There are days when he needs to hear desperation in somebody else's voice . . .

SIGNING ON:Regrets about reckless spending in the past keep our columnist awake at night as he struggles to stay optimistic about his family's future

EVERY SMALL act assumes disproportionate significance: switching on the boiler; spooning coffee into the percolator; sliding on his daughter’s shoes and squeezing her toes to see how much growing room remains; checking the ever-diminishing account online. Sometimes he is tired of watching, and weighing, before he’s even left the house. He knows his wife feels the same, especially when she goes food shopping (what other kind is there?).

Hours recalling how wasteful they were. DVDs not brought back; lights left on; heating blazing; food tossed out simply because it was on, or near, its expiry date. He can see the deceptive ease that had crept into their spending, and curled up there, even as work had begun to disappear.

The Government, he notes, is attacked, daily, for “not seeing it coming”. He attacks himself, nightly, for the same reason.

He sleeps only fitfully. Wakes up with a head full of regrets. His wife is fed up with his so-called breakfast “conversations” – holidays they shouldn’t have gone on, rip-off restaurants they should never have visited. He needs to focus on the “here and now”. To understand he can’t afford a paper every day, or to sit in Insomnia, sipping – doesn’t matter how often they stamp his loyalty card. He is spending the guts of €20 a week. They need that money for food!

He doesn’t know if he is sore because they’re about to argue over what used to be left as a tip. Or because he can’t think of a single thing she wastes money on: she got her winter coat in Oxfam, for Christ’s sake! He walks out, but not before she says: “And stop using directory enquires on your mobile. It is costing us a packet.”

***

The shrink asks how things are at home? The patient says “fine”, then adds “. . . relatively speaking”. The shrink nods, tries silence as a tactic. Eventually, he suggests an exercise whereby the unemployed man delineates his achievements. The patient declines – he is here, principally, for a prescription, thanks. The shrink cautions against watching too much news and current affairs. The unemployed man regards this as an adolescent, head-in-the-sand strategy. Such programmes help put things in perspective. And there are days when he needs to hear desperation in somebody else’s voice.

Maybe he is petty?

***

He finds other things about himself he does not like. For example, it is easy to be unfazed by what strangers think when you’re driving a flash motor. Now, as he sits in his banger (phone directory on the passenger seat), he feels diminished. Previously, he’d flirt with women in Coopers and convertibles. Not now. He knows this is dumb, knows he is the same individual.

Maybe he is superficial? Sick of driving at 56mph (to conserve fuel), sick of watching the gauge. Sick of counting pennies. Sick of himself. Of this nepotistic, crony-istic, banana bloody republic – can you believe the Nama guys are buying back their own . . . Stop.

It is not all bad. He bought a trimmer to save on haircuts; sometimes his wife gives him a buzzcut, kisses his neck, tells him she loves him, that they are resourceful, and educated, that things are bound to get better. Their neighbours three doors down – also out of work – and they have evolved a free baby-sitting system: if nothing unexpected happens – a funeral, a toothache – he and his wife usually manage to go out for an early bird, once a month. Doesn’t matter if the food isn’t great, they’re out, and free.

Except he isn’t.

Increasingly, he is putting on a performance: the chilled-out unemployed guy you call if you need a favour. The driver not in a hurry. The loyal son who calls to see his parents every Saturday. Mostly, however, he is the guy with a hard knot pitted in his stomach. Mostly, he strains to avoid what the shrink terms “catastrophic thinking”.

Accentuate the positive, therefore: the kids are healthy as coots, they go to the park every day. He has quit smoking (cold turkey – patches would have cost 40 quid) and cut down massively on alcohol (it doesn’t mix with the medication). Technically, he’s healthier (though some days his very bones feel weary). They have each other (though, curiously, they spend less and less time in one another’s company).

Stop. Please.

They got another year’s interest-only – so the house is safe, for the foreseeable future. The car passed the NCT; they’ve nearly enough to tax it for three months – his heart won’t jump every time he sees a checkpoint. It is a tribute to their discretion that their four-year-old has noticed no significant changes, though she has asked, some mornings, why Daddy isn’t in Mammy’s bed? Because he keeps her awake, tossing and turning.

And why is he tossing and turning?

***

Sometimes, when the house is asleep, he steals into his daughters’ room, just to marvel. They are his achievement. The reason he rises early, goes to the gym, sends out his CV, and rings the recruitment agency, religiously, and former colleagues, and former employers. And former friends, searching.

Anyway, like his wife said, things are bound to get better. Aren’t they?

The writer of this piece wishes to remain anonymous. His identity is known to the Editor