the five commandments

I’d got in touch Sheila indirectly through one of those school reunion websites. Not the famous one, but a simple ‘where are they now' forum run by my old comprehensive. I discovered the site by chance while searching for natural flavoring manufacturers (one of whom happened to be located in the industrial estate opposite the school).

Having grown bored of spec sheets for vanilla bean essence and organic peppermint oil, I’d completed a former pupils questionnaire in my usual facetious manner (which led to my personal details being removed 48 hours later). However, my e-mail address must have stayed on the system somewhere, because weeks later I got this circular message (to about a thousand recipients) saying that Shiela was exhibiting her art at a gallery in Whitechapel, and would any of her old school friends like to come along.

To be honest, I couldn’t remember much about her (except we’d occasionally sat together in Geography). And I guess she probably didn’t remember me either. She was simply playing the numbers game, mailing every address she could get hold of, in the hope that a few people might actually turn up and feel obliged to buy one of her pictures.

I wasn’t planning to buy anything, but I was intrigued to know how some of my old school mates had turned out. Who’d gained ten stone and who’d lost their hair. Who drove a Ferrari, and who drove a bus. Which ugly duckling had become a princess, which handsome prince had become a queen?

On the train up to Paddington, I felt quite excited - as if reliving the thrill of a school trip to the capital. But things didn’t quite turn out as planned.

I found the gallery easily enough (as Sheila’s e-mail has explained, it was just around the block from the tube station). It was housed in a former Edwardian public baths that had been converted into an arts centre. The baths had been partially demolished and engulfed by an ugly concrete extension. But the central façade and entrance lobby had retained many of their period features.

The gallery was on the second floor, up a dark wood staircase bordered by stained glass windows, typical of a theatre rather than a swimming pool. I guess philanthropy was a more romantic gesture in the Edwardian era. And in those God-fearing pre-DNA days, churchlike architecture was probably thought to help smooth one’s path into the executive lounge of the hereafter.

The second floor was all open plan and modern (in a seventies-municipal-architecture-painted-white kind of way), and I drifted into the gallery space, without realizing I’d arrived. There were only about three people in the place, but I knew I had the right day, as wine glasses and dishes of posh snacks had been laid out beside a stack of promotional postcards, one design for each of the four artists on show.

The exhibition seemed to have no theme, and there was nothing that linked the artists’ work, other than the shared space. On white pedestals in the center of the exhibition were a selection of ceramics, all organic curves with that dripping glaze - colours blurring like ink spilled on damp blotting paper.

The wall space was divided roughly in three. To my left were some amusing oil paintings of people with extraordinarily long arms and legs - working in foundaries, running for buses, basking in deck chairs - like Stanley Spencer canvases put through a mangle.

To my right were more oil paintings in reds and browns. At first glance, they seemed purely abstract (but upon closer inspection turned out to be close-up images of anuses, vaginas and swollen bell-ends). On the far wall were a series of shallow boxes covered in bright spots and stripes. They were shit, and (inevitably) they were Sheila’s.

I was just enjoying a good sneer, when I heard voices echoing behind me and turned to see a shortish round man with a goatee beard and bongos talking to a women who I instantly recognized as Sheila. She had the same short cropped hair. It was now purple rather than ginger, but I couldn’t miss her eyes, which were strangely pale, and all those freckles.

As I peered at her face, mentally airbrushing away the lines and saggy bits, she stared straight through me and then looked away. Undaunted, I ambled amiably over.

“Hi it’s Sheila isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said.

“It’s Dan, Daniel King. I got your e-mail.” She continued to look blank. “We were in Geography class together at Larkmeade.”

There was a split second’s pause, during which I could sense her smoothing out my features, then rushing down corridors of forgotten memories until she opened the door with my name on it. I expected her face to break into a broad smile, and maybe even to receive a hug. But she just said,

“Oh that Daniel.”

I don’t know, maybe she’d seen me sneering at her spotty boxes. Or maybe she’d never liked me. Or maybe she couldn’t remember me at all. Whatever, after a decade or two, I’d expected a slightly brighter greeting. I offered my hand, and she shook it in a non-committal way.

“So how are you doing?” I asked.

“Fine, fine”, she said.

I half turned and gestured at the wall behind me.

“I was just admiring your boxes,” I lied. “Very bright.”

She looked nonplussed. I struggled on.

