Solace of the Road

by Siobhan Dowd

  Someone was hammering on the door to the ladies. ‘All out, all out. Museum’s closing in two minutes.’

  I looked up at my lizard-skin bag, dangling from the hook on the toilet door. ‘I’m a doll, Mam. A doll,’ I whispered. ‘Not a troll. Honest.’ But Denny’s face and Mam’s voice had faded from my head and the sky house was gone. I was back to the present. Oxford. On the run.

  I shook myself and reached for my mobile phone to see the time. Five o’clock. I couldn’t believe it. The afternoon had gone and I was no closer to finding the A40. Fiona would be home in an hour and she’d find the note. It would be official. She’d call Rachel and the social services and the police. Holly Hogan’s done another runner.

  I stroked the wig on my lap. Nobody could catch the old Holly Hogan in that. You keep going, I told myself. Under your own steam, remember? Ireland. I’d hitch, steal money, whatever I had to do, but I’d keep going.

  So I put the wig back on, brushed it down at the mirror over the sink and splashed some water on my face. Then I stepped back into the hall with the dinosaurs. There was nobody left but a guard. He gave me a piercing look like I was a prime suspect and for a minute I thought he was going to grab me, but then he smiled.

  ‘Shake a leg,’ he said, motioning towards the door.

  As I cruised past him, I remembered the time in the Girl Guides when I was a kid back in the Kavanagh days, how we’d camped in the Science Museum. How daft was that? I’d gone to sleep under a pretend astronaut. Maybe, I thought, I should have taken a leaf from those Guides and stayed locked in the toilet. I’d have had a perfect place to spend the night and keep dry. I could even have raided the donations box near the main door. Then I thought of the brown wax man with pins in his eyes, the mask that looked like Denny-boy, and the sad otter that someone coshed, and I thought, No. I’d rather be out on the streets. Anywhere but here. And I’ve a road to find, remember? The road to Ireland.

  So I trotted past the donations box, through the heavy wooden door and back out into the cool air. It was dry. There was steam coming up from the grass. The trees were rinsed green and fresh. I breathed long and deep and smiled. I’d missed the downpour and the dead things were behind me.

  Sixteen

  Hin-so-fish-shent Cree-dit

  I was back to my glamorous Solace self. I breezed down the street, my spine straight. The only thing was, I was hungry again and cash was low. And where was the A40 and how did I get there?

  I found my way back to the shops. They were closing. I made out a sandwich bar and went in.

  ‘Can I have one?’ I said to the girl. ‘For free, like?’ Trim told me he got food from shops at the fag-end of the day for nothing because else it just goes in the bin.

  The girl looked at her fingernails. ‘What makes you think we do that?’ she drawled.

  ‘End of the day, maybe?’

  ‘We keep our sandwiches over for tomorrow, here.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘ ’S not up to me. It’s policy. Courtesy of the manager.’ She stared at her fingernails some more.

  ‘Nice nail polish,’ I said.

  ‘It’s Arctic Green.’

  ‘ ’S pretty. Cool, like peppermint.’

  ‘You hungry?’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘You skint?’

  ‘Tell me more about it.’

  ‘Take one, then. The chicken mayo and avocado’s my favourite.’

  I grinned and helped myself. ‘Ta a lot. My name’s Solace, by the way.’

  ‘Solace?’ The girl handed me a napkin.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Never heard that name before.’

  ‘No. I was named after a horse.’

  ‘A horse?’

  ‘Yeah. A racehorse.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘My mam and her boyfriend owned a stable, see. It was in Ireland with meadows and a paddock ’n’ all. Mam did the training and he was the jockey. And they had this one horse.’

  ‘Solace?’

  ‘Sister Solace. And she won every single race. We made a packet.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Yeah. And then Denny – that was Mam’s boyfriend – he goes and gambles it all away. So here I am. In England. And skint.’

  The girl giggled. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks. What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘Kim.’

  ‘Say, Kim, d’you know where the A40 is?’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘You know. The road that goes to Wales?’ Kim stared like I’d asked the way to the stars. ‘Never mind. Ta ’n’ all for the sandwich. So long.’

