Not long ago a friend of mine was walking back to her car after the cinema when, not unusually for the time and the place, a distraught man placed himself in her way. She was not frightened; he was easily identified as mad, not bad. A shuffling walk, a drooping, defeated posture which required a special effort to raise his head so he could address her, and eyes, when they lifted, which were more distressed than aggressive. He put out a hand, as if the fact of his body being in her path would not be enough to gain her attention. 'Can I talk to you?' he asked. My friend felt around in her handbag and came up with some money which she pressed into his hand. It was a normal inner city exchange. Except that the man shook his head, put the money back into my friend's open bag, took some more from his own pocket and dropped that in too. 'No, I've got money. It's not money. I want to talk to you,' he said, and launched into a rambling tale of woe about being evicted from his hostel and how it felt to have nowhere to go and no one to tell. He was not asking for anything except what is most difficult to give: time and attention.

LRB 22 September 1994 | PDF Download