Sainsbury’s, Tottenham Court Road. A young man in casual clothes hisses ‘Go To Hell!’ at me, jabbing his hand at my chest in something between a hip-hop gesture and a straightforward point. I am browsing the range of Innocent (ho ho) smoothies – such a sad, lonely, typical act in 2007 – when this happens out of the blue. I’m not sure how best to react, but find the decision made for me as I feel my system flooding with the latter of the ‘fight or flight’ endorphins. My gut reaction is that I want to get away, and that I want to have a good cry. That’s usually my reaction to most things. Despite being in a crowded supermarket, I feel a genuine sense that I’m about to be physically attacked for the way I look. It has happened before, after all.
I walk to the nearest till, join a queue that lasts for eternity, and begin to calm down. Perhaps he’s not a violent lunatic, I muse, when I note he’s now standing a couple of people behind me, further down the queue. It’s here that I realise he’s muttering and talking to himself, almost constantly. So I now think, ‘he’s not a homophobic thug with a knife, he’s just mentally ill. Well, I’m technically mad, too.’
But then, of course, I get around to thinking that it’s entirely possible to be a mentally ill thug with a knife. For all my supposed oddness and inability to do what normal people do, I am at least ‘harmless’. When I get angry, people just laugh, and rightfully so. When other mad gentlemen get angry, and people laugh, things can get violent. London is full of tense men on the brink of violence, and I am just the sort of person to spark them off. If it’s not my appearance or my infuriatingly aloof manner, it can be my defensive smirk. I have to be careful.
So now I’ve trained myself to be in a constant state of saying no, thank you, or better still, being silent. And of knowing how to disappear, quietly. Which is a shame, as I’d really like to know just why the gentleman in this instance wants me to go to hell, and indeed wants to put this request to me in speech.
Am at my most penurious time of the month, which is of course when I suddenly find I need to spend money. Cash in pocket: £22.21. This has to last me till Tuesday..
Twenty pounds is perfectly fine to live on for three days if I didn’t have places to go and people to see between now and Tuesday. But I do.
It’s the travel costs that account for most of the trouble. I try to walk everywhere, but there are times when I have to carry a heavy guitar or a bag which make long walks harder. Or that I have to be somewhere on time, and haven’t allowed for enough walking time. Or that I’m just feeling too tired and fragile to walk all the way.
