Anya Peters*, 35, had a good job, a flat and a long-term boyfriend. She thought homelessness didn’t happen to people like her. Then life started to unravel…
I sat in the car, looking out to sea in a daze. What was I doing? How had I ended up roaming the country, one B&B after another? I started to cry until I was so exhausted that I rolled my fleece into a pillow, lay my head on the passenger seat and fell asleep. I awoke the next morning and felt a strange sense of relief. I could sleep in my car. Just for a night or two…
But it wasn’t just a night or two. It was the start of nine months living homeless in my car. Just a few months before, I’d had an ordinary, comfortable life. At 33, I had a law degree, a well-paid job as a paralegal, a nice rented flat in London and a boyfriend of two years, Craig.
But then things began to crumble. For the first time, I’d opened up to him about my abusive childhood, but Craig was the wrong person to confide in about my painful past. And when the relationship went sour, he betrayed me in the worst way, using my secrets against me. He was a controlling, domineering man and had made me lose touch with my friends. My closest ones had emigrated, and Craig didn’t like me seeing the others. Because of my difficult past, I didn’t see my mum and only spoke to my real dad occasionally. I had no one to turn to.
I escaped by getting a new job in Newcastle, but it wasn’t that easy to make a fresh start. All the pain I’d locked away when I was 12 had come to the surface, and I couldn’t seem to pack it away again. Feeling isolated and low, my work began to suffer. When my contact came to an end, it wasn’t renewed.
I couldn’t pay the rent so I handed back the keys, piled all my belongings in the back of my Rover, and drove away. Looking back, maybe I was having a breakdown. For six months, I lived a strange half-life, staying in B&Bs, wondering how things had come to this.
But once I began sleeping in the car, in July 2005, life became a daily fight for survival – finding a hotel bathroom to wash in, looking for cheap cafés, then driving around as it grew dark, searching for somewhere to park. Watching people go inside their cosy homes, I felt I’d completely lost hold of the reins of my life.
I’d go into the library in the daytime, applying for countless jobs online, sending off my impressive CV, but never had any luck because it must have looked odd that I couldn’t give a permanent address or even a phone number.
All my life I’d been very good at maintaining a front of being OK. Now it took a desperate twist. I became obsessed with keeping clean and tidy so no one would know the agonising truth – that I was living in my car, that I was on my own, that I had no family.
I avoided homeless hostels like the plague though, because I just didn’t see myself as one of ‘those people’. Before everything had gone wrong, I’d worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau and Crisis At Christmas. I’d even spent time working at the Mother Teresa mission in Calcutta. I’d always been the legal adviser or the caseworker – I never thought I’d end up on the other side.
But it was a baking August and I desperately missed my home comforts. One day I’d reached rock bottom. I hadn’t washed my hair in three and a half weeks and hadn’t eaten in two days. I went to a homeless shelter. Stepping into the shower, tears poured down my face with the hot water. I felt so alone and vulnerable. I’d grown so isolated over the past two years with Craig that I knew no one would even be looking for me.
Then I stiffened in terror. Outside the door were male voices, talking about some horrible fight on the streets the night before. I felt on the edge of the abyss – one more step and I’d be sucked into that world.
In a sudden moment of clarity, I decided to move back to London where there were more jobs. I’d sweep floors if I had to, even if I was still living in the car. Anything to get a deposit for a flat, to get my life back. But in London, I fell into the same old routine: dodging traffic wardens; trying to make myself and the car look respectable. I craved fruit and vegetables, but couldn’t afford them.
Then one day, a traffic warden leaned into the car. ‘Do you know there’s a hospital car park not far from here that’s off limits to us?’ he said. Then he winked. It was an act of kindness, but I felt humiliated. I parked in the hospital grounds and went inside. I hadn’t washed in weeks and was desperate for a shower. Then I darted down a corridor to avoid a security guard and found a miracle – a little shower room.
I never wanted to leave. My body warmed and my neck, locked from nights jammed against a car door, eased a little. Washing my hair was bliss, until someone rattled the door. It was an Australian girl, all blond hair and smiles, who jumped in beside me and started chatting.
‘Do you cycle to work, too?’ she said. I hadn’t had a real conversation in months. Not with someone who seemed like a friend, with a soft, kind face. I had an overwhelming urge to spill out the truth. INstead I tried to make a joke of having forgotten my towel and she offered me her fluffy pink one. ‘It’s OK,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ll manage.’ It was a glimpse of friendship, but I turned away. What did I have to offer?
The hospital became my world and I spent hours in the canteen, thinking I was blending in. Until one day a new girl at the till looked at me suspiciously. ‘Are you staff?’ she said. I froze, but the manager walked by and said quietly, ‘Yes, she’s staff.’ He glanced at me and I just knew he knew and I felt another flush of shame.
Through all this time, my mood was mired in a sense of failure. Alienated from everything, I lived entirely in my head, avoiding human contact. As the winter nights drew in, it was so cold I honestly thought I might die. But then I found a glimmer of hope. I’d read about blogs in a discarded newspaper and after emailing off yet more job applications, I Googled ‘blog’. A page popped up, asking if I wanted to create one. Without really thinking, I clicked on ‘yes’. Then I started to write…
‘For the past five months I have been living alone in a car at the edge of the woods – jobless and homeless and totally unable to find a way out of it.’
I sat back with a jolt. It was the first time I’d admitted I was homeless, but it was an enormous relief. It was anonymous, but it was me, reaching out. And once I’d started, I couldn’t stop. The next time I logged on I saw I had emails. I was astonished to read messages of support. People weren’t shocked and disgusted, they were praying for me, wishing me well.
A couple of months later, in April 2006, I saw another email. A journalist at The New York Times wanted to talk to me and I plucked up all my courage to reply. It all felt so unreal. I was in The New York Times – but I was still sleeping in the car. Then came the email that said: ‘I’m a literary agent – give me a ring.’ I met her in a café and that conversation changed my life.
Two weeks later, I had a book deal. And then there I was, with an advance sitting in my bank account. It was enough to pay rent and live off for a few months while I wrote the book and made some plans. I sat and wept, totally overwhelmed. This was my ticket out of the car and back into normal life. I booked into a B&B and ringed some flats in the local paper.
I found a cream, sunny room in a flat share with two other people. On that first night, I didn’t have the bath with a glass of wine I’d fantasised about. I just fell into a deep, deep sleep. Now I savour being able to draw the curtains and lock my door. Making a cup of tea whenever I want. Stretching out on a comfortable bed. Standing barefoot on the carpet. I still have the car, but that’s all it is now – something to get me from A to B. Writing about my life has been hard. But I’m back on my feet, ready to make choices about the future.
I used to think homelessness couldn’t happen to a person like me. But take a few wrong turns and you’re in a parallel world of people living on the streets. At least, I’ve got back in contact with my friends. They all say they wished they’d known what was happening, so they could have helped. I thought I could do without people, that I was the island. But all those months of isolation taught me just how precious they are, and that I’ve nothing to hide any more.
*All names have been changed
Abandoned by Anya Peters (Harper Element, £12.99) is out
The Daily Waffle 