Bernie The Tramp

It was a saturday afternoon in late Spring, although the actual year escapes me.

As usual the interior of the car was becoming quite insanitary. Soft drinks cans, crisp packets, sweet wrappers and fish and chip trays and wrappers threatened an outbreak of the dreaded lurgy. On more than one occasion in the past couple of weeks a combination of the aforementioned packagings had , with forward motion, become nestled under my brake pedal with dramatic and panic inducing effect.

It was time for a good clearance and clean of my mobile office. With loose items extracted it was a case of working through with the carpet and upholstery nozzle on the vacuum. The rat-atat-tat of small fragments of gravel was regular and monotonous, only broken by the more hearty warble of a low denomination coin finding its way into the transparent dust collection chamber amongst the spiders.

I found the physical effort of tackling the niches, nooks and crannies inside the vehicle quite tiring, almost like an all body work out. I should have worn a longer tailed shirt as the cool breeze whipped around my exposed kidneys and lower back causing me to shiver uncontrollably. As I stood up straight and stretched I was conscious of a dark, shadowy figure standing by the driveway gates and watching me.

My fatal error was to make eye contact. This was seen as a green light to start up a conversation by the stranger. In his left hand he held out to me a scruffy and very used sheaf of papers, the page edges yellow and curled over. It was not evident to me what it was . "Would you like to buy a Lifeboats Magazine?" were the first words spoken by the visitor, now very much intruding into what I would consider my private space. I did not think that he was an official, authorised vendor of that charitable organisation and he offered no identification to contradict my suspicions. I think that I, out of politeness, took the document. Another fatal error on my part.

"Have you got anything to eat?" came next. On closer scrutiny he was quite distinguished a character. Trimmed stubble beard, white like a sea-captain but incongrously wearing sunglasses. He was clad top to toe in a trenchcoat and baggy suit trousers with smart but quite worn in the soul shoes. It was not an appearance to scare or intimidate so I waved him to follow me into the house. He travelled light with only a plastic carrier bag in his right hand.

I offered a bowl of something. He wanted soup, bread and "did we have a cheese sandwich handy?". My wife disappeared into the kitchen, marshalling the children with her out of a natural maternal instinct to protect her young from an intrusion, and on a saturday afternoon as well. He made himself quite at home very quickly. The initial humility at the gate gave way to quite a brash and self confident attitude.

A long and complex life story followed from a bad start in life to a tragedy that took his wife and child and in recent years a wandering existence relying on a network of acquaintances and , I paraphrase, the gullible public at large. I had no intention of trying to verify the sad facts but doubted whether they would be researchable anyway.

The food arrived. The cheese sandwich was rejected on the grounds of "no pickle", the soup reluctantly accepted although Cream of Tomato was "not his favourite", and the bread was "not buttered enough". He was a discerning and, frankly, a picky customer. My wife supplemented the light meal with a few tins and packets of food that he could take with him when or, more likely to my mind, if he actually left at all.

His language and mannerisms were now, having been fed, quite expansive and not a little rude and non-politically correct. We, as a family were now firmly under his spell. He was holding court but in what we had always regarded as our own castle.

He looked at me and determined that we were roughly of the same physique and build. I was not sure what was coming next- was he planning to metamorphose into me or undertake some grisly social experiment a bit like the Prince and The Pauper or worse? It was in fact a clumsy introduction to the subject of "did I have any spare items of clothing that he could have?". This request was another opportunity for my wife to disappear and again with the children in tow. I regretted now not having a secure panic room in the house. She returned with jumpers, shirts, a cagoule, a sleeping bag and a sports holdall. I expected our visitor to try them on and strut about as though in a gents outfitters. He felt that they would do fine. It was not really an actual thank you but I was beyond caring by now. I fidgeted about trying to hint heavily that I had saturday things to do but he was quite comfortable and perhaps not far off having an afternoon nap on our settee.

After a couple of hours, but what seemed like a fortnight, he announced that he had places to go, people to see, things to do. We tried not to show our collective relief. Unfortunately, the places, people and things were across the river, a few miles away. "You can drop me off at the bridge" was an order rather than an enquiry. My own thoughts were quite uncharitably "I can drop you off the bridge" more like. On the way in the car, not quite fully cleaned through, he sat awkwardly amidst his new possessions with the holdall on his lap fair bulging with the trophies of the afternoon luncheon and audience. There was an appeal for me to actually drive him over the bridge but I gracefully declined on the grounds of not having means of payment for the toll charge. This was a truth as I had cleaned out the car ashtray of coins only that very day. He stepped out in the layby just by the pedestrian walkway for the bridge and made off for the south bank of the river.

I sat bemused for a few minutes as though in shock at what had taken place. When I pulled into my driveway I waved blankly and vaguely at my neighbour who was attending to his bedding plants. He grinned at me and said with some glee "So it was your turn to meet Bernie The Tramp then".

As relative newcomers to the street this had been some sort of initiation process watched avidly from behind curtains and hedges. We had evidently graduated with honours in that our devious neighbours had escaped what was clearly a regular hunting ground for the man. From that day the escapades of Bernie The Tramp seemed to dominate the local press and media. I think it had always been the case but we just noticed it more now.  He was a one man Asbo magnet and after a bit of a drink he became a bit of a nuisance and not without some conveying of intimidation to those in his path.

The newspaper articles would describe him as being, amongst many other things, quite well dressed in which I illogically took some reflected pride