Lights out for the territory : 9 excursions in the secret history of London 9781862070929, 186207092X

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WHAT THE CRITICS HAVE SAID ABOUT THE FIRST PRINTING OF THIS BOOK

‘It is

He

a book about London;

...

in

it is,

other words, a book about everything.

has an unnerving habit of turning his friends or acquaintances into

fictional creatures, but then all great fabulists will wish to

range to the

living as well as the

dead. And that

is

extend their

indeed lain Sinclair’s

project, creating out of the world of time a city that has a manifold

and

perpetual presence.’ Peter Ackroyd, The Times

once scholarly and shocking, arcane and irreverent, it makes up a remarkable guerrilla guidebook to a secret city, and is a considerable work of literature in itself.’

‘At

Scotsman

‘lain Sinclair’s Lights

A

Out for the Territory \s a

brilliant writer of invective,

But his triumph

is

he blazes with

riot of a

fury.

book on London.

No one

is

spared.

a London seen from the lavish surroundings of a

riverside apartment

owned by Lord Archer

of Weston-super-Mare.

Sinclair’s is a treasure of a guide to London’s cultural squalor.’ Reg.Gadney, Observer

Thames and Limehouse, Jack the Ripper and Hawksmoor, all the city’s power and conspiracies and squalor, and spread them out in a panorama worthy of Dickens and

‘[His] ambition is

Conrad

...

...

to take the

Through polemic and travelogue and memoir, the cruel and

seething modern city emerges.’ Andy Beckett. Independent on Sunday

^^[He] has like is*'

a wonderful

of

some defahged David

of ordinary life

way

London streets

making London seem

Bellamy, he

will lift

like

another country;

up thh stones and cobbles

to reveal all kinds of strange

and wonderful

crawling beneath.’ Matt Seaton, Guardian Mr

^The

ni(|i$t'origi|ial^b(jok

on London

in

'

decade^... [h|s] Loi^£is’^im|ch-,‘' ~

Si^awMiiporf palimpsest, a continually redwelO|)ed message, and' Sinclair can read more into a patch of thin-grassed wasteland littered ^#t{|cans and dog ih^ than most scholars can find to say aBrout the portico ppSt feuls;’ Time Out

A trayeldgue througtj^tlm suppressed shadows pf Ldrid'(jh's%sprawl. This is t ding at'M^psrt dJithralling and un$e

attd omltiqus

as dystojfid^i^.

,,

>'

"

,

PUBLIC I

SAN RAF

SAj"! Ry-\I'A£L,

Withdrawn from

CALIF(

“Iain Sinclair’s Lights

Out

A

of invective

writer

brilliant

But

spared.

is

of

collection iNO

triumph

Sinclair’s

is

is

a

a treasure

of

guide to London’s cultural

a

ILEG GADNEY, The Observer

squalor.”

DATE DUE “These

one

London seen from the lavish surroundings apartment owned by Lord Jeffrey Archer of Weston-

his

a riverside

super-Mare.

for the Ji

APR

ni.

out” for h

'MAR QQ!

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j

4

Linn,

[

Ann

that

-1

most pote

lights

mind

^0(Kl

best.

is

at

the

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“Iain Sine

/

jagged; the

SEP

conjures

—

1

head in

and

.

a

Sinclair

—of the

20fl?

finest

ij

wifn rnv

ilU,

they have across

2002

urban.

is

ribe the sin-

DEC 2 7

books aboi

iCCl

1

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Rularitv an

1

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tch

their citv as

{

e to stumble

i

Sme

lan

^

i

eal strengths

ot this coll-

characteris-

“Sinclair’s

exhilarating

[He] has trv’ like

y

—

other coun-

a

—

so

i

stones and strange

cobbles of

wonderful

Supplement

GAYLORD

PRINTED

IN u.s. A

and

irdion

Thames and Limehouse, Jack the Ripper and Hawksmoor, all the city’s power and conspiracies and squalor, and spread them out in a panorama worthy of Dickens and Conrad... Through polemic and travelogue and memoir, the cruel and seething modern city emerges.” ANDY BECKETT, The [London] “His ambition

is.

.

.

to take the

Independent on Sunday

“Spot on... Lights Out for

holy ground of

the Territory ensures that the

Londons streets, pubs and canals will never PORTER, The [London] Sunday Times

smell the same again.”

ROY

\

“Sinclair’s survey

a

is

kaleidoscopic guide to London’s sub-culture,

packed with information,

to disintegration, a guide

indigenous populace and character...

“Iain Sinclair

deep.”

is

difficult to beat.”

exhilarating company...

JOAN BAKEWELL,

[his]

historical detail,

London Magazine

London

is

ancient and

Evening Standard

book on London in decades... [his] London is a much-scrawled upon palimpsest, a continually redeveloped message, and Sinclair can read more into a patch of thin-grassed wasteland littered

“The most

original

with cans and dog

shit

portico of St. Paul’s.”

than most scholars can find to say about the

Time Out

“At once scholarly and shocking, arcane and remarkable guerrilla guidebook to

work of literature

“A

in itself.”

enthralling

“It

a secret city,

is

a

thing.

and

is

unsettling.”

book about London;

and

the city

Arena

it is,

in other words, a

will

wish to extend their range to the living

that

is

Sinclair’s project, creating

as

book about everyall

his

friends

or

great fabulists

well as the dead.

And

out of the world of time

manifold and perpetual presence.”

The [London] Times

a

memories and ominous shadows of dystopia, writing at its most

acquaintances into fictional characters, but then

a city that has a

makes up

a considerable

is

He... has an unnerving habit of turning

indeed Iain

it

The Scotsman

travelogue through the suppressed

of London’s sprawl. This

irreverent,

PETER ACKROYD,

Lights

Out for

the Territory

•7>

J

/ I

>

\

i

»

1 I

T.

Lights 9

Out for

Excursions

in

the Territory

the Secret History of London

Iain Sinclair With illustrations

by

Marc Atkins

San Rafoo! PubMc Library L u [: vL troet San Raidal, CA 24301 />

•f i

{

Granta Books London/New York

'

First

published in Great Britain by Granta Books 1997

Granta Publications Ltd, 2/3 Hanover Yard, Noel Road,

London N1 8BE

© lain Sinclair 1997 Illustrations © Marc Atkins 1997 Copyright

moral right under the Copyright,

lain Sinclair has asserted his

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified

All rights reserved.

No

as

author of this work.

reproduction, copy or transmissions of this

may be made without written permission. No paragraph publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save

publication

of this

with written permission or

Copyright Act 1956

in

accordance with the provisions of the

amended). Any person

(as

unauthorised act in relation to

this

criminal prosecution and

A CIP

publication

civil

who

does any

may be

liable to

claims for damages.

catalogue record for this

book

is

available

from the British Library 5 7 9

Typeset by

10 8 6

M Rules, UK and Red Canoe, US

Printed and

bound

R.R. Donnelley

&

in

The United

States

by

Sons, Inc., Harrisonburg,

VA

Dedication i.m.

Angela Carter, Robin Cook.

And Michael Moorcock

in Texas

Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2016

https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781862070097

Keep

the river road, all the way,

take shoes

and next time you tramp,

and socks with you.

Mark Twain, The Adventures

of Huckleberry Finn

I

i

s i.

fS?*Vj

s

•

*

i‘i

1.

f

•*

I

-t

*u‘

V-

UlI

}

•i

t

Contents

Skating on Thin Eyes:

The

First

Walk

1

The Dog

Sc

the Dish

55

Bulls Sc Bears

&

Mithraic Misalignments: Weather in the City 89

X

Marks the Spot 133

Lord Archer’s Prospects 165

House in the Park 211

The Shamanism of Intent 243

Cinema Purgatorio 279

The Cadaver Club 331

Acknowledgements and 375

Select Bibliography

'7/i-

'r

SKATING ON THIN EYES: THE FIRST WALK

magus dee dreams of a stone

the

island in force, dying in poverty,

drunk on angelspeech, udiich paradoxically, he has not actually heard, the scales of music tripping to create

upward

to

evade him in perpetual deferral

open outward the place of definition.

RICHARD MAKIN

The notion was

to cut a crude

V into the sprawl of the

city,

to vandalise

dormant energies by an act of ambulant signmaking. To walk out from Hackney to Greenwich Hill, and back along the River Lea to Chingford Mount, recording and retrieving the messages on walls, lampposts, dooijambs: the spites and spasms of an increasingly deranged

populace.

had developed

(I

this

curious conceit while working on

my

novel Radon Daughters: that the physical movements of the characters across their territory

Dynamic

might

spell

out the

letters

shapes, with ambitions to achieve a

of

life

a secret alphabet.

of their own, quite

independent of their supposed author. Railway to pub to the line

on

the map. These botched runes, burnt into the script in the

heat of creation, offer an alternative reading scious text capable of divination

would function

Armed

hospital: trace

with

as a

a

—

and prophecy.

a subterranean,

A sorcerer

s

precon-

grimoire that

curse or a blessing.)

cheap notebook, and accompanied by the photogra-

pher Marc Atkins,

1

would

transcribe

all

the pictographs of venom that

The messages

decorated our near-arbitrary route.

were, in truth, unim-

Urban graffiti is all too often a signature without a document, an anonymous autograph. The tag is everything, as jealously defended as the Coke or Disney decals. Tags are the marginalia of corporate tribportant.

ahsm. Their offence

is

to parody the

most

black magic. Spraycan bandits, like

Hours, hold to their etition.

own

it

free.

a

Book of

patch, refining their art by infinite acts of rep-

fellow taggers,

stands in place of the individual artist

freedom, becomes

of high capitaHst

monks labouring on

The name, unnoticed except by

assertion:

visible aspect

The

public autograph 1

is

is

a gesture,

an

who, in giving up his an announcement of

nothingness, abdication, the swift erasure of the envelope of identity. Its like

Salvador Dali in his twilight years putting his

mark on hundreds of

blank sheets of paper, authenticating chaos. Serial

composition; the

lay claim to.

“We

are

city

all artists,”

is

the subject, a fiction that anyone can

they used to cry in the Sixties.

the price of an aerosol, its true. Pick your

happened. (Take

that have not yet

vie^ >and

sign

it.

Now,

Sign events

down somewhere

a stroll

for

like

Catherine Wheel Alley, off Bishopsgate, and see the future revealed on a wall

of white

back to the

tiles.

surface.

Superimposed

The

A private

Tourette

fantasies. Scarlet swastikas s

swimming

syndrome ravings of an outwardly

which to let out all the overtly disguised racist bile. The madness has to find somewhere to run wild. Obscene formulae incubating terrorist bombs. Runnels and enclosed ditches where unwaged scribes are at last free of the surveillance cameras.) Remember postal art, Fluxus} All that European and reformed

city.

transatlantic Graffiti

The

bumf now

place, a

narrow

passage, in

consigned to a bunker beneath the Tate Gallery?

the Year Zero version.

is

who

mark on a wall, is a hit and run calligrapher — probably young, MTV-grazing and male. His art is nomadic, a matter of quantity not quality. As often as not, the deed is carried out on the way back from a club in the early hours of the morning; the announcement of a jagged progress across home territory. Nothing too bulky to carry, a good black felt-tip pen in the pocket of your Pucca jeans will do the trick. The pseudonymous signature is rapidly perfected: Soxi, Coe, Sub, Hemp. Standards are rather more demanding than in Bond Street. Earlier efforts, already in place, if they are deemed inadequate, will be deleted with a single stroke. White boy tagger, the specialist

leaves his

business. Middle-class cultural diffusionism.

aside as open-air galleries, sites at least tolerated,

Road, although considered

a

don’t cut it

it.

The

where aerosol

activity

so

much

in teams or crews. a

gang

climate here

who

have

is

as a

Your

tag will

all

The

too soon be worked

more

frequently, they

clubbish, mildly hallucinogenic. Inner-city impressionists

moved on from

the posthumous representation of light and

There

no

as

not

studio or “school of”. Battles are not territorial; the

Everything happens in the present tense.

ceived

is

tag represents a corporate identity; not

pleasure. is

set

encouraged or

monster murals,

over, obliterated. Taggers can be solitaries, but,

hang out

is

been

“Sign Park” in an estate off Tufnell Park

features constantly evolving

serious option.

walls that have

No

2

no

future.

London are perand abandoned. The tag is the

interference with subject. Fragments of

Polaroid epiphanies; signed

history,

The more upwardly

record of a fleeting instant of inspiration. “Eas-y!”

mobile

careerists

might attack

tube

a

train,

but most

and

settle for walls

doorways, customised hoardings. Sprayed messages are meaningless, having no programme beyond the announcement of

Night

scrawls,

a

non-presence.

minimal adjustments to the psychic skin of the

The

city.

known as “pieces”, are altogether too flash, decline. They draw attention to themselves, thereby greatest strength — invisibility. They solicit photo-

grander aerosol paintings, baroque, an

art in

neutralising their

graphic reproduction, a collaboration with Warhol-tendency vampires.

