It was colder than he had expected, the sleet steadily hardening into snow, but Ken had endured worse. There was a hedgerow running between two of the fields which he thought might work for the night, and part of it looked to be hazel, or at least something with similar leaves, which the shrub had clung to despite the nastiness of the late Autumn and Winter. It had all looked so simple when he was little, the Boy Scout books almost rhapsodising about hatchets and straight staffs as a ridge pole, but walking around with an axe these days would get him lifted by the plod in no time.

He looked up and down the lane to check for traffic, curious eyes and all, before climbing over the steel gate and into the field. To his weary delight, the farmer had left some hay bales up against the roadside hedge, so that he had some solid cover from any of that traffic, and the plough had left the hedge in its own little hollow. He filled that with some of the drier hay before laying his closed-cell mat over it, and then his sleeping bag under the tarpaulin, which was what little he had been able to save of his tent after the drunks had tried to torch it.

Cold. He had to risk it, and set up what had once been an army surplus hexy stove at the road end, where the thicker foliage and stacked bales might hide its glow. He had a few pieces of the white hexy tablets left, so out with the multitool and gather some of the deader-looking branches. A little more hay, the cheapo lighter---bingo.

Thank god for that man at the Methodist place.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

“Not changed sex since I last looked, Vicar!”

“I’m so sorry. How can I… Start again, Webster. Looking at what you’re carrying, when did you last eat?”

He had tried to smile, but it didn’t work.

“Two days ago”

“This is, or rather this is running right now, as a food bank. We normally ask people to register, show some evidence of need”

The twist to his own mouth had looked painful.

“We are ourselves of limited means, so we have to prioritise. Sorry. Once again. Can I assume you are homeless”

“Yeah. No need to apologise”

“Where were you staying?”

“Down the Riverside park, some open ground near the lake? I had a tent, but some drunks tried to set fire to it”

“I sometimes find myself lacking in the loving kindness I am supposed to exemplify, my friend. Will you take a cup of tea with me? And we have some stew I could microwave”

No tears. Not the manly thing. Not today.

The vicar, pastor, elder, whatever he was called, had stuffed his rucksack with packets of dried rice, tea bags, powdered milk and cans of everything from ravioli to Irish stew, after checking he had something to cook it on, and giving him a hexy stove with some spare fuel tablets, and after Ken had filled his stomach, he started the plod again. He had a long, long way to go.

The arson attempt, and even more so what had followed, had finally triggered an urge in Ken he had thought long dead, and as the so-called holiday season bore down on him, he had made his decision. If he was going to freeze to death on the streets, he would do it under his own skies.

He settled down in his bag, the tarp wrapped round everything, as a can of Aldi Irish stew started to simmer on the little fire, and once it was bubbling properly, wolfed it down, killing the fire with some almost solid dirt as soon as he had finished. He was wearing almost everything he owned, apart from his boots, which served as his pillow, and despite the slowly increasing snow, he managed to sleep, and properly, for the first time since the drunks.

“Why do I have to wear a top, Mam?”

“Girls wear tops at the beach, love”

“Why?”

“Boys and boobies, love”

“Not got boobies, Mam!”

“You will have when you get older, love”

“Don’t want any!”

“Not exactly a choice, Jennifer. I mean, look at me”

He knew he was dreaming, for the colours were too bright, and his Mam’s bosom even more inflated than it had been in reality. He couldn’t step out of it, though, so his half-waking mind simply accepted that it was high Summer, the beach impossibly golden, the brassy light shattering on the rippling sea. Light, and warmth, and…

Ken jerked awake, the pale grey of pre-dawn showing him a thin blanket of snow over the furrows of the field. That would cause problems later, he realised: his footprints would show exactly where he was lying, if it persisted. Shit out of luck, as always. He didn’t bother trying to make a brew, and simply rolled everything back together after lacing up his boots. He made sure he flossed after checking for spots in the bathroom mirror--- like hell he did. That was a lost world now.

His hips hurt from the hard ground; he started walking, regardless.

The pattern of his days had been set the day he had left that Methodist church and its foodbank behind. Reverend whatever Webster had tried to persuade Ken to wait with him while he tried to find a shelter or hostel with a spare bed, but he had declined his offer. Ken couldn’t explain why, of course, so he gave the vicar some guff about needing the open air and made his move as soon as he could.

