The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly Page A

back to this fella at the counter. He’s looking sympathetic enough but there’s nothing he can do for me. Still, I have to say: ‘But I need a job so I can get an address.’
    â€˜That’s a predicament for you,’ he nods; not his problem.
    â€˜Can I just look at the noticeboards, then? See if there’s places I might try at?’ There’s three of these noticeboards all pinned with cards, fenced off along the side of the counter, I could almost touch the nearest of them.
    â€˜Well, no, I’m afraid not,’ he says, and I hear the change of tune: he’d like to be clear of me now. ‘These jobs are for the registered unemployed, and I must say that with all of the listings here preference is given first to returned servicemen, and then married men, men with families to support.’
    He’s supposing I am neither, of course. But I do have a family to support, even if I can’t tell him that. Jesus, help me.
    I start begging: ‘Can you recommend anywhere I might start looking? Just doors to knock on?’
    I think he’s going to tell me to go to buggery, but he cocks his head for me to come nearer and listen, going to give me some under the counter advice. ‘You could go across to Surry Hills and Redfern, there are a few factories there that have been putting men on, textile workshops, one or two which have lately got contracts with some of the big city stores, long hours and working for Syrians, but good enough for some. You said you have machine work experience, so that might be the ticket for you.’
    Lebbo work. And it might well be the ticket for me if I could go back to the Neighbourhood. I can’t go back there; I can’t take Aggie back there. But I can’t say anything about it to this fella, either; I can only ask him: ‘There’s not anywhere else?’
    He rolls his eyes, thinking I’m some kind of bludger, too good for a Lebbo sweatshop. ‘There’s always farm work, for a fit young bloke. They’re crying out for hands at Windsor and Penrith, Blacktown, and further afield – cherry pickers are needed most urgently at Mudgee for the Christmas crop, if you really want to know. But that’s hard work, isn’t it?’
    Fuck you behind your high and mighty counter. I could grab him by the tie and smack his face into it. But I can’t do that, either. I can only turn away from him.
    And rip a card off one of the boards on my way out, just to tell him what I reckon.
    Then clear off quickly, grabbing Ag from behind the door on the way through.
    She says on my hip: ‘Did you get a job, Yoey?’
    â€˜Not yet,’ I tell her. I’ve got one voice in my head telling me to give this up, get myself to Redfern; while the other voice can’t speak at all for showing me Michael’s boots jumping on the kitchen table to the Devil’s beat. I tell Ag: ‘I’ll get a job soon. After we go and have that tram ride, yeah?’
    â€˜Now, you mean?’ she says, throwing her arms around my neck: please .
    â€˜Right now,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll go to one of them big city stores, get you some buckle shoes now too, yeah?’ Fuck this, let’s go shopping, why not?
    â€˜Yeah.’ She kicks my backside to make me go faster back round to the Quay, and I’m praying again: please, Lord, I’m not asking for myself. Get me a job for Aggie.
    We get on the first tram we find, a Pitt Street one, which I’m supposing will take us past that biggest store, Hordern’s, at Brickfield Hill. We won’t be able to miss it: it’s that big it’s a whole block. Worth the price of the tram ticket already, though: when the bell goes ding as the tram moves off anyone’d think this was the best day of Agnes O’Keenan’s life.
    I’m still holding that card from the Labour Exchange in my hand as I set Ag down on a seat and I’m just about to scrunch