‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice’
– Wren’s inscription for St Paul’s
(‘If you seek a monument, look around’)
‘Prepare for death if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.’
– Samuel Johnson on London
‘The shouting of democracy, like the singing of the stars, means Triumph.
But the silence of democracy means Tea.’
– E.V. Knox
THE SOLIDARITY AND support of Richard Woolf made this book possible, and for this I am eternally grateful. Jim Sturgeon is the sensible half of my brain. Our creative partnership spans almost a quarter century, and that’s where the ideas come from. Thank you, James. Maximum love, as always, goes out to parents Kath and Bill, superbro Steven, Sue and family.
FAQ: How do I find the time to write when I have a day job? With the help of great friends like Mike and Sarah, Jo, Twins Of Evil Martin and Graham, David and Helen, Damien, Sebastian, Alan, Jeff, Richard P, Sally and Gary, Pam, Maggie, Poppy, Amber, Stephanie, Di, Kevin, Lara, Michele. My agent Serafina Clarke may not be entirely au fait with the Internet but makes a superb champagne cocktail, a far more desirable skill. Editor Andrew Wille and Nann du Sautoy are as essential as Wordperfect, and I suspect represent the ‘X-Files’ end of Little, Brown; my kind of folks, as are Jenny Luithlen and Pippa Dyson, international rights and UK film rights respectively, and Joel Gotler at Renaissance. Thanks also to fellow authors Graham Joyce, Nick Royle, Kim Newman and Joanne Harris.
APART FROM ONE niggling annoyance, Sebastian Wells felt at peace with the world. He had just ignited a particularly fine cigar of Cuban extraction, and had drunk the decent portion of a magnum of Bollinger, albeit from a plastic cup. He was leaving one pleasurable venue, a box at the Royal Festival Hall where he had been attending a charity recital of Offenbach arias, and was heading for another, the Palm Court at the Waldorf Hotel. The violet dusk had settled into a late-summer night that was warm and starless. Ahead of him, confident couples fanned across the walkways of the South Bank and awkwardly climbed the stairs to Waterloo Bridge to collect their cars. Others strolled in evening dress beside the river, transforming the barren concrete embankment into a set for a champagne commercial. There was an air of gentle joviality. Sebastian felt unusually stately and benevolent, willing to be swayed in his argument, although perhaps not ready to concede it.
‘The point, my dear Caton-James, is that the man was successful before he was twenty years of age.’ He flicked the ash from his cigar and blew on the end until it was glowing.
‘Not wealthy, though,’ said Caton-James, searching the crowd.
‘What do you expect? He had five children, and he lived extravagantly. His music was throwaway, full of topical parody, and yet here we are one hundred and twenty years later still listening to it.’ Sebastian located the source of his annoyance and pointed his cigar to the figure emerging from one of the Hall’s entrance doors. ‘I think the gentleman we’re looking for is there, at the back. He’s alone.’
‘Opera was invented for a closed society,’ said St John Warner. He had the misfortune of speaking in a high, strangled voice that irritated everyone in earshot. ‘It was never meant to be understood by the proles, but Offenbach made it accessible to all. I thought you’d be against that sort of thing, Sebastian.’
‘Not at all,’ Sebastian replied magnanimously. ‘It doesn’t hurt to give your workers some little tunes to hum. Besides, I defy anyone to resist La Périchole’s “Letter Song”.’ He pointed in the direction of the entrance doors again. ‘Look, will somebody stop this chap before he simply wanders off?’
Caton-James eased his way through the last of the departing audience and slipped a friendly arm behind the startled man’s back.
‘I wonder if we might have a word with you.’ He attempted a pleasant smile, revealing a rictus of grey pegs that could make a baby cry.
His hostage, a smart, dark-complexioned man of twenty-two or so, checked the firm fist at his waist with an outraged ‘I’m sorry?’ and shorthanded such a look of violated privacy that he failed to see the others closing about him.
‘Not that the working classes could comprehend such music now,’ said Sebastian testily as he joined them. ‘They make a sort of mooing noise in their public houses when Oasis comes on, wave their cans of Hooch and busk along with a few of the words to “Wonderwall”, but ask them to remember the chorus of “Soyez Pitoyables” from Les Brigands and see where it gets you.’
Moments later their victim found himself separated from the concert stragglers and forced into a litter-strewn alley at the side of the Hall. The area seemed to have been designed for the facility of brigands. In front of him were five imposing young men in Edwardian evening wear. Alarmed and confused as the shadows closed over him, he was still considering the correct response when Caton-James punched him hard in the stomach. To everyone’s surprise, the boy instantly threw up.
‘Oh God!’ squealed St John Warner, jumping back, ‘all over my shoes!’
‘Hold him still, will you?’ asked Sebastian. ‘Where’s Barwick?’
‘Over here.’
‘Keep an eye out. There’s a chap.’
