A Winter's Tale

The cold got in the bones. Cardboard was the best, if you couldn't get a blanket. Or newspaper - if you couldn't get cardboard. Of course, none of it was any good the moment the frosts came. They came early that year, before October was out. We moved out of doorways and under bridges, or if the Community Support Officers were too enthusiastic, under the over-passes at the edges of town. And that was the pity of it. If the frosts came later, you could still be in the town centre streets when December began. It was nice to be visible: to slowly materialise before the guilty shoppers - as if only the Christmas lights illuminated us sufficiently to be seen. But that year, the year of the cold in the bones, we became like commuters: tramping from the outskirts to the centre, daily. Some believed it was worth staying long after dark, keeping faith that the drunk would be more generous than the sober. The Captain died for that particular dogma. He had been something military: at the heady top of the bipolar swings he used to shave, tell anecdotes about one or other Gulf War and sing songs about others. As the swing came back he'd become mute and, it had to be said, quite filthy. Someone took exception to a ditty from the Peninsular Wars outside Walkabout and the Captain's last battle was in a foetid alley.

In any case, one afternoon – the sky already dark with threat and misery – I was on the pavement outside W.H. Smith's. A broken-handled saucepan sat beside me. I hadn't emptied it in the two hours I had been there, though no doubt passers-by believed I had. It must have been close to the big day. The men all looked dubious, as if not sure that what they were about to buy – or had bought - would be well-received when the wrapping came off. Women tended to look purposeful, if harassed.

I was going to give it five more minutes, when he arrived.

He was swarthy, the beard made him look scruffy. He looked down at me, didn't say a word. The clothes fit, but were old. There was something off about the cut. He might have been thirty or so.

'Spare change, Mister.' I said, just in case.

'I have nothing, I am sorry,' he replied.

'Me neither,' I rattled the pan.

'Perhaps you know... I need shelter, it is cold. We have come a long way.'

'We?'

He looked over at a woman standing under the street lamp, in front of Lloyd's Bank. She wore a head-scarf. The buttons on the man's overcoat she wore were straining mightily. The light shone behind her head, and she smiled over at me.

'No money?' I asked.

'No, we have nothing.'

'There's nothing here. The Sally Bash closed last year. The council turned down Shelter's application for planning permission on the Methodist Hall...'

'Excuse, what is Sally Bash?'

'It's... never mind.'

I looked up and down the street. It must have been about 6 or so. The crowds had thinned out. It was too early for the office parties and people were heading home for dinner and domesticity. I picked up the pan.

'Come on.'

I took them to the underpass, out by the sewage plant. They didn't even have a blanket between them. I gave them mine. I introduced them to the others with whom I shared a few square yards around the huge concrete pylon. Cass, whom I had known since she had teeth, looked at the woman and said she hadn't long. And then Mel, who hadn't spoken in the three years we'd been on the road.

'I'm Belle,' I said. But the man didn't give his name. Just looked at his wife, brow knotted in a frown.

When the baby came, the father was calm; possibly because Cass knew what to do. Afterwards, we found some water. Cass had some perfumed soap, why I didn't know. She washed the baby.

'We cannot thank you enough.' The father said.

Mel had been staring at the baby for five minutes or so. I was beginning to worry, I nudged her.

Her eyes shone and she spoke, the word dry and crackling:

'Gift,' she said, and she rooted in a pocket, bringing out an old broken joss-stick that she laid on the blanket beside the baby and his mother.

The mother smiled. The father sniffed and his voice broke:

'Thank you so much, my name is Josep.'

I laughed, and tossed a shiny pound coin on the blanket.