“Have you been doing this art stuff long?”

She looked slightly miffed.

I smiled apologetically.

“Sorry, that sounded wrong. No, it’s very interesting. I can imagine someone hanging that blue and green one on their bathroom wall.”

She sniffed indifferently, as if to say, ‘I would be offended by your cretinous comments but you’re obviously not trendy enough to even be in here, let alone appreciate my creations’.

By this point, I was feeling quite put out by her attitude. After all it was her who’d invited me to her soiree, and me who had bothered to take off half-a-day to travel up to town. I had a sudden urge to tell her the truth (actually your art is crap, it may be backlit crap tastefully displayed in a trendy gallery, but it is still fucking crap).

However, I just smiled politely.

“Sorry, Daniel” she said. “It was kind of you to come, but I really am right in the middle of everything.” Then the bongo player whisked her away, ignoring my lingering grin.

What does he think this is, I thought? Some fucking sixties coffee house? Is Alan Ginsberg expected at any moment? I don’t fucking think so, you beardy beatnik twat.

As I watched them walk away, another lady arrived and Sheila threw her arms around in her in an enthusive greeting. “Lucy, I wasn’t sure you’d make it…”

Lucy? I couldn’t remember anyone called Lucy at school. Actually, in truth I couldn’t remember the names of anyone I’d been at school with. There was a period immediately after leaving school when I’d done lots of cheap vodka and strong hash. And I’m convinced a whole part of my memory has gone - brain cells wiped out by a narcotic tidal wave.

“What a total waste of time,” I muttered to myself, and wandered past Sheila, Lucy and old cunt-chops.

Across the way was a café, so I went and bought myself a black coffee and a black olive ciabatta (a small consolation for my wasted afternoon).

Sipping appropriately bitter coffee, I flicked through the arts centre’s ‘exciting’ programme of star studded performances for December’. What a month it was.

There was a two-man play starring a washed-up no-mark from some eighties’ sitcom, a Perrier-award-winning stand-up I’d never heard of, and an East African dancer troupe wielding things that could be instruments or tribal weapons or probably both. I’m not taking the piss - musical instruments can be deadly. I once got whacked in the neck by a trombone slide, and I tell you it hurt like fuck.

Towards the back of the brochure was a bands section - ‘Winter sessions in the White Room’ (which could have been anywhere as - aside from the entrance lobby - all the rooms in the centre appeared to be white). There were rock bands on the way up, indie bands on the way down, and, a punk band called Wretched, who (as I recall) lived up to their name. Actually, that’s a lie, I own an old E.P. by them, and they were pretty good in their day. I just couldn’t believe they were still going.

However, the most shocking revelation was lurking on the inside back cover. It turned out the star attraction of the art centre’s Christmas Party (the night before Christmas Eve) was an ‘exclusive showcase’ by ‘eighties pop legends’ the Cranes (not named after the birds or the machinery used for lifting heavy objects on docks, but the shared-surname of three sickly brothers who had their last chart hit in 1984).

What the program failed to make clear was that the exclusivity referred to the line-up’s one original member, the greasy haired saxophonist Gary Crane, (who was in litigation with his brothers, both of whom were also on Christmas tours with their own versions of the band).

I happen to know this, because I recently found myself queuing behind Andy Crane (rhythm guitarist and middle brother) at the Texaco on the Westing Ring Road. I’d stopped off for a diet coke and a canoeing magazine, and had to spend ten minutes listening to him explain that he had to pay cash to fill up his tour van (a dilapidated transit) because his elder brother (Peter Crane, the vocalist) had frozen the band’s bank account. I knew it was genuinely him, because he was dressed in full New Romantic stage gear and had an elaborate spiky wig on.

He seemed like a personable enough kind of chap. But the thought of three diluted versions of the Cranes plying their trade across the country along with van loads of sad session musicians was too horrible to contemplate. Who actually paid to witness that crap? That’s what I wanted to know?

I’ve got nothing against artistic longevity per se. I don’t mind guys who have the grace to display their baldness and perform low-key acoustic sets in a suitably apologetic way to small gatherings of die-hard fans. There was a place for them (even if they weren’t quite musical Picassos). It was the guys like the Cranes who fucked me off.

They were once at Wembley for a week, twenty-two years ago. And they thought this gave them the eternal right to lumber (in full-costume) from local radio interview to leisure center to Belgian tour, sucking on the husk of their former glory, long after the last taste of it had gone.

