need to stick with the same bunch of people all the time,’ he explained, ‘because that way you’ll be protected from the rest.’
I had heard from other runaways about how homeless kids got together into little social pods for self-protection. I liked the idea of being a member of a gang instead of always being on my own.
‘So where do I meet these people?’ I wanted to know.
‘You have to be careful,’ he warned. ‘They get quite funny with new people coming in. They’ll see you as an outsider and they won’t want to take responsibility for new people.’
I must have looked a bit crestfallen.
‘You’d better stay with me for now,’ he said, ‘and we’ll go from there.’
All the time we were talking he was shaking his pot at people and asking for change. I was surprised how many of them actually gave him something and every so often he would empty most of the contents of the pot into his pocket and then go back to shaking and asking. One or two people would annoy him by refusing to give him anything and he would get quite cheeky with them, which made me nervous. I didn’t like the idea of attracting the outside world’s attention if I could avoid it–not till I knew my way around a bit better. He told me about the outreach centre, which was a project for the homeless run by volunteers, where I could get something to eat and some warmer clothes and a blanket for the night.
‘They’ll give you a list of hostels if you want and if they aren’t full. You can have a shower there, too, and clean yourself up a bit. I’ll take you there now.’
But when we got there we found it was closed for the night. Jake didn’t seem bothered and just started introducing me to a group of homeless people who were sitting around outside the centre, killing time. If you have no home and no job and no family, killing time is pretty much all you ever do.
Now that the city workers were beginning to disappear off the streets and into the stations, it became easier to see the homeless community that they left behind. A lot of the people Jake knew appeared to be paired off in boy–girl relationships, which seemed a bit strange to me. They were a bit like a normal group of young people meeting up of an evening and having a few drinks together, except they were doing it in the street rather than in a bar or a pub. It wasn’t what I had been expecting, but the pairing off was encouraging because that was what I wanted: a nice girlfriend who I could love and be loved by, someone who would understand me and always be there for me and who I could look after.
Everyone seemed to recognize Jake, which made me think he must have been living on the streets for a while and knew his way around, but I got the feeling they didn’t particularly respect him. The first people were a bit wary of me, but then he found a group who were more relaxed. There was a lad they called Jock, although I think that was just a nickname given to him because he was Scottish, not his given name. He was older than Jake and me, probably eighteen or nineteen years old, and seemed to be really wised up to everything, as if he was a sort of leader amongst the rest of them. He looked even older than his years because his teeth had already started to rot–not that mine were too clever at that stage, since I’d never been near a dentist and had suffered from malnourishment for most of my life. After Dad died I wasn’t allowed to see daylight most days, let alone be taught how to use a toothbrush. Jock and his friends seemed happy for me to hang around with him and so his other friends automatically accepted me. I had found a gang I could be part of and I started to relax and enjoy the adventure.
As we all strolled from one place to another, as normal teenagers might wander from one person’s house to another or from one pub to the next, we talked all the time. They all asked me questions about my past and initially I was a bit cagey, always finding it hard to talk about how I had been treated by Mum and my brothers and all the men who she had sold or given me to. It seemed like a shameful and humiliating thing to have had happen to me, and anyway I didn’t like to think about it.
‘My dad used to rape me all the time,’ one girl told me, shocking me with the ease with which she found she could talk about it but at the same time making me feel good that I wasn’t the only one such things had happened to. It was almost as if it was something normal for her. As the hours passed and I listened to more and more of their stories, I realized that many of them had had similar experiences. As the evening wore on and the drink eased my tongue, I opened up more and more. I started by telling them about Dad burning to death in front of me and about how much he had meant to me, being my champion and my hero and my protector, and how his death had left me dumb and unable to speak for years. That story got a shocked reaction, but when I went on to tell them how Mum had locked me in the cellar for years they were truly amazed.
‘What?’
‘You’re joking, man.’
‘I couldn’t have handled any of that.’
‘That’s so unreal,’ a girl called Charlotte said. ‘I always thought my mum was a bitch but she never did anything like that.’
They kept pumping me for more stories and once I realized they weren’t going to judge me it was a sort of relief to actually put into words the things I had been storing up in my head for so long, suffering so much pain as a result. It was as if it was no big deal to any of them, even though it was shocking, and we were all there together to talk and support one another.
‘Have you got any money on you?’ someone asked. ‘Because we need to buy some booze.’
My guard immediately went back up again. There was no knowing how long I was going to have to survive on the wad of notes Mohamed had given me. I could see that if I owned up to having it now it could all be spent within a few hours and I would be left with nothing. I was keeping a hold on my bag as if my life depended on it and when someone started trying to rummage around in it I snatched it away.
‘We share everything here,’ someone said.
‘That’s my property,’ I insisted. ‘It’s private.’
On my search through Mum’s house before leaving I had managed to find my birth certificate, which I had never seen before and somehow knew was going to be important to me, and also my dad’s watch, which I knew he would have wanted me to have and which was all I had left of him. I don’t know why Mum had even kept it, considering how much she hated him for leaving her–perhaps she thought she would sell it one day. Sometimes, when I felt unsure of myself, I would just hold it for comfort, as if I was holding my dad’s hand. Sometimes I would talk out loud to him, just as I had done in my head when I had been on my own in the cellar in the dark, which made other people think I was talking to myself. I guess they thought I was a bit touched in the head, and maybe I was.
Realizing that I was willing to fight to protect my possessions, the others backed off, but then I felt mean and guilty for lying because they all started rummaging around in their own bags and pockets, finding bits and pieces of food which they shared with me.
As it grew darker, we continued to move around in a group, trying to keep warm, talking and laughing all the time, sometimes shouting out to people as the drink made us bold and foul mouthed. I was surprised by how many people were still coming and going from the stations on their way to theatres, hotels and restaurants in the Strand, or maybe some of them were on their way home after working shifts. I hadn’t realized that big city life went on so late, and I liked the buzz and the constant distractions. It made me feel safe to have people around, even though they were strangers and could for all I knew have been predators. I knew from experience that some of the most perverted and heartless men looked completely normal and respectable on the surface, often well dressed and sporting wedding rings. Any one of the men walking past could have been the sort of man who visited the places where I had been kept as a child and continuously raped and abused.
We went on asking for change from everyone we passed, but no one handed any over, probably because they could see we were drinking and guessed that was what we wanted the money for. The others were becoming quite loud and intimidating, which was making me uneasy, but I didn’t want to leave the group and end up on my own. I felt that at least Jock and the others offered