Summer Soap: Homeless at 17, Eve felt the streets in her bones (Episode 7)

THE morning sun tapped its way, bit by bit, across the city. By the time it hit the R & H Hall, the rays roared.

“Another scorcher, Paddy.”

The alarm of morning greetings woke Eve. If she got going, she could get to the bathroom of the River Hotel just as the night porter finished his shift.

She was seventeen years old, but her body was stiff and sore. She needed to step the hurt of the concrete streets out of her bones.

A plastic SuperValu bag hung from Peter’s arm with the words ‘For Eve,’ written on it. Inside it, a brand new pair of size seven boots, and three pairs of socks.

Eve cast the unpleasantness of the night before out of her head and said a prayer for the man that had done it. She pulled on the new socks. Nothing felt as good as new socks. Soft and clean. The boots fitted. She remembered telling the man from Reaching Out about her shoes.

Eve put the plastic bag in the bin and rolled up her sleeping bag as tight as she could, then put it into her backpack. She’d have to leave the duvet for now.

As she set off walking, she found herself moving with extra bounce, the layer of rubber protecting her from feeling the streets for the first time in months.

Eve stored her important belongings at the University. She had a key for a locker, and kept her passport and savings hidden in a chemistry manual. From what she could remember from her classes in school, there wouldn’t be many people trying to steal that book.

In her backpack, she kept what she called Everyday essentials: toothbrush, toothpaste, mascara, hairbrush, tampons, underwear, socks, and a rain jacket.

The sun hadn’t hit the western part of the city yet, and she shivered in the cooler air. Despite the cold, the woollen jumper she had worn overnight felt like a hug from her Mam. She had knitted it for her fourteenth birthday.

Eve had figured out that if she walked into the car park and came up in the lift to reception, she could nip into the ladies; toilets without anyone seeing her. At this hour, the hotel lobby was empty.

Although it was a trek, it was worth the walk. The paper towels were heavy there, almost like real towels, and held up to a soaking.

Within the confines of the cubicle, Eve wiped the dirt of Cork from her skin. She felt surface clean, but the cruelty of the night had sunk deeper than she expected.

She scrubbed harder, trying to get the hateful words the man dropped on her out of her head, but he became louder in the quiet of the bathroom.

Eve grabbed her belongings and descended in the lift. She was close to the college.

The old three-storey houses opposite the river seemed to lean back into the Northside hills, as if to admire the river from a different vantage point. It looks better from up there.

Eve stopped to look at the water and feel the curious draw it had on her. It swirled and tempted over the eddies and currents at the bend before the hotel. The river had been high last night — the storm had threatened and passed. It was low tide now, and below her a shopping trolley was caught under the bridge, with a pair of runners stuck to it and something else — a bag of rubbish?

Eve climbed up on the wall and leaned her body as far as she could, trying to see what was stuck. What was it? Maybe a jacket?