No Fixed Abode

by Charlie Carroll

  'How can I say what would be best for you?'

  For the first time since those cocky students in Bristol, I wanted to punch a man.

  'Over there,' I said, gesturing at an empty space near the cathedral wall and surrounded by a pack of eleven tents in neat symmetry. 'Would anyone mind if I put my tent there?'

  'It is not for me to say whether…'

  I turned my back on him and marched over to the space. Better to pitch up there and get moved on within an hour than spend another second in conversation with that loathsome void of sound bites.

  13

  I suspected that many of the tents on my 'block' were unoccupied. A picture had recently appeared in the press: a night-time thermal image of the site. It showed that just one in ten of the tents were regularly slept in. Many occupiers pitched up, used their tents as shelter during the day and then returned to their London homes after dark. Other tents, like those around me, seemed to be there purely for show, and remained unused for days on end.

  I had but one regular neighbour: Dillon, one of the three homeless men who slept on the square alongside the occupiers. His sleeping bag lay wedged between two close tents, perfectly hidden from all but those who came within a few yards of it. Dillon was short and humble, often seen around the canteen where he was given free meals without question. Everyone was given free meals without question – it was part of the canteen policy – but there were few who took advantage of the opportunity as frequently as Dillon. He had perhaps not been so well fed in years. He drank tea (again free) by the gallon and quelled his nicotine addiction by 'blagging saves' off anyone he saw smoking.

  I spent an afternoon in the large white marquee which housed the canteen, helping to serve food and wash pans. The entire back wall was hidden behind stacks of tins, crates of bread and vegetables, industrial-sized bottles of water.

  'Where did all this come from?' I asked that day's head chef: an Italian with gleaming whites and an immaculate clean-shave.

  'It's all donations,' he replied.

  'Donations from who?'

  'Everyone. Charities, redistribution agencies, supporters, but mostly just people who are passing. We have a lot of support here. A lot of people really care about what we're doing, and they want to help us. Yesterday morning, three guys in suits came in with a huge box of chopped tomatoes. If I'd have seen them on the streets, I would have thought bankers. Maybe they were. It didn't matter. They wanted to help us. One said to me: "You can return the favour when it all crashes".' The chef laughed at the memory and swirled a vat of bubbling pasta with a fork. 'Then yesterday afternoon, this old woman – and I mean, in her nineties – came in for a cup of tea. I gave her the charm and she loved it. Asked where she could make a donation to the cause. I told her to go to the information tent. She came back five minutes later and said she couldn't find it. Asked if I could pass on the donation for her. She dropped something in my hand so small I could hardly feel it. It was a five-pound note, folded down to the size of a stamp.'

  I smiled and thought of my own grandma, who would have done the same. 'She's probably suffering from coalition-cuts more than anyone.'

  'Yeah, man. I don't get your government at all. I've been in this country a long time, and the best things about it – healthcare, education, pensions, benefits for the disabled, for the unemployed – they're the things the government seem to stand against. It confuses the shit out of me.'

  'Is Italy any better?'

  'Don't get me started on that shit-hole. Why do you think I'm here?'

  Dillon joined the end of the short queue. I piled his plate high with his third lunch serving and said hello to him for the third time. For the third time, I received a nod and nothing more in reply.

  'Do you know him?' I asked the chef once Dillon had left the canteen to crouch on the ground outside and shovel the pasta into his mouth.

  'Don't recognise him.'

  'He's called Dillon. He's homeless, but he sleeps here.'

  'Not very talkative, is he? Have you met Pat? He's another homeless guy who lives with us. Complete opposite, though. Can't get him to shut up.'

  'I haven't met him. I've heard about him, though. Dillon said there's only three homeless guys who stay here – him, Pat and Doug.'

  'Don't know Doug either, but you'll probably see Pat later. He's been away for a few days, but when he's here, he's here. He likes to sit at the back and count the stock. Says he's auditing for us and it's important. I know he sneaks a load of food into his bag while he's doing it, and I can't even fucking read the crazy lists he hands to me at the end, but he's a nice guy, and the food's just as much for him as it is for the rest of us.'

  He drained the pasta into another cauldron, threw on a litre of tomato and garlic sauce and then gestured at me to bring him more pasta. I rooted through the supplies fit for a military campaign, unearthed a kilo bag of penne and brought it back for the chef, who ripped it open with his hands and upended it into the boiling, cloudy water.

  'Why do you think there aren't more homeless sleeping here?' I asked. 'Or at least enjoying the free food? Seems to me that this is the perfect set-up. Space, sustenance, tea, no questions asked, even empty tents.'

  'I asked Pat the same thing once. He said the police.'

  I grabbed the fork from the table and stirred the hard pasta, hoping he would elaborate. He did.

  'There's police all over this place all the time. They're not doing anything, they're not allowed to, but they're always here. Pat said he was scared of the police. But we're not.'

  'Perhaps the homeless have more cause for fear than you do.'

  'Perhaps,' the chef nodded as he served his hundredth customer that day. 'Perhaps.'

