Abandoned (18 page)

Chapter 41

A
fter the first night it was easy to do it again; and then the next night and the next night after that. In a way it took some of the pressure off me. I had been running up all that credit card debt simply on accommodation night after night, to continue in a situation I didn’t want to be in from the beginning. Suddenly I didn’t have to spend anything at all. And for a couple of days at least there was an enormous sense of relief.

There was also a certain sense of freedom in knowing that I could survive without spending a penny on hotel bills or relying on anything or anyone. I no longer had to run around trying to find rooms for the night, always trying to conceal my state of exhaustion from receptionists, cleaners or night porters, or pretend I was just on holiday. After that first night, in a bizarre but quite misguided way, I felt I had got back some of the control over my life—although of course I was actually losing more control. But for a while I felt free, completely off the radar.

I had no idea I’d live like that in the car in Brighton for over a month in the end, seeing a shabbier and shabbier city every day. By eating chips and cheap, sugary foods I managed to live on the benefits money I was still getting. There was no money for petrol any more, and definitely not for hotels. Very soon I realised I had swapped one trap for a worse one. But after a week of sleeping in the car I had no idea how to stop.

One of the worst parts of living in the car, especially during the August heat wave, was having nowhere to shower. You can only do so much washing in public toilets, even in the disabled ones where the hand basin and dryer are inside. Some days I changed into a bathing costume and waded out into the sea to wash as best as I could, but I never felt clean. All day I felt hot and grimy, the car smelling of sweat and the cheap takeaway food I ate in it. By the end of the first week the feeling of relief at not having to deal with people in hotels had gone and I dreaded every night.

Every part of me was stiff and aching, bruised or tender. I’d always been a heavy sleeper but in the car I woke up with the pain countless times during the night, rolling over or changing ends so that my head was at the other side of the car and my legs had a better chance of stretching out under the glove compartment. It would have been easier if I could have slept across the back seat, but it was piled high with all my possessions—boxes, bags, suitcases, everything that hadn’t gone into storage.

After a few weeks my whole body physically resisted the night closing in, and I’d sit there fighting the tiredness as long as I could. Night after night I almost threw up at the thought of doing it again.

But without telling someone I didn’t know how to stop it, and I was even more determined not to admit how I was now living to anyone. Because then I would have had to explain all the reasons why I was there, sleeping in my car—why I was alone in the world—and I couldn’t bring myself to admit that, not even to myself.

I soon developed a routine. At first I parked up very late at night in the quieter squares around the hotels in central Brighton so I could run in to use their ladies’ toilets to brush my teeth in the evenings, and wash more fully in the mornings before the traffic wardens arrived. Every morning I woke dripping in sweat with the sarongs and shirts I used to cover myself at night tangled around me.

I couldn’t afford to waste petrol now that my money was running out, so I never drove too far during the day. I had a rota of hotels, so that nobody got too used to me anywhere. Usually I went to the big, swanky ones along the seafront: the Hilton or Metropol or Holiday Inn. It was more anonymous there, and although there were more doormen and concierges, there were also more people wandering in and out, crowds I could lose myself in. I still looked respectable enough to pass under everybody’s radar then.

I knew the lobby layouts of most of the hotels by heart, so I could stride in confidently, as if I were a resident with a room key in my pocket, avoiding making eye contact with anybody and head straight for the ladies. Sometimes I took in a change of clothes or just clean underwear.

Once I’d washed and changed, filled up my water bottles and helped myself to some tissues, I walked out wearing what I came to think of as my ’car-pyjamas’, with my boots and largest fleece on over the top. My car-pyjamas were just an old pair of baggy cords, several layers of long-sleeved tops and a long, brown, mohair-like cardigan, which until then I’d never worn, and which I threw over the sarongs covering me when the temperature dropped during the night.

If anyone saw me lying in the car, I imagined they’d think I might just have lost my door key or had too much to drink or been clubbing all night and slept in the car in my clothes until morning. Brighton is the kind of place where you could just about get away with that, at least for one night.

