by Anya Peters
’Oh, you can die from stress,’ she said, telling me that once I got my life back on an even keel things would right themselves.
Since then I’d been driving around the country living in different places every week or couple of nights for almost a year, and had now ended up living in the car. I didn’t know how much more stress my body could take. No wonder it had shut down.
There were a couple of large hotels near the hospital and I was also using their facilities to wash in, or I would wait for pubs to open to use theirs, visiting them on a rota basis as I did with the hotels in Brighton so that nobody became too familiar with me. But you can only do so much washing in public toilets. I felt incredibly grimy and degraded, constantly aware of a sour, unclean smell from my hair and clothes. I was at an all-time low. Rushing back and forth looking a mess each morning, threading in and out among the commuters with my tatty carrier bag of wash things, I felt increasingly ashamed of myself and ground down. Then one day in the hospital I found a shower. And it felt like a miracle.
It was just an untiled, concrete space at the back of the toilets, with a vented window that let in the cold. I discovered it by accident, turning into a corridor I’d never been down before to avoid a security guard who was coming towards me. The water was scalding at first after the cold outside, but once I’d braved the cold to get undressed and stood under it, I never wanted to get out. I stayed for hours the first time, scrubbing myself from head to foot and thawing out completely, feeling my muscles trying to lengthen, especially in my neck, which was cramped up against the car door night after night.
There was a lockable door at the back of the toilets, blocking the shower area off, and I got used to being the only one ever in there using it. The first time someone rattled the door and knocked, calling out that she wanted to use it, I panicked, remembering the men outside the shower in the day-shelter in Brighton. There weren’t any curtains or dividing walls, but there were two shower heads, so two people could use it at the same time. I didn’t want to share, embarrassed to be seen changing back into my shabby clothes and dirty boots. I unlocked the door and rushed back under the steaming water while a woman undressed, staying in the corner where she couldn’t see me from the changing area.
She was an Australian woman, tall and blonde. She chatted away, through the wall to the changing area, as if she knew me, like I was a normal human being. I tried to think what to say back, to remember what girls talked about, small talk. I’d kept myself to myself all these months, and apart from the odd reply here or there it had been ages since I’d spoken to anyone. But all I could think of was my pile of shabby clothes on the bench outside and my boots hanging from the vented window to air.
She didn’t seem to notice though. She stepped in with her blonde hair pinned up and just a small pink hand towel, leaning across me to hang it up. I was embarrassed at my dry, pale skin next to her smooth tan, and my swollen feet with their yellowed, overgrown nails. Hobo feet.
She told me she lived nearby and cycled into work late, and asked me if I did too. She had no idea I was homeless; she thought I worked there. I couldn’t believe I could still get away with that. She had a kind, open face and her voice was so warm and relaxed I was afraid I might tell her the truth about where I was living. I bit down on my lip and faced the wall, forcing myself not to weaken, not to blurt out the truth to her, concentrating instead on the steam of her apple shampoo, which made me hungry again.
I didn’t have a towel, so tried to put a laugh into my voice as I stepped out and shouted that I’d left it ‘at home’ as I patted myself dry with loo roll.
’I’m always doing that,’ she said, offering me hers. I felt like I’d made a new friend, but then reminded myself that I wasn’t in a position to make friends with anyone. We were in different worlds now.
’It’s okay,’ I replied, hurrying to leave, ‘I’ll manage.’
Finding cheap places to eat in London is not easy. But as long as I was only buying snacks instead of full meals I was able to eat in the hospital canteen fairly cheaply. I would get back in touch with the housing charities sporadically when I felt able. But I felt like I was in a dark tunnel—all I could think of was getting an advance and month’s deposit for privately rented accommodation. The worse I got the more terrified I was of going to live in a hostel, which, since I clearly didn’t fall into any ‘priority homeless’ category—being a single, childless woman without disability—was the best I could have hoped for.
A few of the charities said they would make enquiries about the possibility of getting the deposit and month’s rent in advance, and would get back in touch with me when they had some news. However, my mobile phone was hardly ever on as I could rarely afford to put credit on it, only using it as an alarm clock, and they never left messages. I knew how busy they all must have been and that I should have been more persistent with them, but I realised I had to get my mind strong before I could do that. Otherwise I thought I’d be carted off to a mental hospital rather than be helped to find somewhere to live and a job. I lost track of days, and again the weeks were slipping into months.
I had managed to stay relatively anonymous in the hospital for several weeks. But there was a community in there and I soon started to recognise some of the hospital ‘characters’: the locals who just seemed to sit around in there; the patients down in their dressing gowns to have a smoke, some wheeling themselves around the quieter corridors in new wheelchairs. And I soon started to worry that people were recognising me.
Almost every day, in the corridor between the entrance to A & E and the lifts, I’d see a man in a green towelling dressing gown, a silk, paisley cravat bunched at the neck, who looked like a dark-haired Kenneth Williams. He would follow the blue line along the corridor right down to the lifts, slow-dancing with his drip, humming loudly as he two-stepped along, smiling at all the staff rushing past. Nobody seemed to be smiling back at him though. Soon I began to think I was hallucinating, and that they weren’t smiling at him because they couldn’t see him—that my worst fear had come true and I had already lost my mind.
