Some did stop to talk to her.  Mainly older ladies concerned to give her the correct bus fare and only that, and who would have seen her safely onto the right bus if they didn’t have to catch their own.  Some teenagers talked too, and Christians who felt legally obligated by His law to lecture her on the morality of begging or the safety aspects of such actions…..“strange men,”…..“don’t do it again,” or the longer and more boring lecture on sin, salvation and “where will you be in eternity?”  Poverty created a falsely smiling captive audience, though she’d heard it all before, and each time was likely thinking “fuck off,” or at least exclaiming to herself “the things you have to do for money!”  Any money given by these Christians, was always accompanied by a gospel tract about as attractively printed as a black edged death announcement!  She always stared at these with feigned interest for a while, until their givers were completely out of sight.  Only then could she screw them up, drop-kick them and see them skidding to a halt somewhere further up the Depot on its sparkling blue tiles!

Nobody seemed to notice that she was never, ever truly alone.  The older boy was always there, always watching from a discrete distance.  Her protector.

“Fancy seeing you here!”  The female voice shrieked through Ruth’s concentration bubble!  She cast a startled, slightly irritated glance at the loud woman shaking the gaudy golfing umbrella over the floor, then towards the boy, and back.  His eyes briefly met hers in the realisation that she had been watching them.  The woman cut through the crowd at the door, talking all the while like no-one else existed except Ruth, and like nothing else mattered but how much rain she had in her new black patent shoes which click-clicked across the silence and oozed rainwater through her tights.  “Awful weather we’re having! These shoes just aren’t equipped for it and I paid £48.99 for them too!” 

The casually dressed plump woman glanced backwards, seeing the children moving in tandem towards the other exit.  No words had been exchanged or needed.  He moved…..she moved.  His eyes and body language spoke volumes.  A barely noticeable nod in the general direction was all it took.  The girl trusted his actions.  Go!  Move slowly, naturally, attracting no attention, past the Burger Bar which made their empty stomachs rumble, out into the rainy, grey streets running with streams of dirty water.  Go!  Down litter strewn, dim, narrow alleys…..vanishing to whatever grassless wastelands and forgotten places seemed home to runaways and street children.