Thailand had almost finished Ken, he had thought. The motorbike passenger had been so sharp with the snatch, as sharp as the blade that had sliced through the strap of his bag and very nearly his neck and his fingers. He was still healing, of course, so there had been zero chance of some stupid cop-show foot chase, and Ken was simply left standing in the street as all his valuables disappeared into the morass of Bangkok traffic. His bank account was already empty, due to the surgery bills, and his two credit cards were almost maxed out. He had been relying on the limited bit of credit left to him for the trip home, but that was no longer an option.

Xxxxxxx

“Good afternoon, Miss Hurst. Thank you for being so punctual. How may we help you?”

Ken didn’t want to argue, he just wanted to get home, so he ignored that one, and handed the Embassy drone the slim bundle of papers.

“Here is the police report. I got robbed, and they took everything”

“You appear to have a decent rucksack”

“Yes. I was camping down south before… I had some medical treatment booked, so I had a decent holiday beforehand. It was a separate bag, round my neck. Been keeping it inside my shirt, pulled it out to check my flight details, and there was this bike, and he had a knife. Sliced straight through the strap; nearly sliced through my neck or my fingers”

“What exactly did you lose, Miss Hurst?”

“Money, cards, passport, ticket, everything really. Police weren’t exactly hopeful”

“When is your flight home, and where to? Do you have accommodation right now?”

“In two days, on Pattaya Airlines, to Gatwick. Still got my hotel room”

His eyebrows had lifted slightly.

“I am surprised your hotel did not insist on retaining your passport. That would have been less… unfortunate. Now, can you please write on here as many details about you and your passport as you can remember, starting with name, date of birth, home address and so on. I don’t suppose you kept a photo of the passport on your phone, or was that…?”

Ken had nodded.

“In the bag as well”

“Right-oh. Then please commence, and I shall then check our passport database”

Half an hour later, he had had all of the details.

“Miss Hurst, I have contacted the airline on your behalf, and they are willing to carry you. We can also issue you with an emergency passport for one trip only, from here to the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, that service comes at a cost”

“But my money and everything went with the bastard on the bike!”

“We are also prepared for such eventualities. Please read and check the details of this undertaking, and then, if you are happy, sign--- here. It is an agreement to pay the FCO a sum of money--- this sum--- when you are in the UK and able to access funds. I am afraid we are unable to issue an advance for expenses before your flight, and suggest you make your way to the airport well in advance. What terms are you on in your hotel?”

“Half board, thankfully. Bed, breakfast and evening meal”

“Excellent. Your new passport will be ready an hour after we take your photograph”

He had made the journey back to his hotel on foot, the emergency travel document zipped into an inside pocket this time, and after he had eaten his fill at the evening buffet, retired to his room to check everything one more time.

The emergency document was cream coloured cardboard, clearly marked as to its limited validity. Tucked inside he had found a folded piece of paper: a note, holding a couple of local banknotes.

‘Dear Miss Hurst
Please take this as a gift to cover the fare to the airport. I do believe I know what your medical treatment was, and would not be able to accept further harm to yourself. I have my reasons. Best of luck. And If I have overstepped, my apologies
Damien Rogers
UK Embassy’

Fucking tears, but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be his last.

Xxxxxxx

The check-in girl had been solicitous.

“Lost or stolen, Miss Hurst?”

“Stolen. Man on a motorbike, with a knife”

“Eeeeee! You are unhurt? You are not moving easily”

“I have some injuries, yes, but healing”

“Then please tell me if you wish window, middle, aisle or centre seats? The flight is not full”

“Please may I have a window?”

“Certainly. Please enjoy your flight, and perhaps you have happier memories of our country to bring you back”

Not without a lottery win for more surgery, he had thought, and headed for security. Thank god they didn’t want a rubdown.

At Gatwick, far too many hours later, they had kept the emergency passport, so he was now completely without any ID, and he had no idea where anywhere was. There were signs to a cycle route, and once he had passed through a couple of pedestrian tunnels, there was a park, with a lake, and some pretty dense shrubbery behind which he could conceal his tent. The flight was catching up with him, and he needed sleep. He had been so deeply and completely in its arms that he had almost missed the start of things going utterly and completely wrong.

The voices had gradually worked through the fatigue and dragged him back to the world.

“Fucking camping? This time of the year? Fucking idiot!”

“Fucking fruitloop! Warm him up, you think?”

“How we going to fucking do that?”

“Like this, bruv!”

A click, a glow, and fuck, that was the fly sheet alight. He had erupted from the tent, somehow dragging bag and mat while pushing rucksack and boots ahead of him, and snatched at the dome, hauling the fly off and away from the inner.

“We fucking wake you, Mister Camper Man? Spoil your beauty sleep?”

