London Underbelly
A Story of Eloquence and Grace Under the Immense Pressure of Nothing In Particular
London Underbelly
A Story of Eloquence and Grace Under the Immense Pressure of Nothing In Particular
Here I am. I’m here. In London. With nothing. Nothing but my hopes and dreams, vaguely outlined. Nothing but my dark origins and shattered past, and loving parents who could always transfer me money if I’m in a big enough pickle.
I am alone in this world and this city, except for my middle-class stability. It’s me against the world.
I am ready for London. Started from the middle and now we are here, in the middle. Good God it’s poetic. This one goes out to all the ex-pats in London.
There are not many of us. I am glad I am unique and no one else from Australia has moved to London.
Day one begins where all great quests do, at the backpackers. It’s in Victoria. The suburb looks classic postcard London with clean white buildings, but it’s sterile as plastic gloves. The hostel there is one of the cheapest in the city, so that’s where I started.
My plan was to land in the UK, find a place to live through connections (get an amazing deal with no paperwork), get a job, then live a fulfilling life where practical realities never bothered me and I could laugh at everyone else finding it so hard to live there.
However, I defaulted immediately to a safety backup setting by asking about working for accommodation in the backpackers. They tell me I’d have to share a bunk with six other staff. This does not sound good because I met a few of them already.
They were swanning around the hostel like guards at Buckingham Palace, taking great pride in telling people to clean their dishes, or the knives don’t go there, or label your food, stuff like that.
They were a cult, very protective of their own. Their dinners consisted of pasta with nothing else, maybe some sauce and zucchini, and they generally ate lots of nonperishable stuff.
Talking with them often felt like a competition. They ask where you’re from and where you’ve been, then you tell them, then they tell you where they’ve been, which is everywhere, including everywhere you’ve been, everywhere you want to go, and everywhere you happen to speak with them about. They also tell you where you should’ve gone and what you’ve should’ve done in the places you’ve been.
I told myself I will spend at least a few weeks as a tourist in London. I will not worry about work or living situations. I will simply go round exploring, staying a few nights here and there, and really get to know the city.
It was a good plan. The only problem with it was my inner dialogue. All the while I wandered that first week, the practical part of my brain was saying, “What the fuck are you doing?”
I tried not listening but this left me in a weird position. I was not on holiday nor was I committing to getting things going, and because of that, I was lost.
I spent the better part of two weeks like this, wandering around London like a fool. Yes I was exploring, sort of, but all I was doing was looking on the map for purple areas, which I believe means businesses, and then I would just walk to them.
I think there will be something happening, but mostly they are just suburbs, suburbs with some shops and some people. I visit charity shops to look at shit I don’t need. Brilliant. I sometimes even buy the shit. Brilliant. I know in a few weeks I’ll probably just re donate the shit. Excellent.
Earls Court, Shepherds bush, Camden town, Bloomsbury, Elephant and Castle. After a few different hostels, they just melded into one.
It’s a bad feeling having nothing to do in a fast city. London demands you do something. I was off the pace, an outsider. The city was chomping me up and I wasn’t flowing with it.
I expected I could bring my own aura, my own little self-sufficient ecosystem to London, and win, but thus far, I was losing. Coming home to my hostel at the end of the day was no comfort either.
“Oh yeah Madrid’s great,” the guy said to the girl who was on her phone.
“Oh yeah?” she said,
“Oh yeah, hahah, what a city. Like, Spain, you know, like the Spanish, you get to know them.”
“I’ve never been.”
“Like Spanish taxis, ha, they are something. I almost got hit. That’s Madrid for you though.”
“I’ll tell you a crazy story, so…” he went on.
“Madrid is hot isn’t it?”
“Yeah I’ll tell you though…”
“Yeah I need to go, I love the sun.”
‘Yeah so I’ll tell you this story.”
“Unlike here…”
“Ha yeah I slept on a park bench, ha.”
“OH my god, fun,” she was looking at her nails.
“It was wild, I learnt a lot of lessons, like…”
“My god, that’s crazy.”
I believe he did finish the story, but probably not how he imagined its telling to go down.
“Yeah when I came home, my dad said I looked super skinny. I was living off nuts and stuff, so I got so skinny.”
“Is that what the salmon’s for? For bulking,” she pointed at his meal.
“Ha, yeah,” he said, “well the thing is, in Spain, they eat heaps of fish…” and then came another story.
Finally it was quiet. For a few seconds. And then it wasn’t.
“So wait,” he said, “wait, how, what, how many days are you here?”
Another girl came into the room and sat down.
“Oh hey.”
“Hey, where are you from?”
“I’m from Sydney.”
“Oh my god, I’ve never been. I’m a Melbourne girl.”
“I won’t hold that against you!”
“Ha!” he more coughed than laughed.
“You should definitely go to Sydney though.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Weather is ten times better than here!”
“Yeah hahahah.”
“Hahaha.”
“Haha.”
Ha, I thought.
I started picking my next hostels based purely on price, and this led to some dark places. I will not name and shame, suffice to say it was a bad hostel in a bad area.
