‘Good evening, David.’

‘Hello, Mr Skolly.’

I said, ‘Just Skolly.’ I headed off up the road and he came loping after me. He was a tall lad, a good six inches over my head.

‘It’s really nice of you to help me out…’

‘I haven’t done anything yet.’ Very polite boy. That’s one of the things that made me take to him. He was bobbing along beside me, looking sincere. He had his leather jacket on and his rucksack on his back. You could tell he hadn’t been on the streets for long because his rucksack was still fairly clean. Jeans, boots, long hair. He looked the same as he usually did. They all look the same as they usually do. They tend not to have an extensive wardrobe.

He was the first one I ever felt like helping, apart from doling out money and fags and chocolate. Most of the others are either depressed or stupid. They ought to be back at home with their mums and dads.

The first time I saw him I gave him a couple of quid and asked him what he thought he was playing at.

He just glanced up and touched the side of his face. I hadn’t noticed the bruises. He didn’t have to say any more, he looked so miserable. I nodded and gave him a couple of Mars bars on top of the money and his face changed. It startled me. His entire face changed. He beamed at me. I’d really made him happy, for a minute or two, anyway. That made me feel good. I like feeling good.

He didn’t seem to have any front. You need all the front you can get in this old world. Look at me. I’m nearly all front. What you see is what you get. But this kid – you only had to look at him to know he’d believe whatever you wanted him to. You had the feeling that if you didn’t hold his hand he’d get crushed in the stampede.

I proffered a packet of Bensons. ‘Fag?’

‘Thank you, but I don’t smoke.’

‘You will,’ I told him. Practically everyone living rough smokes.

‘You fill yourself up with tar,’ he said. He got in front of me and peered into my face. ‘There, it’s turning your skin grey,’ he told me.

I stopped short in the middle of the pavement. An old lady nearly collided with me from behind. ‘Pack it in…!’

I mean, there I was helping him out and he was telling me I was turning grey. He just grinned and I thought… you bugger. He was teasing me. He had me going, too.

We carried on down Picton Street, and I thought, He’s right, though. My old dad’s eighty-two, he smokes like a chimney and he’s the colour of fag ash.

I smoke cigars meself. When I was younger I always tried to have a fag hanging out of the corner of my mouth by way of advertisement. As a tobacconist, if I don’t smoke, who will? You see a lot of tobacconists these days – particularly the Asians, I may say – who never smoke anything. That’s not right. How can you respect your customers if you think it’s stupid to smoke? How can you know what you’re selling ‘em? I reckon I could tell a Benson from a Regal blindfold, from smell alone. Or I used to, anyway.

I gave up fags, I was smoking too many. A cigar is the ideal smoke for a tobacconist because you can always have one in your gob, but it keeps going out. That way, you’re still smoking even when you’re not, if you see what I mean.

‘How about a Mars bar, then?’

He took that. I always keep a pocketful of chocolate bars, again on account of being a tobacconist. I eat them, too. Consequently I’m fat and permanently short of breath, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.

And I’m well informed, too. I read the newspapers.

‘Hello, Skolly.’ He beamed at me. Or rather, he beamed at the door behind me. He’s a strange person, Richard. Very friendly but – he’s always smiling but he never actually seems to look straight at you, for some reason.

He’s like me, Richard is, a bit of an act. ‘Here’s the lad I was telling you about.’ I gave David a little shove in the back and he stumbled towards the door. Richard held his hand out.

‘Always delighted to meet a new candidate for the squatting movement,’ he said.

‘Thanks, thanks…’ said David.

I made to go. Richard was disappointed.

‘Aren’t you going to join us, Skolly?’

‘I’ve got a home of me own, thanks.’

‘No, for tea. I’m making burgers especially for you.’

‘Burgers?’

Every time he saw me he was inviting me round to eat some disgusting mess of beans or sprouted seeds or yoghurt.

‘Especially for you,’ repeated Richard, grinning at the street opposite.

I paused. The missis was away visiting the brood in Taunton. I had been planning on going down the pub, but then the pub was open all night. Richard only wanted to convert me, but unlike some I could mention, I’ve never lost my curiosity. Besides, let him try and convert me. It might amuse me.