The laughter, the speech, all slurred.

“Fucking answer me you skinny cunt!”

That second voice, the one with the lighter.

“Fucking right, bruv! It is a fucking cunt!”

There were four of them, and they had taken turns. When they were done, Ken had somehow managed to stand, and went into the rocky edge of the lake. The water was bitterly cold, but he washed and washed until he couldn’t feel his hands, and then dressed.

He had the tarp left, and his rucksack, because once the rape was over, his attackers had somehow shrunken in on themselves, and the expected trashing of his belongings had simply not happened. They had just walked away, unspeaking, towards the nearby housing estate.

There had been another footpath, and Ken had dragged himself along that, away from the direction his new best friends had taken, until he had found himself by a foot bridge over the railway, a field path heading away to some woods, where he had sat through the rest of the horribly long night wrapped in bag and tarp, rocking his shame away. It was two days before he had dared move again, and then found the food bank.

Xxxxxxxx

The days started to merge in his memory, each one the same sorry tale. Wake, pack, trudge westward. Find somewhere green and secluded to hide for the night, cook if possible, otherwise eat food cold from the dwindling number of cans in his rucksack.

Ken was avoiding the larger towns, ensuring he was well away from habitation of any kind each time the light started to fade, but as his food ran out, he was forced into smaller communities in the hope of a repeat of that Methodist food bank. Near the edge of Swindon, he struck lucky for what seemed like the first time ever. That thought actually shocked him, as it brought a second genuine laugh from some hidden place in what remained of his soul.

“Shit! I really am losing it!”

The occasion was a random encounter in a park, where he had been scouting for a hiding place, steadily realising his only option was going to be a trudge back out of the town in the hope of a decent place under a hedge or burrowed into the heart of one of the Dutch barns he had found on two separate days, filled with winter fodder and delightfully warm inside. That had brought the first burst of laughter, in recognition of how low the bar now was for something to be a ‘delight’.

The good luck had come in the form of an elderly Sikh man who had walked across from the edge of the park and taken a seat on the bench Ken had chosen for a perch while he checked out the place for potential hides.

“Where are you sleeping, son?”

Ken jerked awake.

“Sorry. Bit knackered. Been a long day. I’ll be off”

“Ah. Sorry. You eaten recently, love?”

Fuck his bloody voice, always outing him.

“Why do you ask? Do I look like I need feeding up or something?”

The gentleman took a long and slow breath.

“Do you want an honest answer, Miss? You look close to collapse. See over there, the flagpole?”

“Yes?”

“That’s my gurdwara. That’s a Sikh temple, you would call it. I’ve been watching you, Happy people don’t sob on park benches in the rain”

Ken was silent for a few seconds, then shrugged.

“And so?”

“And so we have a tradition. There is food there, for those who need it. We have a medical room, with a bed that can be used by those who might need one. We have telephones, for those who might want to call and reassure their family that they are not going to be found dead under a bush one freezing morning. May I offer you one or more of those?”

Ken lost it at that point, that second burst of laughter surprising both of them.

“What amuses you, Miss?”

“Silly stuff, Mister. Just realising how bad my luck has been lately. Just ignore me. Will there be other men there?”

The old man stared at him for a few more seconds, before shaking his head, clearly more in sorrow than disbelief.

“Miss, I think I am beginning to understand. You do not… Please do not feel that you have to explain. My wife is there, as are other ladies of my community. They will be between you and whoever or whatever you fear. Is he near?”

Ken looked into his eyes, his own now flowing.

“No. They are many days’ walk away”

A mutter of something in Punjabi, and the man rose, holding out a hand.

“Come. Eat, sleep, be welcome, and be safe”

The morning came as a surprise, with a knock on the medical room’s door cutting through Ken’s sleep as sharply as the drunks’ voices had, and he found panic rising in him. Where the hell was he?

A woman’s voice, soft and sounding concerned.

“May I come in? I have tea for you. It is nine o’clock. Don’t worry if you want to sleep a bit more”

“No. Please come”

Memories were now ambushing him, a meal of dhal and vegetable curry with fragrant naan to mop it up, served with more hot tea than he had drunk in a week. No sleet. No snow. No cold to make his teeth and toes cry in pain until he was forced to do the same. The woman’s voice came again.

“I will come, if you unlock the door, love!”

“Oh! Sorry!”

He scrambled out of the bed, still marvelling at the scent and feel of clean sheets, and unlocked the door. A woman came in, and as she did, so did his memory of her name: Aiven. She set a small tray down on the medic’s desk, and turned to ken with a smile that immediately vanished.