Fortunately, I found lots of out-of-the-way places in the hospital to sit. Whenever I felt that I was becoming too familiar down in the canteen, I would wander around finding a place to sit or read. Sometimes I would join the queues sitting around outside the clinics, hoping I blended in and that people would excuse the way I looked because they would assume I was ill. It felt fantastic to be off the streets, to be able to shower in the basement and eat in the canteen, and to sit around not being judged too much, all the time knowing that my car was safe in the car park. I spent more and more time there. The hospital was like a big city inside, and it soon became my world.
One day in the canteen I realised I’d left my purse in the car once I’d reached the till with my food. I didn’t usually eat hot food down there; even though it was cheaper than any place outside it was still too expensive. But that day I had. I knew I had money in my purse to pay for it so instead of the food going cold I asked if I could eat first and ‘go home’ to get it afterwards.
The tiny Filipino manageress said she wasn’t allowed to do that, but insisted on lending me the money from her own pocket. The way she looked at me let me know she understood how difficult things were for me. I was surprised by her kindness and grateful, but still found it almost impossible to accept—I hated anyone knowing.
She said I could pay her back the next day. I told her again that the money was ‘at home’ and I’d get it as soon as I’d eaten. I said ‘at home’ too loudly, hoping the other people in the queue overheard me, enjoying them thinking I had a home somewhere to go back to. We both blushed and avoided one another’s eyes when I said it, and suddenly I felt sure she knew it was a lie. Maybe she’d seen my car in the car park, loaded up to the roof with all my stuff, or seen me go in and out of the showers every morning, or just noticed I was wearing more or less the same clothes in there every day.
As soon as I’d eaten I wen
t to get my purse to repay her. But I knew I hadn’t fooled her. Whenever I went in there afterwards I’d be too uncomfortable to stay if she was on duty. I’d feel her eyes on me the whole way across the canteen, my back burning with shame as I walked straight through and burst through the double doors at the end to go in search of another part of the hospital to sit in.
But the canteen was the only place I could get a free cup of tea, so I never went very far from it. There were big urns of boiling water at the back and I’d bring in my own tea bags in my pocket. If any of the staff did see me they must have turned a blind eye.
The staff must have suspected there was something odd about me, sitting there on my own day after day, evening after evening. But they were kind and never rushed me out. Pretty soon they must have realised I wasn’t a patient or a visitor, and even though most of them gave me staff discount, they must have known I didn’t work there either. They didn’t say anything, though, or ask me to show a card; they just rang up the discounted prices while I stood there, trying to think myself out of my body in order to keep my dignity.
One evening there was a new girl on the till who asked if I was staff. I was about to say, ‘No, visitor,’ but the other manager, a middle-aged Mediterranean-looking man, came past and said quietly, ‘Yes, she’s staff,’ and then just walked off, giving me a small nod. I had to fight back the tears, realising that my circumstances, which until then I had thought I was concealing from most people down there, were probably an open secret. I don’t think they realised I was living in my car, just that I was going through a bad time. And even though I found it hard to accept at the time, their kindness meant a huge amount to me.
There was a chapel in the hospital too. When I wasn’t in the canteen or upstairs in the library I would often be there, mostly because it was quiet and warm. I half-expected other homeless people to be there too. But the security guards made regular checks and occasionally I saw them ask people to leave. Fortunately, I still looked respectable enough to pass as a patient or visitor. It was always open so whenever I needed a sanctuary from the people, cold, ugliness or hostility I was facing outside I would end up there, sitting on one of the hard wooden chairs at the back. I would read for hours in there, or do crosswords to keep my brain alive; or just sit there thinking or praying. Sometimes, if there was no one else about, I would drag a chair behind the stained-glass altar screen and try to sleep.
I don’t know where else in London I would have found a place to shower every day, and a place where I wasn’t getting parking tickets, and because of that I very soon felt trapped in this small corner of London. I’d had another piece of luck too. I didn’t have to drive around locating ’safe’ streets to sleep in any more. About a month after I arrived I discovered a laneway at the edge of some woods, and for the next seven months or so it became my home.
The laneway was long and narrow, crowded on both sides with tall trees coiled in ivy. It was full of the damp smell of the woods and during the day clear green light, which filtered down through overhanging branches. From where I parked, under bushes against one of the high banks, I could see nothing but trees. Sometimes I heard traffic from the road at the top but it sounded more like the sea and being there always felt like being a million miles from anywhere. It took me a while to get used to the silence and the dark, but I didn’t mind the isolation. It was a relief after being stared in at first thing in the morning in residential streets.
I didn’t allow myself to think of the dangers—I had detached from almost everything by then. The depression numbed a lot of the fear. Most of the time during those months I couldn’t think or concentrate, I was barely functioning. I’d spend hours just staring out at the trees in ’my’ laneway, as I soon came to think of it, watching the evening and morning light, the birdlife and animals, getting back there earlier and earlier, grateful to be away from the bustle and aggression of the city streets.
