that one a lot of thought lately and the options didn’t exactly appeal.
‘Thought I might hire out a taxi plate,’ he told her, but she didn’t exactly look impressed. But then neither was he, particularly.
‘It’s a gig plenty of the other lads in here do as a kind of stepping-stone when they first get out,’ he went on to explain. ‘You don’t have the expense of running the car, tax or insurance or any of that, the guy who owns the taxi plate looks after all that. So as long as you pay him his cut out of whatever cash you make, he’s happy. Means I can do the odd night shift for some overworked driver who only wants to work more sociable hours during the day.’
‘Oh Jake,’ she said sitting back, deflated. ‘That’s really what you want? To ferry home a load of drunks out of their head on alcopops at four a.m., after all the nightclubs close?’
‘That wouldn’t really particularly bother me at all,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘To be honest, I’d just be glad of the cash and can put up with anything, as long as they don’t puke in the back of the car.’
There was only one disadvantage to the plan and he knew it only too well, though he kept it to himself. If he went back to driving, his old gang would surely find him. Chances were they’d track him down in no time. Nothing could be easier. If they wanted to, they could get to anyone, but a taxi driver was a particularly useful animal to them. They’d get you working like a courier, and before you knew where you were, you were back in trouble, back in court, back inside, back to square one, back where you swore you’d never go back to.
Eloise didn’t actually say as much, but seemed distinctly unimpressed with the plan. It was in the slightly disdainful sniff she gave when he mentioned taxi shift work and in the way she impatiently tapped the tips of her skinny fingers off the metal counter in front of her, when he talked about night shifts and soilage charges. But then, he’d noticed she was good at communicating disapproval without even having to open her mouth. For a split second he wondered what life was like for all the legions of reporters and editors who worked under her. Were they all afraid of her? He’d nearly put money on it.
Jake knew so little about her, but could already guess that in a work situation, her bark was as bad, if not fifty times worse, than her bite. Idly, he found himself sitting back, arms folded, wondering when the last time was someone had used the word ‘no’ in front of Eloise Elliot.
‘But you have a TEFL qualification,’ she reminded him insistently. ‘You got first class honours, you did really well at it! Why are you throwing all that away so you can sit on some taxi rank for hours in the middle of the night? Why not put your qualification to good use? And you’re studying for your English and psychology degree. Surely pursuing these goals would give you a far more promising future then schlepping round night clubs in some borrowed taxi at some ungodly hour in the morning? Course, I know that your future is in your own hands and that it’s none of my business,’ she added, ‘but it seems to me that you’ve got a real chance to make something of yourself here. To really start over, turn a new leaf, not look back.’
At that, he sat forward, starting to listen more intently now. Because without her even realising it, that last sentence had chimed a deep chord. He wondered if Eloise knew that was exactly what he needed to hear at this point in time. Wondered if she knew that the very thought of making a fresh start, of even taking a step up in the world was like music to his ears … Who knew?
All he knew was that he found himself suddenly paying alert attention to what she was saying. She had a way of making everything sound so easy, so achievable. God, he thought, this one was far, far better than any parole officer at encouraging you, guiding you to haul yourself up by the bootstraps and make something out of what was left of your life.
‘You know what you could do Jake?’ she went on, really warming to her theme now, ‘You could apply for a job teaching TEFL courses to overseas students, maybe at one of the language schools that are springing up all over town. After all, education is the one recession-proof business,’ she went on enthusiastically. ‘I’d put money on it that you’d be well able to get work, even part-time.’
So Jake let her chat on, finding himself listening interestedly at first, then intently. Because she just made it all sounds so easy, so doable.
‘You could be a proper TEFL teacher,’ she encouraged him. ‘You could do it, easily, I know you could. I’ll even be a referee on your references for you. We can gloss up your CV,’ she said, like it was already a done deal. ‘I’ll help you, I’d be delighted to. And in your spare time, you could finish your degree. Who knows what wonderful prospects it might lead on to in time? Streets ahead of doing night shifts in a taxi. So come on, what do you say?’
Jake said nothing, but just listening to her filled him with an utterly unfamiliar sensation. Hard to put a name on, but when he analysed it later on back in his cell, he knew exactly what it was. It was hope, plain and simple. No two ways about it, she was offering him a lifeline.
And he’d have been a fool not to grab at it like a sinking man about to be saved.
So this was it then, this was freedom. For the first time in two years, Jake had no one to answer to only himself. And it was – no other word for it – intoxicating. Delirious enough to get high on, if he hadn’t sworn off all that years ago. He felt invincible, like William Wallace at the end of the movie Braveheart, as played by Mel Gibson with a faceful of Avatar-blue paint all over him, where he just wanted to yell out at the top of his lungs over and over again, that one delicious word … freedom.
Astonishing the things you missed when you’d been away. Ask any of the lads inside, and they’d all tell a different tale: some missed their wives, girlfriends, kids, others the little things like being able to stroll into a pub on a Sunday afternoon, order a pint, read the paper, maybe watch a match on telly. But for Jake, what he’d missed most was that rare thing, privacy. Never for one second were you left alone inside, even in the showers you were supervised, always being watched. It was a thing he vowed never to take for granted again, not as long as he lived.
And now here he was, Jake Keane, living the life of a respectable man. It was like some kind of strange, surrealist dream come true and in his darker moments – of which there were many – he worried about the tap on his shoulder, the unwanted phone call, or the midnight hammering on his hall door that would land him right back at square one. But he tried his best to tune those thoughts out and instead to focus on the positives. God knows, for once in his life, there were an abundance of them to choose from.
He owed Eloise so much, and Jake was a proud man, unused to either being helped altruistically or being under a compliment. Particularly to someone who’d just brush all his badly articulated expressions of heartfelt thanks aside. But if it was the last thing he ever did, he swore that somehow he’d find a way to pay Eloise back.
For starters, there was this gorgeous flat he now had the run of, for a reasonable rent he could just about afford. It was tiny, admittedly, a one-bedroom apartment just off the main Sandymount Road, in one of those new developments that had shot up like mushrooms during the property boom. Course now half of the apartments in block after block were little more than negative equity millstones round the neck of owners who had taken a punt on them in better times, and now they just lay empty and deserted. Kind of like living in a ghost town, with very few neighbours and even fewer lights dotted round the block whenever it got dark.
But to Jake, it was like crashing out in the penthouse suite of the Ritz-Carlton hotel. Sheer, unimagined luxury. And here, in his own tiny little space, he was finally, finally free.
He could do as he pleased, when he pleased. Go out for long solitary walks down
