Darn It! (3 page)

Nicki did. The fabric fit her slight figure like a glove, apart from the hem which hit at an unflattering mid-calf length.

‘It’s a bit too long,’ said Nicki, looking over to Brenda for guidance.

‘Well, don’t look at me,’ said Brenda. ‘I’ve done my part by showing you the dress, the rest is up to you.’

‘How much is it?’ asked Nicki.

Brenda mentioned a sum that nearly made her cry, but she knew it was the perfect dress and a fraction of the price it would have originally cost.

‘Ok,’ she said bravely, and handed over the money with a heavy heart. That was the entire budget blown for her work wardrobe. But at least she’d look the part on the live show.

She rang Sorcha to update her with her progress.

‘And you really have nothing else you can wear for the reporting aspect?’ asked Sorcha.

‘No,’ said Nicki.

‘I could lend you money,’ Sorcha began.

‘No,’ said Nicki, emphatically. ‘I don’t know how I’d pay you back, it would be way too stressful.’

‘When you get the job you’ll be well able to pay me back,’ said Sorcha.

‘That’s just it,’ protested Nicki. ‘I’m not going to get the job!’

‘Not with that attitude,’ her friend retorted.

‘Look, can we skip the whole laws of attraction crap, where you tell me to envision myself in the job with a hunk of a husband and this time next year I’m in Cannes with Colin Farrell.’ Sorcha was a big fan of self-help books.

‘I think that you could do better than Colin Farrell, quite frankly.’

‘I love your faith in me, but could you perhaps offer me a solution that doesn’t use new age philosophy?’

‘How about new age technology?’

‘That’ll work.’

‘YouTube,’

‘What?’

‘It’s full of crafty people with great ideas, I get great make-up ideas on there,’ said Sorcha enthusiastically. ‘There’ll be lots of ideas on there about how to rip up your old rubbish outfits and create something fresh and new.’

‘This is me you’re talking about,’ said Nicki. ‘I doubt I can even thread a needle.’

‘Get Katie to do it,’ said Sorcha. ‘Small fingers.’

‘I thought child labour went out with the Victorian age.’

‘You’re just preparing her for the rough and tough working world,’ said Sorcha.

‘At three?’

‘Think about it,’ said Sorcha. ‘That’s all I’m saying.’

A couple of hours later Nicki was engrossed in YouTube videos showing how to upcycle your clothes into something fabulous. Armed with a basic sewing kit she’d procured in an open all night pharmacy, she was ready to go. Kind of.

She pulled out a long ankle length pale blue skirt, bought a few years ago when she’d been going through her bohemian phase. It was unfashionably long, but maybe it wouldn’t be that bad if she cut it down to size and sewed it into a navy blue string top. It might look like one of those two toned dresses she’d seen in the designer boutique.

The women on the YouTube videos made it look so easy. And really was there that much to it? How hard was it to sew a straight line anyway?

She cut most of the material off and tried to raise the hem. It ended up wonky, and the stitches were ridiculously far apart. She tried it on and looked at herself in the mirror. It was asymmetric all right, but nobody in their right mind would think that it was intentional.

After she had unpicked it numerous times, and re-stitched it she had lost many hours of potential sleep and most of the feeling in her fingers. Then she had to attach the skirt to the top. She dropped Katie off to the child-minders in a semi-daze and made it to the bus, all the time wondering how she was going to come up with a good recorded section for the show.

Just as she arrived, Alva waltzed out of the studio, surrounded with crew like a celebrity with an entourage. She was wearing a Burberry belted mac, Christian Louboutin heels and an expression of such confidence that Nicki quailed in her wonky hemmed skirt.

‘May the best woman win,’ she grinned, walking past her.

Nicki knew that she shouldn’t feel threatened. After all, she was a grown woman with a daughter, but she instantly felt like she was at school facing off against one of the mean girls.

‘Morning,’ trilled Kenny as she entered the office floor. ‘We’ve lined up three interviewees for both you and Alva, you’ll be heading off at noon. She’s already gone.’

By the time she got to the people in question, they’d be fed up answering the questions, so trying to get them to say something new and interesting would be next to impossible.

‘What are you doing, standing there staring into space?’ asked Kenny angrily. ‘The rest of the show’s research won’t do itself, you know.’

