The next morning it became plain that he'd managed to travel only a few yards. He'd slept in a neighbour's garden.What's this pitiless cruelty against such vulnerable people for? Obviously, to force people like Andrew to conclude that it would be better to face the consequences in Zimbabwe than try to survive in London.I understand that it is out of step with the general view, in this great democracy of ours, to believe that refugees should be supported and welcomed in Britain. Luck, however, had not been forthcoming, and he'd come to the end of the time he was allowed to sleep in the church. This time, I left him snoozing on the doorstep - he walks for miles round London each day seeking help - while I searched the internet for charities that seemed as if they might be able to help him in some way.Andrew by this time was complaining that he felt really ill. He's also, I'm afraid, not allowed in my house, because he stinks, is flea-ridden and I don't know what my small children would make of it all. I'd given him the bus fare up to the church of St Martin's-in-the-Fields, which runs a free hostel, and wished him luck. He's not allowed in my house, also, because he's a desperate stranger and I can't imagine how I would get rid of him once he was in.He'd last been round a couple of months before, asking for money to pay for a night at a hostel.
Andrew, the man who was at the door this time, has a story more elaborate than any other we have so far heard, and no sign for psychosis at all. He'd knocked on our door once before, so we already knew that he was from Zimbabwe and that he'd been one of the 140 or so detained asylum-seekers who'd gone on hunger strike earlier this year.As a result of the hunger strike, alongside other developments, deportations to Zimbabwe had been temporarily suspended. So, even though his appeals process had come to an unsuccessful end, Andrew is still in Britain. We've had a woman who'd just moved in eight doors down and needed cash for the electricity meter for the sake of her bronchial son (we gave her a tenner, then found that the woman next door but one had done the same); a woman who needed to borrow enough money to get to the garage and get fuel for her car (she made her excuses when we revealed that in fact we had a can of petrol she was welcome to); and one who had the good luck to be let in by my small son (and the bad luck to be caught red-handed committing burglary). We get men, too, but they tend to have less elaborate stories and more obvious psychosis. Andrew lives in legal limbo now, along with many hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand other Zimbabweans in this country.As a failed asylum-seeker, Andrew - who worked as a teacher in Zimbabwe - is not allowed to receive benefits, not allowed to apply for council housing, and not allowed to work.
The other night, there was a mysterious late-night knock at our front door This happens occasionally. It's one of the edgier mutations of care in the community, and, of course, a marvellous antidote to middle-class guilt. Usually, a drug-addicted pan-handler has some hard-luck story and needs some money. The women particularly have such plausible tales that it's quite an invigorating battle of wits to catch them out. Do they know something we don't? Elephant-watchers tell us that for all the interest they take in the remains of fellow elephants they are capable of showing great compassion to other stricken beasts, protecting them, even shielding them with their own bodies.