Page 14 of The Way We Are Now

I was awakened, a couple of hours later, by Fliss, standing next to my bed, staring down at me.

‘You OK? You look awful.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Why are you sleeping sitting up?’

‘Migraine.’

‘Oh, it’ll be just a headache. Cleaning a few toilets will soon get rid of that.’

I opened my eyes fully, almost blinded by Fliss’s oversized white mohair sweater.

‘Jesus.’ I shaded my eyes against the brightness and the overhead light Fliss now switched on, exhorting me to get up. ‘You’re going cleaning, not entering Miss World. Not that I’d let you.’

‘Let me what?’ Fliss bent slightly, fluffing up her hair in my mirror, pouting her pink lipsticked mouth.

‘Enter Miss World,’ I said, my eyes still closed against the morning. ‘It’s a prime example of the objectification of women, reducing them to their physical appearance while judging them like cattle…’ I trailed off, wincing, Fliss’s liberal spraying of Opium perfume making me want to throw up. ‘Fliss, I’m not coming with you. I’ve got flashing lights and the most awful pain in my head. And I’ve not got any of the medication my GP gave me.’ I felt truly awful. ‘See if Katy or Clare will go with you – it’s only a few more days.’

‘What will I tell Yvonne?’

‘The truth.’

‘Migraine?’ Fliss snorted in derision. ‘Most made up excuse after “I’m going to the dentist…”’

She broke off as I retched and dashed to the loo.

‘OK, OK, you’ve made your point,’ Fliss called through the bathroom door. ‘Go back to bed and stay there.’

That was the end of my career as a cleaner. Fliss, together with Clare – roped in somewhat unwillingly, but with the lure of a tenner at the end of it – managed another couple of days each up at Bodington Hall before Yvonne gave them notice, telling them she’d now found proper cleaners to take over. I think she’d been surprised how hard working and thorough Fliss had been and how she’d turned up dressed to the nines after that first day I’d accompanied her. Clare reported back that, despite Fliss finding any excuse to make her way into Theo Mandeville’s kitchen – ‘Did I leave my mop here?’ ‘Where’s that bottle of Jiff?’ – the two of them had only once seen the tail end of him, and dressed in squash whites. ‘Jeez,’ Clare enthused on her return from doing duty as a char, ‘I see what Fliss means. Worth cleaning a few bogs and bathrooms to get a glimpse of those legs. The man is divine.’

Meanwhile, I was doing everything I could to find that placement in Westminster but nothing was coming my way. As Dad had warned me, I’d no contacts with anyone in London who might see their way to shoehorn me in somewhere. ‘How about a year working with the top man?’ he’d asked when I’d rung home one evening, fed up and depressed at my lack of success. Other people on my course were already fixed up, and time was running out.

‘The top man?’

‘At NUM headquarters,’ Dad said, hopefully. ‘Here in Rothersley. And then you come back and live with us while you work your year out.’ I knew Dad missed me being at home. ‘I put out some feelers for you, kochanie?’

But I didn’t want to go back home. I wanted to go to London. To Westminster. Be at the centre of it all. ‘All right, Dad,’ I said to appease him, ‘see if there’s anything doing there. Thanks.’

The following day, Jilly, a girl on my course who I’d never really had much to do with, was telling Dave Gill, our lecturer, she’d been successful in securing a placement in the Westminster office of Brian Sykes, a Yorkshire Labour MP. I felt a flash of envy, but knew I had to congratulate her. No point my being dog in the manger about it even though I reckoned I’d have been a much better choice. Especially when she confessed the Labour Party wasn’t really her bag – she’d always voted Conservative.

‘You’ve not got anything yet then?’ Jilly asked, her success obviously rendering her sympathetic to my own lack of it.

‘Nope.’ I tried to smile.

‘Listen,’ she said, slightly embarrassed as I continued to stand there, looking hopeful that by my proximity to her success, some of it might come my own way. ‘I can let you have Brian’s contact details. He’s married to my mum’s cousin’s friend’s friend…’ She laughed. ‘I think that’s what it is anyway. You could try as well? Might be nice to have someone there I know. Although…’ She looked even more embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure I’m as… as… you know… radical as you.’

‘Oh, don’t let that bother you,’ I gushed, desperate for the key, any key, that might open the holy grail of a placement. ‘That’s so kind of you. If you could let me know how to get in touch?’

‘Erm, yes, I think that’ll be OK.’ Jilly suddenly appeared doubtful. She reached for her bag, peering into and rifling through its contents of books and folders. ‘Hmm, don’t seem to have it here with me. Oh, I know, it’s in my badminton bag in the locker at the sports hall. I can let you have it next week.’

‘That might be too late,’ I almost begged. ‘I really need to get it sorted or I’m going to find myself back in Rothersley with my mum and dad, working my year at the Miners’ Social Club, pulling pints.’ I gave a little laugh when she looked at me in horror. ‘Look, how about I meet you there?’ I asked.

‘Meet me where? In London? In Brian’s office?’ She began to look worried.

‘No, no, at your locker? At the sports hall?’

‘Well, all right. I’ve a game across there straight after this lecture.’