by Fox Brison
“The council are going to close down the homeless shelter on the corner on St John’s Road, the one near Ruth’s school. Durban House. They’re saying it doesn’t meet building regulations, or health and safety standards,” she tutted, “or something along those lines. The charity that runs it, Homes for the Homeless, don’t have the money to bring it up to scratch. It has nothing to do, of course, with the fact that Morris Miller wants to buy it and turn it into flats.”
“Do you have legal help?”
“Legal help? Of course, Amal Clooney’s flying in tomorrow to fight our corner. They’re homeless, Devon, scum and alcoholics and druggies to most people who hurry by with their heads turned.”
I blushed. Rachel was right, I was one of those people who turned my head, I wasn’t as good or as honourable as the people that seemed to inhabit Eli’s out of the way café.
But I wanted to be.
I began worrying my paper napkin, tearing little pieces off and rolling them into tiny snowballs, lining them up for a fight. My mind was already racing. I think I knew the building she was talking about, I passed it on the way to the café from work most mornings; that area of London was ripe for development and Miller was getting in early whilst the property prices were still cheap. God he was going to make a bomb and he’d already benefitted to the tune of a few million from the demise of Galloway and Sons.
“Has it been designated for housing? Or is it business use only?” I wanted to ascertain how hard the fight was going to be and any information Rachel could give would help me do this.
“That’s one of the things I’m trying to find out. Homes for the Homeless are trying to challenge the decision, but they don’t sound too hopeful. I thought I might find some information on the internet.”
Hmm, so I’d ascertained she knew nothing. I didn’t want to say needle in a haystack but that was my immediate thought. “In one of my past lives I was a lawyer, contracts mainly. I could look into it for you. Please don’t be offended, but I might have more luck due to the fact I’ve more experience researching these types of things.”
She didn’t look offended, she looked like I was the second coming, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was. “Really? You’d do that?”
“I’m not promising anything, Rachel, but I’ll certainly give it my best shot.”
“Oh thank you, Devon, I can’t begin to tell you how much it would mean to me.”
“I’m guessing it has to do with your friend from the café, the one I was unforgivably rude about?”
“I don’t think Chanel have quite mastered eau de homeless yet.” Rachel was trying to make me feel better for being such an insensitive harpy. “Yeah, Ted has a lot to do with it, but I also have first-hand experience of being on the streets at Christmas, and was it not for shelters similar to Durban House who knows where I’d be now.”
“You were homeless?” I shuddered thinking of the different scenarios Rachel may have faced being on the street, each one more violent, or depraved, or just plain sadder than the last. By this point my gentle probing had far less to do with my assignment and more to do with hearing this exceptional woman’s story.
“Me and my sister were in and out of foster care from about the age of three until Louise called it a day. The second she turned sixteen she was out of there. She took a job at a guesthouse in Paddington, although calling Mrs Nowak’s a guesthouse was a stretch for anyone’s imagination. It was dive, pure and simple. You could rent rooms by the hour, but the position was live in which suited Lou down to the ground. It wasn’t much, the attic room… you could barely walk under the eaves without crouching, and standing in the middle of the room you could almost stretch your arms out and touch the walls, but it was clean, warm and dry.”
“You were still in foster care at this stage?”
“Kind of. I was still a ward of the state, but I was living in a group home. It wasn’t too bad, if you kept your head down and nose clean. But Lou was a much feistier character than I was. She didn’t like the rules and regulations…” she grinned, “she especially didn’t like the curfew. She felt like she was in a prison and ached to have a place she could call her own. For the freedom to do what she wanted and when she wanted to do it. Me? I kept my eyes to the floor and my nose to the grindstone at school. I had plans, dreams…” she peered intently down at the table and took a deep breath. I wondered what had happened to scupper those dreams and if she still thought of them. “I had just begun my first year of A levels when a new social worker started at the home.”
“You wanted to work in graphic design, right?”
