Decline and Fall: a tale of unemployment (part 4)

She was determined to get a job, and the next day she went to the job centre. Though she felt trepidation in her heart at the thought of working again, of having to go into a new environment and of having to do things she might hate; and though her lack of employment over the last nine months meant that a certain lethargy had been bread in her, still, despite these anxious concerns, she was determined to get a job. It would be difficult at first to get back into it, into a routine, but ultimately it would be rewarding. Just as plunging into a cold swimming pool was awful at first, but you soon acclimatised and felt better after the exercise. No, whatever it took she would get a job; she was determined to pull herself out of the mire.

The job centre was a depressing place, it was misery incarnate. Here then your fate was decided and all your options for the future laid out in front of you; and when these seemed so few and limited, and you felt so frustrated, this dour, miserable building was the last place on earth you wanted to be. It was stuffy and gloomy and the staff appeared so unhappy, as did the job seekers. It was like death to be here. The end of the line.

Janet browsed through job vacancies on a computer screen in front of her. Frankly there seemed so few options available. There were a dozen or so adverts for office clerk/secretarial roles, but of these the majority appeared to pose problems. Either they were too far away, so that she – reliant on public transport as she was – would be unable to get there without a major hike everyday; or they were asking for qualifications she sadly did not possess; or simply the job description included tasks that sounded so hard or monotonous that she baulked at them.

It all boded ill, she didn’t appear to have many options, she started to feel insecure, and became maddened that she didn’t have the necessary qualifications to do jobs in an industry she’d been working in for the last twenty years. She imagined being dismissed in favour of younger, computer literate candidates, perfectly at home with ICT and all that was so much wizardry to her. With some job descriptions she worried the work might be physically demanding and was terrified of being in pain everyday; she was also terrified of tedious duties. And she was scared of some of the companies, intimidated by their power, by their demands for hard, efficient workers and was scared they might be slave drivers, mean spirited people who would work her like an ox and wouldn’t appreciate her. And something else was on her mind. For the secretarial jobs she considered applying for, she now had low self esteem in regard to her appearance, and she imagined herself unable to impress bosses who wanted young attractive women. She was really beginning to feel old and she had no confidence that a man in power would select her over the young, attractive ladies whom she imagined she would be competing with. Indeed the last time she’d applied for a job – at CPIS – hadn’t she relied on a bit of youth to impress old Evans? She assuredly had. But that was now no more.

So she found herself depressed with all this, as if she was banging her head against a brick wall. She was desperate to get back into work, yet there appeared so little on offer, and her path was fraught with numerous, irritating obstacles. And when she thought of the alternative of unemployment, she felt utter doom at her predicament.

Nevertheless, after the initial disappointment that a job was not just waiting in the wings for her, she decided that, hopeless as it might seem, she must at least apply for a few of the vacancies. It was torture to fill out the forms, not least because any little job seems taxing when your days are spent in idleness, but when you didn’t expect to get the job and when you didn’t have any enthusiasm for it, it was a real struggle. It was such a farce to fill out applications, writing tedious lies and bogus statements, a farce and waste of time for both herself and the employers.

One day after having sent off one of these applications, Janet came across an advert for a job that appeared to be in every way perfect. It was for an assistant librarian, and on the job training would be given so that she was qualified enough for the post. Moreover the library was situated close by: in fact it was a mere fifteen minute bus journey away. It would be easy to get there.

And the more Janet examined this job, the more it appeared in every way perfect. The thought of working at the library did not fill her with angst. She knew what the environment would be like, she’d been in there before. There wouldn’t be any mean fisted bosses or stress, or the hassle of worrying about business efficiency. It might be a little stilted and stale, but she would put up with that. There would be that feeling of community, working in such a public place.

She immediately got hold of an application form and in an hour or so of pure outburst, she filled it in and had it sent off.

And that afternoon and for the next couple of days she became obsessed with thinking about the job, and the more she thought about it the more it appeared ideal. The bus would nicely take care of her travel problems, she would get an hour for lunch everyday and would go to a little park just across the way and sit down and feed the squirrels. She imagined issuing books to people, being friendly and amicable, and time and again she imagined being in the interview; and she was telling the man in charge just how much she wanted the job, wanted to work in a library, how it would be perfect for her, how she hated being unemployed, how she’d suffered this past year, and felt very sick at heart. And before long she was talking to herself, telling this imaginary boss everything, of the misery of being unemployed, of the peculiar human axiom of how it was awful to work but worse to be unemployed, in short she was telling him her whole life story, and she knew, though she couldn’t help herself, that this imaginary interview, with this imaginary boss who understood everything she was saying and had sympathy for her – she knew all of this was deluded and frankly stupid, and as she talked out loud to herself, she knew it was all just a cry for help.

