Tom continued, ‘He was about to get his revenge on your landlord but he didn’t do anything. Honestly.’
‘Tell me everything,’ Ruth said.
‘He was going to graffiti the flat with some spray cans. I pointed out the CCTV that was on the street, suggesting it would not be a wise move. We had a chat. He left. No damage done. I promise.’
Ruth exhaled in relief. Then she looked at Tom, alarm once again in her eyes, and said, ‘Did you follow him here?’
Tom held his hands up. ‘No! No! I swear!’ He had not thought of it from a mother’s perspective: that she might add two and two and get six. ‘DJ left Swords that night and I thought no more of him or the incident.’ That wasn’t strictly true though was it? He felt a connection to the kid from the get-go. He thought at first it was because the kid reminded him of Mikey. But he was wrong. He was there when the kid took his first breath. It had created a bond it seemed, that pulled them back together again, all these years later. ‘Last night he was here, in the park, sitting on my bench. I’m not sure who was more surprised, me or him. When you came along we were chatting. I told him to go home too.’
‘You just happened to be here? I find that hard to believe,’ Ruth asked, her head telling her that the coincidence was unlikely, but her heart reminding her of the countless times she’d sat in Dr O’Grady’s surgery and felt safe. And the time when he’d saved her and DJ. She knew without further confirmation that he was speaking the truth.
‘I’m here most days. Every now and then I move around. Like last Saturday. I’ve not been in Swords for years, but the urge took me for some reason. Other than that, I’d never have met DJ there. This is my park. It’s where I live. Honestly.’ Tom looked at her and hoped she believed him.
‘This is very strange … Dr O’Grady.’ And then she realised something else. ‘I saw you on the road. Last week. I picked up your flask.’
‘I realised that too, last night. I thought you looked familiar. Thank you for that. It was kind of you. Call me Doc or Tom, by the way. I’m not Dr O’Grady any more.’
‘I shall stick with Dr O’Grady,’ Ruth replied. She handed him one of the paper cups.
Tom hoped that meant she believed him. ‘I didn’t think you were going to give me that. Thank you.’ He smelled the coffee in appreciation.
‘Five minutes ago I contemplated throwing it over you,’ Ruth said.
Tom knew she was one hundred per cent serious.
‘So you live here? On this bench?’ Ruth asked. He nodded. She looked around her in shock. ‘What happened to you?’ She moved herself a few inches away from her former doctor and the musty, damp smell that he emitted.
He ignored her question. He didn’t have an answer for her. Not one that made any sense.
‘What were you and DJ talking about last night?’ Ruth asked when the silence stretched between them.
‘Life, moving here, you, his friends … that kind of thing. I had no idea that DJ was your son, Ruth. I got just as much of a shock as you did when you walked over.’ Tom turned towards her and he said, earnestly, with truth, ‘But I’ve thought about you on and off, over the years.’
‘And I you. I preferred your Converse, by the way,’ Ruth said, looking down at his clumpy brown hobnail boots.
‘I haven’t worn a pair of those in a long time. How are you, Ruth? You look well.’
‘I am well. Thank you. More than I can say for you,’ Ruth replied.
His answer was a low rumble of laughter.
One boot was dirtier than the other. That was curious. ‘I went back to the surgery to look for you. Before I left Wexford.’
He watched her pop a knuckle and felt a flush of shame. Once or twice he thought of the patients he had left behind ten years ago. But he would be lying if he pretended that it had kept him awake at night.
‘It stopped making sense for me to work there,’ he said.
‘I still do not understand why you are living in this park.’
Tom had spent most of the day trying to work out how to answer this inevitable question. Unsuccessfully. How do you explain something to someone when you don’t understand it yourself?
‘Hello, Doc,’ a voice called out, a welcome interruption. Bones walked towards them leading a heavily pregnant young girl by her arm.
‘Doc, this is Sheila. She’s up the duff.’
‘You don’t say.’ Tom’s sarcasm was lost on Bones.
‘I told her you’d check her out.’ Bones turned towards the young girl and reassured her, ‘Doc’s sound as a pound. You can trust him.’
