A Thousand Roads Home Read online

  ‘It will be your turn soon, you wait and see,’ Aisling said.

  ‘That is most unlikely. Twenty per cent of those on the housing list will remain on it for five years,’ Ruth interjected in an effort to join in.

  Ava and Aisling both turned towards her, Ava in distress, Aisling in irritation.

  ‘Read the room!’ Aisling said. She made a face, nodding her head towards a tearful Ava.

  Ruth looked at the floor, wishing she was an Aisling, someone who knew automatically what to say, how to make Ava feel better. Why did she always find her voice just in time to say the wrong thing?

  11

  RUTH

  Then

  The past couple of months had been difficult, the worst of Ruth’s life. First of all, the man she loved, Dean, disappeared. She missed him. She refused to give up hope that he would return. But the realisation that she was pregnant brought a whole new world of trouble. And telling her mother, dealing with her reaction, was the start of the end for them both.

  ‘A baby? No, that’s impossible,’ Marian had said, picking up her cigarettes.

  ‘Yes, Mother. It is quite possible. I am twenty weeks pregnant.’

  Her mother’s eyes dropped to her abdomen and Ruth automatically placed her hands over it. And then her mother did something that she’d never done before. She threw her cigarettes at Ruth and screamed at her. The box bounced off Ruth’s hands. The blow did not hurt, but the rage behind her mother’s actions did.

  Things had not improved since then. Had Marian told Ruth’s father about the baby? She did not know. She guessed her mother called him to complain that there was an even bigger inconvenience on the way.

  It was Mark who came to her rescue during those awful few weeks after her announcement, unlikely ally though he was. When her mother called him to garner support in her tirade of abuse about the pregnancy, he stood closer to Ruth while Marian ranted and raved.

  ‘You can’t have a baby!’ Marian said. ‘Tell her, Mark. It’s preposterous.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ruth asked. ‘I am perfectly healthy.’

  ‘What if it’s like you?’ Marian replied with a shudder. At that damning question, silence fell over the room.

  Mark broke the silence. ‘Have you listened to yourself, Mother?’ His voice was low and gruff.

  Ruth looked at him in surprise. He sounded angry.

  Mark continued, ‘Seriously, have you actually listened to the fucking shit that comes out of your mouth?’

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Marian screamed, horrified at Mark’s words.

  ‘How dare you?’ Mark replied.

  Ruth and her mother both looked at Mark in shock. He had never stuck up for his sister like this before.

  Marian found her voice and screamed, ‘Get out. Get out. Get OUT!’

  ‘With pleasure,’ Mark said. Then he turned to Ruth: ‘If I were you, I’d get the fuck out of here, too.’

  Three days of non-stop abuse from Marian followed.

  That boy Dean used you. A cheap and easy tart, who fell for his lies.

  You have really gone and done it this time.

  You ruined all our lives when you were born, and this pregnancy will be the final nail in my coffin!

  Ruth would block out her cruel taunts by looking at a slip of paper with a fortune printed on it. A memento from her lost weekend with her soul mate. He had loved her. He would be back. Her old friend Odd whispered to her that she must always hope and persevere. But nevertheless, conclusions had to be made.

  Dean was not coming back to rescue her.

  She was having this baby on her own.

  She needed to do as Mark had said and get the fuck out. Not just for her sake. But for the sake of her unborn child.

  She moved from the village where she grew up and hitched a lift to Wexford town. Fate was on her side, because Pat from the arcade in Curracloe pulled up beside her in his beaten-up Jeep. Ruth did not have any friends, but she had gotten to know Pat over the many summers she had spent on Curracloe beach, buying ice cream from him in the arcade. He did not waste her time offering raspberry or chocolate syrup, as he did with the other kids. Or sprinkles or hundreds and thousands. He took the time to know she liked hers plain, in a tub, not on a cone. That was her way.

  And Pat liked Ruth. She was a good kid once you took the time to get to know her. Not like her older brother, Mark, the little prick. He was forever in the arcade kicking the machines, trying to get them to cough out money. Trouble. Always looking for trouble. And he watched other kids pick on Ruth, letting them call her names. That’s no way to be about family. Pat had had to step in once or twice.

  As Ruth climbed into his jeep, Pat realised that she wasn’t a kid any more. Short cropped hair, not a scrap of makeup on, wearing oversized dark sunglasses. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her without them. They’d been too big for her for many years, like she was playing dress-up with her mama’s things. But now they suited her perfectly.

  ‘Where you off to?’ he asked.

  ‘I am pregnant. I have to leave home.’

  And Pat felt heart sorry hearing this. He remembered all the times Ruth had put coins into the fortune-telling machine in the arcade. He wasn’t sure what she hoped would come spitting out of it. But if Pat could rig it so that it gave her whatever it was her heart desired, he’d do it. He told her he would take her anywhere she wanted to go.

  ‘I am going to Mark’s in Wexford.’

  Pat was pretty sure that Ruth was jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but he held his counsel. Before she said goodbye he pressed a fifty-euro note into her hand. ‘Come back sometime with the baby to see me. Always an ice cream for you and the little one in my arcade. OK?’

