by John Marrs
‘Plug this in,’ Tommy said, handing Lee his iPhone.
As the green traffic light turned red and the Mini accelerated across a junction, Tommy lost his grip of the phone and it bounced off Lee’s thigh and into the driver’s footwell.
‘Tommy, you dick,’ barked Lee, unclipping his seat belt to fumble around for the phone.
For a split second, Tommy noticed a dark shadow through the lens of his camcorder but it moved too quickly for his eyes to process what it was.
Suddenly the brothers’ world became deafeningly loud and turned to black as the shadow ploughed into the side of their car, forcing it to roll over twice before it settled on its side.
TODAY
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ barked Eric, interrupting Tommy’s recounting of his past and Nicole’s gradual understanding of the vulnerability of the boy standing before her in the kitchen.
‘Sorry, it’s my fault, I asked for Nicole’s help,’ replied Tommy.
‘Could I have a word, Nic?’ Eric glared.
‘Um, sure.’
‘In private?’
Nicole followed Eric from the kitchen and down the corridor before he came to a halt. The smell the beer remained on his skin.
‘I’ve been standing downstairs like a twat waiting for you, but surprise, surprise, you’re up here with him,’ he began heatedly.
‘What’s your problem with Tommy?’ Nicole replied, startled by his outburst.
‘I don’t have a problem with Tommy,’ Eric continued, trying to control his frustration. ‘What I do have a problem with is being left alone while you make a fool of yourself.’
‘Jesus, Eric. I’m getting sick of your mood swings today.’
‘I don’t trust him. He’s probably tried it on with every girl here.’
‘He’s not like that, and what business would it be of yours if he had? I can look after myself.’
‘Yeah, you did a great job with Pete, didn’t you?’
Nicole scowled at Eric, angry that he would bring up such a painful memory to use against her. ‘That’s not fair,’ she replied quietly as Eric instantly regretted his choice of ammunition. He softened his tone accordingly.
‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. But I’m your best friend, Nic, and if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have even known Pete was screwing around on you. I’m a good judge of character, so trust me on this, Tommy’s no good. I’m a bloke, we know this kind of thing.’
Nicole said nothing and her eyes sank to the floor.
‘Look, we’re here for a reason,’ he continued. ‘Maybe thousands of pounds worth of reasons. All I’m saying is don’t let some kid you hardly know get in the way of that. Now come here.’
Eric put his arms around Nicole and kissed her on the cheek. She always felt safe when she was with Eric even when he was thoughtless, but she was reluctant to believe Tommy had any agenda. He was right when he told her about travellers wanting to share their lives with others in short spaces of time. But it wasn’t something she could reciprocate.
‘Let me help him out with dinner, and I promise I’ll be down in fifteen minutes,’ Nicole conceded.
Eric nodded his approval and Nicole headed back into the kitchen.
‘Everything okay?’ asked Tommy chirpily.
‘Yes, it’s fine’ replied Nicole, and said very little else during the rest of their fifteen minutes together.
CHAPTER 14
DAY TWO
Matty and Declan left the cooling ocean water in just their underwear and made for the towels they’d left spread across Venice’s sandy beach.
‘I can see your lil’ fella,’ began Matty, pointing to Declan’s boxers, the water having made them transparent.
‘Less of the “lil’”,’ Declan replied, and rubbed his hair with his towel. ‘It was fecking cold in there.’
Their walk from Santa Monica via Venice Beach Boulevard in the blistering heat had been exhausting, especially with two bulging rucksacks strapped to their backs. So their brief respite in the ocean had been a welcome diversion.
Despite not having stepped inside a gym for the best part of a year, Declan was grateful good genetics meant his chest and arms retained their muscular shape. He’d used the last squirt of sun block earlier that morning, and with each passing hour he felt his milky Irish skin reddening further.
‘I’ll kill you if they’re fully booked after days on that stinking fecking thing,’ warned Matty, and took a swig of water.
‘It was your idea to save money and go freight-train hopping.’
