The Street and other stories Read Free

treated for pneumonia. The hospital chaplain anointed him just before he passed away. As he did so the priest thought he heard him whisper something.
    “What’s that, Willie?” he asked.
    “I’m sorry, Catherine,” Willie sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Monday Morning
    A canopy of wire shrouds the squat, grey two-storey building. The entrance to the area between the wire and the building is a turnstile guarded by a security hut. Entry to the building itself—for there is no other reason to breach the wire—is by way of a double glass-panelled door which leads into a short hall watched over by two or three uniformed attendants. To the left are rows of dark plastic chairs; to the right another pair of glass-panelled doors opens into a large, empty room. Through here yet another set of doors brings you into a long, wide room. On one side is a counter topped to the high ceiling by protective glass. Behind the glass are low boxes of index cards thumbed through by mostly young men and women. They slip forms on request through openings in the glass shields to queues of mostly young, casually dressed men and women.
    This is the dole, the “broo”. It is a Monday morning. On the grey plastic chairs sit a dozen people. Some wear the uniform of the casually unemployed: training shoes, jeans, zip-up jackets or sports tops. Other classes wear clothes like this, of course—occasionally. Many of the casually unemployed wear them all the time, at funerals and dances, at weddings and on street corners, in warm weather and wet. Some of the casually unemployed are women; more unwaged than unemployed, many are accompanied by small children. Prams are not permitted in the broo, though, sothe small children thus liberated, or denied a resting place, laugh or whinge the time away, crawling over and under the plastic chairs and across the cold floor. Occasionally an adult or juvenile will raise his eyes off the tiled floor to smile or glare at the infant malcontents; others doze fitfully, one or two read newspapers, some converse quietly together. All are bored. When an attendant arrives with a list of names, all look up expectantly.
    “Grogan, McAteer, Russell.” The attendant calls, and the owners of the names signal their presence and are directed to small rooms or cubicles where they provide answers to the many questions asked to ascertain whether they can be permitted a loan or a small grant. Usually they wait for hours. Sometimes they wait for nothing.
    In the big room with the long counter the signing-on is done. All signers-on go to a previously assigned, numbered part of the counter. They show a yellow card, a UB40, and pass over a white card which they have received in the post with their giro check—a new one with every payment. They are given a slip of paper in exchange. They sign this declaration which confirms that they have not worked since last they signed on, and that, usually, is that. At busy times a queue will form; at other times a signer-on may be challenged from behind the counter.
    Occasionally there will be a spot check. Is the signer-on impersonating someone else or are they really the person they claim to be? The large signing-on room is less grim than the smaller one. Fewer people sit waiting there, and unless they are challenged or spot checked or waiting for a friend, most slip in and out as quickly as possible. Outside the building two streams of people moved urgently back and forth. Richard McCaughley, swept along in the human current, entered the building. A slightly built, dark-haired man in his mid-twenties, he wore jeans, denim jacket and training shoes. His attractive face was unshaven and his eyes were cheerful and alert. He whistled quietly to himself as he went to his box and presented his UB40. He was shaken from his musical reverie only when the man behind him in the queue nudged his arm.
    “She wants you, mate.”
    Richard looked up. The young woman behind the counter tapped the glass with her