Sophie
I could have cried. Wait, no, I was crying. I had closed my eyes after looking ominously at the sky above; the air was thick and it felt like there was a storm coming. I was okay though, I had found my perfect little spot again underneath the protruding roof at the back of a shop. The wind was howling, but it must have been blowing behind me as I could hardly feel it. As I went to sleep the rain had started to fall. None of it had been reaching me however, and I'd felt quite smug about it.
When I opened my eyes, however, the water that would soon be falling from my face was the least of my issues. I may have had shelter from the rain falling directly from above, but no such protection from the flood that the rain caused. I woke up in a puddle, a layer of water that had crept under me and soaked everything. I found the nearest park bench and just sobbed. What could I do? I couldn’t go anywhere looking like this.
How can anyone live like this? Maybe I was just shit at it. I’d spoken to people who had been homeless for years—how did they cope? I’d only been doing it for a few weeks and I was desperate. I hatched a plan for the rest of the day. There was a local gym which had a coded entry. I walked over from my soaked gloom and did some faux begging by the entrance. It was a Monday morning and the gym was fairly busy. As soon as the next person went in I looked across at the keypad and remembered the code that they had put in.
After a few more minutes of mulling around the door, I couldn’t wait any longer. I put the code in and entered the gym and headed straight for the showers. I was quite proud of myself—maybe I was getting to be quite street-smart after all? I put my bag in a locker, my clothes on the radiator and headed into the shower. There were a few people that saw me, and it must have been obvious that I wasn’t a gym regular just by the state I was in.
The shower was one of those where you had to push a button and it releases the water for a few minutes, warm water which unfroze my body from the hell it had been subjected to the night before. It felt like I had pressed that button hundreds of times, which still didn’t feel like enough, but at least I was warm now. I could stay here all day.
“Can you collect your things and quickly leave the premises please?”
Reality soon hit, though to be fair I thought it’d be a lot quicker that someone realized I had no right to be here. I sunk down in the shower and sat down, not wanting this to end. The button eased its way back and the shower stopped. I didn’t have a towel, and I just wanted as much of the water as possible to leave my body before I got out.
“Do you have a towel?” I cheekily asked. I was getting used to that. I was quickly coming to terms with the fact that nice and polite doesn’t really work when you’re homeless.
“No, can you get out please?”
This was a gym, they had towels, and they wanted to get rid of me.
“If you get me a towel, I’ll be out of the building in five minutes.” Fair enough, I thought, and they did to. A towel was quickly thrown over the cubicle and I was able to dry every inch of my body.
I opened the cubicle to an extremely stern-faced woman who look very unimpressed at my existence.
“If you’re not gone in five minutes, I’m calling the police.”
I could see things from her point of view: I was a nuisance. I didn’t want to be a burden, I was just trying to survive. I couldn’t help but laugh though—the police? You really think in my circumstances a police caution is anything I would be bothered about? Please. I picked up my clothes from the radiator. They were still damp, but no longer soaked through. I picked up my bag and quickly left, followed closely by the stern-faced woman.
Thankfully the storm had cleared the air and the day was much brighter. It was back to a day of begging, going on the library computers and trying to find a spot to sleep that wasn’t so susceptible to flooding. I was getting into a daily routine: first up was the begging to try and get enough money to buy food for the day. I went to check my phone to see if there was any messages from the jobs I’d applied for. I’d made sure there was enough battery to check such things but it wouldn’t turn on. I had left it in the bottom of my bag and it had become a victim to the flood. The day had gone from bad, to worse.
I contemplated getting a new phone with the little money that I had saved up in my bank account, but that would leave me with no back-up plan if I was in desperate need of food. Not starving was more important than finding a job, so the decision was pretty clear. Maybe it would work again when it dried out a bit? I seemed to be spending all my time living in false hope. Just like with sleeping, the homeless find their own spots to beg, so I perched myself back at mine.
I was there for an hour or so when a black saloon car pulled up on the road, a woman lowered the window and looked directly at me. I wondered if she was from sort of news station reporting on the homeless or some sort of charity worker. When she fully left the car, though, I could see that she was neither of those. She had shiny, polished black heels on and was dressed in a suit that looked immaculate. Her hair was smart and her make-up was perfect.
As she approached me I looked around to make sure it wasn’t anyone else’s attention she was trying to grab, but no, I was the centre of her attention.
“What is your name?” she asked in her perfect English accent. It wasn’t quite rude the way she said it, but it was quite abrupt.
“Erm... Sophie.”
“Come with me,” she said, not giving an indication as to why I should. It was the kind of situation where, under any other circumstances, you’d ask a lot more questions, but I just thought I’d follow instructions.
I got into the car and immediately felt awkward. It looked brand new and had fine beige leather seats. My clothes were damp and dirty, and were clearly going to mark the pristine leather. The woman didn’t seem to care, however; she was typing on her phone as I wondered what the hell we were doing.
“What size are you?” she asked, breaking her attention away from her phone.
“Size of what?” I said back to her. I didn’t really understand what she wanted.
“Shoe size, waist size, bra size and dress size for now.”
For now?! What the hell was I doing and who was this woman?
“Why do you want those?” I asked, hoping to find out why I was in a car that looked more expensive than most houses.
“I’m not here to answer questions, you are. Sizes, please?” she said.
She didn’t seem like the type of woman to be messed with, so I acquiesced and answered the questions.
“5, 30, 34C, 8”
She typed them into her phone, seemingly sending a message. A few minutes later we arrived outside of a hotel. It was a nice hotel, but not a luxury one. And my next instructions were on their way.
“Here is a key card, your room number is 364. The directions to the rooms are quite clear, so just follow the signs. This car will be waiting for you right here at 16:00 hours. I don’t expect you to be a minute late, understood?”
“Yes.” Well, no, not really, I thought. I didn’t understand anything that was going on right now.