Unreliable

Once I had an affair with a Princess.

At the time I was homeless, sleeping rough in a cardboard hut in the Bull Ring at the end of Waterloo Bridge, where the IMAX cinema stands today.

It was very late, early morning probably, the soup runs had long departed and most of my fellow residents were asleep. I was pretty close to sleep myself when I opened my eyes and saw the Princess, her face wet with tears, moving between our miserable hovels.

I crawled out and introduced myself. She said, “It’s so awful. I’m so sorry.” I asked her why she had come visiting at such a late hour. “Things with my husband, the Prince, are pretty rotten and I need to know what it’ll be like if he chucks me out. I have nowhere else to go.” I showed her where I slept.

‘Can I come in? To see what it would be like. You don’t mind, do you?

When the first light of dawn appeared, she put on her clothes beneath the grey blanket which covered us, stood up and said, “Darling, I promise I’ll come tonight. You’ll be here, won’t you?”

Then she bent down, gave me a final juicy kiss, and departed in the direction of the Palace.

Night after night I lay awake waiting but she didn’t return. Then council workers appeared and began destroying our homes. They claimed our occasional fires were damaging the concrete. But I know who sent them.