The Five of Pentacles

I used to have a secret admirer or stalker depending on which way you want to look at it, that would send envelopes stuffed with dried flowers or those fortune teller fish to the office. After not receiving the freaked out reaction I’d wanted after the first dead rose in an envelope, I kept these odd little intrusions to myself because, though I’m sure they were intended to spook me, I began to welcome them punctuating otherwise miserable days at work. 

Shortly before I was fired, the last of these I received contained a card from a Rider-Waite tarot pack which, considering I was already teetering on the edge of sanity, I found deliciously terrifying. Prophetic even. I’ve kept that card with me wherever I go in the world, shoving it into a complete pack I subsequently bought for myself off eBay.  

I should clarify here that I believe in tarot to the same degree that I believe in, like, horoscopes and conspiracy theory Reddit threads,  in that the illuminating stuff comes in how we interpret them. They’ve become a source of guidance cheaper than therapy and more exciting than a Magic 8-Ball.

“They are tar-ROTT, yes?”

“I think the ‘T’ is silent. Like, tar-oooh.”

“Ah, OK! This is nothing to worry about, it’s quite normal.” She takes a gloved hand and swabs the cards, then inserts the whole pack into a big, vacuum-y machine that belches them back out.

“Here you go, have a safe journey!”

I was on a layover in Amsterdam. The final leg of a budget, twenty-hour journey back to the UK. I could’ve attempted a visa run, sustained the grift for a little longer but something was pulling me back. The prospect of catching those crisp but bright days at the end of Autumn. Christmas in the cold, how Christmases should be. Tottenham cake. Saveloy and chips. The 300 quid a month Universal Credit entitlement I was banking on as freelance work ground to a mortifying, painful halt. As I said, it was hard to pin down exactly what the biggest draw was.

I wouldn’t be returning to the grey shores raw though. I’d lined up a string of house-sits to buoy me into the new year at least, allowing some breathing space to hammer out a plan of action. If you’re unfamiliar with the house-sitting game it’s one, in these times especially, worth getting accustomed to. Sometimes you’re acting as a guard dog to keep nosey tax men away or just there to stop unused pipes from freezing over. More often than not, however, it involves keeping elderly cats company. If you can stand adding another layer of rejection to your life with the showboating and pleading it takes to be accepted into a stranger’s home, the rewards can be huge. 

Before all that though I had to get back into the country. I arrived clutching all my paperwork, test results, address declaration forms only to be waved through. And that was it. My trainers had split during my odyssey back home so I found myself cutting quite a bizarre figure as I stood dazed outside of City airport in thermal socks and sandals. I made my way to a row of tarted-up shipping containers, usually, for long-haul lorry drivers and Thursday night ravers too pissed up to make it back to Essex, which was now populated by new arrivals plunged into government-mandated isolation. A little £150 stop-gap and then I’d be onto a new adventure.

I woke up to the news that the first house-sit had fallen through. And then the second. Months worth of rent-free roofs over my head began to evaporate fast. The butterflies in my tummy at being back home, at the ease of speaking the language fluently and the joy of familiarity turned into something else. The shits, to be exact. Still, I had one more chance left.

“It’s all newly-renovated, we’ve just finished the attic and there's a lovely big garden for the cats. We’re in the middle of Dulwich but it’s very quiet.”

I grinned.

“So why is it you’re doing this?” she asked, glancing down at the notepad she had at the ready.

“Well, I moved out of the country in January and then March came and, y’know. So...I’m back. I just need a little time to get on my feet again.”

“That’s awful. I’m really sorry to hear that,” she replied, taking notes.

Nobody, of course, is obliged to hand over the keys to their home and all worldly belongings to a stranger, but I couldn’t help but squirm as it began to feel pretty close to begging.

“Now that I know you’re ‘normal’” she chuckled, “I’ll email you all the details over. Shall we talk again in a few days?”

“GREAT,” I blurted out, a little too excitedly, “I’ll wait for your call”.