“Oh my… Who has done that to you? Your breasts!”

Ken grabbed for his T-shirt, shame erupting in him, and closed the door, a finger to his lips, once covered. Aiven had all but collapsed onto one of the chairs by the desk.

“Ran… he said he had thought you were a boy, but you spoke, and your voice, and… Who has done these things?”

Ken sat down on the bed, reaching for the mug of tea.

“Please, don’t shout. This is… Ran was right. I am a boy. I mean, I’m twenty three, so a man, but…”

She stared at his covered chest.

“Those scars…”

“They will heal. They are surgical scars, not wounds. I mean, they were wounds, but not made to hurt me, if that makes sense”

“You… I’ve seen stories about this. Girls who cut their breasts off, because someone has told them they are not women”

Ken shook his head, waved his hands.

“Not so! Nobody ever told me I was anything but a girl, and I knew, I always bloody knew, and… Look. I was dreaming a few nights ago, when it was really, really cold, and I had had to put the fire out in case it was seen. My mother and me, on the beach, when I was only tiny, and all I wanted to wear was the bottoms, cause of course Mam had bought me a bloody baby bikini, her little girl, and I just wanted to be like the other boys, and she kept going on about boys and boobies and---”

“Please. Calm, love. You are safe here, remember? You don’t have to tell me all this”

Aiven was breathing deeply, obviously doing her best to find a calm place to start from, to help Ken. Lucky…

“Please tell me what you need to tell. Don’t feel you have to tell more. I will try to understand”

Ken slurped some tea, spilling a little as his hands shook.

“That was the memory, boys and boobies. That was the word Mam always used. She kept telling me I had to cover my chest, at five years’ old, because boys like to see boobies. And I said I didn’t have any, and she said ‘You will’, and I said that I never wanted any”

Aiven smiled.

“I think I understand. Did you… that… because of fears about men?”

The third utterly natural burst of laughter in twenty four hours, and Ken was realising he hadn’t actually laughed at all since Thailand.

“Aiven, I have had all of those questions already, at the clinic I had to attend before I could even think about…this”

He waved a hand at his chest, and smiled.

“No. Nobody told me I was a boy. I just, I have, I have always known. This isn’t because I fear attracting men’s attention. I mean, lack of boobies didn’t seem to put off the four bastards who raped me, did it?”

Her mouth was now open.

“Four? FOUR?”

“They set fire to my tent. Thought I was what they would call a ‘real’ man, yeah? I was only in pants, in my sleeping bag, yes? They saw. Having no tits didn’t put them off at all. Anyway, with men…”

Ken muttered a few obscenities under his breath, eyes closed, before looking hard at Aiven, his head tilted a little.

“That’s the shitty thing, love, and after the last twenty four hours or so, I mean that word. Another shitty thing, anyway”

A fourth surprise burst of laughter.

“Sorry! Laughing at the stupidest of things just now. Look, you know that old idea about the Earth being flat, on the backs of four elephants, all standing on a turtle?”

Aiven smiled.

“Terry Pratchett fan, me, so yes”

“Well, ages ago, a scientist was asking someone who believed that idea, what was the turtle standing on, and the man said ‘another turtle’. And that turtle? Standing on a third, and so on, and the phrase was ‘turtles all the way down’. I was thinking ‘another shitty thing’, and, well”

“Shitty things all the way down?”

“You’ve got it. My life”

“What do I call you, love?”

“Ken. Please”

“Ken. You were saying something about men, and then you added another turtle. What was it?”

The tears surprised him even more than the laughter had.

“That’s the thing, Aiven. That’s what really freaked Mam and Dad. I’m… I’m gay”

“So if you feel you are a man, and you say you are gay, then… You are attracted to men?”

“Other men. Yes”

“But not… Not in the way that the four men… Sorry. I am finding difficulty in stringing a coherent sentence together. Not that way, no?”

“No. Not anything like that way, ever, and I don’t mean the technical, the clinical… Not just you. It is to be seen as a man, desired as a man, fucking LOVED as a man, by another man. Sorry about the swearing”

“Pretty bloody understandable, Ken, given what you’re talking about. What happened with your family?”

“Kicked out. That’s all. Ended up doing bar work in Reading. Got a sensible GP, managed to get enough money together to go private to get the necessary diagnoses—you need two--- then I found a surgeon. Ended up in Thailand. Maxed my credit cards out, paying for everything, then just out of hospital, lost everything in a robbery. Foreign Office got me an emergency passport, then, well. The rest you know”

She wiped an eye.

