Decline and Fall: a tale of unemployment (part 6)

Janet’s life was nothing now. All hope of getting a job or making something of her days had long ago faded, and she was a shadow of her former self, a zombie. She went to bed late, woke up late, had no routine whatsoever, and would sit in her dressing gown watching the news or engrossing herself on the internet. When 3 or 4 o’clock came she would feel some regret at having wasted her day, and would perhaps rush off to town for a coffee: a token gesture of making something of her day. More often now however she saw through the futility of it all and desisted from going through with this farce, simply staying at home all day. She often ranted to herself, was always angry with the world, talking cynically and dementedly to herself, and was, if you had have been around her, totally unbearable.

She always watched the news, sitting for hours on end watching the same stories rolled out over and over again, and if she did something else, she would rush back five minutes later, like an addict, in the hopes that something new had occurred.

Whenever someone died or was killed she always hoped it was somebody who deserved it, and waited eagerly for a photo of the victim to be shown. If it was a businessman or a rich woman she would always cynically pretend to be delighted and imagined they’d gotten their just desserts. Later she would feel guilty for these thoughts and prey to God and ask forgiveness, preying desperately for the poor people who had died, who she was now so sorry for. Or sometimes, when the full story broke, she interpreted events – either through a photo, or some details in the story – to the tune that the people who had died were in no way bad eggs and hadn’t deserved to die. Then too she felt sorry and overcome with remorse, that she should play this utterly pathetic game with good people’s tragic sorrows, so that a dead parent or a maimed child were her play things. And then she would feel anger too; that there was no justice in the world, and that the good, not the bad, were punished.

The majority of stories really got her goat, and she fell into all the traps, laid on by the media, so that she became enraged like a wild beast in a cage. Stories where the perpetrator of the crime was someone on the fringes of society really got to her. For example, a man had walked into a school carrying a gun and held a class of children and their teacher hostage. He’d threatened to kill them but hadn’t. The way the media swarmed on the school; the dramatic live footage outside the building, eagerly watched around the world by avid viewers including herself, as though it was pornography; the way the gunmen was described as deranged and mad; the way his photo was banded about and the public got off on the fact that he was clearly an outcast and loser; the attitude of parents towards their precious children – it all angered her. She always had sympathy with the ‘little people’ in society, beaten and abused by the media for their crime, because she always imagined that they’d been driven to their deeds, by circumstances similar to her own. She was frustrated that the only way anyone cut out of society could gain attention was like this. Nobody cared for you, nobody gave a damn unless you did a bad thing and then society pounced on you.

Her pet hate was the issue of racism. She loathed stories of racism in the press, didn’t believe in it at all, and to her it always seemed that the victims of racism were self indulgent attention seekers crying crocodile tears. They seemed to have a lot going for them in life, were handsome, rich, intelligent and so on, whilst the perpetrators were often ugly, obese, working class, and what have you, people who had little going for them and whom natural human sympathies were not directed to. It was portrayed as such in TV dramas at least. A poor non-white person, who also happened to be kind, intelligent and good looking, would be picked on, bullied and abused by tormentors who were ugly, working class English people, stereotypical racists, people who on account of their appearance you didn’t want to like anyway. Then in the media there was a back lash, with non-whites always portrayed as whinging neurotics who had more rights than whites. Janet loved to get worked up over these stories.

All of this bred in Janet a new creed of racism. Not a natural feeling of racism, but simply a calculated one, in reaction to all this falsity, and spurred on by what she read in the papers. Non-whites might be portrayed as angels and victims on the TV, but out in the real world they were just like anyone else: they too could have prejudiced feelings based on people’s appearances and looks, and these had nothing to do with what race you were, at least not in the main; it had more to do with attractiveness, body shape, age etcetera.

And if a non-white person was rude to her, she took it as an extra insult, than if a white person had done it to her; they, with all the sympathy they were afforded, should know better. If she were out and about, she would often scowl at blacks or Asians and others, treat them rudely and harshly, and she was just waiting for one of them to over step the mark, so that she might have a go at them. She especially hated the young foreign students. She was so paranoid that she often thought non-whites, young men and women especially, were looking at her with contempt and thinking her ugly and old.

