A Thousand Roads Home

Ruth replied, ‘That is correct. Anything with an electromagnetic field transmitting from it, such as a mobile telephone or TV can cause a mag stripe to demagnetise.’

Erica’s mouth dropped open in surprise, making DJ laugh. Go, Mam!

‘However, due to the frequency of the problem you are encountering, it is instead more likely to be caused by the faulty encoding equipment. I would suggest your machine in reception needs a service,’ Ruth said, matter-of-factly.

Erica pushed the hotel-room door wide open and walked in, keeping her eyes on Ruth all the while. In realisation that her mouth was agape, she shut it quickly. ‘Well, I never. I’ll tell my Billy that. Maybe you’ve got something there. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?’

DJ said, ‘My mam knows a lot of stuff.’

Ruth remained silent. If she was that clever she would not be standing in the doorway of a small hotel bedroom that was the only roof over her and her son. It felt like she had just been issued a prison sentence. But for what crime? Living?

‘Aw, that’s nice that your boy is so proud of you,’ Erica said.

DJ continued, ‘She can add up numbers in her head, better than a calculator.’

A thought struck Ruth that would be funny if it was not so tragic. The woman who is so good with numbers has now become one. A statistic. One of the many thousands homeless in Ireland.

‘Well, enough of our gabbing, go on in. Here you go, home sweet home,’ Erica said.

They looked into the tiny room, which looked like it belonged in the 1980s. Magnolia walls, heavy red-and-cream checked curtains, with matching duvet covers and pillow shams on twin beds, and pine furniture. The woman was wrong. This wasn’t home to Ruth. And it never would be.

8

TOM

Over the years Tom had moved around Dublin quite a bit but he kept finding his way back to Fairview Park. He liked its proximity to the sea. In fact, the twenty-hectare park was once part of the North Strand, reclaimed in the 1900s. During the day, he would sit on his park bench and listen to the sounds of the children playing in the distant playground. Their laughter and squeals of delight as they spun faster on a roundabout, or climbed one rung higher on the rope ladder, lifted his spirits. Bette Davis, his dog, his friend, liked to watch the kids do tricks in the skateboard park. They’d stop for a while and watch in awe. No fear, those kids. They would fly through the air, from ramp to ramp. Sometimes, in the amongst the noise of children having fun, he could hear Mikey.

His knee was aching again. He knew that one day soon he would have to get it looked at. His guess, which he reckoned was fairly accurate, was that the cartilage was gone. He’d walked more miles than he could even begin to hazard a guess over the past ten years. And it had caught up on him.

Sleeping rough in the cold winters doesn’t help either. He liked to ignore that voice in his head. It irked him because it spoke a lot of sense. And he wasn’t interested in sense. He liked his life the way it was, just fine. Out here. It was his choice.

He’d slept on the same bench every night since he took up residence in this park. And the Fairview Park regulars agreed that it was unofficially his. Lash and Bones, fellow rough sleepers, slept in the park most nights. And while they weren’t friends, it was nice sometimes to pass the time of day with them. Bones loved telling stories about Fairview’s most famous resident, Bram Stoker. The coastline beyond the park was eerie at night and it was easy to imagine, when the fog came down, how it had played a part in inspiring Stoker’s stories.

Tom sat down on his bench and Bette Davis fell asleep at his feet almost instantly. His sandwich was limp and uninspiring. But he wasn’t complaining. He’d had it in his rucksack since last night, when the volunteers from the Peter McVerry Trust did their rounds handing out food and hot drinks. He sat back, feeling every day of his sixty-one years. Bette had the right idea. Time for a nap. I’m coming, Cathy. He closed his eyes and remembered back to that first evening his wife and he had spent together …

Cathy rented a one-bedroom apartment that turned out to be only a mile or so away from Tom’s place. How had he lived so close to such an incredible woman and never seen her before?

He felt big and awkward in her small kitchen, bumping into her as he tried to help unload the groceries, on that first night they met. She told him to sit. He watched her fry their steaks and chop tomatoes for their salad, her every movement a symphony. Her grace bewitched him.

