by Peters, Joe
‘Yeah, you’ve got to get away from this place,’ they’d tell me. ‘Charing Cross is the best place you could go to. There are millions of homeless kids there.’
Although I harboured the same wild dreams of becoming rich as most other young boys, it was the thought of finding someone to love, who would love me back, that was my greatest goal.
The next morning I broke into the house and went through it, collecting every bit of small change I could scrounge, as well as all the food and clothing I could find in the cupboards, stuffing it into my bag. There wasn’t much there to take, as Mum squandered virtually every penny anyone brought into the house on drink, spending all her time down the pub and no longer cooking family meals for any of them. As I went, I left a trail of furious devastation behind me, smashing everything that came within reach, burning my bridges and making it impossible that I could ever return.
Chapter Four
Standing on the Slip Road
My heart was thumping as I stood by the side of the slip road down to the motorway at dawn. I was wearing my blue ‘shell suit’ and trainers–which was pretty much the only uniform I ever wore at the time–trying to thumb a lift down to London before anyone spotted me and took me back.
The adrenaline was still pumping from my rampage, the anger still throbbing in my head, and now I was anxious to get away from the area as quickly as I could, in case one of Mum’s neighbours had heard the racket that I’d made when I was ransacking Mum’s house, or seen me coming out and called the police to report the crime. Even in my agitated state I felt a bit guilty about all the damage I’d done, but at the same time I felt a strange sense of satisfaction at having finally taken a small revenge for all the pain that gripped my heart. I wanted it to be a final gesture to her and to my brothers and to Amani, before I disappeared from the area, losing myself for ever in the bustle and excitement that I was sure I would find in London.
I had all my worldly possessions, and whatever else I had been able to snatch from the house, in my precious bag. It was a sort of holdall backpack thing that was to become my closest and most treasured companion in the coming years. When you have practically nothing in life, you cling tightly to the few possessions you are able to truly call your own.
I was on a nervous high at the thought of finally escaping, like a freak burst of sheer happiness, which was helping me to cope with the cold of a spring morning and the steady drizzle that was soaking through to my bones, making my cheap clothes stick uncomfortably to my skinny, shivering frame and my hair hang lankly over my face. I must have looked a bit rough already, having slept the night in the shed before finally plucking up the courage to break into the empty house, and it had been at least an hour’s walk in the rain to get to the slip road; so I suppose it wasn’t surprising that the cars kept on streaming past and not even slowing down to consider offering me a lift. If I had been sitting inside a nice warm, dry, clean car, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to stop in the rain and open my door to someone like me either.
It hadn’t occurred to me for a moment during my walk to the slip road that I might not get picked up at all, but as the hours ticked past and the cars, vans, motorbikes and lorries kept tearing by, most of the drivers not even giving me a second look, I felt fear gripping my guts with increasing intensity. What if I was left standing at the side of the road until a police car or someone who knew me came past and spotted me? What if they took me back and I had to face Mum and the rest of the family after I’d trashed her place and stolen her money? It might have been only a couple of quid in ten-pence pieces, but I would be judged on the principle of the thing, and the fact that I had dared to challenge her. I knew from past experience how immediate the punishment for even the smallest imagined transgression could be if she and Amani managed to get me on my own, and I could clearly picture what they would do to me for daring to make such a brave stand. I knew the authorities wouldn’t take me back into the care home after I had lost my temper and hurled a brick through the window at them, so I couldn’t expect any shelter there either. I had no option but to keep standing by the side of the road with my thumb out for as long as it took.
The hours kept on going by and the rain barely let up. My initial high spirits sank out of sight. After a whole day of being ignored, during which I took only the odd break to delve into my bag and eat the food that I had grabbed from the house, my feet aching from the standing around, a car full of young guys pulled up a few yards away from me. I felt my heart leap back to life with a mixture of relief, excitement and apprehension. Apart from wanting to get away from the cold and the wet, I was desperate to get out of sight and on my way, and finally my chance had come. Scooping up my bag, I ran towards the waiting car, my stomach tight with fear. I was always wary about climbing into cars with strangers, ever since Mum had sent me off with ‘Uncle Douglas’ in his car. I knew that once someone had you in a locked car you were trapped: you were their prisoner and they could pretty much do what they liked with you. I had no way of telling who were the potentially dangerous people amongst the world of strangers I was now entering; often in my experience it was the ones who were nicest to you at first who turned out to be the cruellest once they had you at their mercy.
I told myself it would be harder for people to overpower me now that I was sixteen and six foot tall, but the fear was too deeply embedded inside me to be susceptible to reason. I was tough, because I was ferocious like a cornered animal, but I was still just a boy and knew a determined man could easily beat me. The feeling in my stomach wasn’t all fear. It was partly excitement too: excitement at the thought of starting a new life in a community of people like myself, people who would understand me and what I’d been through and wouldn’t want to hurt me, people who had been abused and hurt and knew that the outside world could often be a kinder place than their own homes or the care homes they had been put into.