  She nodded but she had a feeling that she would not be licking ice creams in the arcade any time soon. She made her way to Mark’s flat, which was at the end of Wexford Quay, opposite the railway tracks. She had been there just once before, when he first moved in and had asked her and their mum around. But he had never asked her to visit since and she was not sure how he would react now.

  His response – ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ – when he answered the door was problematic. She stepped inside, taking it as a good sign that he had not told her to go away.

  ‘I have left home,’ Ruth said to his Nike trainers. They were new and brilliant white. He usually wore Adidas.

  ‘Good for you. Didn’t think you had it in you,’ Mark replied.

  In the end, he let her stay. He did not have much choice, she supposed. She loved Wexford town. A place that was big enough that she could get lost in it, where she could go days without meeting anyone who knew her or thought she was strange. She liked that. She liked that a lot. His flat, without the oppressive disapproval of her mother, was a welcome relief.

  For the first time in her young life, Ruth felt like she was in control. And it was a feeling that she very much approved of.

  12

  TOM

  Now

  Bette Davis growled at the two kids who stopped to snigger at the sleeping Tom, who lay on his park bench, in his sleeping bag.

  ‘Bum!’ they jeered, until Bette growled a little louder and they ran away laughing. The dog moved closer to her best friend, keeping guard while Tom dreamed some more …

  When one of Tom’s patients died, a young mother who had been battling breast cancer for years, Cathy was the only person he wanted to see. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to analyse why it had happened. He just wanted to be with her. And Cathy instinctively got that. She simply fed him, held him and asked no questions. The following day, one of her day-care patients lost his temper and threw a chair through the patio window to the garden. Tom drove over to help her clear up the mess. While he understood that there were times that things happened that were beyond your control, he was terrified that she might ever be in danger. This terror clarified everything for him.

  There were no longer any questions in his mind. He
loved this woman and he wanted the world to know it. He plotted and planned the perfect proposal. He wanted to make it memorable, worthy of the woman he loved. But in the end, all his plans fell in disarray back in the deli aisle of Tesco where they’d first met.

  ‘This is where it all started!’ Tom said, looking at their single trolly this time.

  ‘One clash of our trollies and that was it,’ Cathy remembered with a smile.

  ‘You could never resist me. Me being such a charming fecker,’ Tom joked.

  ‘That is true,’ she answered, kissing him lightly. ‘Now, goat’s cheese-and-spinach pizza, or the triple meat feast?’ She held them both up, waving the goat’s cheese one in front of his face, which he duly pointed to.

  ‘Marry me,’ he blurted out. He couldn’t for the life of him see the sense in hanging around one more moment.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you marry me?’ He moved in closer. ‘I have been planning the most beautiful and perfect proposal, but I can’t wait a moment longer.’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yes!’

  He spun her around, lifting her off her feet. When he put her back down he realised they had gathered quite a crowd around them. ‘She said yes!’ he shouted loudly and they all cheered and whooped for him.

  They had a small wedding a few months later on 18 October, the date they had met.

  ‘I only want people who love us in the church,’ Cathy stated. With just immediate family and friends, they exchanged vows in Cathy’s hometown of Donegal. She walked down the aisle on the arm of her proud father, to the sound of ‘Nella Fantasia’. There was a lot of love in that small church that day.

  Cathy had invoked a speech ban for her father’s sake, a shy man, who hated any public speaking and was more at home on the farm. Tom should have been taken aback when she appeared on the stage, holding a microphone. But he wasn’t. His wife was unpredictable.

  ‘We said no speeches. Well, I said no speeches!’ she conceded when Tom raised one eyebrow. He walked close to the front of the stage, their guests moving in behind him.

  ‘There’s not enough love in this world, is there?’ Cathy asked the small group. And they all nodded in agreement. ‘I sometimes wake up at night and think, what if Tom hadn’t been in Tesco that Friday night, where would we be now? I am astonished that we found each other that night. I am astonished that we fell in love as quickly as we did. I am astonished that despite the whirlwind nature of those first few days, we never stopped in regret, realising we had been swept away. And I am astonished that despite my compulsive cleaning habits, my need to be right, my snoring – yes, my snoring – that Tom still loves me. I cannot wait for a lifetime of astonishments with you, Tom, my love, my friend, my confidant.’

  In his sleep, on the cold, lonely park bench, a tear rolled down Tom’s cheek. Bette Davis’s ears pricked up, her sixth sense telling her that her master needed her. She moved in closer, licking his hand. She would never leave his side.

  13

  TOM

  Tom didn’t like to make plans. He preferred to see where life took him. Over the past ten years it had been full of surprises. He looked up to the grey sky and thought to himself that it was highly unlikely that this beautiful world was done surprising him yet. Take today. On a whim, he hopped on the 41C bus. And on another whim, he jumped off in Swords village and decided to sleep there tonight. It had been years since he’d done that. He preferred to stay close to Fairview Park, the place he called home now. It was getting late. He walked over a stone bridge in the centre of this historic town, looking down at leaves drifting along the inky-blue water of the River Ward with its green grass banks on either side. Bette Davis sniffed an empty Coke can that poked its head through a cluster of weeds that sagged towards the river, as if in protest at the intrusion.