  ‘Hey, Solace,’ Kim called after me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m off clubbing later. Maybe see you there?’

  ‘Where’s there?’

  ‘The Clone Zone. The new place. Where else?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of it. But being skint ’n’ all—’

  ‘Girls go free on Mondays. Up to eleven.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Maybe see you there, then.’

  I walked out of the shop and over to the freako bench where you can’t really sit and bolted the sandwich down. I don’t know when avocado tasted so good. The bells of the city started up. I got out the map and looked up where I was. The A40 snaked across the top bit of Oxford and then westwards and the first place after Oxford was Witney. So if I got the bus to Witney, I’d be on my way. All I had to do was go back to the bus square and catch it.

  I got up and walked what I thought was the right way. Instead I ended up back at the square where the church was and hobbled over the cobblestones to this round yellow dome. I peered in the windows while the bells kept jangling as if the whole city was getting married. Inside the dome were little orange desk lamps and people reading. They might as well have lived on Pluto, the way they hunched over their books. It was bat-wing paradise.

  I don’t know what got into me, but I got my mobile out and started dialling Fiona’s number without really thinking. A recorded voice came on, another one with a posh accent.

  ‘You have insufficient credit to make this call,’ she said. Hin-so-fish-shent cree-dit. She made it sound like a crime.

  The bell-ringings went mad.

  The nail bomb in my head was about to blow.

  Hin-so-fish-shent. It was like the woman was predicting my fate. I switched off the phone and buried it at the bottom of the lizard. I went away from the bells, up a narrow street with vans parked and old cardboard boxes everywhere. ‘Big Issue, Big Issue,’ this guy was bawling halfway down. He was more my type, I thought. Not like those bat-wings in the fancy round building. He had piercings in his ears and nose and cheeks and lips and probably his tongue. Grace called those types ‘magnet people’. You can’t possibly be a mogit if you’re a magnet person. Grace wanted a stud in her tongue something desperate, only she was too chicken to get it done and I wouldn’t go with her because it would’ve made me sick to see it. This guy had enough metal in him to sink the Titanic.

  ‘Roll up, roll up,’ Magnet Man yelled. ‘Big Issue?’ he went, holding out a newspaper that looked like it had been through a million grubby hands.

  ‘No thanks.’

  He grinned. He had gaps between his teeth you could drive a car through. It reminded me of Colette, this girl I knew in the sky house. She lived two floors down and we played broken dollies on the scary stairs, dropping them crash-hard down, far as we could. Half Colette’s teeth had fallen out. Or maybe they’d never grown in the first place.

  ‘Aw, go on, take it,’ Magnet Man said. ‘It’s my last one.’

  ‘Would if I could,’ I said. ‘But I’m cash-free.’

  ‘Cash-free?’

  ‘Skint.’

  ‘You can’t be skinter than me, honey. Not with those clothes.’

  He had holes in his trousers and his T-shirt looked like it had been buried and dug up again. I smiled. ‘D’you know where the square with
all the buses is?’

  ‘Gloucester Green?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll take you there.’

  ‘No need. Just point me.’

  ‘It’s kind of wibbly-wobbly.’ His fingers did a flickery thing under my nose.

  ‘OK. You lead. I’ll follow.’

  He started off up the street. Every ten metres he turned to grin like a deranged fish. ‘What d’you think of Oxford?’ he said.

  ‘Crap-ville.’

  ‘Too right. Where you from?’

  ‘Hampstead Heath,’ I said.

  ‘Nah. Never.’

  ‘It’s true. What about you?’

  ‘Place called Dudley.’ He said Dudley like it was Planet Paradise.

  ‘That explains it,’ I laughed.

  ‘Explains what?’

  ‘It’s where duds come from, right?’

  He turned and wagged a finger at me. ‘Not duds,’ he said. ‘Dudes. Every last one of us.’

  ‘OK. Dudes it is.’ I smiled. ‘Cool dudes.’

  He grinned back. Then he kept on down the road. We crossed streets and turned corners and passed a cinema. Finally we stopped at the corner of the square. The roar of the buses was deafening.