When the crew came back, Alva swanned over to the editing suite like the cat that got the cream.

‘You ready to go?’ asked Harry, the main cameramen.

‘Of course,’ she said, trying to project a confidence she didn’t feel.

The first house they went to wasn’t great. The woman had been looking after her severely physically disabled son for years. While the lack of support that she got was appalling, the woman was understandably angry and abrasive. She clipped out her answers in staccato sentences, her frustration at her situation and at having her plight used for competition purposes by Focus Hibernia evident. She wouldn’t open up about the emotional impact. Nicki got some good quotes, but the show segments really worked when there was a relatable heart and soul to the interviews. And Nicki wasn’t going to find it here.

She thanked the woman and got into the car.

The next interviewee was a man who had the heart she was looking for. He had nursed his wife from home until she died, saving the state hundreds of thousands in hospital costs, and had been a struggle for them to get by even before the cuts had hit hard. The man couldn’t see how carers were going to be able to manage if the supports were withdrawn.

Again she managed to get a couple of good answers from him, but nothing that would form the main part of her report. While she warmed to this man who had obviously loved his wife very much, and felt strongly about being in the report, he was a typical Irish man of a certain age and was uncomfortable talking about his emotions.

By the time she got to the third house, she was feeling more than a little disheartened. Her camera crew couldn’t give her any clue as to how she was doing compared to Alva; they’d been sworn to secrecy by Kenny.

She knocked on the door, put on her most professional smile, and waited for the door to be answered. A tired woman, answered the door. She looked over the crew with a resigned expression.

‘This is the second interview, right?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ said Nicki. ‘Sorry to bother you again.’

The woman just shrugged and stood back to let them come in.

‘Would there be any chance we could film some scenes with your son?’ asked Nicki. This would be the most difficult part of her job, pushing enough to get a report together that would attract viewers and give the issue in question some traction.

‘No,’ came the short answer back.

‘Ok,’ said Nicki, her heart sinking further. ‘We’ll just have a chat.’ She went to sit down on one of the chairs.

‘No,’ said Imelda. ‘Stand up, I don’t want this going on for longer than necessary.’

‘Oh,’ said Nicki. ‘Ok then.’ She had no idea why this woman had agreed to take part in an interview if she was so antagonised by the entire process.

She stood up and positioned herself beside Imelda. ‘So Imelda, you’ve been looking after your son single-handedly since the day he was born?’

‘For the most part,’ said Imelda. ‘The government has provided some respite, but that’s dwindling. I had a nurse from a charity that came in to look after him for a couple of hours; it let me meet up with friends, just have a couple of hours of me time. But they only cover children up until the age of five, and Colin is six. They kept up the resources for a couple of months after his birthday because they knew that they were the only thing I could rely on, but they just don’t have the money to do that anymore.’

‘Ah, Nicki…’ said Harry. ‘Something’s gone wrong with your skirt.’

Nicki looked down to see that the top had come apart from her skirt

‘Can you crop it out of the shot?’ she asked hopefully.

‘It looks better as a long shot,’ he said definitely.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nicki to Imelda. ‘But you don’t by any chance have a safety pin or anything?’

‘Sure,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Come on through.’

They went into the kitchen.

‘That is some ragged seam,’ said Imelda, rooting around in her kitchen cabinets.

‘I know,’ said Nicki. ‘But you’ve been told I’m sure: I’m up against Alva for this new job. You’ve seen her already, she’s always dressed amazingly. Unfortunately you have to look the part, and it’s hard to compete with that.’

‘So you sewed your own clothes? With that little talent?’ asked Imelda. Her voice was matter of fact, there was no nastiness intended.

Nicki just shrugged. ‘I’m a single parent and this job has a pay rise we could really do with. I’d do the interview in a Basque and suspenders if I thought that it would do the job.’

‘I’m a single parent too,’ said Imelda. ‘Colin’s dad didn’t stick around long after the diagnosis – he wanted a son he could play football with and take hiking. Once that was gone, well…’

‘God, that’s so tough,’ said Nicki sympathetically. ‘I mean
I
find it hard enough, and my child doesn’t have the kind of needs that Colin has. On the bright side, if he was really that spineless, then it wouldn’t be good to have that kind of influence around your child.’

