Solace of the Road

by Siobhan Dowd

  And the road kept on going. More houses, then long grass, and a field with sheep.

  It was open country, nearly as pretty as Ireland, and I could breathe. Was I glad I hadn’t jumped off that bridge, even if my belly felt like somebody was strangling it and I was raging with thirst, and even if I wanted to murder the birds on account of they wouldn’t shut up. But the morning was cool and alive and calm and my feet just kept walking without me telling them to. I imagined Mam on a hill, waiting, watching me get closer every step.

  I put two or three miles under me. Three cars and one truck rumbled by but there was no sign of the police. Maybe I’d panicked for no reason. I hadn’t said my name. But I’d said Templeton House. They’d check it out and soon put two and two together, bound to …

  My eyes teared up but I kept walking.

  Then ahead, the road went over a little bridge with an empty toll-booth. I crossed halfway and there was a blue-green sparkle either side, a river, thin and quiet. I thought of Miko crossing the Thames, heading north, miles away, in a whole other world. Then I saw a path by the water’s edge and long narrow boats parked.

  River water in a city is filthy, but out here I reckoned you could drink it. I stepped off the bridge and down some steps to the bank and along by the boats, trying to find a spot to lean over and scoop up a palmful.

  There was a building and a wall with water pouring over it. I didn’t know what the place was, but I found a spot to splash my face. The water was dark and probably full of fly eggs but I took a mouthful. It tasted like slop from a bucket when you’ve just washed a floor and I nearly threw up. There was a bench and I flopped down.

  I saw a curl of smoke coming from one of those funny long boats and frowned.

  Whoever heard of a fire on a wooden boat?

  Then I heard Trim cackling at me in my head. You can have a fire on a boat. They had them in the Titanic down in the engine room, right?

  Yeah, I mentally answered him. And look what happened. It sank.

  Yeah, but that wasn’t fire. That was an iceberg.

  But these boats are tiny. Nothing like the Titanic. And they’re made of wood. One spark and they’d be finished.

  I stretched out along the bench, yawning.

  You and Grace, thick as doorstops. You put the fire in something metal, stupid. Something thick and solid.

  Yeah. So solid it sinks the boat? I was being deliberately thick to get his goat.

  A boat could carry the Statue of Liberty if it wanted to. Depends on the size. Boat … like that … small stove … no problem … Trim’s voice broke up and maybe I nodded off.

  I woke up, flat out across the bench, the sun blinding my eyes.

  The wig was half on, half off.

  I sat up so fast it dropped off altogether. I grabbed it before it hit the ground and shoved it back on. I remembered the phone call I’d made. The police, they’re after me. I rooted in my bag, found my brush, combed the wig and breathed. I was Solace again. No way they’d recognize me even if they passed right by.

  I heard a whistling, then a splash. I looked round.

  Away down the bank a man was cleaning the windows of his boat. The boat was long and green with flowerpots and a bicycle lying flat on the roof and a chimney with the smoke still rising.

  The man had long grey hair tied in a ponytail and thick brown arms. He had blue jeans and a T-shirt on and was whistling to a tune he could hear on his earphones. He was what I call a mogit in denial –somebody who’s over forty and acts like they’re seventeen. You want to cringe and hide when they act like your best buddy, like they think they’re still your age.

  This one stopped and took a slug out of a big bottle of posh water. It looked clear, not like the river water I’d tried earlier. My thirst raged.

  I got up, dusted myself down and ambled down the bank to the boat. It was called Emmy-Lou, the name painted in red on the side, with a instead of the O.

  ‘Hey!’ I called.

  The man didn’t hear because of his music, but maybe he sensed somebody was close because he turned and caught my eye.

  I waved and grinned. ‘Hi,’ I said.

  He took out the earphones. ‘Hello, there. Saw you, crashed out on that bench over there. Had a party last night?’

  ‘Yeah. Too right. Wild.’

  ‘How’d you end up here?’

  ‘You really wanna know?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘That must have been some party. How much did you knock back?’

