Okay Commuter (3)

It was strange walking down empty London streets, no sign of life – no pedestrians, no cyclists, no cars, even the planes has ceased to fly overhead, redirected no doubt to a route that steered clear of the tiger. At one point I was about to say “there’s more life in a tramp’s vest,” but remembered just in time what company we were in and managed to hold my tongue.

“I’ve sorted out a route,” said John, who presented us with his mobile. A thin red line snaked its way from Liverpool Street in the direction of home.

“Na, don’t need no map, it’s all in ‘ere,” said Cecil, tapping his head.

“It’s fifty miles,” John protested, “you can’t have memorised the whole journey. This is the latest satellite navigation technology, saves us the quickest route to any location, is accurate to an inch.”

“I nose what I nose,” Cecil said, “I ain’t never needed no googlemap.” With these words he started to march off.

We followed after him. “Well it’s lucky I’ve got one,” John shouted to his back, “we’re going the wrong way, look we’re headed East.” He held out his phone, desperately trying to show Cecil how we were diverging from the thin red line.

“And where on this map of yours are we going to eat?”

We were both silent.

“Hay, your google god not got something stashed away for us? Then you stick with me, we’ll get there, but we’ll get there via food and shelter.”

Thus ended our arguments and from that point onwards we followed Cecil’s unquestioned.

About an hour later we arrived at a church. The smell of soup and destitution was in the air, behind a cauldron stood a vicar, stirring the pot absentmindedly. Beside his stood a white, ghost of a girl, a living skeleton, with bones in her cheeks where her smile should be. Queuing in front of the caudron was a long line of tramps and travellers like ourselves.

“Knew this place would still be serving,” Cecil said, “best vicar in London is this one, never preaches, just gives you food and a blanket when you needs it. Not as good as your duvet min,” he said to John, “never known so many togs.”

The food was just soup and a stockish biscuit, it wasn’t clear whether this was meant to be eaten with the soup in place of bread, or as a desert, but given the circumstances there were no complaints. We snuck a couple of spare biscuits into our coat pockets. The vicar saw me and smiled conspiratorially. It’s always disconcerting when a man of the cloth winks at you when he catches you stealing. A similar thing had happened to me when I tried my hand shoplifting as a child and I vowed to myself I would never steal again.

Eventually we were ready to set off. I won’t describe the rest of the journey in detail, nor repeat the fascinating stories Cecil told en route, there isn’t enough space to cover everything here. Just to say that we trudged somewhere in the region of eighteen miles over the course of the day, resting only briefly and occasionally, with just the biscuits the vicar had given us to fuel us through the journey.

Every rest break John would take out his phone and call his wife and kids, letting them know we were making good time and would soon be safely back with them.

The streets continued to be eerie and empty even as we reached the outskirts of the city. Who would have thought that the fear of the tiger would extend this far, it was as if the tiger were a virus which had spread through London and beyond.

After a long, hard walk we finally reached our destination for the day, a second soup kitchen. This was less well attended than the first, but even more welcome, we were starving hungry by then. We ate in silence, but afterwards started talking to a group of Cecil’s friends. We were looking for somewhere to ‘pitch our duvets’ as John put it and it was agreed that it would be safer to join a large group, so we followed them to their camp under a railway bridge, where a raging fire was soon roaring.

With full bellies and tired feet we were nevertheless enthralled by the yarns and stories told by the collection of vagrants, hobos, tramps, bums and gentlemen of the road (they each had their preferred term). We watched the sun set and the moon appear and the moon become encamped behind a cloud, all was darkness bar the faint amber embers of the dwindled fire.

And still we talked. My life, the daily trek to work and back, seemed so lacking compared to those around me. One man, a distant kinsman of the Danish royal family, described in sparkling prose his fall from grace, another man described the failure of six separate marriages, the collapse of which had eventually driven him to the streets. I heard tale after tale of fights, journeys, discoveries, loneliness and revenge.

With mind buzzing I eventually crawled under the duvet I shared with John and we settled into an uneven sleep.