“Why’d they throw him off?”

“For knocking back a job.”

“Then it’s the bastard’s own fault!”

“The job meant almost three hours’ walk every day.   You know that Chris can’t handle that!”

Norma turned down the gas under two of the saucepans, arranged two saucepans so that they shared a burner, then filled the whistling kettle and placed it upon the remaining burner.

Norma picked up an egg slice to turn over the three pieces of meat, and then said, “I suppose he’ll just have to take any job that comes along now.”

“Maybe he could take the job for a little while, till something better comes along?” suggested Jack.

“Jesus, Jack, he’s been on the dole for four and a half years now!   If anything better were going to come along, it would’ve by now.   There are virtually no jobs at all around these days, decent or otherwise.”

“Well, it’s his own bloody fault!” insisted Jack.   “If he’d tried a little harder when he first left school he’d've had a job two or three years ago.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” said Norma.   “He gets up at six o’clock every morning to go out looking for work.”

“Obviously he doesn’t look in the right places.”

Norma gave one of the pieces of meat a quick prod with the egg slice and said, “For crying out loud, he asked around at half a dozen places today, a full dozen yesterday, eight or nine the day before that … How many places does he have to try out, before you’ll credit him with looking for work?   He is!   But he keeps getting the knock back.”

“Perhaps if he’d smarten himself up a bit, get a haircut and some decent trousers, instead of those scruffy old jeans he wears everywhere, he might not keep getting the knock back.”

Norma turned off the burner under the kettle as it began to whistle.   After emptying the teapot into the sink, she washed out the pot with a little hot water, then spooned in some tea leaves and filled the teapot with hot water.

Norma carried the teapot across to the kitchen table to allow the tea to brew, and then said, “If only you hadn’t been fired, I could’ve afforded to cut Chris’s board a few dollars until he saved up enough for some new trousers.”