‘Freddie. Freddie Weeks.’ He limped away before she could detain him any longer. Karin was still in that early stage of her job when she thought she could befriend the homeless people she liked and maybe find some way around the rules to help them, but he knew that she would have to raise a barrier against him sooner or later. Getting involved would mean breaking council rules and losing her job.
The streets were wet and deserted. Tomorrow was Halloween, but it would be happening somewhere else, out in the suburbs, where mothers and fathers were preparing to shepherd their children around the neighbourhood in fancy dress, in imitation of the American custom of trick or treat. It seemed unlikely to take place anywhere around here; there were no children. Clerkenwell was the habitat of the single executive, and no lights showed in the minimalist apartments that had been newly carved from warehouses and factories. There was no one to whom he could turn, and nowhere he could go.
He was tired of walking around the city, tired of being forced to take a few pence wherever he could in order to survive another night. Passing another restaurant window where slender girls sat sipping white wine beneath coppery lampshades, he could no longer remember his old way of life. What was it like to go out for a drink and not check your change all the time? Friends vanished like dogs before thunderstorms the moment things went wrong and you stopped being flush.
Below and to the east lay the city’s financial district. The dense cloud base was the colour of bad milk, but something flickered gold closer to the rooftops. Drawn to the brightness, he limped in its direction.
It took him half an hour to reach the source of the light, and what he saw made him forget the pain.
Open fires were glowing and crackling in the middle of the road. A melted yellow ‘KEEP LEFT’ bollard drooped like a collapsed cake over a traffic island. The front of a Pret A Manger was boarded up, its walls blackened with soot. In the distance he glimpsed protestors in white plastic masks running and yelling between the buildings, then vanishing within the turbulent movement of the shadows. It was as if the threat of a truly anarchic Halloween had finally been realized. Everyone was on the move. Only the lemon-coloured Hi-Vis jackets of the police remained immobile, evenly spaced across the road, a human ring of steel.
Like an avatar in a video game he was forced from one route to another by the warning signs, the metal barriers, the plastic cordons. He knew that after two weeks on the street, rough sleepers developed a frayed grey look that repelled the public and attracted police attention, but there was one more thing he still had to do.
The filigreed canopies of Leadenhall Market were sectioned off by yellow police tape as if marked for demolition, so he cut down to Fenchurch Street, making his way east until he reached the slender avenue called Crutched Friars. Just ahead, beyond the low-slung railway bridge, was the entrance to the bank. Its wide grey marble doorway, stepped and recessed, was carpeted with flattened cardboard cartons. Pulling a black nylon pod from his backpack, he unfolded a thin sleeping bag and prepared to bed down for the night under London’s warrior skies.
2
COCKTAIL
Before the day dawned, the air around the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England still held the acid tang of burned varnish, rubber and charcoal, just as it had after the Blitz and the City of London IRA bomb of 1993.
The protestors had been dispersed for now, but the steel police barriers remained in place. The various groups eyed each other from a wary distance. One subset known as Make Capitalism History had attempted to pitch camp in Cannon Street, while members of the official Occupy movement were still amicably negotiating with City of London officers, standing around with cardboard cups of coffee like technicians on a film set. A newer, brasher protest
The streets were wet and deserted. Tomorrow was Halloween, but it would be happening somewhere else, out in the suburbs, where mothers and fathers were preparing to shepherd their children around the neighbourhood in fancy dress, in imitation of the American custom of trick or treat. It seemed unlikely to take place anywhere around here; there were no children. Clerkenwell was the habitat of the single executive, and no lights showed in the minimalist apartments that had been newly carved from warehouses and factories. There was no one to whom he could turn, and nowhere he could go.
He was tired of walking around the city, tired of being forced to take a few pence wherever he could in order to survive another night. Passing another restaurant window where slender girls sat sipping white wine beneath coppery lampshades, he could no longer remember his old way of life. What was it like to go out for a drink and not check your change all the time? Friends vanished like dogs before thunderstorms the moment things went wrong and you stopped being flush.
Below and to the east lay the city’s financial district. The dense cloud base was the colour of bad milk, but something flickered gold closer to the rooftops. Drawn to the brightness, he limped in its direction.
It took him half an hour to reach the source of the light, and what he saw made him forget the pain.
Open fires were glowing and crackling in the middle of the road. A melted yellow ‘KEEP LEFT’ bollard drooped like a collapsed cake over a traffic island. The front of a Pret A Manger was boarded up, its walls blackened with soot. In the distance he glimpsed protestors in white plastic masks running and yelling between the buildings, then vanishing within the turbulent movement of the shadows. It was as if the threat of a truly anarchic Halloween had finally been realized. Everyone was on the move. Only the lemon-coloured Hi-Vis jackets of the police remained immobile, evenly spaced across the road, a human ring of steel.
Like an avatar in a video game he was forced from one route to another by the warning signs, the metal barriers, the plastic cordons. He knew that after two weeks on the street, rough sleepers developed a frayed grey look that repelled the public and attracted police attention, but there was one more thing he still had to do.
The filigreed canopies of Leadenhall Market were sectioned off by yellow police tape as if marked for demolition, so he cut down to Fenchurch Street, making his way east until he reached the slender avenue called Crutched Friars. Just ahead, beyond the low-slung railway bridge, was the entrance to the bank. Its wide grey marble doorway, stepped and recessed, was carpeted with flattened cardboard cartons. Pulling a black nylon pod from his backpack, he unfolded a thin sleeping bag and prepared to bed down for the night under London’s warrior skies.
2
COCKTAIL
Before the day dawned, the air around the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England still held the acid tang of burned varnish, rubber and charcoal, just as it had after the Blitz and the City of London IRA bomb of 1993.
The protestors had been dispersed for now, but the steel police barriers remained in place. The various groups eyed each other from a wary distance. One subset known as Make Capitalism History had attempted to pitch camp in Cannon Street, while members of the official Occupy movement were still amicably negotiating with City of London officers, standing around with cardboard cups of coffee like technicians on a film set. A newer, brasher protest
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