Solace of the Road

by Siobhan Dowd

  There wasn’t much to say to that. Phil sighed, like being a vegan was a tragedy, and got lost in his own sad vegan dream, with his face glued to the road, and the miles got eaten up quiet, with the radio rambling. If I was a vegan I’d be sad too. We passed pubs and lay-bys and hedges. I looked at the road signs and tried to figure them out. There were loads shaped like lollipops, sometimes with three strips on them, sometimes two and sometimes one.

  We hit another stretch of dual carriageway and the tyres rolled smooth.

  A song came on the radio and Phil turned it up. ‘My favourite tune,’ he said. ‘“Katie Cruel”.’ I was expecting some old bit of pop but instead it was this lady sounding like she was being strangled by a boa constrictor, singing words that didn’t make sense:

  ‘ If I was where I would be,

  Then I would be where I am not …’

  My brain did a spin with all the Ws. The trees by the road quivered with leaves. They blew in the wind and went white. ‘ Through the woods I’m going …’ Then there was a tree in the middle of a meadow with no leaves. It was dead and bare and sad for itself. ‘Through the boggy mire …’ Phil sang along with a reedy voice and I wished for cotton wool, the combination of the lady with the strangled voice and Phil was that disastrous. ‘Straight way down the road back home to my heart’s desire….’

  A grin landed on my face at the two of them yowling like two homesick dogs.

  Then the song ended and the countryside changed. A sign said WELCOME TO GLOUCESTERSHIRE. Phil turned the radio down. ‘That’s what I call a real song,’ he said.

  ‘Telling me,’ I lied.

  ‘Country stuff’s my favourite. What’s yours?’

  ‘I’m more of a rocker.’

  ‘A rocker?’

  ‘Yeah. Drums. Electric stuff. Y’know.’

  There were hills in the distance and I saw a church spire sticking up. Then we passed a sign saying STRAWBERRY STALL AHEAD. Soon after there was a van parked in a lay-by with a table covered in boxes of bright red fruit and my stomach made a groan and wham! I remembered it was my birthday again.

  11 June. Holly with green leaves and prickles, but no berries.

  Strawberries always remind me of my birthday. At the Home we used to put all our birthdays on the wall planner, Miko’s too, so nobody’s would be forgotten. If it was yours, you got to choose dessert and mine was always strawberries and cream. I was in charge of putting the candles on the cake in the shape of whoever’s age it was and Miko always let on his age was twenty-three, every year.

  I thought of telling Phil it was my birthday, but then he’d ask how old I was.

  ‘May as well stop for some food,’ Phil sighed.

  ‘Sounds like you don’t like eating much,’ I said.

  ‘Out here on the road, all I ever eat is beans on toast with tomatoes.’

  ‘Can’t you have chips if you’re vegan?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nine times out of ten, they fry the sausages in the same oil.’

  My stomach rumbled at the thought of a sausage.

  We went through a tunnel of trees and the road dipped and then we pulled off at a sign that said SERVICES. There was a restaurant and a petrol station. Phil parked up in a special place for trucks. He opened up this small compartment near the gearstick and I saw pound coins and silver in there plus some notes, thrown in careless. He took a couple of notes.

  ‘D’you want to come in or stay here?’ he asked.

  I twirled my hair.

  ‘You hungry?’

  ‘I could murder a sausage,’ I admitted.

  ‘You couldn’t,’ Phil said. He smiled and his whole face crinkled like sun breaking through. ‘Sausage is dead already, remember?’

  I smiled back. ‘Guess it is.’

  ‘But I’ll buy you one if you like,’ said Phil. ‘Come on.’

  So in we went, the vegan truckie and Solace the glamour girl, the strangest pair ever to come out of a lorry-load of cheese.

  Twenty-seven

  The Birthday Party

  The place was full of big men with bulging bellies and tattoos, just like you imagine truckies. Phil was a blade of grass among them and his sandals looked weird with everyone else in trainers. People stared as I strolled by in my zip-up top with the mint and rose dress peeking beneath and the high heels tip-tapping the lino.