That is why I never slept in the same street twice—or the same position in the street anyway. The secret was to move around a lot so that nobody would ever get used to seeing me. The other secret was not to look too much like a female. I kept my neck and any bare skin covered and kept my socks on, sometimes wearing a spare pair over my hands. I thought that if someone just glanced in as they walked past and saw me lying there in a dark car, draped in all my dark layers, I wouldn’t immediately look like a woman.

After I’d washed, and if I hadn’t already changed into my ’nightclothes’, I’d choose a street that I wasn’t going to sleep in, one of the ones I would never sleep in. I’d park in the most discreet spot I could find—somewhere with tree cover, not too overlooked and not directly under lampposts. I’d sit there until as late as possible, waiting for it to get dark enough. Then I’d get ready for the night, covering myself with the sarongs as I hurriedly replaced each item of clothing I took off before removing the next one. I kept all my nightclothes and the sarongs and other things I used as blankets in one large yellow carrier bag on the floor, crammed into the area under the glove compartment during the day. I quickly learned it was easier to keep things separated and close to hand that way, so I didn’t have to go fumbling about in different bags for things.

I’d then drive to the road I’d chosen to sleep in. I’d sit there for a while, making sure the coast was clear, sometimes having a snack from the ‘food bag’ I kept on the passenger seat floor. Once I’d lain down, I’d keep very quiet and will myself to sleep, covering my head with one of the sarongs if I heard anyone approaching. Soon I even convinced myself that because I couldn’t see out, no one could see in either. It was that—the belief that I was almost invisible—which enabled me to do it night after night after night.

It was desperation for a shower that finally, almost a month later, got me to the day-shelter I’d noticed on one of the back streets. I hoped I’d get some food there as well. I’d already ventured to the door of the place a few times. The first time I couldn’t even bring myself to go up the steps to enquire about what they did there, and the next two times it was closed.

This time it was open. I walked through the people sitting on the steps outside as if they were ghosts, trying not to see them or let any of them register me. A crackly voice at the other end of the intercom buzzed open the security door and I stepped inside.

It was dark inside and it took a while for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I saw it was a busy, well-run place. There was a strong smell of damp and stale sweat, but soon all I could smell was the delicious aroma of hot, meaty food. Everyone there must have been homeless but they were a diverse group and the atmosphere seemed relaxed and unthreatening; people standing around talking or sitting in groups or on their own eating from big plates of hot food. It had been ages since I’d eaten meat, or anything hot other than chips, and my mouth watered at the thought of it.

Everyone was busy and I felt awkward and out of place. After I’d spoken to one of the volunteers on duty—a small, thin girl with long, blonde dreadlocks decorated at the ends with silver and bronze beads—I had to wait for ages to get a towel and soap and permission to use the shower.

I stood in the corner hoping the light was dim enough to conceal my face as the girl with the dreadlocks hurried between tables, picking up plates and stopping to talk to some of the men. She was the first person I’d told about my sleeping in the car. I thought it would be a relief telling someone, but it was a shock hearing myself say it. Thinking it, and even doing it, was one thing, but actually hearing myself say it out loud to another person was another. I couldn’t say ‘she’ is living in a car, as my brain wanted to say.

I had felt myself shaking as I spoke. I was short of breath and suddenly felt freezing cold. I didn’t tell her much else about myself; when I started talking she seemed surprised by my accent, and suddenly became quite brusque. I felt she didn’t think I was deserving of their resources, that there were ‘proper’ homeless people there in ‘real’ need, and that I was somehow wasting her time.

I stood there with my face burning in shame as I felt the stares of the men eating at tables nearby. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me; and when I looked up and around me again at this unfamiliar, almost entirely male world I had stepped into I thought that maybe it already had.

Another woman on duty rushed up and handed me a towel and a small bar of pink soap. She showed me to a shower in the corridor next to a laundry room. The doors were tall but only three-quarter length so if someone climbed up they could look in over the top, but there was no one there when I went in and I was so desperate to have a shower that I didn’t hesitate to use it. I crouched down to undress, hanging my clothes over the top. As I stepped under the hot water I started to cry, big, sudden sobs that took me by surprise. I let the water run down over my face and used the soap to scrub my face, body and hair vigorously.

