SIGNING ON:A new elm-lined street has encouraged a fresh desire to rebuild an exercise regime
THE NEW address promotes a new attitude. He’d felt trapped by the aesthetic brutality of his previous environment: bins overflowing, buses belching, graffiti and litter swirling. The council had ripped out most of the trees; vandals, and those who wanted two-car driveways, put paid to the remainder.
His new street is elm-lined. He greets the dawn, the infant in his arms: no cars rat-running. No curried chip remnants flung at the windscreen.
Birdsong. Peace.
(Possibility).
***
His eldest has a new friend.
Her only visitor in the city was an Iraqi girl three doors down. His daughter had adored her, but ultimately the language barrier undermined their play. That, and the fact that the girl’s ill-health prevented her jumping for more than a few seconds on the trampoline. Her father – neat, even in a charity-shop suit – tried to explain. He points at his wife’s belly, intimating that during the pregnancy something had gone awry. Then he gestured with his fingers at his mouth . . . was he saying his wife hadn’t had sufficient to eat?
***
The loss of mortgage interest relief is €296 per month. Nothing left to cut, so the debts mount, steadily. Worse, the State’s pre-school scheme – worth the guts of €100 a week – is, because they are more than halfway into it, “non-transferable”, at least according to a brusque Department of Education official. The four-year-old is marooned at home. They take turns using the local library as an office, but business plans grind to a halt.
His wife is right: it is not just about the dole, it is about a paternalistic, “poor-house” attitude that has failed to shift into the 20th, let alone 21st, century. How can the unemployed start up businesses when child-care is so prohibitively expensive?
***
When the banks were lobbing money at them, they’d purchased an apartment in Dubrovnik. They ended up selling – at a significant loss. However, not all their investments were unwise: both learned to meditate. It seemed expensive, even back then – €1,800 each – but it has paid dividends. Twenty minutes, twice a day. Closest thing they’ll get to a holiday.
***
The Honda 90 sounds like it's going to melt. He keeps hearing Scotty from Star Trekin his helmet: "She's breakin' up, Cap'n . . ." He advertises, astonished by the number of calls. A couple in a 4.0-litre Audi arrive. The man says his kitchens business has folded. He can't tax the car. Any chance you'd knock 100 quid off?" "Sorry. I'm in the same boat . . ."
***
Seems, after all, that the pre-school scheme is transferable – but at the discretion of the creche manager. The State has paid her, in full, for the year; she is within her rights to decline his (nervous) request. She doesn’t. She shakes his hand, says she’ll miss his daughter’s spirit, her wicked grin.
(Thank God he never corrected the misspelling of “cresent” on the playroom wall).
***
He can’t afford to join a new gym. A bicycle will double as exercise and (local) transport. He finds a good mountain-bike online, hops a Dart. The seller – who doesn’t understand lycra shorts were intended as underwear – wants €240. The unemployed man places €120 on the expensive, saddle.
– Come off it, dude, look at the spec
– I bought a car last year for five hundred.
– Sorry, dude. No can do.
As well as being a successful farmer, the unemployed man’s grandfather was a “tangler”, a broker who tapped both ends of the negotiation. Haggling is in the blood.
He takes the cash, walks away.
– Okay, okay. But you’re taking advantage . . . Yeah, thinks the unemployed man, I know the feeling.
***
In the “freebies” section of a website, he finds weights and a bench. Sets them up in the back garden. His daughter watches.
– Are you very strong, Dada?
– For a middle-class white guy in his late forties, I’m not bad.
– What’s middle class?
– Eh, a mindset
– What’s a “mindset”?
– An attitude that skews perspective. And creates unrealistic expectations.
– Oh. Is it good?
– No. Ask me any more questions, I’ll put you in the compost. With the wriggly worms. She laughs.
– Okay Dada, you do your ekker-cise.Mama says you need to let it out.
Mama’s not always right. Resentment has seeped away. Being unemployed in a lovely space is easier on the senses, the soul. Never mindful of the unwaged when spewing their awful cliches, estate-agents were, nonetheless, correct: location, location.
The writer of this column wishes to remain anonymous. His identity is known to the editor