‘That’s true,’ said Imelda pinning up the hem. ‘That’s the way I’ve always tried to look at it, though I can’t deny that sometimes it can be logistically difficult.’

‘It’s not having anybody else to talk to about it that’s so hard,’ said Nicki sadly. ‘You know, having a cup of coffee with someone in the evening and thrashing out things about your child. You can talk it over with friends and family, and that’s great, but they don’t have the same responsibility for it that a parent does. Being a parent is scary stuff, even more so when you’re a single parent, because the buck stops with you alone.’

‘That’s exactly it,’ says Imelda, narrowing her eyes. ‘You’re not like that other woman.’

‘I know,’ sighed Nicki. ‘She’s on a fast track to big and better things in television. Our producer reckons she’ll end up fronting a national primetime show eventually.’

‘So she wants to use it as a stepping stone?’ asked Imelda.

‘Exactly. Maybe I’ll get the job when she moves on.’

‘You seem fairly sure that you’re not going to get it.’

‘I’m not really television material. I went for the researcher’s job because I love journalism, and I love
people
. I like finding out how people live their lives – I guess that’s a nice way of saying I’m nosy – and the difficulties that everyday people face. I also like getting the chance to expose some of the injustices in Ireland that don’t get wider coverage. At the moment I’m a junior researcher, but if I got this promotion I’d be doing this kind of stuff every day.’

‘Sure, and maybe then you could advance.’

Nicki shrugged. ‘Maybe. But to be completely honest, if I could have a job that would let me provide for my daughter and do something I love that would be more than enough for me.’

Imelda nodded, and looked at her appraisingly. ‘You know, I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s time that you met Colin.’

‘You look a million dollars,’ said Sorcha as she provided the finishing touches to her make-up.

‘Do you really think so?’ asked Nicki, doubtfully. She was wearing her charity shop find dress – she’d stuck the hem up by robbing some of Sorcha’s tit tape, there was no way she was risking another sewing related mishap – and a pair of matching shoes that the wardrobe department had managed to source for her. Her hair was caught up from her face, but most of it was left loose. Having all of it piled on top of her head would look too formal alongside the bling-bling of her dress. It was a fine line – you wanted to look attractive enough for TV, but not so much that you looked out of place. Nicki couldn’t help but search herself critically, her eye lingering on every flaw.

‘What? Are you doubting my undeniably fantastic ability with a make-up brush?’

‘I’m doubting your impartiality, seeing as you
are
my best friend,’ said Nicki.

‘A true friend wouldn’t send you out there looking anything else but your best,’ said Sorcha. ‘And I’m a true friend.’

‘Your piece is amazing,’ Sorcha continued. The two edited pieces had gone up a couple of days earlier on the internet, and viewers had started voting in their thousands. Nicki had spent hours in the editing suite trying to get the tone just right, and she’d thought that she had done a reasonable enough job. That was until she’d looked at Alva’s. She was slick, perfectly turned out, and the seductive way that she talked to the camera would give television chef Nigella Lawson a run for her money. And by the string of comments under the video, a lot of men watching the video had thought something pretty similar. A lot of them had been deleted.

‘Hi,’ said Alva behind her. She was wearing a tight blue dress with a small amount of sparkle, nothing that could be considered gaudy or in poor taste. It heightened her ice princess look, and there was nothing friendly in her eyes right now.

‘Are you nervous?’ asked Nicki, in a poor attempt at making conversation.

Alva shot her a look of disbelief. ‘Are you kidding me? I was born to do this job.’

‘Your piece was excellent,’ said Nicki, determined to be professional.

‘Thanks,’ said Alva. ‘Though, I do feel sort of bad. This wasn’t exactly a fair contest, was it? But still, you did your best. I do admire you for giving it your best shot, even if the results weren’t exactly spectacular.’

‘Hey, the new reporter hasn’t been announced yet,’ said Nicki. It was a poor shot, and Alva knew it.

‘I was talking to Kenny,’ she said, shaking a curtain of highlighted blonde hair over one shoulder. ‘I was saying that there should be no reason why the junior researchers shouldn’t do some of the research for the special reports too. I mean, it can be a big job doing all that focused work on deadline.’