‘You’re supposed to be the sensible one and talk me out of crap like that! Besides, we could’ve managed a Holiday Inn if you hadn’t blown our money in Reno trying to be Billy Big Bollocks in front of the showgirls.’
‘Where else am I going to find a bird with firm breasts and feathers stuck to her arse?’
‘A henhouse?’
Their arrival in Los Angeles early that morning was the culmination of a five-day expedition riding the railways from Seattle to Idaho, then the length of Nevada, cross-country to Utah before finally reaching LA. Although strictly illegal, freight train hopping was the cheapest way to travel long distances and witness parts of America that couldn’t be negotiated by car or bus.
An article in a Reader’s Digest magazine Matty found in a hospital waiting room in Florida gave him the inspiration to trek by boxcar. The written recollections of former rail-riders got him wondering what it must have been like to travel the country in search of new jobs and new beginnings during America’s Great Depression. In reality, it had proved an ordeal, and much more precarious than his naive imagination had anticipated.
The first hurdle was finding freight yards where trains and their boxcars passed through or were parked up. Then once a slowed-down train was in sight, they had to run to keep up with it, promptly pick a carriage with an open door then hurl themselves and their luggage into it. Twice they’d failed and had been forced to wait ten hours for the next train to pass.
Once inside, their final hurdle was to stay alive, because maneuvering around a fast-moving carriage was awkward and clumsy and would regularly result in them being hurled around like wrestlers in a ring. The sound of the grinding wheels on the steel tracks was often so deafening, they’d insert their in-ear headphones to nullify the noise.
The nights were cold and the carriages stank of the products being transported. For two of their six journeys, they’d picked the wrong boxcars and slept on bags of fertiliser and boxes of bottled bleach. Another was spent in an open carriage, zipped up head to toe in sleeping bags to protect them from the 60 mph winds. Only their last journey was more pleasant, tucked up amongst crate after crate of mattresses, computer games consoles and Blu-ray players.
Matt and Declan learned to avoid other freight train hoppers. Often, they were nomadic souls unwilling to have their space invaded or were suffering addictions to narcotics or alcohol and wanted to rob you at knifepoint. Matty noted the magazine story failed to mention any of those perils.
Only once during a routine check at a station in Utah had an armed security guard discovered them. But experience had taught them they could get away with a lot if they exaggerated their accents and asked Americans if they had any Irish in their heritage. Invariably their interrogator would say yes, and claim to be one tenth Gaelic, to which Matty and Declan would respond that they’d known immediately. Then they’d then be left alone to go about their business by their flattered and gullible distant compatriot. But as uncomfortable and anxious as they’d often felt, it had been the journey of a lifetime, and they’d seen more of America than most of its natives.
Once they finally reached LA, and reeking of train grease and body odour, they made their way to the coast and charged straight into the ocean to clean up.
As they walked along the beachfront, Declan removed his T-shirt, dousing it with water from a bottle attached to his belt, and wrapped it around his head. Meanwhile Matty’s sweat-sodden shirt
clung to his skinny body and he felt one of the blisters on his heels burst and weep inside his dirty white Converse trainers. The straps of his rucksack dug into his bony shoulders and chaffed.
‘Hold up, this is the place, said Matty suddenly, pointing to the dilapidated building ahead of them.
‘Here we go,’ Declan replied, staring at the faded sign reading Venice Beach International Hotel. ‘Another shithole we can’t afford.’
‘But we always find a way, don’t we?’ replied Matty, patting his rucksack and grinning. ‘And this time we have a secret weapon.’
CHAPTER 15
In the 217 days since Tommy and Sean’s plane taxied towards its stand at New York’s JFK airport, much of the £8,000 Tommy had carefully scrimped and saved had been spent on travel, accommodation, food and alcohol.
Now with a depleted bank balance and mounting credit card bill, he was a beggar who couldn’t afford not to choose the hostel jobs manager Ron threw at him. So he worked eight-hour days across a variety of tasks from cleaning to cash and carry food shopping to pay for his bed and board.
