‘Jake!’ a voice called from across the Strand. ‘Come over here.’
I looked across and saw a man in an old Mercedes, which had pulled up at the kerb. Even in the dark he looked sinister and swarthy, much older than anyone in our group. There were two other guys in the back of the car, but I couldn’t see them clearly.
‘It’s Max,’ Jake said, and I thought he looked nervous suddenly.
‘Don’t fucking go to him, you fucking idiot,’ Jock snarled, holding him back.
‘No, Jock, I’ve got to go,’ Jake said, wriggling free.
‘Oh, fuck off then.’ Jock pushed him away angrily. ‘Go be Max’s bum-chum.’
I watched as the man they called Max got out of the car to talk to Jake. He was tall and rangy and looked strong. I could see tattoos creeping up his scrawny neck from his collar. He looked dangerous and I felt a shiver of apprehension. Max opened the back door of the car and Jake jumped in with the other guys without glancing back at us. It was as if the car swallowed him up, the doors snapping shut like jaws.
‘Fucking idiot.’ Jock spat and took a swallow from his can as the Mercedes drew away and disappeared towards Trafalgar Square.
‘Let’s get something to eat,’ he said, leading the way to what I assumed would be a café or takeaway.
‘I’ve got no money, Jock,’ I reminded him, not able to admit to my secret store of notes now I had denied having them.
‘You don’t need money here, mate,’ Jock said, laughing at my naiveté. ‘It’s all free. It’s a soup kitchen.’
The homeless centre was open again, and the volunteers provided us with stew and bread and hot tea in plastic mugs. I ate as if I hadn’t seen food in a year, hardly able to believe that I could have as much as I wanted and all for free. The meal raised my spirits again as it warmed my insides. I was having an adventure in London with a group of new friends and no one to tell me what to do, and now I had a full stomach as well. Charing Cross really was turning out to be the homeless paradise I had been told about. The volunteers were offering blankets to anyone who wanted them, but I felt quite warm again now I’d eaten and I didn’t want to have to carry anything else around with me as well as my bag.
Back out on the streets we started hunting behind the buildings, riffling through the big metal bins that were being put out by the shops, hotels and restaurants, and searching for anything that might be useful or that we might want to eat if we got peckish later that night. I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so I just followed everyone else’s lead. The stores were the best places: they threw out food that was a day past its sell-by date but still perfectly good. As it got colder I pulled out of my bag all my spare clothes, which were only a couple of jumpers and another pair of trousers, and put them on over what I was already wearing. I must have looked a right sight, but I didn’t care, because at least I was warm and I knew none of the people I was with were making any judgements about my appearance–they were well past the stage of even noticing.
The others were also collecting up any flattened cardboard they could find, opening it back up to rebuild the boxes, which must have been used to deliver goods to the shops earlier in the day. Everyone was calling out to one another, competing to see who could find the best box. I wasn’t as quick as the others and didn’t really know what I was looking for, so by the time I realized that what I needed was something I could sleep in for the night, I only had something tiny.
Once everyone had what they needed, we wended our way back down to the park, which was now finally empty of other people and filling up with an eerie, makeshift city of cardboard as everyone set about constructing themselves some sort of shelter for the night, covering them with plastic to protect them from the damp that was bound to descend before morning.
Everyone was huddled in the small groups that they had been in all evening, avoiding encroaching on the territory of anyone else who might be angrier, more violent and more drunk than they were, and staking a claim to a patch of land that was going to be theirs for the night. As everyone got settled, the odd fistfights would break out when one group felt that another had crossed over their boundary, and there were a few squabbles for the best, most sheltered sites.
Gradually, as exhaustion and alcohol took their toll, people began to fall asleep, pulling blankets and sleeping bags up over their heads and disappearing from the world for a few hours. As we all crawled into our shelters, the sounds of shouting and fighting become more intermittent as more people surrendered to sleep. Every so often a policeman or two would wander past the park, but they didn’t seem to be too bothered about anything that was going on. I guess it was easier for them to have all the homeless people corralled behind railings in one area than to have them curled up in shop doorways and back alleys all over the place, causing complaints from local residents and shopkeepers when they came to open up in the morning.
I managed to get my box together and put some plastic over it as the others showed me, but when I came to lie down it was impossible to curl all six foot of me into it, so I had to leave my legs sticking out, using my bag as a pillow with the handles looped round my wrist to make sure no one nicked it in the night.
Jake arrived back from wherever he had been with the man in the Mercedes and didn’t have any trouble finding us. He had picked up some cardboard for himself on the way.
‘What you doing with that box?’ he said, laughing, when he saw my legs sticking out. ‘You don’t fit in it.’
‘The others got the best ones.’
‘You’ve got to be faster than that, mate.’
‘Where have you fucking been, Jake?’ Jock growled from near by in the dark.
‘I had to do something for Max,’ Jake said, obviously not wanting to talk about it.
‘That fucking bastard! Why do you do whatever he tells you?’
I didn’t understand why Jock felt so strongly about this Max guy, but I was too tired to ask any more questions. Now that I was no longer moving about to keep warm, I was regretting not picking up one of the blankets at the centre. The others had put up another plastic sheet and tied our boxes together so that when it started to rain most of the water could be kept off us, but I was still feeling cold and damp. I would organize things better the next day, I told myself as I dozed off, now that I knew what was needed. Things would get steadily better from here on–I was confident of it. I could still hear the odd raised voice in the distance but it didn’t bother me any more; I felt safe enough to sleep. Here and there muffled giggles came from other boxes, and the sounds of couples having sex.
It must have been just after midnight when I was woken by the sound of voices.
‘Hello? Hello? Come on. We’re here. Hello? Does anyone want blankets?’
That was exactly what I needed, so I wriggled out of my box to see what was going on. A middle-aged woman was standing outside with her arms full of old-looking blankets, passing them out to anyone who asked.
‘Do you want something to eat?’ she asked as I went over to her. ‘The van’s just over there.’
I looked over to where she was pointing and saw a van parked outside the Tube station, with a table set up beside it doling out soup and rolls to warm us up.
‘Come on,’ she said, putting a blanket round my shoulders. ‘It’s a cold night. Wrap up well. We need to look after you. You’re a new face. My name’s Sarah. What’s yours?’
‘Joe.’
‘Come on then, Joe.’
She