Portslade Job Centre

“You don’t need to say CV.”  She was pointing to the bold heading at the top of the sheet.

Her name, I remembered was Claire. She had fine black hair and a crumpled, brown face. She could look quite good, I thought, on holiday or a Saturday night out in a country pub. With her partner; I  didn’t think there would be a husband. Not now.

“And you can’t put your age or nationality.”

“I didn’t put my age.”

“No, but your nationality, you can’t put it. It’s against Equality and Diversity . . .” The last trailed away as though it was too obvious or she was already tired.

“Oh, OK”. I thought of a defence – ‘I work internationally’ – but I was looking at the top of her head, bowed over the scrap of paper, and thought better of it.

“So, you work with children?”

“No, not really, it’s just . . . ” I took the paper back. It was a mess of black and grey hieroglyphics. I started to say it was old, out of date, but stopped myself and cursed for a moment my broken down printer.

“It’s DBS now, not CRB. Is it up to date?” Claire looked at him for the first time since I’d sat down. “Was it issued by the Council? You’d have a PIN number.”

“I’ve got a PIN number,” I said brightly.

“Otherwise they have to pay for another one.” She said ‘pay’ reluctantly and I felt it must be my fault.

I looked behind her, at a bland modern window, and through that I could see the sky; milky grey, void of movement. If it were a child’s drawing you’d say ‘good, now colour it in’.

“So you can work with children and vulnerable adults?”

“Yeah. It’s just if they’re in the building. But, yeah, I can, 16 to 18.”

“Vulnerable adults are up to 24.” She sounded pleased, as though she’d caught me out.

For a while the ’24’ hovered, like a line on a child’s measuring chart. I wanted time to think: was this good, that you could be vulnerable until you were 24 or good that you could then cross that line and stop being vulnerable? But she had moved on, and, like a runner shrugging off a bit of cramp I hurried to catch up.

“You need to say something positive. Can you drive?”

I felt it was getting hopeless. I said “No” as defiantly as I could.

“Computers. Can you use a computer?”

“Yes. I thought I’d put it down.” Again I grabbed the paper back; somewhere, near the bottom it said the words ‘computer literate’. Had I thought of that myself, I wondered.

To my left, just out of eye-shot was another, younger woman, straight-backed, clicking at  the keys on her computer. My eyes rested on her for a moment, but she offered no refuge, staring ahead at the screen, reproachful, as though I’d asked the wrong one to dance.

“What does this mean, ‘approaches to awareness’?”

“It’s just bullshit, really.” I attempted a drawl; she didn’t smile.

“It says here ‘cooking’. What kind of cooking?”

“My wife got me a book of recipes, I’m working my way through it. It’s from the BBC.”

She looked at me wearily “We’ll have to arrange another appointment. For next week.”

“But I’m doing a course. Here. Downstairs.”

“What kind of course?”

“Downstairs” I repeated, then, seeing it was no good, picked up my bag and began to ruffle through it, hoping to find the right piece of paper and longing for escape.