For the rest of the morning until Sadie took over, Tommy was on rota to cover the reception desk. Bored and with no one to talk to, he fiddled with the aerial on the television set to get a sharper picture then resisted the temptation to peek under his bandage to see how his cut hand was healing.
He grabbed a pile of magazines and stacked them on a shelf, colour-coordinating their spines. He picked out a couple of roll-up cigarette butts from the always-close-to-death-but-never-quite-there Yucca plant and sniffed them. He recognised their familiar cannabis scent before flicking them in the bin; while smoking dope was commonplace in dorms and on the roof, it was an activity he was wary of.
He thought back to the conversation he’d begun the previous night with Nicole, the only person on his travels he’d ever told about the car accident that changed the course of his life. And even then, he hadn’t explained to her the complete story because that was a can of worms best left unopened. So in retrospect he was glad Eric had interrupted them even if Nicole’s mood had shifted somewhat on her return.
‘Tommy!’ yelled Sadie’s voice from upstairs in the lounge. He recognised her distinctive bossy New York twang immediately and wondered why, even though he was her equal on the reception desk, she appeared to believe he was her employee. ‘Get your ass up here.’
‘What’s up?’ he replied, narrowing his eyes.
‘Now!’
Tommy took the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the lounge he offered a puzzled frown before launching into peals of laughter.
CHAPTER 16
‘I’m not sure I really get it,’ began Eric, removing his shades and turning 180 degrees to gain a better view of Venice Beach boardwalk and its colourful residents.
‘What’s not to get?’ asked Nicole.
‘I just don’t get the appeal or why the guidebooks say it’s so special. It reminds me of Blackpool but with a better beach.’
Confused by his indifference, Nicole’s patience wore thin and she put her hands on her hips. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’
She and Eric followed the route Tommy had taken her a day earlier, before kicking off their flip-flops and making their way across the warm, sparkling sand. The beach was quiet, apart from a few families eating picnics close to the ocean’s waves. In the distance they could barely make out Santa Monica pier as the sun hid behind clouds of smog. But a hundred metres out to sea, brightly coloured sails bobbed up and down as windsurfing boards glided across the water’s surface.
Eric removed his everyday rucksack, took out two plastic bottles of Sprite and placed them on either end of a weathered road map to stop the light breeze from carrying it away. Nicole flicked through the dog-eared pages of an atlas, skipping past pages of towns leading off Route 66 they’d circled in red.
‘So we went where we thought we were supposed to go,’ began Nicole, ‘and that was following Route 66 from where it starts in Illinois and ends in Santa Monica.’
‘I was there, Nic, I can remember this.’
‘I know, I’m just saying it out loud to get it clear in my head. And somewhere en route, we missed what we were looking for. So our options are this: reread her letter, take a closer look at each town on the Internet, or completely retrace our steps.’
‘Are you kidding me? It’s a miracle that truck has made it 3,000 miles – there’s no way in hell I’m doing that journey again.’
‘I don’t think we need to. I have a feeling we are in the right neck of the woods, give or take a few hundred miles.’
‘And do you have any thoughts as to what we’re going to find when we get there?’
Nicole shook her head. ‘Not a bloody clue.’
ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER – LONDON
Nicole fanned herself with her hand as the digital clock on the TV above Mrs Baker’s bed hit 21.00 hours.
‘It’s a bit hot in here, isn’t it?’ Nicole asked and went back to painting Mrs Baker’s fingernails. Her shift had ended an hour earlier, but Nicole wanted to find a way of cheering up her patient and friend. Mrs Baker’s nails were grey like her skin, so Nicole added French tips and painted them a deep red. She smiled at her handiwork and wondered if she should have stuck with her original post-A levels plan and trained as a beauty therapist instead of a nurse.
