• spiral
• beauty
• established
• closer
• opportunities
• dosh
• indifferent
• futile
• height
• bedsit
• spite

Extract 1

So London it was and London it is.

I made loads of mistakes.  Most people do, first time in London.  Trouble is, once you’ve made them it’s practically impossible to put things right – you’re on the old downward and that’s that.  I know you’ve no idea what I’m on about, so listen.

I arrived in midwinter.  Not a good idea.  Okay, so things were bad at home.  Really bad, and I had to get out.  But if I’d known what I know now, I’d have hung in there a bit longer – toughed it out with Carole and Chris till March or even April.  Spend one January night in a shop doorway and you’ll know why.

I had a hundred and fifty quid on me when I got off the train at King’s Cross.  It was what was left of my savings, plus a twenty Carole slipped me when Chris wasn’t looking.  A hundred and fifty.  Doesn’t sound bad, does it?  It sounded okay to me.  My plan was, I’d get a room somewhere.  Nothing posh.  A , and then I’d look for work. I’d take anything for a start, just till I myself and could look round properly.  I was dead green, see?  A babe in arms.  It isn’t like that, but I didn’t know.

I strode out of the station with my backpack and bed-roll, and it felt like a new beginning.  This was London, wasn’t it?  The centre, where it all happens.  It’s big, it’s fast, and it’s full of .  Nobody knows you.  Where you’re from and what’s gone before – that’s your business.  All that stuff with Vince – it never happened.  It’s a clean sheet – you can invent your own past and call yourself anything you choose.

I made a brilliant start, or so it seemed at the time.  I turned right out of the  station and started walking.  I’d no idea  where I was going.  I was looking for somewhere to live.  The street I was walking up was called Pancras Road.  I hadn’t gone far when I came to this row of shops under a block of flats.  One was a newsagent’s, and there were some postcards stuck on the glass door.  I went for a look.  They were ads, as I thought they’d be.  Articles for sale.  Babysitter wanted.  House repairs done cheap.

Extract 2

We sat in St James’s till two o’clock.  It wasn’t warm, but we were out of the wind.  Then Ginger said, “I’m gonna try round Tragfalgar Square for a bit.  Coming?”

I nodded.  “If it’s okay with you.  It’s time I had a go at getting some by myself, but I’ll feel better if you’re somewhere around.”

He nodded.  “Fair enough.  Tell you what – you try outside the National Gallery.  It’s not exactly the of the tourist season but there are always people about, and you can see into the square from the steps.”

We walked back along Piccadilly, down the Haymarket and along Pall Mall.  The Gallery wasn’t fantastically busy but there was a steady trickle of people going in and out.  Some were sitting on the steps in of the cold.  Ginger left me there.  I watched him merge with the crowd, then turned my attention to the business of the day.

It was hard at first.  Really hard.  I stood, watching people pass, trying to spot a likely punter.  God knows what I was looking for – a kind face, I suppose, or at least someone who didn’t look as though he’d swear or punch me in the mouth.  It was , of course.  You can’t read people’s characters in their faces.  You never know what a punter’s reaction is going to be, but I didn’t know that then.  Finally, I steeled myself and asked a guy at random.  He growled, “Not a chance,” and bounded up the steps, taking them two at a time.  I wasted the next five minutes feeling hurt.  Rejected.  I asked myself how it was possible for a person to be sensitive to the of fine art, and at the same time insensitive to the feelings of a fellow creature.  I took it personally, which is fatal.  After a while I realized this and began choosing guys and women at random, expecting nothing, telling them to have a nice day whether they gave or refused.  I blunted the point of my own sensitivity in the flinty soil of their indifference till I too became , and after that it was easier.