No wonder there was a funding crisis in the local arts! And, no, I was not going to put my spare change in the little box on the counter above the flapjacks (organic pumpkin seeds or not)!

Having released a little of my bile at the largely blameless acts in the programme, I sat facing the entrance to the gallery space and waited a while to see if anyone I recognized appeared.

A few people turned up, but to be honest, I had no idea if any of them were my former school pals or not. And, after about half-an-hour I wandered back to Whitechapel tube station, musing on the futility of existence (not least my own).

Although I couldn’t understand a word the announcer said as I entered the station, I reacted to the urgency in his voice, and started to jog down the tunnel towards the Paddington platform. A couple of people actually copied me, although most people seemed to be heading in the opposite direction.

Spying a tube with an open door, I threw myself through it, narrowly avoiding decapitation, and, apologizing to ruffled commuters, I grabbed the back of a seat as the carriage started moving. We’d traveled about a quarter of a mile, when the train ground to a halt and all the lights went out.

For about a minute it was pitch black. Some people started muttering and grumbling and a couple of kids made ghost noises, but most people just stood there, fingers quietly tightening around purses and wallets.

“The lights normally come on quicker than this,” said a man next to me. And, of course, a split second later, they flickered into life. “There you go,” he chuckled.

The driver’s voice crackled into the carriage. “Apologies for the continued delay, which is due to essential maintenance work being carried out at Aldgate. Sorry if this makes you late for your suppers, but the idiots who schedule this work don’t know their arses from a hole in the ground. Thank you.”

The man next to me chuckled again, and a couple of people grinned, but most just stood there like they were on Easter Island.

Twenty minutes later the train still hadn’t moved. People were starting to get a bit more fidgety and even Mr Chuckle’s mood had darkened.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he muttered to me. “Why don’t they ever bloody tell you anything?”

Bang on cue, the driver’s voice returned.

“Sorry, if it’s getting uncomfortable on board. We are about to start moving again shortly. However, the service is likely to be subject to further significant delays. So, unless you have any special wish to reenact the Black Hole of Calcutta, I’d get out at the next station and catch a bus. Thank you.”

The tube stuttered towards the next station and as soon as we reached the platform, I joined the people who swarmed off the train. I don’t even bother to look at the name of the station. I just followed the tunnels at random until I emerged from an underpass into the darkness of a street.

There was a bus stop across the road, but I couldn’t understand the map. So, I decided to go and find somewhere to buy a drink. I had no idea where I was going. I just started walking, turning this way and that down streets and alleys.

I could tell I was in quite a rough area. A couple of old guys had stared a fire on the street, next to a burnt out car. They weren’t arsonists or anything. They were just trying to keep warm. I nodded politely as I passed them and one waved a can of Kestrel at me. I hurried on before they started asking for cash.

Eventually, I emerged into a row of shops against a backdrop of tower blocks and offices, mosaics of lit windows stippled across the darkness.

I was so busy looking up, I almost tripped over a girl sprawled in the shadows of a shuttered florist. Her legs were loosely covered in a blanket that must once have been pale blue, but was now encrusted with dirt and oil and dried vomit. She had scabs on her face where she’d obviously had a nasty fall. At her feet was a polystyrene tray from some sub-Burger King fast food place, containing about thirty pence in loose change.

I felt uncomfortable walking past. But I could see from her eyes she was away with the fairies, courtesy of smack, methadone, or maybe some indiscriminate bottle of tranquillizers. So I just stepped over her and headed for a convenience store up the road, which I could tell was still open, as it had trays of veggies on display outside.

Having selected a Diet Pepsi, a chocolate and banana flavour flapjack, and a pack of thick cut Chilli crisps, I aked the guy inside if he knew where I could get a bus to Paddington.

“Paddington?” he exclaimed as if I’d just asked the way to Timbuktoo. “You want to get the tube mate. Much quicker.”

“Nah, I’ve just come from there. The line’s knackered or something.”

The man shook his head. “Well I suppose you could get the 277 or the 135 yea? Then get off at Victoria, and then take the tube from there. Or if you want, I call you a taxi. It’s my cousin. He’ll give you a good rate.”

“It’s all right, cheers mate. I’ll see how I get on with the bus first.”

The man shrugged.

