by Peters, Joe
‘You want to listen to some music?’ he asked, gesturing towards the record player.
‘OK.’
He pulled out an Elvis record and started dancing wildly round the flat, encouraged by my laughter to ever greater heights as he mimed to the words, eager to entertain me. I recognized the songs because my dad had been a big Elvis fan and used to play the songs in the car on the days when he drove me around to keep me out of Mum’s way. The music was embedded in my head as firmly as the images of Dad burning to death in front of my eyes. It unlocked happy memories of our short time together but also reminded me of the cold horror of his love being snatched so cruelly away from me so young, the only love I had ever known.
When the song ‘My Boy’ came on, the surge of emotion took me by surprise. Images of my father and me together in the car, of sitting with him in the garage while he worked and of watching him running around in flames in front of me became overwhelming, and my laughter at Mohamed’s wild antics turned to a choking sensation in my throat as I struggled not to cry. Dad used to play that song to me all the time, over and over again, telling me I was his boy. It was ‘our song’.
The harder I fought to hold back the tears the more overwhelmed I felt by the emotions that the song unleashed in me. Mohamed stopped in the middle of his dancing, shocked to see that my tears of laughter had turned so suddenly to misery.
‘What is the matter, Joe?’ he wanted to know. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’
‘It’s the song,’ I said, not trusting myself to be able to explain any more than that.
‘I’ll turn it off. I’ll turn it off.’
‘No,’ I said, not wanting to reject the memories of Dad and be left back in the awkward silence. ‘I want to listen to it.’
‘Not good song?’ Mohamed asked, obviously worried that he had upset me.
‘It’s memories. My dad’s song.’
As I listened to the rest of the track and cried, Mohamed stood beside me and put his hand on my shoulder until it was over.
‘You want to listen to it again?’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded, no longer trying to hide the tears, wiping my running nose on my sleeve.
‘I will go and make us some food while you listen,’ he said, putting the track back on and disappearing out to the kitchen to leave me alone with my memories.
‘No more Elvis,’ Mohamed announced when he came back into the room a few minutes later. ‘I am making us a nice curry.’
As the smell of cooking drifted into the room and my saliva glands started to work, I realized that I was really hungry. I had never tasted curry before, but I was ready for anything by the time he had managed to find a second chair to go beside the little garden-style table he had set up for us to eat from, and I dived straight in the moment he put the food in front of me, shovelling it into my mouth. The next moment I realized there was sweat breaking through every pore of my skin and my eyes were streaming with tears again, but for a different reason. It felt as if my mouth was on fire and I gulped water from the glass he had given me.
‘Hot, hot, hot!’ I gasped. ‘More water.’
Mohamed giggled as he went out to get a jug. ‘It is only a mild curry,’ he said, laughing.
‘You call that mild? It’s taken the roof of my mouth off.’
He had given me a spoon to eat with, but he was tucking in himself with his hands, which shocked me. I had spent so many years forced to scrabble for scraps of food off the floor as a child at home that I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to eat like that and get their fingers so stained and sticky if they didn’t have to. I certainly didn’t intend to follow his example. If it could burn my mouth the way it had, I didn’t want to risk burning my fingers too.
We were both easy in each other’s company by then. He talked about his family and where he had come from and how he had arrived in England with his father. He tried to prompt me to talk about my life, but I didn’t want to even think about it, let alone talk about it, and he didn’t push me. I had also told him the lie about my family waiting for me in Charing Cross and I didn’t want to give him any reason to think that he should try to stop me from running away from home. Now that he was becoming my friend I felt bad that I had told him lies. I had always been falsely accused of being a liar when I was a child and I hated the idea that now I was actually turning into one.
‘The record “My Boy”–is that your dad’s record?’ he asked once we had finished eating.
‘Yeah,’ I said, and I could see that he was looking at me, waiting for me to go on. Reluctantly I told him about how Dad had died in the explosion in the garage he worked in, while I was sitting in the car watching, just five years old, but I didn’t tell him anything about what had happened after that, once Mum got her hands on me and started to wreak her campaign of revenge, hiding me away from the outside world for years. I could see that he was shocked enough by what I had told him: there was no need to go any further. He stopped asking questions, not wanting to upset me any more. I could see that his eyes were beginning to glaze over with tiredness and I was certainly exhausted myself, but I wanted to put off the moment of going back on to the street for as long as possible.
‘I can drop you back to the station now if you want,’ he said eventually, ‘or if you like I have a spare sleeping bag and you can sleep here for a few hours. I have no bed to offer you, I’m afraid.’