The umbilical cord of my mum’s shelter being cut out of fear of killing her with a cough left me the option of my sister’s place, but only as a last resort. The shabbiest house on one of the nicest streets in South London, for a long time I believed she’d done the impossible and snagged one of these mythical affordable one-bedroom flats. A bit rough around the edges maybe, probably not suitable for human habitation but a landlord unbothered about hiking the rent up and her painting the walls. While I’d been away, however, and as the pandemic had hit its stride he’d quite without a conscience decided to offload the entire building to a construction company so he could fund his divorce. She’d woken up one day to her home thrust into darkness by scaffolding, the broadband clumsily knocked out by builders wandering by her bedroom window and a For Sale sign outside. One by one the other tenants had either jumped ship or been pushed leaving her the last one standing. So, for obvious reasons, I did not want to lump her with another burden.

My days in the shipping container flew by and as the house-sit date closed in there was no call. I waited then emailed again. Then messaged a little more curtly. Calling felt a little too desperate so instead, I stayed up till 4 am on the penultimate night and sat on the steps of the tarted up containers staring at my phone, letting the cold penetrate my bones as I watched a bunch of baby roadmen compete in the saddest drag race ever. Barely a block of empty road to shoot up but they skidded their scooters with engines that sounded like hairdryers nevertheless.

Eventually, I got to sleep. In the morning, a notification buzzed as the late sunrise woke me up and I looked at my phone.

“We decided we don’t need a house-sitter. Thanks though!”

Is that it? ‘FANKS VOH’. The humiliation kicked in. She hadn’t needed to tell me the potential home for a month was no more because it no longer had any impact on her and was therefore unimportant. If I hadn’t asked I don’t think she’d have contacted me ever again.

Now, I’ve done a lot of terrible, terrible things in the name of feeling slighted over housing. Gaffer taping chicken breasts behind the bathroom sink as a goodbye present to the landlord who charged £100 to clean an oven. Signing an estate agent’s email up to a number of increasingly hardcore porn sites. But this needed more cunning. My sister suggested pissing on a baking tray, freezing it, then sliding the slab of iced urine under her door. Would I piss straight onto the baking tray or piss into a receptacle first and then pour it on? Do I even have access to a big enough freezer? This stayed the frontrunner until I started taking the logistics of it too seriously. Things felt bad now, but how much better would I feel about where I am in life if I were to find myself squatting over a baking tray attempting to direct my own stream of urine?

I never replied to the woman’s last message. I just admitted defeat, packed up The Big Bitch and reluctantly moved to my sister’s. You can usually allay that pang of feeling like a burden knowing that your situation, surely, has to be temporary. But this year’s knack of proffering up nothing but uncertainty made the guilt hard to shake. 

The first Monday at my sister’s and at 7 am sharp an almighty bang rocked the ceiling. I’d anticipated some light hammering, not the asteroid hitting the earth level of drilling, smashing and stomping that woke me up. I swung open the front door to escape for a walk, eyelashes glued together with sleep-crust and was greeted by the builders. One shot a friendly smile of acknowledgment that people were living in this rubble. The audacity! You’re literally tearing down the fucking walls around us and you have the gumption, the BALLS, to look let alone smile at me like this is normal. LOOK PASSED ME NOT AT ME, YOU MONSTER.

Both fuming and delirious from the shock of going from sofa-bed to the fog of outside so quickly, I stomped up the street to walk off the rage. As the racket of the drilling disappeared behind me the splendour of rows and rows of Victorian houses offered a distraction, prompting both a twinge of envy and admiration. One of my favourites has always been this house — and it’s a whole house, not one split Tetris-style flats with corridors for kitchens and a toilet jammed into a corner — that has a needlessly grand front door and stained glass windows. There’s a sour green BMW cabriolet sat outside I’d always admired. In fact, one time I’d crouched to take pictures of it but the owner shot out opening his stupid giant door with a start, looking like he wanted to shoo me away like a mangy fox. There was no danger of me intercepting one of the hundred fucking anti-theft devices attached to it, pal. Anyway, this year the hedges of their front garden have been carefully dotted with fairy lights. You can just about peek through the curtains into their front room to see a devastatingly well-manicured Christmas tree grazing the tall ceilings. In the fog and as you walk up the steep hill it sits on top of it looks like an otherwordly puddle of glitter. The bastards.

