‘Why are you here, Kevin?’ I asked.

‘My dad said even a clown could do it.’

*

Occasionally, when people from out of town arrived in, rumpled and made frantic by too much time with their families, I became shy. There were probably interesting things to talk about, and ways to make the garage understood, but these people possessed an energy that was beyond me. I was skittish, I sweated unnatural amounts, I went unusual hues. The people moved at a ferocious speed. They had their grand intentions – conversation, sucky sweets, inexpensive petrol. I felt like a child trapped in a dumb plastic playhouse before these adults. Forever dutiful, I stuttered through my spiel: ‘Thank you for visiting us today. I’m sorry I can’t help you in any way as this establishment is a participant in the practice scheme designed to improve my skills and eventually lead to long-term employment. I know what you are thinking. But you would be wrong. Please take a complimentary mint.’

The mints were my idea and I always pushed the bowl towards the customers in what I hoped was a cordial way. These people had a habit of looking right through me, so it was not unusual for me to go completely silent and turn stiffly away from them. I could still feel them behind me, their impatience growing, breathing, becoming lethal, but I never looked around. My frozen back said it all. I returned to tending the plant or standing stupid-still with my hands resting on my thighs. Had there been a panic button, I would have pressed it. Kevin beamed at them as they left. Kevin said the unique service experience dug straight into a customer’s soul. It was something to do with the correct measure of eye contact and unobtrusiveness. Afterwards, he tended to lock himself in the toilet stall for half an hour. He may have been punching things and missing, or not missing. I didn’t know. Usually, he would emerge, in obvious despair, and accuse me of being antisocial. I was not being my premier self so he was correct in that sense.

*

Management was aggressive in her pursuit of a good time. Though she despised everything – and did unspeakable things to animals – she was, at heart, a fun-loving person. We had good times for an hour on Fridays. Kevin and I traipsed into the offices in town, where Henry and Lynn – the other two participants – were based and we all grouped semi-merrily together in the backroom. We ate supermarket-brand crisps from a cavernous bowl, electric dust coating our fingertips. We drank beers with bearded men on the labels. These men with their fishing-rods, with their broad smiles suggesting happy retirement, advised us to kick back. Have one on us. Management wanted us to be comfortable, comfortable enough to lie down playfully in each other’s laps, if the desire struck us. This never once happened.

At these gatherings, it was not unusual to be offered advice that would make a ‘new woman’ out of me. We all agreed early on that my pretty face and nice body were my best qualities, but I could probably pull up my socks re everything else. I didn’t take a whole lot of it on board. At one time or another everyone in the garage had a low opinion of me but that didn’t matter so much now. When we first met, we stood in a group circle – in my entire life, not a single good thing ever came from standing in a circle – and we introduced ourselves, announced our favourite colours and confessed to the many errors, ignorances and life missteps that had brought us here.