The

plain tag

hit into

is

a purist

some high

form. Satisfaction

s

risk location, a

is

derived from getting your

dangerous bridge climbed in heart-

pumping, post-rave excitement. The clubbing taggers E-vision authentic urban experience: an enforced

homeward walk

is

an

across a lucid

wilderness from Barking or Brixton, sunrise over the industrial alps of Stratford East. That’s as near as they are ever going to icited satori.

York

in the

chillum. In

Hemp, an American

who

to

it,

unsol-

arrived here from

New

wake of a 500 dollar fine, enjoys a toke, a session with the reflective mood, he meditates on the relationship between

tagging and skate-boarding.

complicated to

exile,

come

drifts

over a South

figures,

be around the

He

city

all

backwards and forwards, enacting

London parking

lot:

“If you’re going

the time, you’d better put your

name

up.”

As newspapers have atrophied into the playthings of grotesque megalomaniacs, uselessly

shrill exercises in

mind-control, so disenfranchised

authors have been forced to adapt the walls to playful collages of argu-

ment and

invective.

Not

the publicly displayed, and quietly absorbed,

papers of the Chinese, but editorials of madness. Texts that

going to stop and read. Unchallenged polemics.

Hackney

has

nobody

My own

patch in

been mercilessly colonised by competing voices from

where: Kurds, Peruvians,

Irish,

Russians, Africans.

is

Contour

else-

lines

of

shorthand rhetoric asserting the borders between different areas of influence. Graffiti could,

I

hoped, be read

like a tidemark. In the

course of

our walk we’d find precisely where the “Freedom” of Dursan Karatas gave still

way

to the

“Innocence” of George Davis —

OK.

(Yes,

George

is

getting a result, the benefit of the doubt from the railway bridges of

London — long after being caught in the act during a raid on the Bank of Cyprus in Seven Sisters Road, Holloway. For over twenty years Davis has woken to find himself framed by DS Mathews. Thus East

proving that

graffiti

on Broken sentences and forgotten names

has a half-life far in excess of the buildings

which they have been painted. wink like fossils among the ruins.)

3

Walking shifts,

is

alert reverie,

sikle

way

and exploit the

to explore

city;

the changes,

movement of light on water. recommended mode, tramping asphalted

breaks in the cloud helmet,

purposefully

itself.

the best

is

the

Drifting earth in

allowing the fiction of an underlying pattern to reveal

To the no-buUshit

decadence, a poetic of entropy

stubborn creature,

less

sounds suspiciously lik^fm-de-

materialist this

— but

interested in texture

born-again flaneur

tljie

and

fabric,

is

a

eavesdropping on

philosophical conversation pieces, than in noticing everything. Align-

ments of telephone

maps made from moss on the

kiosks,

slopes of

Victorian sepulchres, collections of prostitutes’ cards, torn and defaced

promotional

for cancelled events at

bills

York

Hall, visits to the

homes

on war memorials, plaster dogs, beer mats, concentrations of used condoms, the crystalline patterns of glass shards surrounding an imploded quarter-light window, meditations on the relationship between the brain damage suffered by the supermiddleweight boxer Gerald McClellan (lights out in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel) and the simultaneous collapse of Barings, bankers to the Queen. Walking, moving across a retreating townscape, of dead writers, bronze

casts

BMW

stitches

it all

ing carbon Graffiti

together: the

monoxide is

Greenwich

to

would

also

traverses”,

on

these fantastic journeys,

we

could find along

Chingford would be

The walk could become

sample of diseased it

as

and

a rag-

high.

and part language. Recording

tured compositions

anthology.

cocktail of bodily exhaustion

the only constant

codices, part sign

to

illicit

many of these

frac-

given route from Hackney

like editing

phantom

an unpredictable

biopsy, cutting out a

without an anaesthetic. But, more importantly,

tissue

pay homage to

undertaken

a

a

as

random

a series

as part

of famous Lea Valley “temperature

of a survey of London’s climate, between

October 1958 and November 1959. TJ Chandler,

in his

book The

Climate of London (1965), describes the curious set-up:

The instrumentation of the

orginal traverses consisted of electrical resistance

thermometers housed in douhle-louvred radiation shields suspended from the roof-rack of a car so that the element in the lower shield

the upper shield

was

above the ground and 6

5ft

Temperatures in the first few surprisingly uniform

and

than might be supposed

Any warming

.

feet

in.

was

and

above road surfaces seem, in

fact, to is

car.

be

less critical

.

of the elements by the car engine would naturally

invalidate the readings. This problem has sometimes proved difficult

4

that in

from the side of the

the precise height of the instrument .

4ft

.

(Godskc, quoted by Sundhorg, 1952, p.53), hut in the present

and elements

investigation the position of the radiation shield

and

the engine

airflow over the

car bonnet, prevented car speed to

any warming.

20 mi /hr

sufficient to secure

.

.

pad ofglass fibre

plus a thick

car,

It

in relation to

was sought,

Except on a few noted

in general, to

over the

keep the

occasions, speeds

were

adequate ventilation of the elements without being too

great to induce dynamic warming.

Dr Who-style

This outwardly eccentric

progress, zigzagging

Town up

and night from Liverpool Street and Canning

me as a paradigm for An apparently scientific

by day

the Lea Valley

to Ware, struck

any visionary exploration of the

Essex fringes.

excuse for a glorious clandestine

folly,

joyriding the

trail

of the cosmic serpent. As with alchemy,

never the result that matters; cipline

it’s

the time spent

on the

it’s

process, the dis-

of repetition. Enlightened boredom.

Our proposed walk was

The implication of the vulgarity of the sign intended to inflict on East London screamed for some last moment revision. The project had nothing to do with Thomas Pynchon (“He walked; walked, he thought sometimes ... his only far

too neat.

I

function to want”). Pynchon’s 1963 novel,

followed by an assertive period. V. lecting an alphabet library:

G

Berger’s

(I

V., in

any

was always

case,

did once toy with the idea of col-

from “H” by Louis Zukofsky, through John

and The Story of O,

to Z, the novelisation

of the Costa-

Gavras film.)

Arrangements ing

bills,

evening before the walk,

the details of the scheme, hoping for

at

about

in place, the

a final revision.

unanswered

poetry readings,

I

Rummaging

letters,

1

was

still

some accident

worry-

to bring

through the chaos of my desk, the

unsolicited typescripts,

fliers

for last season’s

discovered an invitation, six months out of date, to

attend the inauguration, in Seminar

Room

178, Technology Faculty,

University of Greenwich, of seminaruim, “a permanent site-specific installation”

by Richard Makin.

Makin was given piece

.

.

the artist

.

The

complete freedom regarding the

piece

is

textual

and

is

site

and

condensed from the

the nature of the site's

appellation,

working with the constraints of synonyms, associations and the

etymology of the compounded words seminar room. These served heterogeneous responses

to the subject

environment and

its

to focus

broader

surroundings and were instrumental in producing a poetic constellation 5

evoking various motifs correlational yield

is

to

The

the function of that environment.

an equivocal conjunction intended

to instigate

and

a pondering

contemplation of simultaneously the presented semantic arrangement and the functions of the host space, the receiver situated within this weave of locus

and stream of words

that have emerged from the nominative of a particular

physical domain: a transparent

and resonant supetfnposition of word and

place.

How

could

Makin’s artwork

resist?

I

theme of the moment.

1

fitted so neatly alongside the

— sponsored graffiti of the most Makin, whose name I had previously

had to go for

elevated kind. This character

it

noticed in the modernist periodical Parataxis, had been invited to cre-

of

atively deface the wall

a

previously unrecognised sort ity.

A

new

Here was

university.

— indoor

graffiti,

legitimate sibling of the invitations

of

graffiti

a

premeditated spontane-

left

on the doors of public

conveniences, those capital-letter jokes trailing forlornly towards a puddled floor.

It

was

unlikely,

and

can, stencil set

I

ruler, to

sponsor of secondhand

Makin had got out his paint business himself. Could he, as a

thought, that

do the

graffiti,

be included in our collection? There

must have been faculty meetings, proposals, justifications, budgets, costings of material and labour. Then there was the style of the lettering:

had some hireling David Jones or Eric Gill been found in the borough? Makin’s room would be the pivot on which our route march would swing.

The

comedy began

bureaucratic

soon

as

as

picked up the tele-

I

phone. Making contact with the University of Greenwich,

from department that

I

was passed

to department, secretary to impersonal assistant.

awkward time of the afternoon when

the horizon.

I

the sun skulks

listlessly

could hear tea-cups being pointedly clinked.

I

was

It

over

felt

the

uncomfortable warmth of the central heating, the flickering interference

of strip-lighting that reduces humans to

a species

of desktop

knowledge of the mysterious Richard Makin and strenuously denied.

The

not that kind of place. did exist, the clerks

resent?

persisted in

would go

that

my

far.

folly.

But

his art project it

was implied, was

The Technology

who

was

was

/?

Who

Faculty

did

I

rep-

name of my company? I grew peevish. I quoted invitation. And the fact that Makin openly admitted that he

What was

the original

I

University of Greenwich,

cacti. All

the

was prepared to “read and stated an official

Mathematics,

handout

Statistics

talk

about

his

work”. “All

that bore the letter-heading

and

Scientific

6

Computing;

are

welcome”

of the School of

to say

nothing of the

Mark

sponsoring names of Professors

Martin

still

clerks

Edwin

Everett, DPhil,

MICFor. Four

CStat,

were

G

me

giving

professors

Galea,

were up

hard time.

a

The

weakened. The room might be

hours, but there was

no Makin

still

CMath, FIMA, PhD, Keith Rennolls, MSc,

Cross, DSc,

and the functionaries

for this

The

tea-cups were replenished.

visited,

in the

between

strictly regulated

computer.

The man was

a

freelance, a floater.

By now, of necessity.

become the quest, an enough for them to act

course, seminaruim had

must have sounded crazy

I

turned up in their openplan office with rang me.

He would

a

before

178 between eleven-thirty

and twelve-thirty on the following morning, prepared to curate achievement. This was

double-edged

a

I

knapsack of gelignite. Makin

Room

be in Seminar

absolute

blessing.

We

his

had an achievable

we were lumbered with an unwelcome time-base. Time on these excursions should be allowed to unravel

goal for our walk but I

never like

own

at its

that.

whole point of the exercise. To shift away of consumption into a meandering stream. Cut those

speed, that’s the

from the culture wires.

The walk had get,

received

while the second

its

arbitrary revision.

stage, the return leg,

There was

could look

a

proper

tar-

after itself. (At

on the margins of my desk and uncovered the typescript of an earlier Makin text, the curve offorgetting. I dived into it at random: “duped by the record of signs upon endless walls”. Makin, back in December 1992, lived in the shadow of the obelisk of St Luke’s Old Street. Home territory. Our conjunction was even stranger than I had supposed: we would both be travelling, twin arms of a compass, south-east across London, to meet in a transgressed this point,

I

dug deeper

into the tilth

seminar room.)

how

come

Another

call.

(Have you noticed

Like buses.

The

instrument, once activated, alerts other potential

these things

answer-machine.)

An

com-

morphic resonance, or the electromagnetic field, and switch on the

municators, triggers off a chain reaction. Call Secret State interference in

in clusters?

audibly distressed

it

woman,

a writer,

enraged by

a

sense of her powerlessness in the face of near-demonic forces, has to protest, describe, articulate

sion.

The

battle

her feelings about the

of Claremont Road.

What

Mil motorway

to do?

The

exten-

things that have

been going on. Things she has seen. Dawn raids. Executed trees. Why is this unreported by the media? Why doesn’t someone tell the real story? There’s

Before

it’s

too

no late.

make of me, no demand. down. Herself. The truth.

specific request to

She wiU. Get

it

7

But.

Evening sunlight was polishing the grain of

my

grandfather’s desk,

bleaching the pinks in the John Bellany watercolour.

summon Marc

abuse the phone, to get to the

to

knock

Abney Park Cemetery

That’s promising. If our pilgrimage

we

my

turn to

is

morning, we would have

late

You

tonight.

can’t visit the

V Kad been despoiled.

before 9 am. Already the “purity” of the

trot

was

Atkins from his darkroom. If we were

Univer^ty of Greenwich by

off

It

dead

Good.

not to disintegrate into a marathon

have to walk out of the door without further hesitation.

2

.

Albion Drive E 8 .T 0 Abney Park, Stoke Newington.

Evening of 24/10/94.

The important fact about urban Iwing: Every

attention awareness.

the continued stream of second

licence plate, street sign,

passing strangers,

are saying something to you.

William

Easily into

our

on the hoof.

stride.

No

Burroughs

S.

I’m explaining the whole insane concept to Marc:

time for maps and bearings.