Mrs Baker was sitting upright for the first time in days, albeit awkwardly and with pillows supporting her aching back and neck. ‘Before Joseph opened the jeweller’s we spent the first eighteen months of married life backpacking around the world,’ she recalled. ‘India, South Africa, Australia and America. It was quite a wild thing to do back then when everyone else our age was settling down and having babies.’
‘That sounds incredible,’ said Nicole.
‘Oh it was, dear. Joseph and I travelled Route 66 in 1971. We bought a brand new pick-up truck in New York and started from the road’s origins in Chicago and drove all the way over to California, visiting everywhere from big cities to ghost towns. The happiest night of my life was when we pushed the seats down and slept by the banks of a lake. The wind was cold, we had the heater on full and we just lay there listening to a cassette over and over again.’
Nicole caught herself smiling, trying to imagine being there.
‘“A long, long time ago”,’ Mrs Baker began to sing quietly, ‘“I can still remember how the music used to make me smile.” We stared at the stars shining like diamonds.’
‘I’ve never had the time or the money to travel,’ said Nicole.
‘I’m sure that will change one day. Do you mind me asking what made you become a nurse?’
‘Well, I was thirteen when my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. For years she was in and out of hospitals having tests and treatments and operations and I’d see how hard the nurses worked to make her feel comfortable. And when she lost her battle four years later, I thought it’d keep a bit of her alive if I could help other people.’
‘And now? Because – and tell me if I’m speaking out of place – but you don’t seem too happy with your lot.’
Nicole sighed. Eric once nicknamed her ‘Cling-film Face’ because she was so transparent and, try as she might, she found it near impossible to disguise whatever it was she was feeling that moment.
‘It’s harder than I thought,’ Nicole admitted. ‘I don’t get along with Matron, I never have any money and I have more bags than a Prada catalogue under my eyes. It’s not the life I thought it’d be.’
Mrs Baker clasped Nicole’s hand. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I’m sure your mother would’ve been very proud of you. I know I would be if you were my daughter.’
Nicole blushed. It had been fourteen years since her mother had passed away, and although her father had appeared intermittently throughout her life, it had been a decade since their paths last crossed. She’d grown to understand she didn’t need a relationship with a name on a birth certificate.
‘I
s there a young man in your life?’ continued Mrs Baker, ‘someone to go home to and who cooks you dinner or massages your feet?’
‘No, not since Pete,’ Nicole replied, and for the first time that week, his face appeared from the smoke in her memory. When confronted by the photos Eric had taken and WhatsApped her, Pete claimed the drunken girl had thrown herself at him and the picture was taken from a deceptive angle. But she’d believed her best friend when he’d told her he’d seen them together at least twice before in the bar.
Pete begged his childhood sweetheart to stay with him, and for a while, Nicole remained, but try as she might to convince herself it was just a bump in their well-travelled road, she knew she could never trust him again. Each night he spent out with the boys, or working overtime at the estate agent’s, or the after-hours texts he received made her doubt him. So, with Eric’s help, she packed her clothes and moved out of their terraced house and into a rented one-bedroom flat, leaving behind everything that Pete had tainted with his infidelity.
At first, Nicole missed him terribly. Then gradually, it was their future she missed rather than the man himself. A small piece of her crumbled each time she walked past the hospital maternity unit and saw new parents tenderly cradling their babies, knowing she and Pete would never be like them.
She’d imagined what it could’ve been like if she and Eric had ever stepped over the line, but try as she might, she couldn’t think of Eric in a sexual way. He’d always be like a brother to her. She once broached the subject of co-parenting a child with Eric in a roundabout, joking kind of way, but he seemed dismissive of the idea of being either a hands-on or hands-off father.
And Nicole’s only attempt at a date in the last twelve months had ended when she walked out of the cafe after his first words, ‘Now here’s a girl who likes her food.’ So Nicole vowed to herself if she hadn’t found Mr Right by thirty-five, she would go it alone and explore artificial insemination. While Eric wasn’t willing to supply his sperm, he did supply her with company, nights out and a shoulder to cry on, and not once had he attempted to take advantage of her vulnerability.