My Life as a Man Read Online Free

all the nonsense I didn’t have time. After paying the fare,
    I had a handful of silver between me and pay day on Friday. Getting off the bus, I wasn’t looking for much, just a proper job where you got up in the morning, went home after a shift, got
    paid at the end of the week. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night. If somebody had told me, see this job you’ve got, you’re going to be working there for the next
    thirty years, I’d have said bloody wonderful.
    The way it turned out, I lasted five days.
    That very first morning I saw her sitting in the car, but I was too busy worrying about being late to pay attention. I’d got off the bus on a side road with shitty wasteland behind me and
in front a building behind a high link metal fence. I walked along by the fence, looking for a way in, and started to panic when I couldn’t find one. When I got to the corner, the fence
stretched away along the side street but I still couldn’t see any sign of a gate. I started down that street, changed my mind and hurried all the way back to where I’d started. Through
the link fence, the place seemed empty of life. Even when I went round the far corner and found there was a gate, I couldn’t see anyone. Where were they all? How late was I? Had I got the
start time wrong? Why couldn’t I see anyone going into work? It was like one of those nightmares that don’t make any sense, and all the time the clock was ticking. Inside, I half ran
into the first opening and found myself in a little courtyard with a car parked by the wall. I didn’t know much about cars, but it was a big one – you didn’t need to be an expert
to see that – and it had been polished until it shone. The windows were steamed up.
    In the wing mirror, I could see my hair standing on end and the sweat on my face. Don’t ask me what I thought I was doing when I went to the window. Looking for directions? Bending down, I
got so close that I could see a girl’s face turned to look at me. Not clearly – she didn’t wipe the glass or roll down the window – and I stared in until it occurred to me I
might be frightening her.
    Straightening up, I saw a door in the wall with the firm’s name on a sign so discreet it was no wonder I hadn’t noticed it.
    As I went in, a racket like machine-gun fire stopped abruptly. Behind a long counter, a woman was sitting with her back to me. Alerted by something, maybe a colder movement of the air, she
whipped her head round from the typewriter and stared at me. ‘Staff don’t come in this door,’ she said. I hadn’t even opened my mouth. It was as if she knew at first glance
I was a mistake; but then I suppose that’s what she was paid for.
    Turning, I saw a door at the back marked STAFF ONLY .
    ‘Not that way. Go back outside,’ she said, ‘through the swing doors. You’re not supposed to go in from here.’
    ‘Sounds like a joke.’ She looked down her nose at me, and I made the mistake of trying to explain. It was a joke my father had been fond of, an old joke. ‘You know,
“If you want to go to Dublin you shouldn’t start from here.” ’
    A man in shirtsleeves came round a partition at the back and stared at me.
    Like the Kerry man trying to get to Dublin, it wasn’t a good start.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    T he second morning, seeing the same car in the same place and steam on the windows was a surprise. Determined not to be late, I was early, so
    I’d gone round that way to kill time, never imagining she’d be there again. Not that I could be sure she was, since I didn’t dare go into the yard for a closer look. But, if not
    her, someone was in the car or why else would the windows be steamed up?
    ‘She’s there all day,’ one of the women on the line said.
    ‘The girl,’ the other one said and laughed.
    I’d asked, first chance I got, ‘Who’s the girl in the car?’
    ‘What car would that be?’
    ‘Dozens of cars out there.’
    Comedians.
    ‘I’m talking about the