She browsed the internet for hours, an addict, absorbing herself in stuff that in no way interested her. Just as with the news, she would keep going back to the internet like an addict. There was nothing there for her and she knew that deep down. But if perchance it wouldn’t work, if there was a fault, she felt so, so angry, so bitter and thwarted as though her whole life depended on it. She was like a drug addict who couldn’t get access to her drugs.

One website in particular, had caught her attention over the last few days. It was the web log of a woman in her thirties, a Muslim lady. She was exceptionally handsome and refined – there were many photos of her littered about the site – and she was impeccably well dressed, appeared, on the evidence, to be rich, and was extremely well educated, holding a doctorate and speaking three languages. Yet, despite all of this she seemed like a real air head. Janet sensed that all she said was fake somehow, that she herself was much more intelligent, and yet, she had to accept her inferiority to this girl. Janet, in her heart, believed that the girl was stupid, but she lacked conviction in this, and was tormented, unable to write her off as a simpleton. Instead she had to respect her, though it went against the grain to do so. She didn’t have the experience necessary to truly know, what she felt in her heart. She felt jealous of all that this younger woman appeared to have, that she did not, and wondered how it was that someone seemingly so stupid and false could be such an achiever in an intellectual sense. She felt the girl had no real life experience and hated her for it.

Despite these feelings of Janet’s however, or rather precisely because of them, she kept returning to read her thoughts. She wanted to make peace with this girl, to know her better, to discover her to be in fact a good person. She left some comments on her blog. Had she been in control of herself and her life, she would have simply fled this woman, ignored her. Yet as it stood she had a vicious hatred of her. Her comments were in response to a post by Nadima on racism.

‘Nadima, I quite agree with you. There is nothing worse in this world than racism, and we must stand as one against it, in opposition to those mindless thugs who go around doing the things you speak of. I’ve got total sympathy with your cause.’

However, this apparent message of good will was no such thing. All her words were false and insincere and in fact this message was like a precursor of the storm which was set to rage; it was a sign of the pending collision.

Nadima didn’t make reply to Janet’s comment, and Janet took this as an insult. In the ensuing days, as she read more of her posts, her angst towards this woman collected. She wrote about her faith and what it meant to her, how she preyed every morning, read daily from the Koran and practiced yoga, and then right next to this, she would post photos of herself, smiling vainly for the camera. And men would post comments saying how incredibly beautiful she was, and she would reply saying how she was not, how they exaggerated and so forth, but it was clear she loved these games. Or they would engage her in high brow philosophical discussions on religion, and, sounding very high minded and intellectual, even though she was just peddling out the usual clap-trap, she would deliver up her thoughts. Janet hated the way the men fawned on her so completely. In fact most of the men – lonely, intellectual types – bore feelings of dislike toward her as well, but they knew she was a sucker for flattery and enjoyed bantering with her: they had nothing better to do.

To cap it all off she complained, in passing, about racism, how she was a victim of it, and talked of how she had been bullied at school. And if that wasn’t enough, she spoke of her frequent spells of depression and her eating disorder. Things began to boil over when Nadima published the following post.

‘I’m so depressed today. I’ve put on weight? And for evidence, she added a recent photograph of herself; a photograph in which she looked in every way slim, refined and handsome, and in no way overweight. She gazed at the camera in a sad, but very becoming way, pouting as though she were upset by her life, by the unbearable weight of being, and it was such a beautiful, melancholic look. The responses were predictable and soon gushed in.

‘Nadima, what preposterous nonsense! You put on weight? Of course not! You look stunning – as always!’

‘Nadima, you look fabulous, you shouldn’t worry about your weight, you look great!’

‘You’re the most beautiful girl in the world Nadima, your like an ancient deity!’

‘Thanks guys for your lovely comments, I was feeling so depressed, just so low. I think you exaggerate, but anyway it’s really cheered me up. I know it’s vein of me, lol.’

Janet was beside herself and started to compose a comment:

‘What a false fucking idiot you are! What an attention seeker! Going on about your depression, how you were bullied, how you’re a victim of racism. What bull! You’ve got such a victim mentality, you pathetic little girl. You should grow up. All we here on this blog of yours is me, me, me, me, me. You’re obsessed with yourself you little trollop. Shedding charlatan tears, whinging and getting the men to fawn on you. You’re a complete air head.