I believed that even if I had to sleep rough on the city streets I would still be part of a community, and there would be people coming round with food and blankets and all the basic essentials that I needed. Sleeping on the streets amongst friends would be infinitely preferable to anything that had happened to me in my life so far. It sounded free and adventurous, a million times better than being trapped alone in a cellar with no light or air or food as I had been for so many years, physically unable to speak to anyone. It was as if the kids in the care homes had been talking about a real never-never land–somewhere where kids like me could go to make our fortunes. When everything in your life is shit, you are eager to grab at any slim hope that there might be something better out there just waiting for you to discover it. If you didn’t believe it, you wouldn’t be able to keep going at all.
I could see the faces of the guys in the car watching me as I scooped up my bag and ran towards them, and they didn’t look too bad. They were grinning and looked friendly. I put my hand on the handle of the door to open it just as it was ripped away from me with a screeching of tyres on the wet surface. The driver must have hit the accelerator all the way to the floor, and the car shot back on to the road and joined the rest of the traffic. I could see the guys’ faces laughing back at me through the rear window and I knew they had planned this humiliation from the moment they had spotted me. They had seen someone less fortunate than themselves and decided to give me another kick just for the fun of it.
I felt the same boiling fury I had experienced when wrecking Mum’s house rising back up inside me, but there was nothing and no one I could take it out on. Turning round and bending over, I yanked down my trousers and pointed my backside at my vanishing tormentors in a futile gesture of contempt. Even as I did it, I knew it was useless. What would they care that I had bared my arse at them like some ape at the zoo? It would just make them laugh all the more heartily, congratulating themselves on being the ones on the inside of the car amongst friends, not the sad loner left on the empty verge.
Pulling my cold, wet trousers back up, I collapsed on to the sodd
en grass and curled up into a tight ball to cry. At that moment it seemed as if that car had been my last chance of escape. It seemed as if I was never going to be allowed to get away and I was doomed to a sort of terrible limbo for all eternity. Everything poured out in those sobs. More than anything I blamed God, because who else could there be who could be so determined that I shouldn’t be allowed to escape from the things and people that hurt me? What had I done to make Him so angry with me?
Because I had my head in my hands, I wasn’t aware of the taxi approaching until I heard the engine coming to a halt beside me. I looked up to see what new tormentor I was going to have to deal with now. When I saw the light on the car, I was puzzled. Why would anyone think that I could afford a taxi?
‘I didn’t call a taxi, mister,’ I said as the Asian driver climbed out and came round the car towards me.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, looking as if he was genuinely concerned. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Charing Cross,’ I replied, ‘in London.’
‘What’s down in Charing Cross?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got family there,’ I lied, worried that he would realize I was running away and would turn me in. Even though I was six foot tall I knew I looked and acted young for my age, and was obviously too young to be going to London on my own. ‘I’ve got to hitch because I’ve lost my money.’
‘Why don’t you let me give you a ride?’ he suggested.
‘Listen, mate,’ I said. ‘I’ve only got two pounds and I don’t want to be spending everything I’ve got on a taxi to London.’
If he thought it was funny that I was so ignorant I thought a journey of several hundred miles in a taxi would cost only a couple of pounds, he was too polite to show it. I’d never had money of my own before and so I had no idea really of the cost of anything. I imagined the handful of ten-pence pieces in my bag was going to last me for several days, until I got myself sorted out in some way.
‘You can’t stay here all night,’ he said, gesturing towards the traffic speeding past. ‘No one will stop for you in the dark, and then the police will come and pick you up. Let me take you to the station so that you can catch a train.’
‘I told you, I had my money stolen.’
‘I can lend you the money for a ticket.’
I was taken aback for a moment, suspicious of this unasked-for offer of kindness but tempted by it at the same time. Part of me longed to climb inside his warm dry taxi and get away from that bleak, exposed verge as quickly as possible. The other part of me feared a trap. I didn’t want to get into a car on my own with a strange man. I had been caught too often that way before. But on the other hand he seemed a genuinely kind and gentle man, and he did have a proper taxi with a number and everything. After a few minutes of him cajoling and me snapping at him suspiciously, he managed to coax me into agreeing to go with him.
He opened the back door, but I could remember previous trips with Uncle Douglas or in police cars, and hearing the snap of the locks going down and not being able to get out, so I threw my bag on to the back seat, slammed the door and climbed into the front passenger seat as if I thought that was what he expected. He didn’t seem bothered, hurrying round to the other side and climbing in. As he pulled out into the traffic, I stared straight ahead, trying to maintain a distance between us while I worked out what his game was. I had a clear plan in my head of what I would do to him if he showed the slightest sign of trying anything on with me.
