Darn It! Read online

  People could say that it didn’t matter until the cows came home, but television was, by its nature ,a visual medium. How you looked did matter, and the Alva’s polished appearance would impress the audience. Sure, they had a wardrobe department, but Alva could and would wear her own clothes which were miles pricier than the threads they had in wardrobe. Most of it was on loan from designers, and you never knew what could be sent in. It was better to have your own look put together.

  Nicki sighed and got to work on her brief. It wasn’t too bad: an investigation into government cuts to payments to families that cared for seriously ill family members at home, often putting their own lives on hold in the process. The camera crew would be with Alva from 9am to 12pm, and with Nicki from 2pm to 5pm. Morning lighting was more flattering for outside shots, which could really bring the whole visual aspect of a report together, so Nicki had drawn the short straw there. With any luck, it would rain non-stop for the week and Alva wouldn’t be able to get any outside shots at all. But that was unprofessional of her, Nicki thought. May the best woman win, and all that jazz.

  She went home and looked at her wardrobe. Her best outfit was a Chinese silk dress she’d gotten as a gift last Christmas from her parents. It sat beautifully on her, and had a high mandarin style collar. She couldn’t wear it, though. It was more formal than anything else, and she’d look a bit strange interviewing people in evening dress. Anyway, Alva had seen her wear the dress before at last year’s Christmas party. She’d take one look at it and instantly know that she couldn’t afford anything else. Nicki didn’t need the pity.

  There wasn’t anybody else that she could turn to. All her friends were pin to collar, trying to make their salaries stretch. She could ask her parents, but she’d leaned on them a lot lately since she’d broken up with Paul. They’d help her out, but they might also give her a lecture about how Paul paid too little child support. Privately, she agreed with them. but they had a good relationship. And he was very good about minding Katie when he could outside his allocated visiting hours. She’d heard enough horror stories about acrimonious splits to be wary of rocking the boat.

  What else was in the wardrobe? Everything else had bobbles all over it or had been washed so often that it was a completely different shade, if not colour, than it had been previously. She was lucky that she’d managed to slim back to her pre-pregnancy size, but that was because she couldn’t afford to buy any more office clothes - losing weight had been an absolute necessity. She had some boring suits, the kind she wore every day, but that wasn’t going to cut it.

  She had to go shopping so, that night, she asked her next door neighbour’s teenage daughter to mind Katie. She hit the local village, where the shops were open late. She looked longingly at the cheap and cheerful clothes shops that she usually frequented when she was buying clothes for her down days. There was no way she would be able to find something even approaching appropriate there. Instead, she went for a small boutique. The clothes looked fashionable enough as far as she could tell; she recognised some shapes and colours from Alva’s outfits and the women who ran TV8’s cult fashion programme. She went in. It was small and poky, everything was displayed beautifully and most of the jewellery was behind glass. Huh. There was no way that any of this stuff was real, it was costume stuff. So why was it being displayed like the crown jewels of Great Britain?

  She saw a smart dress with a fine print over it. It looked stylish and classy, so she flipped the tag over to look at the price. €350? Nicki dropped the tag, and tried to ignore the smirk of the sales assistant, who seemed to be laughing at the very idea that she could afford their stock. She slipped out of the shop.

  Nicki didn’t even know why she was getting this worked up about the thing. She wasn’t even going to get the job. She was tempted to ring Kenny and withdraw her application. But he was already so set on the idea of viewer interaction that he wouldn’t take it well. Plus, it would go against her in future if she applied for a promotion. No, there was no way out of it. She’d just have to suck it up and get on with things.

  She saw a charity shop across the road. Could she possibly find something worthwhile there? She was determined not to come back empty handed; after all she was already out of pocket for the babysitting. She walked inside.

  Her heart sank. Dim yellow lighting flooded the shop, a stark contrast to the elegance of the boutique she’d just come from. Most of the shelves were full of tatty paperback books with covers straight from the 1990s, VHS tapes and dodgy ornaments. The few rails in the middle of the room looked dispiriting. A woman about her own age was flicking through a magazine at the cash register; it didn’t look like the place was particularly buzzing. Nicki was just about to turn on her heel and leave before she was noticed, by the time the woman at the cash register looked up.