Later that week, after an evening constitutional of us spying on the neighbourhood’s lavish festive decorations, I got the tarot cards out and sprawled them across the table, ready to play Mystic Meg, or whatever the tarot equivalent is. 

“You can’t just pick at random you have to pick the one you’re drawn to,” I explained.

Some ceremonial hovering takes place.

“Cups are good right! Yes?! No?”

There’s a figure cloaked in black with head bowed and empty chalices strewn around his feet.

“That doesn’t look great.”

“Do you ever wonder,” my sister asked, “‘Am I a bad person?’ I know the universe is indifferent, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.”

“Mmm,” I nodded, lump forming in my throat.

After an hour of Googling tarot cards and cramming meaning into each pick, there’s one final addition.

The five of pentacles. Two tragic figures walking in the snow, one on crutches the other barefoot and wrapped in a blanket. Above them is a church window warmly-lit by the glow of the five coins. I Google again.

You have hit hard times...You no longer feel safe because it has all been stripped away from you in one blow...Just like the two people in the card, you feel as if you have been left in the cold. 

“Alright, fuck off, that is too on the nose.” my sister crows. 

And with that, I crumpled into laughter. I was home, yes, but absence hadn’t made me fonder of its ruthlessness.

---

“How long have you been out of the country?”

Mentally? Spiritually? Philosophically? 

“Well, my last PAYE job here was in-”

“I just need to put a date.”

“January. But I filed my tax-”

“OK. And what have you been doing for your job search?”

Well, Yvonne, if you let me finish for once you’d know I’ve been ramming tendrils of toilet paper up my nose to make myself sneeze just to feel something. That’s if I’m not daydreaming about my grand slam book tour where I reminisce about past hardships while puffing on a solid gold pipe.

“Um, Indeed. LinkedIn. Sent my CV to a few recruitment agencies.”

“Good! I can see you were working in education last, we have lots of openings for LSAs.“

“I’m trying to concentrate on remote stuff for now” I replied. “When will I know about Universal Credit?”

“I have to refer your case to a decision-maker, they’ll decide if you’re eligible. But hopefully, you’ll be back at work before then!”

“Sure. So, like, one, two days or…?”

“It can take up to six weeks. Would you like me to forward you this job in a nursery? How are you with little ones?”

“How little are we talking here, ha? I’m kidding. I was thinking more like receptionist jobs?”

At this point, I imagined an Overlook Hotel-style gig, just me and the ghosts of a Native American burial ground. Or, like, an isolated Travelodge off the A40 would also work.

“There’s a receptionist position at a care home in Elstree? I’ll add the link to your work journal”

“Right. Thanks. Thank you.”

“Have you got any savings set aside? Any assets?”

“No...no, Yvonne, I do not have any fucking ‘assets’ set aside apart from DIS ASSsss.” I replied in my head.

Every time I come crawling back to the dole queue, I’m reminded of a national affliction we have: of feverishly counting the money of those who have the least but not those who have far too much of it. While there may be a reluctance to openly criticise the precariat with it all getting very Oliver Twist, like “the wretched souls who must be saved not scolded”, the truth of the matter escapes in small ways. The veneer of ostensibly ‘good’, caring, upwardly mobile people can slip when they declare their worry over how a rough sleeper might spend the spare change they deigned to give them. Or surprise being expressed at anyone claiming benefits daring to have an alright phone or nice TV, framing a quiet prejudice as faux-concern because surely these luxuries take away from all the kneeling on broken glass and hunting for work these scroungers should be doing? It’s become crude, unkind to say these things out loud but prior to this year, I don’t believe anyone stopped thinking them. It’s a magnifying glass held up to strangers' finances rarely turned, with the same vociferousness at least, onto our grotesquely wealthy. “They worked hard for it! It’s their money to do what they like with it! Maybe if you worked as hard you could have a say!” 