“What are you doing, Ken?”

“Walking home”

“Your family?”

“God, no! I just want, my own country, yes? If it’s all gone, then I want to be in Wales when it’s all done and dusted”

She looked down at her knees, then stood quickly, pulling out a mobile phone.

“I am going to make more tea. Do you know the phone number, wherever your parents are?”

“I think so, but why?”

“Because it is the turning of the year. I don’t care what you call it, Christmas, Diwali, Hannukah, it is the same thing: the darkness is leaving, the light is coming, and we Sikhs, we talk of that, the sharing of the light. When did you last speak to them?”

“God knows”

“That is truth, of course, but I assume you meant that you don’t?”

Ken nodded, and she smiled.

“I am off to make more tea, as I said. You use my phone. PIN is 1434. Call home, do the ET thing, whatever. Hold out your hand, open. You never know. I will be about half an hour with the tea”

She stepped out of the room, once again wiping her eyes, and Ken sat for an aeon staring at the little Apple. He picked it up and put it down three times, before grabbing it and punching in the PIN with violent finger taps, and then…

It rang six times, and he was about to hit the red button when…

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Mam?”

There was a bang, and some fumbling noises, and then her voice again.

“I dropped the phone. Shock, aye? Jenny? That really my Jenny?”

“Ken, Mam. Changed my name years ago, remember?”

A chill came into her voice.

“Why you ringing, then?”

“Mam… Oh, just to say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year”

“And that’s it?”

“Yes. Bye”

This time, he did hit the little red icon, and tossed the phone onto the bed. A few minutes later, Aiven was back with the tea. She collected her phone, and settled back into the chair.

“And?”

“No change”

“Oh dear. What are your plans now?”

“Same as before, I suppose. Keep going. Not got much choice, have I?”

She looked away yet again, then back.

“Can I ask a favour?”

“Go ahead”

“Please stay with us a few more days. Two at least. Recover some strength, and perhaps let the bad weather blow through. We will launder your clothes, and as your sleeping bag is already on the rinse cycle, you will have to wait of it to dry, anyway”

“Why are you doing all this?”

“Our faith requires it. Protect the weak, help the poor”

She laughed, as suddenly as Ken had.

“And no, our faith is certainly NOT opposed to necessary violence! Many people have made that mistake in the past and had an unpleasant surprise. Unpleasant for them, anyway”

She left Ken, the two of them laughing, and he settled down for an inventory of what goods he had left. Rain was hammering against the temple windows, and, well, it was warm, and clean, and safe. He could spare a few days.

His third morning in the temple brought the usual knock, and this time he was handed a dustpan and brush. Aiven was grinning happily.

“We all chip in, Ken. Think of us as an evil little nest of communists or something, reds all the way down. Or, in our case, orange!”

He found it strangely satisfying, as he emptied another pan of dust mixed with the few dead leaves that blew in through the doors. Aiven walked over to him and handed him a steaming mug.

“Let’s sit for a few minutes, Ken. Spread the load as well as the light. Oh…”

They settled together onto a padded bench, and she continued.

“Phones, love. They keep numbers dialled on them. Got someone here wants to see you. Sorry for going behind your back. RAN!”

The door opened and an all-too-familiar figure entered, his hat in his hands.

“Dad? What… Why are you here?”

The older man’s mouth twisted, as Aiven whispered her apologies and slipped away.

“Why didn’t you tell your Mam what happened to you?”

“How do you know what happened to me?”

“Your friend there, Ranji, whatever, he told me. Told me you were… That you’ve already walked from bloody Gatwick. That you’ve been sleeping in hedges, in this weather! That you’d been robbed, abroad. That you’d been… oh god, four of the bastards?”

“Yes. They burned my tent as well”

“Did you go to the police?”

“What point would there have been in that?”

His father’s mouth worked again, and then he abruptly changed the subject.

“Your Mam’s in the car”

“Why?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! You know what your friend said to me? That he thinks you intend to give up once you’re back in Wales. Give up full stop. Living”

Ken shrugged.

“So why are you here?”

“Because I, we, we are not giving up on our child!”

“You already gave up on me! You bloody well threw me out!”

His Dad was crying now.

“Yes, we did, and we were so bloody wrong to do that, but your Mam, her pride, aye? We know… What that man told us, now…”

His Dad stood upright for the first time.

“Will you accept a promise from a stupid old man and a blind old woman that we will not abandon you again? Will you come home?”

His Dad paused for a second, before adding “Son?”

What other answer could Ken give?