Err, well … you see,’ Eloise began to stammer, for once not quick enough on her feet to think up a fast answer. ‘The thing is … I met Jake through … emm …’
‘Very simple as a matter of fact,’ said Jake smoothly taking over from her. ‘I’m renting an apartment belonging to Eloise’s sister.’
With that, she shot him a thank you look of deepest gratitude.
‘I see,’ Ruth nodded, sounding unconvinced. ‘And how long have you known …?’
‘You know, much as I’d love to stay here and natter for the rest of the afternoon,’ Eloise interrupted her briskly, sounding a bit more like herself now, ‘we’ve got a news conference in exactly ten minutes Ruth. You haven’t forgotten? Come on, better get going.’
‘Oh, right then,’ said Ruth, a bit wrongfooted.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Jake nodded casually at her.
‘We’ll be seeing lots more of you in future, I’m sure,’ was Ruth’s parting shot, accompanied by one last incredulous glance back at him.
He grinned his wide, happy grin, kissed Eloise lightly on the cheek, told her that he’d chat to her soon, and like that, was gone.
Eloise insisted on rehearsing, prepping and grooming him over and over again for the interview like they were training him for an Olympic hundred metres, and not just a half-hour chat in a language school on Camden St. Ever meticulous, the night before the interview she even called round to Jake’s flat late one night after work, so she could role play the part of the interviewer and really put him through his paces this last and final time.
‘Right then, so tell me what first made you want to teach English as a foreign language?’ she asked, sitting opposite Jake at the tiny kitchen table, legs crossed, hands neatly on her lap, interrogation style.
‘Funny you asked me that,’ he replied lazily, legs stretched out, yawning. He’d been studying for his looming exams since early morning, his head was melted and frankly the last thing he was in the mood for was yet another game of interview charades with Eloise.
Didn’t she ever give up? Or even, God forbid, clock off early from work? Ever?
‘Come on Jake, answer me.’
‘Ah well you see, I was doing a two-year stretch in Wheatfield and figured that doing a TEFL course would be a far jammier way of passing the time than working in the prison laundry, washing manky, cack-stained underpants.’
In one lightning, quick gesture, Eloise immediately whipped her briefcase up off the floor and stood up to go.
‘If you’re not going to take this seriously, then neither am I,’ she all but snapped. ‘Are you aware that interview coaches out there charge up to two hundred and fifty euro an hour for this? And here I am, wrecked after yet another endless day and you seem to think I’m doing all of this for the good of my health? Honest to God, sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting myself through all this for you, if you’re not even prepared to make an effort …’
‘Sit down for feck’s sake, will you relax?’ he said, arms folded, blue eyes teasing her. ‘I was only messing. Come on, you’ve had a long day, can’t we just chat normally like people do, instead of working the whole shagging time?’
‘Now that’s another thing I’ve been meaning to say to you. Your language. Talk like that in the interview and you’ll be out the door so fast …’
‘Eloise, will you calm down? You think I don’t know all that? You think I’m going to go in there and tell them I’m looking forward to teaching Spanish students how to say feck off and call each other gobshites, so they can really blend in on the streets of Dublin? Just chill out for two seconds, will you? Everything’s going to be fine. I haven’t come this far to let you down now. Now come on, it’s half ten at night,’ he continued smoothly. ‘You’ve had a killer of a day by the look of you and so have I. Just have a glass of wine and relax. The interview will be fine; sure I’m prepared upside down, inside out and sideways. I’ll end up grilling the interviewer and not the other way around, you have me so primed for it.’
‘Need I remind you the interview is tomorrow morning,’ she answered curtly in her best don’t-even-think-about-contradicting-me tone of voice. ‘After that, you can relax and chat all you like, but don’t think you’re getting off any hooks for tonight.’
Jake did a fake Nazi salute at her and just shrugged when she glared furiously back at him. By now he’d learned that whenever she got up on her high horse like this, the best thing you could do was tease her out of it. Laughing at her seemed to make her see how loony she was acting, far more so than taking up the cudgels with her.
‘Jake,’ she turned to ask him wearily, red behind the eyes by now. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like out there at the job-hunting coalface? I know you’ve been out of circulation for the past two years, but let me tell you something. We’re in the throes of the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, there are virtually NO JOBS and you’re going in there tomorrow up against the crème de la crème; candidates with diplomas and MBSs and masters degrees hanging out of their earlobes. And another thing, none of them will have, let’s just say, the inkblot on their past that you’re dealing with. So you take this seriously or else I’m out of here, I’m not coming back and you can go back to driving taxis, or working in an all-night garage, or wherever your ambition takes you. And you can spend your spare time daydreaming about getting a degree and having a better life, but that’s all it’ll ever amount to. Tuppenny-ha’penny daydreaming. And by the way, don’t think my walking out of here is an idle threat on my part either, because, I don’t make idle threats. My head is splitting and I no more want to run through interview questions than you do, but you’re going to and so am I.’
