Another cup of jasmine tea

chapter 3

Ken and I survived the winter, but I’d had enough! No way was I going to go through that again!
The ground thawed and turned into mud. We had wellies, but the mud still managed to get everywhere.
I’d lost weight over the winter. Maybe it was the constant cold. It was more likely to be the reliance on beans as a source of protein. Porridge was fine in the morning. It was warming, it filled you up. For lunch we would get bean rissoles or patties. Then for dinner, it was usually bean stew. They changed the flavouring somewhat. Sometimes it was more like a bean curry, but whatever it was always contained beans, no cheese, no eggs, no fish, no meat. I dreamed of eating the tiniest bit of cheese, trying to recall it’s flavour and texture. Oh! A crispy bacon sandwich, with tomato ketchup. I recalled the crunch, the saltiness, the softness of the roll.
My digestive system protested against the beans swelling up and producing copious amounts of wind which was often very painful. I needed to go back to a normal diet.
I wasn’t, however ready to go back to mum. I had told my parents where I was, but I had not seen them since I left. They were absolutely furious, especially my dad! But they could not force me to go back. I wrote to them once or twice, giving them the more glamorised version of camp life.
In the meantime, Luna had been writing his own letters. He knew people in London who lived on the edge of society. They lived in squats by breaking in to empty houses. If the electric had been cut off, they had found a way to hook up to the National grid without having to pay for it. It sounded dangerous, but if you had electricity, you could have light, you could have warmth and something to cook on. You might even have a fridge to keep food fresh!
By the time February came round, I was catching a coach to London, leaving Ken behind. He didn’t mind the cold so much. He liked the lifestyle. It didn’t suit me. I wasn’t sure whether squatting was for me either, but I was going to be living in the capital. There might be opportunities that opened up for me there. I imagined myself in my own little flat, being able to put down roots for once.
The address I had been given was in a grand Georgian terrace in Kensington. The actual house was not as grand as the others in the street. The paint was peeling on the render, the windows and the front door. Nevertheless, I felt important as I walked up the steps. The lock on the door had been prised open. There were still wood splinters sticking out from the door. I pushed open the door, stepped in and pushed it closed again. I noticed the width of the hallway, the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling, the tiling on the floor and the beautifully carved woodwork on the stairs. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls revealing another layer beneath. The dado rail was broken off in places revealing the bare plaster and brick beneath. There were cobwebs on the ceiling and muddy footprints on the floor, but it still looked like luxury in comparison with the commune.
I called out, but no one answered.
I stepped into what I thought would be the living room. There was a beautiful marble fireplace, a wide bay window and more ornate cornicing. The floor was bare floorboards, the walls were cracked. A blanket had been pinned across most of the window to shut out of the light. An old metal bed frame stood in the corner of the room it had a dirty old mattress on it, a striped pillow and more blankets. There was a metal clothing rail, like you might see in a shop with clothes neatly hanging on it and several laundry bags on the floor filled with more of someone’s possessions. That someone appeared behind me and introduced themselves as Sunshine. She was Luna’s ex. Someone else who had experimented with communal living and found the welsh hillside much too difficult. She took me up to the attic, where I was going to be living. The attic might not be as grand as the room downstairs that I had seen, but it was still spacious. It had two dormer windows, one at tge front and one at the back which let in plenty of light. The ceiling sloped towards the front and then towards the back, so it was low in places, but there was plenty room to stand up straight. Up here there was no ornate plasterwork. The floorboards had once been painted. In one corner, under the eaves was a bed and mattress, much like the one downstairs, but it was missing any bedding. There was also a bare clothes rail. Sunshine said she had ‘found’ the items in preparation for my arrival. Luna had told me she would want payment for securing my accommodation. I gave her ten pounds. When she was dissatisfied with that I gave her another note.
I was not just paying for my room, she told me. I was paying for the security of the house. Living in a squat was a whole lot better than living on the streets... or a commune on a freezing cold welsh hillside.
Sunshine showed me where I could get some cheap blankets from the Oxfam shop. I also bought a single electric ring that I could cook on, a pan, kettle and a few bits of crockery and cutlery. The first thing I cooked was a bacon sandwich. Oh! It tasted so good! Even better than I could remember.
The hot water ran off an immersion heater. We were not paying for our electric, some other poor sod in the street was. No doubt they could afford it and would hardly notice a difference. I made use of the hot water by having my first bath in six months. You would hardly believe the colour of the water. I thought my skin was darker because of the exposure to the elements. No. It was all muck! I changed the bath water three times before it ran clear. Then I washed my dreadlocked hair with a rubber shower attachment onto the sink taps. Getting the temperature right was not easy. It was either boiling hot, or with the smallest rotation from the cold tap, it was freezing cold.
By the time I was finished washing and finding, my neck and my back were aching. Next I had a shave and got rid of my sparse, prickly beard. There was a mirror in the bathroom, but it was broken in several places, so I had to adjust the angles I looked into it several times.
I felt so much better once I was clean. It took almost all day for my matted hair to dry. I had been tempted to shave all my hair off completely, but I decided to leave it for now.
Sunshine suggested I took a look at the local rubbish dump. If I went after dark, I would not get caught. The gates were locked, but there was a hole in the fence around the back. She thought I might find some useful electrical stuff there that was not too far gone. She’d found some good boots there. They were a bit big, but she did not mind that.
I was not sure about going. It sounded like it was breaking and entering. I was no thief... eventually I talked myself round. How could it be thieving if I was going to use something that someone else did not want?
I sneaked in through the fence, just as she’d told me. I found a small portable telly and a clock radio. The chances were that they did not work, but it was worth the risk. I saw quite a nice wicker chair there as well, but I could only take what I could carry. I fled as quickly as I could, lugging the bulky equipment with me.
Back in the squat, I rubbed off the worst of the dirt. The radio was a bit damp. I put it to one side to dry out. It would be too dangerous to even try to see if it worked until then. The telly looked ok though. I cautiously plugged it in. So far so good. I had not been killed in any explosion. Next, wrapped my hand in a towel and pressed the ‘on’ button. The screen flickered to life. It was just picking up white noise and grey haze, but it was working. I cautiously picked up the aerial at the back and adjusted the height and angle of it until I could get a better signal. Then suddenly, I got BBC One! After six months of no telly at all, I did not want to risk my life trying to find another station.
I settled myself down to watch the 12 inch screen, congratulating myself with a cup of tea. I could not believe someone would throw out a decent portable telly. I expected to be watching a black and white screen. I was over the moon when I realised it was colour too!
I would experiment with the other two channels later on.

Sunshine’s electrician friend took a closer look at my clock radio before I started to use it, just for safety’s sake. He had to adjust something or other inside as well as drying it out a bit more, but after that I had a perfectly good radio alarm clock. The radio reception could be a bit crackly when you were adjusting stations, but I did not expect it to be perfect.
I was so pleased with my finds, that I returned to the dump two nights later for the cane chair. It was a struggle to get it up all the stairs, but once it was there and I sat down on it, I found it very comfortable.
I had only been in London for a few days and I felt like I was in the lap of luxury in comparison to the welsh commune.