He

handles these feverish

God knows what he really thinks. Or who he is. Not “Marc Atkins”, this much he will admit. Another volunteer orphan, a self-invented man with an interestingly labyrinthine speculations with practised ease.

personal

life;

network of dead-letter drops.

postal systems that require a

He’s a shavenheaded vegetarian giant, a near-Brummie. That’s already

more than any

reasonable person

camera to frame out the a free breakfast

black

women

would want

of the world and

rest

he’s happy.

and the chance of running into

and

he’ll

walk through

him a Promise him

to discover. Give

of long-legged

a squall

fire.

At the end of Albion Square, beyond the clutch of houses that have

been space,

built over the is

serves as

Nimby

battleground of a

stunted obeHsk set

a

somewhere

to

sit

on

a carpet

for those

fruitlessly

of stone

who

flags. Its

footprints.

dance of

The

site is

leaf-light.

rises

The

Duke of

concrete shield

patterned with a network of juvenile

is

shaded by

octagonal base

take advantage of the

Wellington’s barbecue night, a stand for lager cans.

from which the obelisk

defended green

a

sycamore umbrella and

The shadow of the 8

frisky

with the

obelisk, in the late afternoon.

away from the house which the sculptor Rachel Whiteread and her

falls

partner are restoring There’s a cup

— but

mark or

points in the direction

raised weal in the soft

have to walk.

white stone, the explana-

way of

tory text has been obliterated. Memorials are a

reducing generational guilt to

we

forgetting,

of albino chess pieces, bloodless

a grid

sta-

lagmites. Shapes that are easy to ignore stand in for the trauma of

remembrance. Names with

a syphilitic bite.

are edited out.

These funerary

Time

spikes,

attacks the noble profile

unnoticed by the

locals as

they go about their business, operate a system of pain erasure; acupuncture needles channelling, through their

the energy

the flow of

field.

Every obelisk has the

random alignment,

acolyte.

its

Duke of Wellington pub

The

undistinguished example that fronts

serviced by the pigeon man, an elderly

is

stooped figure dressed entirely in brown; from

worn

greasy raincoat, to his

shoes, he

his flat cap,

through

the colour of Daddies

is

his

Own

sauce scraped from a formica table. This pensioner progresses through the borough, each and every day, by his

empties bulging

plastic

own

shopping bags of crumbs and

that his feral pigeons will continue to splatter the tory.

eccentric circuits.

Action painting on

a

grand

come from? The man vinegar sauce — and yet, by bread

bowel

scale,

looks

as if he lives

crusts,

He

ensuring

same patches of terri-

art.

on

Where

does

stale crusts

all this

dipped in

the quantities he slings over privet hedges

and arranges on chosen squares of pavement, he must have the clearance contract from a chain of bakeries. versation, there’s too scuflO.es

much

to

He

is

never diverted by mere con-

be done, ground to be covered.

through, not bothering about

who

eager to get finished before the road walker She’s a creature shifts

of twilight,

from the white

line.

she survives Queensbridge

No

a tidy,

He

might be watching him, starts

beating her bounds.

middle-aged black

woman who

never

way tough enough

There’s something magical about the

Road

in the rush

hour

(it’s

between the headlight beams, a journey to nowhere, but a journey that must be made. She has been heard to mutter: “The dirt, the dog dirt”. It’s canine excrement that keeps her off the pavements. Leaves her competing with kamikaze in a car).

deviation, straight forward

traffic.

Middleton Road and the Holly (along with Shrubland

Street Estate: the horror nicely disguised

Road, Lavender Grove, Mapledene Road, Forest

names intended to invoke imaginary avenues of trees converging on London Fields. Hackney recalled as a market garden;

Road)

in

9

orchards just outside the limits of the

city.

The

barrack blocks of

flats

with their colourful history in the process of being replaced by duplicates last

of precisely the same dimensions, better

for years, tucked

The

away behind

a

built versions that

should

green barrier of temporary fencing.

nature of this present transaction subverted by the spectacular exhi-

bition of a large black and white photograph,' a presentation of

used to be here: the “truth” of dead bricks used to implant

memory, an unearned CONTROLLED.

what

a false

inheritance.

DANGER. DEMOLITION. KEEP OUT.

Coalition against the/ Criminal Justice

Lobby of Parliament. Wednesday

6pm Socialist

19

Bill.

RALLY.

October.

Westminster Central Hall. Worker. Build the resistance.

LAING Big Up/Miss Bounty

+

LAING: how

that

Killer

+ Hype + Sweetie

N

Killer Tits

name, spread across town, reads

like the

announce-

ment of a Sixties revival, Ronnie back on the rostrum like the Billy Graham of psychopolitics. We march west: under the green and red railway bridge, once a mugger’s wet dream. Escape routes into the the grass in the

mound and

Dalston Junction to Broad Street,

A

dustbin caves, or up

over the wall onto the tracks. Handbags

hobo wilderness jungle where

clerical classes.

flats,

dumped

the elevated line used to run from

a civilised

shunt into the city for the

Euro-packet of loose change has hacked back the

abundant growth, stamped out the campfire drinking schools, cleared the

ground

for future

development —

as car

This dangerous but exhilarating walk with slats,

and

longer a

On vivalist

its

secret glimpses into the backs

park or privatized railway. its

views

down between

of industrial premises,

is

no

possibility.

the far side of the bridge, a

number of haplessly

optimistic sur-

operations hang on to the coat-tails of Kingsland Road.

TAILOR TERZI.

Silky disco waistcoats for citizens of restricted

growth. Every night

a

Saturday fever, a blindman’s wedding, special 10

OFFER.

MADE TO MEASURE TROUSERS.

for this, the

first

^^35.

No viable

Folc has

been found

shop, since the bag seller and boot-repairer jacked

in.

it

Fantastic enterprises (designer hats suitable for Ascot or bar mitzvah),

written up in

magazines, wither and die before the cuttings can

listings

be securely pasted in the window.

Removals Anywhere

UK.

in

access, visa. Defunct.

The

sour

stench of dog fear from behind boarded-up windows. Ex-rental washing machines that bark and yelp.

A

dead meat has come back to

on

life

kebab slaughterhouse where a revolving skewer.

The

the

all

anarchists

have their number.

LET THE DOGS BE FREE OR

ALF. There

is

a persistent

Special

Branch (and

to talk

up the animal

OTFIERS WILL

rumour

floated

by conspiracy

their competitors in Five

and

theorists that

been forced

Six) have

libera tionist fringe in order to justify their munifi-

cent budgets. Sad-eyed veal calves have to replace Belfast outrages in the

news

reports. Beagles

with

a habit are the

columnists. Well-intentioned

fifth

cells

new

Soviet.

Hunt

saboteurs are

of Middle Englanders have been

ruthlessly penetrated. Staged provocations orchestrate the latent hysteria

of the tender hearted. After the iniquity of factory farming ing

left

to pay for the

upkeep of those mephitic

there’s

riverside palaces.

on the grey door of the dog shed is so precisely aHgned hard not to suspect the trained hand of Secret State forgers. graffiti

Cooked Brawns prietary group,

etc. quality

perfumed

dog training.

Noise, smell.

Dog

in,

that

A

much keeping

but keeping dubious citizens (non-owners)

training, surveillance, security: those are the

The it’s

pro-

of their metier

against the shrill odours

canine educationalists, block the doorway — not so

unbroken charges

noth-

growth

as

their out.

areas, that’s

where to sink your redundancy packet. Very popular with villains who have managed to stay liquid and who fancy an indoors occupation. Security

phy

is

homeopathic, treating

flank of the vans.

And

The philosogander down the

the equivalent of the old time footballer’s pub.

is

decommissioned

they’re

alarm systems,

all

like

with

hospital

like.

on the

Take

fai side

a

of Kingsland Road:

plastered with promises of heavy duty protection

grilles, trip-wires, locks, chains.

mobile Ecstasy broker could require. 11

—

Everything the upwardly

THE LONDON DOG CENTRE. right

on

says

title

it all.

A

copy-

The

negatives. This shop openly declares itself the pits.

where Middleton Road

tributary corner,

Ermine

the old

The

Street,

houses

a

squirts

out into the stream of

who

coven of visionaries

are hopelessly

attempting to “train” the shapes of chaos, to discipline hot-breathed

between human and animal worlds. Dogs.

things that creep and crawl

window of

A

cutely traumatised puppies, given the once-over in Fairy

Amsterdam prostitutes. Professionally on show. for sale. A buddy who won’t talk back. A baby-sized

Liquid, busk like

Offering minder.

it.

A

pal

A minder for your baby.

(And

there’s a satellite trade, living off

the woof- woof biz, photographing these beauties

remembered when they

to paste

on

Various meats are advertised bird seed.

Doggy

looks like

waxed

The shop

so that they can be

are gone, in ripe colour, just as they

Oval snapshots

their prime.

-

treats.

A

a granite gravestone.)

menu

board. Fish food. Sacks of

of stitched bootees in something that

tray

skin. Doll’s

a

on

looked in

house footwear for your pooch to gum.

has the atmosphere of an interspecies afifay waiting to happen:

But the Dog Centre co-exists in evident sympathy with the adjacent property: kenny’s, the best little shoe shop IN TOWN. (Kenny’s? Hard to shake off sinister echoes of Frank Zappa and the noise and the pong.

pod people experiments.) Ranks of burnished Doc Marten boots. STEELS, DEALERS, COMMANDO STEELS! an army Waiting for the word. We swing out into the main drag (Kingsland Road) without paying our respects to the pub on the corner, the Fox, whose former landlord, Clifford Saxe, a commercial associate of the Knight dynasty,

have planned the

million

America from the room (along with

who

is

one of the

history of the

punt

at a

to propose,

with

a

it’s

like a

time-warp,

late Sixties,

before

like

having

it

minimalist gentrification programme.

few green and white metal

after a

signs, a sense

The

idea

of place,

of pavement can be something more than

local identity: that a strip

Marc

John

went native. myths have been airbrushed from the

in a

headsdown charge

Everett,

a

now

Such disreputable

Kentish bus trying to find

its

way

a

to Liverpool

semaphoring arms that try to detour through kingsland basin, stonebridge gar-

can’t believe the tasteful

seduce you into dens, DALSTON

Dalston

Saxe

Bank of Famous Five the

many of the poodle down

Kingsland Waste in the

Street.

Mr

said to

opted for early retirement in the sun. So

faces are out there

is

upstairs.

Ronnie Knight, Frederick Foreman, Ronald

James Mason)

borough

pound 1976 robbery of

is

a

TOWN CENTRE.

Town

Centre,

I

love the chutzpah of that. 12

Can

a

ghost have

coming

a centre? Dalston,

alternative for those

buzz of

a

JG

slab.

after a railway carve-up, as

couldn’t afford the trip “up west”, has

and the famous

Conscious of the

eel

all

an the

and pie shop with the blood-smeared

IN STOCK. PLEASE ENQUIRE.

fact that

we had

to

keep up

before they closed the gates,

Kingsland Waste the close reading shops on the east

The

pomp

bazaars rub shoulders with embattled chemists,

LARGER LIVE EELS

Abney Park

its

Ballard traffic island squatted by cowboys. Every thing-

Under-A-Pound off-licences,

who

into

we

deserved.

it

a

decent pace to reach

didn’t have time to give

We

stuck to the line of

side.

wall glyphs

come

straight at you.

on the same

frantic variations

defy instant interpretation. decided, for eoka. But that

logo.

Low down,

crude; increasingly

Written not sprayed. The signs

The most common one might stand, we made no sense. The Cypriots were much

earher immigrants: like the Lambrianou family (coming to public notice

through the criminal exploits of Tony and Chris)

who

had

settled, a

few

House on Queensbridge Road — effective brick and flowerpot on balcony) public housing which is still very

years after the war, in Belford (red

much in service. Away from its competing a copier

side channels, Kingsland

voices:

West African enterprise

Road was

a furious river

who

(an optician

doubled

of legal documents). Fax bureaux, exotic cake shops,

firm with a radio beacon

tall

enough

to

a

of as

mini-cab

endanger lowflying

aircraft,

Turkish football club poolrooms, schmutter merchants, and the entire

range of multi-ethnic snack bars and I

had to copy the eoka glyph into

fast

food emporia.

my notebook,

so that

I

could have

someone more knowledgeable in the subtleties of Turkish splinter group politics. And then, looking more closely at the letters, I realised that I had got it all wrong. tokI. The bandit penman of Hackney was a tagger. A juvenile smoker customising the word “toke”. What I had taken to be an outburst of political sloganeering was no more than the territorial flourish of a peculiarly persistent dope-freak. TiKB. STOP DIRTY WAR IN KURDISTAN. A professionally executed red it

analysed by

stencil.

The Turkish Workers’ Communist

Association.

One

of a

num-

ber of groups busking for budget, hoping to upgrade their premises (by painting out the previous occupants’

Turkish hard

left

affiliations).

Apparently, the

have only recently taken up the Kurdish cause, mak-

ing gestures in support of the mountain people from around Malatya; farmers and herdsmen driven off their lands by rural poverty, and threat-

ened by both central government and the incursions of PKK 13

guerrillas.