The bodies in the room were packed in bunk on bunk. The bunks were quite lived in and some were stripped clean so you could see the funk on the mattresses. I counted twenty-four. Two weren’t occupied though, so I guess it wasn’t crammed, at least.
It was like those old pictures of people in the trenches during the war, and then, maybe the people in the bunks were lonely like the soldiers too. Maybe they were in wars of their own.
The air was well breathed in and thick, and there was the scent of dirty laundry too. If you stayed in the room long enough you got used to the smell, but as soon as you returned after being gone, it hit you again with all its original potency. To counter this you could just not leave, ever.
There was coughing, sniffling, spluttering and other odd, unflattering noises people make more as idiosyncrasies of character rather than necessity. It was always dark in there no matter the time, except of course for late at night when people kept switching the lights on.
I was in there now, living my life. I hung my sheets across my bunk for privacy and because there is nothing worse than getting all snug and comfy, then making weird eye contact with someone across the room who is also all snug and comfy. It’s so intimate you almost feel you should just kiss then and there.
I had slept heavily the night before but wasn’t energised. The darkness of the room did not provide an accurate indicator of time, so the first thing I did every morning was grab my phone like someone reaching for air.
I would shower long and well and this was a nice routine. There was breakfast downstairs. It was a four quid and the hostel loved emphasising the clear winner – Breakfast, Only Four Quid! It was white toast and jam and peanut butter, orange and apple juice poured into jugs, cereal and very old oats, and then milk of course, from some animal, probably cow.
Second part of my morning routine was finding a good café. I would spend hours at a café but not do an awful lot. I usually only bought one coffee. Owners loved that.
For those first weeks on my computer at those cafes, for the life of me I can’t recall what I did. I know I flirted with looking for work, casually searching on Indeed to see what popped up. It was around three weeks in I began looking, truly now.
Because I’d moved from Sydney, a place I loved, I wanted a good reason to be in London, and that reason had to be a good job. In my mind, it was the only way London living beat Sydney living.
I was applying for full-time work because I wanted to be a London boy. I wanted that dream 2-year career stint contract, but only two years because I’d want to go back to Sydney. I wanted an employer who would see my great potential and invest wholeheartedly in me and my career progression, for two years.
After two weeks or so, I had been spending three to four hours a day applying for jobs. I felt good and productive, however, I had literally zero responses.
Here is when I noticed I’m kind of stressed. Applying for work and not hearing back is the same as doing nothing all day. I need money and something to do, so I started applying for casual work.
Only problem is I’m entitled and think I can just flash a resume with no personal address to the company. I was going for volume on these applications, so I don’t even try. As a result, I end up spending the same wasted time on applications but still not hearing back. The only jobs I do hear back from are things like courier driver in Milton Keynes.
When early afternoon came I knew that was it. My day’s ended when I couldn’t drink any more coffee at cafes. The morning smell of possibility in the form of coffee at a café could only last so long, and so would the feeling of communal productivity from being in that space with others just about to start their day.
I’d take a long walk back to my hostel from here. When I arrived, I prayed my groceries were as I’d left them that morning, and the rest of my bags and belongings too. I’d never stress about this until the last second, just before I opened the fridge or my room door.
In the evenings I hung in the communal areas or went to a pub and drank free sparkling water. I’d sometimes try doing work on my laptop, but productivity was hard because it wasn’t possible for me to get work done outside café and coffee hours.
At night I’d find a movie or book to fall asleep to, but feeling unaccomplished does not evoke good rest. If I happened to be quite tired, I’d jump into bed and read, but if you spend too much time in bed before you actually sleep, it makes it harder to fall asleep. Your brain needs to associate bed with sleep and not waking activities.
People check in late a lot, so I would often get woken by shuffling bags and the light being switched on. My schedule has never aligned with any other hostel goer, ever. At ten thirty their nights are just beginning. Weekends were the worst. Everyone is partying and I’m there trying to get eight hours and be on schedule, although, I don’t know what for.
There was one night where it all kicked off at what had been, until then, a tame hostel. It was eleven, and this lady in the bunk opposite starting talking on the phone, loudly. I gave her two minutes on the call hoping it was just a quickie, but it wasn’t, and she was getting louder.
“Excuse me,” I said.
Her curtain parted and her head came through.
“Would you mind taking your call in the loungeroom? It’s very late.”
“Yes I can, sorry,” and she said a few more words and hung up.
That was easy, I thought.
Only ten minutes later though, she was back on the phone, talking even louder and more passionately. Two minutes, I thought, two minutes.
Five minutes later she was throttling her voice down the line.
“Excuse me,” I said.
She kept talking on the phone.
“Sorry excuse me,” I repeated. Still no response.
“Hey, excuse me,” and as I said this, her curtain sprayed open and she glared at me.
“Excuse me,” she snapped back, “will you be quiet I am trying to talk!”
“Can you go outside? You’re in a bedroom here.”
“No I am trying to talk, can you stop interrupting me!”
“You can take your call outside. It’s late and I am trying to sleep.”
“You are disturbing me!”
