The first time I lived in London I frittered away most of my time watching the city like I was looking at a programme on the television set. I could see the people, but they couldn’t see me, and I can’t say it was a happy time. This time I’ve tried to take part, but look where it’s landed me. I pick up my bag and start down the two flights of stairs, and when I get to the door, the American one flits into the hallway like a little mouse and pushes a pound note into my hand and whispers, “Good luck,” before running off back to the kitchen. I walk slowly up the road in the direction of the community centre, but I know I’m not welcome there, so I cross over and go into the Sutherland Arms and order a half of lager and lime and take the drink outside and sit and watch the kids playing in the mews. Then it occurs to me that I know the man who’s sitting at the next table with a pint of Guinness, for he sometimes comes into the centre and talks to people in the bar. He’s an actor who, when he’s not working, drives a minicab. He smiles and asks me what’s on my mind, so I tell him my troubles, and he listens. Then, without asking, he picks up my glass and his own, and he goes into the pub and brings us both another drink. This time he sits down at my table. I have a room, he says. The previous tenant moved out last week, and you can take it till you set yourself up. He asks me if I know Shepherd’s Bush, and I say I know where it is, and apparently this is good enough for him.
The man is not like most people, for he has a matter-of-fact casualness about him, and it looks like nothing could ever cause him to fret. When he laughs, I can see all of his teeth, and I feel as though there’s no bullying gene in him. So I tell him about the time I spent in hospital last summer, and how after the detective came and spoke to me I counted out the pills and took them, and how they decided to take away my eldest and give him to another family until my nerves were better. When my son came to the hospital to visit me, I didn’t know what to say to him, and the poor thing was too shocked to know what to say to me, and so he had no idea what to do with himself. I tell the man this bit of the story, but then I make up my mind to say nothing else, and I just sit with him outside of the pub and we both enjoy the evening sun going down, but I can see him sneaking the odd look and smiling like he’s pleased with me.
He tells me that it’s only three stops on the tube and then it will be my station. When I get out, I should turn right onto the main road. You’ll know it, he says. The station has only the one exit, and it gives out onto a busy, busy road. I’m to walk for ten minutes, then make a left turn at the third traffic light. The house is about a hundred yards down the side street, and he takes a key off a big ring that is attached to his belt, and he writes down a telephone number on the back of a betting slip and passes both the key and the slip to me. Call if you need anything, but it may be a few days before I can get over there to see how you’re doing. But please, you must make yourself at home.
I sit on the tube and it strikes me that if I hadn’t run into this man, I’d probably be on my way to Hyde Park in search of a park bench that I could use as a bed for the night. Instead of this I have a key in one coat pocket, and a pound note in the other one, and I have a place to stay until I get myself up on my feet again. It’s nearly dark by the time I find myself standing outside the three-storey house, which has a huge tree in the front garden, so it’s difficult to see the windows. Even before I put the key in the door, I know that it will be gloomy inside, for how can any light get in? The bare floorboards of the entrance hall are littered with pools coupons and unclaimed letters that nobody has shaped to pick up. It looks like they’ve been kicked to one side, although there’s a small shelf that runs the full length of the wall, and presumably it was put there so people could set things on it. In front of me is a staircase that I imagine leads up to the other flats, but I use the same key and open the door to the right, which leads into what the man called the garden flat.
The bathroom is straight in front of me; I can see a small bathtub and a sink and a toilet all crammed together, but no windows. There’s a cord hanging from the ceiling, but I don’t give it a pull because I’m not ready for any sudden brightness. An open door leads to a small living room with a kitchenette in one corner, a settee that is too big for the cramped space, and a battered wooden chair. I decide that the closed door to the left must be the bedroom. I put down my bag in the tiny hallway and listen, but I can’t hear anything. No voices, no traffic, no noise of any kind, and so I go into the bedroom as I’m tired. However, it’s disgusting and smells like dirty feet, and I know that I won’t be able to sleep in such a room, so I close in the door and pick up the bag and carry it into the living room. I take off my coat and put it over the settee and tell myself that I’ll lie down for a minute, but the next thing I know it’s the morning and I can see light outside.
It occurs to me that I should probably leave this place and find somewhere more suitable, but my whole body feels tired and I can’t even lift up my arm. The last time I felt so jiggered was when the woman came and said I’d be leaving the hospital and I told her that I wasn’t ready. I know, love, she said, but we’re sending you off to Bridlington for a few weeks of convalescing. Nice gardens and fresh air and walks by the sea, it will do you the world of good. I closed my eyes. The woman had already asked me if there was anybody I could spend time with, and I told her that last year my father had written me a letter in which he informed me that my mother’s cancer had come back and she’d died. What cancer? She hadn’t told me anything. She went quickly, was all he said, as if that justified his not getting in touch, so no, there wasn’t anybody I could spend time with. When I opened my eyes, the woman was still talking and reassuring me that I’d probably be able to get my job back at the library, and that I shouldn’t worry, for Ben was being looked after by a lovely family, but it might be a bit of time before I’d have everything back to normal. I looked up at her, and I remember thinking, you bloody well better get my eldest back to me. As the light outside begins to fade, I turn over on the settee and realize that I’ve gone through the whole day in one place. Tomorrow is Sunday, and this is the worst day of the week, for nothing is open. Even here in London most shops are closed, but I can still go and look at the cards in the windows of the newsagents along the main road to see if anybody has any rooms to rent, and then have a quick glance at the “situations vacant” in the window at the Jobcentre. I have to get another job. That’s the way it has to be: first a job, and then I can see about paying for another room.