Homeless, The First Time (Part 2)

'Have you the price of a can of lager?' the owner of the flat asked me in the morning. I didn't like parting with my money, what little of it was left, but I had no choice. Give him the money for the beer, or return to the Pound.

It didn't take long for me to discover that almost every person who came to the flat had problems with drink or drugs. And the drinking wasn't just heavy drinking, but breakfast drinking as well. The people would begin the days with swigs from a can of strong lager or a bottle of spirits. I liked to drink too  but never in the mornings. Still,  I drank in the afternoons  which was hardly any better.

In the kitchen that doubled up as my bedroom, I would drink alone some afternoons, finishing off an entire bottle of sherry. I would sit in the kitchen longing for something better, fantasising about a world that promised so much more than what I was now seeing. I would wonder if I would have to spend my entire life in this rut, here in this lonely kitchen with a bottle of sweetened alcohol for comfort, and I would drink again a day or two later to escape the reality of the situation I had got myself into.  

Over the two and a half weeks I spent there, the local man who first brought me to the flat displayed a nasty side to his nature: a temper. He liked to play guitar. Knowing that I could play both piano and guitar, he asked me to arrange some piano sheet music for the guitar.  I did as he asked to the best of my ability, but he exploded when he saw the results on paper, yelling at me to do it properly.  

'Ah, leave him alone,' the flat owner said. 'Look at him.  He's just a kid, getting on with his music.'

Another visitor to the flat gave me cause for concern.  He was about fifty, and the moment I saw him I sensed that he might be a paedophile. Early on, I got the distinct impression that he hated me.

'I don't trust him,' I told one of the regular visitors to the flat. 'And I know he can't stand me.'

'Ah, you're being silly. He likes you.'

Both my suspicions proved correct. I overheard a disgusting conversation among the people in the flat, one that suggested that this man had befriended vulnerable boys with less than honourable intentions. And the local guy, the guitar player who'd introduced me to these people, confirmed to me that the man didn't like me at all.  

Fortunately, I met two of my relatives on a regular basis during my stay in London. They helped financially and brought me meals, but no one could really solve the complex mess.  

Meanwhile, the guitar guy was getting increasingly volatile and explosive, yelling at me all the time and calling me selfish, and the man I suspected of being a paedophile created real fear. On my second Saturday in the flat, he entered the kitchen at around midnight and started rummaging through cupboards in the cold, muttering to himself, like he often did. I told him I was trying to sleep. The next moment, he was leaning over me, shaking his fist in front of my face and talking between barred teeth, threatening to kill me.  

After that, I avoided him as much as I could, but on my final afternoon in the flat, I caught sight of him glaring at me from the sitting room while I stood in the hallway. He shook his fist at me, even though I hadn't said anything first, yet astonishingly no one in the room seemed to notice his threatening gesture. I walked out and found a phone box.

'I can't stay there any longer,' I said.

'Okay,' one of my relatives said when I finished explaining. 'There's a student hostel in Kensington. Get a taxi over and we'll meet you there.'