She seemed ecstatic. “You remembered that?” I didn’t want to say I forgot nothing she told me, it was indelibly etched on my soul. “So yes, A level and sixth form college was my way forward. I intended on sticking it out until I got the grades for uni or art college. However, the new guy started getting a little too friendly.” I instinctively reached for her hand and she took it without hesitation. I revelled in not only her touch, but in her need for me to give her comfort. “Oh, Devon, he was a sadistic bastard and no mistake! But he was also very, very clever. Everyone loved him and there was no way anyone would believe me if I told them how he would manipulate... I’ve never been so scared in my life, he would switch personalities with a click of his fingers. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran.”
“What about Louise, didn’t you go to her?”
“Mrs Nowak didn’t like me hanging around. Lou did what she could, gave me a few pounds here and there when she could afford it, but she was only making forty quid a week plus room and board.”
“That’s outrageous!”
“I guess,” Rachel shrugged, “but it’s what me and Louise were used to. Anyway, she’d sneak me in for a shower and a warm bed for the night, but it got to the point where I was terrified I was going to get her in trouble and she’d end up in the same predicament I was in. So more often than not it was the streets. If I had a little money, I’d ride the night bus from one end of the line to the other, or if I was extremely lucky, there’d be a bed in a hostel. Problem is there aren’t enough hostels around for the amount of people sleeping rough.” I squeezed her hand tighter and Rachel gave me a smile, a rather pale imitation of the one she normally sported.
I wanted to invent a time machine so I could go back ten years and rescue Rachel from her nightmares. “So that’s why the hostel is so important to you.”
“One reason, yes. The streets are a terrifying place, Devon, but the people themselves, they aren’t necessarily,” she paused, seeking the right words to explain to someone so completely oblivious to what it was truly like, “I met some of the kindest, most generous people at that time, people who for whatever reason couldn’t cope with the norms of society, or maybe they just had a run of bad luck, you know? But that didn’t mean they were bad, or evil, or degenerates.” She paused again and I saw a tear in the corner of her eye.
“Rachel, you don’t have to continue if it’s bringing back bad memories, I think I understand,” I said softly.
“I don’t know if you do, Devon, and I need you to. There was one woman, Henrietta. She found me standing on Hornsey Lane Bridge, staring towards St Paul’s Cathedral and the Gherkin. I don’t know why I was even there, I must have been in a daze just walking and thinking…” I tightened my grip and she looked embarrassed knowing the conclusion I’d reached.
That particular bridge is a well-known suicide spot in London.
How bad had it truly been for her?
“Henrietta took one look at me and literally dragged me to this church nearby in Crouch End. It was Christmas Eve. In the back of my mind I must have acknowledged the date, maybe that’s why I made my way through Highgate to the bridge, but on the streets most days meld into one long search for a warm place to sleep and to stay alive until the dawn breaks.” She suddenly chuckled. “It’s been a while since I told this story, but when I saw we were heading for a church I dug my heels right in. I tho
ught she was some sort of religious nut and was about to indoctrinate me into her cult! But when she eventually got me through the doors of the church hall, it was decorated with coloured fairy lights and paper streamers. Cheap, but incredibly cheerful. There was music and food and Henrietta and I danced up a storm. It was one of the best Christmas Eve’s I’ve ever experienced. Whenever I’m a little down in the dumps I think back to that time.” She watched Ruth who was completely ignoring us (she was so lost in her colouring in) and her little pink tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth, the picture of childhood concentration.
“So Henrietta took you under her wing?” I pushed a little more. Could this be the back story we’d all been searching for
“You could say that. She told me to call her Hetty because everyone else did, but I always called her Henrietta. I think she liked it. She showed me the ropes, how to stay out of trouble, and avoid the more unsavoury characters who worshipped the night. We spent almost a week together and then poof, she was gone. It seemed that was the way things worked, you’d meet people but they never stuck around. Ships that pass in the night sort of thing.”