  The next evening, Dillon confirmed the chef's hypothesis. He remained wary of me, but our close proximity lent itself to a grudging acceptance of my presence on his part. Plus, I had brought him a fresh cup of tea and, as he sat up in his sleeping bag to grasp it, he perhaps felt the polite need to oblige me while he drank it.

  'These kids are looking for a fight,' he said. 'And they'll get it. They keep pushing long enough and they'll get exactly what they want. A night in the cells. Badge of honour. But that's the last thing I need. No such thing as one night in the cells for me.'

  'Why would they keep you in for longer?'

  'You ask a lot of questions, don't you?'

  'I do,' I admitted.

  'There's no reason. Doesn't need to be one. They'd find one. I don't trust them. Never have.'

  Dillon finished his tea, passed the cup back to me with a quiet thanks, and then pulled the top of the sleeping bag over his head. Our short conversation had come to an end.

  I returned to my tent and reflected on Dillon's proclamations. It was highly plausible he had done nothing wrong, had no previous record, but the mere presence of the police fed a paranoia he had been cultivating for years. I had noticed that in many of the rough sleepers I had met: an ingrained distrust of anyone else, from the police to general citizens to other homeless people. It was a survival technique, a tactic of continuation, though it closed the homeless off from those who wanted to help just as much as it protected them from those who intended to harm. In St Mungo's, I had been told that, when you are on the streets, you only have yourself to worry about, and a thousand anxieties of living in the modern world are thereby removed with one stroke. But the knife was double-edged, for when you only have to care for yourself, that lack of care for others can become cancerous, and mutate into anger, then distrust, and ultimately fear. Jeremy Paxman had told me that a bridge of fear existed between the homeless and the non-homeless. I was beginning to see that the bridge had two lanes.

  14

  I unzipped the tent and held the flap open. Dillon peered cautiously inside. The light of my torch fell upon a single duvet which rested against the back wall, a white bloom of mould edging across its neat tessellations.

  'I don't know,' Dillon muttered.

  'I haven't seen one person ent
er or leave this tent in the whole time I've been here.'

  'I don't know.'

  The rain was thick and brutal, beating an ever-rising crescendo on the tent's roof. Its thunderous clatter had woken me ten minutes before, and I had scampered outside to find Dillon's sleeping bag afloat in a miry puddle. I insisted he sleep in my tent for the night. He refused. I insisted he sleep in someone else's.

  'Just use it tonight, at least. It's gone midnight. No one's coming back here until the morning.'

  'I don't know.' The rain had plastered his thin hair to his face and the sleeves of his sweatshirt dripped down on to his shoes. I pushed him inside and zipped the door shut behind him.

  When I stepped out on to the square at five o'clock in the morning, the rain had stopped, leaving behind a Lake District of pale, stony pools around the tents. Dillon was back outside in his sleeping bag.

  The camp was quiet in the mornings. People slowly stirred and began to appear at nine o'clock, spurred into daylight by the cockerel-calls of the garbage-disposal truck and the Italian chef's loud and happy exclamation from the canteen: 'Porridge! I have made porridge!' Then the crowds swelled throughout the day as the non-campers joined the ranks for breakfast and another long day of protest. New slogans were scrawled in black pen on to A4 sheets of paper and plastered against any available wall, column or plinth. Posters – some sparse and punchy; others as densely worded as a sermon – came loose and fluttered over the sides of the tents, sticking to clothes-lines and black-tape messages of 'We are the 99%'. Corporate logos were parodied and lampooned between the slogans. On the window of the St Paul's Starbucks, someone had glued a painting of a starving child morphing out of a spilled cup of coffee. Inside, trade was better than ever – there was always at least one anti-capitalism protester in there sipping a latte and taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi.

  There was little conversation at the Occupy London site, more just a series of monologues. I enjoyed watching people hold court: the stutters of excitement as they realised others had begun to crowd around them; the inevitable deflation as, one by one, the impromptu audience moved on to the next orator.

  I spent a lot of time in my tent. It was peaceful inside, and I knew that the moment I stepped out and joined the throngs I had to be ready to feature in a thousand photos. The press swarmed the campsite at all hours of the day, and most of the occupiers were more than happy to feature in interviews or supply quotes. Cameras, Dictaphones and notepads hovered around every conversation, and the conversations in turn became stilted and contrived, losing their organic flow and substituting it for media-friendly catchphrases. A young and slim girl choreographed the 'Thriller' dance to a score of eager and willing occupiers while a BBC film crew surrounded them. 'We'll take this to the Houses of Parliament!' she screamed, and the dancers moaned in zombie-like agreement. When the cameras disappeared five minutes later, the dancers disbanded, too.

  In the afternoons and evenings, a PA system was wheeled out into the middle of the square for the twice-daily General Assemblies. They were strange affairs, filled with speakers whose language was as couched in hedges, adverbs and bureaucratic non-speak as any House of Commons debate. On the afternoon the Dean of St Paul's resigned, I sat on the steps of his former cathedral for the first GA of the day. Some live music was offered as an opener for the session, and a drummer beat his djembe while a rapper grabbed the microphone and shouted invectives into it. 'Bank charge, bank charge, what you gonna do?'