  ‘Don’t even go there.’ I put my hand to my head like it was fancy china. ‘I could use a slug of your water.’

  He put his cleaning cloth down and passed me the bottle. ‘Use it away.’

  So I did, glug-glugging until it was empty. He watched me like I was a circus act, grinning. I passed back the bottle.

  ‘Ta.’

  ‘Taste good?’

  ‘Yeah. Champagne.’

  ‘Are you lost?’ he said.

  ‘Nah. Well, maybe a bit. I’m looking for the A40.’

  ‘The A40? It’s just a mile or two on. You hit a roundabout and turn right. What’s special about the A40?’

  I put a finger to my lips. ‘Promise you won’t tell?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘I’m meeting my boyfriend, Drew. He’ll be pulled in there, waiting for me. He’s picking me up in his sports car and driving me clean away. We’re eloping.’

  ‘Didn’t know people did that any more.’

  ‘They do when they’re young and the parents don’t approve.’

  ‘Sounds romantic.’

  ‘It is.’ I made my eyes go starry.

  ‘You heading to Gretna Green?’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘You know. The place where people eloped to in the olden days. Clattering away in their carriages.’

  ‘Oh, right. No. We’re heading to America.’

  ‘America?’

  ‘Yep. By plane. Oxford, Heathrow, then take-off.’ My hand mimed a jumbo jet going up into the air. ‘New York,’ I added.

  ‘America’s where it’s at,’ he said. ‘I used to live there.’

  ‘No way. Where?’

  ‘All over. I was a roadie.’

  ‘A roadie?’

  ‘I drove round with all the top bands. You name them …’ Then he started on a list of rock legends, only I hadn’t heard of any of them, they were that prehistoric. But I threw in a few wows like I was in awe.

  ‘You sure you don’t want breakfast first?’ he said. ‘I’ve tea brewing inside and rashers and bread.’

  My insides squeezed up tight with hunger and it was like I was in 22 Mercutia Road in bed with the smell of toast coming up the stairs. His boat looked cosy, long and bright, the kind of place you could live in and never feel boxed in, and you’d have a table and cupboards to store everything away neatly and a stash of biscuits on hand and a dog like Rosabel, only real, to guard you.

  ‘Why’s she called Emmy-Lou?’ I asked, to buy time.

  He turned and looked at the boat’s name, painted in red. ‘It’s after a girl I once knew,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘You loved her, right?’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘You’ve painted a heart for the O.’

  He laughed. ‘Guess that settles it. Must have.’

  ‘Did you elope with her?’

  ‘Nah. She was in a whole other league, my Emmy-Lou.’ He jerked his grey head towards the door to the inside. ‘Come on in and I’ll get the toast started.’

  I paused, tempted. But I saw the stubble on his chin coming out white and the memory of Tony’s fingers ferreting over me crawled through my head. ‘Love to,’ I said. ‘But I’ve to push on or the boyfriend will be wondering.’

  He nodded. ‘Oh yeah. The boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s something else, Drew. If you keep him waiting he goes ballistic. But t
a for the water.’ Part of me was whimpering at the thought of that toast but I said goodbye and cruised back up the bank towards the bridge.

  ‘Any time, doll,’ he called.

  I looked back. Troll or doll, came Denny-boy’s echo. But the man was waving and smiling, friendly enough, so I gave him a half-wave, then walked back past the bench and up the steps. One day I’ll have a green long boat just like his, I thought. Only it won’t be called Emmy-Lou. It will be called Solace. And when I paint the name on the side, the letters will be bright yellow. And there’ll be a red heart for the O.

  Slace.

  Twenty-five

  The A40

  Back on the road, I soon hit the roundabout sign. Off to the right was signed A40. I tramped the longest mile of all, past another roundabout, and finally hit it. The road to freedom.

  I sat down on a grass verge near where the traffic slowed and got my breath back. I took out the map. I could see the road curving from one town to the next, and near a place called Eynsham there was a circle, which I put my finger on. That’s where I was. Right there.