Caton-James waited for the thin string of vomit to stop spilling from the young man’s mouth onto the concrete, then punched him again, watching dispassionately as he folded over, moaning. Sebastian drew back his shoe and swung it hard at the frightened face beneath him. The shoes were new, Church’s of course, and the heels still had sharp edges, so that his first kick removed most of the skin on the boy’s nose. He was haematose now, his eyes dulling as he kicked and kicked, his mind in another place. The body beneath him fell back without resistance. Even from his position at the alley entrance, Barwick could hear the sharp cracking of bones, like explosive caps being stamped on. Sebastian lowered his leg and bent forward to study the cowering, carmine-faced figure. Blood was leaking from his ears.
‘Looks like you’ve fractured his skull,’ said Caton-James. ‘We’d better go.’
‘You’re right. We’ll lose our table if we don’t get a move on.’ The light returned to Sebastian’s eyes as a chorus from La Chanson de Fortunio forced its way into his head. Nodding along with the melody, he reached forward and pulled the young man’s cracked head up by his hair, then gently blew on the tip of his cigar. Forcing his victim’s mouth open, he pushed the glowing stogie as far into his retching throat as it would go.
‘Christ, Sebastian.’ St John Warner grimaced, turning away.
With the annoyance taken care of, Sebastian rubbed the toecaps of his shoes against his calves until they shone, and straightened the line of his brocaded waistcoat. The Offenbach chorus rang on in his head, unstoppable now.
‘I’m famished,’ he said, glancing back at the convulsing body with distaste. ‘Let’s eat.’ He led his men from the alleyway towards the bridge as Barwick attempted to lighten the mood, regaling the group with a scurrilous story about Sir Thomas Beecham. As they left the dying man behind, their dark laughter was absorbed in the gaiety of the dissipating crowds.
‘BECAUSE I SAW you trying to nick it, smartarse,’ shouted the stallholder. The name of his stall was Mondo Video, and supposedly sold cult trash/rock/horror items on VHS, but these days his stock had been decimated by the need to conform with tougher censorship restrictions. It didn’t help being sandwiched between a woman selling secondhand children’s jumpers and a falafel takeaway, either.
‘I wouldn’t be caught dead nicking anything from this stall,’ Vince countered, waving one of the video boxes in his hand. ‘Check out the picture-quality of this stuff, it’s burglary.’
‘Burglary?’
‘Yeah, like watching the screen with a pair of tights pulled over your face. You got a nerve trying to offload it onto the public.’
‘Well, don’t bother trying to half-inch any of it, then.’ The stallholder rested his hands on his hips, amused by the boy’s cheek. Maybe he’d seen him before; it was hard to tell. The worn-over sneakers, the clipper haircut, the ever-shifting eyes and the sallow complexion of a fast-food diet were common juvenile stigmata around here. But this one had a freshness, a touch of charm.
‘Wouldn’t give you the benefit of my custom, not for this load of pants. Of course, you probably dosh up from your export stock.’ ‘Export’ was the universal code for videotapes that had not been classified by the British authorities. It was illegal to sell such merchandise to the public unless it was for export. It would have been especially foolhardy trying to offload such material in Shepherd’s Bush market, which was constantly patrolled by police. The stallholder feigned shocked indignation, a skill he had practised and perfected long ago.
‘I hope you’re not suggesting I break the law.’
‘Well, you ain’t gonna make your money back flogging fifth generation copies of Black Emmanuelle Goes East with the good bits cut out, are you?’ said Vince. ‘This technology’s dead, anyway. If you’re gonna market cult videos, you need old BBFC–certificated stock, something the DPP can’t touch, and I have the very thing.’ He looked about for signs of the law, then dug into his leather duffel bag and produced a boxed tape. ‘Check that out, mate.’
Vince had travelled the country buying up stock from dealers who had withdrawn tapes following advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions. ‘First generation rental, and – technically – totally legal,’ he explained, pointing to an original copy of The Exorcist. He opened the lid and displayed a dealer stamp from an Aberystwyth public library as proof. ‘There you go. That’s so clean it belongs in a photo-opportunity with a politician.’
Vince knew he had made a sale the moment the tape passed into the stallholder’s hands. It was easy to spot the fanatical zeal in the eyes of a true collector. In the next few minutes he sold the remainder of his stock for six times what he’d paid, and left behind a grateful buyer. As he strutted between the crowded railway arches, back towards the entrance of the market, a little mental arithmetic confirmed that he was within sight of his financial target. He could now afford to reduce his hours at the store and concentrate on his assignment for Esther Goldstone.
He took a last look back at the boisterous crowds. Not so long ago the transactions taking place beneath the railways of London involved Jacobean candlesticks, Georgian silver and Victorian paintings of dubious provenance. Now they teemed with housewives who had been forced into scouring stalls for cheap children’s clothes. Only the contumacious energy of the multitude remained.
An hour later, he kept his appointment at Goldstone’s cluttered Covent Garden office, situated above a mediocre Italian restaurant in Floral Street. Esther was an agent, and the mother of a boy he had befriended on his journalism course. An editor of her acquaintance named Carol Mendacre was preparing a volume of new London journalism for her publishing house. Esther had read several of Vince’s unpublished articles, and had been sufficiently intrigued to pass them onto the editor, who in turn had expressed an interest in commissioning a more substantial piece. If the finished product worked and the book did well, it would lead to further assignments. Esther was happy to offer guidance to her protégé. She felt that his writing had conviction, although his style was a little wild and ragged.