The goal of our state’s signing on has never been to find work you might actually stay in long-term but to saddle you with the dregs that’ll get you off the government dollar as fast as possible. The DWP is adept at delivering a friendly stamp on your fingers as you grip the edge of a skyscraper. Now, however, those dregs involve being sent into giant Petri dishes. So for those who’ve found themselves confronted with the state’s labyrinthine system of ‘handouts’ for the first time, realising they’re not the free meal ticket painted by reality TV and are, instead, a gigantic, humiliating pain in the neck,  I can imagine it’s been a rude awakening. Is it possible we’ve never lived in a meritocracy? That working hard isn’t a foolproof way out? That, like drowning, sometimes the more frantic you thrash around the faster the water will pull you under?

But I digress. Yvonne didn’t know I had a plan, I was just missing a key element. Getting the Clio back on the road.

I responded to an ad on Gumtree for an alcohol delivery service. In my head, it’d be delivering crates of Moët to vast houses in the suburbs. They’d tip me in exchange for my silence, a tenner here and there to stop me snitching on their lavish lockdown parties. The reality was a dark, shuttered shopfront with all the charm of a serial killer’s nest. A man far too chirpy about stacking towers of boxed wine greeted me. I parked up the rental SmartCar with a crunch. The great thing about them is you can immediately visualise your femurs smashing into the dashboard if anyone were to graze you, but it’d do for tonight.

“We’ll do a trial run first. It’s officially until 5 am but you’ll usually be done much earlier unless something comes up.”

Something like what, I wondered. An emergency Pinot noir supply having to be Formula One raced to someone’s house? 

“Leave the delivery on the doorstep. Ring the bell, take a few steps back and wait for them to collect it. Then ‘tap’ confirm on your phone once they’ve picked it up.”

“Great.”

“You can make a fair bit in tips” he added, then laughed “you should be alright!”

I chuckled politely, then smiled broadly for him so my eyes would crinkle realising the mask was obscuring my forced charm. There I was; an ageing showgirl still trying to make her nipple tassels helicopter despite her tits now hitting the ground like lead weights. 

I set off into the night. First house.

“Hellooooooo there. And where are you from?”

“[Redacted delivery company.]”

Swaying away then towards me, an unlit cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth, he responded “I’m from Southampton.”

“OK.”

“Do you know it?”

“I do.”

“REALLY?! How!”

“...Craig David’s from there?”

“Yeah! Do you like him?”

“No.”

He swayed a little more before leaning on the door frame for support. “Do you want to come in for a cuddle?”

“...Nope.”

My body flexes with cringe as we stand staring at each other momentarily.

“OK then. Goodbyyyyeeee.” he groans out while slamming the door shut.

“Byyyyyyeeeeeeeeee,” I imitated. 

It wasn’t my best first day on a job but it certainly wasn’t the worst. I decided it’d do.

Having been taken hostage by a mechanic who mentally racked up the shopping list of repairs he could bill me with, by miracle or by some kind of fraud the Clio passed the MOT. And she looked a lot smarter than I remember. At night and, I guess, because I hadn’t had my eyes tested in a year. I was surprised at how comforting it felt climbing into her. The engine turned over with no stuttering and growled. Racing through the night, weaving through the mess of Marble Arch, scrabbling at the radio to change the station from the dulcet tones of Spandau Ballet on Magic FM to, like, Kisstory when any car with teenagers pulled up beside me. I felt OK again.

