Heart by Garrett Leigh Page B

belly became easier to bear.
    He’d been in London a month when he drifted into a borough a fellow tramp told him was Stoke Newington. The borough was brightly colored and bohemian, with a heady sense of danger. Though Dex lived in the shadows, snatching sleep by day and lurking at night, he felt oddly at home.
    To survive, he returned to his roots, to foraging, but this time, the urban kind, skulking in alleyways and restaurant bin yards. He was passing aimlessly through a dimly lit backstreet one night when his daze was broken by the sight of a man not much older than him being slung onto the pavement from the open back doors of a restaurant kitchen.
    Startled, Dex took a step back, flattening himself against a wall. The man on the ground scrambled to his feet as his assailant burst out on to the street.
    “Bugger off,” the new man on the scene growled. “Thieving arsehole. Get the fuck out of here before I kick some decency into you.”
    From his place in the shadows, Dex watched the thief slink away. The scent of cigarette smoke reached his nose, telling him the second man had sat down on the back steps and lit a fag, leaving him two choices: stay right where he was until the man went inside, or step out of the shadows and slip past in the hope the man wouldn’t see where he’d come from.
    The rumble of thunder made up his mind. Getting his clothes wet was a pain in the arse. He’d take suspicion and a few harsh words over that any day.
    He hoped to pass right by the man unseen, but, of course, nothing was ever that easy. The man called out as soon as he saw him.
    “Hey, kid. You looking for work?”
    Dex glanced behind him, unsure if the civil question was meant for him. “Um, pardon?”
    His voice was scratchy and hoarse. It was the first time he’d spoken in days, and he still had the cough he’d picked up from his night spent naked in the back of Mikey’s van.
    The man appraised him through a cloud of smoke. “You look like you need a job, and I’m down a pot washer. Interested? It’s hard bloody work, but I’ll pay you.”
    Dumbly, Dex nodded. He’d never had a real job before, but he knew hard work, and he knew how to wash a pot.
    “How old are you?”
    “Nineteen.”
    “Sure about that? Don’t want the council giving me grief.”
    “I’m sure,” Dex hedged. For once, he was telling the truth, but he had no way of proving it. He’d never had the documents that proved who he was, how old he was, and where he came from. Braden had all that, if they’d ever existed at all.
    It seemed an age before the man flicked his cigarette into the gutter and got to his feet. “Come on, then.”
    Dex followed him into the kitchen. A wall of heat hit him. A thick wave of air, heavy with the scent of cooking food. Steaming pots on the stove. Meat on the flaming chargrill. He was sure he could even see chips in the fryer. A painful growl of hunger gripped his gut. He stumbled but kept walking, all the way through the kitchen until they came to a small, carpeted staircase.
    The man stopped and gestured for him to go ahead. Dex hesitated. How many times had he preceded Braden or Mikey like a lamb to the slaughter?
    “You’re going to need some whites,” the man said.
    Dex stared at him, trying to read his slightly bored expression. The man was big and heavyset, with a beer belly hanging over his checked trousers. His face was young, but his gut gave him away as being at least thirty years older than Dex.
    The man sighed. “Suit yerself. I’ll bring ’em down. You can change in the bogs. Wait here.”
    Dex waited, and the man soon reappeared with a pair of patterned trousers, a white T-Shirt, and a short-sleeved white jacket that looked huge . With his other hand, the man offered him a pair of black rubber shoes.
    “Crocs,” he said. “Stop you slipping by the dishwasher.”
    Dex took the pile of clothes and changed in the small cloakroom by the kitchen. The jacket and trousers were far too big for