‘Hi, Sheila,’ Tom said. ‘Take the weight off your feet.’
Ruth moved further along the bench, making room for the young girl. Her poor feet were swollen, almost bursting out of the green runners she wore.
‘How old are you, Sheila?’ Tom asked.
‘Twenty,’ she replied, lifting her chin in defiance, daring them to question her obvious lie.
‘You look no more than fifteen,’ Ruth said, taking the dare. Tom shared her scepticism. This was just a kid and she was in a world of trouble.
‘How many weeks pregnant are you? Do you know?’
The girl shrugged. ‘Maybe eight months. Maybe more.’
‘Have you been to see a doctor before?’ Tom asked. Please say you’ve had ante-natal care.
She shook her head.
Damn it.
Bones inched his way in closer. ‘Her fella doesn’t trust doctors, but that’s not right. My mam swore by the Rotunda Maternity Hospital. Had all of us there. But she won’t go in. She needs your help, Doc.’
‘Where are you staying at the minute?’ Tom asked. Say a hostel. Don’t be outside.
‘We’re squatting in a house down by the quays. No electricity, but we’ve got a little camping stove. And a mattress,’ Sheila said.
When she saw the look of pity that flew across his and Ruth’s faces, she said quickly, ‘Bobby and I are gonna get our own place. And we’ll fix it up and make it special for the baby. I have a cot. I found it in a skip. I’m gonna paint it up and make it real pretty.’
‘Good for you,’ Tom said. ‘And where’s Bobby now?’
Bones mimicked sniffing a line of cocaine behind her back. No further explanation needed.
‘Where are your parents?’ Ruth asked.
Sheila said, ‘I ain’t got no parents. Not any more.’
‘Dead?’ Tom asked.
‘To me they are. My da’s a fucking pervert. And my so-called mother turned a blind eye and ignored it when he crept into my room and my pants. I left a year ago. I’m not going back.’
‘No one is going to make you do that,’ Ruth said. The poor child. What a life to lead.
Tom pulled out his black leather doctor’s case from his rucksack. Then took out his Littmann stethoscope.
‘You still have it. That’s the same one you had when I was pregnant with DJ,’ Ruth said, seeing a flash of the inscription under the silver chest-piece.
‘One of the few things I’ve kept since I left Wexford. I’ve had it since my first day as a junior doctor. I dare say I’ll have it with me the day I die. My mother said when she gave it to me, “All a doctor needs is a stet and pen and he’s set.” She was right,’ Tom replied.
‘What’s the pen for?’ Bones asked.
‘To write prescriptions. But I don’t do much of that lately. Comes in handy for the crosswords, though,’ Tom said. ‘I need to listen to the baby’s heart rate, Sheila.’
They all held their breath as he placed the silver chest-piece on Sheila’s abdomen. And exhaled in relief when he smiled. ‘That’s a strong heart rate. Good. Very good. Would you like to listen?’
Sheila’s eyes filled with tears as he placed the stethoscope in her ears and she heard her baby’s heart beating inside of her. A new life. She had created this.
Filled with wonder she whispered, ‘I think this is the first time I’ve properly been happy in my whole life.’
Bones wiped
his eyes furiously, then turned away.
Ruth looked at the young girl and realised their lives were not so different. ‘Wait until you hold your baby in your arms. It will change everything, I promise you.’
Tom took out his cushion from his rucksack and placed it on the bench. ‘Lie down there, Sheila.’ Once she was as comfortable as she could be on a metal bench, he began to palpate Sheila’s abdomen. ‘Well, you’re at least thirty-seven weeks, by my reckoning. The head is engaged.’
‘Does that mean the baby is coming soon?’ Sheila asked, her voice so low they could barely hear it. She wasn’t ready.
‘I would say within the next week or so. Your boyfriend might not like doctors but for the baby and your safety you need to be under the care of a hospital. You can’t have this baby in a squat.’
‘Bobby said no hospitals. No doctors. They’ll take the baby from me. They’ll send me back to my parents,’ Sheila said, tears welling up in her eyes again.