  ‘Here y’are,’ said Magnet Man.

  I looked at his rough stubble and thought if he shaved and brushed up he might be nearly cute. ‘Ta ’n’ all,’ I said.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ he asked.

  ‘London. Going clubbing.’

  ‘Thought you was skint.’

  ‘The boyfriend’s paying.’

  ‘The boyfriend’s paying,’ he repeated in a fruity voice. ‘All right for some. We can’t all wear dresses like yours.’

  I smoothed down the rose and mint-green clouds. ‘D’you like it?’

  ‘You look like a supermodel, darlin’.’

  No one had ever told me that before. Grace said I badly needed to lose ten pounds, get hair-thickener and stretch my neck. Trim said I looked all right in the right light. I grinned at the magnet man and he laughed. So I leaned over and whispered, ‘I nicked it.’

  ‘Way to go, girl,’ he said. ‘Wick-ed.’

  ‘Ta-ra-la, so,’ I said. I did a royal wave with my wrist spiralling and he drifted off back the way we’d come.

  I wandered round the square until I saw a man selling tickets. I didn’t like approaching officials but I figured Solace was safe. I asked him how to get a bus to Witney and he said it wasn’t from the square but somewhere else I’d never heard of. So I said where was that and he started saying it was down and around and right and left and my eyes glazed over, so then I asked how much was the fare and he said it wasn’t his bus company but he’d guess about four quid.

  Which left me snookered.

  Hin-so-fish-shent cree-dit.

  Seventeen

  Safe in the Dark

  Oxford was starting to feel like glue. I remembered Miko saying how when he hitched rides on the road he tried never to get set down in a big city because getting out again is a pain and was he right.

  It would be night soon and where would that leave me?

  I left the square and walked around and that’s when I saw the Clone Zone. It took up half a street and it was shut. I looked in the door but the place was dead. It was too early. A sign said it opened at eight thirty.

  Then I had my idea.

  I’d cruise out the night in Oxford and hit the road again in the morning. For now, I’d maybe take in a movie, then the club, since girls went free tonight, and have a blast. I’d never been clubbing before on account of looking too young. But as Solace, I reckoned I could blag my way in anywhere. Who knows? Maybe I’d meet some guy with a sports car who’d drive me halfway to Fishguard. Or maybe Kim and I would get together at the club and she’d have a car and together we’d drive up a storm.

  In my dreams. But at least indoors I’d be safe and dry, not alone out there in the dark streets with lunatics, drug addicts and axe murderers. Not to mention the police, prowling around, waiting to pick you up and slam you in a cell.

  I headed back towards the cinema I’d passed earlier and drifted in.

  There’s this trick Trim, Grace and I did to see a free film. You check out a screen where the show’s already started. By then they’ve given up on checking tickets. You cruise in. If anyone stops you, you say you had to use the toilet and your mate’s got the tickets. But they hardly ever do.

  So I slipped in and sat down in front of this big screen, only the seats were not even one-tenth full. And no wonder. The film was a turkey, flat out.

  I’d have preferred Titanic any day.

  Eighteen

  The Clone Zone

  When the lights came up, I yawned and strolled out into the evening. The air smelled of Indian food, and people lounged round like the night would never come. As for the Clone Zone, it was a whole different story. Men in suits and shades stood at the door like they were robots protecting their space rocket. A queue had formed and the doors were open. Boys –some shrimps, some big – and girls – loads of them, in tight tops – nattered non-stop. The place was high with ten types of perfume.

  I was in business.

  I parked behind a gang of ten screeching like they were already inside drowning out the music. I let the lizard slip halfway down my arm to look more casual. I stuck out like Dumbo the Elephant with nobody to talk to. I stood in line and counted my fingernails. Then I remembered the mobile. I could always pretend I had credit. I could always pretend Grace or Trim was on the other end. So I got it out, switched it on, and started nattering into it big time.

