Just before the nudging, I’d been having a dream about Bingham. I was walking down a cobbled street with rats scurrying along walls and gutters when I realized two police officers were following me. Whenever I turned around to look at them they spun on their heels and walked the other way, but a few moments later they’d be shadowing me again. I went around a corner and there were more uniformed police walking away from me, except this time they had doubled in number. The ground was littered with rubber bands. They were pouring from the police officers’ shoes. The rats continued to scurry along the gutters but the officers didn’t notice them. I tried to escape but everywhere I went there were more of them – police, police, police – none of them looking my way. The rubber bands rose around my ankles like a flood until soon I couldn’t walk. The rats were squeaking, loud with panic. The police were coming at me, faces towards me but with no features. I was grateful to be woken because then I knew they weren’t real. That they were nowhere near me. That I was safe.
The nudging got harder and I started to wonder what would be waiting for me when I opened my eyes. I got to planning how I’d grab my rucksack and bolt to the gap in the door. I had my hands primed when suddenly I felt a wet tongue licking my cheek. When I opened my eyes, I saw two dark dog eyes staring back at me.
‘Get up, you lazy cow!’ I heard Jules shout.
She was standing over me with a bevvy in her hand. Her voice didn’t have the edge in it but her hair was sticking out at all angles and she was skipping from one foot to the other so I knew she was buzzing off something. Nothing as harsh as heroin, she despised needles, but some sort of pill that made her more hyped than usual. Even in a small town like Bingham, Jules could score.
As I pushed myself to sitting, the floorboards creaked beneath me and Boy, spooked by the noise, began barking. This woke Luca, who began rolling about, a squeaky moan leaking out of him. He searched the floor for his glasses. When he sat up his Afro was squashed down by the hood of his sleeping bag and, when he pulled the hood off, flat on one side like a tree with half its leaves blown off. His skin had gone deadly pale, his mouth dry and flaky; he looked like he was going to be sick.
‘Can you tell your dog to keep it down?’ he said.
‘She ain’t my dog,’ Jules said.
She looked down at Boy, who stopped barking instantly.
Luca unzipped his sleeping bag and pulled his feet out.
‘Jesus, I think I’ve got frostbite!’ he said.
Me and Jules examined Luca’s feet; they were white on the toes, but the colour came back as he wiggled them. He screwed up his face with each wiggle. If he’d kept his socks on like I’d suggested, he wouldn’t have this problem.
‘Sensitive type, ain’t you?’ Jules said real loud so that her voice echoed off the bare walls.
This didn’t help Luca’s mood. He pulled on his socks, still laid out in rows from the night before.
I took the small plastic pencil case from the bottom of my rucksack and went to the kitchen. The light was brighter in there so I could see the sink, with its big square ceramic basin and brass taps inscribed with ‘HOT’ and ‘COLD’ in looping writing. My toothbrush was so old and used that the bristles looked like they’d been stepped on. I rubbed a bit of soap on it and ran it around my teeth. It tasted foul but it cleared the morning fuzz. I wet the soap and rubbed the suds underneath my armpits, breasts and around my groin. I wasn’t going to get crotch rot like Private Pete if I could help it.
‘Is there a toilet in here?’ I heard Luca say.
Jules laughed.
‘Where do you think you are? The Plaza?’
When I returned, Jules was still hopping around and Luca was sitting with his lips screwed tight. I gave him an encouraging nod.
‘There might be one upstairs,’ I said. ‘It’s worth having a look.’
‘Yeah,’ Jules said, softening. ‘Won’t hurt to have a look, Posh Boy. Though mind the rats. I saw a couple on the way in.’
Luca’s mouth fell open, but Jules didn’t notice.
‘Talking about rats …’ she said.
Jules’s stories always start somewhere solid but get muddled along the way. She began this one with a man who looked like Flash Gordon outside the Costa Coffee. Then the story swerved to her twisting her ankle by falling over some lady’s shopping trolley, and Boy having a fight with a tomcat in an alley. The cat nearly swiped a piece out of Boy but when Jules got down and began barking, the cat soon scarpered. It got her thinking about the brutality of nature.
