My memory of Job Centres goes back to the 1980s, when I visited one in Darlington. I wanted a job for a few months before I went abroad. I’d just finished a degree in Psychology and the bloke said to me, “We’ve got a job as a roller-blind fitter. Is that any good?”
Job Centres have improved since those days, when each job was written on an index card and pinned on a board, and dispirited people browsed the rows of boards. I bowled up at the Cambridge “Jobcentre Plus” and there were no boards, and barely any people. An elderly lady with a clipboard greeted me at the reception.
I said, “Hello, I’ve come to see Penny at desk 47.”
She smiled like she was doing voluntary work. “Yes, what’s your surname? Just go upstairs and wait by her desk.”
I entered a long room with desks down either side, and sofas down the middle. Each desk had a glass partition separating it from the next, just high enough to hide someone sitting down. There were about 30 desks, but only five or six visitors were sitting at them, being counselled by their “job coach”. Desk Number 47 had a visitor, so I sat down to wait.
A man in a black polo shirt and combat trousers walked past. He had a walkie talkie pinned to his thigh pocket, so I guessed he was a security guard.
A couple of job coaches who didn’t have visitors chatted on the phone. “Hello, is that Shona? Hello, can I just ask you a question, so we know it’s you? Where were you born?”
The security guard walked past again and I thought, “Blimey, he must be busy”.
“Children are back at school, and they’re all okay? Good, good. And how do you feel about doing the next training slot? Level one. See how you feel. Absolutely.”
The security guard passed me again, and I realised he was walking round and round the room. I didn’t time him, but I’d say it took him about a minute to do a lap. On about his twentieth lap I noticed he had a sentence tattooed down his arm, which I guess must have read, “For god’s sake, someone stop me!”
A woman leaned out from behind a momitor and said, “Do you know who you’re seeing?”
“Yes, Penny at 12.40.”
The woman was in her fifties, and stout with a red face and white hair. She rose cautiously to her feet and lumbered across the room, with such a bad limp I wondered if she should be in hospital.
Penny was busy, but I had to sit on the sofa in front of her desk. “They change everything and don’t tell me!” Penny was saying. “Maybe I should have retired.”
Then it’s my turn, and indeed Penny was retirement age, plus she didn’t appear to have a skeleton. Her body looked like two sacks of old clothes piled on top of each other, one for her belly and the other for her boobs, and the whole thing wrapped in a black cardigan. A head was stuck on, but not well because it leaned forwards.
Or perhaps she was filled with water like an amoeba, and didn’t need a skeleton to keep her turgid. You just can’t work out the structure of some people.
Anyway, she was lovely and we had a happy conversation because neither of us were interested in finding me a job. She printed a National Insurance form out for me, and rose to collect it from the printer at the end of the room. In some consternation, I watched her haul herself up as painfully as her colleague had done, and limp just as agonisingly to the printer. I should have offered to get the form for her. Maybe next time. We’re meeting again at the end of the month.
I went back to the town centre feeling relieved, because I was worried I’d have to show proof I was looking for work. At least I don’t have to perform that charade.
I bought Madame de Lafeyette’s La Princess de Clève at the Oxfam charity shop, and tootled up to the Waterstones cafe to celebrate. As I sat there with my cappuccino and lemon drizzle cake, reading the introduction to my new book, I felt ridiculously privileged and happy.
I decided I’d sketch people before I went back home, but the rain closed in. I wandered around instead, and looked at people: a pretty young woman riding past on a bike, her face flushed and her skin smooth with youth; a Middle-Eastern looking woman with white foundation on her face and startling red lipstick; a small old man bent double, his trousers tucked into his socks, shuffling half a foot-length at a time and always looking at the floor; a South Asian woman pushing a pram with make up over her face that made her skin look purple; a skinny woman with lank white hair and a face mask, walking briskly past whilst muttering to an imaginary friend; a man with a bottle in his hand walking sideways with his arm in front of him, like he was edging through a crowd, but with no-one around him.
When I went for a piss in Lion’s Yard, there was a poster for the Samaritans in the toilet that said, “No matter what’s on your mind, we’re here to listen.” What’s on all these people’s minds? What do they think about when they’re alone at night?
Tonight I took some photos of my hand by candlelight.
