It was hard at first. Really hard. I stood, watching people pass, trying to spot a likely punter. God knows what I was looking for – a kind face, I suppose, or at least someone who didn’t look as though he’d swear or punch me in the mouth. It was futile, of course. You can’t read people’s characters in their faces. You never know what a punter’s reaction is going to be, but I didn’t know that then. Finally, I steeled myself and asked a guy at random. He growled, ‘Not a chance,’ and bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time. I wasted the next five minutes feeling hurt. Rejected. I asked myself how it was possible for a person to be sensitive to the beauty of fine art, and at the same time insensitive to the feelings of a fellow creature. I took it personally, which is fatal. After a while I realized this and began choosing guys and women at random, expecting nothing, telling them to have a nice day whether they gave or refused. I blunted the point of my own sensitivity in the flinty soil of their indifference till I too became indifferent, and after that it was easier.

I worked till the Gallery closed, standing sometimes, sometimes sitting on the steps. My feet became numb and I was half frozen but I stuck at it, and when the place closed at dusk and the punters drifted away I counted up and found I’d collected just under .four pounds. I stumped across to the Square and found Ginger slumped on a bench. He looked up as I approached.

‘How’d it go?’

I shrugged. ‘Three pounds eighty-one. You?’

‘Two forty-four and I’m frozen to the bone. Let’s eat.’

We got pizza slices and coke. When Ginger wasn’t looking I bought twenty fags and a cheapo lighter and gave them to him. He said, ‘You’re barmy, kiddo. You don’t even smoke.’ I was just glad of his company, but I didn’t say so.

In the evening the wind strengthened and sleet began to fall, except that it didn’t fall – it rode the wind in horizontal lines, flaying foreheads and cheeks. I wished we were back in St James’s but Ginger said it’d be locked now. We ended up in the doorway of a shop called China-craft on the Strand, huddled in our bags, waiting for the Vaudeville Theatre to close. ‘Over there,’ said Ginger through chattering teeth, ‘are some alcoves, right? Deep ones. Good kip, only you’ve got to be here early.’

He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag and passed it to me. I hesitated and he chuckled, exhaling smoke. ‘Go on – might as well. You’ll not see sixty anyway, dossing in doorways.’

I took a drag and started choking, and he laughed. ‘See what I mean?’ he said. ‘You’re half-way there already.’

* * *