The story of £18

THE STORY OF EIGHTEEN POUNDS – A SATURN HERALD SHORT STORY

Patricia was homeless. It’s a terrible thing to happen to someone especially ladies but there it was – for whatever reason, and she had little time to think about that:- Patricia had come home from an evening meeting to find her entire possessions thrown out on the street and the locks changed on the back and front doors and that was on a rainy day in September. She had managed to make her way out of the area with just a handbag and a tiny bit of money, which she immediately spent on a cheap but high street friendly hotel. The next day she spent her last few savings on a croissant and coffee in the hotel of the city of her birth and then went to the Peace Gardens where the sun was pouring down on all present, and to find the Firemens’ Games was about to commence for the first time on British Soil. Patricia soon made friends with some of the firemen and got asked out on a date by a French fireman from The Alps who invited her back to his hotel that night. Why oh why did Patricia decide to sleep rough in the rubbish hut behind John Lewis with three other rough sleepers and not sleep with the handsome blonde Adonis from France who obviously had the hots for her? What could she possibly say to this guy when he asked her where she lived after a night of passion? Patricia rescued her dignity and slept alone….. After watching the Firemans’ games the next day, Patricia found her way to Manchester and in the Piccadilly Gardens on a sunny September day spent time watching the fountains playing up and down and the children diving and dashing around them. But as dusk started to fall, she moved away from the excitement to find sandwiches and tea and somewhere to lay her head. Hurray! Patricia met a group of men who said the best place to kip was next door to a big burger bar in Piccadilly Gardens itself where the comfort of wooden pallets made sleeping a better bet. Days and weeks went by as Patricia ducked and dived and survived in the area, meeting many people – and having to run away from some – like the Dublin Hells Angels – another pass made – this time by a biker… Before long it was coming up to Christmas. There is one thing you need to understand the dear reader. Protocol amongst the homeless is that homeless men do not interfere with homeless women so a woman is most often safe to kip down anywhere with her homeless “comrades.” But Patricia’s homeless friends made themselves very unpopular with the local shops in Piccadilly Gardens – shoplifting and bad behavior had made them less able or completely unable to shop there by being banned entirely. One crisp night – just before Christmas, Patricia wanted to get away from Manchester. She was sitting in the lofty “hideout” by Piccadilly Gardens when her “mates” all sat around counting the money they had got from begging. Patricia never begged, but she did check every telephone box for left money and looked around for other ways to get money – the casinos for example. She was penniless but did know where to get tea and sandwiches or a paper cup of soup. This particular evening, the guys in the sleeping hideout counted exactly eighteen pounds in small change and put it in a transparent polythene bag then started thinking….they wanted a bottle of Vodka to share between them and there was enough there for them to buy one. They wanted to play cards with Vodka shots. There was just one big BUT – where oh where could they get their Vodka? Definitely nowhere near the Piccadilly Gardens as they were known as cheats shoplifters and thieves…so they turned to Patricia who had no reputation for thieving or begging and proffered their mate the bag of money. They all pleaded with her to buy the Vodka from the supermarket in Piccadilly Gardens and entrusted her with the bag of money telling her to come straight back with the bottle of their precious liquor. Patrica then had a big dilemma. Should she run away that very night time and use the eighteen pounds to pay for a ticket out of Manchester? Or should she buy the Vodka for the guys who had entrusted begged money to her? She thought and thought. What to do? Eventually, she ended up freshening up and leaving her “overnight” bag with her mates, trekking across Piccadilly Square in the moonlight with the dancing fountains and buying the longed-for bottle of Vodka. When she returned to the “hideout” the guys had made a pallet into a card table and used old drinks bottle tops as shot glasses and had the greatest Poker game of their lives! It was Christmas. The guys and Patricia enjoyed the evening and soon it was Christmas Day where they were all entertained for a Christmas Lunch for the homeless in the cellars of Salford Cathedral then turfed out back on the streets. Patricia always wondered what would have happened to her if she had made off with the eighteen pounds. But she got her flat eventually and never forgot her honesty and loyalty to the gang who trusted her with the eighteen pounds from their beggings. Wonder who they are doing now?? Penny Nair Price