Now she listened patiently as he explained what he wanted to write about. She was a good listener, smiling and nodding as she absently touched her auburn hair. Glitzily maternal, she wore rings set with bulbous semi-precious stones on almost every finger, and sported an array of gilt ropes at her bosom. This may have given her the appearance of being Ali Baba’s business manager but she was, in fact, a highly respected agent with a fondness for nurturing new writers.
‘I don’t see why nine per cent of the population should own ninety per cent of the land,’ Vince told her heatedly, ‘or why the country needs hereditary peers. It astonishes me that a city of nine million people selects its living options from a shortlist of outmoded ideas; that politicians are working for the common good and that the state has the welfare of all at its heart. The state is supposed to be there to uphold a sacred trust; to protect what rightfully belongs to its people. That concept disappeared when everything was sold off. How did we let it slip away? Isn’t it time politicians learned that you can’t excuse an incompetent career by having your picture taken with your arms around your children?’
‘You’re ranting, dear; I don’t like that,’ Esther gently chided him. ‘Opinionated rhetoric is the province of the elderly, not twenty-five-year-olds. I read the piece based on the interviews you conducted. It was interesting enough, in a hectoring way. What Carol needs for this anthology is balanced reportage, not mere vocalised anger. No kneejerk stuff. Nothing in life is as clear-cut as you think. Don’t turn this into a bleat about the class system; it’s all been said before, and by writers far more articulate and experienced than yourself. Let’s discuss practicalities. What I’ll need from you fairly quickly is an outline of your intended piece.’
In the street outside, the Garden’s performers were calling to the crowd, encouraging them to chant a set of comic refrains. Beyond this chorus, Vince could hear a coluratura soprano singing scales in the rehearsal room of the Opera House. A peppery cooking smell was wafting through the open window. There was an undertow of garlic in the air; restaurants were preparing for their evening sittings. On the roof above, someone was having a barbecue. So much life crowded on top of itself.
‘You want me to pick something else to write about,’ he said moodily.
‘Not at all! The subject of class fits perfectly with what the editor has in mind, so long as you find an involving approach to your material. Don’t just create a patchwork of facts and opinions. Find a vessel in which to present your argument. Don’t forget – if she likes what you write, a quarter of the book will be yours. The other authors in the anthology all have extensive previous experience. You’ll be her wild card, her new face. I’m counting on you to do this, Vincent.’
He sat back in his chair, chastened and feeling foolish. He wanted to leave her with a good impression. Esther reached over and placed a plump hand on his, her bracelets chinking. ‘Stop looking so worried. You’ll do fine, I’m sure. Just go back and concentrate on the project. Ask yourself if you’ve chosen your topic for the right reasons. It’s obvious to me that you care, but that’s nowhere near enough. Everyone feels passion about something. Everyone has ideas about their world. You need to refine yours through individual insight and experience.’
Her business manner returned as she withdrew her hand. ‘It’s not official yet, but this book is going to be part of a more ambitious project. Carol is hoping to sign a deal for a whole series of volumes, probably twelve in all. Each will feature the work of between four and six authors. They’ll be setting out to chronicle the state of the world at the end of the twentieth century. She’s come to me to help her find fresh young talent, and I don’t want to disappoint her. You know I like your style, Vincent. I loved your London pieces and I’d love for you to become one of the series’ regular authors. But you’re not a recognised journalist. You’re young, and the ideas of the young are not always thought through. You’ve only been published in fringe magazines. It all depends on you getting this first project right. I don’t want to interfere editorially, but if you have problems with your material, bring them to me and I’ll be happy to help you sort them out.’
‘You have more faith in me than I have,’ he said quietly.
‘My interest isn’t wholly philanthropic, I assure you.’ She twisted a thick gold band on her finger, a gift from her divorced husband. ‘As you know, I left the agency to set up on my own. This office is expensive, and Morris’s settlement only goes so far. I promised Carol I’d find her fresh talent. I have to make this work. I search the literary backstreets for new blood, and what I find rarely holds promise. When I get someone like you, I hang on in hope. That you’ll come through, that you’ll be different from the rest. So write about London, if that’s what interests you.’
‘It’s just . . . finding where to start.’
‘Listen to that.’ Esther sat back in her chair and nodded in the direction of the open window. ‘What do you hear? Street vendors, tradesmen, punters, hawkers – and ranging above them, the opera singers. The centuries haven’t overturned their roles. You talk about class. If the class system is so terrible, how come it’s still here? What keeps it in place? Money? Breeding? Sheer selfishness? Perhaps you can find out.’
She rose suddenly, closing the session. ‘Make it human, Vincent. There’s much you won’t understand unless you can find someone who’ll explain from the inside how the system works. Try getting to know such a person. Assemble facts and figures, by all means –’ she leaned forward, smiling now, and prodded him with a varnished nail, ‘– but filter them through that pump in your chest. Give your writing some heart.’
