Читать книгу In Real Life - Chris Killen - Страница 18

IAN

2014

As I wait for my name to be called, I have a go on one of the Jobsearch machines. I tap through the listings on the greasy, smudgy touchscreen, but there’s almost nothing that I can realistically see myself doing. Either you have to already have a specific qualification like animal care or a foreign language or a PGCE, or else you have to be prepared to do something really, really awful, like harass people in the street or clean their offices at five in the morning. I print out only two listings: one seeking someone willing to dress up as a large top hat to advertise a city-centre printing company, and the other for a part-time general assistant in a funeral home. I fold the long waxy printouts and put them in my jacket pocket, making sure to leave the edges poking out far enough so that Rick will see them. Then I wander back over to the seating area.

The Jobcentre is open plan, and from where I’m sitting I can see Rick chatting enthusiastically to a woman in a burka. He’s leaning across his desk and smiling at her, occasionally tonguing the sore red corners of his mouth. The whole place is heaving. It’s like a really depressing Argos. There must be over a hundred people milling around this large grey-and-red room.

Eventually I hear my name (‘Ian Wilson?’) and I look up, and there’s Rick waving me over.

‘So how are we doing today then, mate?’ he says once I’m sat down.

Up close, his mouth looks even worse than before. I almost want to ask him about it.

‘Not bad,’ I say.

‘Any luck on the old job front?’

‘Not really,’ I say, feeling my mind suddenly shed itself of all the fake information I’d stuffed it with. I’d spent all morning going over my story, making sure I’d filled in a decent number of boxes on the What I’ve Been Doing To Look For Work booklet and then memorising all the things I’d made up.

‘O–kay,’ Rick says, peering at his computer screen, double-clicking his mouse. ‘Call centre. I’ve got a call centre here.’

‘Alright,’ I say.

‘We need dynamic, self-motivated individuals to work in this unique and exciting new business opportunity,’ he reads, not very dynamically, off the screen. ‘Sound any good?’

‘What would I be selling exactly?’

He rests his chin on his hand. His little finger dabs at the blistered corners of his mouth as his eyes dart hopelessly round the screen.

‘It doesn’t say,’ he says.

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

‘I’ll print it out,’ he says.