He wanted to know everything about her life. He couldn’t get the questions out quickly enough. She was from Donegal, one of three children, and a carer for adults with disabilities.

‘Tell me about your work. What’s an average day like?’ Tom asked.

‘We offer supportive services to help meet the needs of adults with disabilities.’

Tom looked at the tiny woman in wonder. He’d known her only a few hours yet she had surprised him several times in that short time. He couldn’t lie, it was a physical attraction at first. But the more she shared about herself, the more he found himself struck by her beauty, not just on the outside.

‘We’re there for help with both the physical and emotional wellbeing of our attendees and their families too. Parents and carers get a break, and the adults themselves keep some independence when they come in to us. In the main they return home each evening, relaxed. That’s crucial.’

‘I have a patient who is a full-time carer for her son. When I ask who looks after her, she just shrugs. I can’t get her to recognise the importance of having some time off, taking care of her own needs,’ Tom said.

‘There’s huge guilt for most carers. All self-imposed, but real none the less. You should tell your patient about our programme. We might be able to help. You can change the world by helping one person at a time. That’s what we try to do at the centre. One at a time,’ Cathy said.

Tom felt a lump in his throat, catching him unawares. Her words moved him profoundly. He would never forget that statement. Ever.

His appetite disappeared and it seemed hers did, too.

‘Maybe I should have bought tofu,’ Cathy joked, pointing to Tom’s uneaten steak.

‘I’m sorry. It’s delicious,’ Tom said, quickly spearing a piece to prove the point.

She reached over and her fingers brushed his and they both felt another jolt. ‘There’s no need.’

Their eyes locked. Time stood still. Cathy put her glass down, the crystal tinkling as it hit the glass top table. The sound bounced around the kitchen and his eyes could not leave hers. They moved to her bedroom and they made love. He could not call it anything but that. It was tender, every touch a promise.

‘I didn’t expect this,’ Cathy said afterwards, when they lay in each other’s arms.

‘Breda, my receptionist, is forever saying that I am one of Ireland’s most eligible bachelors. Sure you couldn’t resist,’ Tom teased.

‘She’s right. A good-looking man and a doctor. At least in the top one hundred,’ Cathy joked back.

‘Thank you, young lady.’ Tom pretended to tip his cap to her.

‘I bet patients fall in love with you all the time.’ She started to laugh when she saw him blush. ‘I knew it! Spill!’

‘Well, there was this woman last year who kept making appointments, saying she was unwell. Breda used to tease me that she had a crush on me. But I thought that was preposterous. Then one day, she came in with a bad chest infection.’

‘Oy oy! That old chestnut!’ Cathy laughed.

‘I remember thinking she was looking very well for someone who needed a doctor. Then before I had a chance to so much as take her temperature, she had her blouse unbuttoned.’

‘Her blouse,’ Cathy snorted in response. ‘How old was she?’

‘About thirty, why?’

‘No one wears a blouse under the age of fifty!’

‘Well, she opened her …’

‘Her top, just say top,’ Cathy advised.

‘She opened her top and had on this red lacy thing that left nothing to the imagination!’

‘Oh my goodness, I am scarlet for her! What did you do? Actually, scratch that question. I’m not sure I want to know.’

‘I jumped up and called Breda in. I told the woman that I had to have Breda in with me for any consultation that involved chest investigations.’

‘Ah, the poor woman.’

‘Poor woman my hat. Funnily enough, she stopped coming shortly after that.’

‘I bet she did!’ Cathy laughed again. ‘Go on, tell me more. How many hearts have you broken …?’

‘I’m afraid that’s it, really. I did meet one of my patients out in a bar last year. She was pretty drunk and she made a bit of a clumsy pass at me. I made a joke about being resolute to stay single. Then I ran home!’

‘Are you resolute to stay single?’ Cathy asked, leaning into him.

‘I’ve always been open to meeting Miss Right. She was just tricky to locate. No matter how many women I dated – all lovely, or at least most – I never felt “it”.’