The Kurds

down

drifted in stages

some

on, chasing

towards the Mediterranean and then

distant relative, to Dalston. Restaurant

work, sweat-

shops, endless benefit applications. Streams of moustached and stubbled

men

in open-necke^d shirts

Rumours

photocopier.

also

queuing politely for

of protection

their turn at the

rackets, extortion, prostitute

outworkers. Husbands bringing venereal diseases back to their house-

bound

wives.

Rundown

auction properties

crammed with

statusless

immigrants.

The

New Country

modest venture: green vegetables racked on the

a typically

middle

classes

for halvah

Off-Licence and Foodstore in Kingsland

and

Road

street,

is

the

De Beauvoir Town or four men — no women — chatting behind

nipping furtively across the road from olives.

Three

the counter.

A

twenty-nine-year old shop-assistant, Ali Ozturk, was standing in

the

doorway when he was

but

it

made

a splash in the

shot.

The

event was scarcely national news

Hackney Gazette —

who

suggested that

Mr

Ozturk was the victim of a hitman, or team of hitmen, dispatched from Ankara by the to

become

secret poHce.

The

local journalist,

with evident ambitions

the next Frederick Forsyth, pictured the assassin squatting,

moment. To sustain target. The shop’s owner,

Dallas-style, in the flats opposite, waiting for his this, it

was necessary to find

a

more

significant

Mafiz Bostanci, “a vigorous campaigner on trade union rights” and a senior figure at the Halkevi Turkish Centre in Stoke the intended martyr.

made no

No

shot was heard,

particular impression

battered cod, rice

on

no gunman

Newington, was

seen.

The

incident

drifters cruising for kebabs, curries,

’n’ peas.

ANNMARIE

+ JACKIE

+ KELLY

WOZ ERE

THE ALCOHOLICS

Dark sweatshop doorway leading back into unknowable regions hidden from the street. Storerooms, muscle gyms; striplight offices of lawyers paid to postpone extradition, smooth over motor frauds, front 14

“Jewish lightning” insurance scams. As

I

stoop to transcribe another

concrete poem, three Nigerians trundle a monster package up the

A

newsagent s window: the noticeboard of the urban

stairs.

village, tie

and

TEASE MASSAGE. MAGIC MOMENTS, DISCREET SERVICE. TONY GETS A BUZZ

FROM DEAD

BEES.

Closing on the junction, the crossroads, the epicentre of the notional Dalston Town,

we

spot, for the

time, a quirkier intelligence at

first

The message has been stencilled, like the exhortations of TIKB, in blood-red lettering: we’re/ [b]ehaving/like/insects. And then by way of variation, in blue, work on

the flagstones beneath our feet.

STOP HISTORY.

No

ing for high stakes.

thing that cil

is

wandering philosophers

half measures, these

And with no embarrassment

true once loses

none of its

are play-

at self-plagiarisation.

veracity in repetition.

The

sten-

The

behaves better on the fresh white matte of Barclays Bank PLC.

previously absent b

is

smudged but

scarlet capitals, displayed directly

clearly visible.

The alignment of

beneath the bank’s nameplate,

obvious foretaste of poet Richard Makin’s

assault

A

on Seminar

an

is

Room

178 of the University of Greenwich.

we’re BEHAVING LIKE

INSECTS

The quadrivium, tre

or meeting place of four roads,

of the area through which

we

are walking:

it’s

is

the spiritual cen-

where

suicides

and

On

the

vampires would receive their toothpick through the heart.

east/west axis, the hobbled spurt of Dalston Lane, labouring gamely

under the burden of

Wright

in

cultural significance

A Journey

imposed upon

it

by Patrick

Through Ruins, goes head-to-head with Peter

Pond Road. And to the north. Ermine Street, lightly disguised as Kingsland High Street (Stoke Newington Road, Stoke Newington High Street), makes a bid for Stamford Hill, White Hart Lane, Cambridge and other inconsequential destinations. This Sellers’

comedic

Balls

cruciform reef of shops, to

life

much

more times than a failed

stalls

RL

and small businesses, has died and returned Stevenson’s Master of Ballantrae.

shopping centre

fully invigilated

as a car

by security guards

There couldn’t be

a

in

boot

sale in

peaked

more appropriate

Williams to have launched Dark and Light, 15

Not

so

an open prison, tact-

caps.

location for

his walk-in,

Doc “Papa”

neighbourhood

voodoo boutique. Dark and Light (The Foremost Source of Occult Books & Supplies) is part of a multinational franchising operation with branches in

even

New York and Haiti.

It s

moment

come around — of Live and Let Die. The Roger Moore android

has surely

the shop has been dressed after the style

if

statuettes have the authentically ironed-over,

look: charming but dysfunctional.

^

,

The doc, a softly-spoken Haitian exile, is always ready to pose with fat Cuban cigar and skull perched on top of his electrified hair. He can heal and he can curse.

He

He

can work on your barnet or drive out demons.

can put lead in your pencil or cleanse and

accommodation. Supplicants bring afield as Bristol or spirits willingly

their warts

bless

your ill-disposed

and tumours from

as far

He has the cuttings to prove it. Local command of this Dr Dee of Dalston.

Manchester.

dance to the

Dark and Light dominates the crossroads. Travellers are forced to make a choice between lefthand and righthand paths. The window facing Dalston Junction suggests something between a clearance of surplus Vatican stock and the gnome reservation of a downmarket garden centre: runtish saints and Snow White virgins, dozens of them packed against feely pastiches left side

of Leonardo’s iMst Supper,

mowed

The

out of felt.

of the shop, confronting the newspaper-seller’s booth on

Kingsland High Street, superimposes headlines of hysterical horror, reflected in the display glass, with potions, herbs, candles, chicken

bones, feathers, roots, claws, cat-sized cofhns.

of

free

its

library

of books on

display:

Man

of Albertus Magnus, White and Black Arts for

Story of Solomon the King. sited

tarot that has

broken

box. Potential students of the dark side are encouraged to

browse through the small Secrets

A

I

can never make

my mind

up —

The Egyptian and Beast, The is

this tellingly

shop promoting the craziness, the babble, that has spiUed over on

to the walls?

unhoused

Or

is

it

Doc

a

focusing device,

a shelter for all

definitions of the weird that stalk the streets of the

Dalston, twinned with

voodoo

simply

downtown

the

borough?

Port-au-Prince, has declared

itself a

republic.

comes

form of a quotation: a group of photographs of the healer in full spate, stogie clamped between teeth, straw hat, conducting a ceremony on his home turf. On the blue wall Williams’

behind him rest

in the

painted place des hounssys: reproduced words join the

of the trumpeting exotica in the encyclopaedia of the

place

we

is

graffiti

becomes

will

this place. If

we do

city.

not cross to the west side of the

That street,

be transported, trapped in the implications of an exorcism

do not understand. 16

we

In the revitalised

want

special-interest groups

cadres and

sued by

weekend

a twist

with malign

coming much

the messages are

air,

of

a piece

socialists.

this.

faster. All

Out-patients, anarchists,

have the uneasy feeling that

I

the

we

are pur-

of Doc Williams’ green smoke. Cul-de-sacs are dense

script.

FUCK YOU.

TIKB.

DHKP.

nostalgia/ is/a/ weapon.

SUPPORT THE people’s WAR IN PERU (rC MAOISTS). IMHOTEP, a Black

Man, was

a multi-talented genius

of ancient Africa. MALCOLM X ON REVOLUTION

Death

to the

Islamic Republic

of Iran! NIGGARS RULE

THE World

Lady Sweetness The

occult configuration of the borough of Hackney

an encased streetplan (one of Patrick Wright’s numinous shrine that has presumably failed to pay

power cut

off.

The map

has

head to orientate yourself.

The

into disuse. lose.

faster

its

past these things, the

There’s nothing tangible for

wayside

foci), a

and had the

to stand

on your

meditational device that has fallen

a Sufi

we walk

confirmed by

electricity bill

been reversed, you’d have

It’s

is

Marc

more ground we

to photograph; lifting his

camera

would be like trying to stuff fog into a bottle. At the next turning on the road north is a young man with a barrow of paperbacks, trying to make a go of an all-weather bibliotheque. The broken leg doesn’t

help.

advances of deranged

worker or

He

keeps his back to the wall, fending off the

strollers

lay psychiatrist.

(He

who cati^t

the caff without risking his stock.) bility for adult literacy in the area less reliable

charity bunkers.

(It

treat

him

walk away.

He

is

with the

would be

from them.) 17

an unsalaried social

as

He

can’t

even hop into

forced to share the responsi-

Oxfam

superstore and other

a charity to take

anything away

The barrow their trade in

a

is

canvas-covered cousin to the

remote

rural areas.

You

be too

can’t

Take what you can find and be grateful for libraries, the

it.

book vans

that

still

ply

about the stock.

elitist

Like one of the mobile

barrow^ is carefully, not to say obsessively, arranged in sec-

tions: science fiction/horror (no real distinction there), crime,

posh

Penguins, romance and her lightly-salted

does

sifter,

pornography.

It

book tumbrel, to compete with the “open field” semiological excesses on the wall, which looms behind the barrow like the back projection of a middle period Godard film. The stock is unashamedly populist, but not quite popular. The hawker spends more time chatting, or struggling with his thermos, than he does putting coins in his pouch. His barrow is more of a museum than a shop; the units don’t turn over, they remain on display. I toyed with a

what

it

can, this overstacked

copy of Barnet History)

Litvinoff’s

The Burning Bush (Antisemitism and World

which had hung around

and well into autumn.

Finally,

something about Barnet’s

less

at a fiver

cracked.

I

film Peformance. The Burning Bush (a

libraries

nal

I

had

in

it

mind

to write

muchNicholas Roeg/Donald Cammell

reputable half-brother, David, the

mythologised lowlife conduit for the wares

through spring and summer

ghost from an earlier

an atypical sample of the bookman’s

is

when most of

era,

of Hackney were Jewish —

the broken private

rabbinical,

leftist,

and in the origi-

Middle and Eastern European languages). Hardbacks

are barely

on the stall, often kept in sealed plastic envelopes. They tend towards Book Club reprints of marketable crime and horror pros (I did once buck the trend by coming away with a fine first edition of The Shining by Stephen King); movie star memorabilia, militaria (especially Nazi), true crime photo shockers, and transatlantic fiction deemed too obscure to be worth remaindering. It’s very unlikely that Lights Out will put itself around enough to claim a perch on the stall. Neither will any tolerated

of the desktop pamphlets of modernist poetry that circulate entirely in samizdat form, unmolested by reviewers, side

Camden Town). No

anything without

A

nice

a

place

square spine

sample of

this

on is

unknown

to

bookshops (out-

the barrow for the disadvantaged,

barred.

postal

art,

Peter Riley’s

Royal Signals

(Cheltenham, 1995), landed on the doormat to provide

welcome diversion from my laboured remembrance of the Kingsland High Street bookstall. In this slender composition, which I recommend, the poet tactfully edits the diary jottings of his father’s North African campaign: an unexpected and effective collaboration.

18

a

Tent peppered with shrapnel

ammo dump

then

went up

and ^2

shells

Had

keep under

to

and

dropped on us

shell cases

morning.

all

Checking frequencies now.

Poor Jock, he was a good

fellow.

Indeed he was. Jock the runner, the pornbroker and hedge scholar of the Waste. Riley

s

poem

(along with the obituary notices for

George

Road, received in the same post) put an elegiac musings on the vanished street- traders. George was the

Jeffery of Farringdon bite into

my

governor, the

last

of the

line.

no need

There’s

achievements of the ex-paratrooper with breaks in Florida or the Channel Islands;

it

to dwell

on the legendary

fondness for recuperative

a

has

all

been

spelled out in the

Guardian and The Times. George was a time surfer: in his barber’s blue jacket and his Three Stooges’ tonsure, he oversaw the transfer of coded

documents from the nineteenth century

to the gutters

Forgeries that launched the Brotherhood of the

Maps of undiscovered

of Camberwell.

Golden Dawn. Masonic

Pseudonymous novels by untraceable authors that inspired, in their turn, even more labyrinthine fictions. The mob waiting for George to unveil his first board would gossip, feed rumours, infect an entire underworld of book scouts, trash fetishists, bounty hunters. Here might be found the skeletal and passports.

islands.

preternaturally bright-eyed Martin Stone; the Corvine

pedagogue Donald Weeks, who knew more about Frederick Rolfe than anyone alive or dead (including the man himself); the science fiction and fantasy encyclopaedist John Clute

own

field

—

a

pundit

who

virtually invented his

of studies (and amassed an important 20,000 volume collection

in the process).

And

every day of their

who peddled to the stall other human possibilities in

also less public eccentrics

lives,

gladly abdicating

all

the quest for the cabbala of the unobtainable.

