by Anya Peters
I tried to think it all out, to see what the options were. I racked my brain for places I could go. But there was nowhere. I’d lost touch with everyone while I was with Craig. I felt too proud to get back in touch after more than two years and tell anyone how bad things had got for me. I’d wait until I was on my feet again.
I looked at the petrol gauge, wondering how much it would cost to drive to London, and whether I really should go back there the following day—even though there was no one for me left there. Mummy had gone to live in Spain several years before, so I couldn’t go to see her. Even if she hadn’t left, after my last visit to see her, I knew there was no way I’d visit again while my uncle was there. He had noticed I was even more nervous around him than usual last time. I knew that somehow he’d figured out I’d got myself into an abusive, ‘controlling’ relationship. I hadn’t told anybody, but he laughed at me that day in a way that made my blood run cold and let me know that he knew. And I vowed never to go over to see them again until I’d got my life back together.
I kept hearing Craig’s voice in my head saying: ‘You’ll come back to me. There’ll be nowhere else for you to go…’
The beach was emptying, everyone around me preparing to go home. I pretended not to notice and didn’t allow myself to imagine the warm, safe homes they might be hurrying off to. I blew on the chips one by one and tried to focus on what other options there might be before the money ran out completely. Where I could go? I seemed to have burnt all my bridges. I tried to imagine turning up at the various front doors of friends and colleagues I’d once known; tried to imagine myself explaining to them what had happened, what had become of my life, how little self-esteem I’d had to allow myself to be treated like that by Craig; what a spectacular failure I’d been. I knew I’d be too ashamed to tell anyone. I’d have to get through this my own way.
Sitting there, the tiredness of all those months suddenly caught up with me. I felt totally wiped out and heavy, as if a weight of wet sand had just been poured into my body, and I didn’t feel able to drive off. I stayed sitting in the car after I’d finished my chips, staring out at the horizon, not wanting to walk into a B & B or hotel and be seen in that state. Night porters would have come on shift by then, watching out for anyone who booked into a single room but tried to sneak someone else up later. I’d been living like this for months now; I knew the suspicions, and couldn’t bear another night of feeling like I was doing something wrong.
It was a warm evening but all that release of emotion had left me cold and shaky so I pulled a couple of fleeces out of my holdall and put one on. I rolled up the other fleece, put it down onto the passenger seat, leaned over and laid my head down on it; just to rest for a while and to think. I longed for a hot bath. I told myself I would get a room later in one of the cheaper hotels at the Hove end of town, which I hadn’t been into before. In a small hotel I was more likely to get a room with a bath. It looked like I’d have to go to the authorities anyway so I might as well use the remaining credit on my card on that.
At close to 10.30 p.m. I locked the car doors, took the keys out of the ignition, loosened my boots, pulled up my legs and stretched myself out as much as I could across the front seats. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, with the handbrake digging into my stomach, but it was only for a rest, so it was bearable. From that low down I could see nothing but a midnight-blue sky, which looked like glitter from a tube had been shaken across it. I couldn’t see any people and it felt like no one could see in either, like I was almost invisible. I closed my eyes against a throbbing headache which had been rising up across the back of my head all evening, intending only to rest for half an hour or so. But I ended up falling into a deep, undisturbed sleep.
When I opened my eyes again there were clear blue skies and huge, screeching seagulls tilting slowly through it as a hot sun beat down through the windscreen. I was hot and sticky, my hair stuck to my forehead and the shirt under my fleece damp with sweat. For a moment I was disorientated, then shocked as I realised it was morning. I had spent a whole night in the car.
Chapter 41
After the first night it was easy to do it again; and then the next night and the next night after that. In a way it took some of the pressure off me. I had been running up all that credit card debt simply on accommodation night after night, to continue in a situation I didn’t want to be in from the beginning. Suddenly I didn’t have to spend anything at all. And for a couple of days at least there was an enormous sense of relief.
There was also a certain sense of freedom in knowing that I could survive without spending a penny on hotel bills or relying on anything or anyone. I no longer had to run around trying to find rooms for the night, always trying to conceal my state of exhaustion from receptionists, cleaners or night porters, or pretend I was just on holiday. After that first night, in a bizarre but quite misguided way, I felt I had got back some of the control over my life—although of course I was actually losing more control. But for a while I felt free, completely off the radar.
I had no idea I’d live like that in the car in Brighton for over a month in the end, seeing a shabbier and shabbier city every day. By eating chips and cheap, sugary foods I managed to live on the benefits money I was still getting. There was no money for petrol any more, and definitely not for hotels. Very soon I realised I had swapped one trap for a worse one. But after a week of sleeping in the car I had no idea how to stop.
One of the worst parts of living in the car, especially during the August heat wave, was having nowhere to shower. You can only do so much washing in public toilets, even in the disabled ones where the hand basin and dryer are inside. Some days I changed into a bathing costume and waded out into the sea to wash as best as I could, but I never felt clean. All day I felt hot and grimy, the car smelling of sweat and the cheap takeaway food I ate in it. By the end of the first week the feeling of relief at not having to deal with people in hotels had gone and I dreaded every night.