‘And listen Muslim girl. Listen good and proper you whinging fucking foreigner: go back to your own country, go home now! We don’t want scrounging neurotics coming to this country and getting fat (you’re a fat bitch by the way, you look disgusting, you should stop eating you fat pig). You come here and act like you own the place, stealing all of our jobs and complaining about everything, you get fat doing nothing, living on benefits and sponging on this country’s wealth. I can’t stand you fucking foreigners – go home!’

As she wrote this she was completely obsessed, she was shaking, nerve ridden and angst. Yet she felt such satisfaction in writing it, she felt such relief, such pure joy, it was like a weight off her chest. When she’d finished she posted it, and spent her time reading it over and over again and again. She was so satisfied with it. And she couldn’t wait for a response. Like Christmas its very self, she was waiting for a response. She was full of nerves and energy, and she marched back and forth in excitement. She was so pumped up and excited, as though she’d just started a war.

Yet it was after two o’clock and most likely there wouldn’t be a response tonight. Though she hung around and compulsively kept returning to check the blog, nothing more was said. Reluctantly she went to bed.

She didn’t sleep well, being so stirred as she was. When morning arrived, she’d had a poor sleep. But, just as on Christmas morning, she recalled her anticipation in an instant, and immediately became alive and desperate to read the response. Yet she also felt an embarrassing pang of regret at her actions last night. ‘Oh God’ she thought to herself. What had she done? She wished she could just curl up and die. At the same time she had to know her fate. Adrenaline overcame her tiredness. She went over to her computer and sat in her dressing gown. And there had been a response.

There was a new blog entry in fact.

‘Internet stalkers and hurtful, racist remarks: This morning when I awoke I was very saddened and frightened to find aggressive, spiteful, derogatory comments on my blog. They have now been removed. The person in question should be so ashamed of themselves. (I won’t reveal their identity.) I’ve spent all this morning in a terrible state. This has really got to me. The remarks were deeply hurtful and upsetting. I don’t understand why anyone should have it in for me like this, but please remember, I am a sensitive human being. These comments have ruined my day.

And don’t think that I won’t take action. I might come over as a nice person, and I am, but when attacked like this, believe me I can be very aggressive in response. Regular readers of my blog will know that in the past I have been harassed by both men and women leaving hurtful, racist remarks, and seemingly full of hatred for me. I thought about taking these matters to the police in the past, and believe me, if they continue, I will. Let me remind anyone out there who is thinking of writing derogatory comments, that it is possible to trace internet stalkers. In fact I know of one poor woman who regularly received abusive comments on her blog from one deranged individual. And though she put up with it for a while, the stress of it all was eventually too much and she contacted the police who issued an arrest warrant for the woman. Be warned then. I’m not a nasty person, but I’ll fight my ground and won’t tolerate racist remarks.’

And there was already a comment:

‘Nadima, I’m so, so sorry to hear about this. I hope you’re alright. I don’t know what it is about some people, or why they would act like this, to such a warm, intelligent and kind person like yourself.’

There would be more comments like this over the course of the morning, Janet foresaw that.

She was so bitterly devastated over the girl’s comments on ‘internet stalking’. She had been labelled a stalker, a deranged individual. She felt real anger, but also total impudence. Firstly it was sheer stupidity to try and argue with people like Nadima. They couldn’t understand anyone else, and they didn’t want to understand either. They could never appreciate Janet’s position. Yet worse than this, she could in no way even express her views: the comment she had posted had simply been removed. She felt angry and impudent: there was nothing she could do, she was cut out the loop.

She was brooding. She felt a cold anger and wanted to vent it. She felt dreadful, was tired and had a headache after her poor night’s sleep. It was early morning still, getting on for nine o’clock, and she felt ill. But she must vent her anger. So she went out to town.

When she was there she walked the streets with an angry, fierce expression. After her sleep deprived night, she felt sick in the stomach, unable to think clearly, and a wealth of sullen tempered aggression possessed her. In fact it ruled her. She had lost control. She wasn’t in her right mind.

