Our Non-Fiction

What Time is it? ..by Sue Gardner

Once, if a vagrant had shouted at me across the street I would have kept walking. When this particular vagrant yelled at me to ask the time, I crossed the road to tell him. But now I was a Crisis volunteer, accustomed to communicating with the homeless.
Ricky's shout disturbed my reverie that night. I should have been elsewhere; instead I was returning home from hospital having injured my hand in a fall, annoyed to have missed my evening out. I told him it was 9 o'clock. He said, 'Is that morning or evening?' I looked at the sky and laughed and asked if he'd ever seen it this dark at 9 o'clock in the morning? 'You're a cheeky one,' he laughed and we introduced ourselves. Thirty minutes later Ricky (not his real name) was talking about local shelters and where he'd spent his Christmas. I was cold and feeling guilty, knowing I'd be warm that night and my bed would be under a roof, albeit a small roof, rather than under the stars. He forced his last can of beer into my injured hand but I persuaded him to keep it; his need was greater than mine. He pressed my empty hand to his forehead and so began our acquaintance.
In the early 50s Ricky's mother, alone and pregnant with his elder brother, came to South London from Belfast via Liverpool after her parents threw her out. Unable to be housed near the relations she headed to the 'Big Smoke' acquiring accommodation in the area Ricky and I now inhabit. He still despises the Liverpool authorities for rejecting her. Speaking fondly of his mother, a nurse back in Northern Ireland and later in London when he and his two siblings were older, he talks quietly whilst reminiscing, his Belfast accent distorted by the booze; only when he's sober does he speak clearly enough to identify his mother's origins.
Ricky became homeless when he came out of the army; his beloved mother had died, and consumed with grief he took to drinking. With nowhere to go he took to the streets, drinking away the last of his earnings, unable to explain why.
At over 6 feet tall, he spends most days hunched and cross-legged on the pavements around Waterloo station. He gets up to bother punters at the Old Vic theatre for a 'ciggie' or a quid and he's a man on a mission when he's off to buy a beer. His weathered face ages him beyond his 45 years. His nose is battle-scarred and his fingers broken and badly set. 'I'm a Doyle and my dad was a boxer,' he shouts. He never even knew his father.
I used to spot Ricky by his green woolly hat, but when he 'lost' it, the Sisters of Mercy at the Mission gave him a replacement flat cap; it doesn't match his tweed jacket, polyester trousers and worn out trainers, but Ricky likes it.
One April morning I found him sitting outside the church hugging his chest, completely sober though clearly not well. 'Some bastard with a kebab skewer' had stabbed him in the back the previous night. He reassured me he'd already been to 'Tommy's' [St. Thomas' hospital], but resisted their attempts to admit him, only wanting his wound dressed. 'Can't be doing wi'that,' he shouted at me, grabbing my hand. He admitted his mother would have marched him back by his ear to be treated properly. 'But she's dead,' he shouted at a passing cyclist.
Ricky sneezed and snot sprayed down his face. I stepped back; the contents of his next sneeze narrowly missed me as it landed with a light smack onto the pavement. He produced a disintegrating tissue to wipe his nose and I offered him my own hanky. 'Is it clean?' he asked.
I had feared he wouldn't survive the winter and with Sars hysteria dominating the headlines, I worried illogically that his sneeze might infect me with some deadly disease; these days Ricky wandered no further than the 'Elephant' [Elephant & Castle, South London], a half hour shuffle away depending on his current state of sobriety.
But he has survived. His wound still causes him to wince and he concedes he's scared. He's too old to live on the streets and doesn't want to die yet. 'I still haven't had children, well not that I know about!' he laughs.
I always say hello to my vagrant friend, unless he's in an argument with one of his 'mates'. 'Oh, it is you.' He peers into my face, grabs my hand to touch it to his forehead. 'Have you got a ciggie?' he asks, never remembering that I don't smoke. I sometimes give him loose change which he'll save up for a can of beer, 'baccy' or the treat of a burger. No longer receiving benefit, his main meal is breakfast at the Mission where he can also have a shower. Woe betide anyone who jeopardises that by fighting; at the first sign of trouble the staff eject everyone and breakfast's 'off' for the day. 'Hey, what's your name again?' He wants to call me Diana. He doesn't know why.
Ricky's now made a new friend. He can't remember her name either. She shares his 'patch', sitting and staring vacantly across the road offering an empty Pringle tin to the passers by, a cigarette stub hanging from her lips. Recently I saw them sitting in the square chatting like teenagers. As I walked past I greeted Ricky and they both waved back, Ricky giving me the thumbs up. That day, for once, Ricky didn't want to talk to me.

Begging is an offence in the UK but beggars will now be given criminal records with fixed penalty notices.
'Nobody needs to beg in this country. There will be accommodation for them if they want, there are benefits available to them, even if they have not got a fixed abode.' Source: The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

© 2004 Sue Gardner

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