  When I was on the road, Holly, I stopped near the bends. Places where a car can pull in. It was Miko’s voice, retelling the story of the year he hitched from the South of France to the ferry when he was eighteen and on his own and skint like I was now. The road, Holly, he’d said, his eyes far away. It rolls out ahead like the key to a mystery. You think you nearly have it but it’s always one step further on. Every lift a new adventure. And the miles falling away, costing nothing. I smiled, remembering, and changed from my trainers back into my smart sandals. Maybe they’d get me a ride faster. It’s rough being young nowadays. You can’t hitch a ride any more, or play outdoors. Nor do nothing fun. All because everyone thinks everyone else is an axe murderer.

  That was Miko, that was his theme. ‘The Gospel According to Miko’. He’d say how when he was a kid life was a downhill freewheel. People thumbed wherever they wanted to go and broke into empty houses to live and survived on giros from the dole office and screamed all night into a microphone and got to call it music on account of it was punk. He’d said how he used to have an earring like a silver cobra and more gashes in his trousers than material and how he’d dyed his hair green, which must be why it had all fallen out. ‘You’re having me on, Miko,’ I said one time. ‘You shave it off, don’t you?’ Somehow I was desperate for Miko’s silky-smooth top to be deliberate.

  He’d grinned at me: ‘Sure, Holly. If I let it grow, I’d be like Rapunzel in that fairy story.’ And he’d fluttered his eyelashes like he was a girl and I’d thumped him and he’d laughed and that was his way.

  A lorry thundered past. I scrubbed Miko out from my brain. I stood up, grabbed the lizard, and stuck out my thumb. I knew it made me as old as the Rolling Stones but what else to do?

  The cars and trucks rushed by. Nothing stopped and my arm ached.

  Supposing someone stops and it’s a mass murderer? I thought.

  Then I thought, Mass murderers aren’t exactly common as pints of milk.

  I bent down and picked a dandelion from the grass and put it behind my ear. I put my thumb out again.

  And you know what? A truck stopped almost at once.

  It screeched to a halt on the wide verge about twenty metres down from where I was standing. Was it really stopped for me? I waited, feeling the wind in my ears, the sun on my shoulders. In the trees crows yattered. I held my breath.

  He hooted his horn. I let out my breath.

  I dusted the flower off my ear and checked the lizard.

  C’mon, Holl, I told myself. Chip-chop.

  I walked towards that truck, careful not to stumble in my heels.

  If he’s fat with tattoos and bristly, I’m not getting in, I thought.

  Up close, I saw a hand reaching over, pushing open the passenger door. I looked up, expecting a brute with a beard and a belly plus a million tattoos. What I got was a skinny face, looking polite. There was wispy brown hair, brown eyes and smooth, baby cheeks. On his feet were open-toed sandals, which put him in the fashion year of dot.

  ‘Where’re you going?’ he asked. His hands were relaxed on the wheel.

  ‘Wales,’ I said.

  ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘I’m heading to Carmarthen.’

  ‘Carmarthen?’ I remembered the list of names on the road and Carmarthen was far along the way.

  ‘Any good?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. That’s great. Really great.’

  ‘OK, hop in. Mind how you go.’

  I climbed up. He didn’t put a hand out to help, which was good. I looked for a sign of a mass-murdering mental man but couldn’t find any. No guns or knives or pictures of naked ladies dangling from the mirror.

  ‘OK?’ he said. ‘Name’s Phil.’

  He said it like a sigh. It was a soft name, not like Tony. Something about him made me feel safe. I shut the door and he revved the engine up.

  ‘Hi, Phil.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Solace,’ I said.

  He checked his right side and pulled out. ‘Solace?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Like hope or something?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Never heard that before. But we could all use some.’ He threw me a sad smile, then picked up speed and nodded at the seatbelt. ‘Better put that on.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ I strapped myself in, sat back on the high seat and stared at the white dividers on the road as they sped towards us. When they started dividing up my head as well as the road, I looked out the side window over the fields.

