Goodmans Hotel

'Yeah. It was my brother's really; he let me have it for ages, but he sold it eventually because he needed the money.'

'I didn't even know you had a brother. You ought to go back home, one day; let everyone see that you're all right.'

'I have written to them. Maybe I'll go if I pass my exams, if I'm doing well, I'll go to see them for tea or something, just to show them. You know why I had to leave, don't you?'

'Not really. Tom said something about a school friend making trouble for you.'

He confirmed, giving a lot more detail, what Tom had told me. The other boy had been his best friend, who he often sat next to in school, their shoulders or legs lightly touching. Some of his friends had talked about secretively 'doing things' together, and when Darren was invited to his best friend's house to watch a film on television and stay overnight, he was expecting them to experiment. However when he put his arms around his friend in the bedroom the boy pulled away and caused an uproar.

The lad's father had rung Darren's home and he was taken back in shame. His parents made his life unbearable. They would not let him go out on his own except to school and made him go to their Evangelical meetings, which he hated. The minister there told him to pray for forgiveness, and when he refused his father asked the family doctor to make an appointment for him with a psychiatrist. His friend told other lads at school what had happened, and on his way home one evening a group of three bullies lay in wait, pinned him to the ground for half an hour, punched him in the face, blacked his eyes and cut his lip.

His parents did not even ask how his injuries had come about. A concerned teacher did, but Darren was too ashamed to tell the truth and said he had been walking along the top of a wall by the railway and fallen off. The bruises from the attack had not fully healed when a row with his father escalated into a fight. He was knocked to the floor and his father, having won this contest, gave him an ultimatum: see the psychiatrist or leave the house. A few days later he packed a bag, withdrew what little savings he had and left for London.

He stayed in a cheap bed and breakfast place for a few days, saw an advert for the room at Goodmans Villa in the estate agent's window and took it because it was the cheapest he could find. A day or two later he passed the hamburger bar and saw their notice advertising for staff, went inside and started work straight away. Until he met Andrew, Tom and me, coincidence and misadventure had become the determining influences in his life.