I pushed David in front of me and followed them up the stairs to the flat above the shop.

I first had my suspicions that this was different from the usual type of squat because this little notice appeared on the front door, announcing that the place was squatted and that the police had been informed. It just goes to show what this country’s come to if the villains go and tell the police what they’re doing, so they can be left alone to get on with it. I mean, can you imagine it with any other sort of crime? A little notice going up: ‘This bank will be robbed tomorrow at 11 a.m.,’ and the police touching their helmets and saying, ‘All in order, sir, let us know if you have any problems…’

After a few days the usual lot appeared – scabby-looking yoofs with boots two sizes too big and Mohican haircuts scurrying in and out the door like so many rats. I thought to myself, There’s more to this than that lot. But when I saw Richard come out, I knew at once it must be him.

Richard had the earring and the short hair. He had what you might call a slight Mohican – his crew cut was longer on the middle of his head than at the sides. But he was a lot older than the others, in his mid-twenties, maybe, whereas the rat yoofs were sixteen, seventeen. I was standing in the doorway of my shop watching the street go by when he emerged, smiling to himself. He locked the door behind him and walked off, still smiling a half gormless grin at the wind, at the buildings… I don’t know, just at being Richard, I expect.

I left the missis in charge of the shop and collared him.

I was concerned, you see. There was stock left in that shop. George Dole never had any relatives as far as I was aware, but someone must have owned it.

I was prepared to be angry. I poked him in the stomach and I said, ‘I don’t know why you bothered leaving home.’ But he just opened his mouth and smiled even wider.

‘I’m always happy to have relations with the neighbours,’ he said. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘Maybe.’ I told him about the electrical stuff. He invited me in for a cup of tea. Well, I was taken aback. I thought squatters were so busy smoking pot and watching the dirt grow on top of the fridge, they never had anything to do with anyone.

‘You understand my concern,’ I told him as he opened the door.

‘Naturally. I have no respect for theft,’ he announced proudly, which made me bristle a bit. I’ve done a bit of thieving in my own time. Of course I never told him that.

I was impressed. All the electrical stuff had been packed in boxes, neatly labelled and carried out and stored in a little room behind the shop.

‘I must admit I did help myself to a house fuse when I was getting the electric on,’ he said. ‘But I’ve already replaced that.’ And he looked at the door and beamed in pleasure.

‘But you don’t mind nicking someone’s house, though,’ I told him.

‘Not if it’s standing empty and there’s people sleeping on the streets. Of course, property is a rather strange concept for me…’

I thought I was going to get a lecture but he shut up and went to put the kettle on.

Now if it had been me, I’d have had that gear out and sold it before you could count to three. But Richard was moral. He really thought that squatting a shop and not nicking the stock was going to change society. That was why he was so delighted to have me round for tea. He thought that if he got enough people like me on his side, Parliament would fall tomorrow.

It transpired he worked in a bicycle shop on the Ashley Road but he made it his business in his spare time opening up squats for the kids round about. He’d break in, set up the electrics, post the little notices, inform the police, stay there a few nights until it became clear whether or not they were going to get any trouble. Then he’d go home for a few nights until the next one came up.

‘You don’t expect me to eat in here, do you?’ I said. I rubbed my toe into the grease on the floor. ‘I wouldn’t unwrap a bar of chocolate in here.’

Richard was tying on an enormous white apron; it was as clean as the rest of the place was dirty.

‘Don’t worry, Skolly. I’ve brought everything in, even the pan to cook on. I won’t feed you beetle-burgers.’

‘Do they all live like this?’

‘This one is particularly bad,’ he confessed. He looked terribly unhappy about it. I could see one or two of the locals glancing at each other uncomfortably. ‘It gives squatting a bad name,’ said Richard in a loud voice. The yoofs pulled faces and one of them walked out.

I settled myself down in an armchair at the side of the kitchen table and waited.

David was standing in a corner with his eyes popping out of his head, trying to take everything in at once. He couldn’t take his eyes off Richard. I’d told him on the way what Richard did. He obviously thought Richard ought to be the next Prime Minister.

‘I think what you’re doing is fantastic,’ he blurted out. Blushing, God bless him.