A week passed. Two weeks passed. Three, four, five, six, seven. Eventually, during the eighth, a reply came. It was brief but polite, she hadn’t got the job etcetera, etcetera. By this time she had long given up on it though. In fact her hopes had faded, rather irrationally, after just a few days.

She was run down and low and all set to give up, when out of the blue she received a call one evening.

It was a man from an agency she had applied to some three months ago. She had seen an advert desperately seeking workers for ‘immediate starts in the Claxton area.’ The job description was not very precise, asking only for production operatives, and she had initially suspected this probably meant working in a factory. It didn’t pay well either. However she had persuaded herself to apply as she didn’t have many other options. She’d gone to the agency, signed on, and found out that the job was in a mailing firm. She explained to the agent that she was interested in office work. He gave her reassurances, that in essence this was office work. In the end she had thought that actually the job might not be too bad. But since then she had heard nothing. Now a man was asking her to go to a job.

He said they needed her to go out to Claxton to work in a factory there, where she would be filling envelopes for distribution. Janet’s heart sunk. She didn’t want to do it, not at such short notice, when she felt so lethargic, and especially since it sounded boring and the thought of working in a factory crushed her. Moreover it was so far away. But the agency man was very persuasive. He insisted the work was completely easy, that it was very well paid, told her how she might get there very easily and in general was very persuasive and convincing. And Janet, submissive person that she was, was rolled over and decided to do it. He sounded genuinely grateful to her.

When she put the phone down, she felt nervous, in trepidation and adrenaline-rushed. She didn’t want to do it. She really didn’t. She felt depressed by her miserable life, but the thought of this job was worse. She would have to spend the evening now preparing, in a nervous state, anxious and worried, when just ten minutes earlier she was her own mistress, free to simply watch TV and relax and feel at home with herself. Now she was all at sea.

Yet she saw that this was an opportunity that she really in her heart of hearts wanted. Here was a chance to get back into work. She might come home tomorrow evening satisfied. The work might be quite enjoyable, I mean how hard could filling envelopes be? She would have to get two buses there and there would still be a good fifteen minute walk at the end. The journey would not be easy, but then she might meet someone at work who could give her a lift, just as she had done at CPIS. She didn’t know how it would pan out but she had to give it a go.

She went to bed early that night – she would have to be up at 6.30 am in order to get there for 8.30 am – and she had butterflies in her stomach. She couldn’t get to sleep at all, her mind was aflood with worries, with imagining what would happen the next day. All sorts of scenarios were playing out in her head, she feared the onerous work tasks, the unfriendly people, the alien environment. At 3am she finally got to sleep. She sweated profusely as she slumbered, she was absolutely soaked. And then at 6.30 am the alarm went off.

She was up in a flash, for she knew she couldn’t afford to nod off and lie in. She’d had so little sleep, it was dreadful to get up, but, as soon as she was, she began to feel happier. She experienced that joyous feeling of being up and alive in the morning, as she brushed her teeth whilst listening to the radio. What a joy it was to listen to morning radio, to hear other people wide awake and well into the day; what joy it was to look out the window, to see the dawn coming, to see the fresh, pure day ahead, the streets silent and empty; to hear bird song, and to see the whole world made fresh, all of its past sins wiped clean, the world rendered new and virginal simply by the dawn of day. The dawn of day: how purifying and fresh as if all is forgiven.

And a hot shower, and by the time you were getting dressed you felt warm, cosseted and alive. She had a slice of toast and a black coffee, and what a treat it was, how delicious, the hot, black coffee, stirring her into life, such a small but wonderful thing when you’re heading to work for a day of misery.

When she stepped outside the freshness hit her and she walked happily through the streets, that were coming to life a little more now, with workers leaving their houses and getting into their cars. And when she reached the bus stop and stood in line with other workers, saw them all ready for the day at this early hour, she felt overjoyed, as if she was reconnected to the world. It was so lovely to be part of the working world again, to feel as if you were going somewhere. It was so early in the morning, yet she and all these other people were up and on course to make something of their day.

