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<\/a><\/p>\nFrom St Andrew\u2019s Bus Station, Edinburgh, I catch the 900 bus to Glasgow. The day is overcast but warm and the bus is busy with students and pensioners taking advantage of the cheap ride to the city. Long before we reach the M8, I notice a man sitting adjacent \u2013 probably in his 30s, nondescript scruffy, looking slightly troubled, but bearing no clue to his status. Reaching into his rucksack he pulls out a packet of custard creams. I avert my eyes while, one by one, he scarfs the entire packet. Is he hungry, I wonder? A sugar craving? The current wisdom on diet and health would fail to condone the guy. Five minutes later, I catch the man biting through the wrapper of a second packet of biscuits, only this time it’s Bourbons. Again he devours the lot. We\u2019ve yet to reach the M8.<\/p>\n
The bus arrives at Buchanan Street Bus Station on time. The weather\u2019s no different here but I’m struck at how the people walk with a greater urgency than their East Coast neighbours. I’ve arrived at the city of my birth, only now I realise I have no idea where I’m heading so I buy a coffee at the AMPM stall. Behind the counter \u2013 a girl \u2013 blonde, petite, fake-nailed, is having bother finding the edge of an industrial-sized roll of clingfilm. What\u2019re you havin\u2019? she snaps, not bothering to look at me. I order a coffee. What was that? She snaps again. Welcome to Glasgow.<\/p>\n
Taking my coffee outside I sit on a low, overspecced bench built of curved steel tube not unlike scaffolding poles, clearly designed to deter loiterers. Further up I notice a man not sitting but squatting. Clearly he knows the score. The first thing I notice is his faded red and white striped sweatshirt and the well-used Lidl shopper. He\u2019s restless, alert, scanning the street and the other people sitting nearby. I dip into my bag and pull out my camera, snapping the clock on legs, a worthy piece of street furniture fashioned from stainless steel, running in the opposite direction from the bus station. It occurs to me that the clock only gives the illusion of motion, hard-wired to the concrete.<\/p>\n
As I fathom the meaning of the clock, the squatter clocks my camera. He speaks to me in a rusted gutteral, so I shove up, juggling camera, coffee and bag for a closer listen. The man \u2013 Chris, as I find out later – slugs a bottle of Lucozade. He\u2019s quick to tell me his story. An ex-serviceman in the Scots Guards, he recounts how he saw action in both the Falklands and in the first Gulf War, for which he was decorated.<\/p>\n
Chris rolls up his sleeve to display a set of long pale scars running from wrist-to -elbow, elbow-to-armpit on his left arm. He\u2019s so engrossed in his war wounds I look at his face. I have no idea how old this man is \u2013 anything from mid 30s to mid 50s, he\u2019s entered that place where age becomes irrelevant, that it\u2019s not time that has ravaged him, but a life of unmitigated hardship and sorrow. For the last six months he\u2019s been homeless but his ex-sergeant, so he tells me, lives in the West End and allows him to take a bath once a week. Trouble is, he says, the sergeant\u2019s got a wife and two boys \u2013 the boys are up though but all the same \u2013 it\u2019s still a bit awkward, y\u2019know?<\/p>\n
Thing is, he says, here’s me homeless, yet these asylum seekers can walk into a fully-furnished house. Chris has more of a legitimate claim on grievance than the hostile bigots clogging the comment sections and letter pages of our newspapers. Where is he living now? I ask, a hostel? No, he snaps, can\u2019t stand them \u2013 or the junkies in them. Me, I\u2019d rather the streets. There\u2019s no sensible reply to this. Anything I say now may come over glib, if not downright patronising, so I decide it\u2019s better to listen, not speak. He\u2019s about to continue when a plump woman interrupts, handing him two loose cigarettes. I note that she\u2019s with a man who gave my companion a cigarette earlier, typical of the generosity here.<\/p>\n
Another woman sidles up, a familiar type on the streets these days; long skirt, headscarved, olive-skinned, possibly East European. It\u2019s hard to tell, easy to make assumptions. She offers a dog-earred card that I don\u2019t bother to look at. I don\u2019t feel guilty about this because I simply can\u2019t give away money to all comers since I have no money. The only thing I have to share is my debt and she wouldn’t thank me for that. We\u2019re all two paychecks away from the gutter, a friend once told me. I don\u2019t even have a paycheck, at least not a regular wage. Neither does Chris. The woman scuttles off, empty-handed.<\/p>\n
Having squirreled the fags, Chris tells me \u2013 as neutrally as any desperate man can – how all he wants these days is to get drunk. Naw, he then adds thoughtfully, I\u2019d rather be dead. He tells me about his baby, a cot death and how he woke one morning to find his wife dead of an overdose. How much tragedy can one life contain? More, it seems. Chris\u2019s brother was found dead too, a needle in his arm. I feel the full stop.<\/p>\n
As I make to leave, I offer Chris a couple of pound coins and he takes the money, insisting that he didn\u2019t ask for it. I know, I reply, knowing I don’t. Not really.<\/p>\n