New character... Cassie Gallagher Cassie worked three jobs cleaning offices: early morning, afternoon and early evening. Today was Friday; she’d just finished her early shift. She ambled through the town unnoticed. A faceless, invisible soul in the sea of frantic late morning Belfast shoppers, the after Christmas depression all too evident on their faces. It was late January. There was a nip in the air and it had started to spit. Credit card bills and store card statements were dropping through letter boxes; there was a gloominess in the air that was peculiar to January alone. But this one more so, with all the talk of the ‘credit crunch’ every time you switched on the news. Cassie stopped at McDonald’s in Castle Junction. Even at this time of the day it was half full, mostly with young mothers and children. Girls barely out of school, with orange Oompa Loompa faces, and big swinging earrings; the obligatory phone stuck to their ear holes, tattoos peeping out of the arses of their trousers. She ordered a coffee to take out. She used to sit in, rest her feet for twenty minutes, have a smoke, but the killjoys had put paid to that pleasure. She paid the girl, a wee sallow skinned one with an accent, probably Polish, and waited to take her change. She challenged the girl to make eye contact. The girl looked at her warily, unsure. She returned Cassie’s smile, a smile that said, We’re the same, you and me. Invisible, low paid, an embarrassment, but salt of the earth all the same, eh? Don’t worry kid, our day will come. The girl continued to smile conspiratorially, like she had read Cassie’s thoughts. God love her, over here for a new life, and she ends up shovelling chips into cardboard buckets to fat arsed women her own age and their offspring. Serving them up soggy nuggets and plastic Disney toys. Happiness in a box. Cassie headed toward the traffic lights at the road junction, the sole of her left shoe slapping a rhythm as it struggled to part company from its upper, her legs aching from the week’s work. Two more shifts to go. She felt the object of her embarrassment make contact with a splodge of discarded chewing gum; the rogue sole clung to it and adhered to the paving surface. She tried jiggling her foot to free it from the gooey mess, and in the effort of the movement managed to spill coffee over her hand, her handbag dropping from her shoulder as she lurched with her other hand to recover her drink. “Great.” Cass muttered aloud, saying inwardly to herself, This day’s going from bad to worse, as she struggled to balance her bag without toppling the cup again. Someone standing alongside her offered her a tissue. Cassie looked up into the face of a woman, taking her in at a glance. Dyed blonde hair, piled high on top of her head, too much make up, and heavy eyeliner on wrinkled blue lids, the eyes beneath the black lines were kind and twinkling. “Never rains but it pours, wha’?” Cass took the tissue gratefully, thanking the woman. And then proceeded to knock the lid off the container as she wiped the liquid from her hand, the hot coffee trickling around her other wrist, running, tickling up her arm, soaking the sleeve of her coat. “Here giz them!” The woman’s accent was thick; she was probably from the travelling community. It was a tone Cassie recognized. She worked with a few women who were travellers. Doris, her supervisor, didn’t trust them. “Sleekit bastards. They’d take the eye out of yer head and come back for yer eyelashes.” But then, Doris said that about the Poles and the Lithuanians, and the Romanians. And probably Cass herself when she wasn’t within earshot. ‘It was easier during the troubles; you’d only the Taigs to watch,” Doris declared on a regular basis. Cassie liked to keep Doris at a distance knowing as soon as your back was turned the knife went in. Cassie handed the coffee and the bag over to the stranger, and as she did so knocked the lid off the cup completely, spilling another couple of drops onto the hand she had just wiped. The woman grasped the cup and bag firmly, her twinkling eyes struggling not to laugh at Cass’s predicament. “You should buy a lottery ticket when ya drink tha’!” They both laughed together as they crossed the road. At the other side, Cass thanked her and they parted ways; wishing each other luck. She sat down on a circular seat under a tree, the coffee safely between her knees, and reached into her coat pocket for her cigarettes and lighter, watching the traveller woman as she walked into the distance. Doris’s words rang in her ears, Ye can’t trust them’uns! An image of the traveller woman legging it with Cass’s cheap plastic handbag flashed through her mind. Cassie imagined her dismay on opening it, only to find a bank statement, an almost full packet of Polo mints, a half bar of Galaxy, a tube of lipstick with only the remnants clinging to the insides, a couple of pant liners, a wallet with two photos, a few receipts, and no money. God help her, she’d be having a worse day than me. She grinned at the thought. On close examination Cassie saw the shoes had outlived their time altogether; she would have to speculate the money on a new pair tomorrow. Ah well, look on the bright side, she wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning the gum off the sole. The tourist bus was about a quarter full of smiling, stoic travellers, dressed for the weather, cameras at the ready. Determined to see all there was to see of the once riot torn streets of Belfast, before they made their exits for pastures new and less grim. A tenner each, she heard, they paid for the privilege. Suckers. She inhaled deeply, glaring defiantly at an old biddy in a camel cashmere coat, who tut-tutted at the smoke Cassie blew in her direction. Worried about getting cancer, thought Cassie, laughing out loud. So was she, but of the numerous things troubling her mind that day cancer was way down