  Phil ordered the food. He asked if I wanted an egg and I said how eggs and me didn’t agree. I got a table near the back and Phil brought me over a plate with two sausages and two slices of toast. I bolted them like a dog and wished I could lick up the salty juice left on the plate. He’d also got me a cup of milky tea with steam coming off. I poured sugar in and drank it and a tingle went into my fingers and brain. It was the first cup of tea I’d ever had and it was good.

  Phil was chasing his last baked bean around his plate and still had his black tea to drink when I finished. ‘Thanks, Phil,’ I said. ‘That was great.’

  Phil blew on his tea. ‘Never seen a sausage disappear so fast.’

  ‘What were the beans like?’

  ‘Same as beans anywhere.’

  ‘D’you get bored of eating beans?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘How long’ve you been a vegan, Phil?’

  ‘Since last year.’

  ‘What made you give up meat?’

  ‘I gave up dairy then. Meat was before, when I was a kid.’

  ‘Why?’

  Phil looked down at the last bean. ‘My dad brought me to this sheep market when we were on holiday. A place called Week St Mary. Every time they sold a pen of animals for slaughter they’d punch a hole in their ears the size of a coin.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Yeah. Blood trickled down their ears and necks and the sheep baaed like they were being tortured.’ Phil got out a pouch of tobacco and started rolling a fag. ‘It put me off.’

  I stared. He didn’t seem the type to smoke.

  ‘As for becoming a vegan,’ he said, ‘I did it for my health.’

  His roll-up was all skinny and limp and wonky. ‘Want me to make you one?’

  The truth is, I didn’t fancy it. I hadn’t smoked in ages on account of being skint. Clip-clop went Ray’s garden shears in my head.

  ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘Thanks, but I’ve given up.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. Like you and the cheese. For my health.’

  Phil slapped his thigh like I’d cracked a good joke. The crinkle came back in his face and his brown eyes twinkled.

  I leaned over. ‘Hey, Phil. Can I tell you a secret?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘It’s my birthday.’

  ‘What? Today? Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘With Mam sick and my stuff nicked, I forgot.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘ ’S top secret.’ I looked at my fingernails and realized I’d been chewing them. ‘I’m older than I look,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s have another tea to celebrate,’ Phil said. ‘My cigarette can wait.’ He went back to the counter and came back with a slab of strawberry cake along with the tea.

  ‘Aw, Phil. You didn’t have to. That’s my fave.’

  ‘I asked for candles but they didn’t have any.’

  ‘I’ll just pretend they’re there,’ I said. I shut my eyes and wished, and what I wished is secret because if you tell, it won’t come true, then I opened them and blew out the pretend candles and Phil clapped like I’d blown them all out in one and chirped a loud ‘Happy birthday’, and suddenly all the truckies in the café were clapping, and were my cheeks on fire.

  ‘D’you want some?’ I asked, digging in the fork.

  ‘Can’t,’ said Phil. ‘I’m a vegan, remember?’

  ‘Not even a strawberry off the top?’

  ‘There’s only three,’ he answered, smiling. ‘And they’ve all got your name on them.’

  I munched away. It was sponge and jam and strawberries and cream and I don’t know when a bir
thday cake tasted better.

  Twenty-eight

  The Scenic Route

  Phil smoked his fag and we went back to the lorry. I saw a fat truckie in the next one down struggling to get into his cab.

  ‘You’re not like other truckies,’ I said as we drove off.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You remind me of someone. A friend. And he’s no truckie.’

  Phil headed back to the road. ‘I’m only doing it temporary,’ he said. ‘I’m planning my next move.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What?’

  ‘Dunno. It’s just quivering on that horizon like a mirage.’ He took a hand off the wheel and pointed to the faraway blue hills. ‘I can nearly see it. Only not quite.’

  I laughed. ‘You even sound like Miko. Miko’s always saying how the road’s like a key to the mystery of life.’

  ‘Miko? Who’s he?’

  ‘An old boyfriend. We’re just friends these days.’

  ‘He has a point.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  ‘Miko? He’s a key worker.’

  ‘A key worker? Like he makes locks?’

  ‘Nah. A key worker’s someone who works for social services.’ I nearly said ‘in a children’s home’ but I stopped myself just in time.

  ‘Social services? Like a social worker?’

  ‘Yeah. Before that he was a punk rocker.’

  Phil shook his head. ‘Never did get the hang of that. I’m strictly a country man.’