I could see that he was being very careful not to make it sound as if he was trying to take advantage, and I had also realized by then that there wasn’t a bed anywhere in the flat. He hadn’t given me any reason to distrust him and had shown me nothing but kindness.
‘OK,’ I said, as casually as I could manage. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting a few hours’ sleep.’
‘Good.’ He seemed pleased that we had made a decision and bustled around clearing away the plates and folding up the table so that there was room for two sleeping bags on the floor. Almost the moment he put the light out I heard him start to snore.
Lying on a hard floor was not comfortable. Even at the worst of times, when I was locked in the cellar at home for days on end, I had still had an old mattress under me. But as I wriggled around trying to find a position I could sleep in, I was aware that I was going to have to get used to it, because once I got to London it was likely I was going to be sleeping rough for a while before I made my fortune or met the love of my life and managed to get a roof over my head.
Eventually I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew it was half past four and Mohamed was nudging me up from a deep sleep, out of which I was very reluctant to pull myself.
‘You must get train,’ he said when I finally came to the surface enough to remember where I was and to make sense of what he was saying. At that moment all I wanted to do was slide back to the blissful oblivion of sleep, but Mohamed was being insistent. ‘I make you a drink.’
He came back from the kitchen with a glass of orange squash.
‘I will be back in a minute,’ he said, disappearing out of the room again.
I drank the orange and got up to go to the bathroom. The door to the other room was ajar and I could see him down on his knees with his forehead touching the floor. I had never seen a Muslim at prayer before and had no idea what he was doing. It seemed to me that the whole world was populated by nutters, but at least Mohamed was harmless.
A few minutes later he came out and made me something to eat, and we set out for the station in the taxi. We arrived a few minutes early, so he came in to wait on the concourse with me. There were already crowds of passengers bustling around us, hurrying to get to their destinations. I felt a sense of apprehension building again, and was constantly shooting furtive glances around the station in case a policeman headed in our direction, or anyone who might recognize me.
‘If you are ever in trouble, Joe,’ Mohamed was saying earnestly, ‘you must ring me.’
‘OK.’
He wrote his name, address and telephone number down
and passed it to me. I’m sure he must have guessed that I hadn’t told him everything about my past or my plans for the future, and that there was something not quite right about the way that I was spiriting myself away from my home town. I assume most people knew that Charing Cross was a magnet to homeless kids in search of better lives than the ones fate had dealt them, but he was sensitive enough not to question my lies or try to stop me. Offering to be there for me should I need a friend was the best thing he could possibly have done for me, but I tried to make out it was no big deal. As I folded the piece of paper into my pocket, he gave me a wad of money.
‘No, no,’ I said, feeling that he had done enough for me, not wanting to be any more in debt to him than I already was.
‘You repay me when you can,’ he said, pushing it into my only partially reluctant hand. ‘Send it in the post.’
Although I vowed to myself that I would do exactly that at the first opportunity, I expect he already knew that he would never see that money again. Once I got on the train I discreetly counted it and found he had given me £60, which was very generous for a man who was living in a bare flat and working every hour to try to support his ex-wife and children.
‘You look after yourself,’ he said, shaking my hand firmly. ‘Be good and be strong.’
It seemed to me that he was a little tearful about saying goodbye. I wonder if perhaps he was as much in need of a friend at that moment as I was.
As I turned and trotted off to find the London train, I felt a renewed surge of excitement. I was nearly there, nearly free of the city where I had been imprisoned ever since the day my father died, and I was about to have a whole bunch of new experiences.
‘Is this the train for London Paddington?’ I kept asking anyone who would listen, no matter how many of them assured me it was. I had never been on a train before and I didn’t want to risk getting on the wrong one, being whisked away to some other strange city and having to buy another ticket. I was mesmerized by the buzz of the station as the trains came and went and everyone else hurried around looking as if they knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going. I had no idea how far it was going to be from Paddington to Charing Cross; I just felt certain that once I was in London I would safe, able to melt into the anonymous crowd and leave the long agony of my childhood behind once and for all.
The London-bound train was surprisingly full. Maybe other people had had problems the previous evening like me but there were still quite a few seats in the carriage I chose. I settled down, looking all around me in awe, still nervously asking everyone if it was the right train. I was impressed by the space and comfort of the carriage, until the conductor came along and chucked me out, pointing out the signs on the window and the fact that I didn’t have a first-class ticket. I answered back aggressively, as I always did when I felt threatened, but he was obviously more than experienced at dealing with my sort.
‘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.
Chapter Six
Never-never Land
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 a
round 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.