“Don’t you think it’s fair to take the call outside?”
She glared at me. English was not her first language, so my best efforts at diplomacy were not landing. We went back and forth ungraciously, neither of us making attempts to answer the other’s statements. She started becoming emotional.
“I am a victim of domestic violence, and here is my safe place, and you are here telling me to go away!”
“No, no, I just want…”
“I just want to get help and be safe!”
“I understand but…”
“Why are you forcing me to do this?!”
“I’m sorry to hear but…”
“No no it’s ok,” she began sniffling, “sorry I disrupted you on your holiday.”
“No, it’s just…”
“No I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’ll just shut up. I’m sorry for this, all of this! I’m sorry for just existing!”
She hung the phone up and began sobbing. She was sobbing louder than she had been speaking on the phone.
The next day she apologised. We did that make up thing where she said sorry then I said sorry then we both kept interrupting each other with our sorrys. Then, quite suddenly, I seemed to turn into her best friend as she began confiding in me.
“Hello mate,” she would say, and then she’d start talking.
She talked to me a lot and all the time. I couldn’t catch a break. Her talking went straight from hello to deep trauma. I could no longer be in common areas with her around because it didn’t matter what I was doing, book out reading, headphones in, typing on my laptop, she would come and speak to me.
In the morning, I’d wake up well before anyone else would and try getting out and about. I’d cook myself breakfast in the kitchen alone, except for one other person who would be awake randomly smoking or sleeping on the couch for some reason.
I’d leave before the cafes were open, and I’d try finding somewhere a long walk away so when I got there the place would be open. Then, just like the day before, I’d do it all again. This time another day older, none wiser, slightly more discouraged and with slightly less money.
This was the essence of my life when I first got to London. See, this isn’t going anywhere, and that’s the point. It wasn’t going anywhere because I wasn’t.
Yes there were things in between like going to museums, doing some out of city trips, going on some dates, but there was a veneer over the entire experience, painting it with a dull hue.
Because I was on a temporary visa, I felt what I was doing was only a phase, a brief stint before the rest of my life continued.
I had come to London knowing I was going to leave (in bloody 2 years), therefore, my brain defaulted into thinking it could cut corners and not engage in anything too deeply because what was the point? I’d be setting myself up to just leave (in bloody 2 years).
Eventually, I decided. I left London and headed west. It wasn’t smart or rational but I figured things might get more interesting this way. I worked a packing job in Marlborough, then I went to Bath where I moved moldy furniture in an antique shop, then I went to Bristol and contracted a hectic flu which left me bedridden in a 20-bed dorm room for four days. Interesting.
It was a big mess and I had regressed, in life, in everything. I knew this truly one morning in a Bristol hostel. I’d woken extra early and went to the kitchen and saw a rat. He didn’t even run when he saw me, he just calmy finished eating the scraps of food then pissed off back under the sink.
However, the funny thing about this low point was it was also a kind of a high. It took the sheer shock of seeing a rat to realise how un-shocking and ok things really were now.
Right then, I was a flu-stricken out of shape fool living in hostels with people I didn’t like, working jobs I could’ve gotten when I was fourteen, and thinking about home where everything was far better. But despite all this, I realised I felt ok.
I was not happy or fulfilled, but decent, decent enough to nod at that rat and think, ‘That’s fucked,’ smile, even chuckle, then move on with my day.
It was because I was out here doing something. It wasn’t what I wanted, but moving in some kind of direction felt infinitely better than being non-committal and stagnant. There was an unexpected zest in all of it. The rat made me realise I had zest. The rat was zesty.
So I just kept going. I moved to some different cities and did more random shit. It didn’t matter what, I just said yes to it. I figured it was far easier jumping on a train while running alongside it rather than jumping on cold, from still. With each new thing that came up, the idea of this being a stint began to fade. There never was a special time carved out for me and my situation while the rest of time waited for me to return to it.
I was only here, with myself, this underwhelming fellow. I was and would be spending so much time with him, and I really wanted to like him. I couldn’t keep him on hold and I couldn’t keep taking shortcuts with him.
I got a fresh haircut. I bought some much-needed clothes and slowly began to rid myself of some habits like defaulting to buying frozen peas and the cheapest minced meat. I booked some saunas and massages to alleviate the tension of constantly carrying my big old backpack around.
These things began to accumulate into more things and helped me be the kind of stubborn bastard I’d need to be to stick this out.
“London is so expensive.”
“I know right, so extortionate, it’s a joke.”
“You need friends here. The only way to rent is to have a friend’s house share situation. On SpareRoom there are too many people messaging.”
This was at UK hostel number twelve, or something. The two young people went on to talk about housing prices and cost of living and no jobs and blah blah, all the usual things. Then one of them said something sad.
“If I don’t get something good in the next month, I’m going to go home.”
But a month in is where the juicy stuff starts to happen, the stubborn bastard in me said, with all that discouragement and bitterness festering. It would have been good to be the guy in the dark corner suddenly interjecting in the conversation, but I didn’t say anything. If she decides to just keep going, something will eventually happen, probably.