  The sun had shone all day, a fine day for an Irish autumn, but even so, he pulled the collar of his grey overcoat upwards to form a barrier between the breeze and the back of his neck. He’d had a haircut last week and the hairdresser had been scissor happy. The haircut was a trade with Winnie, a woman he met in the Peter McVerry Trust. She was a semi-regular there like himself and they often chatted in the dining hall, both enjoying a good debate. As they discussed the horrific shooting that had occurred that month in Las Vegas, he’d noticed a gash on her hand, red and angry. Winnie was a proud woman and she would not allow him to clean and dress her wound unless she gave him something in return. A haircut was agreed.

  Tom remembered another evening, years before, when he had driven over this same bridge in search of a petrol station. Cathy and he were on a road trip to Belfast and long before Applegreen Services were built to feed and water the travelling nation, diversions to small towns to hunt for fuel were the norm. The car radio was on. Cathy was singing along to a song with Gary Barlow and his Take That pals. What was it? Tom started to hum, trying to remember the lyrics, knowing it would irritate him for days until he remembered what it was.

  Tom looked to his left where the ruins of a castle lay and where he’d spent a large proportion of today. Then to his right where shops and flats lined the path. The town was still busy, cars whizzing by the Main Street pavement. End-of-the-day shoppers and pedestrians moved fast with their heads down. He walked in the opposite direction. Away from all of that. He wanted a quieter area to settle down for the evening. As he explored the estates that surrounded the town the sun began to set. Headlights flooded the roads as cars made their way home after a busy day at work. He wandered into a large housing estate, which had a small cluster of shops in the middle of it. He looked at every doorway and entrance to see if he could find just the right spot to make his own for the night. Bingo. A doorway with a deep inset. Perfect. It belonged to a pharmacy that was now closed for the evening and would give him and Bette great shelter. He laid his rucksack down, guessing he’d walked nearly five or six kilometres today in all. They were both bone tired.

  He heard footsteps before the shadow of their owner appeared around the corner. Bette’s ears pricked up and she whined. ‘Ssh,’ Tom commanded, and she laid her head down on his feet.

  Tom watched a slender figure, dressed in black, walk their way. It had a hoody pulled up over its head. It covered half of the face so it was difficult to decipher gender. But there was something about the swagger that told tales on its owner. It was all boy, that swagger. A nervous one, at that, the way he looked around every few seconds as he walked.

  Tom pondered his next move. He’d just found this sweet spot. He was warm and content exactly as he was. But experience had taught him that it was sensible to be upright when a young fella in a hoody walked by. He hated stereotypes with a passion, but as he’d had four different incidents with ‘hoodies’, all of which Tom came out of the worst, he felt he was justified. Before he had a chance to stand up, the figure walked by. He glanced towards where Tom stood with unseeing eyes. Tom realised that the shadowy inlet hid him.

  Where was the hoody going? He watched him walk across the street and then stop in front of a block of flats. Maybe he was meeting some friends who lived here. If that was the case maybe it was time for Tom to make a move, find somewhere else to sleep for the night.

  The boy had now come to a standstill in front of the long brick wall that surrounded the small concrete yard which sat in front of the flats. His rucksack now pulled off his back, he did another jerky scan of his surroundings. Every move was angry. He placed two spray-paint cans onto the ground beside him.

  Tom felt the tension seep away from his shoulders. This boyo was likely working on his own. He’d do his thing, then with any luck piss off and Tom could start his evening meal. One he’d been looking forward to for hours now.

  The trouble was he found he couldn’t take his eyes off the boy, who was staring at the walls of the flats, his head cocked to one side. Then when a car backfired from somewhere in the estate, the kid jumped at least two feet off
the ground, landing with a thud and a clatter, dropping his cans. He glanced Tom’s way, again unseeing, but this time Tom managed to catch a look at the boy’s face. He was no more than ten or eleven. He looked scared. Something told Tom that he wasn’t watching a seasoned graffiti artist.

  Without plan he was on his feet moving out of the dark shadow of his doorway. Bette jumped up and walked by his side, ready to defend her master if she needed to. The boy sensed he had company and spun around, his body tensed, two hands in fists, raised to his side ready for a fight.

  ‘What you want?’ the boy croaked, all bravado.

  Tom stopped a few feet from him. He thought about that for a minute. What did he want? He was breaking all his own rules about keeping out of trouble, not getting involved. It had taken years for him to work out that best practice was just to turn round and walk away.

  But there was something about this kid … He took another step forward as he said, ‘I’m just here to enjoy the show. Not often I get to see a young Banksy doing his thing.’

  ‘A what?’ Hoody replied.

  ‘Banksy.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Tom despaired of the youth sometimes. ‘He’s probably the world’s most famous vandal.’

  This grabbed the attention of the kid. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Well, I’d suggest you look him up. He’s a street artist at the top of his game.’

  ‘What makes him so special?’ Hoody asked.

  ‘He’s a political activist. He’s a commentator on culture. Some say a legend. He’s an enigma. As I said, you should look him up.’

  The boy shrugged, then turned back to inspect the wall. He looked back with suspicion to Tom.