On the bus she dozed somewhat, and it was nice, to indulge yourself a little like that, after having gotten up so early, just to doze perchance, feeling snug and warm in your clothes, and joyed by the movement of the bus as it chugged along. She got off and transferred to a second bus, and then eventually that came to the right stop.

She now began to be overcome by trepidation. She knew roughly where she was headed but not exactly and she might get lost. And when she got there what would it be like? It could be terrible, really bleak, and she began to panic somewhat.

But she was in plenty of time and, by asking passers by on her way there, she found the industrial estate alright and there ahead loomed ‘Packards’.

She felt herself alone and tiny as she walked up to the large building, intimidated by it and feeling as though someone inside was watching her. She didn’t know where the entrance was and was unsure of herself. Eventually though she headed to a doorway where other people who looked like workers were entering. She stepped inside.

It was simply a huge warehouse, with a lofty ceiling. There was lots of floor space at this end but at the other there were stacks and stacks of produce, palettes of goodness knows what, two or three stacked on top of each other, and then row after row of these. And amongst these palettes men drove mini fork lift trucks and the noise of these beeping, indicating that they were reversing, was one of the first sounds you heard on entering the building. That and the radio which blared out over the loud speaker, pumping out music. In fact it was such a hive of activity, and workers stood at machines busily engaged in something, but what she could not tell. It was a bleak, lofty, lonely, drab building, yet all the same it was alive with human activity.

Once she had entered Janet had not known where to go or what to do. She looked around. Some people were busy working, but others seemed to be lolling around, obviously waiting for the shift to commence at 8.30. They didn’t seem particularly friendly. There was a marked difference in class between they and herself and she felt they saw this and watched her threateningly. Even though she would have described herself as working class, secretary and office worker as she had been, she was not accustomed to being among such rude people. They were clearly drawn from the lower rungs of society. A little distance away a group of men stood larking about, jesting and fooling with one another, like schoolboys. One of them apparently passed wind and the others moved away with childish exclamation. They were so immature, dishevelled, and they wore rather mangy clothes, tracksuits and old t-shirts for there was no uniform here. Janet felt some others were eyeing her and wondering why it was she was here. They appeared so uneducated and crude. There were a few women; they at least seemed a bit more mature, more sedate.

In addition there were a good lot of immigrant workers and Janet’s eye had immediately fallen on one black guy, who stood gabbling away in French to two black girls. He was incredibly good looking, sort of yellowish, had a beautiful but naughty face, and was so well-toned, though not bulky or tall. He was so nonchalant and unperturbed, and Janet saw that he and the girls were not at all intimidated by this environment. The girls were very buxom, handsome and fashionably dressed and looked like tough specimens. They never smiled, and didn’t appear to suffer others gladly, like lionesses on heat. They exuded a potent threat and Janet felt it would be best to stay her distance; you didn’t want to annoy people like that, she thought, as then you would feel their wrath, scorn and anger. They paid no attention to anyone, as though all were beneath them.

Having stood around like a lost sheep for some two or three minutes, feeling out of place, and as though everyone were watching her, Janet decided to ask one man who was standing with his arms folded waiting, what she should do. She was a bit intimidated by him, as he silently stood there. He looked as though he didn’t suffer fools gladly either but on the other hand he had a stoic quality to him as well, as though he were a real man. Tough but fair, not given to smiling, but reticent and thoughtful in a brutish way. He had looked at Janet as if to say he was surprised, and what was she here for? Nevertheless Janet approached and asked him.

He seemed somewhat taken aback and stared puzzled into Janet’s face. All her good manners and pleasant, sensitive speech were foreign to him. She looked up at him, at his strong, open face, his broad shoulders and manly bearing. She noticed his big, rough, dirty, manly hands. He was slow in replying. As though it took a time for her words to register with him. They looked at each other a while. Then in the end he seemed to understand and took her over to the supervisor. He was quietly manly and decent.

Janet was told to sit down in a little room adjoining the warehouse, to await the supervisor who would be back in a short while.

Shortly after there arrived another new starter. Her name was Laura. She was in her thirties, wore ridiculously large, round glasses, was fairly comely in her face though spotty, with blonde hair. She wore a matching jogging suit of yellow colour which made her look really frumpy, and with this, instead of wearing trainers, she wore smart black leather shoes and a duffle coat, all of which incongruous garments clashed with each other dreadfully. She was soon chatting to Janet.