‘You cannot let that happen!’ Ruth exclaimed.
‘There are charities that will give you assistance in finding a home, support in caring for your baby. You don’t have to do this on your own. There are people I know that will help,’ Tom said.
‘I’d rather die than go home. What if Da did to this baby what he did to me?’ Sheila said.
‘Whatever happens, you are not going back to him. But you need to trust me. Let me get you help,’ Tom said.
Sheila wrung her hands like she was squeezing water out of sheets. Her heart hammered in her chest. She hadn’t met an adult who she could trust. What made this guy any different from the rest of them? Bobby. He loved her. He swore he would take care of her.
‘I met Bobby the first week I arrived in Dublin. He saw me nicking some chocolate from the Spar and he knew that I was a runaway. He left home the previous year. His dad used to beat the shit out of him for sport. He understands what it’s like because he’s been through it before. He takes care of me. He’ll take care of the baby, too. I know he will.’
Tom looked at Bones, who shook his head just the once. So this Bobby was not all Sheila built him up to be.
Ruth turned to Sheila and said, ‘I left home when I was pregnant. I was scared just like you are now. My mother told me that I had to give my baby up for adoption. But Dr O’Grady helped me. You can trust him.’
‘Did you keep your baby?’ Sheila asked.
Ruth nodded. ‘He’s ten years old now, in school. And my life is changed because of him. Dr O’Grady helped me back then. He can help you, too.’ She looked at Dr O’Grady and said, ‘You saved DJ’s life. You saved me, too.’ And with that acknowledgement, Ruth knew that it was now her turn to help him. She did not know what had happened to him, but no matter what, he now had her on his side.
‘Please let me help you too,’ Tom said to the young girl.
Sheila wanted to trust the Doc. She wanted someone to swoop in and save her and the baby; tell her what to do.
‘I’m not really twenty,’ Sheila said. ‘I’m fourteen.’
Ruth felt a tremor of fear run from the tip of her head down through her body. This girl was only four years older than DJ and dealing with so much. How could that be fair?
‘Do you see your parents now?’ Sheila asked Ruth.
Ruth shook her head.
While Tom was not surprised by this news, he was disappointed, and angry too. He had hoped that with time and the joy at being grandparents, they would have stepped up. Ruth had been on her own all this time. Damn them to hell.
‘I need to get back. Bobby will be looking for me.’ Sheila stood up, pulling her jacket around her.
Ruth stood up and took a deep breath. She wanted to help this girl, like she had been helped by Dr O’Grady. She reached over and touched her hand, lifting her eyes to reach the girl’s. ‘You are about to become a mother. You have to put the baby first. This is not about you any more, Sheila. It is bigger than that. Let Dr O’Grady make some calls and find you some help. For the baby’s sake if you will not do it for your own.’
The young girl nodded and walked over to Bones, who was shuffling from one foot to the other. He wanted a cider. He wanted a smoke. But not until he taken Sheila back to the squat.
‘Come back here tomorrow, same time. I’ll have a plan in place for you by then,’ Tom said.
‘I’ll bring her back, Doc,’ Bones promised.
‘Take care of her, Mr Bones,’ Ruth said.
With a half-bow to Ruth, he offered his bony, grubby arm to Sheila.
‘That baby doesn’t stand much of a chance if she doesn’t find a way to get back into the system,’ Tom said.
They both sat back down on the bench side by side. The smell did not bother Ruth as much any more. ‘How will you make calls? Do you need to use my phone? I have a pay-as-you-go. It even has credit on it!’
‘I’ll need Peter McVerry’s help for this one. I’ll head into the shelter tomorrow to ask their advice; use their phone. But thanks for the offer. I’ll remember that, if I need one in future.’
‘Life has changed a lot since we last saw each other,’ Ruth said.
‘It has.’
‘Yet you are still a doctor,’ Ruth said.
Somehow or other, over the years Tom was on the streets, his doctoring crept back up on him again. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just kind of happened. ‘This bench is my surgery now. I’ve patched up a few here over the years. And I do the odd house call.’