AS HE EMERGED from Esther Goldstone’s office and crossed the road, clearing clouds released the afternoon sun, gilding the terraced buildings of Floral Street in brassy light. Vince knew he could not spend the rest of his life studying. He had taken night courses in photography, advanced English, history and journalism, with varying degrees of success. He had written and published sixteen poorly-paid articles on London, its history and people in a variety of fringe newspapers and desktop-produced magazines. Now at the age of twenty-five, he felt himself in danger of becoming a permanent student. He did not have enough cash saved to go travelling, and he was too tired to consider the prospect of backpacking across the campsites of Europe in search of sensation.
His mother wanted him to find a regular job, start a family and settle down, or at least stay in one place long enough to save some money. He wanted to work at a single project instead of half a dozen, to pick a direction and stick with it, but so far writing had earned him nothing, and the spectre of hitting forty in a ratty cardigan and a damp flat surrounded by thousands of press clippings filled him with depression. He did not want to fight his way into the media world determined to produce award-winning documentaries, only to wind up writing video links for cable kids’ shows. He was more ambitious than that.
His brother Paul had screwed up royally, telling everyone he was holding down a highly-paid job at London Weekend Television as a technician. Far from being gainfully employed, he was caught breaking into a stereo component factory in Southend, and served four years of a six-year sentence for inflicting damage to one of the security guards. He was now working on an army base in Southampton. Vince was determined to do better than that, just to convince his mother that she hadn’t raised her children in vain.
He rubbed a hand through his cropped black hair and looked back at the tourist-trammelled Piazza, at the gritty haze above it caused by street-cooking and car exhausts, then at the quiet curving street ahead. It was his afternoon off from the store, and he planned to visit Camden Library to raid their reference section. Now that he had set aside his misgivings and accepted the commission, he needed to develop a working method that would allow him to deliver the assignment on time. More than that, he needed a human subject to interview, but had no clue about how to find one.
As he passed a newsagent’s shop in Charing Cross Road, he glanced in the window and idly studied the incongruous array of magazines. Between copies of Cable TV Guide and Loaded were a number of sun-faded society magazines, including a copy of The Tatler. On its cover was a laughing couple in evening dress, attending some kind of hunting event.
It made sense to purchase the field-guide to his chosen subject. As he thumbed through the pages, checking the captioned photographs, he felt as though he was facing an enemy for the first time. His knowledge of the class system’s upper reaches was minimal and, he knew, reactionary, but studying a display of guffawing nitwits tipping champagne over each other in a marquee – ‘The Honourable Rodney Waite-Gibbs and his girlfriend Letitia Colfe-Burgess, raising money for Needy Children’ – filled him with an irrational fury that deepened with each page he turned. There were photographs of silky, bored debutantes seated beside improbable floral arrangements in Kensington apartments, drunk young gentlemen collapsed over wine-stained tablecloths, elderly landowners awkwardly posed at their country seats, their slight smiles hinting at perception of their immortality.
They struck Vince not as sons and daughters and brothers and sisters, but as dwindling continuations of lines buried deep in the past, barely connected to his world. Their forefathers’ determination to civilise others had certainly earned them a place in history. Thumbing through The Tatler though, he could only assume that their children had collectively decided to abandon themselves to less altruistic pursuits.
One series of photographs particularly intrigued. They showed a handsome, haunted man with a contrite look on his face shying from cameras as he entered a grime-covered granite building. The caption read: ‘The Honourable Sebastian Wells puts his troubled past to rest over a conciliatory dinner with his estranged father, Sir Nicholas Wells, at the Garrick Club.’ In the entire magazine, this was the only hint that something was wrong in the upper echelons. He found himself wondering what sort of trouble the honourable Sebastian Wells had got himself into. He planned to write about London from the view of his own working-class background, but it needed someone like this to provide his ideas with contrast. What were the chances of getting a member of the aristocracy to talk to him? How did he even set about obtaining a telephone number? Wells’s father belonged to the House of Lords, which at least made him easier to track down.
Vince closed the magazine and headed off towards the library at a renewed pace. He had found his human subject. And his method of choosing Sebastian Wells could not have been more constitutional if he had simply stuck a pin in an open telephone directory.
‘AND YOU MUST be Vincent Reynolds.’
Vince squinted up into the sun, raised a hand to his brow and saw a slim-shouldered man with floppy chestnut hair and green eyes smiling down at him. He knew at once that this was the person he had arranged to meet, and smiled back. He thought later that it had been the preposition in that introductory sentence which had given the stranger away, turning Vince’s name into the postscript of some deeper thought.
‘Sorry, I was nearly asleep,’ he explained, nervously closing his book.
Sebastian Wells held out a manicured hand. The skin was pale and traversed with bulging veins. ‘Nice to meet you at last. All those messages going back and forth, all that modern technology and we still couldn’t connect.’ He looked around at the gardens, the sloping lawn. ‘I’ve not been over here before.’
‘I’m sorry, I picked it because I understood you lived nearby.’
‘My father has several houses in the area, that’s correct, but I spend very little time here.’ He didn’t pronounce the r in very.