Slowly I became conscious of loud voices in the corridor outside. It sounded like at least a dozen men were hanging around talking immediately behind the door. I checked the lock and held my breath. The voices became loud and aggressive. I picked up bits of talk about a fight some people had been involved in the night before at the marina.

’Do you know who’s in there?’ one of them asked loudly.

It suddenly felt like a club, like they all knew each other. For once I was glad to feel like an outsider.

’I dunno…Roy, is that you?’ one of them called.

I was sure they knew I was in there. I heard titters, then silence, and wasn’t sure whether to keep quiet or reply. I knew they couldn’t see in unless they used a step or something, but I still felt vulnerable being naked in a shower with a door that didn’t go up to the top and a large group of men standing outside. I bent down and tried to put a tough, streetwise tone in my voice, saying gruffly, ‘No, I’m just finished though.’

I turned off the shower and quietly patted myself dry, hoping they’d leave, but they didn’t. I stood there, perfectly still, wrapped in a towel, waiting, my hair dripping. When I realised they weren’t going away I hurriedly put on the clean clothes I’d brought in with me. I stuffed the old ones down into my rucksack and left the shower, keeping my eyes down, just seeing a group of legs and torsos as they all stood aside with exaggerated gentlemanly gestures for me to pass. I mumbled my thanks but still had to brush up against one of them at the end of the narrow corridor when he didn’t stand aside for me. I said, ‘Excuse me’ politely, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice, and waited for him to move. I felt like he was waiting for me to look up at him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to see my eyes, or to be forced to look into anyone else’s. I didn’t want to be pulled into their world; I didn’t belong there—I couldn’t hold my own. I wasn’t strong enough, not yet anyway. I turned my face, trying not to let him see it.

’You’re excused,’ one of the others called down to him and he moved aside.

Another time I could maybe have smiled along, but the whole experience was humiliating, and I felt jumpy and on edge and didn’t know whether they were tears or drips from my wet hair running down my face as I left. Apart from the workers, it seemed like I was the only woman in the whole place.

I was terrified I was on their radar, and that after that I’d be recognised by them all wherever I went in Brighton. By stepping into that day-shelter and showing my need I felt that I was somehow in their world—but I was still in denial about my own homelessness and couldn’t bear even thinking about it. I felt intensely vulnerable and alone and vowed never to go there again. I didn’t even stay for food. I walked away hungry, trying to ignore the hunger pains in my stomach just from the smell of it, looking back over my shoulder to check I wasn’t being followed.

I didn’t go straight to the car. I threaded in and out of the backstreets, returning to it the long way to be sure I wasn’t followed. When I finally got to it and had the key in the lock I looked up and saw a man staring at me from across the way, standing hunched over in a doorway smoking. I was convinced he was one of the men from outside the shower, even though I didn’t look up at them so didn’t know what any of them looked like. I drove off in a panic, fear shaken loose inside me, thinking every man I passed was one of them, all of them knowing I was in Brighton on my own, sleeping rough in my car.

Chapter 42

I
never went back to that day-shelter and tried to avoid that area of town completely but, over a fortnight later, exhausted and penniless, I finally drove to a night-shelter in a disused church in Hove. I realised I needed help, that I was stuck, not handling the situation; but getting help meant telling somebody and I didn’t know who to tell, or how to put it into words. Telling a stranger, however, would be much easier than trying to go back to tell anyone in my past. After a lifetime of pretending that nothing was wrong, that I never had any problems, suddenly having to ask for help was almost impossible.

But things had got so bad that this time I was prepared to sleep there, at least for a night, just for a break from the car. I couldn’t do it any more. I had been living in my car on the streets of Brighton for almost a month by then, and I’d been driving past the shelter for almost a week, trying to pluck up the courage to go in.

