LOST IN BRIGHTON
AIR STREET REPRISE
Kay Sexton

Chris Jones stared at the white tent that hung round the Clock Tower like a bride's dress. Last night he'd given the notebook to Blondie's girl. Now it was time to move on.

He picked up his two bags, long zip-up sports bags, not the rubbish plastic bags other street people carried and began the long walk to the Salvation Army hostel in Hove.

Last time he'd been there was seven years ago, when he still thought of the street as a temporary situation. He'd gone every night then, enduring prayers and shite cocoa for the sake of a safe doss. Seven years.

You didn't have a name on the street, or a face, or anything else much. But in the hostel they called you Mr. Mr. Jones. Took some getting used to.

"Mr. Jones? Mr. Jones!" That was him, woman with a clipboard trilling out his name. He had overflowed his chair; him and his kit and all the layers he wore—like some mobile ragbag. He looked at himself in the shower room mirror and felt sick. Lance Corporal Jones, Signals, was somewhere inside that heap of dirt. Nine years service, and nine years more since the army retired him.

For a year he'd worked as a driver, but he'd exceeded his tachometer once too often and lost the job. Then mini-cabs for a few months, a rough business, he'd been duffed over a dozen times by passengers who didn't want to pay before finally ending up in casualty with a Stanley knife cut across the back of his head and a hatred of vehicles that had stuck with him. About the only thing that had: there'd been no job, no home, no nothing, after that.

The prayers hadn't changed. The food was better though, lasagne, raisin sponge and a decent cup of tea instead of the pig swill cocoa.

After prayers and supper there was a chance to 'talk things through with an adviser'. He waited for a while, to see if any of the other lags wanted to go first, then hitched up the new to him but second-hand trousers and tapped on the door. It felt like the toughest thing he'd done in his life.

And what did he get for his trouble? The adviser was just a bloke with a beard and bad skin. Give him a trolley and a can of Special Brew and he could be a rough sleeper—what was this oik going to be able to do?

Chris sat and stared at his shoes. Staring. That was his talent.

"Half the people who come through that door must be expecting God with a couple of angels hovering near the ceiling, and the other half must be expecting Father Christmas and Rudolf. Nobody ever gets a happy surprise when they see me instead."

His voice was like an officer's voice—that way of speaking that expects you to listen. Chris moved his stare from his shoes to the adviser's left ear, the way he'd learnt in the army. Never look them in the eye, but never look away.

"So, Mr. Jones, I have to wonder what you were hoping to see. You've not visited us for seven years and now here you are; all of a hurry. I think maybe you've been shaken up by the tragic death of a young man in Brighton. You used to doss in the same area, didn't you?"

"Suh," he mumbled.

"My name is Barry. We don't stand on ceremony here."

"Chris," he said.

"Thank you, Chris. Do you want to talk about the death of your friend?"

Chris shot him the evil eye. That was a trap; he'd never said Blondie was his friend. Any road up, they'd only found him last night, so how did this guy know so much, so soon?

"We minister to rough sleepers throughout Brighton, you know. When he went missing, several people mentioned it—and your name came up, as being one of his doss-mates. It's not sinister, Chris. People were concerned for him, he was a popular young man and he vanished too suddenly. Then this morning, the police were in touch with us immediately, to ask if we knew him and had a next of kin record."

Chris curled his lip—that was an unlikely story.

"So tell me," Barry put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet.

Chris paused, feeling the pause drag out to silence. What could he say? He hadn't seen anything. He'd been off his face that night five weeks ago, dead drunk. There was no way he'd seen a low-slung car pull up by the Clock Tower and two dark figures climb out. He hadn't seen them wrap their hands in bin bags from a thick roll before slinging a body over the plywood partitioning. So he couldn't talk about that.

He hadn't seen Blondie sketching either. Hadn't seen the way he picked out registration plates and faces, mobile numbers and addresses and wove them into his doodles. And he didn't have the book—he'd given it to the girl. So he couldn't talk about that.

"Suppose, he wasn't what he said," he glanced at the adviser to see what response this got. "Like, say he was an undercover policeman or something?"

Barry shrugged.

"Right, suppose then, there was this girl he was sweet on, and she didn't know, right, that he was probably more than just a dosser. Should I like, tell her?"

Barry smiled.

"I think that if she cared, it wouldn't matter—and if she didn't care, you'd be wasting your breath."

Chris sighed. It was his own view too.

"Chris?" Barry's voice was gentle. "You might want to think about talking to the police?"

Chris shrugged. It wasn't going to happen. He had nothing to say. Tomorrow he'd head for Cambridge and find a corner. It wouldn't be Air Street, but so what?

It was time to move on.

© Kay Sexton 2004

Kay has an overdeveloped work ethic and a fig tree in her garden and often finds it hard to reconcile the two. She is a Jerry Jazz Fiction Award winner and her short-short story 'Domestic Violence' made the final five of the Guardian fiction contest. Kay writes quarterly columns at Moondance and Facscimilation. She spent two years as a nudist agony aunt, has a philosophy degree and is a recreational runner with a capricious muse. The fig tree is also flourishing.

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