Daily Routine Orders 4
It is 19.00 hours and this has been a most satisfactory day. Most satisfactory. The secret of victory in any campaign is planning and preparation. My planning has been meticulous, and my preparations are now complete.
I have acquired a cat. This was my finishing touch. I can’t abide the arse-licking, hair-scattering beasts myself, but you have to admit there’s something reassuring about a home with a cat in it. A cat speaks of warmth, comfort, placid domesticity. A man who keeps a cat can’t possibly mean anybody harm, can he?
I’ve christened it Sappho. A brilliant touch this, suggesting as it does a degree of scholarship in the creature’s owner. I don’t even know whether the bloody thing’s male or female and I don’t care – the point being is that a feller with a cat called Sappho is going to project a certain sort of image. Kindly and a bit academic. He might be expected to have a vague conscience about sleeping snug and warm while others live rough. He’ll be a bumbler, but he might be stirred now and then to actually do something about this – to offer grub and a bed for the night to some poor unfortunate soul, no strings attached.
So it’s Shelter and Sappho. Could be a series on the telly, couldn’t it? Shelter and Sappho, otherwise known as The Invincibles. All is ready. Recruiting can now commence.
So London it was and London it is.
I made loads of mistakes. Most people do, first time in London. Trouble is, once you’ve made them it’s practically impossible to put things right – you’re on the old downward spiral and that’s that. I know you’ve no idea what I’m on about, so listen.
I arrived in midwinter. Not a good idea. Okay, so things were bad at home. Really bad, and I had to get out. But if I’d known what I know now, I’d have hung in there a bit longer – toughed it out with Carole and Chris till March or even April. Spend one January night in a shop doorway and you’ll know why.
I had a hundred and fifty quid on me when I got off the train at King’s Cross. It was what was left of my savings, plus a twenty Carole slipped me when Chris wasn’t looking. A hundred and fifty. Doesn’t sound bad, does it? It sounded okay to me. My plan was, I’d get a room somewhere. Nothing posh. A bedsit, and then I’d look for work. Again, nothing posh. I’d take anything for a start, just till I established myself and could look round properly. I was dead green, see? A babe in arms. It isn’t like that, but I didn’t know.
I strode out of the station with my backpack and bedroll, and it felt like a new beginning. This was London, wasn’t it? The centre, where it all happens. It’s big, it’s fast, and it’s full of opportunities. Nobody knows you. Where you’re from and what’s gone before – that’s your business. All that stuff with Vince – it never happened. It’s a clean sheet – you can invent your own past and call yourself anything you choose.
I made a brilliant start, or so it seemed at the time. I turned right out of the station and started walking. I’d no idea where I was going. I was looking for somewhere to live. The street I was walking up was called Pancras Road. I hadn’t gone far when I came to this row of shops under a block of flats. One was a newsagent’s, and there were some postcards stuck on the glass door. I went for a closer look. They were ads, as I’d thought they’d be. Articles for sale. Babysitter wanted. House repairs done cheap. One said ‘B&B, suit working man, rent negotiable.’ The word negotiable was spelt ‘Negoshable’, and the whole thing looked like a six-year-old had written it, but I didn’t care. There was an address. Wharfedale Road. I went in the shop and asked directions, and it was back the way I’d come.
It was a sleazoid place, and the rent wasn’t all that negoshable either. ‘Fifty a week,’ the guy said. He’d a face like a rat. ‘Fortnight in advance,’ he said, ‘and I’m doing you a favour. Most places want a month.’
‘I’m looking for work,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t much money. Can we negotiate?’ (I told you I was green.)
‘Negotiate?’ His voice was a sort of screech. ‘You can negotiate yourself right out of my house, lad, if that’s your attitude. It’s fifty a week, take it or leave it.’
I took it, and that was my second mistake. Oh, I was thankful at the time, don’t think I wasn’t. I’d a place to lay my head and keep out of the weather, and I hadn’t been in London an hour. If I’d known, though, there were other places I could have tried – places like the YMCA, where there’s help and advice and food as well as a bed if you’re lucky enough to get in. But like I said, I didn’t know.
I looked for work. I really did. First thing next morning I went to the Job Centre. The woman there said I should go to the Careers Office because I wasn’t eighteen. She said I should go to the DSS as well. I went to the Careers Office and filled in a form. They asked where I’d come from and I said the north. I didn’t want to be too precise in case good old Vince took it into his head to come looking for me. I gave them my new address but it was just like at home – there was no work, and no training places. I went to the DSS and filled in another form. I asked for advice and a guy interviewed me. I told him I had fifty pounds after paying two weeks’ rent in advance, and that I was looking for work. He asked me a lot of stuff about why I’d left home. I explained about Vince and Chris and all that, and he said they’d have to decide whether I was entitled to anything. It might be several weeks, he said.
That was when I started to feel nervous. I had a room for two weeks, maximum. I didn’t know much, but I’d a feeling rat-face wasn’t the sort who’d wait for his money. If I wasn’t earning within a fortnight I’d be out on my ear.