As I headed for the bus stop, I passed a betting shop, still open. Outside was another girl sat with her sleeping bag over her knees. I was trying to ignore her, but then this little voice piped up, ‘can you spare me any change’.

I couldn’t help but glance down and I saw the girl had a paperback in her hand. I could tell from the way she held it, her fingers carefully book-marking a page two-thirds through, that she was actually in mid-read, which suggested she wasn’t fucked out of her head on smack or booze.

The girl looked up shyly, almost apologetic for having called out. It could just have been a good act. But I looked into her eyes, and I saw something that made me stop.

I thought about those wankers with their pretentious art, and the thirty odd quid I’d wasted traveling up to town, and I reached into my pocket.

“You’re not going to spend it on smack or booze are you?”

“No, no honestly. I don’t do that. Honestly. If you can spare a few pence.”

I felt terrible for asking then, and I got out my wallet and give her a ten quid note.

She tried not to show her surprise, but smiled with genuine pleasure.

“Well, It’s nearly Christmas.” I said.

“Cheers mate,” she said and tucked the tenner inside her hooded sweatshirt.

Then she went back to reading her book.

I was about to walk away, but I had this urge to find out more about her.

“What are you reading?” I ask.

“Stephen King”

I saw it was a battered copy of The Tommyknockers.

“You like the horror stuff then?”

She looked up at me cautiously. I ccould tell part of her desperately wanted to talk, but another part of her was wary of my motives.

“Look, I’m not after anything,” I said. “I’m not some pervert or undercover copper. I’m just interested in books and you seemed kind of different from other people I’ve seen.” I struggled to find the right expression. “You know, people on the streets.”

She melted a little, and gave me a little nod of acknowledgement.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Know the Jefferson Building just there behind the bookies?”

I nodded, guessing it must be one of the tower blocks I’d just seen.

“The car park’s empty at night. The security guard turns a blind eye. In fact he looks after us. There’s me and another girl, Shelly, in there regular like, and sometimes an Irish guy called Tom. He’s a good lad. Young, you know.” She paused “And this guy Eshten who hangs around, but he’s Albanian.” She pulled a face.

“Oh well,” I said, vaguely. But she could see what I was thinking.

“Well it’s so unfair,” she said. “These guys come over here, claim asylum and they get a place straight away. While I've lived here all my life and look."

She gestured at the street littered with glass and butt-ends and disappointment.

I didn’t think it was that simple. Sure, I'd heard plenty of stories of sly migrants working the system. I'd also heard stories of torture victims sent home to their deaths by lazy civil servants. However, I understood her frustration and said nothing.

Despite my silence, she could tell I didn’t quite agree with her, and delved inside her layers of clothing and pulled out a crumpled photograph.

“Look,” she said.

I stooped down to peer at the picture in the dull light from the bookies window.

“My kids,” she said. “Tom and Sally. She’s nine, now, and Tom’s just three.”

“Nice kids,” I said. “Where are they now?”

“With my mum.”

“Why aren’t they with you?…I’m sorry, it’s none of my business…I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, it’s OK,” she said, gazing at the pavement as she tucked the pictures safely away again. And she told me her story.

Basically, it turned out that she and her husband had woken one night to find the house on fire. They’d been out that evening, and when they’d got back and sorted out the babysitter, her husband stayed up to smoke a joint before going to bed. A smoldering dog-end set fire to the sofa. The flames spread to the cupboard under the stairs (which opened into the lounge, and had been left open after they’d put their coats away).

When they woke up, the stairs were ablaze. She tried to get downstairs, but was driven back by the heat. Her husband took the blanket off the bed, wrapped the baby in it and ran down the burning stairwell. Then he came back for the older child.

By the time he got back inside, the stairs had disintegrated and she was still upstairs frozen with fear. Eventually her husband persuaded her to jump from the landing into his arms, and he dragged her outside with her hair and her dressing gown on fire.

Neighbours had gathered outside and one of them grabbed her and rolled her on the front garden to put out the flames. At some stage she passed out, and the next thing she knew she was in a ward. She was in there for ten days before they told her that her husband had been burned to death, trying to rescue their dog, which had been locked in the kitchen.

The eerie thing was, all the time she was telling me this story, she was rolling a Rizzla. And as soon as she’d finished she lit up.

“Jesus, that is just terrible,” I said. “You must have been in some state of shock.”

