London

Alan trudges through Covent Garden

Monday 18
Monday to Saturday we have to wait for the theatre crowd to leave before we can make our beds. (If I were truly homeless it would be safe to say I have well and truly moved in moved into this space for good.) Then we have to wait for the crowd from the pub opposite to go home before we can get any sleep. Tonight we kill an hour or so playing chess with a small travel chess set.

After getting a thrashing from Michael and then beating Richy by making all the moves Michael calls out over my shoulder, I find myself in an architectural quandary. I am trying to build a little card wall, for privacy. But I am having problems: the card I have selected is too long and falls down easily. Michael and Richy offer advice.

“No, no, no, not like that,” Michael says as I take an un-flattened wine box and make a split half way down one of the long sides. I then feed the length of card I want to use as my wall into the torn slot. The box works as a stabiliser and my wall holds firm. Feature continues

“Oh, that’s pretty smart,” Michael says and we all laugh at my little camp.

Richy sets his alarm for 5:30am.

He says, “I am off to Woking in the morning to sell the Big Issue.”

“Why do you always go out of town?” I ask.

“It’s easier,” he tells me. “There are too many Big Issue sellers and beggars in Central London, it makes it too hard. It’s not worth it. I go all over, Basingstoke, Romford.”

Richy and I bid each other farewell and get down to the business of sleeping.

When a group of Japanese men, wearing suits and ties, come and take over the steps between the doorways where Michael, Richy and I are trying to sleep, I am a little pissed to say the least. I am exhausted. In fact having not got close to a normal night's sleep since coming out to the streets all I do now is doze in and out of reality. Every time I stop moving I fall asleep. Whether I sit on the floor, on a bench or lean against the wall, my eyes start fluttering. What sleep I do get at night, I look forward to.

But the Japanese are loud and drunk and partying right next to my head. One second they kick over their half-full wine bottle, the next they are dropping and smashing glasses. One of them even goes as far to try and take a piece of my card.

“Hey!” I say. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He speaks English now, “Oh, sorry mate, sorry.”

The Japanese, known for their manners, don’t appear perturbed by the fact that there are three people trying to sleep. In fact I find it hard to believe, given their shouting, that they are not being purposely loud. After about thirty minutes I hear Michael fidgeting. I am expecting him to say something, but he doesn’t, he is soon still again. Whatever hint he dropped worked. A few minutes later the drunken Japanese men move on.