London

Sunday 17th
After a quick wash in the 24 hour toilets opposite the Punch & Judy in Covent Garden, Michael, Richy and myself head off for a number 25 bus. We wait for one of the ‘Bendy Buses’ or the ‘Homeless Express’ as Michael likes to call them on account of being able to step on and off without a ticket. We take the bus to Bank. From there we walk, with the intention of catching another bus, to London Bridge. But a lack of Homeless Express’s forces us to cross the bridge by foot. We cut through the main station and enter a maze of back roads, (passing through one of the worst urine smelling stairwells in the world) weaving our way to Mellor Street and the Manna Centre, which is a day centre that is open five mornings a week, including weekends.

As we enter we are handed a bowl of porridge. Richy and I (Michael goes off to shower) collect a cup of tea and sit at a table along the right hand wall. Our eating is fast and sloppy. After which Richy sits reading the Racing Post, scribbling his picks on the front cover. I sit and watch the room, which is deep, tatty and packed with around 100 people. Feature continues

Somebody brings out boxes and places them in the middle of the floor. There’s a rush as people go through them, searching for things they need like quilts, shoes etc.

Exhausted already I start drifting, am about to nod off, when…

“Sorry, what was that?” I hear myself asking to the man opposite. He sits with a shaved head and a black T-shirt tucked into his jeans, listening to an old walkman that he has clipped to his belt.

“What?” he says back to me.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you said something,” I say feeling stupid.

Very quickly, I feel stupider. It’s Richy’s giggling that gives it away. The man had been talking to himself, and I tried to answer him.

“Oh,” the man says. “I was… it was… I was just saying… you know,” and with that he too has a little giggle and goes back to his music.

A minute later he leans forward and points at me, “Have you heard Madonna’s new album?” he asks.

“No,” I tell him, “I haven’t.”

Now, with what I believe to be a trace of Scottish, he says, “Yooo should get ya’self a copy, it’s fucking greeeeeaat!”

Michael appears with little pieces of tissue stuck all over his face.

The three of us move to the back of the room where a group of men sit around a bright yellow-topped table playing chess. While I sit falling in and out of sleep, Michael and Richy manage to play several games while we wait for lunch. The standard of chess seems pretty high. I am offered a game but decline, knowing it will be no fun for my opponent.

The smell of food fills the air and I look up to see plates of pasta with meat sauce and sausage bobbing in different directions around the room.

There’s a lot of pasta and rice in this business, carbs a plenty.

We eat quick and take our leave. Richy is keen to get to Ladbrokes on Trafalgar Square, he doesn’t want to miss the first races.