  That was sad, very, so I said nothing.

  ‘And you’re a rocker, you say?’ Phil asked after a bit.

  ‘Yeah. Storm Alert’s my fave. And TNT, some.’

  ‘Never heard of those folk.’ His lips drooped a little.

  Then he turned up the radio. It was playing easy-listening tunes that made the sausages in my belly shrivel up. We passed a lay-by with three caravans and trailers and a dog – thin, like a greyhound, sniffing around some gas bottles – and a boy bashing nettles back with a stick.

  ‘Travellers,’ said Phil.

  ‘Travellers?’

  ‘Yeah, you know. Gypsy folk.’

  I turned to get another look. Gypsies are people I like. Nobody else wants them, just like care-babes. I thought to myself, If I get in trouble on this journey, I’ll turn round and head back to them and join them and they’ll give me a bed and a good-luck charm, and by the time the summer’s over I’ll be brown and dusty like them and people will queue up to have me tell their fortunes, on account of Solace having developed second sight.

  ‘Here today, gone tomorrow,’ Phil sighed. ‘Maybe that’s my next move. Take to a trailer.’

  ‘Funny I was thinking just that.’

  ‘Maybe we’re both wanderers, you and I,’ said Phil.

  ‘Yeah. And Miko. He’s a wanderer too.’

  Then Phil slowed coming up to a junction. It said GLOUCESTER A436 left, CHELTENHAM A40 right. And that’s when it happened. He turned left, not right, clean off the road to Wales. Maybe he was a mass murderer after all, taking me to his lair, and I’d end up with my inside bits in polythene bags.

  ‘Where we going?’ I squeaked as we turned, clinging onto the wig.

  ‘Huh? Oh, the Gloucester bypass. Saves time. It’s a short cut. And more scenic.’

  I breathed again. ‘Oh, right.’ The lorry straightened. ‘Scenic. Cool.’

  Then we passed a sign saying HUNT COUNTRY, a second sign saying HUNT COUNTRY, then a third saying 59% SAY KEEP HUNTING.

  ‘What’s with the signs, Phil?’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘The hunting signs? Who’s hunting who?’

  ‘Oh, those. It’s about fox-hunting.’

  ‘Fox-hunting? The hounds and horses ’n’ all?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s mean,’ I said. I thought of the stuffed otter in the museum in Oxford. ‘It’s cruel.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m with the foxes,’ said Phil. ‘Which means I’m on the losing side. They’ll still get hunted, whatever the law says. But hell, look at that view.’ He pointed to the mountains pricking the clouds, a big chunk of country. ‘Beautiful, huh? Soon we’ll be in Wales, the land of singing and hills.’

  Wales. Singing. Hills. I smoothed down my feather fringe in the side mirror and smiled. I counted the sheep in the next field: fifteen, the same as a certain birthday girl’s age.

  And that’s when Fiona’s face flashed through my head, and how the last thing she said to me before I left had been how there was a certain something she had to do for a certain somebody and that was why she’d be home late. I hadn’t paid attention but now I realized: maybe she meant me and maybe the something was to do with my birthday.

  But knowing Fiona she’d probably only intended fetching a carrot cake.

  I bit my lip and stared out the window.

  Warehouses flashed white. Then across a green field I saw a grand old tower. It had a top with four shining points, like a birthday cake with four candles.

  ‘Gloucester Cathedral,’ said Phil. He whistled through his teeth. ‘Passed it so many times and never been up close.’

  ‘Looks just fine from here,’ I said. ‘Up close, maybe it’s a let-down. Like some people – better the less you know them.’

  ‘Sounds like someone’s been giving you trouble.’

  ‘Yeah, too right.’

  ‘A boyfriend?’

  ‘Not mine, my mam’s.’

  ‘She’s got boyfriend trouble?’

  ‘Big time.’ There was a pause. ‘See, Phil, that yarn I spun. About Mam and the surfing and the rock and knocking her head ’n’ all. Wasn’t really like that.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘She’s got concussion all right. And some. This fella of hers punched her face and now she’s two golf balls for eyes.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah. She might as well put her head in a gas oven as hang out with that Denny-boy. He’s a nightmare man.’

  My eyes watered and Phil had to pass me a tissue. The only problem was I was crying years too late.