‘Cos I’d only just been telling you about how stupid animals were, right? I still full-heartedly stand by that. But there was something about the way this cat was going at Boy. Just like two lasses out on the lash on a Saturday night. Proper vicious it was. Proper human … So anyway, this Flash Gordon fella starts groping me and I nutted him smack on the forehead. I already owed him a tenner so it kind of killed two birds with one stone.’
She took a swig from her can as she took a breather. The thing with Jules is you don’t know if what she says is true or whether half of what she says is memories of past incidents and, even then, not necessarily her memories. I swear sometimes she recites storylines from old soaps.
Luca began wriggling, squeezing down on his crotch.
‘If you need to go for a piss, just do it in the sink,’ Jules said. ‘Don’t mind us.’
But Luca did mind, checking over his shoulder as he went into the kitchen, then checking the floor for rats before checking over his shoulder again and angling away from us as he stood in front of the big enamel sink. There were no doors and he kept glancing over to see if we were watching – which we were. It was like seeing the fuse on a bomb burning except the explosive in this case was the contents of Luca’s bladder.
Eventually he turned his head away and hitched his hips up. We heard the trickle as it hit the enamel, his body sighing as he got into a flow.
Then Clatter! Crash! A pigeon came flapping out of the rafters. Luca leapt so high that a streak of yellow arched through the air. Jules creased over, laughing hysterically, and I couldn’t help joining in. It was like being at the circus and watching a clown falling over his big floppy shoes.
‘Priceless, this lad,’ Jules said, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘Price-less.’
I was glad Jules was in a good mood; it meant she’d taken her medication that morning. If she goes without it she can be a bloody nightmare. Even I find it hard to be round her when she’s not on her meds.
I heard Luca zipping up his trousers. When he came back in he had a right cob on. His lips were screwed up again and his brows knotted in the middle.
‘I’m not staying here again,’ he said.
I expected Jules to get offended at his ingratitude. Instead she rummaged around her cargo pants and pulled out a few croissants covered with cellophane. Boy zoomed right over to her so she gave him one first, then chucked the rest to us. Luca examined the pastry.
‘Ham and cheese,’ Jules said.
I peeled off the cellophane and stuffed my mouth full. It was still warm, the cheese melted on to the cured ham and flaky, sweet pastry.
‘Ta, Jules,’ I said, spitting out crumbs as I spoke.
Luca looked down at the croissant.
‘Yeah, ta,’ he said before unwrapping it and taking a bite.
Jules sat down on the floor.
‘What’s the plan, Posh Boy?’ she said.
Luca pushed one hand into his jacket pocket. He froze. His face, which I didn’t think could get any paler, got paler. He pulled out coins and sweet wrappers and then rummaged through his rucksack and then through his tubs filled with screws and spoons, calculators and paperclips. Me and Jules watched as we finished our croissants.
Eventually he stopped.
‘Right, very funny,’ he said with a half-chuckle. ‘Can I have it now?’
He looked at both of us but he lingered on Jules. She shrugged.
‘Don’t know what you’re talking abo
ut,’ she said.
‘The credit card,’ Luca said slowly. ‘Can I have my credit card back?’
Jules frowned.
‘Why would I have it?’
He looked at us both again, examining our faces.
‘You’re serious?’ he said.
He didn’t wait for an answer but rummaged through his rucksack again.
‘Shit, shit, shit!’
I felt for the lad. Jules must have too because she wasn’t even slightly amused.
‘Sorry, Posh Boy,’ she said. ‘That’s pretty harsh.’
Luca sat down, head in his hands. I hoped to God he wasn’t going to start hurling accusations at us. I could handle it, but Jules was right touchy about things like that. You couldn’t say Jules wasn’t a thief, she most definitely was, but she’d never take something from someone she knew. It was part of her code and she took on that code the way nuns took on vows. I crawled over to Luca, placing my hand gently on his shoulder.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Whoever owned that card would have blocked it soon anyway.’