‘Okay, okay, you’ve made your point,’ he said softly, arms in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. ‘Right then, I’ll run through the whole shagging thing if that’ll make you happy, yet again …’
‘What did I tell you about your LANGUAGE!’
‘For the thousandth time, if you’ll just have a glass of wine and chill out a bit first,’ he brokered gently.
By now Jake understood this driven side of her character, the ruthless, stop-at-nothing side. He knew just where she was coming from and could see that she only had his own best interests at heart. It still didn’t mean he liked it particularly, but at least she did what he asked and sat back down again with an exasperated sigh. He took that as his cue to go to the fridge and pour her out a glass of that fancy white wine she drank.
‘Out of curiosity,’ he asked, passing the glass over to her and watching her take a big, nerve-calming gulp, ‘do you ever, just once, switch off?’
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked him, genuinely puzzled by the question.
‘The fact that it’s late at night, you’ve probably been at your desk since first light and yet here you are, still on the go, go, go, still not clocked off for the night. We’ve already worked so hard to get me ready for tomorrow but, here’s the thing. From here on in you just need to trust me. It’s okay to surrender control every now and then Eloise. Now can’t you for once just unwind for five minutes and tell me about your day?’
She gave him a tiny half-smile. But then, apart from Helen, who was usually sound asleep by the time she crawled in late from work, Jake was the only person who ever asked her about how she was feeling and coping and about the ten thousand minor skirmishes that made up a typical day at the Post. These days he was fast becoming the one person she could really open up to, someone who never judged her or automatically expected her to be on top of things, always. He just listened and let her talk her problems away.
‘You really sure you want to hear this?’ She sighed deeply.
‘Yes,’ he said looking at her thoughtfully and sitting down opposite her, ‘as a matter of fact I do.’
‘Oh God,’ she sighed almost painfully, slumping forward and covering her head with her long, thin, white fingers. ‘Where do I start?’
At it turned out in retrospect, there was absolutely no need whatsoever for her to stress and fret about Jake’s big interview. Because the interview hadn’t just gone well – it had gone swimmingly. Far, far better than he himself ever would have thought. His past hadn’t come up at all, but taking Eloise’s advice, he’d raised the subject himself and told his interviewer everything, honestly and openly. Made it clear that he’d made one stupid mistake and paid the highest price imaginable, but now the past was firmly behind him and he wanted nothing more than a chance at a better life. He produced a wad of glowing references; everyone from Eloise herself to the prison governor, backing up exactly what he’d said. He talked about his commitment and passion for learning, and how he wanted nothing more than to be able to pass that on.
And somehow, a miracle happened, and his interviewer had seen what everyone else so clearly could; potential. The guy had taken a chance on him, purely on a trial basis of course, but that was all Jake asked for; one single shot.
No sooner was he back out on the street again, still reeling from how well it had all gone, than he fished out his phone to call Eloise.
‘Well?’ she hissed, voice low.
‘Disaster,’ he said, teasing her a bit.
‘What happened?’
‘They quizzed me inside out and upside down about the glaring gap on my CV for the past two years …’
‘WHAT?’
‘You should have been there, these guys were like worse than anything you’d see on C.S.I. Real interrogative pros, shone a light in my eyes and everything. Kept repeating key phrases over and over, like all those field operatives are trained to do …’
‘Jake, if you’re messing with me …’
‘Tell us your secret, they kept saying …’
‘If this is your idea of a joke …’
‘… You’re an ex-con, aren’t you? So what were you in for anyway? Mugging little old ladies? Armed robbery? Burglary? Arson? Worse?’
‘Jake …’
‘… So I cracked under questioning, confessed all, and, long story short, they called security, flung me out of there, tore up my TEFL cert and told me if I ever showed my face in any language school ever again, they’d make sure I’d get put away for another two years.’
‘JAKE!’ she hissed, really getting alarmed now. ‘Please tell me you’re kidding?’
‘Course I am, you eejit. It went so well that they guy interviewing me asked me if I’d mind hanging on a bit so I could meet the school principal, who took one look at my grades, told me they were a bit short staffed for the summer months and basically asked me when I could start. Just a few hours a week at first, is all they could promise me, but am I complaining? Are you kidding me?’
Without even knowing she was doing it, Eloise let out a whoop of pure joy, causing Rachel, who’d been having a discreet earwig nearby, to nearly spill an Americano all over her keyboard.