‘Thank you,’ said Richard, beaming out of the window. ‘In that case you’ll be delighted to hear that we’re going to open a new squat tonight. Virgin territory.’ For a second the poor kid looked terrified and I thought he was going to bottle out. But then he started frowning and nodding in a determined fashion. I thought, Ahhhhhhhh, sweet… Because for half the kids squatting is just a large form of vandalism. But poor old David had never broken the law in his life, you could tell by just looking at him.

There were a couple of yoofs rather older than the rat pack I’d seen going in and out of the shop. Richard introduced them to David as his new housemates. ‘This is Vonny, this is Jerry,’ he said. ‘They’re anarchists,’ he announced to the kitchen light switch, and grinned so much I thought his teeth were going to fall out. That remark was for my benefit. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye to see what reaction he was getting. The bloke looked embarrassed. Vonny nodded and shook my hand politely and offered me a drink.

I accepted a can of cold beer.

David went to help Richard with the burgers and pretty soon the two of them were deep in confab about Squatting, Anarchism, the Right of the Individual to Break the Law, and various other forms of cobblers.

The burgers were quite nice actually. Richard took great care that mine never touched the surroundings, which I appreciated. I had two.

‘Not bad for homemade,’ I told him.

‘As good as a McDonald’s?’ he wanted to know.

‘Not a bad flavour, but a tendency to fall to pieces in your bun gives them a lower mark,’ I replied.

‘But then I expect Macs use meat in theirs,’ he announced, beaming at the ceiling.

‘And what did you use, Richard?’ I enquired.

‘Oh, soya protein. I’m a vegan, didn’t you know?’ He was over the moon that he’d made me eat that stuff. He was actually giggling and guffawing to himself. I suppose he thought I was on my way to anarchy, now that I’d eaten beanburgers. I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t look any good in earrings and my bald patch prohibits a Mohican.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him my missis uses soya quite regularly.

You might ask, with some reason, what’s a Tory like me doing helping the squatters? A proper Tory mind, not one of your watered-down, middle-of-the-road ones. If I had my way, all the darkies’d get sent back home. Why not? They have their culture, we have ours. If you knew the number of people I do who’ve turned round and found themselves stuck in the middle of the Carib-bloody-bean and it was Bristol City twenty years ago, so would you. And cut down on the social security and all that.

But, politics aside, we all break the law. Coppers break it, judges break it, businessmen break it, you break it, I break it. Just because I’m patriotic doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. How do I break it? I hear you ask. It’s wise not to know too much, my friend. That is to say, it’s wise to know as much as you can, but it’s wiser to keep everyone else in ignorance.

The only thing I’ve got against squatting is that it’s legal. I mean, be fair, there ought to be a law against it. There’s a law against everything else. If you want to break the law, fair play. The very least you can expect is a fair chance of getting caught.

It was a very nice terraced house just a couple of streets away at the Montpellier end of St Paul’s. Nice big garden, whacking great big rooms. Bigger than my place, it was. It’d been boarded up a while, you could see where the local kids had got in and smashed a few windows and stuff.

Actually I felt quite like an old hand. They were sneaking about, peering over walls and setting lookouts up and down the road, while Richard tried to find a way in. I was sauntering around with my hands in my pockets. David made me laugh, trying to hide behind a dustbin. Talk about attracting attention! I mean, what would you think if you saw someone hiding behind a dustbin at nine o’clock at night? I stood next to him and I said, ‘What are you doing down there?’ He must have felt a right berk.

‘I think you better keep your head down, Skolly,’ hissed Richard.

‘If I can’t blag my way out of this, I’m better off dead,’ I told him. He went down a bit in my estimation that night. It wasn’t professional. Now, whenever I did a job, the thing was to look like you were where you were supposed to be right up until the last minute. But of course, these anarchists were all dressed like mad squatters. I looked like a tobacconist and therefore stood a chance of getting away with it.

I was nervous, mind. I hadn’t done anything like it for years. Christ knows what the missis would say if I got caught.

Richard was taking so long to open the window that I went over to give him a hand, but he got a bit panicky.

‘You’re going to get us caught, Skolly,’ he hissed irritably. ‘Keep your head down.’