Luca lifted his head.
‘We have to keep moving,’ he said. ‘I’m telling you: someone’s following us. They’ve taken my card just to fuck with me. We have to leave.’
Jules was looking all sceptical.
‘We’ll just go on to Skegness,’ I said.
‘But that card was our way to Skegness,’ Luca said. ‘How are we supposed to get there now?’
Jules stood up.
‘Easy,’ she said. ‘We move on to Plan B.’
She picked up her things. I could see she was serious so I gathered my things too.
‘What’s Plan B?’ Luca asked.
But there was no time for explanations.
I first met Jules when I was waiting for Robin Hood’s handouts by the Tourist Information in Nottingham.
Everyone calls him Robin Hood on account of how he takes from the rich (the posh sandwich shops) and gives to the poor (the homeless). Except Robin Hood was an outlaw and Martin Wallis used to be the CEO of a big company that sold computer parts before he became homeless and started visiting sandwich shops at the end of trading and asking politely for out-of-date food. You’d be surprised at the stuff they throw out: perfectly good wraps, salads and sandwiches that can’t be sold because of the ‘Freshly Made Today’ stamps. You’d think they’d just take the stamps off and sell them for a couple of more days but customers can be picky buggers about things like that.
Robin Hood was the only person I knew on the streets back then. Every so often we’d have little chats about politics and the power structures of the super-rich but I was a bit of a loner so kept to myself. He was a gentle soul but strict with his rules for handouts. There were only two but he went over them at least three times an evening:
1) You take one item and wait until everybody has something before taking another.
2) You don’t throw your rubbish on the ground or you will incur the wrath of all wraths.
He really hates rubbish does Robin Hood. He’s a bit of an environmentalist. I’ve seen him threaten to push discarded sandwich boxes ‘up your rectum’ if he finds them on the ground. He says it softly but you can tell he means it.
The day I met Jules, I was standing at the back of the crowd, waiting for my turn. I felt someone staring; it’s funny how you can feel this sometimes, a presence in your peripheral vision, the shape of a body, an unmoving gaze. When I turned around I saw Jules’s broken eye focused on me. She was in full army gear, camouflage print from head to toe with a pair of black Doc Martens on her feet. She caught my eye and pointed at me.
‘I know you, don’t I?’ she said.
She had a can of Stella in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Around her wrist was a threaded bracelet that I later learnt she’d got from a Hare Krishna. Jules is poly-religious in the sense that she’ll try any religion once, especially if they give free food.
I was new to the streets and trying to keep a low profile. I wasn’t in a good place in my head. When you’re not in a good place in your head you’re not in a good place to be around anyone. Besides, I wasn’t very chatty back then. Truth be told, I was kind of scared of new people. You don’t know what you’re getting with new people until they give it to you and then it’s too late. I’d already learnt that; already had jewellery stolen from my rucksack, already been kicked in twice for no reason. But as Jules would later tell me (and keep telling me) there are a lot of psychotics out there. Not just the homeless, of course, but in general. To be fair, you probably get a few more in the homeless category. It’s partly how people end up on the streets and partly the result of living on the streets – hard to know whether it’s chicken or egg in some circumstances. The trick is to differentiate between friendly psychotics and the dangerous psychotics. At that point, I couldn’t tell with Jules.
She carried on looking at me, waggling her finger up and down.
‘Honest to God,’ she said. ‘I know you from somewhere.’
I smiled and then shrugged, looking back at the crowd to see if I was any nearer to Robin Hood. I hadn’t eaten for a while and was feeling weak. The hunger in your stomach goes after a few days but the weakness is constant.
That’s when she came and stood beside me.
‘You know Sheila Dugan?’ she said.
I shook my head. She took a puff from her cigarette. Big fat clouds billowed from her mouth.
‘Freddie from down south?’ she said.
I shook my head.
