‘Jake, I interview people all the time and first impressions count. You have to trust me.’
The following Saturday, Eloise called him to say that as it was a relatively quiet news day, she could grab a short window away from the office to take him shopping.
‘What, don’t you trust me?’ he’d teased her down the phone. ‘Afraid I’ll come home with stonewash denims and a shiny shirt with Megadeth written on it?’
He swore he could hear the smile in her voice.
‘Just meet me at the bottom of Grafton St. at half one.’
‘Fine, there’s a tattoo parlour close to there, you can help me pick out a new one that says, “done time and proud”.’
‘Please tell me you’re messing …’
‘You have to ask?’
‘Just stop acting the eejit and don’t be late!’
Strange, he thought, being made over by someone with actual taste when it came to labels he’d never heard of and designers he’d only been vaguely aware of from TV shows, where stick-thin models cavorted down Parisian runways wearing what looked like their knickers and not much else. The lads sometimes watched that stuff inside so they could salivate over the models, but more often than not, they’d take one look at the get-ups on them and crease themselves laughing.
And now here was Eloise taking him into shops he’d never set foot in before in his life, making him try on clothes that looked poncey and totally gak on the hanger, but when he put them on, somehow miraculously worked.
She insisted on his stepping out of the changing rooms so she could give him the once over after he’d tried anything on. When he stepped out in an elegant pair of charcoal-grey trousers teamed with a pale blue shirt the exact same colour as his eyes, he could read the approval on her face.
‘You’re sure I don’t look like a gay hairdresser?’ he asked uncertainly, hating the way the male sales assistants were eyeing him up. ‘I feel like a gay hairdresser.’
‘Definitely not. You look,’ she paused, eyeing him up and down from head to toe, thought for a second, then added proudly, ‘you look … like a teacher.’
Jake nearly passed out when they got to the till and he discovered that he’d just spent close to three hundred Euro. His worst nightmare. Palms sweating, he realised that ate into most of the little stash of cash he had to tide him over till he found work. And so, mortified, he stammered at the sales guy in the upmarket boutique that he’d made a mistake and would have to put something back.
But just as the sales guy was looking snottily down his bony nose at him, dismissing him for the time-waster he was, Eloise calmly slid up beside the till and smoothly handed over her own credit card.
‘No,’ Jake hissed firmly at her under his breath, purple in the face at this and mortified beyond belief. ‘No way. Not a chance. I’ll shop in Penneys or Dunne’s rather than let you fork out for this. This is not happening.’
‘I insist,’ she said cool as a breeze. ‘Besides, it’s only a loan. These clothes are an investment in your future. Trust me, when you get the job, you can pay me back out of your first month’s salary. Deal?’
It wasn’t one bit okay with him, as it happened. He felt deeply uncomfortable and had to fight the urge to smack the sales assistant right square in his patronising gob when he caught him smirking snidely, but on the condition that it was to be a loan and nothing more, he eventually swallowed his pride and gave in. Besides, he’d pay her back, even if he never got the job and ended up driving taxis for the rest of this life. If it was the last thing he did, he’d pay her back every shagging penny.
But if he’d thought Eloise was finished with him there, he’d another thing coming. Next stop was the men’s barber shop in Brown Thomas, and he nearly baulked like a kid when he saw how intimidatingly posh it was. Designed to terrify. Like a gentlemen’s club with copies of the Financial Times dotted around the place, where all the sofas were green leather and where even the cushions had cushions. The type of place Supreme Court judges would meet to have a shave and pause to brag about how much their individual wine collections were worth. For a split second, he had a mental image of himself sitting in a swivel chair while the same judge he might have appeared in front of sat down beside him, peered out over the top of his Irish Times and said, ‘Excuse me young man, your face is familiar, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?’
‘I’m out of here,’ he muttered, turning on his heel.
But Eloise was having none of it. ‘You’ll thank me in the long run,’ she whispered to him, then swooped in like she owned the place and made an on-the-spot appointment for him to have a haircut and then a shave, in that order.
‘But I know a bloke on Liffey St. who’ll cut hair for a fiver,’ Jake protested, ‘and for feck’s sake, I’m able to shave myself, thanks all the same.’
He’d even made it back out as far as halfway to the door, but then he felt her ice-cool grip on his arm.
‘First impressions count,’ she told him firmly. ‘And when you walk into that interview, I want their first impression of you to be that you’re groomed, elegant, articulate and ready for the job. I’ve done my fair share of hiring in my time and trust me, I know what I’m on about.’
So, against his better judgement, he went along with it, while Eloise waited for him, tapping away at her mobile, firing off emails and having low, hissy conversations down the phone with someone called Marc, something about a review in that weekend’s culture section. God only knew what the poor guy had written, but from what Jake could gather, Eloise was far from impressed.
‘Absolutely not, it has to be rewritten and that’s all there is to it,’ he could hear her whispering urgently, phone clamped to her ear. Then he found himself smiling when she added, ‘because a review that pretentiously bollocky is exactly the kind of thing that puts people off going to the theatre. And another thing, about your TV review of the Jane Austen drama series, it’s way too harsh. What, may I ask, is wrong with a good, corsety, bonnety drama anyway? Rewritten and on my desk by four p.m., thanks.’
The barber caught Jake’s eye and gave him a conspiratorial wink that seemed to say, ‘Glad I’m not on the receiving end of that call, mate.’
Half an hour later, and he was done and dusted, ready to see the final result. And Jake, who only ever looked in a mirror about once every six months, barely recognised himself by the time the barber was finished with him. He was, no other word for it, transformed. His longish fair hair was now neater, tighter, his skin looked shiny and glowing and healthy, the scruffiness was gone, the just-fell-out-of-bed-unkemptness vanished. In short, he looked, as his mam would have said, cleaner.
‘Good work,’ Eloise said to the barber approvingly as Jake fixed up, making sure to include a decent tip, as he figured you were expected to do in posh places like this.
‘Better service than you get from the prison barber, I’ll say that much,’ he hissed to Eloise as they left. ‘The last haircut I had was a number one.’
‘A what?’
‘Shaved head. Though some of the lads get corn circles cut in as well. All the rage inside. Prison chic, dontcha know.’
‘Shhh, enough of that. All in the past and time to move on.’
She had to get back to the office, so he walked with her for company. Well, you never really walked with someone like Eloise, he’d learned, she power marched everywhere and you just kept pace as best you could. Even the way she walked was a battle. Jeez, didn’t this one ever slow down? For anyone? Ever?
‘What’s your rush?’ he asked her as she strode down College Green,