‘I’ve only come to lend a few tips…’ But he wasn’t having it. He called the girl, Vonny, to come and take care of me. She tried to make me squat down behind a hedge, but I wasn’t squatting for no one. It never occurred to any of them that I’d forced open more windows than the rest of them put together.

Finally Richard got the window up. There was a bit of a panic as someone came down the road. Even I had to hide behind a telephone box just up the street. Whoever it was trotted past and never saw the open window with the boards off, or they didn’t care. Then we all climbed in one after the other. I was severely out of breath and almost flattened Richard as he pulled me up over the window-sill. Then he fixed the boards so it looked like they were still attached, and we were in.

Inside it was pitch black. They were all talking in whispers. Richard started handing out torches.

‘Don’t let anyone see any light from the street,’ he hissed. He began allocating jobs – helping with the electric, making sure the windows were sealed, checking the gas, seeing if they could get the back door opened. I lit a fag and peered out from behind the boarding on to the street.

‘Would you mind not smoking in front of the windows?’ asked Richard severely.

‘What’s up, we’re in, aren’t we?’

‘It’s best to lie low for a couple of days until we’re established,’ he told me. ‘The longer we’re here before they find out, the better the chances of staying.’

He went off to get the lekky on. I went upstairs to finish my fag on the landing.

Who’d have thought it, me breaking and entering a house with nothing in it to nick? I wandered around a bit but there really was nothing there. It just goes to show the changing face of crime. No one ever used to think of stealing whole houses… and without even having to move them, either.

Jerry was running about sticking bottles with candles in them on the stairs and in all the rooms. Richard soon got the lekky on but we weren’t allowed to put the lights on in case someone saw us. He and Jerry started running in and out of the back door filling the place up with boxes and suitcases and bags. The idea was to get established as quickly as possible. It was a lot more difficult to eject them if they had a houseful of stuff in there with them.

I thought, time to clear off.

I went to see how David was getting on and to say goodbye. He was down in the basement kitchen with Vonny. Someone had brought in a cardboard box full of cooking things – pans, plates, cutlery, a bit of flour and a bit of cooking oil, that sort of thing. They’d got the gas cooker going and he was making a cup of tea.

The whole place looked very nice by candlelight. I thought, They’ve only been in here half an hour and it’s half a home already.

There was an old chair by the work surface. I sat down.

‘Well, David.’

‘This is fantastic, Mr Skolly.’

‘Skolly.’

‘I’d never have found anywhere like this on my own. And the people are…’

I think he blushed a bit.

‘They’re not people, they’re anarchists,’ I corrected him.

‘They’re all really interesting…’

‘Would you like a cup of tea, Skolly?’ the girl wanted to know. She was a right sight. Shaven head, scrawny neck like a plucked goose. You couldn’t see what shape she was under the… I dunno… sacks or something, she was wearing. But I’m willing to believe it was all very nice under there. I should be so lucky.

‘No thanks, I’ve got to be off.’

‘How about some of this, then?’ It was Richard. He was offering me a joint. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye.

I was tempted.

‘I haven’t done that for twenty years,’ I said.

‘Bring back your lost youth,’ urged Richard.

I accepted the joint and took a drag. It felt nice. ‘Used to smoke masses of this stuff in the Navy,’ I told him. I was in the Merchant for five years when I was a lad.

Richard beamed. ‘Part of our great British tradition of drug taking,’ he said.

I took a few lungfuls before passing it on.

I have rarely regretted anything so much in my life. I used to quite like it when I was a lad. I don’t know whether this was stronger or I was weaker. I broke out in a cold sweat. I started hearing things… people coming down the stairs. I got this really strange impression that my missis was going to come in and catch me sitting in this smoky den with these kids. She’d go mad if she knew. Even though I knew she was miles away visiting Doreen…

I wondered what was going on for a second, before I realised it was that joint. Just my luck, I thought. My heart was going like ten tons of coal falling off the back of a lorry. I just closed my eyes. I heard Richard asking me if I was okay, but I pretended to be asleep. I don’t know what he must have thought. I felt like a right prat.

I saw the girl nudging Jerry to look at me and they all laughed.