The late summer afternoon had begun warm, but its lengthening shadows were chill. For the last half-hour Vince had been sitting on a wooden bench just below the cream wedding-cake façade of Kenwood House, in front of a gnarled and ancient magnolia tree. He had vaguely registered the man walking up from the dank green lake at the bottom of the slope. Sebastian Wells was styled in that self-consciously English manner Americans sometimes affect when they move to London. The navy-blue cable-knit sweater over his bespoke blue and white striped shirt was almost parody-Brit, and had the effect of setting Vince at a disadvantage in his Mambo sweatshirt, jeans and filthy sneakers.
‘You’re reading about the Jews?’ Sebastian tapped Vince’s book cover. ‘Fascinating stuff. The great majority of English Jews are Ashkenazim.’ He joined Vince on the bench. His clipped enunciation suggested the speech of an elderly member of the aristocracy, and seemed false in one so young. ‘From Germany, Holland and Poland. Edward the First banished them from England in 1290. Oliver Cromwell let them back in three and a half centuries later. What exactly are you researching?’
‘How do you know I’m not just reading this for pleasure?’
Sebastian tilted the cover of the book and narrowed his eyes. ‘Societal Group Structures In Nineteenth-Century European Culture. What, you thought you’d get through it before the movie version came out?’
‘It’s for research, you’re right,’ he admitted. ‘I’m studying for a course.’ He was determined to speak nicely and not drop his aitches, something he always tried when meeting new people but only managed to keep up for twenty minutes or so. The difference in their speech alone suggested an unbridgeable gulf between them. Sebastian’s consonants were cut crystal.
‘Oh? And which course are you taking?’
‘History of London. It’s just three nights a week. An aid to my writing.’
‘Oh, a night course. The Open University. How exciting. And that subject interests you, does it?’
‘All journalism interests me.’
‘So why aren’t you taking a course in journalism?’
‘I’ve already taken one. Now I’m on the creation and maintenance of British social divisions.’
‘Goodness, that sounds like heavy going. Your manner of speech is very clear. I like that.’
Vince thought this an odd sort of compliment. ‘My parents taught me to enunciate clearly,’ he explained. ‘They felt it was important to be understood. My dad needed to be for his job. He was a bus conductor. He used to shout out the destinations. I was a bingo caller for a while last summer. You have to speak clearly for that. A lot of the customers are deaf.’
‘How interesting.’ Sebastian placed his hands behind his back and nodded, adopting the kind of pose Prince Charles holds when a foreman describes the cubic capacity of a drainage outlet to him. ‘Of course, one mustn’t confuse diction with clarity of intention. Did you know that there are as many accents in an English street as there are in the whole of America?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Vince. ‘Anyway, what you say is more important than how you sound.’
‘True, but it’s advisable to speak properly if you wish to be taken seriously. Listen to that.’
He looked down towards the lake. One small child was hitting another with a large section of torn-off branch. Even from there Vince could hear them screaming ‘fuck off’ at each other.
‘Of course, one’s language has a tendency to reveal one’s class, doesn’t it? Which position in society’s beehive do you occupy?’
Vince closed his book and rose from the seat with more aggression than he had intended. ‘I’ll give you a clue. My dad rode Routemaster buses down the Old Kent Road. He died of a heart attack at forty-eight. My mum still works in a shoe shop. I grew up in Peckham.’
Sebastian dismissed the reply with a wave of his hand. ‘Oh well, it’s a classless country now, if the television is to be believed.’
‘What class am I to assume you are, then? Upper middle?’
‘Me? Heaven forfend. There’s nothing remotely middle about it. Nobody in our family has ever held down a proper job. We just own land. Lots and lots of it.’
Vince studied his companion carefully. He looked to be about twenty-seven.
‘Yeah, but you must do something.’
‘Why must I? We socialise, support charities, run societies, that sort of thing. My father works for the WBI, an organisation that is attempting, wrongly in my opinion, to remove all trade barriers between European member countries. As a lord he cannot represent in parliament, of course, and as the House of Lords exists primarily to delay legislation, he has to find other ways of filling his time. At least that way we don’t have to rush about raising money for the upkeep of the family pile.’
‘And you?’
‘Oh, I chair debates. Hold parties. Play all sorts of games. I like games.’
‘Games get boring after a while. You must wish for a more substantial occupation sometimes.’
‘Yes, perhaps even in the same way that you do. I suppose in that respect our lives run on parallel lines.’
‘Which implies that they never cross over.’
‘Except at moments like this.’
‘But I work to eat,’ said Vince. ‘It’s not a diversion from being bored. It may be stating the obvious, but I do it because I don’t have any bloody money.’
They studied each other, equally intrigued.
‘I take it you are in employment, then.’ Sebastian made the idea sound disreputable.
‘I work in a home entertainment store. Just to pay the rent.’
‘Home entertainment.’ He savoured the concept for a moment. ‘What is that, exactly?’
‘CDs, videos, laserdiscs, interactive CD-Roms, play-stations, you know.’
But one look at Sebastian’s face told Vince that he didn’t know. He masked his ignorance with a brave smile. ‘Well, Mr Reynolds, I passed a coffee shop on the way in here. Would you think me exploiting the social orders if I offered to buy you a cup? As I’m to be the subject beneath your microscope, perhaps we should get to know each other a little better.’