He looked at her silhouetted against the fading evening light. And realised something. She was it.

‘So, what is “it” for you?’ Cathy asked.

‘“It” is that undeniable, unfathomable, unmistakable feeling of knowing that what you have is something special. I think “it” is you.’ He finished on a whisper.

‘Oh. That “it”,’ Cathy said, and they beamed at each other for the longest time.

The next evening, they moved to his flat above the surgery for a change of scenery. ‘It’s double the size of mine!’ Cathy said, walking from room to room.

‘I’ve the top half of the house. Downstairs is the surgery …’

‘Do you mind living above work?’ Cathy asked.

‘The commute is hard to beat.’

‘Are these your parents?’ She picked up a photograph of Tom in his graduation cap and gown, standing in between a couple who were bursting with pride.

‘Yeah. It was a good day. First in our family to graduate.’

‘Do you see much of them?’ Cathy asked.

‘They died last year, within a month of each other,’ Tom admitted sadly.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cathy said, wishing she’d known him then to help him through the pain, which still lingered on his face.

‘My parents were obsessed with the idea of me settling down. They spoke about this subject often and at great length. They hung around until their eightieth and eighty-second birthdays respectively, before dying within weeks of each other.’

‘A proper love story.’ Cathy felt tears in her eyes.

And Tom and Cathy looked at each other and both silently wished for the same thing. A lifetime together, just like Tom’s parents had.

For a split second, when Tom woke up, he forgot. He reached across the cold pavement for Cathy. But she hadn’t been by his side for a long time. He gently stroked Bette Davis and wished for the one millionth time in his life that he could wake up and find happiness in the now, not just in the then of his dreams.

9

RUTH

As they walked into their hotel room another dizzy spell hit Ruth and she clutched the door frame.

‘Are you OK?’ Erica asked, frowning as she spoke. ‘You don’t look very well. You’re not going to get sick on the carpet, are you? You’ll have to clean it up yourself if you do. Housekeeping are gone for the day. You’ll see that in the rule book. Rule number nineteen.’

Ruth shook her head in an effort to reassure Erica that she was not about to contaminate her room. She was not sure that she could trust herself to speak, to say the words out loud that she was OK.

‘Mam?’ DJ saw the colour drain from her face.

‘I am fine,’ Ruth lied. She just wanted to give in to panic, fall into the darkness.

Erica looked dubious but she was a woman on a mission. She had a tour to give and she was going to deliver it. ‘This door to your left, that’s your en-suite bathroom.’

Ruth and DJ looked into the small room, which had a shower, bath, toilet and sink. ‘It’s dirty,’ Ruth said with dismay. The room was clad in white tiles, with greying grout that looked like it had not been cleaned in years.

‘It most certainly is not. I pride myself on the cleanliness of this hotel,’ Erica said, smarting at the insult.

‘Awkward,’ DJ said, not bothering to hide a snigger.

‘You can bring your luggage in here.’ Erica swung her arm around, like she was a hostess on the QVC shopping channel showcasing a roomful of beautiful baubles and silk scarves.

DJ and Ruth both sucked in their breaths as they took in the scale of the room that was to become their home – their bathroom, living room and bedroom. Where would DJ do his homework? Perhaps she could move the lamp and small radio alarm clock off the locker.

‘Are we supposed to take turns sitting on that?’ Ruth asked, pointing to a single armchair that sat alone under the large bedroom window. Ruth blinked when the curtains morphed into bars. Their room became a prison cell. Your imagination working overtime, that’s all, Odd whispered. She blinked again and the sad grey curtains were back.

Erica pursed her lips together. Opposite the two beds was a long vanity table with drawers, on which sat the TV and a phone.

It’s all wrong. Everything is in the wrong place.

Ruth pulled at her hands.

Pop, pop, pop …

‘We have all the channels. Not that I look at much regular TV any more. It’s all Netflix and chill for me!’ Erica said, laughing at her own joke.

DJ started to flick through the channels before Erica had finished speaking.

