I realise how crazy my life is – I’m all but living in a car

An incident with a local estate agent reminds Charlotte Cripps of long-gone days of hanging out in her car on the King’s Road

(Illustration by Amara May)

A mum friend asked if I could meet an estate agent at her London flat – as she is still isolating at her parent’s house in Cornwall. I thought nothing of it as her flat is in the next road to mine and she is miles away. “Of course,” I said. “No problem.”

Masked up and wearing latex gloves, I took Liberty along with me. We dropped Lola off first at her nursery school on the way. She’s dripping in antibacterial gel for her return since lockdown has eased but only for a few hours a day and on the condition that she doesn’t go anywhere near her friends – even if they are in her “bubble” – and only plays outside.

Call me paranoid – I know infection rates are dropping – but I have an 87-year-old dad to protect.

The keys were under a dustbin and all I needed to do was to hide any evidence of children’s toys and paraphernalia. “It needs to look anything but what a parent’s house looks like,” the mum said, not wanting to put off a young professional couple or single person from renting it.

I stick the toys in a storage cupboard – chuck them under beds and into the corridor outside. I’m in a mad rush. I fold up a high chair. The estate agent arrives early and is standing awkwardly with his mask on in the corridor as I run past him with a nappy bin to hide it away.

He wants to take the photos quickly as the sun has come out. As I pick Liberty up to take her outside, to my horror she’s had a dreaded explosion out of the nappy onto the new cream carpet. I’ve always heard of these horror stories on Mumsnet but never imagined it would happen to me. “Oh god, what a time for this to happen,” I say legging it out to the garden with her in my arms at full length to change her nappy.

Shortly I get a phone call from the estate agent inside saying it’s all done, but did I have a wipe? I had missed a bit on the carpet. I say, “Is it for your shoes or the carpet?” He says, “I have taken off my shoes so it’s on my socks.”

Apologising profusely – I offer to get him a pair of socks from my nearby flat – but he says “not to worry”, he thinks he might have “an extra pair” in the car and he has to head off to his next appointment. Did I hear this right? Extra socks in his car? It suddenly dawns on me. Is this man living in his car?

How strange. Or is it? I peer out from the window as he drives off in a red car – trying to make him out. My imagination has run away with itself. But it all seems familiar somehow. That’s when I get a picture of myself in my old bashed-up car. It was also red, like his.

Why am I parked up on the King’s Road? Quite simply, because I can’t go home. I used to hang out a lot in this car during the middle part of my addiction. I wasn’t always in a fit state to go back to mum and dad. I couldn’t drive to a friend’s either – so I would bide my time in the vehicle.

I had my spot opposite the World’s End pub – the gloomy words starring back at me at my own potential fate. Where am I going to end up if I continue on this path?

I have to pretend I have broken down to the locals who give me a raised eyebrow as they see me all the time. Somebody even thinks I am homeless and brings me a McDonald’s.

When I entertain in the car I fold down the seats to make more room. Misery loves company. We are always waiting for something – a party, a phone call, or the next high. None of us knew when enough was enough.

I had a wind-up angel on my dashboard and in my darkest moments, I’d spend a lot of time looking at it. “I need a miracle to get out of this mess,” I’d think to myself. In moments of sanity, I realise how crazy my life is – I’m all but living in a car.

How did it get to this point? I come from a loving – if not slightly eccentric family – but am now living like an outsider.

I’m out all night and retreat to the car when it all gets too much. My car is like a camper van packed with everything but the kitchen sink.

So who was I to question what the estate agent was doing? I was even held hostage in that car when a couple kidnapped me and took me on a drug run.

I can’t imagine that happening to me now – it’s like I’ve had nine lives.

Fact is stranger than fiction – that’s for sure. When I’m lying in bed at night and I look next to me at Lola and Liberty, I wonder how I will tell them about the dangers of addiction? Much in the same way I explain it to all my friends and relative’s children who “hire” me to do talks – I’m an example of it all going terribly wrong.

When my other school friends could experiment – I could not. I had a personality that meant that when I took substances it triggered a tsunami. Obsession and compulsion took me over. Is it genetic? It must play a part. Is the fact that I’m in long-term recovery a game-changer for my children?

I hope so. I often replay the scenario if that day ever came and they turned up drunk or stoned. There would be no pulling the wool over my eyes – that’s for sure.