Somewhere on the green slopes below, a bird was startled into singing. And somehow, through some mysterious osmotic process, Vincent Reynolds allowed himself to be gently drawn into a different world.
THE OFFICES OF Stickley & Kent were located in a parade of shops heralded by a long purple-painted brick wall with the words ‘Shambala Skins’ decoratively sprayed on it. On his afternoon off, Vince headed to the Kentish Town estate agency to share lunch with his two oldest friends.
‘Men are like taxis,’ Pam was telling Louie as he arrived. ‘You think the one you get inside is all yours until you realise that the seat is still warm from the last passenger.’ She held a steaming plastic beaker at eye level and examined it, turning over the contents with a plastic fork. It was the first time she’d paused for breath in twenty minutes. ‘You know, a simple anagram for Pot Noodle is Not Poodle. I shudder to think about what people stick into their bodies. Come to that, I shudder to think about what I stick in my body. Or rather, who.’
‘Your choices take some explaining, I’ll give you that,’ said Louie.
‘The trouble is,’ Pam continued, ‘everyone’s become so knowing. Men are adept at making each girl they date feel special for a set period of time before moving on, like waiters. Hi, Vince.’ Pam immediately broke off the conversation when Vince entered the office. She would never speak of other men in his presence because she loved him with every fibre of her being and longed to monopolise his every waking hour. The object of her adoration could not reciprocate, however.
‘That’s ’cause we’ve read all those magazine articles about what women really want,’ said Louie. ‘We know all the right moves.’ Louie was a velvet-voiced Antiguan who had been raised in the neighbourhood and was now studying at the University of North London. The real problem was that the three of them knew each other too well. Vince, Louie and Pam had grown up a few streets apart. Vince was amazed that they were still friends, given the different directions their lives were taking. He was aware of Pam’s infatuation with him – how could he not be when her eyes followed him around the room like peepholes in a gothic painting – but he also knew that they were not suited for each other. She entirely lacked imagination, a minor fault to many but a fatal flaw in Vince’s eyes.
Louie had piercings and a white strip of hair running down the centre of his stubbled black head, a look he had designed to accentuate his independence and nonconformity. Everyone he hung out with sported this look except Pam, who as an estate agent was excluded from the world of exotic personal statements. Louie was six feet, two inches tall and wore tight black leather, a common look in North London but this leather was expensive, not the usual rocker-tat they sold on the high street stalls. Instead of skull rings he sported enough gold jewellery to suggest that he was the advance scout for a Barry White revival. The other estate agents in the office barely noticed Louie’s attire; in this cosmopolitan section of London it labelled you a Neo-Punk, and was virtually treated as a job description.
Of course, neither Pam nor Louie expected Vince to be fashionable. Vince was Good Old Vince, dependable, down-to-earth and durable, like a pair of workboots. He cut his own hair, shopped in street markets and never bought a shirt without telling you how much he’d saved on it. He wore his background like a badge, so much so that he sometimes seemed almost a parody; a forgotten cockney caper, a throwback to a more innocent time.
‘Well, I’ve had enough,’ said Pam. ‘I’m really tired of this city.’
‘You’ve been saying that since you were fifteen.’
Pam provided a total contrast to Louie. Her hair was cut in a tight blonde bob, its hue discreetly elevated. Her suits were pastel, and her earrings (always ovals or drops) complemented her pearlised nail varnish. She idolised the corporate women she saw on American soaps, copied their clothes and read their magazines, but was unable to duplicate their aggressive behaviour. Vince reached over and dug a spoon into her lemon cheesecake.
‘Good to see you two haven’t run out of things to talk about.’
‘I just need to get out for a while, go somewhere where there’s some light and air,’ said Pam, finishing her cake and carefully brushing the crumbs from the desk. ‘The three of us could go away together.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Vince waved the idea away. They had this conversation twice a month.
‘Where would you go if you left London?’ asked Louie, filling three cups of coffee on Pam’s desk.
‘I don’t know. There are other cities. I’ve got to leave the flat. The council’s busy stocking my building with rehabilitated sex offenders and refugees who’ve not quite broken the habit of street-cooking. I’ll go somewhere where the men haven’t wised up yet. Eastern Europe. Prague, maybe.’
‘Prague’s full of American students doing Europe.’
‘Germany, then. I can’t stay here. London is finished. It’s dying under the weight of its own past. Look at the place, filthy, run-down, the roads permanently dug up, ugly new buildings cropping up like weeds, the public transport system collapsing, the politicians useless. And everyone’s so – angry.’
‘It was always like this,’ said Vince, accepting one of the coffees. ‘Take a look at the old photographs. Barely controlled chaos. That’s what I like about it.’
‘We know you do,’ said Louie. ‘Pam was telling me about this Sebastian Wells character. What’s the deal?’
‘He’s a genuine toff, photo in The Tatler, pile in the country, father in the House of Lords. My passport to fame and fortune,’ replied Vince. ‘When I finally managed to track him down I left about a million messages on his machine, but he didn’t answer any of them. Then I wrote to him and explained that I was working on a book – well, he doesn’t know it’s only a quarter of a book – about the British class system, and he agreed to be my live study subject.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He plays games.’
