Chapter 1

Marco sat on the edge of his unmade single bed which crowded his half of room 4G, Westpark Estate, Stockwell, SW9, a charmless ex-council building of chocolate brown brick, smoked stained walls, and dilapidated infrastructure.

Sitting with his chest doubled over his knees, tears drying on his cheeks he breathed slowly in and out as he had been told to do in a time of crisis and, opening his eyes, once again he focussed his efforts on untying the knot in his shoe lace. Marco looked at the photo, which now lay bent and battered on the floor in front of him, separated from its cheap wooden frame which had offered no resistance as it collided with the wall above the bedroom door. The room felt like a cell. But unlike a cell, Marco felt no more inclination towards what lay beyond its walls. Inside, outside, either way he felt alone. Marco had never planned to move to London. It had just happened. One day he was sitting at home flicking through the paper, the next he was four stories high above the street in a box in Stockwell sharing a room with a guy he didn't know and hardly ever saw and could barely understand when he did. The recruitment company's adverts hadn't shown Stockwell with it's sea of estates and tireless concrete. They had shown Big Ben, the Thames, Trafalgar Square; Endlessly attractive people enjoying themselves in bars, laughing together, having the times of their lives. They described the hundreds of young people they had helped to find jobs and how the apartment buildings were social places which ‘had been generously refurbished to provide structured independence, ideal for a first time traveller’ like Marco. What a load of bullshit that had been.
The reality had set in the moment Marco emerged from Stockwell station, headfirst into the dark of a late November afternoon, guided only by the Street map print out in his hand. For a few seconds he had stood stranded on the spot, slightly stunned. This wasn’t the London he had expected to see. When he had arrived at Westpark Estate he had looked at his sheet of paper over and over again, convinced that he had gone to the wrong address. But he hadn’t.

Having conquered his boots Marco raised himself up, fastened his belt and gazed at his watch which hung limply from his wrist. Staring out the window he felt utterly insignificant. How the hell people could live like this he had no idea, he wondered. His only comfort was the fact that he had a get out clause. He could always say fuck it, pack his bags and go home to the comfort of the countryside in a matter of hours. Of course he didn't want to do that. It would feel like defeat. The fact remained though that if he really wanted to go he could go. But looking across at the other buildings with their gloomy exteriors and cheap lace curtains, Marco marvelled at how people could live this existence day in, day out, for the rest of their lives, their kids never experiencing the grass, and the hills, the clean. Any grass which had been drawn into the original building sketches had long been replaced by dirt, graffiti and grey. You need sun for grass and green, Marco thought.

Checking his watch once again, he grabbed his two pound black umbrella and trickled out the door.

Work was a relief to Marco. It was a shit job which paid almost nothing but it allowed him to escape his suffocating room and distracted his mind for eight or so hours during which time he barely had time to breathe let alone think. Thinking wasn’t doing him any favours. He was miserable because he was lonely and scared but what made him more miserable was the fact that he was twenty two years old, living in London where he should be living the dream in the prime of his life, and all he could think about was going home. Up until now he had never really given his parents a second thought. They had just been there, ordinary parents, living an ordinary life. Home had been home. Of course he had cried when he left but that was more because his parents were crying than because he was particularly sad to be leaving. But now that he was lonely and miserable he could barely think of anything else. Anything negative about home had been lost in some sort of retrospective amnesia. Now only the good, the green and the idyllic found their way in to his mind. Now green had been replaced with Grey. He had never seen somewhere so grey and bleak.

The number 2 bus swept Marco up and he immediately raced upstairs, taking a seat as close to the front as possible. For Marco this was one of his first connections with the London he had been promised and a connection which would whisk him away from Stockwell for a few hours reprieve, even if the reprieve took the form of work. He felt a rush of excitement the moment the Double Decker nudge around the corner, promising to deliver him safely away from the council houses, the treeless streets, the groups of kids in caps down over their eyes who he crossed the road to avoid. As the bus slowed to collect new passengers he would glimpse inside the homes and lives of people who had forgotten to close their curtains. A moment later he was gone. Most days nothing changed but occasionally someone would be home or one of the rooms had been rearranged and Marco could momentarily deconstruct their lives.

Marco preferred the bus to the tube, even though there was no way he could afford the tube. By bus, he knew exactly where he was going rather than dropping down at point A, racing madly along for a few minutes, and then popping up again at point B, oblivious to what he had passed by in between. The fact that he had to change busses before crossing Vauxhall Bridge didn't worry him. The moment he crossed the river he felt like he had arrived in London. The London he had been expecting. The bus wound past Westminster before dropping him off at Trafalgar square which felt about as far away from his dingy room in Stockwell as his country village in the north of Italy.