  Inside I was grinning from ear to ear. Had I hit lucky with this Phil. All I had to do was sit tight and act polite and I’d be halfway to Ireland. The police would never catch me now. As far as they were concerned, I might as well have been beamed to outer space. Carmarthen, here I come.

  Twenty-six

  The Vegan Truckie

  For Phil, the sound of the road was conversation enough. He was like Ray, musing quietly over the wheel. The radio was on low. You could only catch snatches. What you heard most was the engine turning and the hit of the truck’s fat tyres on the tarmac. I couldn’t believe how high up we were in that cab, like lords of the manor. You could see over the hedges across the fields. They were dotted with purples and yellows and whites, and long lines of pylons. There were sheep and barns and houses and bends in the road that hid what was around them.

  This is a breeze, I thought.

  Inside the cab it felt warm and smelled of diesel. The seats were black and worn and Phil had an old green sweater hanging from a hook behind.

  We came to a stretch of dual carriageway. The truck speeded up and the tyres went up a key.

  ‘So, Solace,’ said Phil. ‘Haven’t seen a girl hitching in a while.’

  ‘It’s legal, innit?’

  ‘Sure is, last I heard. Just not common.’

  I looked over, but his eyes were glued to the road. ‘I don’t hitch regular, Phil,’ I explained. ‘I was out clubbing last night and my money and mobile got stolen out my bag.’ I pointed to the pocket of the lizard, where Mam’s amber ring was stashed. ‘I’m skint. And my mam’s in Wales, see, and she’s sick. I’ve got to get to her.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. Did you tell the police?’

  ‘Hey?’

  ‘About your wallet and phone?’

  ‘Nah, no point. Whoever did it’s gone off with the cash by now and thrown the wallet in the park.’ I was thinking of when Trim stole that wallet on the tube. He’d dipped his hand into this lady’s shopping, which was nearly up his nose in the crush. Then Trim, Grace and myself hopped off at the next stop and ran into Regent’s Park. Trim stripped the wallet of cash, twelve quid, and said it was all his, danger money. Then he got me to wipe the wallet clean of his fingerprints and chuck it in the undergrowth.

  ‘The park?’ Phil was going. ‘What park?’

  ‘Oh, any old park. Or litterbin. Whatever.’

&
nbsp; ‘What about your credit cards?’

  ‘They’ve gone too.’

  ‘Did you report them stolen? You know, to the company?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I breezed. ‘I spoke to this woman on night duty at American Express. Name of Gayle. She was cool. I gave her all the details and she said how the new one was in the post.’

  ‘Good to hear you can still get a live human.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But what about your mum?’

  ‘My mum?’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She was in Wales on this surfing holiday, see.’

  ‘Surfing?’

  ‘She’s a real sporty type. And this mega wave comes and turns the surfboard over and she bangs her head. On a rock.’

  ‘Is she concussed?’

  ‘She hardly knows where she is.’

  ‘Sounds serious. What part of Wales is this?’

  ‘Fishguard,’ I said.

  ‘Fishguard? Didn’t know they do surfing round there.’

  ‘Sure they do.’

  ‘Well, I wish I could take you all the way. But when I pull into the yard in Carmarthen, I can probably get you a lift with another of our trucks, if you like. Some of the fellows go that way for the ferries.’

  ‘The ferries? To Ireland?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That would be great.’ Was I in luck. Fishguard? The ferries? Ireland? I couldn’t believe the rest of the journey had landed in my lap. ‘Ta ’n’ all.’

  Phil nodded. I went back to watching the white dividers, grinning ear to ear.

  ‘What’s in your truck?’ I asked after a bit. Miko said that the truckies pick you up because they’re lonely on the road and you have to earn your way by entertaining them.

  Phil smiled like he was posing for a camera shot. ‘Cheese,’ he said. My stomach rumbled. I love cheese. ‘Six thousand kilos of hard cheese. And you know what? I don’t even eat it. You’re with the one and only vegan truck driver in the whole of bloody Britain.’