‘Games? What kind of games?’
‘Chess, mah-jong, ancient blocking games, puzzles, word games. I guess he has too much time on his hands.’
‘Upper class and idle. And a rich bastard too, I suppose.’
‘I don’t know, I only just met him. He looks rich. Manicured. His clothes have –’ he hunted for a suitable word.
‘Linings,’ suggested Pam.
‘His father’s some big shot in the European community. He bombards you with information all the time, like he’s teaching you stuff. He likes facts. Exactly what I need.’
‘I’m surprised he agreed to let you question him,’ said Louie, ‘considering your chosen subject.’
‘He doesn’t know anything about the angle I’m taking,’ Vince explained. ‘He’s gonna let me conduct a series of interviews, but he’s asked to vet the manuscript once I’ve finished.’
‘What if he doesn’t like what you’ve written? He could screw the whole thing up. You’re better off being honest right from the outset.’
Vince dropped his chin into his hands and looked out through the plastic sale-cards that dangled in the windows. ‘I don’t know. This is the first break I’ve had. People aren’t prepared to talk about the class system when it works in their favour. They’re wary of making enemies. As it is, I feel like I’m writing this under false pretences.’
‘You won’t be if you have to show him everything you intend to publish. So long as he has final approval, you might as well be employed by him.’ Louie checked his Swatch, then hefted a sports bag onto his shoulder and rose, turning to Vince. ‘There’s a simple way around that, of course. Take what you can from this geezer, lie yourself blue in the face to get his confidence, drain him of information, don’t show him what you’ve written, then do a real slag-off job in print. That’s how the tabloids do it. What do you care? He can’t sue if it’s all true.’
‘Nice attitude, Louie,’ said Pam. ‘Can’t you see that Vince feels uncomfortable about using someone?’ She did not understand his choice of career, but was always ready to defend him. To her, writing seemed a peculiar way to try to earn a living, as did any job without set lunch-hours.
‘He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met,’ Vince tried to explain. ‘His accent is so refined I can barely understand him. He can trace his ancestors back hundreds of years, to the House of York, John of Gaunt, all the Edwards and Richards. I can’t trace mine back two generations. If I was him, I wouldn’t even consider passing the time of day with me.’
‘You’re in awe of him, you wanker,’ shouted Louie gleefully. ‘You’ve gone all proley and apologetic. He’s already got to you. That’s how it works, don’t you see? They come on all superior and charming, and moments later you’re wringing your cloth cap between your hands and making excuses for getting in the way of their horses.’
‘You do always put yourself down, Vince,’ said Pam, clearing away the cartons, cups and paper bags that had held their lunch. ‘It’s such a shame. You’ve no self-esteem. Of course, neither have I, which is probably why I haven’t had a date this year unless you count Darren Wadsworth, and I don’t. Wait until I’ve finished my business management course, though. I’ll be a new me.’
Vince doubted it. Over the years his oldest female friend had not changed one atom. She was still hopelessly shy and inward-looking, and clung to the idea that the courses she took would eventually provide her with a dynamic personality, a change of character that would finally enable her to marry him and settle down.
‘It’s great that you’re getting a break on your project. I’m very pleased for you. You just don’t look too happy about it, that’s all.’
‘It’s because we got on so well. I didn’t think we would.’
‘Where’s the problem in that?’
It was so hard to put into words that he felt uncomfortable even discussing it with Pam. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said finally. ‘I’m the only one who benefits. Why would he bother to help me? What’s in it for him?’
‘You wanna watch it,’ Louie said and laughed. ‘It’ll be up to his club for tea and crumpets, a fine claret and a spot of buggery, and before you know it you’ll be back on the street with a sore arse and a gold sovereign for your troubles.’
Vince laughed too, but the questions in his head remained unanswered.
THEY HAD ARRANGED to meet for the first of their formal interviews in three days’ time. But here he was, standing before Vince in the reference room of Camden Library, the honourable Sebastian Wells himself. He had been seated across the room, making notes from a stack of what appeared to be gaming manuals. He was paler and thinner than Vince remembered, dressed in a superbly cut black suit and club tie, far too immaculate for grungy old North London.
‘Well, we meet again!’
‘Jesus! Sorry,’ said Vince, jumping. ‘You always seem to catch me unawares. What are you doing here?’
‘I must admit it’s not my territory, but I needed to look up the rules of a rather obscure Polynesian blocking game, and Highgate Library recommended a book held here. Saves spending hours at the British Library. What about you?’
‘The usual, research.’
Sebastian pulled out a chair and sat opposite. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking.’
He’s changed his mind, thought Vince, he doesn’t want to be interviewed.
‘The day before yesterday I agreed to answer your questions, didn’t I, but you know, perhaps you can help me just as much.’
‘I can? How?’
‘In our brief chat you made me realise just how little I know about working-class London. Forgive me, but you did admit to being working class.’ He smiled pleasantly, anxious not to cause offence.
‘Absolutely.’