Chapter Five
The Muslim Samaritan
As he drove me to the station, he told me his name was Mohamed and gave me a piece of mint-flavoured gum as he chatted. He seemed a nice man and I began to relax my guard a little as I chewed. I didn’t like driving back into the city that I was trying to escape from, but I could see that he was right: I might never get away on the road. If he was genuinely willing to get me a train ticket, that was an offer I wasn’t in a position to refuse. Arriving at the station, he parked in the taxi rank and we went in to the ticket office together, both of us unsure of how to behave with one another. The large, unsmiling woman behind the glass stared at us with a sort of unbothered hostility over the top of her half-moon glasses, like a headmistress trying to work out why a misbehaving pupil has been brought to see her.
‘A single ticket for my friend to get the next train to London, please,’ Mohamed said politely.
‘They’re doing repairs to the track,’ she told him. ‘Services have been suspended and he’s missed the last connection to London for this evening.’
‘When is the next connection, please?’ Mohamed asked.
‘Six o’clock tomorrow morning,’ she said, looking past him and returning my angry, gum-chewing scowl with the calm stare of someone enjoying their little moment of power.
I could see that she was wondering what such a young-looking boy was doing travelling on his own and having his ticket bought for him by a middle-aged Asian man. It obviously struck her as strange. My heart was thumping and I was poised to run if she went to press an alarm button or pick up a phone to call the police. I felt so close to escaping, and the thought of having to hang around the cold station all night made me shiver. The disdain that she was showing towards Mohamed was stoking my anger back up again.
‘Can I buy a ticket for tomorrow then?’ Mohamed persevered.
‘Are you travelling alone?’ she asked me, ignoring him completely. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Course I’m all right,’ I snarled back angrily. ‘Look, woman, are you going to give us this ticket or not?’
All the boys in the homes I had been in talked like that to virtually everyone. We all wanted to sound like the black guys we met on the streets. We wanted to mimic their easy confidence and cheek in the face of authority. I expect we all sounded as foolish as Ali G suggested when he turned our patter into a comic character. I guess the ticket lady lost interest in my welfare at that moment, deciding I was a nasty piece of work and could look after myself for all she cared, because she passed the ticket over and took Mohamed’s money.
‘Enjoy your trip,’ she said to me.
I glanced back as we walked away and saw that she was watching us go, obviously still curious about what our story might be, perhaps not certain that she had done the right thing by issuing the ticket. Maybe she had grandsons my age.
My next worry was how to get through a night on the station without being picked up by the police. I was still worried that Mum’s neighbours might have reported the damage I’d done to the house, and once the police started checking me out they would pretty soon put two and two together. Thanks to Mohamed I now had my ticket to the promised land of Charing Cross; I just needed to stay out of sight for the next ten or so hours. I had a feeling that Mohamed had been as offended by the woman’s suspicions as I had, but he didn’t say anything as we walked back out to his taxi, both of us wondering what to do next. It was as if I had become his responsibility now.
‘What are you going to do tonight, Joe?’ he asked eventually.
‘Find somewhere to wait, I suppose,’ I said with a shrug, trying to look as if I wasn’t bothered.
I guess he was worried about what would happen to me if he left me on the street, but equally he was nervous about giving the wrong impression by asking me if I wanted to go back to his place. We were both stuck in a strange, polite sort of limbo.
‘Don’t misunderstand me, please, Joe,’ he said eventually, ‘but why don’t you come back to my flat for something to eat while you think about what to do next?’
All my instincts flared up and warned me to be wary. I knew from bitter and painful experience how foolish it could be to go to a strange place with a man I knew nothing about. But at the same time the option of being picked up by the police seemed worse. He appeared to be a genuinely kind man and he wasn’t being pushy or creepy in any way. I decided it was a chance worth taking.
‘OK,’ I said, shrugging, as if it was I who was agreeing to do him a favour, rather t
han the other way round.
We climbed back into the car and as we drove I picked up a book that was lying next to the seat.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, wanting to make conversation and break the awkwardness of the moment.
‘It is the Qu’ran,’ he said. ‘The Holy Book. I am a Muslim.’
‘That’s where you’re from?’ I asked, having no idea what he was talking about.
‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘It is my religion. I am a Muslim Brother.’
My ignorance was so total that I stayed silent, unable to think what to say next without sounding stupid. He must have realized that I knew nothing and spent the rest of the trip trying to explain it to me. By the time we got to his flat I was lost in new thoughts as I tried to make sense of what he was telling me about his God and his beliefs. I liked the fact that he talked to me as if we were just friends, not like an adult with a difficult kid, which was the tone I was used to hearing in other people’s voices.
‘My wife and I are getting a divorce,’ he explained as he opened the door to his flat. ‘So I have only just moved into this place. Our marriage was arranged for us by our families and we were not suited. My family are all very angry with me for leaving.’
It was a cold, empty-feeling place with a musty, damp smell oozing from the shabby walls and worn carpet. There was hardly any furniture apart from a strangely old-fashioned record player housed in a wooden cabinet. There was no television or radio to break the silence of the little rooms. He explained that everything he owned he had left in the family house with his wife. The only decorations in sight were the pictures of the small children he had left behind in exchange for this bleak place. He saw me looking at the photographs and began to tell me about them, his face glowing with pride.