Every part of me was stiff and aching, bruised or tender. I’d always been a heavy sleeper but in the car I woke up with the pain countless times during the night, rolling over or changing ends so that my head was at the other side of the car and my legs had a better chance of stretching out under the glove compartment. It would have been easier if I could have slept across the back seat, but it was piled high with all my possessions—boxes, bags, suitcases, everything that hadn’t gone into storage.
After a few weeks my whole body physically resisted the night closing in, and I’d sit there fighting the tiredness as long as I could. Night after night I almost threw up at the thought of doing it again.
But without telling someone I didn’t know how to stop it, and I was even more determined not to admit how I was now living to anyone. Because then I would have had to explain all the reasons why I was there, sleeping in my car—why I was alone in the world—and I couldn’t bring myself to admit that, not even to myself.
I soon developed a routine. At first I parked up very late at night in the quieter squares around the hotels in central Brighton so I could run in to use their ladies’ toilets to brush my teeth in the evenings, and wash more fully in the mornings before the traffic wardens arrived. Every morning I woke dripping in sweat with the sarongs and shirts I used to cover myself at night tangled around me.
I couldn’t afford to waste petrol now that my money was running out, so I never drove too far during the day. I had a rota of hotels, so that nobody got too used to me anywhere. Usually I went to the big, swanky ones along the seafront: the Hilton or Metropol or Holiday Inn. It was more anonymous there, and although there were more doormen and concierges, there were also more people wandering in and out, crowds I could lose myself in. I still looked respectable enough to pass under everybody’s radar then.
I knew the lobby layouts of most of the hotels by heart, so I could stride in confidently, as if I were a resident with a room key in my pocket, avoiding making eye contact with anybody and head straig
ht for the ladies. Sometimes I took in a change of clothes or just clean underwear.
Once I’d washed and changed, filled up my water bottles and helped myself to some tissues, I walked out wearing what I came to think of as my ’car-pyjamas’, with my boots and largest fleece on over the top. My car-pyjamas were just an old pair of baggy cords, several layers of long-sleeved tops and a long, brown, mohair-like cardigan, which until then I’d never worn, and which I threw over the sarongs covering me when the temperature dropped during the night.
If anyone saw me lying in the car, I imagined they’d think I might just have lost my door key or had too much to drink or been clubbing all night and slept in the car in my clothes until morning. Brighton is the kind of place where you could just about get away with that, at least for one night.
That is why I never slept in the same street twice—or the same position in the street anyway. The secret was to move around a lot so that nobody would ever get used to seeing me. The other secret was not to look too much like a female. I kept my neck and any bare skin covered and kept my socks on, sometimes wearing a spare pair over my hands. I thought that if someone just glanced in as they walked past and saw me lying there in a dark car, draped in all my dark layers, I wouldn’t immediately look like a woman.
After I’d washed, and if I hadn’t already changed into my ’nightclothes’, I’d choose a street that I wasn’t going to sleep in, one of the ones I would never sleep in. I’d park in the most discreet spot I could find—somewhere with tree cover, not too overlooked and not directly under lampposts. I’d sit there until as late as possible, waiting for it to get dark enough. Then I’d get ready for the night, covering myself with the sarongs as I hurriedly replaced each item of clothing I took off before removing the next one. I kept all my nightclothes and the sarongs and other things I used as blankets in one large yellow carrier bag on the floor, crammed into the area under the glove compartment during the day. I quickly learned it was easier to keep things separated and close to hand that way, so I didn’t have to go fumbling about in different bags for things.
I’d then drive to the road I’d chosen to sleep in. I’d sit there for a while, making sure the coast was clear, sometimes having a snack from the ‘food bag’ I kept on the passenger seat floor. Once I’d lain down, I’d keep very quiet and will myself to sleep, covering my head with one of the sarongs if I heard anyone approaching. Soon I even convinced myself that because I couldn’t see out, no one could see in either. It was that—the belief that I was almost invisible—which enabled me to do it night after night after night.
It was desperation for a shower that finally, almost a month later, got me to the day-shelter I’d noticed on one of the back streets. I hoped I’d get some food there as well. I’d already ventured to the door of the place a few times. The first time I couldn’t even bring myself to go up the steps to enquire about what they did there, and the next two times it was closed.
This time it was open. I walked through the people sitting on the steps outside as if they were ghosts, trying not to see them or let any of them register me. A crackly voice at the other end of the intercom buzzed open the security door and I stepped inside.
It was dark inside and it took a while for my eyes to adjust, but when they did I saw it was a busy, well-run place. There was a strong smell of damp and stale sweat, but soon all I could smell was the delicious aroma of hot, meaty food. Everyone there must have been homeless but they were a diverse group and the atmosphere seemed relaxed and unthreatening; people standing around talking or sitting in groups or on their own eating from big plates of hot food. It had been ages since I’d eaten meat, or anything hot other than chips, and my mouth watered at the thought of it.
Everyone was busy and I felt awkward and out of place. After I’d spoken to one of the volunteers on duty—a small, thin girl with long, blonde dreadlocks decorated at the ends with silver and bronze beads—I had to wait for ages to get a towel and soap and permission to use the shower.