‘Dodgy Mike Gibson?’
When I shook my head, she jolted back as though I’d walloped her.
‘Everyone knows Dodgy Mike!’
I didn’t realize the crowd were listening until they all mumbled their agreement. I didn’t like the way they were looking at us. I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to disappear. I was about to mumble that I had some place to be when Robin Hood called out ‘Tuna steak salad with wasabi’ and Jules stuck her arm up like a rod.
‘That’ll be for me, ta!’
She dived to the front as quick as a ferret. Her army clothes merged into the bodies as though they were trees in a forest. When Jules came strutting back she had two boxes. I didn’t know how she’d done it but she’d managed to break Robin Hood’s Number 1 Rule.
She stuck one out to me.
‘For you, my dear.’
Robin was watching us as he continued to hand out sandwiches and, when he saw me looking, he gave a reassuring nod. I thanked her and took the box. It was from the posh deli place, sesame seeds over strips of purple tuna steak.
‘Nobody ever takes these on account of them not being cooked,’ Jules said as she opened her box. ‘Sushi, it’s called.’
She pulled out a lime-green plastic fish filled with soy sauce, ripped off its head and drizzled it over the chopped vegetables.
‘But they are right nice,’ she said. ‘Especially with the wasabi. Got a proper kick!’
She jerked her leg as she said this, like a little ninja kick. She gestured for me to follow as she walked to a bench. I looked up and down the street for an escape. Jules turned.
‘Get over here, you dozy cow!’
It was friendly, how she said it. As though she’d known me for years and I was her best mate. She’d already started on the sushi when I sat down, a pair of chopsticks held tight between her fingers.
‘Private Pete?’ she said, sugar snap held up to her lips. ‘The one with all the infections?’
I shook my head. She popped the pea pod in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
‘Jason Rusby?’ she said. ‘Skinny fella who nicks watches?’
I shook my head again.
She scrunched her face up, still confused.
‘Jesus Christ, d’ya know anyone?’
I tried some of the tuna. She was right; it was delicious. I shrugged.
‘I’m kinda new.’
Her face relaxed.
‘That explains it. What’s your na
me, then?’
Nobody had asked me my name at that point, not even Robin Hood. I didn’t know whether I should tell the truth or lie like I’d planned. I looked over at Jules as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Molly,’ I said.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
‘Molly Molly Molly,’ she said before opening them again. ‘Have to do that or I won’t remember it.’
She tapped the side of her head.
‘Got a lot of voices in here.’
I thought I’d heard her wrong, that she’d said ‘names’ not ‘voices’. Of course, I’d heard right the first time.
When Jules finished, she stood up to throw her rubbish in the bin. Then she sat back down and slapped her hands together.
‘Right!’ she said. ‘I’d better introduce you to the gang then, hadn’t I?’
She began walking before I could say anything. She had a swagger that told me she wasn’t afraid.
I wanted to be like Jules; I didn’t want to be afraid any more. So I followed.
It was 6 a.m. Jules is always up at crazy times when she’s buzzing and she likes to have everyone up with her. The sky was navy blue, with a few streetlamps shining orange light across the pavement. It was quiet so you could hear the birdsong real clear, as clear as the strings of the violins at the Symphony Orchestra.
We walked along the street that led back to the train station, me and Luca following Jules, Boy trailing behind us as she sniffed the pavement. Then Jules paused, turning to face the road.
‘Which d’ya fancy?’ she asked.
She fanned her hand out to the cars. I looked at Jules, then at the cars, then back at Jules. Luca’s face was wide and excited. I shook my head. Luca paced up and down the street, eyeing the cars. Boy followed him as though this was a game.
‘Yes,’ he was saying. ‘Yes, yes!’
He pointed at a four-by-four. It was a huge thing, shiny and black, with wheels as tall as a three-year-old. Jules laughed as though they were in on some joke together. Luca got to his knees and rummaged through his leather rucksack. I stepped towards him, arms wrapped round my waist.
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