A night in the cells in Italy.

The train from Nice pulled into Porta Nuova train station in Turin after midnight then pulled out again for Milan a few minutes later. It left me standing on the empty platform watching as the red tail lights grew dimmer and disappeared into the cold, lonely night, and the only sign of life around was the ever-fading puffs of white, spent breath that escaped from my shivering lips every five seconds or so.

I had no money; I hadn’t eaten a proper meal for a few days and as for washing … I hadn’t done that any time in the recent past. I stood for a while with my small, rumpled and fairly empty travelling bag lying at my feet in the snow, looking around without much hope for somewhere warm and sheltered to spend the rest of the night.

There were a few dark corners, piles of something or other under canvas, stacks of crates, and any of them would have given a bit of shelter but not much. I’d been colder, hungrier, further from home and was content to settle down anywhere for the night. I chose a deep doorway at the end of the platform. It looked unused and away from any patrolmen or watchmen who might happen to come around late to check for the likes of me, but as I walked alongside the rails back in the direction of Nice I heard low voices that seemed to be coming from behind that door and a thin line of yellow light escaping from beneath it.

Men were talking but soon I heard women joining in too, with the crying of a baby mixed in to it all so I pushed on the door and it gave a little. The voices died down when the door began to creak and by the time I had put my head into the room an uneasy silence had fallen on everyone, even the babies. Packed into the small waiting room was a gathering of about twenty distinctive looking people, all Gypsies as it turned out, travelling people, whatever the politically correct term is.

The men around the two bar electric fire plugged into a socket made way to let me, the frozen newcomer, get a bit of welcome warmth and we soon established that there was not going to be any meaningful conversation what with none of them speaking English or French, and me not having very much Italian and none of whatever they were speaking. But there was a warmth, a solidarity I’d never come across anywhere that I’d travelled in Europe. These people drew me in and gave me tea.

After an hour or so, when people were beginning to fade and drop of into sleep the door was flung open. I jumped and some babies started to cry. A squad of armed policemen filled the small room and started shouting and pulling people to their feet, me with them. The children had frightened looks on their dirty, tired faces as they clung to their mother’s skirts. The adults were soon all laden with their bundles and boxes and everyone was paraded out of the room onto the empty, frozen platform.

This was 1974 but it could so easily have been 1944 and the police could so easily have been Fascist Militia rounding up Jews, Gypsies and others deemed undesirable for a trip across the frozen continent to a camp in Poland. But no, this was 1974.

The police station wasn’t far away; we arrived there in three black vans. From the waiting room people were taken one by one into another room and I never saw them again. Soon the waiting room was all but empty but for me and a woman with three young children. Then I was taken.

I hadn’t yet protested about being rounded up and transported to I didn’t know where; I still hadn’t waved my Irish passport and asked to speak to the Irish Embassy in Rome. But the laid back, genial young officer called Enzo soon came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t have been brought there in the first place as we conversed in a mixture of French, Italian and English. We got on well. He found me an empty cell for the rest of the night and brought in a blanket. I had a hot shower down the hall and Enzo threw me a fluffy white towel to dry off with. Coffee arrived and we chatted for ages under the harsh light of the single, bare light bulb before he said it was time for him to go home.

Warm coffee, a bed with a warm blanket, security, good company, a story to dine out on, but I never did find out what happened to the Gypsies who had shared with me their warm tea, their electric fire, the warmth of their company and their insecurity.