‘Ha bloody ha,’ I said. I was somewhat annoyed. I didn’t come there to be laughed at by a bunch of paper anarchists. It doesn’t mean anything to call them anarchists, anyway. You might as well call my wallpaper the Politburo.

I waited a bit, watching them. They were all right, I guess… better than the lot in George Dole’s shop. From the way Richard was with these two I figured they were more like his friends. They were treating David very nicely, listening when he had something to say, talking seriously to him. They must have been eighteen and nineteen, and he couldn’t have been more than… I dunno, fourteen, fifteen.

I got up and brushed my trousers down.

‘Well, David, what do you think of the place then? Des. res. or what?’

‘Oh…’ David jumped up like I was the Queen Mum. ‘Thanks, Skolly, it’s really great…’ He gestured to the yoofs on the floor and smiled shyly.

‘Here…’ I tossed him a packet of fags. ‘You can use them for joints with your new mates.’ I’d noticed he was smoking one himself. He seemed to be enjoying it.

He took the fags and looked at them doubtfully. He was still wondering what to do when Richard appeared.

‘Just booking another customer,’ I told Richard, who duly laughed, but he didn’t look too happy. He doesn’t mind them rotting their brains with pot but he disapproved of smoking well enough.

I made another attempt to leave. Richard led me up the stairs. ‘You can be the first man out the new front door,’ he said. He opened the door. I was still crawling with that pot. The fresh air smelt so good, I almost skipped out of the house. As I stood on the path a woman I knew, Mary Dollery, was walking past. I smiled at her.

‘Good evening, Mary.’ You could see her looking at me and then at Richard. Then she scuttled off down the road like a crab on two legs.

‘If you see any more likely candidates, do let me know,’ beamed Richard.

‘I don’t see many deserving cases,’ I told him.

‘Oh, the streets are full of them,’ said Richard sadly. As far as he’s concerned, if you ain’t got it, you deserve it, and if you have got it, you’ve ripped someone off.

‘That bloody joint nearly killed me,’ I told him severely.

‘Oh!’ He was distressed. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘I thought my missis was coming out of the floor at me. It was a nightmare.’

Richard laughed. ‘It was rather strong. I only got it this evening.’ He beamed at the house opposite and then frowned as he remembered I’d had a bad time. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘That’s all right. I’ve learned my lesson.’ I said that so he knew he’d blown me becoming an anarchist. He looked miserable. Another step back from the New World Order.

I gave him a Twix bar and said goodbye.

‘Oh, no, I can’t… there’s animal fats in these,’ he said.

‘Try smoking it,’ I told him. ‘It gets you off.’

He was killing himself laughing.

I might have gone round and had a look once or twice, but I fell out with Richard shortly after that. Some acquaintances of mine to whom I owed a favour got to hear about all that electrical stuff in George Dole’s old place. There was some good stuff – hi-fis, tellies, videos – quite a few quid’s worth. Actually I mentioned it to them. I’m sure Richard had done his best to convince those horrible kids not to touch it, but let’s face it, you’d have to be a Richard to leave that lot alone.

Anyway, these friends of mine decided to do a bit of liberating themselves. One of those kids came down and found them in the middle of it and got himself knocked around a bit. Nothing too serious, but he lost a couple of teeth. Richard was extremely upset. He met me on the street and told me what had happened. He was nearly in tears. I perhaps foolishly indicated that I knew something about it.

Well, it was wasn’t like it was an old lady. The kid was on someone else’s property. What’s the point in getting sanctimonious about someone else doing a bit? I can’t stand that sort of hypocrisy. You get it on both sides, mind – I know plenty of villains who’ll sit around and moan about squatters all night. As far as I was concerned that kid got taught a useful lesson. They live in Never-never land, half of them. Bit of contact with the real world, do him a power of good.

But as I say, Richard was extremely upset. I don’t know what he thought I ought to have done. Tell the police? Give him notice what night the lads were going round? The stuff would have walked, don’t tell me. Give my mates up for swatting a brat? Nah. But he went right off me after that. The prejudice wasn’t on my side. Being a friend isn’t enough for people like that, see. You have to be on the right side…

I got a decent new video out of that job.