Ruth was surprised until Tom continued, ‘House calls to homes under bridges, in doorways, in a squat, behind wheelie bins in the back of supermarket car parks, at the ends of dark alleyways.’
Most of his street patients had neglected themselves for years so their symptoms were more acute and pronounced.
‘Yesterday, a man, a young fella, came to see me here, barely able to walk. Seen him around over the past twelve months. He sometimes drinks with Bones and Lash over the road. I watched him go from a cocky know-it-all to a shadow of his former self. The street has a way of shutting the most exuberant of people up,’ Tom said.
‘What was wrong with him?’ Ruth asked.
‘He had pneumococcal pneumonia,’ Tom replied. ‘His lungs were fecked. I’d say he was walking around outside with that for days. It took me a while to persuade him to go to A&E. But I got him there in the end.’
‘You saved him,’ Ruth said.
Tom shrugged. ‘I do what I can. We’re all in this together, the way I see it. Life has let us down in some way. So I listen to their hearts and sometimes to their stories. Both usually broken. I do what I can.’
He is still a good man, I knew it. ‘You are helping the invisible, Dr O’Grady. But who is helping you?’ Ruth whispered.
Bette Davis whined and laid her head on his knee. He ruffled behind her soft ears and felt a great sadness envelop him. Tom didn’t need help. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
‘How’s The Lodge?’ he changed the subject.
‘I am adjusting to it. It could be worse. I could be on the streets.’
They sat in silence, her words fluttering around the two of them. She glanced at him every now and then, taking in every line on his face, eyes that were once brown, now watered down and grey. Bushy eyebrows with long hairs tangling their way over his lashes, with a shock of white hair and beard. He was the same as he had been ten years ago and yet he wasn’t.
‘What happened to you?’ Ruth asked for the third time.
‘I lost everything,’ Tom finally admitted.
‘Me, too,’ Ruth said.
For now, that was enough questions.
23
RUTH
Then
‘How did you get in?’ Ruth asked her mother, who was waiting for her in the flat.
‘Mark. He’s gone out with a friend for the evening.’ Marian took a sip from a bottle of soda.
‘What do you want?’ Ruth was tired from her walk back from The Rainbow Centre.
‘Where wer
e you?’ Marian hated not knowing what was going on in her daughter’s life.
Ruth replied, ‘It is not your business any more, Mother.’
A flash of anger flew across Marian’s face. She did not like this version of her daughter. Insolent. More than that. Independent.
‘Be careful Ruth. I’m here to give you the chance to apologise. And then you can come home. You are not equipped to live on your own. You need me.’
Ruth said, ‘You might be surprised by how well I am coping without you. And I am not alone. I have friends. And right now, I need to rest. So please leave.’
Marian moved towards her daughter and waved her bottle at her as she said, ‘You will come back home to me. With your tail between your legs.’ Then she walked out, closing the hall door behind her.
Ruth closed her eyes and started to count, right up to eighty-seven, when she heard the slam of the front door at the foot of the stairs. But she could not rest until she was sure that Marian was gone.
For someone who spent most of her time looking at the ground, it was perhaps the cruelest trick of fate that in this very moment Ruth’s eyes were facing straight ahead when she walked onto the landing. She didn’t see the puddle of soda at the top of the stairs. Her legs slipped from under her. She hit the floor hard and rolled down the stairs, one, two, three times until she finally landed with a thud at the bottom.
A pain shot from the bottom of her spine and made her cry out loud.
My baby!
Her abdomen became hard and a dull ache began to form in her back, followed by an uncomfortable pressure in the pelvis. She had read about these. Contractions.
She lost track of how long she lay on the floor, hoping that they would go away, that she was not in labour, that soon she could get to her feet and go back upstairs to rest.
But they did not stop. They got stronger and closer together. She felt panic threaten to overtake her, but remembered Dr O’Grady’s question: Can you be a good parent? This was her first test. She had to save her baby. She scrabbled into her coat pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. She knew who to call. Dr O’Grady had given her his mobile number for emergencies and she believed this to be a perfect example of one.
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