‘The agency just rang me up last night and said ‘listen Laura love, we need you to work up at Packards starting tomorrow,’ and I says to myself, ‘that’ll be a days work leastways and it might even be permanent’…..I got thrown of the last job cos the supervisor said I was doing it to slow, but actually, what it was, was that Beany – Reginald Bean, do you know him? He lives in Billworth, he’s tall with ginger hair and glasses. Do you know him? No? Well anyway, Beany was stealing some of my work and saying it was his. I says to supervisor ‘it’s not fair he’s stealing my work.’ Supervisor says ‘keep your mouth shut and do your work’…..well anyway though, it might be better here….. did you see the news this morning? There was a fire at Low Lock quay. A woman was at the window with her baby screaming…… and what else…..there was something else?……oh yeah did you hear about that explosion in America? They’re up in arms about it. I think it’s a government conspiracy, personally. The FBI are covering it up. I’ll bet you there’s going to be a war you know. Honestly I’ll bet you. It’s all going to kick off.’

Laura was clearly a sensitive girl. The way she talked to Janet, she was so friendly and genuinely pleasant, although after a while you realised she just talked non-stop and couldn’t really listen, and that she was a bit simple. All the same she was friendly and in a place like this you needed all the friends you could get. Janet felt less intimidated with her by her side.

Eventually the supervisor returned, they had a half hour health and safety induction and after that were taken to the work place. They were sat down at some large tables, with a host of other workers and given a big pile of envelopes, along with three other piles of fillers and a sponge and little basin of water. The job was simple: put the package together, seal it up and put it in a box.

And actually Janet found that, once she got used to it, it was really therapeutic. Especially with the radio on in the background, the chat of workers, and Laura sat next to her talking away. She could sit while working and the padded, swivel chairs with wheels on the bottom were really very comfortable.

As she worked she surreptitiously took a look at the other workers. In the main they were locals. Working class people, some very primitive, silly and immature, others more stoic and thoughtful. There was a host of foreigners as well, from Asia and Africa, as well as some Europeans like the French boy and girls she’d seen earlier. Added to these there were a handful of students.

However as things wore on she became more and more sick. She imagined she’d been doing well, absorbing herself in her work and not thinking about the clock, but when she did eventually check the time, she saw it was only 9.20 am, and that she’d only been working for twenty minutes. To add to this she was beginning to feel really hungry and yet she would have to endure another hour and ten minutes before she was due a break. She couldn’t nip to the toilet or the photocopy room or divert herself with a coffee-making mission as she had done at CPIS. And Laura next to her talked ten to the dozen and was driving Janet insane with all her thoughtless chatter.

Events became progressively worse as the supervisor, a woman of Janet’s age, began walking around yelling at everybody to hurry up and demanding that they should do so many boxes per hour. Janet saw that she was behind schedule and that she’d have to skip to it to keep on track, and this stressed her out immensely. And worse, another set of workers kept plonking new envelopes and fillers on her desk, which she rapidly attempted to get through, but relentlessly they came back with more, and aggressively laid them on her desk, as if to say hurry up. She wanted to shout at them, and tell them to stop being such idiots or bastards whichever it was, to realise that she had enough to be going on with and to stop all the bloody stress. The only consolation was that Laura next to her was much slower than herself.

In fact she was completely hopeless and before long the supervisor was in toe, telling her she was doing it all wrong, packing the fillers in the wrong order, not sealing the envelopes correctly and some of her letters were mercilessly ripped open and she was told to do them again.

Janet was becoming more incensed. The whole stupid place, she thought, the endless supply of packages to be put together, the constant repetition of the same monotonous task, the stress of having to meet the targets, the supervisors yelling with their demands. Yet she felt it was the workers who were the worst. She felt ill at ease in this environment. The people were truly the lowest of the low, uneducated, unsophisticated, ill-mannered and rude. She knew they were staring at her, that they realised she was a fish out of water here, and she felt intimidated. She had utterly no protection. She felt as if she had been thrown to the wolves.

It didn’t take long before proceedings turned ugly. On one side of the work table sat a young man, who’d recently been released from a juvenile penitentiary. He was a loud mouthed lout, cocky, arrogant and disrespectful. His partner in crime was a middle-aged woman, with a pronounced tan due to excessive sun-bedding, and soon these two, laughing and joking with one another, were having a go at Laura.

‘Hey goggle eyes? Are you a lesbian? Eh? You look like one, you frigging blobby-bitch.’

It was just like being back at school again. These two could be alright on a good day but on a bad day like today, they were so primitive, and it was as though they hadn’t advanced in any way, shape or form since their childhoods and that they were totally uneducated and devoid of the ways of respectable adults. They didn’t know any better than to bully and abuse each other.