George

Jeffery’s

chain of

stalls,

inherited from his father and his

grandfather, was in recent times increasingly

work and

hemmed

in

by building

the press of traffic, bottlenecking back from the plastic cones

of the City’s ring of steel. George’s cash business, which belonged

his-

shadow of the dome of St Paul’s, was marginalised out of existence. He had the luck, or more probably the good taste, to die at the right time. To take the whole magical enterprise with him. torically in the

19

I

a

like to

imagine

a

Viking funeral: George

cushion of Saturday-special books,

beneath the roped tarpaulin. At

would be

biblio-cannibals

a signal

carry

him away

mound

comfortably-fleshed

from

son or daughter, the

his

elbowing, scratching and spitting,

let loose,

forced to devour the great procurer,

They should

a

out on the barrow on

laid

down

and

to the last knuckle

curl.

in their disten(^ed bellies to the obscure

George had, over the years, dispersed acres of country house libraries, Bottomley’d institutions: remorseless tides of salvage. Rare Victorian pamphlets, rooms where they have stashed

plump Edwardian

bindings, railway fiction

sack or auction table. it

their dusty treasures.

He

the

kept the culture of print in flow.

water

like a pest controller, a

— he graded

bailiff.

lot,

He

hemp served

Perched above the Fleet ditch,

he shovelled the failed remnants, the picked-over dross, into the corporation s dustcarts. These Farringdon

of final appeal. After the

frantic

Road barrows were

the court

ceremonies of the predators there was

extinction.

But George Jeffery had outlying districts of the

his pilot fish, lesser figures

city,

creeping in from

Which brings us moody photograph by

to recirculate the scraps.

back to the Dalston bookman, Jock. There’s

a

Cyril Arapoff (collected in the booklet, London

in the Thirties;

Nishen,

1988) that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the Caledonian Market in 1935.

This

is

a visualised

fragment of the Arcadia that

still

haunted

Jock: alps of books, mountain ranges thrown across the old cattle yards.

Pipe smokers content merely to contemplate the spilled plunder, treating the conical heaps like a visionary landscape. Scavengers icepicking a

some mouth-watering desideratum. The books were

path towards

much

opencast

slag, insultingly

priced,

happy to

spoons and rags and horse manure. Jock was could scarcely folio, parcel

summon

up

three-deckers.

a raft

rot

so

away amongst the

spoilt for plunder.

He

the enthusiasm to wrestle with another elephant

of colour

“You wouldn’t

plates, give shelf space to a

believe

what was

there.

conspiracy of

You’d weep

if

I

told you.”

His practical erudition, which was genuine and broad ranging, had

been beaten into him with

a tawse.

He

was happy to make an early

escape from the old country, while continuing to that cursed in clover

—

hymn

the brutalities

him with book knowledge. Unlettered, he might have been a

butcher or

a car

mechanic. Instead of this eternal journey-

ing after texts which would never be investigated beyond the title-page.

He

had survived

he used to

tell

sixty years

me.

“It’ll

on

the streets. “We’re both foreigners here,”

never change, no matter 20

how

long

we

stick

it

out.” Aboriginal

them

Cockneys were an

to anything better than

“Jock”

if they

wanted

to, his

tits

inferior species, he’d never persuade

and

tommy

guns. Let

them

call

him

other names had disappeared with his birth

certificate.

In the

war years and just

after,

he made

a

decent

living, so

he

said,

taking a loaded taxi a couple of hundred yards from the trays of Foyle’s

Bookshop (which were replenished on antiquarians of Cecil Court.

He

the tea-chest. Lucian Freud and

a daily basis) to the indifferent

shifted Poetry

London

Graham Sutherland

publications by

lithographs.

George Jeffery became his most reliable source of supply. (Like George he haunted the Cheshire Street market on Sunday mornings. They would pass each other with an almost imperceptible Masonic nod, a cough of acknowledgement, or a signal to indicate that something rare and strange was reserved under the table. George, in In later days,

made

civvies, fruit

and veg,

Which that

I

I

disdainfully

who

while Jock,

sauntering through, picking up his

a leisured progress,

had

examining profrered bindings, anything “old”;

a stall to run,

soaked up congeries of paperbacks.

happily drudged for him, being granted

would soon be polishing

for display in

a

preview of the items

Camden

Passage.

archy was safely in place: the psychogeography of

books might be found

in

any quarter of the town, only the prices

changed with the zones. In Cheshire

Street

I

made my William Harvey

discovery about the circulation of stock, like heavy

of the heart.

And

it

retail.

The hierThe same

oil

between the

gates

was during these early walks, before the market was

burdened with carrier bags of unsorted pb dreck, that I received the benefit of Jock’s philosophy, a blend of David Hume and in spate,

Frank Harris. Empirical exaggeration.)

Jock the Bookman was the direct precursor of the young contemporary with his stall on Kingsland High Street. But Jock’s operation was

more complex, both in terms of territory and of stock. On Sundays, Cheshire Street — alongside the caves of exotic animals in the railway Road; and the rest of the week in Hoxton. He never engaged in the Saturday scrum at Farringdon Road, opting instead to take a leisurely and scenic 243 bus ride on all the other

arches;

on

Saturdays, Kingsland

days, arriving in time for the

exchange of gossip that preceded the

He

raked over the floor of rejects, the griev-

eleven o’clock scrummage.

harmed veterans, prepared to embark on ously

the optimistically described “reading copies”; a rescue operation.

George’s dross represented

the cream of Jock’s stock, the posh stuff that could be displayed in an

orange crate

at

the back of his

stall

on

21

the Waste.

Picking out the splinters and razoring off the sticky price

upgraded

editions ofJames Joyce,

first

lesser figures

such

as

Wyndham Lewis,

their present value

with

Baring-

he engraved

bunch than was here that I came

and'Jcss psychotic circle. It

and

into competition with the late Peter Fuller, the essayist

was then enduring

his grubbing-at-the-fringes

art

magnate,

boho period —

a

between Bergerite Marxism and full-blown sunset

transitional stage

Romanticism.

as

S.

a fierce biro.

Jock enjoyed the patronage of a smaller the headbangers of the Farringdon Road

who

I

WB Yeats (and

William Gerhardi, Gilbert Cannan and

Gould): their achievements rapidly summarised by Jock

tickets,

(In

one of our

slightly sneering glove

last

head-to-heads, he advised

puppet voice to sink

my

me

in that

wedge

entire

in

Ruskin.) Fuller’s take on Jock, a throwaway in his Dalston confessional,

Marches Past (1986), was brutally dismissive.

He

sketched

him

as a

Which was both unobservant and unfair. Jock’s came from filth — more beaver than the Yukon, mono-

lowrent pornographer. living,

its

true,

chrome spankers creaking a certificate cals that

He

pack

of approval from the

were

ice,

dog-love that would never win

RSPCA,

a conservationist

to,

one-handed

periodi-

readership.

of language. Jock was the only bookman in the whole

vanished gems from the Hbrary of the

lost.

who knowingly retrieved And who placed them where

Hill

they would be best appreciated. For every

flers

mundane

so that he could pass himself off as a bibliophile,

between Shoreditch and Stamford

reader.

well as

as

safe to display out-front for a loyal

did what he had

strip

like

book

there was an ideal

remained on nodding terms with the others, the modest shuf-

I

who

carried away their

little

brown

parcels

—

secret scholars,

incubators of fantastical projects. Jock’s juveniles, an ageing Fagin school of likely lads, took care of the

physical work, the graft: dragging the crates,

stall

on

to the pitch,

weighing the carrier bags of exhausted trade-ins

humping the — the castoff

whose extravagant abandon no longer tickled the itch. Jock himself would have the final arbitration, converting smeared mistresses into future credits. The sex fiends never appealed his decision. They knew that it was as futile as asking George Jeffery for a discount. (George would look hard at the volume in question, then tear it, slowly partners

and

deliberately, into small pieces, before turning

back to the serious

punters.)

The

lads

enjoyed

a

could read

a price ticket,

They

made a few quid, great crack with their mates, prodhome. The business barely survived Jock’s death. There was

day out;

uct to take

but that was the end of it.

22

some haggling over his inheritance, and then, one by one, they dropped out. They weren’t cursed with the obsession: books as objects, books as icons, books as a form of race memory. It’s

entirely possible that I’m underdescribing Peter Fuller as thor-

oughly

patronised Jock. (The

as Fuller

Ian Brightwell told

artist

make

recently that Fuller was fond of a flutter and used to

turning in lively reports on boxing matches.)

been able to overcome scurfy

gymshoes and

Who knows?

I

a

customised drabness, the

a prejudice against that

elastoplast spectacles that

bore too close a resemofficial

Camden Town

— who soured

bicycle mafia, the out-patients

booktrade for

a

few bob

should have

blance to the charity shop uniform of the

level

me

chapter of the the street

generation by their adenoidal whining, their bleat-

ing about prices, their determination to break the elegance of the chain,

Jock to his sources. Dole bandits of the worst kind. Grant aid capitalists. Buddhist bully boys. You couldn’t buy an Ace-Double from to beat

them without filling in a form in triplicate and listening to the lecture on Thoreau. This level of bitterness is corrosive. The books are a penance

that customers have to

undergo

unpublished poems on the walls of the

in

Road, Dalston,

it

A bolthole

as

those

he squirrelled away

was an ironic

convenience address,

a

all

office.

Perhaps Fuller merely looked the part,

cache of blue Penguins. Perhaps

recompense for

a

disguise.

his

And Graham

stopover with grubby authen-

which to plan the reinterpretation of the culture. Fuller was to emerge from his exile, debunking modernist heresies, the follies and excesses he had once championed. He would extol the spiritual virtues of epic Suffolk skies, motoring eastwards to champion flint churches and English craftsmen. He would lead Sister Wendy from her caravan. He would found Modern Painters and an effective critical/commercial nexus, broad enough to include David Bowie, Howard Jacobson, William Boyd, AS Byatt, Grey Gowrie and Patrick ticity.

in

Wright.

Abney Park was

still

dutifully copied the

Then we legged

We

held back from the

Boleyn Road

graffiti

Road

onwards

stretches

drift past exotic

nameplates with

I

into

book barrow and

my

Europa notepad.

it.

Stoke Newington chicken.

waiting.

like the

rubber neck of a

minimarts, deleted cinemas, tributary

literay associations.

The

Hasidic foothills have always

Jews escaping from Whitechapel sweatshops, early West Indian immigrants (as depicted in Alexander Baron’s novel. The

been disputed

land:

23

Baron, troubled after the war, wandered the borough like

Lowlife).

hungry

fetch: watching, listening,

He

reorientate himself.

needing

Mare

to heal the

Street

Camberton’s Rain on

End

the East

trauma of combat, familiar

ter-

Neo-Romantic account of produced by John Minton for th^ 'dustwrapper of Roland

he no longer recognised

ritory

would allow him to mother’s house in Hackney

for the clues that

returned to his

which

a safe place in

a

the

(like

Baron found himself criss-crossing of mazy traverses, eavesdropping on conversa-

the Pavements).

in a series

windows of tailor-shops. A been optioned: bomb-damaged terraces,

tions in cafes, reading the reflections in the

landscape that had not yet

wilderness gardens, green shoots amongst the rubble.

From

From

the City,

the Plough, Baron’s first novel,

Jonathan Cape in 1948.

It

was

a success

was published by

of a kind that

is

no longer im-

numerous impressions in hardback and paperback. Baron, a modest man, was inveigled into attending a celebratory party in Bedford Square. He took the bus from Dalston Junction, had a few solitary whiskys in an anonymous pub to steady his nerves, looked up at the lighted room, the buzz; turned on his heel, went home. The Lowlife came at the other end of Baron’s career, in 1963, a few aginable;

years before he slipped gracefully out of print with Francois Dying, to

become one of the a

Hofmann

“reforgotten”. The Lowlife featured

who works

presser

much addiction —

only

with an even more destructive

as

Lee, Killing of a Chinese Bookie),

ducking and diving, tive

strong-arm

makes expeditions

to

Soho

be for the next few weeks.

for fat Italian meals, cigars,

I

stays in

women —

bed working

at a time.”)

a

jag with books like

Stoke Newington

to stay lost: limboland,

he

Newington

and his

is

the place

unpublished poets, and poets cultivate

where

worst reputation in North London.

custody protest.

24

A

terrorists

some

the per-

a

phoney

behave

a justified paranoia.

clubs, spielers, anarchist pubs: they cluster

is

to

London’s Interzone. Large

shabby properties that ask no questions. Internal exile with rent-book. Stoke

a diininu-

knew what my programme was going

can go off on

people do with liquor. Weeks

which

pursued by

in a cylindrical coat, a literal torpedo. Flush,

yards of Zola. (“I

fect location in

gambler

the City,

secondhand bookshops. Then he hides out,

way through

to, a

the love of literature.

a post-existential loser. He’s

man

he has

The Small World of keeps on the move, cheating fate,

Harryboy, true to genre (true to Night and

Sammy

as

Harryboy Boas,

like

Drinking

around the nick with the

permanent, on-going, death in

NATIONAL SOLUS

FREEDOM TO

DURSUN KARATAS

Hammer

and

in universal salute.

