An Unlikely Liaison

Bryant realised he was close to rock bottom. Any notion of an illustrious past was firmly in the trash can now. ‘Promising’ was no longer a word you could use for someone in their fifty-second year. ‘Past it’ was the more appropriate description.

He looked at his surroundings. ‘Functional’ was the first word he thought of. ‘Scabby’ followed closely on. It had the feel of a job centre about it. A place where people were forced to visit but weren’t really welcome; much less so now with this lot in power. Cheap carpeting, cheap ‘coffee’ tables, framed pastel prints on white walls. The view from the window was the back entrance of a funeral parlour where a Hertz was parked. Were they giving us an option to think about or did these fuckers have a sense of humour after all, however dark and devilish?

An ATOS waiting room. For people summoned to undertake Work Capability Tests. Already he was forty minutes past his allotted appointment time. The bloke next to him claims to have been waiting an hour and a half. He’s resting his head on his walking stick and mumbling nervously to himself. Interestingly no-one else in the room seems concerned about this behaviour. Norms change with circumstances and expectations; probably they’ve seen much worse.

The wee receptionist lassie is getting grief about all this slow-running. Folk are getting nippy. After all, there’s a lot at stake. To be or not to be capable of work, that was the question. To be left the fuck alone to deal with whatever mental or physical infirmity you claim to, or most definitely do, suffer from, or to be pamped on to Jobseekers Allowance and face hefty sanctions for not signing your name in the correct font. No fucking joke, in other words.

Bryant tried not to think of anything else except how he was going to put himself across when his turn finally came. Hard though, not to wish that you were elsewhere: that you hadn’t fucked up quite so much in your recent past. Could be on twenty-three grand a year as Supervisor of the accounts section but he just couldn’t hang on to it. Just couldn’t. Sitting here now it was easy to question why he just couldn’t. He wished now so much that he just fucking could have. Surely it was a better option than sitting in this room. Of course it was, but the pressure had been just too great on him. He just couldn’t hang on.

How to explain that to the ATOS person, that was his problem. He’d heard and read that they weren’t that big on the subtle nuances of the mind, the self-destructive quirks of the emotions. ‘Can you stand? Can you speak?’ That was more the ATOS approach. Or so he’d heard.

“Mr Bryant”

O aye, here we go. Another rather uninspiring room. Whoever had been given the contract had verged more towards the ‘Brutalist’ school of interior design, and this poor ATOS wifie had to sit in here all day we presume. Wonder what that did to her mood? Maybe her own mental health could now be held to be suspect?

“May I call you Andrew?”

You can call us anything you like dear, just let this go well and get us out of here and into the fresh, free air.

“I’m a senior mental health nurse Andrew and we’re here today to discuss your health, especially in relation to your fitness for work. I’ll ask you some general questions, and then we’ll go into a little detail as regards the answers you gave on your ESA claim form. Is that OK?”

Rather a redundant question that. We’ll take it as rhetorical. Wonder what would happen if the answer was no that’s not OK actually. That’s not OK at all. Pretty far from….

“Now you say that you’ve a recent history of depression. How has that affected you would you say?”

Well, one was offered one’s dream job. The job that was beyond one’s dreams actually. Working with people one liked, in an environment one loved, for wages higher than one had ever earned, and, regrettably, one fucked it up and left. One found that one couldn’t sleep; one found that one was anxious beyond endurance, one was swallowing illicit tranquilisers, and one was panicking like a bastard.

“I just couldn’t cope with it, I put myself under too much pressure and the only way to alleviate it, to get free from it was to leave”

“And did that help?”

“It took the tension away, but I was so sorry about it that I went home and drank for about a week”

“And that was when you attempted suicide?”

“Yes”

“And what did you do?”

“I took a load of anti-depressants and paracetamols”

Quite pretty this senior mental health nurse. Funny what you think about when you’re confessing to a total stranger who has the power to bestow heaven or hell into your life that you recently tried to top yourself by drunkenly swallowing a load of pills and tying a LIDLs bag over your head.

“Why a LIDLs bag..?”

Is there a hint of a wry smile on those pretty lips? Is she toying with me? Surely not…

“They don’t have any air-holes in them. I’d obviously thought it out”

How many people must she see every day? Assuming they do this every day. Maybe six or seven? That’s forty-odd a week. Well over a hundred a month. Christ! That must get to you. Mind you, most of its tick-box. Can you get a spoon to your lips without spilling soup all down your front? Can you be trusted not to attack people in company? Do you run out into busy roads often or not at all? Yes or no? Yes or no? Yes or no?

“And obviously the attempt wasn’t successful. Did you end up in hospital?”

“No I just woke up some time later and was very sick for quite a long time. Into the LIDLs bag ironically”

There’s a wee rapport going on here. We’re actually connecting through the recurrent amusement over the LIDLs bag. What terrific patter to use on a woman, and learned of so late in life. This talk of suicide and LIDLs bags has her squirming pleasurably in her no doubt expensive knickers. Life, often so mundane, can throw up some strange and joyous anomalies.

“And what if you were to start another job, maybe a less pressurising one, next week. How would that make you feel?”

Good question. I think I may be looking for a fresh LIDLs bag.

“The honest truth is that it would fill me full of dread. As I explained on my form, I’ve had a previously successful work record and a successful academic career, these last two jobs though, I can’t really explain how they’ve affected me. The smallest thing seems to become a huge, huge problem. I have zero confidence and can’t seem to do the simplest things right. It’s a really bleak feeling…”

“Your doctor wrote that you may suffer from General Anxiety Syndrome”

“Could be right. I certainly get anxious over things that never used to bother me”

“And the anti-depressants. Do you find that they help?”

“I certainly feel I need them, though I’d rather I didn’t”

“You say on your form that one of the side effects of these is that they make you impotent”

“They do yeah. Pity that the one thing that might give me a smile in life is sadly denied to me”

She looks startled for a split second then she starts giggling. The giggling turns to guffaws of uncontrollable laughter such that I might have to pat her back so that she can breathe. There are tears in her eyes, she’s trying to articulate apologies but they are beyond her.

My words have been a catalyst for all the tales of woe and injury she’s endured over these long months.

Hopefully she’ll recommend the support group.