The interrogation of Laura continued, half in jest, though there was a nasty undercurrent to it. Laura took it all on the chin, and talked back to those who taunted her, trying to make one big joke of it all. She was really a bit simple, and she tried to be a good sport and laugh with them, but it didn’t work. They called her fat, derided her as a lesbian, and some of the men got aggressive in their primitive way and started mouthing off that they were going to ‘shag the fucking slut and then break her neck.’ It was excruciating and Janet sat and listened to it, with a sinking feeling in her heart. She was angered by all these coarse remarks toward Laura, and felt like standing up to these stupid loudmouths. But she also felt contempt for Laura for being such a hopeless case, such an obvious and soft target. And she was also worried, sitting next to Laura as she was, that she might get dragged into it. The workers were certainly eyeing her and she felt threatened, but she clearly was, as a mature and middle class woman, not such a suitable target. They wouldn’t pick on her she hoped – they were a bit unsure of her.

Janet put her head down and stuck out the work until 10.30 am, when it was time for a ten minute break. Crumbs it was depressing. In a mere ten minutes time, it was back to the grind once more until a half hour lunch break at 1pm, and then after that, at some undetermined point in the afternoon, she was afforded the luxury of another ten minute break. How could anyone bare this? She felt crushed inside.

There was a canteen where the workers took their break. Janet tried to buy a coffee from the machine but she couldn’t work out how to operate it, and, conscious that people were watching her making a fool of herself, sat back down, having lost her money.

She and Laura sat at a table engaged in a desultory conversation. Again she felt under siege as if others were watching her, waiting to pounce. On one of the tables sat two middle-aged women, just chatting to one another. They were decent women, who came here everyday to work no doubt. Yet Janet had seen that, despite their seeming kindness and maturity, they weren’t going to go out of their way to make her feel welcome, or invite her to sit with them. There would be nothing of the sort. In fact she felt that these women secretly had it in for her, though they would never overtly show it. It was just a feeling she had: they could recognise that she considered herself on a rung of the ladder above them, and that on the outside world, she would turn a haughty face to them. So here, in this working class den, they weren’t going to afford her any sympathy.

There was some further taunting of Laura who jokingly talked back to her detractors, and Janet vacated the canteen area. She didn’t know where she was going, but she had to get out, and just wandered around aimlessly, like a lost sheep. The whole building was so depressing, so devoid of soul. It was not like hell, for at least in there, something dramatic and of significance, something fundamental occurred and you had the devil for company. This place lacked any personality whatsoever. She felt bleak in her heart. The ten minutes were soon up and it was back to the grind. She quickly popped to the toilet.

And there, just looking at herself in the mirror, was Laura. Though she pretended nothing was amiss and began talking pleasantly when Janet arrived, Janet perceived a little tear in her eye, and having caught her in a private moment, saw that she was obviously upset. She perked up when she saw Janet, as if she felt that she was a true friend, someone she could trust. In her words she made cheerful mention of the fact that she would be here tomorrow, but it was obvious to Janet that she would not, and that the only thing on her mind was to escape this place. She would put a brave face on until the end of the shift, tell all and sundry she would be back tomorrow, but, when she found herself back at sweet home and in her comfort zone, she would never return again. Janet was touched by her plight and the trust she implicitly had in her. Yet she dared not show any sympathy toward Laura. How could you in a place like this? She entered one of the cubicles.

When she walked back over to the work desk an anger was building in her heart. She was sick of the work, the thought of it was enough to send you mad, but she was more angered by the bullies and a half idea was forming in her sub-consciousness that the next time they teased Laura, she would shout back at them and tell them to shut up. She knew it would be wrong, she knew it would be like striking a match near a petrol tank, but she couldn’t help herself, was sick of the work, and hated this place and all these people. The devil was in her breast.

However nothing more was said and she felt thwarted as if she’d missed her chance. After twenty minutes or so she stood up and went over to collect some new fillers, which now, rather annoyingly, had ran out with no one in sight to replenish them. As she returned she was carrying a heavy box. She was just thinking to herself how burdensome it was to have to lift this immovable weight, and how there wasn’t one decent gentlemen around to help her, when she made an attempt to sit down with the box still in her hands. However, what with the box, she was a bit off balance, and as she went to sit down the back of her legs nudged the chair, the wheels were set into motion and as she made to sit down, the chair half ran away, so that her backside hit the end of the chair and she fell down – plonk! – on the floor.