I spent a lot of time in churches during those weeks, sitting there, passing the hours, using them almost as safe-houses. One day I spoke to a priest who phoned the shelter for me and booked it. I arrived late, having spent hours outside in the car crying, wrestling with myself, telling myself that I shouldn’t set foot in the place, that I didn’t want them to recognise me the way I now imagined all the men who saw me in the day-shelter might.

I now wished I’d looked up at the men when I came out of the shower. The hardest thing was not knowing who they were. In the previous few days and weeks, when I’d been overtired, overwrought and slipping further and further off the radar, my mind played tricks on me and I looked at all men suspiciously, as if they were them. I started to fear them all indiscriminately—an almost hysterical, irrational fear.

The one time I’d been out to visit Mummy in Spain, my uncle had grown a long, scruffy beard. He was grey by then and even in the sun looked old and shabby and vague, like the men I now saw lurking in the doorways and shelters on the seafront. They all reminded me of him, and the knowing look he gave me the last time I saw him. That same look seemed to be in the eyes of all the men I soon hurried around Brighton trying to avoid, all saying ‘This is what you get for telling.’ I felt trapped in my own personal nightmare.

I was hungry and thirsty and couldn’t bear another night in the car with my knees bent, jammed up against the steering wheel column all night, my neck forced into an almost broken position against the door, but I was still too frightened to go in.

I remembered doing advice work in Citizens Advice Bureaux and law centres, and working with the Mother Theresa Mission in Calcutta. I worked at Crisis at Christmas in London as well for a couple of years, partly because I didn’t want to let my flatmates know I had nowhere to go myself at Christmas. I’d enjoyed the sense of camaraderie and community. I knew that most people who had ended up in that position had been hurt enough to have their hearts blown right open and would probably be the most compassionate, most understanding people.

But now everything felt different. What if I was wrong? What if I was putting myself in danger by being with them? Full of irrational fears, I felt too fragile and vulnerable, too alone and still too naive in many ways to take that risk.

I watched the night close in, the last of the light fading and the streets emptying. I was stiff and cold and dreaded lying down again. I tried not to lay my head directly on the car seat at night, knowing it was full of dust and crumbs and goodness knows what else, as my eyes got infected repeatedly: bloodshot and itchy from conjunctivitis. I worried they would get worse and affect my vision for driving. That would have been the end.

I still couldn’t force myself to go inside the night shelter, though, and decided to sleep where I’d parked, partway down the steep street. I leaned over and lay across the seats, too shattered even to go through the most basic washing and changing clothes routine. I just pulled out the sarongs and the long brown cardigan from the yellow carrier bag on the floor and arranged them over me.

Within minutes I heard footsteps pass and then stop. I never heard them leave again and sensed someone was there. My heart raced. I tried to still my breathing in order to listen, terrified of raising my head to check. Finally I did, to find there was nobody there. I looked around at the silent unlit houses, and watched the wind through the trees fanning eerie shadows across the parked cars smeared with grey-gold street light. Until then I’d never really got that close to feeling fear about sleeping in the car. I was doing it on automatic pilot. I’d always parked up around the quiet terraces and crescents in mostly well-off areas once I found them, and didn’t allow myself to think about the risks. This road felt too exposed and, despite my exhaustion, I was too nervous to sleep. I was about to drive off to a safer spot when I remembered the place booked for me at the night-shelter. At close to midnight I changed my mind. Tired and drained, my infected eyes dripping with pus, I decided to go in.

I buzzed the security door and spoke through the intercom to one of the night-workers. The CCTV camera swung round noisily to focus on me. I kept my voice low, wary of being overheard, and turned away from the camera, still trying to be invisible, even as locks clanked and the man I’d been whispering to through the intercom came to the main door to speak to me.

He said there was no record of a phone call made to them earlier about me, or anyone else.

’All the places are taken,’ he said.