‘So you can teach me something as well.’
‘What would you want to know?’
‘Facts, Mr Reynolds, facts. The more one is in possession of them, the better one’s overall frame of reference. How long are you going to be here today?’
‘Another hour, I imagine.’
‘I’ll tell you what. I’ve got all I need for now. I’ll come back for you in an hour, unless you have another appointment? We could go for a drink.’
‘I think I’ll be free then,’ said Vince. Like I have another appointment to go to, he thought as he watched the elegant subject of his interview stroll from the room, leaving the gaming manuals scattered across the table for someone else to put away. There was a charming air of vagueness about Sebastian, as if each thought he had was freshly plucked from the ether. He trusted everything to fall into place in its natural order. People like that never had to worry about landlords or night buses. The mundane clutter that separated most people from their dreams did not exist for him.
An hour and a quarter later they were sitting outside the Dingwall public house in Camden, watching bargees operating the canal lock below them and discussing Vince’s determination to be a successful writer. Sebastian had once attempted to write a technique manual on contract bridge, but had lacked the necessary drive to finish it.
Vince was unnerved by his new friend. Considering his argument for the equality of the classes, it was absurd to be in awe of someone like Sebastian, but he could not help himself. Perhaps this built-in respect for social order was a genetic thing. Looking at their surroundings, he felt embarrassed at the dirt and shabbiness, at the tattooed tribes folded up against walls, nursing their cans of lager.
‘I wonder if you have any idea how unique this is,’ said Sebastian, sipping his pint with a delicacy that suggested the experience was new to him. ‘Nobody I know would ever do anything like it.’
‘Then why are you?’
‘You asked the same question when last we met, remember? Surely you’ve acted out of sheer curiosity before.’
‘I do it all the time.’
‘There you are, then. The “class divide information exchange” starts here. I’ll ask you something, then you can ask me something, how about that.’
Vince dug around in his bag for a notebook and pencil. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘You start.’
‘Vincent. May I call you that? Were you named after Van Gogh?’
‘Nah. My dad liked Don McLean.’
Sebastian searched the air. ‘I’m not familiar . . .’
‘The title of a song. My turn. Why are you willing to do this? Why talk to me? Be honest.’
‘You’re not going to let it go, are you?’ Sebastian sighed. ‘For the same reason as you, to learn. Besides, you asked me if I would do it. Nobody’s ever done that before. You’re clearly a man of some insight and intelligence. I would have refused if I’d found you not to be so. My view of the world is every bit as limited as yours, I can assure you. We all need to expand our horizons, don’t you think?’
‘Fair enough.’ Vince made a note on his pad. ‘First of all, let’s find out what you don’t know.’
‘Fine. Ask me anything.’
‘Here’s an easy questionto start with. Pulp, Oasis and Blur are all – what?’
This was not what Sebastian had been expecting. He pursed his lips and thought for a moment. ‘Nouns?’ he asked desperately.
‘Wow.’ Vince was amazed. ‘They’re bands.’
‘Ah. Popular, I suppose?’
‘Very popular.’
‘I rarely listen to the wireless.’
‘Remind me to send you a tape. Now it’s your turn.’
‘Okay. Our family motto is Ad Astra Per Aspera. Do you have one, and if so, what is it?’
It was Vince’s turn to think. ‘Don’t Get Caught,’ he said finally. ‘And If You Do, Don’t Lag On Your Mates. When Manchester United plays Liverpool, who usually wins?’
‘I don’t know anything about football.’
‘I suppose you play rugby.’
‘No, polo.’
‘All right. If Robocop fought the Terminator, who would win?’
‘Ah, now I know this,’ said Sebastian confidently. ‘The Terminator. He’s a boxer, isn’t he?’
‘He’s more of a liquid metal cyber-android,’ Vince replied. ‘Remind me to send you another tape.’
‘Which after-school societies did you belong to?’
Vince laughed. ‘You don’t mean gangs, do you?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘We didn’t have any. It was as much as the teachers could do to keep from getting stabbed during the day, without extending the risk into the twilight hours. What did you belong to?’
‘Oh, the usual,’ Sebastian said airily. ‘Operatic, Scientific, Debating, Badminton, Christian Union, Stampfiends, Quo Vadis –’
‘What was the last one?’
‘Oh, you know, “Whither Goest Thou”, meetings about one’s future. Gilbert and Sullivan –’
‘They had their own society?’
‘Of course. Tennis, Numismatics, Bridge, Chess – and I was a moderately empassioned Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
‘I’m surprised you had any time left over for smoking and shagging behind the bike sheds.’ Vince drained his glass. ‘Although I suppose you went to a boys-only school.’
‘It made no difference on that front, I can assure you. The pupils of public schools are every bit as rebellious as their counterparts. Whose turn is it?’
‘Yours.’
‘Okay. Why do so many working-class people look for handouts all the time? Why can’t you organise yourselves properly?’
‘Because if we did, you’d all be murdered in the streets. The French got rid of their toffs, and look at them now; a national railway that works, great grub, unspoilt countryside, gorgeous women.’ Vince nodded at his empty glass. ‘Your round.’