KATE HOLMQUIST GIVE ME A BREAKTHE GIRL ON the till is frustrated and she's looking ahead to an even more trying night. She's just spent €300 - more than a week's wages, after deductions - on a new television/DVD player and it's not working.
A small thing, perhaps, but it means the world to till-girl, who had been hoping that the television/DVD player would make her life a bit easier over the weekend.
You see, she's moved in with young builder-guy, who has two toddlers from a previous relationship. The children's mother left him shortly after the second child was born. There was some question over who the children's biological father was, because the children's mother claimed to have slept with a few guys, including her children's father's brother. The whole thing wasn't sorted out until about two weeks ago, when it was finally proven that builder-guy really was the father, just as he had always thought.
He's a good dad - a great dad, even though he's only 20 and work is getting harder to find. And till-girl, who is only 19, has fallen in love with him and his children. They're trying to be a family.
When the children get upset over something that happened in daycare, it's till-girl they whisper their fears to. Sometimes, she thinks that being a "not-real mother" is an advantage, since they trust her for herself and what she's done for them, rather than out of blind, biological loyalty. I believe her when she tells me about that sad-but-gratified, even happy feeling she gets when the children who aren't hers cry on her shoulder.
You may ask how I've got into this conversation with till-girl. Well, it's quiet in the shop and there's no queue, but I've waited for a few moments while she's been on the phone about the television/DVD, obviously a little distressed, and I can't help asking about her problem. Till-girl has a tiny, pretty face and frame, a fantastic hair-cut that shows she cares for herself, and an openness that is unusual in an Irish girl.
Her wise eyes are youthful and careworn at the same time, showing that she's earned her wisdom. And I don't mind waiting for her to finish her phone call, since patience is something a lot of us have lost in our rushing-around world, and a few minutes more in the shop doesn't matter to me on a Saturday morning.
So I ask till-girl about her story, about the man she loves and the two toddlers who see her as their mother. I ask her what all this has to do with a television/DVD that doesn't work, even though it's fresh out of the box. So she explains.
On a Saturday night, till-girl wants nothing more than a take-away and to go to bed with her man, watch television in bed and have a cuddle. The couple's only television and DVD player are in their bedroom, which means that the children - who want to watch TV, too - tumble in with them, and they all fall asleep together in the one bed, which isn't quite big enough. Either till-girl or builder-guy ends up sleeping on the floor. And as till-girl says shyly, "there isn't much chance of anything happening, if you know what I mean". So till-girl thought that if she saved up for a television/DVD player, then the two little ones could watch kiddie shows in their own bedroom, and give herself and their dad a little privacy to chill and watch television in their own room, like a couple should.
She was looking forward to tonight being the night that they could finally get the kids out of the bed, so that she and her boyfriend could enjoy some private time.
I ask if her builder-guy lets her put her foot down with the kids and she says: "Absolutely. I'm the only one allowed to give them time-outs. But they like to fall asleep watching television and I can't blame them." Christ, I think, she was only a kid herself yesterday.
Then her face goes a bit panicked and she says, "Sorry, I have to go", and I realise that efficient shop-manager is glaring at her from a distance over my shoulder. So I pick up my bag, take my change and leave, asking myself why this thing that Ireland used to be rich in - social capital, people sharing their problems - makes till-girl and I look bad.
"I think you're doing a great job. Keep it up," I whisper as I leave.
Then I go to the post office to join an impatient queue. An elderly lady is holding things up by chatting away to the man behind the window about Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen. Postal-guy is behind his glass listening patiently and ignoring the glares of the queue because he knows, I suspect, that this social exchange is one of this lady's highlights.
Social capital, my arse, I think. It was one of Bertie's empty catch-phrases. And I wonder if the wealthy helicopter-owning, political wheeler-dealing, profit-gulping society he presided over has the vaguest idea of what they destroyed when they created a society where chatting at a till or a post office window is a crime.