  It was common at each GA for a spokesperson from each of the site's 'Working Groups' to add a few official sentences to the day's proceedings. Direct Action, Shelter, Outreach and Anonymous UK were all represented, but the site also had its own Media Liaison, and even a bank of individuals who self-policed the site and who were known as the Tranquillity Group. The spokespeople took to the stage, it seemed, to squabble, raising numerous resolutions, objections and counter-resolutions over the microphone. The increasingly disengaged crowd registered their feelings towards each speaker's sentiments with sign language: a waggle of the hands meant approval; a rolling tombola motion meant 'Get on with it'; one raised fist was a clear and imperative 'No' (appellated by the speakers as a 'block'); and a less-certain symbol of disagreement was one's arms crossed in an X across the chest. 'If you don't agree with what our Media Liaison just said,' the compère called out, 'do the X Factor!'

  It was customary for the crowd to slowly dissolve as each GA progressed long past its allotted hour. But, on the day of the dean's resignation, a curious incident took place which kept us in our seats throughout.

  Though the spokespeople were the only regular orators, anyone was allowed to say a few words over the microphone if they wished. A stout black man in a faux priest costume took to the stage, ignored the proffered microphone, raised his arms into the air and shouted: 'Tent City must go! This is England! If you are white, it will be all right! If you are brown, stick around! If you are black, get to the back! Tent City must go!'

  A clamour of occupiers surrounded him, urging him to leave the stage. He refused. 'This is England!' he continued. 'If you are white, it will be all right! If you are brown, stick around! If you are black, get to the back! Tent City must go! This is England! If you are…'

  The occupiers formed a circle around him, linked hands and gently kettled him from the stage. He leaned on their arms, beamed and persisted with his chant.

  'If you are white…'

  The Outreach spokesman, quiet and prone to nervous laughter, took the microphone. 'We've just been informed that this man is a street-performer. He's been recognised from Covent Garden. This is just a silly act.'

  'If you are brown…'

  'He's been paid to sabotage the GA!' a man shouted from the audience.

  'If you are black…'

  'The best thing we can do,' the Outreach spokesman continued, 'is just ignore him and carry on with the things we need to talk about.'

  He did his best, the PA was turned up, but the man shouted louder, and all became lost in the cacophony.

  'This is England! Tent City must go!'

  An irate young woman in a trench coat launched herself on to the stage and ripped the microphone from the spokesman's ineffectual hands. 'This man is deliberately trying to thwart us!' she screamed while feedback howled from the lone speaker. 'Ignore him! Don't give him any attention! We must not let anyone disrupt our order here!'

  The crowd fell silent for a moment, and the man timed his retort perfectly. 'Are you trying,' he bellowed, 'to evict me?'

  The crowd dissolved into laughter, the farcical hilarity of it all suddenly evident, and the GA came to an end.

  15

  The site slowly cleared in the hours between the closing of the evening GA and the closing of the Underground. After only a few days at St Paul's, I came to believe the veracity of those thermal images which showed only 10 per cent of the tents occupied at night. By midnight, an eerie silence settled over the site.

  Nevertheless, those hardcore who stayed were beginning to wear each other out. Tempers frayed at two in the morning. Alcohol and drugs were strictly prohibited on the site, but we all knew they were consumed illicitly. Each night, at least one fiery and inebriated shouting-match was launched over the heads of the tents. Perhaps someone was still playing a guitar, perhaps a couple's sex had become ludicrous in its volume, perhaps late-night revellers fresh from a nightclub kick-out had sauntered past the cathedral looking for a fight. Either way, anger and noise rose and rose each night until a member of the Tranquillity Group appeared, frustrated and sleep-deprived, to quell whatever needless disturbance was building. These tranquillity folk were, I began to realise, good people, intent on keeping peace, even if it was four o'clock in the morning. And their objective was always met, and always done so through their calm and pragmatic subjugations. Except, of course, for the night before I left.

  16

  I had made few friends at St Paul's, and this depressed me. It was probably my fault: it all seemed r
ather irrelevant to me. These people were fighting a worthy cause in a noble manner, but their issues diverged from mine. I wanted to know how a tramp might fare in the twenty-first century, what the causes and the effects and the experiences of a rough sleeper today might be and, except for Pat and Doug (who I never met – rumour had it that they had left) and Dillon (who rarely spoke to me), my neighbours were not homeless. They were only houseless temporarily. They were, dare I say it, like me – this living-on-the-streets thing was born out of choice rather than necessity – and I had little interest in meeting more people like me, for that was not the aim of my journey.

  I found myself missing Ian, Diana and Marek, and decided to walk to Parliament Square one day to see them. I did not want to meet Greg, hoped he would be out for the afternoon, but the thought of Ian's raucous laughter, of Marek's shy smile and of Diana's kindness negated any threat Greg might present.