Page 51 of A Miracle on Hope Street
The cool blue walls feel like they are coming in toward me closer and closer, and I’m suddenly very warm and then I’m really very hot. I’m very hot indeed.
‘Please sit down,’ says Sonia, guiding me to a stiff, plastic chair. ‘I know it’s not the news you were expecting at all and I’m so sorry to have to tell you so bluntly but . . . here, I’ll get you some water. You look flushed. Are you okay, Ruth? It’s an awful shock, I know.’
I slither out of my coat. I feel like I might faint and I gulp down the water when Sonia comes back with it seconds later.
‘How?’ I ask her when I start to come around a bit. ‘What happened to him? Was he sick? Or was it drugs? An overdose?’
Sonia shrugs and then nods. ‘I’m afraid some people just can’t be helped, no matter how hard we try, Ruth. We all looked out for him as best we could, and he was offered so much help and sometimes hetookthe help, but he was a troubled young boy and no matter where he’d go, he’d find what he needed and unfortunately it got him in the end. He had nobody in the end. Nobody that I know of, anyhow.’
‘If only I’d come here sooner,’ I say, repeating her words from earlier.
‘You weren’t to know,’ she says. ‘None of us were to know. I’m ever so sorry.’
I leave the hostel when I get my breath back and the wind cuts through me as I walk through the carpark, glancing up at the rows of anonymous windows and wondering how many others like Paul are living here with no one to turn to, nowhere to go and nobody close enough to care.
Then I get into the car where I sit in the driving seat. I turn the ignition but I can’t go anywhere yet and I sob and sob and sob for Paul and for all like him who are so distraught with life or caught up in a place they never hoped to be. I cry for his sad death, so cold and alone at Christmas and with no one to check in on him – no family, no real friends, nobody who could manage to get him back on the straight and narrow.
Yet I realise that what Sonia is saying can unfortunately be true. Some people just can’t be helped, no matter how hard their family and friends try, and eventually they strip everyone around them from all that they have and they finally give up and let go. Some people hit rock bottom but instead of having that moment of realisation and bouncing back up again, they stay there until they can’t get up again ever.
But Paul . . . he was only twenty years old, only a boy, really, and he spoke to me right from the heart in his email. Why didn’t I reply to him sooner? Why didn’t I find him some proper help instead of inviting him to a stupid Christmas dinner! I recite his words over and over again but I don’t have to look at the page in my handbag as I already know them off by heart. He was afraid, he said. He had nowhere to turn, he said. He had a roof over his head and he was so grateful for that, but he was terrified of temptation and he needed something to look forward to, something to focus on, something to take his pain away. He needed to find out that someone still cared.
And I thought an invitation to Christmas dinner would somehow make him feel better. How on earth could I have been so naïve?
I drive straight to Gloria’s Café through lashing sleet and rain and when I make my way through the doors, into the warm blanket of love and hope that this place always gives me, I feel nothing, only guilt and anger and sorrow that a human being can just leave this world so cruelly. The Christmas carols playing in the background, the sparkling decorations, the people on their phones, the shopping bags, the pushchairs, the coffee machine whirring, the clatter of cutlery, the hum of noise as people chat – all of it means nothing in comparison to the vision I have in my head of Paul Connolly and the hundreds like him who I will never, ever be able to help, no matter how hard I try.
‘You look upset,’ says Michael when he sees me. ‘Grab a seat. I’m due a break now. Gimme five minutes and I’ll get you warmed up with a strong coffee.’
He joins me in much less than five minutes and tells me to take off my coat before I catch my death. He is right. It is soaking wet and I hadn’t even noticed.
‘You know, Michael,’ I say to him when he sits down in the seat opposite, ‘I always thought my father was a hero. A true hero who could solve any problem or take any pain that anyone ever felt away. I thought he could change the world.’
Michael, of course, has no idea what I am talking about or where I am going with this.
‘I think he praised me so much that I actually believed that I was the same,’ I explain, ‘and today I’ve finally realised that I don’t have any super powers to change the world after all or to even to changesomeone’sworld, for that matter. I don’t have any ability to change anything and I need to stop pretending to myself and to others that I can. I can’t.’
Michael leans across the table and takes my hand.
‘You’ve changedmyworld,’ he whispers to me, looking straight into my eyes. ‘You’ve changed lots of people for the better with your words and kindness down the years but yes, you are right, Ruth. You can’t change it foreveryone. You are not a superhero, but you are a hero in your own way and don’t ever forget that. You’re the biggest-hearted person I’ve ever met and no matter what it is that makes you feel the way you feel right now, please know that what you do is enough. It’s more than enough.’
‘But it’s not,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Paul Connolly, the person who was meant to be our eighth guest? Well, he died three days ago, Michael. He died with nobody there to care for him or to even notice him gone. No one noticed apart from the lady who worked on the front desk of the hostel where he was living, but she was too late to save him. I was too late for him too. I should have acted quicker. I should have done more.’
Michael is lost for words, of course. I didn’t know the man I’m talking about personally and neither did he, but he is just as upset as I am right now.
‘That’s shit,’ he says eventually. ‘That’s totally shit, but Ruth, that’s not your fault. It’s definitely not your fault.’
My head is banging with pent-up frustration and I’m not even sure I can drink my coffee.
‘I’m going to head home, Michael,’ I tell him. ‘I need to lie down. I shouldn’t have come here and ruined your day just because mine was ruined. I’m sorry.’
I stand up and Michael does too.
‘Being around you has made me a better person,’ he says to me with a smile, stopping me in my tracks. ‘Ruth, I know you’re upset right now but you’ve turned my life around in so many ways and I’ll always be grateful to you, just like hundreds of others are that you helped with your kindness and gentle words of wisdom.’
‘How on earth have I turned your life around? All I did was give you money. People give money to homeless people all the time.’
I’m being harsh and I know it but I don’t feel like I’ve done anything out of the ordinary or that I will ever be able to.
‘No, that’s not what I’m talking about, Ruth,’ he says. ‘You’ll never believe what I did today, all because you encouraged me to. You made me believe that it was worth taking the chance on and you were right. You were so right.’