“I don’t remember any of it, only what the neighbours said and what I read in the paper afterwards. I was in Nottingham City Hospital for six months in the burns unit.”

“That is fucking unbelievable…Hey, I mean I believe you and all. But it just sounds so terrible.”

An old lady emerged from the grocers with forty Dunhill, a pack of iced fingers and a bottle of Old London. She hurried past, giving me a filthy look. Maybe she’d heard me effing and blinding, or perhaps she thought I was also a 'street person'.

As the old lady, disappeared towards the tower blocks, the girl peeled back her clothes like the layers of an onion. And ignoring the cold, she lifted her top to show a pale midriff, wrinkled and scarred like chicken skin draped over a perished rubber car mat.

I couldn't think of anything to say. But she could sense I was sorry for not totally believing her.

"You’re only about the third person I’ve told since I’ve been on the street," she said. "I don't want people to feel sorry for me. There's nothing I can do to change things. So, it don't matter if anyone believes me or not. I just want a place for me and the kids. That's all."

"You're right," I said. "You shouldn't have to explain anything to anyone. And I do believe you."

She nodded and smiled.

“Why can’t you stay with your mum then? Surely it’s got to be better than the street, especially at this time of year.”

"There’s no room,” she sighed. “And I don’t get on with my step dad. They’ve only got a one bed flat and he don’t even want the kids there. My mum only took them temporary, while I was in hospital. I wanted to find somewhere, but the social worker was pathetic. She just got me a bed in a hostel, but that was just for me not the kids, so I refused to go there. And she said I'd just have to like it or lump it, so I told her where to shove it."

"I thought they had to house you if you were homeless and had kids. At least put you in a bed and breakfast?"

"Well, because my mum had been looking after the kids for over six months, they reckoned they had a home and because I'd turned down the hostel I was intentionally homeless."

“That’s fucking bollocks,” I said.

She nodded.

“So, what happened then? Have you been on the streets ever since.”

“No, I stayed with friends for a while. You know sleeping on the sofa and everything, but you can’t do that forever. They offered to put me in the Salvation Army hostel, up York Street.”

She pointed into the darkness, and I nodded, pretending I knew where she meant.

“But there’s only about six women in there and about eighty blokes. And most of them are out of mental homes or prison. I’m safer out here.”

“Aren’t there any places for women. I mean, I’m no expert. But I’ve seen places on the telly, you know, for single mothers and all that. I thought the council had to provide something like that.”

“Not anymore. There used to be a refuse for women. But they shut it down. And anyway they wouldn’t let you have kids in there. That’s all I want see - a flat for me and my kids. That’s all I want.”

“There must be something they can do.”

“Oh yea, I’m on a waiting list, but it’s nine months before anything’s going to come up.”

“Can’t you stay somewhere in the meantime. Not the Salvation Army, but somewhere similar?”

“I can put my name down on a waiting list for the YMCA. They take women now, and the housing people said because of my circumstances, I could get in there in about three months. But if I take that, I go back to the back of a queue for a flat. The only thing I could do is move into the street with my kids.”

“Literally?”

“Yea.”

“And then they have to house you?”

“Bed and breakfast, probably. But I’m not putting the kids through that. “

“What about a Housing Association?”

“Yea, in nine months time.”

“But there must be something they can do, in the meantime. They must know your story. It’s not your fault you ended up in hospital and all that. It’s an accident. It could happen to anyone. Surely social workers, somebody must be able to help. Couldn’t they find you somewhere to rent for a few weeks?”

“Yea, they’ve got this scheme now where the council will guarantee your rent. But the landlords round here aren’t interested.”

“But if they met you, surely they could see you were nice and intelligent and all that. You’re not going to trash the place.”

“They don’t get the money straight away. That’s the problem. And they’ve all been caught out before. They’d wait four months to get the housing benefit and when people got the cheques they used to cash them and do a runner. So the landlords got nothing, except a load of aggravation.”

“There must be some landlord who’d help you. I mean, if they heard what had happened…”

“Not so far.”

I was shocked.

“It’s a fucking crazy,” I gesture at a Porche parked down the road. “The streets are full of them – fucking Ferraris, Imprenzas, SLKs. And everywhere you look they’re building new offices, hundreds of rooms, empty all night. All you want is a roof over your head and no one can help. I can’t believe this country. Fucking tory bastards!”