She was on the look out to start a fight, especially with a foreigner. But precipitate something though she would, opportunities seemed scarce. Then eventually an apparently perfect one arose.

She was standing in a queue at a mini supermarket. A young black guy was on the till. She stood inline behind one other person. When that person was served, it was her turn. Yet just as she was about to walk up to the black guy at the till, two young black women appeared from nowhere, and nonchalantly, lumbering straight up to the till, appeared to push in front of Janet. She watched this and was outraged: exactly as she was predisposed to be. Who did these people think they were, to just push in front like that, to march straight up to the counter with no respect in the world? And when she saw these two girls she had a subconscious flashback to those two French girls who had laughed at her. The embarrassment went straight to the heart. She felt vulnerable and reacted with aggression.

The black guy at the counter went ahead and served them, and this was her call to arms. She had every right to complain and was desperate lest she waste this opportunity. Her heart was thumping, she was agitated, and she shouted out

‘Excuse me’ in a pathetic, whiny, school teacher voice. ‘Excuse me, there’s a queue you know, you can’t just push in.’

Even as the words were rolling off her tongue, she sensed she was in the wrong somehow, and was full of regret. It was so pathetic, whiny and pompous, so typically English, and it told the world and his wife, just what a foul, foul mood she was in. And worse was to follow. The two black girls evidently realised Janet was in a foul mood, and they also perceived the racist undertone of her words. They too were in a bad mood and instead of forgiving Janet her mistake, took this chance to humiliate her.

‘No, we were here first’ said one, angrily, sullenly, bitch like. She was in a foul mood herself and took the opportunity to vent her anger.

‘We were here first, we were just exchanging something. Look our stuff’s behind the counter.’

And in response to this the black guy, apologetically, lifted some items from behind the counter, the shopping of the two girls, and even said ‘sorry’ to Janet. He clearly perceived her mistake and embarrassment, he read the situation completely, and humble and nice guy that he was had said ‘sorry.’

And Janet felt a complete and total fool, as though she’d fallen for the bait. Of course those girls hadn’t been pushing in, who on earth would, in this day and age? How foolish had she been. God she wasn’t thinking straight. She had been too quick to jump to conclusions. She felt mortally embarrassed and ashamed, felt as though everyone in the shop were watching her, and thinking to themselves ‘that woman’s got problems’; and the way the black girls had haughtily bitten back at her, and crushed her and been nasty was so upsetting, and yet, she’d brought it all on herself, had only herself to blame and felt silly and beneath contempt. However the worst thing was the black guy at the till apologizing.

There was no need at all for him to apologise, it was she who had been in the wrong, yet he had said sorry to her, and when it was finally her turn to be served he was so polite and respectful, and apologised once more. He clearly saw the entire situation, saw how Janet had made a fool of herself, and wanted to be kind to her. Yet surely he also felt that subtle racist undercurrent, surely he did? And Janet felt dreadful for ever having conceived any racist notions, she was an amateur racist, it was not her natural game, she was acting. She was being put to shame now, by this friendly and sensitive young man. He was so pleasant and polite, and Janet was so ashamed and cross with herself, so mortifyingly embarrassed that she couldn’t even bring herself to say thank you to him as she left. She was so horrified by the situation, she almost resented the good manners and understanding of the black guy. She had wanted a fight and gotten kindness. She felt silly, stupid and foolish and couldn’t say anything.

Her sole wish now was to curl up in a corner and have a good sleep. She didn’t want to hate anymore, to waste her days, becoming a petit racist, something she was not. She felt sad, sad at heart, but also tired. The whole incident, terrible as it was, had knocked her over whole, and all she wanted was to be at peace. She just wanted to go home, lie down and have a good sleep, and never, ever, ever have anger or hatred in her heart again. She didn’t have the energy.

She rode the bus home. She sat absorbed in her melancholy thoughts, wanting only to be home, to lie on her bed and cry.

A mother and her little boy sat in front of her. The little boy was very lively and active but the mother was clearly very tired of him, and couldn’t be bothered. He wanted to talk and chatter but she was sick of it. Eventually he turned around and saw Janet.

