Sweet-toothed Dawn in a not so sweet situation

This evening, on my way along Victoria Street to Victoria station, I saw a woman sitting next to a Pret in a sleeping bag. I had been walking along thinking how freezing my fingers were, so when I saw her I stopped and asked if she wanted a sandwich or anything. It must be horrible to be out in this cold and insanely windy weather.

She said she had stitches in her mouth and pulled at her lip with spiny dirt-covered fingers to show me, and asked for a capuccino, which I brought out to her with loads of sugar - something I've learnt over the years of working with homeless people or doing this sort of ad hoc thing is that they invariably have an extremely sweet tooth.

She started talking about a hostel around the corner that she'd been offered a bed in by "outreach workers", but she couldn't get the bed because they were asking for a service charge of £8. She's been on the streets for 3 months now, taking showers occasionally at a day centre. That means she's been sleeping rough all over Christmas, through the harshest time in our climate. She was extremely thing - huddled up in multiple jumpers and jackets, with just tiny bird-like wrists and those dirty fingers sticking out, and cheekbones jutting out of her face. I'm not sure how old she was, 30s or 40s. She said she is from Wales, and came up to London with "a man" who proceeded to beat her, hence the stitches. She ran away from him 3 months ago and since then has been living rough. Her parents are dead and she doesn't know anyone in London.

She was very worried about the hostel. She said that if she didn't pay the service charge, she wouldn't be allowed in, and would lose the chance of a bed for the next 8 weeks. She seemed to think that the reason they were charging her was to check she was serious about wanting the bed, which sounded like a very odd policy to me.
The hostel was St Mungo's (not to be confused with the Harry Potter institution), and once I've published this, I'll be getting in touch with St Mungo's to see if this is really their policy, or if she was spinning me a tale in the hope of striking eight pounds worth of gold.

Sculptor on the street

There's a homeless guy who I've seen around Kensington for a few months and the other day I saw him near Victoria train station, on Grosvenor Gardens. The reason I know it's him is because he always has this strange object with him.

When I first saw him, a few months ago this year when it was warmer, I was sitting outside a cafe near closing time. He went just inside the cafe door asked if they could spare an almond croissant, in a loud, consciously cockney beggar type way. The girls working there said no. He begged them a bit more, saying they were just going to throw it out anyway, but they stood firm, eventually giving him a cup of water. In his hands he had a sort of dirty-greyish-whitish lump. I thought it was a rock then.

But the next time I saw him, lounging in a doorway in the same area, the lump has grown considerably in size. Before it had been just slightly bigger than his palm; now it was a good few inches bigger. I wondered if he was sticking chewing gum people have discarded onto it.

I saw him again a few weeks after that and the strange lump now had spikes sticking out of it. I can't remember if they were twigs or metal things, but it looked like a balding blowfish anyway.

And the last time I saw him was the Sunday before last near Victoria. He had the lump still, spikeless again but again larger, by a few inches. Next time I see him I'm going to ask him about it.

God Loves You *update*

{This is an update for this post: http://justaplotofearth.blogspot.com/2009/12/god-loves-you.html}

So, yesterday I had an hour and a half to kill, but no cafes to go to because it was the Bank Holiday and everything had closed already.

So I decided to go to Victoria train station to sit in their foodhall bit and do a bit of reading. As I was going up the escalator, I happened to turn around, and behind me was God Loves You man.

I was fairly surprised.

I told him I knew him and explained why; it took him a while to place me but I think he eventually did. We went to a table and sat down. There was a family next to us delighting in a KFC chicken bucket who looked a little taken aback. His denim jacket was much more torn than in December, and his hair a little longer and more knotted, but aside from that, he looked much the same. He didn't smell at all and his hands were only slightly grubby.

And so, he has big news: He is off again this week to Israel, hoping to complete the pilgrimage he attempted last year. He showed me the Eurostar ticket, tucked safely between the pages of his Bible. It was a new Bible, the Jewish Bible, and he had underlined, highlighted and annotated it comprehensively, mainly in blue and pink. This time, he says he will either make it to Jerusalem, or come back in a box. He is going through several Muslim countries with his Jewish Bible and a Jewish Bible quote written on his backpack. He laughed and said that they're going to kill him. I think he quite likes the idea that there is an end in sight, of some sort.

As we were chatting, I noticed a tattoo peeking out from under his right sleeve. I asked him what it was of. Disconcertingly, he proceeded to partially undress, and showed me a fantastic inking all the way up his arm and shoulder - patterns intertwining around three dates and a face, and the letters RIP, with a name emblazoned below. They are the birth date, death date, and cremation date of his wife. She was 23 years older than him and died of cancer in 2002. She wasn't religious but had been becoming interested in it close to her death, but he had told her it was a load of bollocks; this was, of course, before his conversion.

There's something rather charismatic about him, something knowing; the way his eyes crinkle at the sides and his willingness to talk about how many sugars he likes in his tea (about 12 as far as I could see) as much as about the Mark of the Beast. I worked out that he's about 44, but you couldn't work that out just by looking at him with his overgrown straggly hair and beard, and slightly stooping gait. He said he tries to eat as little as possible.

He has lots to say about religion; not all of which I could follow due to my own lack of Bible knowledge. He believes that no matter how Godly one's life is, if one doesn't observe the Sabbath (on a Saturday) then one's back is turned on God. He calls the Catholic Church the Harlot Church, says that Jesus was the same as the angel Michael, that there isn't a heaven and hell as such but different realms of sleep until the Second Judgement.

When he talks about this, although it's hard to follow, it's not like the ramblings of a mad man; more like how any intelligent person might speak about something they've only just understood and feel passionately about.

I suppose I won't encounter him again; hopefully he'll make it safely to Jerusalem and live out his days as a sort of holy man there.