Ruth counted the steps to take her from her bed to the bathroom. Six. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It should be fourteen steps. For four years, it had been fourteen steps.

‘Your accent, I can’t quite place it. It’s not a Dublin one, anyhow,’ Erica stated. She stared at Ruth, taking in her short hair, cut like a boy’s, which she wasn’t sure she cared for. Her face was white as a sheet, without a scrap of makeup on. And she had two piercings in each ear. She’d put money on the girl having tattoos. She had that look about her. She was what her Billy would call ‘alternative’.

‘I’m from Wexford originally. But Dublin has been my home for ten years,’ Ruth answered.

‘Oh, a beautiful part of the world. But as I often say to my Billy, half of Wexford is living in Dublin and half of Dublin are down in Wexford. Funny old world we live in, all topsy-turvy,’ Erica commented.

Ruth picked up one of her suitcases and placed it on one of the beds. She had placed some cleaning products in this case and wanted to start scrubbing the bathroom.

‘The rules of the hotel are listed on this.’ Erica pointed to an A4 laminated sheet. ‘There’s nothing too major, but if we didn’t have them, chaos would ensue. And if you have a problem with any of them, take it up with the council, not me. My Billy says I’m too good-natured.’

‘Mam?’ DJ whispered loudly.

Ruth turned her back on the woman and faced her son. ‘Yes?’

‘Where’s my bedroom?’ he asked.

Ruth said, ‘We will be sharing this room.’

Erica tutted loudly, so that they both heard her. ‘I don’t know. The phrase “beggars can’t be choosers” springs to mind. You’re luckier than most. You could have been given a sleeping bag and left to your own devices outside.’

DJ looked mortified. Ruth held the laminate up in front of her. ‘My son was simply asking a reasonable question. And from a cursory glance at this laminated sheet of paper, refraining from asking questions is not listed as one of your rules.’

Before Erica had a chance to splutter a response, Ruth added, ‘For the record, you will never know how grateful this “beggar” is for a hotel room.’

Erica’s face softened at those last words. ‘Maybe my choice of words was a bit harsh. There’s no point looking back. That much I’ve learned over the years. Your old home is gone. This is your home for the foreseeable. Make the most of it.’

Ruth re-counted her steps to the bathroom. Still six.

She felt another wave of dizziness overcome her. One, two, three, four. She sat down on the nearest bed before her legs gave way.

‘Are you always that pale? You’re like one of those goths,’ Erica said, looking at her closely. ‘I hope you’re not coming down with something. Keep out of the communal areas if you’ve a bug. I don’t want any viruses going around the hotel, thank you very much! All I need is another bad TripAdvisor review …’

She took a step backwards and covered her mouth, as if Ruth’s germs were about to march their way towards her right that minute.

‘I am not sick. I am tired.’ Sleep had not played much of a role in the last nightmarish forty-eight hours. Could Erica take this room away from them, if she suspected Ruth was carrying a virus? She felt panic join into the myriad of emotions that were running around her body.

Please leave. Just let me lie down on the bed and close my eyes for five minutes. Please.

Erica groaned, ignoring Ruth’s silent pleas, then sat down on one of the single beds, making it bounce as her body hit it. ‘I’m shattered myself. And while I don’t know your story, you seem like a nice family and I wouldn’t wish this situation on anyone. I’ve said to my Billy, over and over again, we should count our blessings. We own this beautiful hotel. Boutique, I like to say. And we have our own mews out the back. It has three bedrooms. With a lovely garden back and front. And we have our mortgage paid for over five years now. Yes, we really should count our blessings.’

DJ pretended to put a gun to his head behind her back.

‘… there but for the grace of God go I …’ Erica’s voice continued to drone on.

‘I do not believe in God,’ Ruth said, moving towards the door.

‘An atheist? I thought you had the look of one of those all right,’ Erica said.

… five, six … Ruth had reached the end of her patience and could take no more, so she opened the door to their room and said, ‘Goodbye.’