Neat black

apparently,

balding,

leftist

Karatas cartoon with raised

on blue hoarding. Graphic

stencil

art

fist

with

The most

arrested in Paris.

groupings; assassinations, militant action. Backing,

from drug

moustached

star.

Dev/Sol figurehead,

a budget. Karatas, the

extreme of the

imposed on

sickle

traffickers.

activist

hard-edged gallery of the

An uncomic

strip

running north: the

winning the war of the

streets.

Broad band of sky

fences.

blue,

An

elegant,

narrow band

of inky blue, broad band of scarlet. The aesthetics of provocation.

Qampanya

Collectable posters. colours

— red,

Serkeftine. Printed in the Kurdish

making the shape of the Creased where the paste doesn’t grip

green, yellow; crowds and leaders

mythical homeland. Suns and

flags.

on plywood.

Sanctuary

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST By now

accommodation address (Box 15, London E8 2NS) of that mysterious and

we’re cruising past the

138 Kingsland High

Street,

of the London Psychogeographical

fugitive publication, the Newsletter

Association (“35 Years of Non-Existence”). This anonymous, unsponsored, irregular, single-sheet squib

London’s neighbourhood It

no

has

you.

It

writes

The deranged chart of the stance. is

itself. It

certainly the

and no distribution.

invents the

geniality

probably the most useful of aU

And

tabloids.

fixed cover price

is

rumours

of its prose

offers the

city’s fevers: reality as

A fictional documentary,

that

it.

it,

it

finds

purports to discover.

an infinitely accommodating sub-

a retrospective prophecy. is

The

Newsletter

whatever you want to

no present tense. It’s dead when you read it. Much fantasies that become fact through the sheer energy of the

News

better to trust

it

you need

only accurate temperature

unembarrassed by the knowledge that news

make

If

most entertaining.

has

prose.

SMASH THE OCCULT ESTABLISHMENT National Maritime

(May

10th,

Museum, Greenwich). The Queen 25

and

Baron Greenwich (aka Prince Philip) a site of key masonic importance

-

the

making

will be

a ritual visit to

Queen Anne House,

Greenwich. The Royal Greenwich Observatory have published their expectation for an annular eclipse on this day

WAR in the East End

.

.

What

.

are

.

.

.

PSYCHIC

Ley Lines?

.

.

.

Anne’s rededicated by former Gresham', Professor.

St.

St.

Anne^s, Limehouse was recently rededicated after having over

£tm

spent on restoring the exterior. Eric Sorensen, chief executive of the

London Docklands Development Corporation attended at a

key

site

on the leyline

OMPHALOS on the

Isle

Beackon

is

.

.

.

The

.

.

.

the ceremony

NAZI OCCULTISTS SEIZE

election

of Derek Beackon as a Councillor

of Dogs caused shocked outrage across the Establishment. a dedicated

Nazi

occultist.

He graduated

to the British

Nationalist Party after serving his apprenticeship in the British

Movement. Beackon

an adept of Enochian magic. Devised in the sixteenth centuy by John Dee, it was the magical system which laid is

the basis for the conjuring

The matter of London,

up of the Brtish Empire. the refleshing of Lud’s withered hide,

is

exposed by doctored maps, speculative alignments, black propaganda.

The revenge of the

disenfranchised. Improvisations

on

history that are

capable of making adjustments in present time. Prophecy as

the purest

form of fiction. Subversion

as

news.

in splash headlines.

corrupt of all forms, the tabloid, can be “turned”.

News

The most

The psychogeogra-

phers are operating an equivalent of James Ellroy’s novel American Tabloid, freebasing

the image bank.

they have Onassis,

among

A

become

Sam

archetypes and video

paranoid poetic whose

lies

clips,

speeding through

are so spectacular that

new form of truth. The Kennedys, Dean

a

Martin,

Giancana, Santo TrafBcante, Marilyn Monroe: blood and

sperm and money. Retouched colour spreads. Studio PR. Fixes. Bribes. Stone-crazy investigators who, after quarter of a century studying the same Jack Ruby

photograph, find an

hit

earlier version

of themselves

standing next to John Peel in the background.

The off the

past

is

fluid, a

main road

black swamp; dip for whatever you need. Stepping

at this

point lands you right in

it:

the psychogeo-

graphical badlands. Secret cells of counter-terror scribblers, dole bandits

sub-editing propositions too manic for even the Sun to contemplate.

This

is

where the

Invisibles

go

to ground.

diagonal running south-east, one side of sloped back of

a

praying man, a

homage 26

a

Amhurst Road: dangerous

a

bent

triangle.

The

to Nicolas Poussin. Stoke

Newington Road/Amhurst Road/Dalston Lane: enclosing, sealing off, the perceived drug frontline of Sandringham Road (twists of silver paper trodden into the cracks of the paving stones, the tesserae of the

of poets (the Hackney ward that

underclass); enclosing nests

Cambridge), avant-garde musicians, rogue cadres refining their

forever

is

rage, dis-

placed Kurdish mountain restaurants.

Back

in the Sixties, the area

accommodation and

flats

poet

garrets

of reasonably priced

asleep; plenty

available in large family houses,

and dark basements.

Tom Raworth

become

was

now

was from Amhurst

It

into separate

split

Road

that the

operated his revolutionary Matrix Press

Cape

the Goliard Press, then

tionary in terms of its quality,

its

Goliard).

The

press

(later to

was revolu-

quick witted intelligence, the unfussy

mad men now on would walk down the middle of

but enticing look of the thing. (“There were no streets,

the harmless ones that

road, their hair long

On

the

first,

way back

I

a wilting sprig

Professor Eric time, or a

.

.

We

.

were

living in

passed a policeman

of marijuana in

Mottram

little later,

told

me

a

that

grey horse

A

.

.

Piero arrived

Serial Biography, 1969.)

he visited Raworth around

this

he couldn’t remember where (North London,

amazed

to discover a

room

filled

produce, cookers, fridges, hairdryers. All the

electrical

elements of an abandoned, or yet to be composed, a

the

Amhurst Road, Hackney.

his lapel.”

Finchley, Cricklewood?), and was

with hooky

on

the

surrealist

poem. Like

poet walled in by the objects of his imagination. Also in Amhurst

Road

(at

number 359) were another

group, or tem-

porary alliance, with Cambridge/Essex connections and interest in exploring the possibilities

Barker, Hilary Creek,

members of

the

Angry

spiracy

—

that

Greenfield, supposed

Brigade. Their arrest and graffiti

genuine

of kitchen-table publishing: John

Anna Mendelson, Jim

miles of precisely lettered

a

— free

trial

inspired

many

jake prescott/whose con-

was to hang around for years (though not, obviously, the

example on the

side

of the Old Bailey). Calligraphy of

this quality

betrayed a background in higher eduction, quality time in teaching practice.

Work

that the cuts in university budgets have ensured

we

will

The communiques produced on a John Bull printing Angry Brigade’s Moonlighters’ Cell were, according to

never see again. set for the

Gordon Carr (The Angry Brigade, The Cause and the cated at Amhurst Road and composed, at least Mendelson. Some of these

texts,

in part,

arranged in broken

rehearsals for the suppressed urban poetry

Communique

Case, 1975), dupli-

9 accompanied an 27

lines,

by Anna read like

of the Thatcher

years.

attempt to destroy the police

computer

Tintagel House, just across the river from the Tate Gallery.

at

secret files in the universities

the census at

home

social security files \

computers

'

TV Giro passports

work permits insurance cards

Bureaucracy and technology used against the people

to

speed up our work

to

slow down our minds and actions

.

.

.

to obliterate the truth.

The in

originals

some

of these documents are presumably bagged and stored

Secret State

facility,

just as the relevant “little press”

have been examined by Wolfgang Gortschacher Salzburg or collected by Geoffrey Soar

of London. This material (those

who

is

at

of enormous

were there and can’t

magazines

the University of

at

the Library of the University

wealthy nostalgics

interest to

remember, and those

who

like to play

dangerously in retrospect). Counter-culture ephemera, throwaways, psychedelic posters, the “School Kids” issue of Oz, the Burroughs toy in IT, Sigma papers, situationist durables:

accountants and their archivists.

all

Mimeo’d

have their price-tag, their

single issue

verse, or anarchist bulletins, they are fused in

down. The hybrid form prophetically English poetry, ical

when

second generation melt-

alludes to the

coming

state

of

the technical language of psychoanalysis and polit-

rhetoric (plus Walter

respond to the

chapbooks of free

crisis in

Benjamin and Theodor Adorno) would

our cultural and

social lives

by striking

tacular treaty with the imperatives of the gutter.

So

a spec-

selfless

and

communally based was the spirit of this poetic that it was universally denounced as elitist and resistant to ordinary intelligence. The Angry Brigade communiques were the only small-press publications to be thoroughly reviewed and debated in the nationals (author

photos, long-lens snatches, reproductions of holograph

BOSS.

It

was

like a replay

letters).

DEAR

of the Jack the Ripper frenzy. Stoke 28

Newington, lar

like

Whitechapel of the 1880s, became fixed

at a

particu-

point in time. Subsequent accounts would have to refer back to

this

burnout of flash-bulbs, doorstep excitement.

But the

distortions

of popular journalism

any sense of what the Amhurst

to develop

about. Mendelson,

it

now

such that

are

more obtuse and

the

mented they

itself in its

insist

on remaining

frag-

attempt to strike

theoretical. In other words, at that

good enough,

true

enough

to

its

difficulties. It solicited destruction.

Mendelson’s subsequent reinvention

Grace Lake,

poet/artist,

intelligence

perhaps

is

as

the singular and distinguished

of the nature of her

a revelation

what was always true, the courage of her attack, the operating with and through stress: the achievement in her

political acts. This

is

Hemingway

transcribed internal monologues.

most unexpected stuff,

The

of public drama for insights and metaphors that

acts

particular instant, the poetry wasn’t

own

on

speak for the disadvantaged masses. Private confu-

a univeral tone, to

should always

really

appears, was essentially a writer, a poet.

moved away from language, became. The rhetoric betrayed

mistook

impossible

Road group were

further events

sions

it’s

place.

“Grace under

justified at last, in the

The

pressure.”

rest,

the tabloid

was an accidental apprenticeship.

Home, “Neoist”

Stewart

or anti-Neoist,

untrustworthy (by intent) historian of

art guerrilla,

is

a marvellously

His novel Red

this Interzone.

London (1994) documents, through programmatic fiction, the schisms, plots, affrays of anarcho-Buddhist-sex deviant street life. The large and unrestored pubs of Stoke

of Class Warriors. (Home,

ond

Newington providing it

must be admitted,

is

R & R for thirsty cells a

prime suspect

as sec-

leader writer and provider of squibs for the Psychogeographical

Newsletter.)

Home’s

shtick

is

alternate history, subverting

myths to rewire

received accounts of who was there and

what they did. (“Situated as it was on Stoke Newington High Street, the pub attracted the more presentable elements from among the Hackney anarchist community. While the punk-hippy-squatter axis would frequent less reputable establishments, members of the Class Justice Federation and all manner of syndicalists, bakuninists and impossibilists were to be found in the Tanners.”)

Stewart was the

man who would

present careers of the ex-Angrys.

have picked up whispers about the

(If

he

didn’t, he’d fake

it.)

He’d heard

(he broke off from his longterm investigation of prolific novelist/historian,

Andrew

operating

Sinclair, to tell

as writers, novelists,

me)

that several

of the males were

pulp fiction journeymen. 29

It

now

was just

as

I

had suspected: the

was

of the small time dope-dealer, the used-book buff,

era

over. Survivalism

and subversion had palled up with

trash literature.

Thinking about the conjunctions of Amhurst Road, sighting of the

first

I

recalled

my

Abney Park

magnificent Egy^ptian gates of

Cemetery — built under advice from Joseph Bonomi Jnr, the “great expert on symbolic decoration and hieroglyphics”. Bonomi, who never practised as an architect, became the curator of the Soane Museum in Lincoln s Inn Fields. Another of those secret lives whose purpose and meaning seem to reside in their ability to encode some prescription, or unnoticed

work

text, into the

surviving architecture of the

city.

Bonomi

emblematic of eternal

life as

“contributed designs for

who

Abney Park the winged orbs

outside time. According to Paul Joyce {A Guide

Cemetery, 1984),

Agents

to

well as their attendant hieroglyphic legends

which translate as The Gates of the Abode of the Mortal Part of Man!' There was no time then, on that afternoon in the early Seventies, to make a leisured examination of the gates, or to stroll through the cemetery. I’d been invited to meet a couple of very jumpy fringe members of the Angry Brigade network who were hiding out, in quite an airy and well-sanded, pine floor fashion, in Cazenove Road. The man, it was understood, might want to liaise over the possibility of our shooting some 8mm footage of the Ron Bailey Redbridge squat. We went through all the paranoid interrogative, rambling cross-purpose chat —

on outdated stock that made Redbridge look like downtown Bucharest. But what struck me most was the Habitat domesticity, polished mugs on hooks, cut flowers in jars, that went alongside the need to continually check out the cars parked in the street. A twitchy net curtain syndrome that would not have been out of and

later did the filming

place in Carshalton or Purley.