I stood in the corner hoping the light was dim enough to conceal my face as the girl with the dreadlocks hurried between tables, picking up plates and stopping to talk to some of the men. She was the first person I’d told about my sleeping in the car. I thought it would be a relief telling someone, but it was a shock hearing myself say it. Thinking it, and even doing it, was one thing, but actually hearing myself say it out loud to another person was another. I couldn’t say ‘she’ is living in a car, as my brain wanted to say.
I had felt myself shaking as I spoke. I was short of breath and suddenly felt freezing cold. I didn’t tell her much else about myself; when I started talking she seemed surprised by my accent, and suddenly became quite brusque. I felt she didn’t think I was deserving of their resources, that there were ‘proper’ homeless people there in ‘real’ need, and that I was somehow wasting her time.
I stood there with my face burning in shame as I felt the stares of the men eating at tables nearby. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me; and when I looked up and around me again at this unfamiliar, almost entirely male world I had stepped into I thought that maybe it already had.
Another woman on duty rushed up and handed me a towel and a small bar of pink soap. She showed me to a shower in the corridor next to a laundry room. The doors were tall but only three-quarter length so if someone climbed up they could look in over the top, but there was no one there when I went in and I was so desperate to have a shower that I didn’t hesitate to use it. I crouched down to undress, hanging my clothes over the top. As I stepped under the hot water I started to cry, big, sudden sobs that took me by surprise. I let the water run down over my face and used the soap to scrub my face, body and hair vigorously.
Slowly I became conscious of loud voices in the corridor outside. It sounded like at least a dozen men were hanging around talking immediately behind the door. I checked the lock and held my breath. The voices became loud and aggressive. I picked up bits of talk about a fight some people had been involved in the night before at the marina.
’Do you know who’s in there?’ one of them asked loudly.
It suddenly felt like a club, like they all knew each other. For once I was glad to feel like an outsider.
’I dunno…Roy, is that you?’ one of them called.
I was sure they knew I was in there. I heard titters, then silence, and wasn’t sure whether to keep quiet or reply. I knew they couldn’t see in unless they used a step or something, but I still felt vulnerable being naked in a shower with a door that didn’t go up to the top and a large group of men standing outside. I bent down and tried to put a tough, streetwise tone in my voice, saying gruffly, ‘No, I’m just finished though.’
I turned off the shower and quietly patted myself dry, hoping they’d leave, but they didn’t. I stood there, perfectly still, wrapped in a towel, waiting, my hair dripping. When I realised they weren’t going away I hurriedly put on the clean clothes I’d brought in with me. I stuffed the old ones down into my rucksack and left the shower, keeping my eyes down, just seeing a group of legs and torsos as they all stood aside with exaggerated gentlemanly gestures for me to pass. I mumbled my thanks but still had to brush up against one of them at the end of the narrow corridor when he didn’t stand aside for me. I said, ‘Excuse me’ politely, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice, and waited for him to move. I felt like he was waiting for me to look up at him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to see my eyes, or to be forced to look into anyone else’s. I didn’t want to be pulled into their world; I didn’t belong there—I couldn’t hold my own. I wasn’t strong enough, not yet anyway. I turned my face, trying not to let him see it.
’You’re excused,’ one of the others called down to him and he moved aside.
Another time I could maybe have smiled along, but the whole experience was humiliating, and I felt jumpy and on edge and didn’t know whether they were tears or drips from my wet hair running down my face as I left. Apart from the work
ers, it seemed like I was the only woman in the whole place.
I was terrified I was on their radar, and that after that I’d be recognised by them all wherever I went in Brighton. By stepping into that day-shelter and showing my need I felt that I was somehow in their world—but I was still in denial about my own homelessness and couldn’t bear even thinking about it. I felt intensely vulnerable and alone and vowed never to go there again. I didn’t even stay for food. I walked away hungry, trying to ignore the hunger pains in my stomach just from the smell of it, looking back over my shoulder to check I wasn’t being followed.
I didn’t go straight to the car. I threaded in and out of the backstreets, returning to it the long way to be sure I wasn’t followed. When I finally got to it and had the key in the lock I looked up and saw a man staring at me from across the way, standing hunched over in a doorway smoking. I was convinced he was one of the men from outside the shower, even though I didn’t look up at them so didn’t know what any of them looked like. I drove off in a panic, fear shaken loose inside me, thinking every man I passed was one of them, all of them knowing I was in Brighton on my own, sleeping rough in my car.
Chapter 42
Inever went back to that day-shelter and tried to avoid that area of town completely but, over a fortnight later, exhausted and penniless, I finally drove to a night-shelter in a disused church in Hove. I realised I needed help, that I was stuck, not handling the situation; but getting help meant telling somebody and I didn’t know who to tell, or how to put it into words. Telling a stranger, however, would be much easier than trying to go back to tell anyone in my past. After a lifetime of pretending that nothing was wrong, that I never had any problems, suddenly having to ask for help was almost impossible.