“It’s all Labour councils round here,” she said quietly. “And a Labour government.”

“Yea, you’re right. It makes no difference. Whoever you vote for the government wins!”

A man emerges from the bookies with two gorillas. His hair is dyed different shades of orange and blonde and he’s wearing a leather jacket over a shirt like a checked tablecloth.

The girl nods to him.

“Good day was it?”

The man just sneers, and turns to the two men with him.

“Fucking richer than me she is.”

The gorillas remain expressionless. They cross the road. He bleeps open the porche and they drive away.

“Twat,” I mutter.

“He’s always like that when he’s with his minders. But he’s totally different when he’s by himself. Never says much, but he gives me a fiver sometimes...”

“I guess it’s a good position outside a bookies.

“Yea, some people think it’ll bring them luck if they give me a couple of quid when they win. There’s an Irish guy called Pat who always does that. He’s nice, like you. Stops for a chat.”

I nod, almost feeling jealous of the Irish punter.

A fat guy walks by. He’s twenty stone at least. He looks the other way.

“He gave me a fiver once,” she said, “but he wanted something for it. Wanted to know what I’d do for him.”

“Arsehole,” I said.

The girl put on a squeaky voice.

“I only wanted a hand job love. I told him he must be flipping joking.”

“He called me a slut then and said I should get a job and all that. Stupid git. But I told him where to get off and he hasn’t spoken to me since. Anyway, I’m never doing that whatever happens.”

Another group of young men walk past – students, maybe, or insurance clerks. They all look the same to me. As they pass, their voices get louder. Everyone who passes reacts to the girl. They might make some wisecrack, or fall silent, or fumble for something in their pockets. But they are all affected.

“Do many people stop to chat?” I ask.

“Yea, a few,“ she says. “Pat’s always chatty and there was another guy a couple of weeks back, stopped here for hours. Like you he was, genuine, you know. Dead nice. Then, after a bit, he started going on about Jesus. Wanted to take me home. Said God would enter my life and everything would be OK. Fucking nutter. I couldn’t get rid of him.”

I looked self-consciously at my watch.

“You’ve got no worries there,” I said. “I’m not one of those Christian types. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with it. Just when they try and ram it down your throat.”

The girl nods vigorously.

“I’m sure this has all happened to me for a reason, you know. That’s why I’m going to stick it out until me and the kids get the flat. But I don’t need some nutter telling me that God’s got anything to do with it. Jesus ain’t going to ring up the council and get me moved up the waiting list.”

“Probably not, “ I nod. “I agree that there’s some reason for us being here, and there is right and wrong, and everything. But you don’t need a bible to tell you that. It's just stuff that people made up before they had science.“

“Science can’t explain everything,” she said quietly

“No it can’t, but neither can religion. When I was a kid, my mum worked in the summer so I had to go to these play schemes. One year, I went to this one run by Christians. Every day we’d have games and competitions and earn points, which they’d put up on this little chart on the wall. And at the end of the week you could spend your points on books. Of course, the only books they had were these bible stories. They were quite good, actually – cartoon strips like Tintin or Asterix. But at the end of the books they had all these verses from the New Testament and a load of nonsense about letting God into your life. On the last afternoon, these guys who’d spent the whole week playing games with us, and hadn’t mentioned God once, sat us down and read one of the stories and then went on and on about how we had to learn to love the lord Jesus and all that crap. I just couldn’t see the point of it. It didn’t teach you anything. It wouldn’t make you a better person. It was just fucking brainwashing. I’m not saying the bible’s all rubbish. But, honestly, I reckon if you took all the mumbo jumbo out of it, you could squeeze the important bits onto half a sheet of A4.”

The girl grinned and flipped to the front of her book, where there was a twelve line biography of Stephen King.

“You could fit it in there,” she said.

“Yea, just enough room for the ten commandments. That’d do me.”

“Or maybe just five,” she said.

“Yea that’s even better.”

“So which ones would you include?” she asked.

“Ah now.” I paused, and tried to remember them. “Thou shalt not kill,” I said. “I guess that has to be in there, although there are quite a few people I’d quite happily do away with, all the fucking paedophiles and all that.”

She nodded.

“You could change it to ‘Don’t kill people unless they really deserve it.’”

“Yea, that would do it.”

We both laughed.

“What else,” she said? “Which five are we going to get rid of?”