Kynaston Avenue, N.

16.

Out with

the notebook.

LADY POSITIVE IS

A

UGLY MOTHER.

BAW SQUATING. FUCK YOUR EVICTION. SHELTER is a basic human need — dont ban squating. STOKE

NEWINGTON GRAVEYARD Now we

must move, keep pace with the 30

1st

pull

October. of the graveyard. The

margins, the walls of

Abney Park

outflow.

Broken

their headstones. Erased letters

forming

a

cerns, carry invitations.

from

the doorways of inactive commercial con-

alleys,

ECO TEN OEVE

washed

free

language.

HAT BELLE

OULD NO

I

new

texts

PB

Dates and times of assignations that will never be kept. Cruisers, sex vampires, occult geometers.

You

One of the expeditions in Patrick Keiller’s film, Of course it did. Where else? The intention, Edgar Allan Poe’s boarding school, Wilson, had been aborted. No visible catch 1

on

film. (“Let

me

call

feel the refreshing chilliness

you can

slipstream.

London, took

this route.

don’t have to walk,

to the

to pay their respects to

doppelganger William

trace remains,

myself, for the present, William

thrill

anew with

delight at the deep hollow note of the church-bell

Robinson,

Wilson

settled instead for traces

.

.

could be enjoyed in the grand

illusion

.

Keiller’s char-

.”)

of Daniel Defoe,

Newington: the extramural settlement of Crusoe

The

.

indefinable

double agent, eyewitness to events that had passed him failure

.

of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the

fragrance of its thousand shrubberies, and

acter,

nothing you can

glass-fronted police station

of openness, access for

is

all.

dissenter, by.

Stoke

exile; a village

where

style.

designed, head on, to present the

There

are huts

around the back to take care of the everyday

and cabins tucked

stuff,

armed

juveniles,

purse-snatchers. Cautions are administered as casually as enquiries about

the weather. the

new

The

building

is

no more than an advertisement

look doing nothing to eradicate the

hung over

the place for generations.

still

The photographs of the

is

staircases:

reflections in the

a traditionalist

darkened

arrest

of the

glass.

Afrikaner aspect to the layout of the

cells

and

they seem to invoke on sight an inclination towards suicide.

Victim posters and announcements of protest the street.

old brick

infect the ground. Pedestrians cross the road, fearful

of searching in vain for

There

itself,

evil reputation that has

hulk that stood in for any hard information about the

Angry Brigade

for

Only

the

always there

on

multiply, heated

by

rallies are

names change. The rumours

conspiratorial drinking sessions in the anarchist pubs,

informers, speed freaks; off-duty

CID

by disaffected

mythologists, addicted to fic-

denounce themselves to local press stringers, for the glory of seeing their names in print. Insider dealing in the drug squad. tion,

31

Investigations

permanently pending. Bad

scripts for

TV fillers:

silhouette

interviews, blood-red brakelights in a longfocus orange nightscape, talk-

ing heads disintegrating on impact.

The

streets

around'the cemetery are orderly extensions of the necrop-

Muslin shaded windows. Avenues that

olis culture.

stay

shtum, that

look the other way. Pre-dead. Victorian speculations that are of great

of the Hackney Society. These local-history

interest to the archivists

buffs are

keen to demonstrate

Hackney

that

has a pedigree, something

other than the mess of the present. If there has to be a

one of their heritage.

illustrations, let

You might

it

be colourful,

find a sketch of

human form

in

peering

at

old, reverentially

Mr Footer but you won’t come

up

take a furtive interest in these glossy-covered

against a single ethnic.

I

publications, this lush

pornography of

detail:

Italianate ostentation,

of wallpaper.

scrolled brackets, decorated keystones, fragments

smacking pathology of connoisseurship.

Catalogues

A

lip-

of perverse

refinement: quoins, string-courses, swags.

Locating one of the featured houses star.

is

like rediscovering a

Take Evering Road, for example. The way

Michael Hunter in The

it

music

hall

poses for the camera.

Hackney (1984) features the front door of No. 245: “The paired columns and foliage capitals are typical

of

Victorian Villas of

derived

details

ultimately

from

medieval

ecclesiastical

Get down on your knees (as the photographer did) and the diminishing perspective of the original diamond tiles pulls you rapidly in towards the dark doorway. That’s as far as you go. The lives architecture.”

house

that unfolded within the

in

untouched.

The agency snap (Popperfoto) of No.71 Evering Road, reproduced Anthony Lambrianou’s Inside the Firm (The Untold Story of the Krays'

Reigti of Terror),

is

of a very different

ing architecural refinement.

dingy basement window. is

are

of no consequence,

a

It’s

It

a

quality. It stands well back,

spurn-

doesn’t crop out the scrubby garden, the

mugshot, not

a portrait.

The house

itself

drab disguise for the events that took place in

basement on the night of October 28, 1967, when Jack “The Hat” McVitie was killed. Albums of photographs won’t clarify the

Blonde

Carol’s

conflicting accounts of that grand guignol party.

popper, wild card, underdressed gilt-edged irritant.

(hoping for the

call

A

villain

sartorial disaster,

else,

he gave the faces of the

from David Bailey)

fixed Evering

Road on

a pill-

with an enviable reputation

a

the

Sixties

style.

His death,

if

it

did

murder map of London. Lines

of pain spread out from the black hole of that basement. The route 32

as a

bad name. Barbers would go

out of business waiting to give Jack a bit of

nothing

McVitie was

his

body travelled became a mantra, a reverse pilgrimage: Lower Clapton Road, Narrow Way, Mare Street, Cambridge Heath Road, Commercial Road, Blackwall Tunnel. A burial that was never recorded, the wrong of the

side

river.

Through those Egyptian pylons and

swamp

wilderness of oak and chestnut,

knotweed, has been

fiercely

inside the

cemetery

cypress,

walls, Poe’s

Japanese

thistle,

hacked back by community miscreants.

evident passion to reveal the paths, catalogue the broken statues.

sun low behind the stone and

trees;

Marc Atkins framing

weed with no

starting point or

is it

the

the finish?

It’s

The

odd conjunction of

enthusiasm. He’s confused:

real

An

been too easy so

far,

no

is

our

this

blisters,

no

Abney Park has been demystified, it has lost its patina of obscurity. The locations and achievements can all be checked in the book: William Booth the Salvationist (Cyclorama photograph of his funeral, the crowds blocking the High Street, packed in their thousands up insights.

Stamford

Hill);

Frank Bostock, zoo-keeper, imprisoned beneath

a sleep-

Edward Calvert, disciple of Blake, associate of Samuel Palmer, much of whose life was spent “in obscurity in Dalston and Hackney”; Thomas Canry Caulker, son of Canrah Bah Caulker, King

ing marble lion;

Bompey

Western Africa; Joseph Conder, bookseller, poet and author; William Hone, bookseller, prosecuted for blasphemy; Enoch of

in

Bassett Keeling, architect, surveyor for his series

and speculator

of extraordinary churches ... in

of High Victorian gothic.”

He

Chartist, lost

a wildly vigorous version all

George Leybourne —

vanalias

Charlie”; James Bronterre O’Brien, political activist.

all

his

Bristol Channel.

Give

family;

“remembered

imprisoned for “seditious speaking”; Henry Valentine Orfeur,

with

Shall

is

died of drink, his churches have

ished or been “seriously mutilated”.

“Champagne

who

Up

Its

crew when the schooner

Invoice

went down

A scuptural relief of the storm-tossed vessel: Dead”. Evelyn Pyle, the

last

“The Sea

of the great horticultural

Edward Sievking, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward

Samuel Sharpe, banker and Egyptologist;

physician extraordinary to the

in the

Sir

Author of medical works and water-colour illustrator of anatomifigures. John Swan, originator of the steamship’s screw propeller and

VII. cal

the self-acting chain messenger; William Tyler, police constable, shot by

on 23 January the “Demosthenes” of the

Latvian anarchists of the “Flame” group in Tottenham

Henry Vincent, political agitator, Chartist movement; Rev. Dr Isaac Watts, 1909;

philosopher. 33

poet, hymnist and moral

We

plod towards the chapel,

and

are targets for spraycans

3.

FUCKINCi,

A HERB

IT

No

’’

felt-tip pens,

by Bob Marley.

A pit

who even look/ at

COCK SUCKING /dOING RUIPPER ALRIGHT. ROUTES.

mustashe. all hail discordivc!

ner’s yard.

our compass bearing. Sinister

spire

undergrowth. Sepulchres divested of their vegetation

drifters agitate the

mans/a bad

its

1.

No

wyfe.

this

“WEED

No

2.

you

hotrse.

Sme|l'like old hay. Like a skin-

of rags and dead pigeons. Rubble and

fire traces

inside

body of the chapel. While Marc climbs on the dead bones to find a good angle, to catch the green rays of the dying sun, I wander aimlessly around the back of the unrestored

A window

the building.

sealed with corrugated iron sheeting. In blue

paint: the eye within the triangle. Pinkish

obvious, that

been the

which does not need

architect

to

white lettering

be spoken: dog.

William Hosking’s intention that

spells It

this

out the

had always

should be an

interdenominational chapel, a single “cell” betraying no bias towards any

who would

of the Christian

sects

was pushing

mocking

it,

use

it.

But

this Special

the heritage of an antiquarian

Mary

invited to take part in the restoration of St.

and

who

Bonomi

shared with Joseph

Brew

occultism

who

had been

Redcliffe in Bristol,

a particular interest in the arcane

Egyptology of the cemetery entrance.

We

had brought ourselves to the heart of it, the vandalised chapel

the woods, and

we were

confronted by just the reversal

DOG. The word twisted our expedition back to this site as

the

X,

the given, the point from

its

we

source.

which the

It

in

deserved.

established

true walk

would

begin. I

call

of the

Marc

over.

window

The

eye within the blue triangle

is

unstable (the eye

blinded by corrugated sheeting). Triangles multiply.

I

think immediately of the gilded triangle imposed over a circle of gold

on the lefthand panel behind the altar at the east end of Christ Church, Spitalfields. The Christ Church triangle is a brand of liquid fire (you can see the red beneath the gold where the paint has flaked) imposed on a white, pupilless eye.

It floats

above an iconographically complex weave

of studded flowerheads, chains of roots and branches. Responding to the camera’s

flash,

it

shines.

Marc composes

The

It

gleams out of articulate darkness.

his black

pinkish white dog.

and white account.

The

triangle

I

snap a colour record.

of concentration.

and of all the other triangulations of the

city:

A

sense of this

Blake, Bunyan, Defoe, the

monuments in Bunhill Fields. Everything believe in, everything London can do to you, starts there. The theatre of obelisks and pyramids, signs, symbols, prompts, whispers. The lovely lies that take dissenting

I

34

you out into the

light.

That

bless

each and every pilgrimage.

The V of our walk is no longer an open-ended proposition. The v is sealed. It has become a triangle. And the unblinking blue eye is the eye of the camera.

3

Walking The V. Albion Drive E8 To The University O F Greenwich. To Claremont Road. 25/10/94.

Pyschic landscaping, drifting and free-association ... he seemed

attempting

to travel

be

to

through time.

Patrick Keiller, London

Usual

first

on our

light start; grey skies, the lid

photography. Like wading through

imagery without

prospects. Useless for

fog of developing

a

a border. Persistent slanting rain

fluid.

nibbling away

where Albion Drive is Queensbridge Road. 1893 hackney/boundary/if 41 south.

white stone plaque

set into the wall

Ballpoint scratches through Inscription dissolves.

I

know

cap,

codes. All

“They”

(the ones

is

to

Lm

sea.

dressed to

keep going, head down, get

who all

by

accommodate it

it:

set to erase all

done.

put up noticeboards to advertise their con-

spicuous interventions in the carrying out a purge of

split

the

blotting-paper of notebook.

long green coat. Anti-sign weather. Weather

you want

at

these days: long and wet. “Soft” they call

them. Like Dublin. In off the

tweed

damp

Ghost

name of community) have

the local

sites that

lancers, aerosol bandits, copywriters

recently

been

could be useful to free-

of the unconscious. The Black

pub on the corner of the shopping precinct (always referred to as “The Triangle”) was a prime target. The Bull, an unpretentious Truman’s saloon, was a favourite drinker for Jack McVitie. (The Mildmay Tavern was another: roomy, no airs and graces, lively afternoon clientele, several exits to the street.) Jack shot up the bar once, Bull

when

the horses weren’t running to form, and the guv’nor was reluc-

tant to serve him.

“The Hat”

man”, but he Hked

was, as

Tony Lambrianou

says,

“a sociable

to expel his grievances before they turned sour.

Bull was a convenient

meet

for

Tony and 35

Jack, a stroll

The

from Belford

House; hardly worth getting the motor out. could drink without

be

a

front.