‘So I just have one question for you, Missy,’ Jake asked down the phone.
‘What?’
‘Where do you want me to take you tonight to celebrate?’
Jake had bought her a bouquet of flowers for starters, to really start the night off in style. Lilies. For some reason, he’d remember her saying something about loving lilies and that single word – lily – had lodged in his mind. So earlier, he’d gone to a local florist and gone the whole hog, splashing out on the biggest bunch they had in the shop. And when he presented them to her, she actually blushed, like it had been years since anyone had spontaneously bought her flowers. Made her look so pretty and young and vulnerable, he thought, suddenly getting an impulse to hug her, but afraid she’d misinterpret it.
After all, ostensibly, the only reason she was even in his life in the first place was because of the feature piece she’d claimed she was about to run in the Post. Jake had tried raising it with her a few times lately, but all she’d do would be to swat his concerns away, saying that, for the moment at least, his job interview should be their sole focus. The feature, she’d crisply told him, could be shelved until he’d become an upstanding, tax-paying member of the community again. Will even make for better reading, she’d added. Because after all, who didn’t love a happy ending?
‘Oh … They’re absolutely beautiful,’ Eloise said, sounding utterly shocked as she played with the ribbon tied around the cellophane-wrapped bouquet and burying her face deep into the lilies, breathing in their gorgeous sweet smell.
‘You deserve them. You should be given flowers more often. And while we’re on the subject, you should be chloroformed, physically dragged out of that shagging office and taken out to dinner more often.’
‘Me? Ha! That’s a laugh.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, let’s not even go there.’
‘I don’t get the kind of fellas you must hang around with, I really don’t,’ he said, shaking his head as he pulled on his jacket and got ready to leave his flat.
‘You’re a lovely, gorgeous person, intelligent and successful too. Any guy should be proud to have you on his arm, only delighted to take you out on a Friday night.’
She looked up at him, deeply touched.
‘I mean that, by the way,’ he said, simply.
‘I know you do,’ she said, an inconvenient lump suddenly appearing in her throat. ‘And thank you. After the day I had, I needed … Well, let’s just say I needed a bit of kindness.’
‘So come on then, what are we waiting for? I said I’d take you out to spoil you rotten tonight and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’
He knew exactly where too. He’d walked past Raoul’s, a gorgeous local French restaurant, nearly every day for the past few weeks and made an inner vow to himself; if he got the job, he’d treat Eloise to a celebration dinner there as a way of thanking her.
As usual, he could practically see the tension beginning to roll off Eloise after a few gulpfuls of wine. She’d begun to open up to him more and more, he’d noticed, every time they talked now. Told him more about Seth Coleman and his latest shenanigans and how he was insidiously going out of his way to get rid of her once and for all.
But there was something else too, something she’d skirted around before but never really got to the marrow of. Eloise knew only too well, she confided in him, how unpopular she was in work and all the horrible nicknames her colleagues had given her behind her back. No one really liked her and they never had. Not even the few, the very few who, even if she didn’t count them as actual friends, were at least allies. If it came to a heave against her in favour of Seth, she stressed, and he swore he could hear the agony in her voice as she articulated the terrifying thought out loud; then who in their right minds would possibly choose her?
‘But you’ve been there for years,’ he counselled gently. ‘Why is it that you feel so friendless? Tell me, because I honestly don’t get it. The Eloise I know is nothing like the woman you describe.’
She took another sip of wine and gazed distractedly down at her napkin.
‘Been like that all my whole life,’ she eventually confessed and her honesty touched him more than he could say.
‘Seriously?’
‘Not a word of a lie. So you can’t really miss what you never had, can you?’ she added, musing aloud. ‘I’ll tell you this though, if I had my time over, I’d do things differently. Maybe not try to drive everyone around me in the office as hard as I do, maybe be a bit more human around co-workers, a little more lenient and understanding. Because it’s bloody hard going in there day after day, trying to keep the show on the road and in return just being practically hate-vibed out of it, by people whose jobs I’m only trying to protect.’
‘How do you mean?’ he asked, listening intently.
Another deep-soul searching sigh from her.
‘Well … it’s like this. If people need a bit of time off, I tend to just jump down their throats and remind them that if they can’t hack the job, there’s scores behind them who could and who are only gagging to be given the chance. My catchphrase in work, is that I never ask anyone to do anything I’m not doing myself. And it’s true, I don’t. But instead of respecting me for driving myself and all around me so hard, they all seem to hate and despise me for it. No matter what I do. But if I don’t, we won’t reach our targets, and then even more people’s jobs are on the line. So there you go; catch twenty-two. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. No matter what I do, they’ll still all hate me.’