He let me in so he could check his logbook, even though he said he was almost 100 per cent sure. I followed close behind him to the main reception area. He poured me a coffee, and I looked around as he leafed through his notebook. It was all new blonde wood, brightly lit with a silver anglepoise lamp, clean and organised. It looked just like any other modern office area, not what I’d expected at all. It felt warm and safe and peaceful. Whatever happened, now that I had finally taken this step, I didn’t want to leave: I couldn’t bear the idea of going back out there. Inside, away from the dark and the traffic racing past, it was bright and quiet and smelt recently cleaned—nice cosy smells of furniture polish, hot coffee and what smelt like fresh-cut flowers. Maybe it was the tiredness, or the contrast after the previous few weeks, but I felt safe for the first time in months.

’Nope, definitely; nobody passed on any message,’ he said, snapping his book closed before shuffling loose papers about on his desk. ‘Anyway, it would be too late now. Last check-in is nine o’clock. Nobody can be checked in after that.’

’I just want a place until I get on my feet again.’

As I stood there, the plan I’d been fostering for weeks seemed possible again. I could live in a place like this, find a job and work during the day until I’d saved enough money to get a deposit and a month’s advance to rent a room somewhere.

’Or just for the night,’ I said, looking at his blank face. ‘There’s only a few hours left…Pleeeease,’ I heard myself say.

He shook his head and said he couldn’t; he wasn’t allowed. I’d hit a wall of tiredness that had been catching up with me for months. I tried not to focus on the heaviness in my legs and wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating when he pushed aside an empty plate smeared with yellow egg yolk, with a juicy grilled tomato at the edge. I swallowed hard and looked away.

I could feel tears running down my face and hear myself pleading. I felt humiliated doing it, especially when I saw the way his eyes lit up, almost as if he was enjoying my predicament. He leaned back on his chair and swivelled around to face me, his arms folded behind his head, looking me up and down as he told me the others were asleep now and that it would be wrong to disturb them by letting me in at this hour, even if he could.

’Anyway, they’re mostly men, all sleeping on mattresses in the main body of the church. There are a few women in another part but they’re long-term residents, recovering addicts who are here under a strict programme. We can’t just let anyone in there with them for the night.’

I wanted to argue that I didn’t do drugs or alcohol and wouldn’t disturb them, that I’d never cause any trouble, that I wasn’t just anyone. But of course I was—he didn’t know me from Adam.

For weeks, as I’d driven past into Brighton, I’d seen men gathering by the front door in the evenings, milling about outside, waiting to be let in. I’d put my foot down as I drove off at the lights so that none of them registered me.

’Most of them are regulars,’ he said, ‘and men,’ he repeated.

’You’re being prejudiced,’ I told him. ‘You’d never treat your sister or your mother like this if they turned up here.’

’They’d never be in your position, not in a million years,’ he replied, banging staples from his stapler against the edge of the desk.

Eventually he offered to let me sit in a chair in the small interview room, which was off at the side of the reception area where he would be all night. He offered to make me another coffee, saying I could get a few hours’ sleep sitting there and he’d wake me in the morning before they changed shifts.

’It’s the best I can do,’ he said. I shook my head. I didn’t want to sit up all night.

’Maybe I could find you a sleeping bag,’ he said. ‘We get deliveries of them to hand out, and I think there might be some left somewhere.’

I thought of the people I’d seen sleeping rough, huddled in sleeping bags in doorways first thing in the morning when I drove off to one of the hotels to wash. I didn’t want to end up like that. I wouldn’t…I told him how dangerous it was out there, that there must be something he could do for me, that I was utterly exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

’You can’t just send me back out there; there must be something you can do, some responsibility you have towards people like me.’ My own words shocked me: people like me? Who were these people like me?

He shook a cigarette from his pack and lit it, repeating his offer.

’I’m just a nightshift worker. I don’t make the rules, I just follow them,’ he said.

My legs were heavy and it felt like there were bits of glass under my eyelids when I blinked, but I refused the offer and said I’d prefer to go back out to the car. He shrugged, his hands flying out in an apologetic take-it-or-leave-it gesture, but he seemed to take offence, picking up his keys and getting up abruptly to let me out, saying, ‘Suit yourself.’