For the first few weeks I never saw any other cars there at night, and soon the laneway began to feel like home. It was a huge relief to have a place to come back to every evening—to no longer have to drive about looking for different streets to sleep in. I could just about afford the petrol to drive between there and the hospital car park each day and when I had done all I had to during the day I drove back to it almost eagerly. When I got there, if I hadn’t eaten it already, I’d divide the baguette, which was my usual evening meal, into three, open a tin of sardines and make two sandwiches. I’d save the third piece for breakfast. After eating I’d just sit there staring out at the dark or lie in my sleeping bag across the front seats, waiting for sleep to come.
Towards the end of the first month there things changed. I was just falling asleep when the headlights of another car suddenly swung into the laneway. It parked up a few car lengths from mine, the engine still idling. Drum and Base music thudded over the sound of the engine and I heard loud voices, laughter and the sound of doors slamming. Footsteps crunched in the undergrowth in the woods. Strong winds snapped across the sky and fallen branches and dry leaves rolled noisily about the laneway. Suddenly I realised how very alone and vulnerable I was out there. No one would hear my screams.
I rubbed cautiously at a small area of the windscreen with my elbow. A collage of wet leaves was already stuck to the outside. It was impossible to see who was there, or what they might be doing. Fighting waves of panic, I reached for my mobile, but suddenly realised there was no one to call. I quickly pressed it for the time: it was 11.22 p.m. My car was pointing in the right direction to drive straight off, as I’d always planned to do if another car pulled up. But my whole body had frozen with fear. Sweat began to pour down me. ‘Please, don’t let me die out here tonight,’ I heard myself say.
The footsteps came closer and voices got louder. I checked the door locks. I strained to hear what they were saying, trying to guess how many people were out there, if they’d bother to check out my battered old car. I picked up the knife I’d used earlier to spread the sardines. My hands shook as I fumbled about in the tray behind the gear stick for the car key. My fingers closed around it and I reached over to the steering wheel to slot it into the ignition. The footsteps paused and the voices hushed.
Still in my sleeping bag I hauled myself across to the driver’s seat and, without turning on the lights and with my toes still inside the sleeping bag gripping the pedals, I turned the key in the ignition and drove straight off. Dark, shadowy figures stepped back against the bushes, but I couldn’t see their faces behind the condensation on the windows. I made it to the road at the top without using lights or wipers, and almost without breathing. I’d escaped, I was alright! Thank you, God.
I parked somewhere else for a couple of nights after that, too scared to go back. But I always felt even more exposed anywhere else. Passing the laneway again one evening I saw that it was empty and parked up, drawn by its stillness and tranquillity. Maybe they wouldn’t come back. I stayed awake the whole night, listening out for the sound of another car arriving. But it never did. So I went back night after night.
I got used to cars coming now and then after that, and having to move off for a few hours, or for a night. Occasionally, if they were parked far enough away, I would roll over in the sleeping bag and just lay there, my face pressed into the car seat, hoping whoever it was would reverse back out, but expecting to be showered with broken glass any second. But mostly, if I saw another car there when I arrived, or if any came later, I would just drive straight off, and wait somewhere else for a few hours before driving back. I didn’t know what else to do or where else to go. I had to get stronger before I could face anything else. And apart from those times the only place I ever felt calm was when I was there, back in amongst the trees.
When I finally got back in touch with a case-worker at one of the homeless charities I’d phoned before Christmas, he apologised, saying he had been really busy. Again he promised that he’d phone me back when he had some news about deposits and rent in advance. And I promised
to keep my phone on. Quite unrealistically, I was putting all my eggs in one basket again, waiting for that one call, not seeing beyond that. I’d told him I was living in my car, but I’m not sure he believed me. I only got in touch with them when I felt clear-headed and strong enough, so I probably never sounded like someone in all that much need. When he finally called back he said I wouldn’t get the deposit and month in advance from anybody but if I tried to move into a homeless person’s hostel I would have more chance of getting help and being able to move on from there. I told myself I couldn’t do that because I would have to give up my car, but it was more because I was still in denial; I still wouldn’t make myself visible enough to go to one. Anyway, I’d have to be mentally ill before I was likely to be offered a place in one, and mental illness was what I was trying to ward off. And the only way I knew to avoid that now was to stay in the calm of the trees.
Sleeping in the car during the summer was sometimes unbearably hot, even when I got to London at the beginning of September. Sometimes, even in the laneway at the beginning, I would have to lie for as long as possible with the door open, my legs hanging out, worried about heatstroke but poised to lock myself back in if any people or foxes came. Gradually the months moved on to winter and when the cold finally set in I was stunned by it. And my life was soon reduced to simply overcoming the cold and getting through each day.
I would sleep in a hat and gloves and as many layers as I could inside the sleeping bag but would still wake up shivering, feeling as if there were slivers of ice floating about in my blood. But I still didn’t know what else to do. I had shut down. The position I was in was too overwhelming to even think about.