I triumphantly pulled up to my sister’s place pointedly positioning the Clio right in the middle of where the builders would want to park in the morning. Then messaged [redacted delivery company] to let them know I was ready for business. I was back on track, shotting boxed wine for minimum wage, baby!

In the morning, there was no reply. Presumably no booze emergencies. Still, I drove to the nearest Sainsbury’s to stock up on anticipatory driving snacks. A kilo of Boost bars and the colossus Red Bulls which make my heart beat irregularly. Down a narrow road, I reversed to make room for a beaten-up van trying to get by, only for the Clio to feel like she was rising up on hind legs. That’s not good. I carried onto the supermarket without blinking, this time not letting anyone by, they could wait, then trundled to the rear of the car park, as far away from prying eyes as possible. I slowly began to reverse her the entire length of the car park, revving wildly, prompting the brakes to free momentarily and a cloud of rust to cough out the bottom before they jammed again. A crowd of shoppers laden with Pringles and minced pies craned their necks to see what the racket is all about. Fuck. I had flashbacks of the false economy of all the shitty cars my dad insisted on keeping, all the hours spent at roadsides waiting for pick-up trucks. The Volvo where the windscreen had slid clean out, the Saab with moss on the inside of the car.

“Do you need help?” a man tapped on the window.

I glared. He continued peeking in expectantly. Then I cracked the window open a sliver.

“My rear brakes have jammed,” I mumbled.

“Ah. Let’s try something.”

I swivelled round in my seat, baffled, but before I knew it a stranger was violently rocking my car back and forth, as a series of onlookers gawked. 

“Try it again,” he called out.

I stuck her in reverse and then, bloop! She was back. A little shaky, but back.

“Thank you!”

“No worries, that’ll be a helluva lot to repair. Might be for the scrap heap, love!”

“Thanks.” I replied, thin-lipped this time, using all my restraint not to go off on one about how she wasn’t ready for the scrap heap. Y’know? I mean, she’d passed her MOT. Not with flying colours, but she’d passed. Lots had ruled her out before but she wasn’t ready to go. She still had worth, she still had fight in her, dammit. In fact, HOW DARE YOU SAY SHE’S ONLY GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE SCRAP HEAP, WHO THE FUCK GAVE YOU THE AUTHORITY? SHE WILL DECIDE TO GO WHEN SHE’S GOOD AND FUCKING READY. WHO ARE YOU TO SAY WHEN A WOMAN...OR A CAR...IS FINISHED?

The engine snarled again as I crept out of the car park, taking the slow roads back to my sister’s. This time I parked further away on the flat and gingerly slid out the car.  When I got in, I looked at her through the window bathed in moonlight and thought, “Don’t you die on me, old girl.”

I called the nearest mechanic after a sleepless night. His sharp inhalation indicated I was not just flogging a dead horse, I was putting lipstick on the horse, dressing it in new clothes and flopping its lifeless body around while pretending it was singing show tunes.

“Will she survive until the new year if I get the brakes done?”

“I hate that question. You do need them done though. It should give you a few more months.” he said while revving her. “Engine’s still nice.”

“Isn’t it,” I smiled.

I collected her the next day and she growled once more as we turned out of the garage, me marvelling at how smooth she felt. Still had that ominous knocking sound but this is what working brakes feel like, huh? I text the booze brigade yet again to tell them I was back in business. Again. For real this time.

Returning to my sister’s I suggested another trip to Sainsbury’s, one where I don’t publicly shame myself in the car park. There’d be no trudging up hills, no buses tonight. No, we’d fill the boot with the heaviest tins of custard and baked beans we could find. Maybe I’d get a celebratory Viennetta too. There’d been a win at last after all. 