He caught her eye. She had a look of deep unhappiness in her eyes, of hatred against the world, and of infinite weariness. The boy smiled at her cheekily, and she immediately knew that she must throw off this look and replace it by a sweet and genuinely kind one. She did this, though if you were perceptive you could still detect the anger in her eyes and her smile. Yet the cheer had returned like sunshine coming through the rain. The boy continued to smile back. Janet, feeling self-conscious, was just beginning to wonder if she was going to have to smile back at him all day when he decided to play a new game. He ducked his head down behind the seat, so that all Janet could see were his little hands on the seat railing, and the mop of his thick and silky, brown hair. She waited. Then shortly, he raised his little head, slowly revealing his piercing eyes and smiled at her. His eyes, as he smiled, were so intent, direct and curious. He studied Janet, paid her attention as no one had for so long. This game was repeated a few times, and on each occasion the little boy raised his happy little head and smiled. And Janet smiled back, and though she felt a little foolish for doing so, she would have carried on smiling forever if the boy had have wanted her to.

The game eventually ended and the boy turned around again and occupied himself in something. Janet stared out of the window.

She wasn’t expecting anything more, yet when the time came for the boy and his mother to get off, he turned to Janet and presented her with a picture. It was a delightful surprise! A beautiful little drawing, so colourful, showing a dog in some grass. And the crayon scribbling – brown for the dog, green for the grass, yellow for the sun, blue for the sky – was charming beyond measure, and at the bottom it said ‘from Daniel’ in scrawled child writing; and it was presented to her with a little handful of jelly beans, a red, a yellow and a white.

She didn’t know what to say. Emotion overcame her, and a tear was forming in her eye. She wanted to cry. She was taken aback. Why had he picked her, of all the people on the bus to do this too. Why her? And who was he to do such a thing, such a kind act? She thought of all her evil thoughts, all her bitterness, anger and hatred to the world and she felt so guilty as though she didn’t deserve any of this kindness.

She was dumbstruck and simply said ‘thank you’ almost in tears, and as he turned to go she patted little Daniel on the head. He had a lovely little mop of hair, and it was so pleasant to feel that soft, silky hair under her hand. As he and his mother stood up, Janet tried to make eye contact with the mother, but she was evidently a tired woman and didn’t want the hassle of having to get into pleasant communication with her. The boy and his mother alighted and the bus drove off. Janet waved to little Daniel from the window. She was shortly full of regret that she hadn’t given him a little something in return.

It was such a touching gesture, she felt so, so touched. She just wanted to cry, to sit down and have a good, long cry. When she got home and stepped across the threshold, she did exactly that. She sat in her chair and cried pure tears of joy, releasing all her pent up emotion, bubbling out salty tears, so that her face became soaked and she could taste the salt on her lips. She felt relieved. Why had that boy chosen her, out of all the people on the bus to be kind to? Who was he to do such a thing? It didn’t matter, she was simply delighted that he had chosen her. His act of kindness came to her, like a rain storm to a desert, her life having been so barren and devoid of all human contact of late. Out of nowhere it had come, when she had all but given up on other people. Really he was possibly the first person to have taken an interest in her since she’d left CPIS. When she was finished, all cried out, she made herself a cup of tea, and sat recovering, with a few after sobs, listening to the radio. And one story caught her attention.

‘A woman in Cheshire, was today sentenced to five years in jail after she was found guilty of taunting and racially abusing her local shop keeper. Miss Alison Wells, forty-three of Shipton, had subjected Mr Amrit Sing to a series of hate mail letters as well as sending him bananas and monkey nuts through the post.’

When she heard this Janet was saddened. How far away was she from becoming that woman? That was the way she was going. If she didn’t stop acting like a fool she would end up doing something she would regret. And then what? She would be taken into prison. The story would be reported in the press. A cheap, smug, little report, dismissing her as a racist. Nobody would care about her at all. There would be no attempt at understanding: it would simply be goodnight and thank you.

When she thought back to the black guy at the counter and how nice he had been, she felt grossly ashamed to have acted like she had, and to have adopted a feeling of racism, feelings which any human being clearly saw were wrong. And one image stuck in her mind.

