Authors: Tom Campbell
‘When are you lot ever going to learn?’
James and Rachel looked up to see a short, middle-aged man. He was almost certainly the only person in the shopping centre apart from James wearing a tie, and he was shaking his head at them gravely.
‘Can I help?’ said James. ‘Have you got a view on the new plan?’
James recognised the type all too well. Although he was dressed smartly, his suit could easily be second-hand. He had neat grey hair and a moustache. If you didn’t know any better, you might have guessed that he had served in the army, but in fact it was likely that he had spent most of his adult life on some form of welfare benefit. James knew that he would be highly intelligent but economically incompetent and would have strongly held, wildly incoherent political opinions.
‘This scheme you’ve been dreaming up. It just isn’t going to work. None of it adds up.’
James could detect an unlikeable shrillness in his voice, the consequence of a lifetime of not being listened to.
‘Ah, adding up. James, I think this is more your domain,’ said Rachel. ‘I need to go for a cigarette.’
‘It simply isn’t going to work. And it certainly isn’t going to look like that,’ said the man, pointing over James’s shoulder.
James glanced back for a moment at his masterplan poster. He had overseen the design himself with a junior, and therefore less obnoxious, member of the council’s communications team, and he regarded it as his greatest creative achievement. It was large, almost two metres high, laminated with a cotton backing, and Lionel had grumbled about how much it had cost. But it was well worth it, if only because the image was everything that planning could be, everything he had once been taught and which he still believed in.
In the top left of the poster, the morning sunshine slanted powerfully through a friendly blue sky. A handsome black man in a suit and glasses strode into the foreground, his briefcase swinging confidently. A white woman, equally attractive and well dressed, was at his side, speaking into a mobile phone while holding a takeaway coffee. In the other direction, two boys on bikes with helmets and shoulder bags were hurtling towards school, while a grey-haired, fresh-faced woman walked her obedient Dalmatian dog. All of them were on a broad walkway lined with silver birch trees, which curved out from the new development behind them – a wonderfully bright and happy building, with rippled surfaces, undulating roofs bearing wind turbines, yellow bricks and green glass, irregular colour panels and rustic fittings. Just as important, of course, was what was missing: there were no cars, no clouds, no graffiti, no litter, no criminal damage or mental illness. They hadn’t even had to airbrush anything out, for the entire poster had been made on a computer, an ingenious montage of photos that the council owned the copyright on, fanciful architectural images and shapes and textures rendered with Californian software tools.
‘Do you want me to go through it with you?’ said James.
‘You don’t have to. I’ve already studied it. You’ve got it all wrong.’
While the usual problem with the British public was that they tended not to know anything, the real troublemakers were the ones who actually did. The retired civil engineers with radical transport solutions, the autodidacts who spent their days in public libraries mastering European environment regulations. These were the ones who weren’t just wrong, but were spectacularly, dangerously wrong – wrong in ways that must be discounted but couldn’t necessarily be refuted.
‘There are many problems with this plan, and I’ve outlined them in my written response. But the main one you’ve got is that it doesn’t take any account at all of traffic. What about car parking? You seem to be under the impression that everyone who lives here is going to be travelling exclusively by bicycle.’
‘Well, I think you’re quite right to the raise the issue and it is an important one. We’ve actually given it quite a lot of thought. We did commission a feasibility study that looked specifically at this.’
‘Oh, I’m well aware of that. But I haven’t been able to read it. I’ve submitted a number of Freedom of Information requests, and am still waiting. You do know that you’re obliged to reply in twenty-eight days to any request for information, unless it is pertains to the defence of the realm?’
James nodded sadly. Somebody like this couldn’t be placated with a polite conversation or a perfectly friendly and meaningless letter. Like looking into the eyes of certain dogs, engagement meant escalation. Unless James left for Nottingham, it was likely that the two of them would now spend a great deal of time having lengthy telephone conversations, combative meetings and curt email exchanges. James may even come to like him by the end of it – that did sometimes happen.
Rachel returned half an hour later. She had been shopping, she had bought something, and she was happy. For many people, it really was that simple.
‘I bought myself some new bed sheets,’ she said. ‘You know, it’s a real shame we’re knocking this shopping centre down.’
‘We’re not knocking it down. It’s going to be refurbished. Have you even read the masterplan?’
‘It’s not my project – I’m just here for the moral support. Anyway, while you were dealing with the nutter, I’ve been doing some big thinking on your behalf. What you need is a girlfriend. It’s actually quite urgent.’
‘Do you think so? I mean, more than anyone else does?’
‘Much more than most. It’s practically an emergency. You need someone to organise your life for you.’
‘But I am organised. I’m a town planner,’ said James.
‘Yes, but you’re no good at making plans for yourself,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re actually really bad at that.’
Rachel probably wasn’t as clever as Felix. It had taken her longer but she had come to a similar conclusion. Should he now tell her about the job in Nottingham? No – she would only agree with his mother: tell him to take it, to leave London, to get promoted and earn more money. Ultimately, her worldview was far more hard-headed, far more than useful, than his would ever be.
‘Look, it really is as simple as that. All you need to do is get a girlfriend and most of your problems will just disappear. It shouldn’t be difficult – you look half-decent.’
James nodded. Yes, he was tall, that still helped a bit, but there were other, more substantial issues. There was where he lived, what he did for a living, how much he earned, the quality of his book collection and the prints on his bedroom wall.
‘It’s not hard,’ said Rachel. ‘There is a well-established format. All you need to do is take one out for a date, buy her a drink and a meal, try not to stoop too much, and take it from there.’
‘Oh Christ – dates. I thought you might say that.’
‘Oh, my dear boy,’ said Rachel, who was actually the same age as James. ‘What on earth has happened to your confidence? You know it’s easier to date girls now than ever before in history.’