‘O'right mate’, Matt said as Marco wandered in through the kitchen door of The Bistro towards the pile of dishes which had already started to accumulate next to the sink. When he had first arrived in London, he had reported to the Agency’s small office in Soho where he had been given a number of tests, the most important of which was the English test. Considering all the years of English lessons he had suffered in school his English should have been much better than it was. The problem was that no one in his village spoke any English. His parents certainly didn't and there was a huge gap between the English he knew and the English he could speak. He usually ended up mumbling because he was shy which meant the person he was speaking to would say ‘what’s that mate?’ which made him even more self conscious. The English he had learned and spoken in school had been basic and slow, spoken by an Italian teacher with an Italian accent he could understand. The English spoken in London was completely different. There were a millions of different accents, slang words, and the speed at which people spoke meant that a lot of the time he had no idea what was being said at all. This had obviously shown when he had turned up at the agency that first morning. This was why he had immediately been offered, and had immediately accepted the job washing dishes at The Bistro in Covent Garden.

The Bistro was an average café. Its walls were covered in fake wood panelling and too many tables and chairs had been crammed in to maximise sales. When the restaurant filled up, it became virtually impossible to distinguish one group of diners from another. Diners were forced to eat with elbows strapped closely to their sides, forks raised to their mouths in a robotic up and down motion.

It succeeded because it sucked up the overflow of tourists who, unable to find anywhere better or cheaper in Covent Garden’s main plaza, ventured off its side roads and stumbled across The Bistro.


‘O'right Matt’ Marco echoed in imitation. Matt was a tall Irish chef who appeared to be endlessly good humoured. He always made conversation with Marco, one of the few people who did so, and never made him feel stupid for continually asking for what ever had been said to be repeated.

‘Good weekend mate?? Matt shouted over the din of the restaurant. Whoever had designed The Bistro had never mastered acoustics. Any movement of the wooden chairs or steel framed tables sent a wild screeching echoing from wall to wall. To compete, the customers were forced to shout in order to be heard resulting in a flood of collective din, a great proportion of which washed up in the kitchen.

‘Mine was shite. We went out on Friday night and I was having a great time you know and then my girlfriend got pissed off and stormed out of the bloody bar.’

‘Really, what happened?’

‘Ah god knows, she’s a bit of a jealous type mate. Everything was fine and then I went up to get us a drink and while I was waiting to be served this girl started making conversation with me. I don’t know what she expected me to do. I couldn’t exactly stand there and play mute could I. My girlfriend came over and called me a fucking prick and stormed out of the bar. I ended up missing the last bloody tube and had to catch the bloody night bus which takes a month to get to my place. Jaysus. I tell you, London calls itself a city but the bloody tube closes at midnight and after that you’re fucked. You know Marco, in New York the tube runs all bloody night long. All BLOODY NIGHT LONG! The bloody English invented the damned tube you know, why the fuck can't they make it work properly. Actually they invented football and cricket as well and they’re shite at the pair of those too so it figures!’

Matt roared with laughter. He often did this after telling one of his stories. Marco loved these kinds of conversations. He felt as if he were in a conversation with Matt without actually being in a conversation with Matt. Matt had a habit of talking and talking. There was always the sense that he was talking with Marco, but in many respects it was a monologue. Apart from the occasional nod or brief affirmation, it required very little spoken input on Marco’s part. At the same time he felt completely involved.

‘So what about yours mate? D’ya get up to anything?’

‘Mine was Ok’, Marco said, lying. ‘My weekend was quite quiet, but it was ok.’

The last thing Marco wanted to do was admit that he had spent both Friday and Saturday night at home in the common room with a couple of beers and a takeaway, watching shit TV while people wandered in and out smelling of bad perfume or aftershave. Seeing Marco sitting there alone they usually stopped them in their tracks. They would usually pause for a minute, force a look of ‘I’ve forgotten something from my room’ onto their face before walking out again. Obviously sitting with Marco in the common room for a while before heading out for the night would elicit some moral feeling of ‘should I invite this guy out for a beer?’ In the end it was easier to avoid him altogether. He knew they had no reason or duty to invite him anywhere. But that said, he knew, or at least liked to think that if he were in the same position, and saw someone sitting alone night after night after night he would ask them to come along. At least once, to give them a go, see what they were like.


Marco envied Matt. Not in a negative way. He just wished his life was more like Matt’s. There always seemed to be something exciting or at the very least interesting going on in his world. Mates, women, nights out. To cap it off he always had a story to tell. Some bizarre happening which, told by anyone else probably wouldn't have sounded particularly interesting, but told by Matt took on a life of its own. Even one of his shite nights seemed preferable to Marco's normal ones.

‘So who are you hanging out with mate? Got any mates in that flat of yours. How's that roommate, what's his name?’

‘Rob.’

‘Yeah that’s the one. Are those pricks still giving him a hard time?’

Rob Willis occasionally occupied the other half of Marco's room. He had been there when Marco had first arrived and they had been sharing the same ten meters squared for the past few months. Despite this, Marco barely knew the guy. He worked practically every night in a club in Camden and usually staggered through the door just as Marco was planning to get up. On the nights when he wasn't working he tended to go out late because his body clock was ‘all fucked up’, as Rob liked to put it. In a way it was a pretty good set up because Marco had never shared a room before and this way he effectively had a room to himself. But then again he would probably happily have foregone the privacy for a little more companionship. Under this arrangement the pair had never got past the ‘Morning, See you later’ stage. Rob was black. The first black guy Marco had ever met. He didn't know if it was because of this, but the managers didn't like him. They treated him differently.

