Ch 2 (of 7) ā Danny receives his letter of notification.
Danny Dawson, an eighteen-year-old school leaver with no job or training to go to upon his leaving education, arrived at his house having walked home from school for the final time. Danny was very happy. School was out ā for good.
Now, Danny intended to follow the example of his free-riding, lazy-bones father, and embark upon a lifetime of uninterrupted leisure and pleasure ā at the tax payers' expense.
Immediately upon Danny entering his house, there was an eruption of loud, fierce-sounding barking and, in its customary expressions of enthusiastic welcome, Buster, the family's German Shepherd dog, stood up on its hind legs and began licking Danny's proffered face adoringly. Danny returned the dog's affection, fondly scratching behind Buster's ears. "Down, Buster! Down!" yelled Danny delightedly.
Upon entering the living-room and looking at the TV, Danny was irritated to see that his favourite soap was being delayed for a few minutes by a Party Political Broadcast by the Authoritarian Female Party.
Prime Minister Caroline Flint was in full flow. Speaking with her familiar ring of authority, she was assuring the British electorate that the A.F.P.'s manifesto pledges ā in particular, those pledges with regard to "Sorting out" the country's male unemployed, were being given priority, fast-tracked, and implemented without delay.
Danny, thinking that none of this mega-boring political stuff concerned him in the least, paid only scant attention to what was being said by the Prime Minister.
"... And, letters of notification are being sent out ... put a stop, once and for all, to the shameless, workshy malingerers ... clamping down, no more idle days ... launching the Work Motivation Programme ... from now on, claimants will be assigned to placements ..." the Prime Minister was announcing ominously.
Danny noticed that his dad ā normally of a very cheerful disposition, despite his being on Incapacity Benefit for the last fifteen years with 'depression' ā had in his hand a letter from the local Job Centre. Danny's dad was glowering at the TV like a bull glaring at a red rag, as he tried to come to terms with the awful enormity of this hideous new reality, as was outlined in his letter, and as was being so disturbingly described, by Prime Minister Caroline Flint, leader of the Authoritarian Female Party.
"Hiya Dad! What's up?" asked Danny, at seeing his dad's uncharacteristic, down-in-the-dumps demeanour.
Pointing an accusatory finger at the TV, Danny's dad replied morosely, "It's that ruddy bunch of bitches, isn't it ā the ruddy A.F.P. We've got enough authoritarian females in our lives as it is, our Danny, with your mother and your two sisters!"
"Oi! I heard that!" came mum's tart rejoinder, from the kitchen where she was getting the family's evening meal ready.
"What's the letter from the Job Centre about, Dad?" asked Danny, still unconcerned, with political matters ā still not getting it, that big changes were coming. Changes, that would affect him too.
"It's a letter of notification from the Job Centre. That's what it is," said Danny's dad peevishly. "I've been instructed to report to the Community Services Liaison Officer on Monday morning. In their words: to be assigned to a 'placement'. From now on, it makes no odds that I'm depressed. I've got to earn my Incapacity Benefits, until I remove myself from the unemployed register by finding a job. And, if I don't turn up to my placement, or if I don't do the duties that I'm assigned to satisfactorily, my welfare benefits will be stopped, with immediate effect."
"You've got a letter of notification from the Job Centre too, our Danny," sniped Danny's twenty-one-year-old sister, Elaine, nastily, and with a malicious gleam in her eye, as she twirled a tendril of her dirty-blonde hair around her index finger.
Danny knew from experience that, under the protection of their big sister Melanie, Elaine was trying to provoke him into a rash reaction ā which would inevitably result in Melanie pinioning Danny's arms behind his back, and letting Elaine bring him to heel, by giving Danny what was colloquially known as 'a good slap'.
Not that Elaine wasn't more than capable of punching above her weight in a fair fight, when it came to laying down the law with her younger brother. With her hurtful words and her painful slaps, she could reduce Danny to tears of humiliation.
It was just that Elaine revelled in having Danny rendered helpless; his threat neutralised, and unable to defend himself from her. So that, unhindered, and with Melanie's active encouragement and assistance, she could give him 'a good slap'.
Elaine could then, with her cruel, scornful tongue, and her vicious, punishing hands, properly and efficiently give Danny 'a good slap' ā with impunity.
For Melanie was Elaine's insurance policy, providing her with 5 Star cover against any possible come-back from Danny.
But, before Danny could foolishly respond to Elaine's snide, goading remark, his other sister ā and the eldest of the three siblings, twenty-three-year-old, dark-haired, and heavily pregnant, Melanie ā only too pleased to be the bearer of Danny's bad tidings, gleefully handed over to Danny his letter of notification from the local Job Centre.
"You thought you were going to have a lifetime of sheer idleness at the taxpayers' expense ā just like Dad ā didn't you, our Danny?" sneered Melanie. "Well, think again, dipstick! Read that letter. Read it, and weep!" gloated Melanie.
Well, that's rich, coming from our Melanie! thought Danny sourly.
Melanie: who had, herself, on purpose and purposefully, got pregnant on a one-night-stand so as to be able to claim a rent-free council house when her baby arrived. This being the long established tactic of women of her ilk for maintaining a work-free, all-expenses-paid lifestyle. More importantly: a Single, lifestyle. Melanie didn't want a husband ā who needed a man, doing nothing but squandering all the money on beer and betting? Oh no. Melanie wanted to be the one holding the purse strings. And, when she wanted the ... attentions, of a man ... well, she was attractive enough not to have any problems in that department. Melanie could 'get her leg over' anytime ā as the crude colloquial saying went.