‘Don’t give me any more of your lip, lad,’ he warned, and I stalked off with as much dignity as I could still muster.
The moment I passed out of first class I realized what a difference there was. There was none of the space and tranquillity in second class and by that time the carriages were crowded, and I only just managed to find myself a corner. It was only once I was wedged into the seat that I realized why it was still vacant. The man next to me smelled really badly of urine, like an old tramp. I pulled faces and made lots of comments to make sure no one thought it was I who smelled. Fortunately he got off a few stops later and I caught the eyes of the people opposite, pleased to see them laughing as I fanned ostentatiously under my nose.
The train was hurtling through the countryside, carrying me off to unknown adventures, and my spirits were soaring. I could hardly contain my excitement. Like a small boy at Christmas I was bouncing around, asking questions of anyone I could make eye contact with, making inane comments that I’m sure weren’t anything like as funny as I thought they were. I was trying to make people have conversations with me when all they wanted to do was read their books or their papers, or catch up on some sleep after their early starts. I just couldn’t stop myself from rabbiting on and on, but no one wanted to hear from a scruffy little oik like me.
It was a while before I realized that everyone who came to sit near me during the trip eventually moved off to find another seat, but even once the penny dropped it didn’t dampen my high spirits. I felt so free and so excited by the adventures that I was sure now lay ahead of me.
We pulled into Paddington station around lunch-time and I strolled out into the streets of London, amazed to think that I was now in the famous city that I had heard so much about and that I was free to wander wherever I chose without having to worry about who I might bump into. It felt as if I had travelled all the way to the other side of the world.
One of the people I had been babbling to on the train had told me I was going to have to get ‘the Tube’ to Charing Cross. This was another new concept I was having trouble getting my head around. Was I really going to be able to travel under the streets and buildings in a train? I looked around, trying to work out where I should go next. I had never seen so many people rushing around in different directions at once. The level of activity all about me took my breath away. I tried to ask several people to help me find the right entrance to the right line for Charing Cross, but no one even paused or caught my eye–they were all so busy going about their business, bumping into me every time I paused to try to work out what I should be doing and where I should be going.
Maybe they were worried I was going to ask them for money or would try to steal something off them.
Eventually I found the entrance and went underground, but there were still signs to different lines and I didn’t know which ones to follow. There were maps on the walls, but my reading skills were not the most brilliant and the complexity of the diagrams made my head spin. I began to feel panicked and kept plunging around asking people for help until I found someone willing to spare me a few seconds of their valuable time. After what seemed like an age I found myself crushed on an underground train, hurtling along through tunnels in completely the wrong direction, having no idea how I would get back out again through the crowd when I reached the next station. I felt as if I was trapped in a nightmare, becoming disorientated and frightened and wondering how I would ever find this wonderful place that the other runaways had told me about. So far I hadn’t seen anyone who looked as if they were likely to be living like me, or who would want to be my friend.
Every time the train stopped I would ask if the station was Charing Cross and someone would shake their head. I couldn’t work out whether I was getting closer to my destination or further away, but eventually a woman told me that I was there, and I jumped out on to the platform quickly before the doors had a chance to snap shut and carry me away in the wrong direction again. The station was called Embankment, not Charing Cross, but a man in uniform assured me I was in the right place and showed me which exit to go through.
I think I expected to walk straight out and see a paradise of young homeless people all hanging out together around camp fires built amongst makeshift cardboard homes; but as I came out into the daylight, just across the road from the Thames, the street seemed to be like any other busy city street, with everyone dashing about, trying to get to somewhere important. There was a small park with a bandstand on one side, behind some railings, but I couldn’t see anyone in there who looked like me either, and in the other direction there were some railway arches, which merely led to another street full of rushing traffic. Apart from the people manning the flower stall, or selling the evening papers from metal stands, everyone else was moving about purposefully between the Tube and what I soon discovered was the mainline station at the top of the hill.
Where was this community of carefree runaways that I had been led to believe would be there to welcome me into their arms? There was no option other than to tramp around the streets to see if I could find some secret entrance to this world I had come searching for.
I started walking, looking round every corner for one of these places where I had heard a homeless boy could find a meal or pitch a bed, but I couldn’t see anything. All the shops in the Strand were brightly lit and full of people spending money. None of them seemed as if they would welcome someone as scruffy and disreputable looking as me, so I stayed on the outside, staring in. I still couldn’t see any homeless people anywhere, just normal citizens going about their daily business, all of whom I assumed would be returning to their homes and their comfortable beds in a few hours. What was I going to do then, when the streets were suddenly empty? Was I just going to have to huddle down on my own in one of these shops’ doorways once the staff had pulled down the shutters and gone home? Or should I go round the back of the buildings and see if I could find an air vent which would provide me with a bit of warmth against the night air?
I had probably been walking for an hour or more before I came across a lad who looked about my age and was sitting on the pavement begging off passers-by. He was scrawny and rough looking, but his clothes looked as if they had once been better than mine, although they were now dirty and worn. He had a young, pretty-boy’s face but his expression was furtive, like that of a wary little wild animal, poised to either attack or run. He didn’t look like someone who could be trusted. He was sitting on a sheet of cardboard with a sleeping bag over his lap and a pot in front of him, holding up another piece of cardboard scrawled with the one word ‘homeless’.
‘Spare any change?’ he asked as I drew near, staring at him curiously.
There was no way I was going to give him any money, being sure I was going to need every penny of the sixty quid that Mohamed had given me in order to survive, but I still wanted to strike up a conversation with him.
‘I’m homeless too,’ I said by way of an apology as much as an explanation.
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded, seeming quite angry despite his soft way of talking. To me he sounded quite well spoken, as if he was more educated than me, but maybe it was just a regional accent I was unfamiliar with. ‘You look all right to me.’
‘Just telling you,’ I said.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘I’ve just arrived and I don’t know no one.’
He looked exasperated, as if he knew I was one more stupid kid expecting pavements of gold and not knowing what to do next now that I had actually arrived.
‘Sit down then,’ he said, gesturing to another grubby sheet of cardboard beside him while he continued to hold his sign up at the passers-by, most of whom ignored him. ‘Spare some change?’
In between begging, he told me his name was Jake, and once he’d got used to the idea he seemed to like teaching a newcomer the rules of the street. He told me that I should avoid the police because they would have me down at the police