‘Yeah they are’ Marco said feeling the normal flutter of nerves he experienced every time he had to start talking. Once he got going it was much better. He got on a role. But he was always self conscious at the beginning of a conversation.
‘I don't know how he puts up with it. He seems to ignore them somehow but I couldn’t do it. The other night, when I was sitting in the common room, one of the managers came in. He was really drunk and he sat down next to me and started saying some really terrible things. He’s also Italian and was telling me that immigrants and blacks have destroyed Italy and now they are doing the same to England.’

‘Jesus he sounds like a lovely guy’ Matt said wiping down the stainless steel bench in front of him. Maybe you should think about moving out of there and into a flat?’

‘I would love to. I really don’t like it in the residence but the problem is that the agency got me this job and I pay them rent and I’m under contract for a year.’

‘Ah I see’

‘Yeah if I leave I’ll lose my job and then I won’t be able to afford anywhere else.’

‘I'll ask around mate, see if I can come up with something.’
‘Thanks Matt’

Marco always enjoyed the early morning shift. The Bistro was practically empty apart from a few members of staff getting things prepped for the day. Everyone worked away quietly at their own pace, chatting casually. They could play their own music instead of the usual, offensive to no one crap they were forced to play during the working hours. After about nine the place went mad and there was barely a spare minute to think let alone talk. Dishes came in as quickly as they went out. Marco’s first shift had been a nightmare. He had never really washed dishes before, apart from at home which hardly counted. Within minutes of that first shift starting he was overcome with plates, coffee cups, cutlery, completely overwhelmed. Matt had rushed over and cleared the mess in a matter of seconds. He showed him how to stack the dishes, how to have half of them soaking while he washed the others. He had helped him out like this a few time during the first few shifts but after a while Marco got the hang of it. Matt hadn't done it in a resentful, ‘Oh for god’s sake’ kind of way. Instead he just helped out, even complaining about to the waiters for ‘leaving this shite all over the place.’

‘Listen mate, how would you fancy coming out for a beer this weekend’, Matt said as he and Marco sat having a coffee break outside the back door of the kitchen.
‘I'm heading out to Old Street on Saturday night for a mates birthday. It’ll be a pretty laid back night; we're just planning to head to the pub for a few drinks and then we might go to a club after that depending on how we all feel.’

Matt could tell Marco was lonely. Poor bugger. He staggered in every day, worked his arse off, elbows in filth for shit pay. Battling to understand what was being said around him. He did his best to sound upbeat but Matt could see he was lonely as hell and half scared to death of London.

‘It should be a good laugh mate. What do you reckon?
‘Are you sure your friend won’t mind me coming to his birthday?’
‘Not at all mate, the more the merrier.’
‘Sorry’ Marco said, this time not understanding.
‘Sorry mate, no he won’t mind at all. He's a good guy, and if he says anything I’ll give him a slap’.
‘Ok. It sounds great. ‘Are trainers ok?’ Marco asked, feeling immediately stupid
‘Wear whatever you like mate. Like I said it will be a pretty relaxed night. We're going to meet outside Old Street Station at 8 O'clock tomorrow night. If you want to come meet us there mate. Here's my number in case you have any probs.’

‘Ok, that sounds good.’ Marco tried to sound as casual as he could, trying to hide the excitement from his voice; trying not to give away how desperate he really was for a night out. It was strange to think that you could feel so alone in a city of seven million people, but he did. Everyone was always racing madly from A to B, trying to shave seconds off some imaginary record time. There were far too many people in London with too much going on to really break into a scene. There were far too many scenes. He couldn't exactly barge up to someone in a bar and say, ‘Hi I'm Marco, I chop veggies and wash dishes, fancy a drink sometime, so long as you speak reasonably slowly, and so long as the bar isn't too noisy.’ Marco knew his English was improving but it still wasn't great. He could speak to people at work reasonably well. Most of them spoke English as a second language and made mistakes like him. And he was confident with them which meant he didn’t think about what he was trying to say, he just said it. Often when English people spoke to him, like the manager, English Graham as people called him, Marco felt nervous and flustered and when he got flustered his mind went blank and he made mistakes. The moment Graham waddled off, his pregnant beer gut balanced in front of him, the correct thing to say would spring to the front of his mind. Graham treated Marco like he was thick and couldn’t stand having to repeat himself to someone so far below him. Arrogant prick, Marco thought to himself. ‘I'd love to see him try to speak Italian. But then, most people who only speak their own language tend to fall in to the trap of thinking that someone who speaks it badly must necessarily be a bit thick.

‘Good one, give me a shout if you have any trouble getting there. I'm going to shoot away early mate; I'm off tomorrow so catch you Saturday night o’right?’
‘Ok see you Saturday’ Marco said returning once again to the piles which were beginning to settle around the sink.