  ‘We’ll get you down there,’ Phil said. ‘D’you want to phone her?’ He reached into his pocket and passed his mobile over. ‘I should have offered earlier.’

  My mind froze. I nearly said it was OK, I had my own phone, then I remembered mine was supposed to have been stolen, so I took Phil’s and muttered a thank-you. I punched in a series of numbers that was nearly Fiona’s but instead of the last digit I hit the # sign.

  ‘Mam?’ I said. ‘ ’S that you?’

  All I could hear on the end was the whirl of satellite dishes in outer space. Phil hummed softly to show he wasn’t intruding, but how could he not hear every word when I was sitting right next to him?

  ‘I’m on my way, Mam. Friend’s giving me a lift … What? … I’ll be with you this evening, Mam. Don’t you worry. How’s the head? … Where’s Denny, so? … What? You dumped him? Like, you mean, for good? … Hey, that’s great, Mam. Great. We’ll go celebrate when you’re … Yeah. You and me. Champagne. Girls’ night out … What? … Telling me … Ta-ra-la, Mam.’

  I made as if to hang up and handed him back the phone.

  ‘Better?’ said Phil.

  ‘She’s dumped him. Finally.’

  ‘That’s good news, then?’

  ‘Sure is.’

  We drove in silence and Phil turned the radio up. It was country-and-western disaster time but I didn’t care any more. We got back on the A40 and then Phil said did I want to try another scenic route through the Forest of Dean? And I said yes, because the name alone sounded so scenic. Soon we were going up a windy road, past a sign that said:

  LITTLE LONDON

  PARISH OF LONG HOPE

  which cracked me up. It didn’t look like London, not even a small London, and if hope grew long here, that wasn’t London either. Instead of tower blocks there were cream cottages and round hills, a blue sky with frilly white clouds, clumps of trees. The
re were road signs for deer. Any minute a magic white stag would bound across your path and make your wish come true. Sweet dreams are made of this. I smiled. We climbed up a steep hill, then over a low-slung wall came a view to die for. Treetops and houses like dots, and below that, a great river curling round like it had lost its way.

  ‘Look,’ Phil said. ‘The Severn.’

  My heart was in my mouth. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  If I lived here, I thought, in one of those houses with storybook windows, would life be like a storybook too? Would it?

  Twenty-nine

  Down in Devon

  Maybe the beauty made me tired. Yawns came up my throat like armies on the march and soon my head was rolling with the road and I was dreaming.

  Miko was walking over the hill with a backpack, thumbing. When he saw me behind him on the road, he turned and called. I couldn’t hear at first, then the wind brought the words of his crazy song over. ‘Hurry, hurry, Holly Hogan,’ he sang. ‘Before the road disappears …’ I ran to catch him up and fell, and I whirled down to earth like a meteorite and landed on the beach in Devon where Miko took us camping that last summer.

  Grace was lying on the sand, with her lime-green towel and gold bikini and her caramel-smooth skin. Her belly button was winking high, and she made me come and lie with her. I was sorting out her braids. We watched the clouds above, moving slow like giant-breath, and Grace said, ‘If you watch long enough, you float off with them and join the angels. It’s like going to heaven, Holly, without having to die first.’ And Miko had his guitar out, strumming a stretch of chords, and Trim was kicking up trouble down by the breakers.

  ‘One, two, three, four,’ Miko hollered. He was half singing, half bawling, and making up the words as he went along. ‘ You can go on down that road, Holly Hogan,’ he sang off-key. ‘ That bad old road that swallows up your heart. Hurry, hurry, Holly Hogan. Before the road disappears. Before you end up falling, falling …’

  ‘Nah, Miko. Not like that,’ I begged.

  ‘OK, let’s make the road go up, shall we? That good old road that’s like an escalator straightway up to heaven …’ Grace and Trim were yowling, blocking their ears, and Miko’s song was all muddled up with the country song of Phil’s, but I was flying with the beat. If I was where I would be, then I would be where I am not … Miko was waving at me from the hilltop, going, going, gone, clean out of my life. And was being in the truck with Phil a dream I was having down on that Devon beach, or was the Devon beach a dream I was having up in the truck with Phil? And the notes of the song soared upward, like a military jet …