Our drive into London this evening went smoothly, along quiet roads. The city looked beautiful and the weather was warm.

We stopped briefly at a petrol station before we crossed over the Thames. It was an hour before midnight and the staff were still in the shop, serving and cheerful. Just outside, not far from the entrance, a man sat on the ground, wrapped in blankets, homeless as a fly-tipped bundle.

On the other side of the river the traffic was mainly taxis and buses, parading slowly, at the required twenty-miles an hour towards the centre. We joined it, overtaken occasionally by the rattling engine of a delivery bike, or the hysterical siren of a blue lit police car – life from the real world, unzipping the city beneath.

As we swung along the river they were talking on the radio about the man released after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment, and the bill he would have to pay to cover the cost of his food and board during that time. It sounded all wrong, especially beside a river that looked so pretty at night, with the bridges lined up in both directions, their lights shining above the water.

Opposite Battersea Power Station, the almost-full moon hung, still as a picture, at the same height as the old station’s four pale towers. If it had been easy to stop we would have, but we were too tired and it was too late.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023