“Well there’s all that stuff about admiring your neighbour’s Ox or his wife or whatever. It’s a bit out of date.”

“Being faithful is important, though” she said. “Well, it is to me.”

“For sure,” I said. “So how about…’You can look but you can’t touch.’ “

She thought for a moment and smirked. “Yea that’d be OK.”

“So, we’ve got three left…”

“What do you reckon?”

She shrugged.

“There’s all that stuff about not judging someone until you know them,” I suggested.

“OK,” she said. “But once you know them, you can think what you like!”

“I like your thinking,” I said. “Right, last two. There’s all that stuff about forgiving all trespassers.”

“That’s the Lord’s Prayer isn’t it?”

“You could be right…I don’t believe in all that forgive and forget shit anyway. How about, don’t get angry, get even.”

“It’s too negative,” she said. “Sometimes you have to let things go…”

“You’re right…you should channel your anger into something positive.”

“Don’t get angry get positive?”

“Yea, or, ‘Don’t get angry get energetic’.”

“Doesn’t sound right.”

“OK, we’ll fine tune it later.”

“So how many’s that?”

The girl paused for a moment.

“Four,” she said.

“Wow,” I said, “Just one left…it might have to be quite a long one. How about, you can gain pleasure or profit in any way you like, so long as it is with a consenting adult and doesn’t involve suffering to animals or children (and as long as you don’t take the piss too much).”

“Or you could just say, ‘Don’t take the piss’.”

“You got it,” I said. “That covers everything - ripping people off, letting your dog shit on your neighbour’s garden, suicide bombings…You know what? I reckon we’ve got it sussed.”

“World peace,” she said, “in half a page.”

We were both so busy grinning, neither of us heard the car slow down. Suddenly a bottle whizzed through the darkness and shattered on the wall above the girl’s head, showering us both in glass (and what smelled suspiciously like fresh piss).

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, but her face was white.

“Hold on,” I said, and reached down to remove a shard of glass form her hair.

She recoiled.

“Sorry, there’s a bit of glass there…”

She reached up to her head

“Mind you fingers. Look shall I…” I begin to say, but she’d already removed it.

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “Nothing like that has happened to me before.”

“They were probably chucking it at me,” I said. “Probably thought it was funny.”

But we both knew that was a lie. We could guess what kind of wankers threw it and why. I stared down the street.

“What kind of cunts are they? Why do something like that? The fucking cowards. I tell you if they fucking drive past again, I’ll fucking rip their roof off.”

The girl said nothing.

“Do you want to go for a drink? I’ll buy you one. At least it’s warm inside.”

“I don’t drink,” said the girl.

I nodded and side-footed a large chuck of glass into the gutter.

“Look next time you’re passing,” said the girl. “Come round here about half-four, yea? Any day except Thursdays, yes? We’ll go for a coffee.”

I hesitated.

“Not if you don’t want to,” she said.

“It’d be really nice,” I said.

“Yea, it would be nice.” She smiled.

I nod. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t local and that the chances of me finding (let alone passing down) that street again were near zero. Maybe she could tell that anyway.

She looked down at the glass

“I really don’t believe it,” she said “That’s never happened before.”

“And chances are it won’t happen again,” I lied.

She looked at her book, a blanket of words she wanted to dive back into.

I took my cue.

“I’ve enjoyed chatting, but it’s getting a bit….” I shivered. “I mean, I better be getting on and see if I can find the right bus. I’ll probably end up in Finsbury Park or something…”

She nodded.

“Look, I hope it works out for you, I wish there was something that I could do…

”It’s OK,” she said, and put her hand on my am. “It’s just nice that you’ve bothered to stop and talk to me, like a normal person, you know. That means a lot to me. More than you probably know.”

“Well, if I was a millionaire…”

“Well you’re not are you?” she laughed.

“No, ‘fraid not.”

She tutted and sighed, feigning disappointment.

“Well, you take care OK?”

Instinctively, I leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek, and she raised her dusty face to me. Her hair smelled of traffic, and the flesh around her nose piercing was red and sore, but her cheek felt soft and warm, as my lips touched her skin.

We exhanged small waves and smiles. And I turned and walk away.

I didn’t look back until I reached the corner, and when I did she was reading her book. She didn’t look up but smiled as if she had caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye, and was pretending not to see me, or maybe she’d just got to a funny bit.