Home is where the heart is

Kindly edited by Bairbre Ní Chaoimh

Mark and Harper were sitting in a late night café. They had just come in from the countryside after 2 weeks sleeping rough in a tent. They had come to town to collect their benefits before they made off to the wilderness again for another 2 weeks.

They were in tracksuits, unwashed and malnourished but they were sanguine.

"Kelly might deliver tomorrow, what do you think?"
"Do you think?"

Kelly was a housing officer in the council. They had been going to him for five years now asking to be housed. It was Kelly's job to liaise with the homeless, but he was never empowered to give anyone a home. That was another department.

Five years previously, they were in a flat. They didn't earn much; certainly not enough for a deposit on a house or a flat. So they went to Kelly in the council offices to put their names down on the housing list. Kelly put their names on the register, telling them the waiting list was five to eight years. He didn't disrespect them and they were not in a panic so the relationship was on a good footing.

They had a symbiotic relationship with Kelly. It was around the time he was transferred to the homeless section when they were made homeless. "Made homeless" was very much a victim blaming slant. It implied an unfortunate and uncontrollable sequence of events of their own doing, put them on the street. What in fact happened, was their landlord turfed them out just before legislation came in to protect low income cash tenants.

After they were "made homeless", they couldn't find anywhere they could afford to rent. Anywhere they could afford had a hundred Mark and Harpers queueing up to see the place. So they checked into a tourist hostel. Here they shared a 12 bed dormitory with backpackers, while still going to work every day.

"Where do you think they'll offer us?"
"It would be great to get a place near to the south side of the city"

Each week after paying the hostel bill, they were left with virtually nothing. Just enough for the very basic of a little food. Nothing for clothes, nothing for phone credit, nothing for fun. They would ask Kelly for handouts, and he would give them what he could, but it never amounted to even the smallest of a luxury. Eventually they gave up on the tourist hostels. The money they saved would go towards vodka and cigarettes to numb the existence.

They had been revolving through homeless hostels, the streets and the countryside for nearly three years now. It wasn't romantic. Every day was a struggle. A struggle against sickness. A struggle against boredom. A struggle against addiction. A struggle against rejection. And thats just the start of it.

"Imagine! Our own bedroom. We could cook a dinner again"
"We could invite Kelly for dinner!"
"And cook him what?"
"Chips and beans!"

They lived in each others hopes and dreams. They were squeezed out of society through no fault of their own, and they were two peas in a pod of many thousands. The few people who sat around the café at that hour just saw tramps in the corner table. They didn't see a story. They may have had pity but what could they do? You could give them a hundred euro note, but no restaurant in the city would let them sit down. And you might be under the mistaken impression that they are where they are, because they take drugs. So why would you give them money.

Mark stood up, and moved around the table and squeezed into Harpers chair, beside her.

Harper put her head in her hands. She had that look that she was going to cry.

"Harper, Listen to me!"

Harper looked into his eyes, she could tell he was sober.

"What Mark?"

"Kelly said five years ago that we might get a gaff by now. . . Deep down, you and I both know that really its not going to happen tomorrow when we go to the social. . . So I'm thinking. . .We have had each other all this time. . .And who knows, maybe one day we will have. . . . . .have something. . . . . I mean something as well as each other"

"Harper, you know I haven't got much, in fact you are the only thing I have in this shithole . . . But, Harper, will you marry me?"

Without making a sound she said the words, "I will Mark" with her lips, and he heard her, and they embraced.