  ‘Yeah, Grace,’ I crooned. ‘Flat-out gorgeous … What’s that? … Yeah. Too right … Ireland. Yep. That’s where I’m headed. Mam’s waiting. She’s got me this dancing job, all lined up … You’d better believe it, hon, because—’ A beep on the phone interrupted me. Voicemail. So I pressed 1 and Fiona’s voice started up.

  ‘Holly. Holly? Where are you? I just got back. I just found the note, Holly. I don’t know what this is all about. Please ring me. I’ll try again in ten minutes and then, well, I’ll have to phone Rachel, Holly. Please ring me. I’m sorry I was late, I—’

  I didn’t listen to any more. I threw the phone back in my bag like a hot coal. I whistled through my teeth and the line started moving.

  I shook my head to get Fiona out of it, only her bleating voice was like a bad sofa-spring digging into me.

  Close to the doors, I got nervous. I remembered the time I’d gone clubbing with Grace and Trim and had to run. Grace got in because she was five foot nine, then Trim did because they were short of boys, but I’m just average height and a girl, so the bouncer asked me for proof of my age and I had to scram. Grace was wild. She didn’t want to go in with just Trim on account of Trim acting like a head-case. So she ditched out, then Trim did. That was the night we raised hell on the street instead and I landed in the secure unit and it was all that bouncer’s fault.

  When I got to the front this time, one of the clones raised his shades and stared at me. I knew not to look away. I stroked the ash-blonde locks and smiled. He nodded and waved the gang in and me too, thinking I was with them. The boys stopped at a ticket booth to pay but not the girls. They breezed through like they owned the place and I coasted along with them, a grin from ear to ear that I’d made it. Another clone thrust me a card.

  PRESENT THIS AT THE BAR FOR YOUR FREE DRINK

  Being a slim-slam girl really got you places.

  Inside, it was a factory. The music thudded like heavy machinery. The ceiling was low-slung with pipes and wires, and two searchlights swooped the space. An empty dance floor winked with different colours, lit from below. It had squares of red, black, blue, yellow, and never two together, like the house doors on Mercutia Road. The bar was sleek and silver with mauve lights and upside-down bottles. Men in black vests hip-hopped behind, pouring things out for a line of girls. The sofas near it were covered with zebra-stripe fabric.

  I lo
oked around and cruised to the bar.

  I knew what to ask for. Grace told me about this shot called Baby Guinness. It looks like Guinness, but it’s actually coffee liqueur and Baileys. It’s dark and creamy and Grace said she liked it because it’s sweet and black like her and I wanted it, because I’m Irish and Guinness is our national drink.

  I put in the order and the guy went to it.

  ‘Some speed,’ I yelled.

  He grinned. ‘Simple when you know how,’ he bellowed. He made a Baileys bottle do a somersault on ‘how’ at the same time as he sent a glass flying through the air from one hand to the other.

  ‘Fab!’ I shouted.

  The barman twizzled round and pushed the drink across the bar and waved me on. Know what? I still had the card for the free drink. I walked away and cackled through the R & B beat. Then I nearly dropped the drink when a searchlight landed on me. I froze like an escaped prisoner. And that’s what I was, a prisoner on the run. I scurried to a corner table out of the searchlight’s path. The sandals were like animal traps cutting into my feet, so I sat down. I checked out the wig tabs. I meant to make the drink last but instead I kept sipping so as not to seem a spare wheel. The liquid went down, black, thick, cool, frothing up on my top lip. I licked it off.

  Your name’s made out of cloud, Holly.

  I looked around. Nothing. It was Ray’s voice, echoing in my head, not the club. I put my hands to my ears to drown it out.

  The voice didn’t come again, but through the thumpety-thud of the beat I swore I heard my mobile doing its Arabian Nights tune from the bottom of my bag. Ray or Fiona. Bound to be.

  I got the thing out and, sure enough, Fiona’s name was on the display. This time I turned the phone off, opened it up and took the SIM card out, then put it all in the lizard and downed the last of my drink in one.

  And I thought how maybe I’d flog the phone first chance and get some money together and hit the road again.

  Then I went up and got another Baby Guinness from a different barman. I fluttered my eyelashes at him as hard as I could, but this time he made me hand the card over.