the list. She thought of the smug faced bank official she’d had to grovel to half an hour before. A woman not much younger than herself, maybe the same age, but with that air of disdain they seemed to inject them with on recruitment. Manicured nails on the end of pampered fingers, perfectly coiffured hair, faultless make-up and dazzling toothy smiles. Smiles that never quite made it to the eyes. Cassie had lifted her bank statement from the mat on arriving home last night. Seventy-three pound and fifty-five pence in the red; the frigging oil direct debit had been increased. Of course they had informed her it would be, but she’d put it on the back burner. Stuck the letter behind the clock, in the ‘pending tray’ as she called it. In the bank her hands began to sweat as the woman silently scanned the computer screen to check the statement Cassie had already handed over to her. ‘Shiralee’ was her name; her badge announced it in blue and gold, the corporate colours. Wha’da hell sorta name’s that? thought Cassie, as she shuffled from foot to foot in an effort to ease the pain in her legs, conscious of the flapping sole of her shoe on display to the queue of customers behind. Her face reddened at their perceived scrutiny. “I will see that your direct debits are paid until your pay is lodged, but I can only do it this time.” Shiralee smiled tightly. Cassie returned her smile, with an effort, thinking, Thanks a bunch Shiralee, yer m’new best friend, d’ya think ye could see yer way t’lendin’ me a tenner as well? Shiralee returned Cassie’s statement, barely touching it for fear of contaminating her perfect talons, with a whispered, “Could I suggest you check your statements on a regular basis? It doesn’t do any harm just to work out where the money’s going.” She beamed at Cassie like she’d cracked the Da Vinci code. Cassie wanted to ram the statement down Shiralee’s smooth, unwrinkled throat. Instead she folded it and placed it into her bag, thanking Shiralee for her help. Shiralee smiled her wide toothy I’m-here-to-help smile. Cassie smiled back, pleased to see Shiralee’s lipstick had smudged her teeth. She had a pang of guilt remembering that her old school friend Gail was a bank official in a branch up at Finaghy. But she was different, not a career girl like this one. Gail worked part time to pay her mortgage and the bills just like Cassie. Gail lacked the killer instinct females like ‘Shiralee’ had. On the street outside the bank Cassie avoided making eye contact with the woman selling the ‘Big Issue’. She had bought one at Christmas, carried away with generosity in the spirit of the moment, then spent the following days dropping her eyes as she approached her. Not that she begrudged the woman the money, but a few quid was better in Cassie’s pocket than in the Eastern European woman’s. In Cornmarket, the busker sang out ‘Me & Bobby Magee’, not totally in tune, but he was doing his best. Cassie fingered the coins in her pockets; she’d just enough for a newspaper and a scratch card, after her bus fare. Nothing spare to throw him. They exchanged smiles anyway, kindred spirits, doing their best to get through the week. Cassie stopped at the newsagent and bought her paper and a scratch card. At the City Hall the bus hurtled recklessly to a halt, brakes squealing, as she hurried toward the stop. She sank into the seat at the front, glad of the chance to rest her legs. Feeling in her pocket for her key, she eased it gently across the card, wiping the crumbs of paper distractedly as they fell onto her lap. The first amount - £500,000. She whispered under her breath, “Aye, that would do the job.” The second £5, the third £50,000, the fourth £500,000, the fifth £10,000, the sixth £500,000. Her eyes did a rapid double take as her heart pounded so hard she was sure it could be heard over the noise of the moving bus. “Holy Jesus!” A man sitting opposite looked over toward her. She must have said it out loud. Glancing downwards again, she pretended to be reading the front page of the paper, and willed the bus to get to her stop so that she could race home and check the card out. She gripped it between her thumb and forefinger under the newspaper, sliding it out every few seconds to reread it, over and over again as the bus crawled up the road. To win match three amounts. She flicked it over. For amounts over £100 call this number… The pain in her legs forgotten, she jumped off the bus and half walked, half sprinted to her front door. Once inside, she grabbed the phone and frantically dialled the number she had memorised. “To make a claim press one.” She jabbed the digit impatiently, all the while counting the amounts. £500,000, once, twice, three times. There was no doubt, she had won £500,000! The voice on the other end was warm and welcoming. The woman confirmed that she needed to match three amounts to win. She told Cassie how to claim her prize, but it didn’t penetrate. Cassie struggled to comprehend the words. She needed to write them down. “Hang on, I’ll get a pen.” Cassie carefully wrote down what the woman said, her shaking hand struggling to hold the pen. “Thanks, thanks very much!” She set the phone back on its cradle, loathe to say goodbye to the friendly voice that had given her such amazing news. £500,000! And she had been worried about going out on her friend’s daughter’s hen night tomorrow night, spending money she couldn’t afford! This was it - the turning point she had prayed for. She wouldn’t say a word to anyone until she had the cheque safely lodged in her bank account. She made herself a cup of tea and settled down at the table to read the paper before going out to her next job. But the only line of print that was discernible to her was the date at the top of the page, Friday, 23rd January 2009.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 13:22:32 +0000
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