Though he had been so kind, there was one thing the black guy hadn’t done. She had bought some apples and they were simply laid loose in her basket. Now though he had put the rest of her shopping into a bag, he hadn’t picked up the apples but rather left that task to Janet. And why? Well Janet felt that he sensed her undercurrent racist vibes, and that he had desisted from touching the apples because either he felt Janet wouldn’t want him to or because he felt somehow that he shouldn’t. Perhaps he did that with everybody’s apples, but Janet couldn’t help feel that there was something more to it, an ugly undercurrent, a suggestion, and that she was guilty of bad thoughts.

That image stayed with her, that of the black guy and his hands, black on the outside and so light on the inside, unsure as whether to touch the apples, and in the end deciding it was best not to. She felt guilty as if she was scum.

‘No, I can’t go on like this. I never, ever, ever want to find myself in a situation like that again. That was an ugly, ugly scene. I am not a racist. I abhor it. And I only became one because I’ve got nothing better to do with my time, because I’m looking for cheap targets to vent my frustrations with life on.

‘And I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want to spend my days behind bars, accused of being a stalker or a racist, to be named and shamed by the media, dismissed as deranged, racist and evil, locked away in a cell, with nobody giving a damn.

‘At heart I’m a good person, I only want to be good, to love people to feel love, to be content, peaceful and happy. And I’m going to go back to Church. And I don’t care what the other people are like, I will make the effort to be nice to everyone, and whatever they’re like I’ll ignore it. I won’t look for meanings in life or think too deeply about the church, I’ll simply be nice and amiable: I’ll do justice to myself. And I’ll bake cakes for school fairs and serve tea at the women’s institute and if people annoy me with their pettiness, bitchery and nastiness, I’ll completely ignore it and carry on doing what I’m doing. I’ll expect nothing from the world, nothing from life, nothing from other human beings. That way I won’t be upset. My life is over, it is never ever going to go back to the way it was, I have to accept that now. I’ve got so little to look forward to. But I have to live out my days in a good, clean manner, in a purifying way, though there again I have to accept that there will be days when I will feel angry, out of sorts, sick of everybody and everything. And on such days I’ll just have to get through them as calmly as possible.

‘And I’ll go and help the elderly, wheel them around and get old men and women out and about, and if they’re boorish and awful, I’ll ignore it and carry on regardless. And I’ll help little children, I’ll work for the brownies or the beavers, and I’ll be a sort of aunty to the little children, and again, if they’re awful, spoilt and rotten children, I’ll expect it and ignore it all.’

And so she made a resolve. She pinned up Daniel’s drawing with pride on the kitchen wall.

*********************************************

A year passed. Janet was out walking one of the dogs for the shelter. He was a little terrier and he loved Janet and was so excited to be out on a walk. He trotted briskly at her heels.

It was mid-afternoon in October. It was drizzling, sort of gloomy, but also quite fresh. Already the sun didn’t seem as if it would be around for much longer.

Janet was more sedate these days. When all was said and done, life was really quite sad. Her whole life now seemed to be over, she didn’t expect much or have any hopes. She was simply sedate about it. At the end of the day you’re job was you’re life, and if you didn’t have a job you didn’t have a life. There again, a job was always a slog. Moreover, nobody in the world gave a damn about you. Everyone was alone and if you were cut apart from society, nobody really cared to help you back. Only if you committed a crime or did something bad, did they take note, and then it was just to pounce on you. Society didn’t seem to care about stragglers like herself, and to her, on the sidelines of life, the majority of people were just like ants caught up in the daze of life, unable to even perceive her problems. And friends dropped off as you got older and older. Just like losing your hair, you lost your friends, unfathomable as that was. Everyone was alone and became isolated. And if you were a women it seemed worse. Your youth seemed a distant memory, your skin became coarser, your hair drier, you had bags under your eyes, you got plumper and you felt alone and isolated in this man dominated world.

She was making an effort though, and had no expectations of other people – she simply did her own thing. She did voluntary work as a carer, helping an older woman in a wheelchair, going around to her house, doing shopping for her, and she might even get paid for this, if things went to plan. Only twelve hours a week mind, but still it would be something. And she helped out at the local beavers, and was on the road to becoming a leader, and by and large she liked the little boys.

She walked on over a hill, a sad and lonely figure, with the frisky little dog at her heels.