| brian douglas skinner |
arriving in London
excerpt from a letter to Julie, 1986
My first night in London I spent at Jim and Peter's flat, with Peter as my host. I slept through the evening, but at 2:00 in the morning I woke up and couldn't to get back to sleep, so I read my book. It was a one-room flat, so the only way I could have light to read by without disturbing Peter was to read in the bathroom. By 5:00 I'd gotten restless in the tiny bathroom and grown tired of the book. Hungry and wide-awake, I decided to go out and see the town.
A short trot around the neighborhood made it clear that there was no hope of finding food at that hour. The Russell Square tube station wasn't open yet either, so I decided to walk to Victoria Station. I thought Victoria might be alive and kicking even at this hour, and that there I might get food and information about trains to Dundee. South by dead reckoning from Russell Square to the river, and then west by map to Victoria. I wasn't sure whether the riverfront area of a large city was a safe place to walk before dawn, but I figured it was probably okay. The scenery was splendid, London at night. All sorts of little shops and buildings. An occasional early riser walking briskly in the nippy morning air. Every now and then a tiny auto careening by on the narrow, empty streets. I got as far as the Embankment without incident.
Outside the Embankment station there were people sleeping. It wasn't bitter cold out, but still cold enough that I was chilly walking, even in coat and scarf and mittens. The sleeping people were each wrapped in layers upon layers of blankets and plastic. In the dark the first ten or so that I walked past I mistook for garbage piles. Nearing the station the bundles became more frequent, in fact quite frequent, and I noticed the peculiar regularity of the oblong shape. A closer look revealed a few exposed shoes and faces. No longer feeling entirely safe, I moved on to the underground station, which was empty but well lit. I went inside and got out my map to check for a short route on major streets from there to Victoria.
There is a man walking quite quickly about the station, looking at things. He is not badly dressed, certainly no worse than I. He is clean-shaven, wears glasses, and looks alert and healthy. He looks at me more than once, which seems natural, as I must appear somewhat odd, alone there at 5:30 with my map and my daypack slung over one shoulder. I return his glances with friendly smiles, that seeming to be the best thing to do.
After a minute or so he approaches me and begins conversation. Mostly conversation about the weather, a little bit about where I'm from. It's soon clear to me that this guy is a little off. He just comes across as being odd. A little hyperactive, or paranoid. Always looking about and always moving. I try to politely ignore him so that I might read my map, but that doesn't work very well because he's persistent. Several times he mentions how cold it is out. How bad for one's health it is to be out in this cold. I converse with him for a short bit and learn that he has been out in the cold all night, walking to keep warm. He has done this for three nights, having last gotten some sleep on Tuesday night. Tuesday was also the last day that he had anything to eat, though he did have a cup of tea Wednesday. He's friendly and talkative, but it's clear what he really wants is money. On learning that I'm trying to find my way to Victoria Station he offers to show me the way, explaining that it's about a twenty-minute walk. I accept the offer.
So we walk and he talks. He tells me about his life. From time to time I interrupt with a question, but mostly I just listen. His accent is heavy so I often have to have him repeat words or whole sentences. He's 35 years old. He has been unemployed for five years. He has been homeless for three and a half. He has family in Wales. A mother and a sister. The sister is married and has children. He's not welcome in his sister's home. He wishes that he were, because then he would be warm and fed, but he understands that she's trying to get on with her own life and that he would be bad for her marriage and her children. A ticket on the train to his sister's place costs twenty-one pounds, which is much more than he has. But he was able to hitchhike there last summer. It took two days to hitchhike. He arrived and knocked on the door. His sister answered, and they spoke there at the door for ten minutes. She didn't invite him in, and he didn't ask her to. He left and hitchhiked back to London.
I think his family had given him some money for a while after he lost his job, which is how was able to have a place to live for the first year and half. But that was years ago. Sometime in the past five years he'd had an operation to remove his left lung. I'm not sure what was wrong with the lung, but I think cancer. Anyway, now he only has one lung, which is the reason he gives for not being able to work.
He spoke some about begging. He said he wasn't very good at it. He didn't think it was right to beg, and he didn't think people should do it, so he found it difficult to beg. Throughout the time I spoke with him he made it clear how badly he needed money, but he never actually came out and asked me for anything. He said some did well at begging. He knew chaps with 210 pounds in their pockets all through Christmas. He said they do well because they approach anyone and everyone. He wouldn't approach any women at all, because that isn't right at all.
He told me what he'd do if he had money. For 12p he could have a cup of tea. For 30p he could have tea and a roll. A shower costs one pound eighty, and a shave costs one pound twenty. So for five pounds he could have a shower and a shave, and have a cup of tea and a roll every day for almost a week. Just yesterday a very rich man with a fur coat and a briefcase had handed him a five-pound note. As he was reaching to take it he had noticed a cop watching. For fear of going to jail he had turned and walked away without taking the note. He told me that story three times.
He told me that other people he knew always spent their money on alcohol and drugs. He said he never spent money that way. He knew how to take care of money. How to watch it and make it last. All this time I was painfully aware of the 35 pounds in my wallet. That amount would buy him tea, rolls, shaves and showers for nearly two months. I was going to spend more than that in one day to travel to Dundee. Even if I were not traveling I would spend five or ten pounds in a day. More extreme than the 35 pounds in my pocket was the two thousand dollars in traveler's checks that were in my daypack.
When we got to Victoria Station he asked them about trains to Dundee. He asked for me because he said my English wasn't very good. The attendant confirmed his guess that trains to Dundee leave from King's Cross. He took me aside and explained to me that I should take the tube to King's Cross, as it was too far to walk. He said that he would come with me if it weren't too far to walk, but that I would have to go by myself because the tube costs 40p to go that distance. He instructed me about how to purchase a ticket at King's Cross and offered to help me in getting a ticket for the tube from one of the machines.
As I bought my ticket we were both very aware of my wallet. Coins are large and heavy here, and I was carrying a good number of them. The 10p piece, which is the most common coin, is both thicker and wider than a quarter. I must have been carrying over a dozen of them, as well as a bunch of 50p coins and one-pound slugs. My wallet was literally overflowing with money. I fished through my wealth of change, and one by one I picked out four 10p pieces, feeding each separately into the ticket machine. He stood beside me and watched as I deposited them. It seemed to take a very long time. Each coin represented a cup of tea for him. He had spoken to me for 30 minutes now about how good it would be to have tea to warm his belly, and I stood there right in front of him, dumping cups of tea into this machine.
I got my ticket from the machine, and the rest of the change in my wallet I gave to him. He thanked me and said good-bye in under half a second. In three seconds he was already out of sight.