‘Well, I do beg your pardon,’ Erica sniffed, before heaving herself up from the bed with a wobble and a creak of her knee.

Human beings can always be relied upon to exert, with vigor, their God-given right to be stupid, Odd Thomas whispered as Ruth slammed the door shut behind Erica.

Never a truer word, Odd.

Every nerve in Ruth’s body felt frayed, exposed and tender. With a frenzy, she began to empty the contents of her two suitcases and the black sacks onto the bed. She doubled things up on hangers but still was unable to fit everything into the wardrobe. She hung their coats on the back of the one chair they had, looking around, trying to work out how she could turn this room into a home.

Who was she kidding? This would never be a home for them. It looked exactly like what it was: a small hotel room, crammed full of nothing. How had they come to this?

She grabbed her bleach spray and began to scrub the sink in the bathroom, frantically trying to remove years of inbuilt grime and dirt. And she felt herself sink into a vat of sadness and anxiety. Every bone in her body ached. Her eyes felt heavy. If she could just sleep. But then the sound of a drill on the street below filled their room. She checked the windows to make sure they were closed. But the noise kept coming. The lighting in their room was too bright and hurt her eyes, so she pulled the grey curtains tight.

‘Mam?’ DJ asked, hovering close to her. Like a car with no brakes, his mam was going to crash. He had to be ready to rescue her.

One, two, three …

Her bed was in the wrong position. It should be facing the other way. But she had no more energy.

Pop, pop, pop.

DJ watched her hit the wall, head on. Ruth’s anxiety spilled over until her body shook in response.

Ruth felt her arms and legs go heavy, her head buzzed until the pain became unbearable and she fell into a ball on the bed. She could feel DJ’s eyes on her, watching her, as he always did.

DJ’s voice whispered in her ear, ‘It’s going to be OK, Mam. Go to sleep and it will all be better when you wake up.’ He had been only three years old the first time he helped to calm Ruth down. He didn’t understand why his mama had got so upset when they were shopping and the fire alarm went off. He thought it was really cool when the big fire engine came. But he did understand that she was scared. And he loved her so very much, he would do anything to take away her fear. He knew she liked listening to her music through her headphones, so he gently placed them on her head and said, ‘DJ make Mama better. There, there, Mama.’ He wrapped his arms around her and snuggled into her back. She was warm and soft. He loved snuggling with his mama.

Ruth closed her eyes as she felt her son’s soft hands gently place her headphones on her head, as he had done hundreds of times before. And while she could not thank DJ at this moment, she was grateful more than he would ever know. For now, she let the music take her to her safe place, away from the pain, away from the chaos, away from here.

10

RUTH

Ruth woke up feeling disorientated. She heard muffled sounds coming from either side of their room. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She blinked her eyes twice to get used to the darkness and make out her surroundings.

She was in The Silver Sands Lodge.

‘DJ?’ she called out to the darkness. Silence.

Once her mind had again caught up to her new normal, Ruth reached over to locate the light switch. Bright lights filled the room, eliminating the darkness. She looked at her watch. It was nearly 4 p.m. She had been asleep for over three hours. She could not remember the last time she had slept during the day. She was not a good sleeper at the best of times but she supposed this was new territory.

While she slept, DJ had made efforts to make their room look more like home. He had placed her favourite soft green chenille throw over her. At the end of the bed was her green velvet cushion. DJ had also placed his Liverpool FC throw and cushion on the bed beside hers. Oh, DJ. She was wrong earlier. This room could be their home. Because home was wherever DJ was.

She needed to see him, to tell him that. She picked up her phone, knowing he would have sent her a text message, letting her know where he was.

Going out to explore. Back soon, DJ.

Where are you?

Her stomach reminded her that she had not eaten since breakfast. It appeared she had lost her appetite around the same time she lost her home. Her jeans felt looser this morning when she slipped them on. She could not afford to get ill. She had to be strong in mind and in body if she was going to get them both through this.

Back in five, DJ pinged back to her. She would have to talk to him about taking off like that. He was streetwise, but he did not know this part of Dublin.