Homeless, The First Time

I arrived in London a few hours later and began to panic, overwhelmed by the crowds and the noise. A siren wailed nearby and a police vehicle pulled to a halt. I felt truly lost, mesmerised by the speed of the city and the officers attending to an incident on the opposite corner of the street.

My first attempt at living in London lasted just seven weeks. Within days, the tentative arrangement I'd made fell through and I found myself homeless, on the way to a shelter for homeless people, not what I'd hoped for. By now, the cacophony of grim neighbourhoods had begun to drain me, filling me with a sense of hopelessness. West Hendon. Southall.  Ealing.  Acton.  Hangar Lane. Huge roads. Office blocks. Kilburn. Archway. Willesden.  

I stayed two nights at the shelter, Wednesday and Thursday. When I woke on the Friday, I knew I couldn't face staying there any longer and I paid a visit to the local Pentecostal church.

The minister was a few years older than me, and friendly, if not a little cautious of my story, perplexed, perhaps, as to why someone who could play classical piano works from memory had ended up in the shelter opposite his church. He let me play the piano in the main sanctuary and appeared keen to find a solution to my problem, as he no doubt saw talent and youth being wasted.

Halfway through the morning, a local guy entered the church, aged late twenties, early thirties.  

'Do you think your landlord would be prepared to put this young man up?' the minister said after introducing us. 'He's come down from Devon and he's currently staying across the road, in the Pound. But he's a fantastic piano player.'

The local guy's landlord wouldn't agree to take me in. Nor would any of the landlords listed in the regional newspaper. Always the same reasons: no deposit, no month's rent in advance. After a further discussion, the guy took me round to a council flat a few streets away where a mate of his lived.

The mate, an alcoholic, was in the front room when we arrived at the first floor flat, sipping strong lager from a can. His girlfriend sat by him on the floor, already drunk, along with a group of their friends. She couldn't have been much more than forty years in age, but the years of drinking had aged her prematurely, causing shrunken cheeks.

'F*** off,' she snarled at me. 'Or I'll throw you out the window.' Glaring, she shook her fist at me.  

'Leave the man alone,' the owner of the flat muttered.

After listening to my tale of life in Pound Lodge, the flat owner agreed that I could sleep in the kitchen at night, as long as I helped supply him with drinks from time to time.  

'Rah!' his girlfriend growled suddenly, snarling at me and shaking her fist again. 'I'll kill you, you bleedin little f***.Get out of here before I throw you out of that window.'