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I left my air-conditioned appointment in London’s Knightsbridge on Saturday, stepping out into a thirty-three-degree afternoon. London almost suits rain. The red buses and post boxes somehow sit better against grey. In the heat, one wishes London were by the sea (the little patch of beach on the Thames compensating for very little). We’re a city not equipped for extremes. Snow halts us and heat forces us out, toward the coast, or towards gardens and parks, ever optimistic about a barbecue and a bikini.

I took a narrow road running along the back of the Berkeley Hotel, and just in front of St. Paul’s Church, lying on his side, was a tramp. This was no temporarily homeless man. His hair was a mass of dreadlocks, no flashy trainers, only brogues with flapping soles. He lay propped up on his side wearing a woollen jumper and trousers, a packet of almost full cigarettes before him, next to a throwaway lighter. He didn’t ask me for anything, which was why I stopped.

‘Are you okay?’ I said, crouching down beside him. A foolish question, I admit, but whatever the journey, relativity is still part of it.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, looking at me with dazzling blue eyes, eyes as serene as Christ’s. ‘I would like some clothes,’ he said, which, given the weather, was the last request I’d been expecting. There was no smell of booze, only that of cigarettes.

‘I don’t live around here I explained.’

He said, ‘Neither do I.’

We both smiled.

‘Usually, I’m outside a church in Mayfair. But I like this church too, though not as much as the one in Mayfair.’

‘Centre point, do you go there?’ I asked. It was more than I sensed he wanted conversation, wanted to be acknowledged, rather than me feeling I had any power to be his rescuer or preacher.

‘No, not that place. They stuck an injection in my bum. Wasn’t nice at all.’

I agreed that it can’t have been.

‘Before 911, it was great,’ he told me.

‘What happened after 911 aside from the obvious?’ I asked genuinely, curious.

They shut down Heathrow Airport to homeless people. There were 183 of us in the terminals. We had a good life there.’

The film with Tom Hanks – based on a true story of a man stuck at Charles de Gaulle Airport, though it shows an LA airport in the movie – flashed through my thoughts. I had no idea this had happened elsewhere.

‘Warmth, good food. Lots of generous people,’ he went on, chuckling at the memory.

He then proceeded to tell me about other places he’d lived in. I reasoned he must be in his sixties, though the grime and dishevelled appearance were deceptive. Yet there was no hint of victimhood in the way he spoke. I felt I was listening to a wise man talk about another culture, as a tour guide might tell me about his home, with all the knowledge and understanding that the years had allowed him to absorb. His eyes were bright with aliveness and depth, and he held my gaze with total presence. When I asked questions, he answered articulately. He spoke about a brief time in prison, a long time back, and I wondered whether this might be the point at which the homelessness could be traced.

‘Are you from London?’ I asked.

He smiled. ‘No, Manchester originally. But I prefer London.’ He smiled generously. ‘Less rain.’

London felt presently bleached white, a heat haze rising from the paving stones. It was then that I saw us from above: me crouched down low, him lying on his side as if on a hot beach in the Caribbean, two strangers in an impersonal city, loving it for our different, though in truth no doubt quite similar, reasons. Yet the stark difference between us was that I was still attached to the unhealthy desire that cities so often produce. The passions and longings, the willingness at times to be swept up in it all. In contrast, this fella was at peace within it, merely as it was and with him as a witness. He had seemingly transcended his suffering, his attachments and most likely so much more. It felt nothing but an honour to be in his company. His energy both grounded and grounding, unencumbered by unnecessary thought. He was the wise sage, timeless and reassuring all at once. I let him open up. (People often do to me, which always leaves the question, have I really chosen to write biographies, or has life chosen me to record them). Slowly, I find myself disappearing into the words and world of another, something I do frequently as a ghostwriter, absorbing myself until I gain a deeper sense of the person’s essence and understand their intentions and history intimately. Here was a presently sober man on the streets of London, perfectly at peace with a packet of cigarettes and nothing more, finding the lightness of being, not unbearable but a natural state.

Surrounded by cars, which in this area of London could easily buy a small flat, and frantic shoppers in their designer garb, this old soul, lying in the sunshine, by comparison appeared at peace. Looking toward the unhappy, perfect people, it was hard to tell who was saner; it was certainly obvious who seemed more contented.

After some time, I stood up to leave. He said goodbye in a friendly manner, thanking me for speaking with him. I gave him a note, rightly or wrongly, because he hadn’t asked. He casually tucked it into his pocket. No overt thanking me, putting on a front of gratitude. There was just a quiet dignity to his acceptance as he told me, ‘I’ll get a nice cup of coffee with that.’

He reached out his hand. Deep down, I’m a germaphobe, yet I took his blackened hand and felt our time together cement further.

‘Thank you,’ he said, holding me a moment longer.

I got into my car, as he waved goodbye, waving as an uncle might wave after a family event. I drove home thinking that the whole interaction had a harmonious quality to it. Peaceful.

When I was still studying for my master’s degree in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths University, London, I read a book by Theordore Zeldin called, ‘An Intimate History of Humanity’. For anyone who hasn’t read Zeldin, I highly recommend him. In this book, Zeldin suggests that the history of emotion—of how we communicate with one another, how we overcome loneliness, and how we define love, fear, or ambition—is as rich and vital as any record of wars, kings, or inventions. He offered a quiet revolution: a history of our inner lives. He proposed that genuine, curious, soul-deep conversation was one of the last acts of true intimacy left in the modern world. I took from that that to be in touch with the depth of this inner world must be more relevant to life than anything on the exterior was capable of providing.

I thought of this as I drove, the radio off, windows open to the intense heat. That man on the pavement belonged somehow to an older, deeper narrative. He was part of the history of these streets, of both the depravity and quest for alternative living. He also reminded that the most unlikely people carry entire philosophies inside them. That history lives in the space between two people who pause long enough to see each other. Perhaps, like Zeldin suggested, intimacy is not always romantic or familial—it is human, and it begins with noticing.

The tramp’s presence, so unbothered by performance, so absent of the brittle polish of the city, was its own kind of lesson. Zeldin writes that we can reinvent ourselves not only through action but through attention. And maybe that’s what the man had done in disengaging from the social script. It reminded me that biography—life writing—is not just about dates and data, it’s about what makes people alive to themselves and others. That being alive is an interior act, just as much as an exterior one.

And I wondered—what if our stories didn’t begin with childhood or achievement or suffering, but with a single moment of recognition? What if they started, simply, with a conversation on a hot London pavement…