Not mate in any accepted sense of the word, of course. He only met Jon a few months ago, and they weren’t exactly alike. Mark is just between homes, not homeless, and has got big plans. Jon was the real-deal rough sleeper, on the streets for nearly twenty years, except for a few stints at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Jon had done everything, slept everywhere and had stories that ranged from hilarious to completely disgusting. The bloke’s cold on a slab and Mark still hasn’t got over his graphic description of the foot infection he picked up last winter. It’s why Mark washes his feet every day religiously, even if it’s in some stinking public toilet block. His own stories are pathetic in comparison with Jon’s. A few drinks and a bit of a temper were all it took for him to end up sleeping on Clapham Common.

But despite all that, they got on like mates. When they first met, Mark was still part of the rat race with a job and a roof over his head. It was a shit job, media sales for magazines nobody reads, and a tiny bedroom rented off the aunt of a mate from back home. But he was on the right path, at least that’s what people said. Jon’s only job was selling wraps of smack for some big-shot dealer from Battersea in exchange for free drugs, and his home was a fluid range of spots on Clapham Common (or Holy Trinity Church floor when it got really cold).

Mark started hanging out by the skate park on the common during the summer – with his salary, it was the only way he could escape the suffocating box of his bedroom after another shit day of working from home – and it turned out to be one of Jon’s regular spots. Neither of them could skate – Jon struggled to walk half the time – but they’d watch the kids doing their tricks, and laugh when they fucked up. After a while, Mark started picking up a four-pack from Tesco’s. Jon would make one can of lager last the same time as Mark’s three, and Mark wouldn’t comment if Jon disappeared to jack up.

When Mark turned up at the common a couple of months ago with a rucksack and the thin sleeping bag he’d only bought for a trip to V Festival a few years back, Jon didn’t say anything much. He just found him a place to sleep and lent him a blanket.

So maybe they were mates after all.