As I sat heavily on the low wall, in London’s Leicester Square, I removed my shoes and gently massaged my aching feet. The blisters, accumulated as a result of being on my feet all day, were irritating me. Out of the corner of my eye, I became aware of a few people staring in my direction as I took pleasure in vigorously rubbing my tender toes. Blatant bad manners no longer seemed peculiar to me, after spending so many years in this unforgiving city. I didn’t care. It was a sticky, humid evening and after all, who was I to deny my feet their bit of pleasure after a hard day’s work? Noticing that my stockings had developed holes in the toes during the day, I groaned at yet another thing to go wrong. It sometimes seemed as though my entire life was run by the laws of Murphy.

 

Stampeding hordes of people, each with their own vital places to go, rushed passed me as I continued my welcome rest on the graffitied wall. Advertising types headed towards Soho, shouting into their latest pocket sized mobile phones. Kitten-heeled twenty somethings teetered towards All Bar One, having changed from their office outfits into something more flimsy, in preparation to flirt with whoever would buy them a drink. Touts holding placards outside the cinemas each shouted their wares, “Student discounts, free popcorn, come in, come in.”

 

Yet here I was, with no one special to meet, nowhere in particular to go. Instead I was sitting on a wall on a Friday night contemplating how I had managed to come so far from where I had intended to be. Quite accidentally, I had ended up in one of the worlds most bustling, vibrant cities. I was a partner in the city’s strong marriage of poverty and plenty. I observed the paradoxes in a city where thousands of people pushed and shoved their way through grimy streets and alleyways to their high-tech offices. Absorbed in their own complex lives, most Londoners adhered to the fashions of the day, while, consciences unaffected, they scurried past youngsters, who were little more than children, settling down for the night in a cardboard box.

 

When I was a small girl, I had wanted to be a ballerina. I was going to launch myself with an exotic Russian sounding name and twirl and arabesque to the delight of my awed audience. Remembering this, I became envious of the dubious mime artist that had set up in front of me, donning a harlequin outfit and miming to some crackling tune on his ghetto blaster. Here was someone to be admired, I thought. They were using their talents, not deteriorating at a desk, waiting to retire in forty years. Performing gave them food in their bellies, the clothes on their backs. How proud they must feel each night as they closed their eyes to the world.

 

Education had bestowed upon me the usual qualifications, not that they really mattered once you were in the throng of things. Material attainments instead were the criteria of judgement these days, especially in this metropolis. Like a committed Londoner, I acquired more possessions everyday. I wanted something new all the time. I considered myself no different to the city high fliers in six figure salaries that strode determinedly past me, avoiding all eye contact.  I was the same as the inhabitants of London’s doorways. Like all of them, I was always on the lookout for myself. Being a woman in London was a life of continual struggle and for me, personal loneliness, especially in my type of business.

 

Naturally, in the cosmopolitan city that we inhabit, one meets countless people every day, people from all walks of life. One might well exchange friendly “hellos” with Tony from the café near one’s place of work, but it doesn’t mean that you’re not alone inside, silently screaming for a decent conversation with a like minded person.

 

The neon sign from the club across the road flickered pink, lighting my face with a false glow. I watched the doormen remove a drunk from the entrance, who then stumbled into a woman colourfully clad in patchwork, likely to be a refugee from a faraway land. She had a weathered face, a child on one hip and one hand outstretched. I heard her uttering one word in English. “Please? Please?” she begged of the well-dressed urbanites eating MacDonalds, or scurrying on their way to the fashionable places to be seen. No one gave her any money to add to the coppers she already had jangling in her upturned palm. I felt sorry for her. I empathised with anyone that misfortunate in London. Every Londoner seemed anonymous and solitary, despite being surrounded by so many people.

 

I had condemned myself early on to being an observer on the fringes of London life. That was the path I had subconsciously chosen and become accustomed to almost from my arrival here. I’m not a martyr.  I believe that you should earn what you eat and I had worked hard today, I had earned myself a decent meal. Today for example, I retrieved incredibly useful stuff that people simply discard, like their throwaway lives. You have a look one day – have a look in any London bin (the ones that are  still there) and you’ll see people have thrown away perfectly good gear. That is my career. As a city woman, I reclaim the unwanted bits and pieces of everyday life for myself. I recycled. I was an environmentally friendly woman of the capital.

 

There was a faint breeze in the summer air as I got back onto my still tired feet, stretched my back, and picked up my bulging bags of other peoples’ rubbish. I was hungry, and I definitely deserved something to eat after such a fruitful day.

 

I meandered on, still working, towards a place where people in Marks and Spencer’s sweaters would give me soup and perhaps a bed for the night, perhaps in gratitude for my hard work. Slowly walking, I contemplated one bag lady’s contribution to enterprise in the new millennium.