  ‘Hi,’ she asked. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nicki. ‘I’m looking for an outfit, a couple of outfits actually. But I’m not sure if -’

  ‘What are they for?’ asked the woman in a bored voice. ‘A wedding? Christening?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Nicki. ‘I’m a junior researcher for Focus Hibernia and myself and a colleague are in an on air competition to replace Regina when she leaves.’

  ‘This is good,’ said the woman, who had introduced herself as Brenda. ‘I thought you wanted me to help you pick out a wedding outfit. I am so sick of fecking wedding outfits. Women coming in wanting to find an outfit that will upstage the bride for less than fifteen quid. They have my heart scalded!’

  ‘So, you think you can help me?’ asked Nicki hopefully.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Brenda. ‘The thought that something I pick out could end up on the television, it’s quite exciting, isn’t it?’

  It was quite something, but Nicki wasn’t quite sure what. After rifling through a few of the rails, she began to feel dispirited again. ‘There’s nothing great here, is there?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Brenda wistfully. ‘When I started working here a few years ago you’d get amazing stuff in. A-may-zing. I was the envy of all my friends, designer labels just thrown away because it was out of season. Now all the good pieces are being sold off on Ebay and the likes to make more money.’

  ‘I’m not necessarily looking for designer,’ said Nicki. ‘Just something that looks put together and professional.’ She gingerly picked up a lurid print skirt that had been big in the eighties, but so unfashionable that the latest wave of eighties inspired kitsch had completely skipped over it.

  ‘There’s a problem there too,’ said Brenda sympathetically. ‘People are bringing their old clothes to those new shops. You know the ones, you bring a bag of clothes down and they weight them and give you money for them. We’re hardly getting any donations in; everyone needs to keep the few pennies that they already have. Anything really decent, they’re getting it altered and mended. There’s a cobbler’s down the road that nearly went out of business during the boom years. Everyone wanted new and flash. Now he’s out the door with work. To be honest, if it wasn’t for the few paperbacks we sell, we’d be lucky to pay the rent.’

  ‘So there’s nothing here that would work?’ asked Nicki.

  ‘Well,’ said Brenda slowly. ‘I’m not supposed to do this, but there is one thing. In the back.’ Brenda had a look on her face that suggested that this was such classified information that charity executives might storm the shop at any moment for revealing it.

  ‘Usually when we get a quality piece, we put it in the window a week before its available for sale, try to get as much of a buzz going as we can. I’m not supposed to reveal it but…’

  ‘You’d be tempted to?’ asked Nicki, hardly able to hope. There was nothing in the shop that she could remotely imagine wearing. At this rate she’d be stuck wearing a bin liner and claiming it was some avant-garde work by an up and coming artist. That was if she could work out what avant-garde meant.

  Do you think you could mention our shop? asked Bre
nda hopefully. ‘You know, in the broadcast?’

  It wasn’t that she was averse to giving a charity shop publicity – she worked for a show that was all about human interest stories, after all. It fitted into their remit. But on the one show where she was basically having a national interview, she had to announce that she was dressed in thrift store threads rather than a designer dress? That she wasn’t so keen on.

  But what choice did she have?

  ‘Ok.’ She agreed. ‘Let’s see it.’

  It was a beautifully constructed silver asymmetric bias cut dress. It had a gentle sheen: not so much that it would look odd on television, but enough to lift it from plain to interesting. It was well lined, and Nicki could tell that it would sit perfectly on her.

  ‘Will you get in trouble if you sell it to me?’ asked Nicki, fingering the material reverentially.

  ‘Not if you say where you got your dress on air,’ said Brenda, her eyes carrying a hint of a challenge.

  ‘Ok,’ said Nicki. Luckily Brenda didn’t have any idea how unlikely it was that she’d get the role, otherwise she’d be sending the dress over to Alva.

  ‘Try it on,’ said Brenda.

  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?’