But James wasn’t so sure. Yes, there was the Internet now and feminism and sexual liberation, but none of those things had done him much good. Women were better informed and could make more choices, but it didn’t follow that they would choose him. In fact, what he could really do with was for the whole marketplace to become a bit less efficient, for people not to be able to see how many friends he had on Facebook, or find his job title and salary band on the Southwark Council website.
‘I think,’ said James, ‘that the historical circumstances aren’t necessarily to my advantage. I’m a town planner, remember. Most women I know have better paid jobs than me.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ she said. ‘It would probably help if you didn’t work for a local authority. But not every girl wants to go out with an investment banker or architect. And at least you’ve got a proper job with a pension – you’re not a poet or a skateboarder or anything.’
‘Don’t couples meet normally any more? Like at work or something?’
‘It’s all right. You’ll be able to handle a date. They can’t be any worse than all the other meetings you fill your life with. At least there won’t be any PowerPoint.’
Just then two more people approached with a speed and purpose that James knew could only mean trouble. A couple – a bony white man and a larger, more classically unattractive woman. These were the authentic voice of the South London suburbs. They looked ten years older than they actually were, owned a house and a car, had incomes that had failed to keep up with the cost of living and were tremendously angry. Of course, everyone in London was angry, but the fact that they possessed things gave their rage a particular focus and power.
‘Are you from the council?’ said the man.
‘Yes,’ said James. ‘We’re from the planning department and we’re here to talk about—’
‘Then you’re exactly the bloke I want to speak to.’
‘Do you want me to talk through the development plan? Do you live in the local area?’
‘I want to talk to you about our planning application, and why nobody in your office can be bothered to answer my phone calls.’
This was something that tended to happen at consultations. The problem was that planners spent a lot of time stopping things from happening. Up and down the country they were stopping people from turning their garden sheds into summerhouses and installing porches in conservation areas. And people hated them for it. It wasn’t fair, but they did. And when they did allow people to do things, if they let someone build a mosque or a factory or a wind farm, well then everyone else hated them instead. Worst of all, whether they were allowing or stopping things, it took them an awful long time, for James, like all planners, worked calmly and methodically, he worked incredibly slowly.
‘I’m sorry,’ said James. ‘Is this a specific planning issue? It’s just that we’re here to consult on a masterplan.’
‘Do you work for the council or don’t you?’ said the man.
James looked at Rachel, who for a moment looked as if she was going to disappear for another cigarette.
‘I’d be happy to talk to you about it,’ said Rachel. ‘James, why don’t you go and get lunch for us. Residential developments are something I have responsibility for, and I’m sure we can sort this out.’
James hopped down and walked away as quickly as he could. But where was he going? The shopping centre, even one as old as this, hurt his eyes and he had no idea how he would ever be able to buy something as simple as a sandwich here. There were too many reflective surfaces, too much luminosity, too many adverts. Of course, what he really would have wanted was to start all over again. It was every planner’s dream. Not to have to tweak deficient settlements, to accommodate narrow-minded residents or negotiate with selfish landowners. But, of course, you never did. Instead, you had to work with what you had. And what you had was always terrible.
It wasn’t just Clifford’s shopping centre or Sunbury Square or Southwark. It wasn’t even London. For James had been born in 1980 and all the battles had been fought before he had turned ten years old. After a century of catastrophic utopian experiments, the Western world, James’s world, the entire world, had settled on a system that best fitted human nature and was therefore, of course, the very worst of them all. A system of prohibitions and permissions, punishments and prizes, all constructed upon human faultlines and appetites, designed to provide an infinite variety of pleasures, and which had made people unhappy in ways that they could once only have dreamt of. And as a result, the shopping centre was unhappy, the city was unhappy. James could feel it, but he was unable to describe it, and all the town planning in the world wouldn’t be able to cure it.
‘I think I’ve just had a professional crisis,’ said James. ‘It’s dawned on me that everything we do for a living is futile.’
It had taken forty minutes, he had got lost twice, but he was back with a plastic bag of sandwiches, crisps and orange juices. And, thankfully, in the meantime, Rachel seemed to have neutralised the couple with false promises and hopes.
‘You’re such a hilarious
novice
. All planners come to hate and despair of the job. I can’t believe it’s taken you so long. This is a real breakthrough. You might actually have a successful career in front of you now.’
‘I don’t hate all of it,’ said James. ‘I don’t mind producing maps and plans. It’s just that we never actually spend much time doing that. Instead, we spend most of our time talking to people who don’t like us.’
‘Of course, it would make the job so much easier if no one actually lived in London.’
He stared at the shopping centre crowds, the men in red tracksuits, the teenage boys in their shiny coats and the girls in their bubblegum pink skirts. This was his tribe – the people who he had vowed to help and to improve, whether they wanted him to or not.
‘What can we do about it? We’re only town planners,’ said Rachel. ‘We’re not the city’s parents. If you start thinking like that, if you start taking responsibility for everything and everyone, then you’re doomed.’
James nodded calmly and sat back down on his canvas chair. They ate their sandwiches. The consultation continued, and lunchtime dissolved into Saturday afternoon. James and Rachel talked politely and listened carefully. James kept his spine bent, his shoulders hunched and tried as hard as he could not to be taller than the public. They asked people to write things down on cards and made a point of nodding their heads agreeably, asking helpful little questions and giving exaggerated thanks for each contribution. A man in a wheelchair was bothered about the safety of pedestrian crossings, but it wasn’t clear if this was a problem with the masterplan or a more general concern. An Irish woman with a lovely voice was worried that the new development would bring more Muslims into the area. A Turkish man with sad eyes said that he was scared to go out at night because of all the black drug dealers. A handsome woman from Jamaica said that the area was being ruined by the Polish, who were always getting drunk.