London

Wednesday 13
I had completely forgotten about the boredom. Homelessness, not much fun at the best of times, is a time stopper when you’re without a companion. Since leaving the Time Out offices on Tottenham Court Road I have ambled restlessly. Feature continues

Normally, when in the city alone, I go to a café and eat lunch. I make phone calls. I go shopping. Today I walk up and down Charing Cross Road six times. I queue in a McDonald’s on Oxford Street for the use of their toilet. I sit in Soho Square watching students conduct surveys. . It’s 3.45 pm; I’ve normally had lunch by now.

It’s late in the evening, around midnight, maybe later, when I find myself walking down Villiers Street towards the Embankment tube station. There are only a few people about, but when it starts raining heavily they quickly disappear. I take shelter in the doorway of the Pompidou Patisserie, which has been kind enough to leave the sun shade down.

The rain, getting heavier and heavier, bombs the pavement creating a wall of sound. Just as the first flashes of lightning fill the sky a man, smartly dressed and carrying a shoulder bag and umbrella, stops in the doorway. “Are you homeless?” he asks.

I am not into naff plot tricks, but there really is lightning in the sky and when it flashes and turns the man into a dark silhouette, I too think it is ridiculous, a lazy Hollywood film trick.

I am slow in answering. I don’t want to talk to anybody on my first night. I want to acclimatise first, to be alone. I certainly don’t want to explain my project now, late on a stormy night, to a silhouetted man. Being homeless in London scares me enough. In New York, I was always a bit of a novelty, my English accent cut me a lot of slack. Here in London my accent holds no value. So not wanting to explain myself, I lie, I say, “Yes, I’m homeless” thinking this will be his queue to move on and leave me alone.

“You lying cunt!” the man screams. “You ain’t fucking homeless, I should rip your fucking face off you cunt.”

While the level of aggression is shocking, I can’t fault him: after all, I am not homeless. It was naïve of me to think that my being slumped in a doorway with a backpack and a sour expression might be worth something in the way of validation. The man starts to walk up the hill, shouting as he goes, “I’m gonna come back here and fucking kill ya while I your sleeping. Y-o-u…”