‘If those who felt like me (and there are quite a few of us) suddenly decided to demand jobs, the social structure would collapse. Maybe that would be no bad thing according to certain people, but I’m no revolutionary. If ever any government threatened me with work I’d put on my dark glasses, take up my stick and kidnap a dog, tie a label on me saying “Blinded by Work”, and tap my way to the nearest seaport so as to make my getaway to foreign parts. I’ve no desire to take any man’s job, which is most likely his only reason for being on this earth at all. And if you’re appalled at the unparalleled extent of my self-sacrifice, maybe you’d like to make amends by buying me a cup of that marvellous Turkish coffee they sell here.’
‘How could anybody refuse after that little talk?’
‘People do,’ he said. ‘They’re vicious at times. Don’t think I made my decision to run this kind of life lightly. I didn’t. I was forty, in the prime of life, with a wife, two kids, a big flat, a mistress, two cars, a country cottage, as well as being near the top of my job in textile designing. It was a very comfortable and satisfying existence for the type of person I was then. I didn’t even feel that because things were so perfect there was nothing left in life for me. My decision to turn the other cheek wasn’t that shallow. But immediately I made up my mind, from one minute to the next, that the present life was no good for me, then I was a different person, and it was no longer satisfying, but a torment until I began to change it. The only thing I regret was not doing it the easy way by making the break clean enough. I was a liberal-humanitarian, so I did it by stages, thinking that this would be more effective, and that it wouldn’t allow me to change my mind, and that it would cause less pain all round. I wasn’t very strong-willed, you might say. My faith at the beginning wasn’t too strong. It had to develop, through the fire. So within the space of a few months my domiciles had come under the hammer, my wife was in a looney-bin, my children were in care, my mistress was having psychoanalysis, my job was filled by one of the hungry generation with sharper teeth than ever before, and I was in hospital with double pneumonia. But I knew that when the dust settled everybody concerned would be able to live the life they’d always wanted to lead.
‘It’s always better to act. Never stifle what you feel to be a fundamental impulse. If it causes chaos, so much the better, because maybe the right sort of order and happiness will arise from it. It can never come out of anything else, and that’s a fact, my friend. You look young and inexperienced enough to believe all I’m saying and maybe to benefit by it At least you deserve to, because I’m enjoying this coffee, even the mud at the bottom. Will you be in here to eat tomorrow night? If you are I’ll buy you a meal.’
‘God knows where I’ll be. I’ve got to start looking for a room in the morning.’ I felt at the bottom of a pit, dying from lack of sleep, so I paid my bill and trudged back to the hotel.
I must have got to sleep because it was suddenly morning, and when I looked at the fine-faced ticker-watch nicked from Clegg, it was nine o’clock. I dressed, dragged a razor over me, and went downstairs for breakfast.
It was a good meal, and I stuffed everything into me within reach, so as to get my money’s worth, and to save buying much for a midday meal. I shared a table with a melancholic blond Scandinavian from a town called Swedenborg who said he was writing articles on London vice dens. He had no appetite, so it was double toast and butter for me. He grumbled at not being able to work, because at each vice den he succumbed to much that was offered, which meant that he didn’t get back till dawn and had no time to crank up his typewriter and compose his piece. I couldn’t spend much sympathy with him, but wished him better luck, lit up a Whiff, and went out.
It was a raw morning, and though it was foul I liked it because it was in London. At the nearest newsagent’s I bought a street atlas and a copy of the local paper, two pieces of literature to see me through the day. It felt good to have my legs working again, and I was determined to walk them back into shape, for they’d grown soft in the glorious weeks of having a car. At Russell Square the ache was so sharp at my calves that I considered jumping a Tube to Soho, but gritted my toes and traipsed on, pausing now and again for a flip at the map. The girls looked lovely in their muffed-up coats, and fine sharp noses turned in the air. My eyes said good morning to each one passing, but a frosty nip was darted back as if even their cunts were cold.
The smell of the city was like Brilliantine and smoke, chicken and iron filings, and I fed on it as I walked along, even smiling at the curses of a taxi driver when I nipped too sharply on to a pedestrian crossing. You couldn’t take your rights too much for granted here, I thought, and was even glad of such cold comfort, for my backbone was made of optimism. Two million people were in their factories, shops, and offices, all endowed with the heavenly privilege of work, as Almanack Jack might have put it, and here was I for the moment at least cast in the mould of idleness that only their massive labour made possible. The very idea of it made me want to stop at the nearest bar for a cup of coffee, but what I wanted most was a piss due to the monstrous amount of tea I had put back at breakfast. I didn’t know a soul in London, and that as much as anything made me love it. With so much money I felt like a prince. I’d saved up to squander it in just this way, and to worry about it seemed more unnecessary than ever as I found a place on Tottenham Court Road to unload those pots of tea in.
That first day I walked and re-walked the whole middle area of London, and by the end of it, when I headed back in the direction of the hotel, I knew that it wasn’t as big as I’d always heard it was. The next day I did the City, and for a fortnight, till my money was near enough done for, I got familiar with most of the sprawl. At first the far-off places were known only from the Tube scheme. If I was at Bond Street and wanted to go to Hampstead I looked at the underground map and said to myself: ‘I’ll get on the Central Line to Tottenham Court Road, then turn left on the Northern Line, and go up until I see Hampstead on the station label.’ Often I’d fiddle my way down by bus until, eventually, if some foreigner (or even Londoner) stopped me in the street and asked where a certain place was I’d be able to tell them in five cases out of ten. This made me feel good, and was all very well but, as the dough ran low, it didn’t tell me how I’d latch on to any more. Not that I was obsessed by this, because I felt if it came to the worst I’d be able to do something like Almanack Jack, or get a job for a week or two, until something more money-like came along. What it would be I had no idea, and didn’t much care, because exploring this gigantic and continuous prairie of buildings during the day, and wandering around the West End like the Phantom of the Opera until late at night, didn’t leave much time or energy for serious speculation. In other words I was living the full life because I felt no real connexion to what went on around me. If I had, or began to, I should become buried in it and wouldn’t be able to see anything at all. Which was why I clung as long as possible to my arduous free wandering.
Opening my map one day near Leicester Square I saw a good-looking blonde girl coming down the street. As if puzzled and halfway lost I spoke when she drew level, asking if she could kindly direct me to Adam Street. ‘Unfortunately not,’ she said. ‘I’m not familiar too much with London because I come from Holland.’