I looked for work. I really did. First thing next morning I went to the Job Centre. The woman there said I should go to the Careers Office because I wasn’t eighteen. She said I should go to the DSS as well. I went to the Careers Office and filled in a form. They asked where I’d come from and I said the north. I didn’t want to be too precise in case good old Vince took it into his head to come looking for me. I gave them my new address but it was just like at home – there was no work, and no training places. I went to the DSS and filled in another form. I asked for advice and a guy interviewed me. I told him I had fifty pounds after paying two weeks’ rent in advance, and that I was looking for work. He asked me a lot of stuff about why I’d left home. I explained about Vince and Chris and all that, and he said they’d have to decide whether I was entitled to anything. It might be several weeks, he said.

That was when I started to feel nervous. I had a room for two weeks, maximum. I didn’t know much, but I’d a feeling rat-face wasn’t the sort who’d wait for his money. If I wasn’t earning within a fortnight I’d be out on my ear.

Daily Routine Orders 5

It’s begun, the recruiting, and it was easy as falling off a log. I didn’t even have to go far. My flat – mine and Sappho’s – is in Mornington Place, and I found my first recruit in a doerway near Camden Station. A mile, if that. Mind you, it was a filthy night. Cold, wet and windy. Cut straight through you, that wind. I was wearing a parka, stormproof overtrousers and strong boots and I was still perished. What he must have felt like in damp, tatty denim I shudder to think. It was 01.30 so he’d probably been there an hour or two, freezing his tabs off, and that’s why he came so easy.

What I did was, I squatted down in front of him and said, ‘What’s up mate – down on your luck?’ I smiled as I said this – my best do-gooder smile. I was prepared for a possible rebuff. I mean, he might have been deeply suspicious – thought I was a woofta or something – but it didn’t seem to cross his mind. Half daft with cold, probably. Anyway, he opened his eyes and looked at me and frowned and mumbled, ‘Who are you?’

He was Scottish.

‘Me?’ I gave him a smile again. ‘Shelter’s my name. I help run the hostel on Plender Street.’

That got him. ‘Hostel?’ he says. ‘What sort of hostel?’