It was an awful spectacle as it happened. She felt as though she dropped out of the real world momentarily and went into a strange reality – as though underwater – in which she realised something was going drastically wrong, and in which she had a sense of being vulnerable and at the mercy of all. This feeling was then confirmed as she suffered a rude awakening back into the real world, with the realisation of what had happened and the loud, uncontrollable laughter of all the workers. She sat on the floor wretched, having hurt her back and backside, but worse was the total humiliation she felt. It was so, so embarrassing and more so that everyone appeared to be laughing at her; and not only did no one have the decency to ask if she was alright, but no one even seemed to realise that it was rude to laugh. They simply looked at her and scoffed.

And there and then she picked up her bag, and a tear in her eye, marched out of the building. She kept her head down as she walked believing everyone was watching her. And indeed they were. At the work desk, conversations broke out, the supervisor asked what had happened and where had Janet gone to, and there was a general mood of contempt for her. People said they thought when they’d first seen her this morning that she wouldn’t last ten minutes; and they felt she’d made a fool of herself, more so by marching off like that, and there was a universal feeling of triumphancy amongst those remaining; whilst workers from different areas of the warehouse kept popping over to ask ‘what had happened with that strange woman who had stormed out.’

By this time Janet was on her way home. She was terribly upset and wanted to break down and cry, yet as soon as she’d stepped outside into the morning sunshine she felt overcome with joy. She had such a feeling of gladness and relief in her heart, as though she were liberated. She walked away from the warehouse, desperate to be away. She wanted to walk away from it forever. She kept going, got ten yards and wanted twenty, got twenty and wanted forty, and soon it was out of sight and she never in her whole life wanted to see it again. It was so joyous to be free and emancipated, to be out in the gloriously fresh morning, it was only eleven o’clock after all, and to see people out and about in the streets, normal, good people, who wouldn’t ever chain themselves to such a dreadful job, such a deathly institution was a great feeling. She felt such calm and relief to wander casually through the shopping precinct, to see normal, happy people out shopping; to see women sitting in cafés drinking coffee, relaxing and taking it easy, or sauntering around town looking at clothes. And many of these were what you would call working class women. What was the difference between these working class women out shopping without a care in the world and those at the factory working? It struck her as profound.

She made her way through a park and it was simply beautiful: the grass and trees basking calmly in the morning sunshine, airing the dew drops on their greenery which glistened in the sunlight. Nature seemed so pure and pristine in the morning air. Eventually she was on the bus home.

‘What an awful bunch of people they were’ she thought to herself. ‘It’s one thing to laugh at someone if they have an accident like that, but to be incapable of understanding that it’s rude, well, what awful people, they’re nothing more than animals.’ And she reflected on the incident. She wanted to cry. Everyone had burst out laughing at her, or so it seemed. In fact not everyone had, and it was clear that one or two of the students that had been working there, had been inclined to sympathise with her, but lacking the courage to do so, had not. Moreover many of the workers, including the guy who she’d spoken to this morning, the stoic who’d shown her the supervisor, had also felt sympathy for her, but had said nothing, simply out of taciturnity. Had she stayed on a little longer, they would have expressed this to her. Anyway it didn’t matter now. She tarnished all with one brush, and was probably quite correct to do so.

‘Those horrible animals laughing at me like that. And that God awful black man and his two prostitute sisters having a good laugh. What animals. To come to this bloody country and laugh at a middle aged woman falling with indignity off a chair, they’ve got no respect, they’re complete scum. You know I wonder if they didn’t deliberately do something to my chair, so that I had that accident. The swines.’

But by and large she didn’t really care for these thoughts and wasn’t that angry. She was simply relieved to have escaped. When she was home and back inside her flat, she felt safe once more, glad to be back on home soil. She lay down on her bed immediately, and burst out into loud sobs. It was pure relief! A great and soothing joy just to cry, to let it all out, to bury her head in the pillow, to feel the soft blanket under her, the comforting pillow in her face. She was home, she was safe. She felt such relief.

Half an hour later she made herself a cup of tea and sat watching the soothing comfort that was daytime TV. It was so pleasant to just relax in the company of people who didn’t work and didn’t worry that they didn’t work, people who simply relaxed and enjoyed themselves. And that afternoon she felt in buoyant mood and headed to town and had a coffee and a sandwich. And for the rest of the day and for a short while after she felt genuinely happy to be alive.