She didn’t even tell him the worst of it; that was something to be kept locked deep into a secret file marked ‘humiliation’, never to be discussed. The dozens of petty slights she suffered on a daily basis; the way other women instantly stopped talking and left the room whenever she went into the ladies, how on the rare occasions when she would go into the staff canteen, anyone around her would instantly shuffle guiltily back to their desks, like she even begrudged them meal breaks. Hearing about all the birthday parties and weddings and nights out that she was never asked along to.
Not that she’d even have had the time to go, but sometimes she thought it would just be nice to be asked, that was all.
‘Never too late to change,’ he told her softly, instinctively reaching across the table to squeeze her hand. It felt right though and she didn’t pull away.
‘Never too late to go a bit easier on everyone around you, maybe even cut them a bit of slack every now and then,’ he added. ‘So maybe try being a bit more tolerant and social with people, give them the time of day a bit more. Go on, give it a chance,’ he suggested, looking at her keenly. ‘You might well be astonished at the turnaround. Remember the people around you are the greatest asset you have.’
He didn’t think it appropriate to bring it up, but he remembered all too clearly overhearing the brusque, almost dismissive way she’d spoken to her culture editor on the phone that day while he was at the barber’s a while back and knew how very little it would take on her part to tone it down a notch. Be less attritional, not be quite so demanding on all around her.
And she could do it, he knew she could. There was a soft, caring heart in there, just waiting to get out; he could see it, even if no one else could. She nodded gratefully as their starter arrived and Jake sensed she wanted to get off the subject, so, ever the gentleman, he obliged.
‘Anyway, this isn’t a night to talk about work’ he reminded her. ‘You know what I’d love to hear about instead?’
What?’ she smiled.
‘I’d love you to tell me all about your family instead.’
And for once, miraculously, she didn’t clam up.
‘Well, not much to tell you really. I told you my sister’s in town at the moment …’ she broke off though, not saying why, or for how long.
‘What does she do?’ Jake asked her innocently.
But Eloise neatly evaded the question and instead, started telling him a bit about her mother who lived in Marbella.
‘And every time I see her, which isn’t nearly often enough, I swear to God, the woman is blonder, more suntanned and even more glam than the time before. Don’t get me wrong, life in the sun suits her down to a T, but … I just wish I could make more time in my life for her.’
‘You must miss her.’
‘Course I do.’
‘So, then do something about it! Come on, you must have years of stored-up holidays due to you from work, so instead of just wondering about her, take time off and go and see her. Hop on a flight with that sister of yours and just go. You’ve only the one mammy in this world.’
But all she did was roll her eyes heavenwards.
‘Jake,’ she drily reminded him, ‘need I point out that holidays are for retired people and not for the likes of me?’
‘One day you’ll change your mind,’ he told her firmly. ‘One day you’ll have all the quality time you want to travel and see people you care about and – perish the thought – actually start to enjoy your life for a change.’
She looked wistfully out the window at that, as though miles away, that heart-shaped look she got in her black eyes whenever she was thinking about something, or someone, else.
She was holding something back on him, and something important too; Jake would have staked his life on it.
Another guy, maybe? Someone from her past who’d broken her heart to shards? No, somehow he didn’t think so. It just didn’t ring true for her. Eloise wasn’t the ‘crawl under a duvet with a large jar of Nutella and a bottle of Chardonnay to drown your troubles’ kind of gal.
So what, he found himself dying to know, was she thinking right now? What was suddenly making her come over all wistful and far-away?
Jake would have been very surprised, if he’d only had the guts to ask. Because as it happened, she was thinking about him. About how long it was since she’d been taken out, wined and dined, treated like a proper lady. All day long, she was surrounded by upper-class college graduates, all from impeccable backgrounds, with degrees and masters hanging out of their earlobes and they were nothing but rude, bitchy, bullying and on several occasions per day, downright vicious behind her back. And yet here she was, sitting across a table from a convicted criminal from the roughest part of the city, a man who never behaved like anything other than a perfect gentleman towards her.
Could he even see how moved she’d been at the beautiful flowers he’d given her? Ridiculously expensive, she knew, and he could ill afford it, but somehow he felt she was worth it. Jake, she thought, taking another sip of wine, was lovely. That was the only word to describe him. Just lovely.
Then her phone rang and of course it was the Post. Who else?
‘Let it go to voicemail,’ he told her sternly. ‘For God’s sake, just give yourself an hour off to eat and then get back to whoever it is. You’re surely allowed have a meal break? Jeez, even in prison we get those.’
She looked up at him, thought for a second as though weighing it up, then gave him a happy grin, clicked her phone off and began to eat hungrily.