“How long were you homeless for?”
“Hmm?” I thought she was staring into space, but then realised she was staring at a couple at another table. Looking down suddenly she saw she was imitating their behaviour. Smiling softly, almost regretfully, she made to let go of my hand, then inexplicably tightened her grip.
And just as inexplicably my chest tightened. It took me a few seconds to recognise the feeling.
Happiness.
“So I was homeless for just over three months. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough to always make me appreciate what I have. Anyway, just after the new year my luck changed.” I cocked my head. “It was freezing and I’d heard talk about this warm alley in Seven Sisters. It was sandwiched between a bakery and a dry cleaners. It was like being in the tropics, but that was according to Jimmy the Jinx and he was from Glasgow so cold never bothered him as much as it did the rest of us. Mind it could have been the Special Brew he was partial to as well. Like anti-freeze that stuff. I was heading to the alley when I passed this café, and in the window was a sign ‘Help Wanted, Apply Within.’ I’d spent a couple of nights with Lou and looked quite presentable, so I thought, what the hell, why not give it a go. It’s not like I had anything to lose.” She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee, the cup rattling as she put it back on the saucer. “The café looked respectable enough, clean and tidy and the people inside were friendly. So I filled in an application and left Lou’s details. We looked enough like each other that if I needed photo I.D, I’d just borrow hers.”
“You got the job, obviously.”
“Yep, that was my first piece of good fortune. The café was a breath of fresh air and after a few weeks I got a second. Eli must have guessed something was up and I told him everything. That’s the other thing about being homeless. The shame. I think it’s to do with perception, yes? How other people see you. Maybe a little bit of bruised pride too. However, Eli asked me to stay late to help clean one night, and he pushed for the truth and I gave in, told him everything, my real name, why I was homeless... I didn’t want to lose my job, I was growing to like not feeling hungry and cold all day. I thought he was going to throw me out on my ear, but instead he told me there was a bedsit available above the newsagent’s across from the café, and he could put a good word in with the landlord. It wasn’t even as big as Lou’s place, and I shared a bathroom, but to me it was Buckingham Palace. He gave me three hundred quid for the deposit. I was way beyond wary at first, I mean, who gives you something for nothing, right?” Rachel shivered a little. I wondered briefly how many times she’d been propositioned on the streets, how many times she’d said no…
“I was a virgin, and definitely knew I was gay, so after he made the offer I considered not going back. But I chose to have a little faith and how glad am I that I did. I call it my Christmas miracle part two, and I’m still secretly convinced Santa Claus is a Greek café owner called Eli Theodopilis.” She giggled and I joined in. “It worked out well for both of us. Eli had lost his wife a few years before and Jessie was getting older and was in and out of trouble, so I became a big sister stroke role model in one fell swoop.”
“You’re very close?”
“Like family. After Louise died-”
“Louise died?” Shit how much more crap could her small shoulders bear.
“Seven years ago this Christmas, and if it wasn’t for Jessie and Eli, I don’t know how Ruth and I would have coped. I have so much to be thankful for and good deeds to pay back, that even if I live to be a hundred I still won’t have enough time.” The conversation ended, me with more questions, her with the answers locked up tight. However, the warm feeling spreading through me would last for a long time to come. There was now no doubt in my mind that Rachel McTavers was a worthy heir. Christ, she was willing to almost singlehandedly take on one of London’s biggest property developers so that the homeless could have a warm bed and a hot meal this Christmas. If that didn’t prove her worthy for the Gideon inheritance, then nothing would.
Chapter 16
Devon
Saturday 10th - Tuesday 13th of December, 2016.
I couldn’t believe how quickly the hours spent with Rachel and Ruth flew by. I returned to my stark apartment relaxed and rejuvenated, despite spending four hours walking around a city filled with crazed Christmas shoppers. Even the row that ensued when I telephoned my mother didn’t upset my equilibrium.