Stocked up on festive snacks we began to drive home. Along the final stretch, the steering wheel suddenly felt stiff as a rock as we turned out of a side road. As the Clio straightened up the steering wheel then shuddered so violently from side to side I couldn’t keep my hands on it. My sister began to shout, I hit the newly smooth brakes and punched the hazard lights on before a horrifying pop, crunch and then the sound of metal scraping tarmac jerked my side to the ground. I yanked the handbrake up, cut the engine and stepped out into the road wild-eyed knowing looking down wasn’t going to be good news. Maybe it was just a blown tyre! I looked down to see the front wheel had popped out almost entirely, it was just hanging off like a baby tooth clinging on for dear life by a sinewy thread of gum. In the light of my phone’s torch, I could see glints of pretzeled metal and couldn't bear to inspect further.

As we waited for the recovery truck most people rubbernecked but many offered help. I snatched the blanket I kept in the boot out to wrap around me, one I'd bought specifically in expectation of this kind of scenario. A cheerful man rubbing his palms together in the chill offered to help us push her out of the traffic before exclaiming, “I'm sorry! I didn’t see that the wheel was off! Christ!”

Another car then stopped abruptly behind the stuck Clio and a bird-like woman with the wheel in one hand and her phone in the other looked startled. She then trotted out, slamming the door behind her and frowning.

I got ready to repeat, “Someone is on the way, thanks.”

No masks, just vibes, she got very close and furrowed her brow at us, “I’m sorry but if I’d not been observant there could’ve been an accident here.”

There is an accident here you dumb bitch, I thought. Quickly realising she was the only person in an hour to not offer help but to remonstrate us, my sister snapped, “Wot?!”

“If you’d not been ‘observant’ while driving a car?!” I repeated to her, confused. “The wheel has popped out. We can’t move it. Look for yourself.”

“Where? All of this just all looks rather staged to me, don’t you think?”

“Staged?! Are you for real? The wheel is fucking OFF.”

Stunned, I turned away from her and fixed my stare ahead. Simultaneously, we both began to ignore her because we must have been having a collective fever dream? Nobody could be that awful? Nobody could see two girls shivering by the roadside, clapped-out car scraping the road and think, ‘how is this inconveniencing me and how do I make this situation more unpleasant?’ Creating even more of an obstruction than her stopped car, she sauntered off into the road to conduct her own inspection before seeing that, yes, the wheel was bloody off. I fantasised the Clio taking another lurch to the ground as she stuck her nose in, crushing her ankle under twisted metal in the process. I could then walk over and ask, “I’m sorry, are you ‘staging’ the torn ligaments and blood pouring from your foot?”

Eventually, as she petulantly pulled away and turned into a private residential road it dawned on me again. She wasn’t drunk or maybe having a bad day and needed someone to take it out on. She was just fucking rich. Had it been her car she would’ve been running into ongoing traffic to flag down help, demanding she be airlifted to a spa to ‘decompress’ from all the trauma before buying another brand new motor to tide her over. But, of course, this would never have happened to her.

An hour more later we bundled into the recovery van with the Clio strapped to the back. We’d been so close to making it home and yet so far. A pitiful ten-minute drive to be exact. Again, defeated, I fixed my stare straight ahead. It was surely unhealthy for one person to experience so many peaks and troughs in a matter of days.

“I wish someone would just give me a new car,” I mumbled.

“That’d be alright, wouldn’t it?” the recovery guy laughed.

“It would. I’m going to enter that Christmas draw on Magic FM.”

“Oh yeah? How much is it?” he asked.

“£200, 000…Can you imagine?” I continued, “New car.”

“A flat,” my sister spat out.

“Yup, doesn’t even have to be a big place.”

“A long holiday,” he added.

“A car, a holiday, a home…” I listed before he continued “And a bit left over to save for a rainy day?”

“No,” I laughed. “Fuck that.”

Thank you for your patience and concern, and I’m sorry this letter took so long. But I’m OK! I’ll be a little quiet online as applying for jobs doesn’t go well with Tweeting about selling feet pics and how much I hate work.

Nevertheless, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas despite this year’s circumstances. This too shall pass.

RIP Mademoiselle Clio ~ 2007 - 2020 ~ a loyal warrior in this country’s trenches