I admired Rachel, far more than I should, and was slowly sinking into trouble because of it.
She and Amanda were night and day, sugar and salt, bitter and sweet. If you could have described Rachel and then drawn the complete opposite, Amanda would be the result.
Amanda.
I thought I was still hurting, maybe because I hadn’t allowed myself to discover otherwise. Her infidelity almost destroyed me, but it wasn’t the cheating, or even who she had cheated with (although that was a bitter pill to swallow) that began the slow wrecking of my life. I shook my head. When I walked into her office on Christmas Eve and seen the two of them, I’d ran to the bathroom and was violently ill – yeah, I thought that only happened in the movies too, but you learn something new every day, right?
No, it wasn’t the cheating that caused the most pain, rather it was the quick sweep under the carpet by my family and the instant forgiveness Adam received which rankled the most. The scent of betrayal still lingered between us all, and not even being nose blind and bathing in a bucket of febreeze every morning was enough to mask the stink.
I tried to move past it, tried to look at all the events leading up to that pivotal moment logically, going so far as to shoulder some of the blame myself; I was the one who grew disenchanted with my job, I was the one who started drinking more to cover the cracks, I was the one who’s libido shrivelled and died. I even tried to ignore what came next, Amanda’s promotion and that same smug grin every time Adam saw me, but it took a better man than I, Gunga Din, that’s for sure.
Returning to the family fold?
Not an option. No way, no how.
Was there a chance of a possible relationship with Rachel, other than the one brought about by the auspices of my task? I couldn’t be sure, there were too many variables. I felt guilty, turning up at the gallery like I did. She wasn’t to know I was following her; if she’d known she most certainly would’ve given me short shrift and my job with Heavenly Heirs would have been over before it had really begun, and I loved my new job. Yes, I was making a lot less money and it brought a lot less ‘prestige’ with it, but I now possessed a hell of a lot more self-respect, and that was something I couldn’t afford to lose through an ill-fated love affair with a client, no matter how wonderful she and her daughter were.
I called Celeste to check helping Rachel wasn’t overstepping the line, I mean, I was supposed to be investigating her, not Morris Miller. I wasn’t
hopeful, so her shocked cry of, “You want to do what? Take tomorrow off work to help a homeless charity foil the dastardly deeds of a property developer?” wasn’t totally unexpected.
She sounded like I’d grown another head.
“Well, y…yes.”
“That’s wonderful, Devon. Is there anything we can do at this end?” I removed the phone from my ear and shook my head. Maybe I was still asleep. I pinched my leg to check. “Devon?” I heard her voice echoing through the flat.
“I was going to ask Hannah to do a little digging into Martin Andrews, the planning officer .”
“Ask away.”
“Celeste, you’re an angel.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she chuckled.
***
I met an eager and nervous Rachel outside the council offices on the Tuesday afternoon. “Oh, Devon, I’m so glad you’re here. Did you find anything? I tried but you were right, I didn’t have a clue what I was looking for, or what I was looking at for that matter.”
“Now, it’s not much,” I said holding my hand out to forestall the barrage of questions that were about to stream forth, “but I managed to discover Miller intended circumnavigating the new laws on eco-friendly housing.” I didn’t want to get her hopes up. Legislation was rarely a stumbling block for likes of Miller and his ilk, a heady cocktail of money and fancy lawyers usually paved the way. I felt a twinge of guilt, or rather a sharp pang of regret. Not so long ago I was one of those high priced lawyers whose interpretation of the law was guided by financial trends and a very loose moral compass. I’d worked for Miller in the past and had used not only loopholes but worm holes and black holes to get what my client wanted.
However, this time I was on the side of the righteous and it felt good.
Rachel frantically flipped through the folder I’d given her. “We need to show these to Mr Andrews.” She reached over and squeezed my hand. “Devon, I don’t know how to thank you.” The way her hand felt in mine, a perfect fit, was reward enough, although as nice as it felt I was beginning to want something more.