Where Jack’s

sartorial

a place

where they

shortcomings needn’t

peer group embarrassment.

When

the

whole

area

went down the

khazi, they closed the

pending redevelopment. Squatters moved

its

was

in. It

a

BuU —

high renaissance

of bold-type aphorisms. »The Bull saw more action

for muralists, coiners

on

was

It

boarded-up windows than you’d find

in ten years at the

Guys with pink mohicans, kilts worn over paintsplashed jeans, climbed out on a first floor ledge and got to work with the whitewash. Germans, Dutchmen. They brought some action to the local shops: bread, milk, cigarette papers. They were integrated into the Whitechapel

Gallery.

general amnesty.

THE BLACK BULL. The

became a unit of display, the perpetual exhibition; a plywood screen of doodles

announcement of a and misinformation.

An

gilt lettering

event to be grazed.

The

flowering that always

occurs before the instant of extinction.

NO ADVERTISING. Big Brother’s Advice:

Consume, decent POLITICIAN. Burn

NEVER TRUST A Flags Not Fags! bullets not ballots. SHOOT THE RULING CLASS. A Pox Upon the Poll Tax. WHY?

HOMES FOR EVERYONE.

The

Bull was demolished, imprisoned behind green fencing. Shortly

before the bulldozers mal, a pink sketch

moved

in, a

new

on the blue/grey

cartoon appeared,

tiles.

a strange ani-

Inches from the pavement.

The X-ray of a primitive horse, cave art. The when it no longer matters. It faced west.

spirit that

manifests itself

Cruder messages spread across the garages in the middle of the flats. FUCK OFF YOU. SOXI. ONLY WANKERS STEAL OFF OTHER WORKING CLASS PEOPLE!

NF. The garages were

blitzed, torn

down

in a day.

Knots of dis-

gruntled keyholders agitating officialdom. Entrances giving access to the

shopping precinct were

sealed.

Control established, one path only.

Drilling begins at 7 am. Helicopter overhead.

going under (bookie, grease

caff,

gifted with a cosmetic makeover.

from the

splat

The

The

small businesses

video survive)

first act:

as

the zone

is

the wiping of language

walls.

As we slogged south/ east, sticking grimly to our that Victorian

Hackney, patched and restored, had

SHAMEFUL TRUTH OF DIRTY LONDON: the

line,

we confirmed

lost its voice,

the

Evetiing Standard's survey

of

Tidy Britain (22.2.95) “visited 14,195 sites to find out the truth about dirt.” Mass Observation, Nineties style: rightwing diarists on the prowl, taking

down

ages and details of public school attendance.

36

The horror

exposed: Hackney was nowhere, not even in the premier league of

boroughs”.

“filthy

Our

rightful position

usurped by Havering, Islington,

Haringay, Wandsworth, Lambeth. “People need nal ashtray”, said Professor

communal Granita

Ashworth. Hackney has

ashtray. Islington

lefties

is

commu-

personal or

a

lost its status as that

boss at graffiti and fly-posting: the

have the self-confidence to compose, to hustle, to sign the

chaos sheet.

Sad Hackney (leaving aside the heroic

efforts

TOKi who

of

has

way from the Waste to Mare Street) has bottled it. London would have to go down on its knees to look Martin Amis in the

scrawled his Fields

Studying the early maps,

eye.

a jigsaw

of

with its

its

clear that the Fields

of tree-enclosed triangles — but

fiction; a respectable

Lammas

it’s

dog

now

were conceived

the dull grass

toilet, a drover’s

unworthy

is

patch lacking

sturdy senior citizen plane trees has nothing going for as a

plague pit in 1665.

Not

cattle.

ex-common

land, taken into public “custodianship” in 1872, this

memories of use

as

a squiggle,

it

beyond

not a curse;

no conjuring symbols carved into the peeling bar of the still impressive avenue. Even the titular deities, a Cockney / Aztec pearly king and queen rendered in cement and multicoloured tesserae, are undefaced. Heritage populism

after the heart

of Raphael Samuel.

Minimal wall action outside the extant London School: PARENTS EXIST OK. I

THE DECS ARE

famous

in the supplements.

We

Primary

FAB.

had more serious expectations for Beck Road, an

terrace,

Fields

artist-as-artisan

should be swimming

down

Hackney’s cultural frontline, the epitome of the borough’s claim to the highest per capita settlement of

artists in

Europe.

was sponsored by the beer. Washed clean by the of commemorative featured a

on

TV

as

labels.

I

rain,

thought the it

looks like a

Like the credits for Coronation

Street. (It

raise the

row has

the scene of a bloody shoot out in Between the Lines;

bent cop. Secret State fantasy cobbled together by media Trots

no longer

street

budget, or the clearance, for investigative

who

can

documen-

taries).

Jane GifFord lived here June 1980-May 1983. One blue plaque decal on the side of the railway joke. And the inevitable CLASS bridge. Pre-privatisation and Class War, they seem to go together: nos-

WAR

talgia for

comfortable hierachies.

The mob

in the cattle cars

knew

where they stood.

dynamo of all this creativity, tucked behind drawn curtains (no early risers). What do they do, these self-confessed artists? How do they live up to it? The buggy in the It’s

terrifying to contemplate the slumbering

37

hall,

The bicycle on the stairs. The poster in the show at Flowers East. They can’t all have a con-

the street-parked heap.

window. They

can’t

all

nection to Matt’s Gallery or the Chisenhale.

must

It

fester, boil

and

bite,

cramp them with envy. A dim electrical impulse seems to flicker at the windows, make contact with the rain, expel us. Frauds, memory thieves. Con artists with our steamed lenses ^n'd wet pulp notebooks.

Going

over, crossing into

LibDem

territory: Victoria Park. St

Agnes’

Gate and the “green lung”, the idealised version, the salvation of dustchoked, slum-dwelling proles,

your

flies

pictured

is

The park

itself.

— a warning (check homage to the dom-

board a

like the park, visit

I

it

most

but I’m increasingly uneasy about the

like a prison yard,

sents

a

and wash your hands before entering),

inant ethic, the great green god. it

on

has

Regimented flower beds

begun

to feel

it

is

days, circle

way

better than

it

pre-

we

are.

are back. There’s night security. Fences divide

the park from the street.

Some

vicious, antisocial

element has pitched

a

pot of red paint across

muted park portrait (so that it looks like one of those Kurdish posters). The sticky scarlet gloss drips like a puncture wound, illicit tenthe

drils

scorning the

As

official

gold paths.

transients (non-voters),

manifesto:

life

could be

we

grass

Give us your money. Better

try-in-town enclosure

on

The park

sufferance.

is

a

like this, disciplined leisure, controlled enlight-

enment. Uniformity, cropped for us.

are here

is

and

fresh paint

on the

yet, give us respect.

Vote

railings.

The whole coun-

with sponsorship paybacks, boastful

stiff

refurbishments, aspirations towards garden city status: the immaculate

lawns that signal the rotten borough.

some

play of water outside

Be wary of fountains. The

some municipal temple

is

frolic-

the gush of

misspent public funds, dubious set-dressing. Victoria Park lake, which was once a lake, with boats and islands,

Water

is

now

foliage, tall spoutings lost in the sodality

had got above

itself, this

the excuse for a fountain.

of all-over

The

rain.

of Liberal Democracy, the Jons

Versailles

park

et origo

of the green chain, the secure paddocks (doggy exclusive) that shuttle

Grand Union Canal, towards Limehouse

south, alongside the

Zero

graffiti.

The

park repels

it.

We

keep our heads

hands in our pockets. We’re trespassing on

hunting

liberties in

some pooch

gets

its

which we

are the prey.

couples are the worst.

them

a

Don’t expect an apology

fifty

it’s

not

a pit bull.

if

Limp

for fouling the bitch’s diet. (Nice old

They keep

comfortable

down and our

canine sanctuary, ancient

teeth into you, be thankful

away before you’re prosecuted grant

a

Basin.

their beasts

on extendable

yard attack profile.) 38

leads that

If the live animals, the shit-machines, are bad, the divine archetypes

we re supposed

Alcibiades, raised for

my

months,

truce.

The

worship are worse: twin white horrors, the Dogs of

to

on brick

spirits

plinths.

—

surged

When

they were blessedly removed,

but, inevitably, this

was no more than

frosty albinos are back, resprayed, restored (scrawny, loose

fleshed, wolf-headed, genitally deprived): the gift

Posed on their red-brick chimneys, they howl if fires

had been

Time

lit

the grandiloquent boast of the at

in

IN

past the

OPERATION. Marc and

edit a feature-length film

from these

clips,

town. We’re perpetually hustling to

On

is

stay

caps,

gates.

I

and

Snatch

exit a

through

sentimental

London Chest

Hospital.

have been caught so often

our wanderings that I’m thinking of putting

Surveillance

in perpetual torment: as

from our

Bonner Hall

Then south

the canal.

CLOSED CIRCUIT TV

of Lady Regnart.

beneath them.

to quit, to shake the raindrops

glimpse

a

You could

in an invoice.

our stuttering progress across ahead of our video ghosts.

another form of erasure.

the south side of Roman

Road, beyond the sorry huddle of stalls,

and out behind the low and middle-rise barriers of public housing,

is

Cemetery (vpc 1845), one of the most notorious bonepits of its era. They folded whole streets into the clay, stamped them down below the grassline as they were later to stack them above. Ground lucky to call itself contagious. This is where the Australian Aboriginal cricketer “King Cole” was buried, lace-lunged, and where a commemorative eucalyptus tree still struggles for life. Meath Gardens is a favourite of mine, one of the extramural city’s most numinous (unvisited) locales. Rain is a given here, even when the surthe relic of Victoria Park

rounding

with sunlight. Trees,

streets are ritzed

fat

with the arguments

of the dead, take on the most extraordinary shapes. They dominate otherwise undistinguished quality;

turf.

repel dogs. Silence

ous madness. Talk in tongues,

Showtime, Marc swabs is

a

whalebone

OUT. Ronnie

if you will,

his lens. collar:

The

but keep your

a specific

should have been planted here.

dumb, anti-language,

local history bias,

its

dusty

buttoned.

NF KRAYS/Dont

We’re soaked to the bone, shivering in our stays

lips

severe arch, the entrance to the

powder form. Shafted with a suitable spruce. Under the railway bridge and follow the wall Hamlets

is

deafens you, nourishes the imagination, irritates with a joy-

it

gardens,

They

files

Fuck. NAZIS Anonymously and in

thirst for text.

Road. But Tower

The

with

pro-grass.

into Bancroft

library

and boxes of documenation, 39

is

its

an

obvious substitute for the script that has been eradicated from the streets.

In the grand entrance hall (which obviously embarrasses

who

ments

a bizarre

it

and unexpected exhibition of pebbles and broken

know what you might find when

ele-

with racks of leaflets)

packed with beachcomber plunder and explanatory

cases never

have doile their best to neutralise

PC

the tide goes out on the

tiles.

is

Glass

cards.

You

Thames. Walking

on the foreshore, George Bradenell found three-quarters of a ton of coral. The pieces ranged from tiny fragments to 30lb.

according to experts, but

how

it

got

Mary’s College, black

coral originated in the

Wapping

to

Outside: Indian students, arms

Queen

The

full

is

Caribbean

a mystery.

of books, laughing, rock

& white unite/t.u.c

a car.

demo/19th march.

SMASH THE

BNP. Cartoon hammer and sickle, treacle people. On Mile End Road: The People’s Palace. The original People's Palace,

built

between 1887—1892, provided

facilities

for recreation, culture, amuse-

ment, sport, training and education for the people of East London. Panels in relief,

executed by Eric GiU, depict Drama, Music, Fellowship, Dance,

Sport.

One

Gill-carved inscription. Reclining male, oyster-eyed, hand

outstretched. Loincloth nappy.

UNTO/LAST T

H I

S.

One

of those signatures that

books read by

the pages of London’s stone library,

fill

statues.

Then nothing tence, not a tag.

that

The

is

worth entering

Peasant’s

in the

Revolt Mural in

notebook. Not

Bow Common

a sen-

Lane:

post-Guernica, cinemascope frame. Graffiti worked into the design:

SERFDOM, BONDAGE, FEUDALISM. 600 Years/FESTIVAL/1381/SATURDAY/

juNE/13th/1981. Matt’s Gallery (ex-industrial).

School Museum. Remembering our

Limehouse Church, tower restoration,

Ragged the way to

Poplar Neighbourhood, Past.

We

have to trek aU

winner of a John Betjeman award for for our next entry. In one of the alcoves, so well blasted white,

adapted to resting vagrants, the cheerful slogan: god bless you all!

No tunnel:

choice now,

The

Isle

we

have to go through

of Dogs. Anubis land, 40

it

to reach the river

a reservation

of jackals. Death’s

promontory.

The whole

postmodernism

istic

glass raft

is

a mistake, glitter

swamp where

(the

forms of anachron-

word crawled to die). completion. The seductive

that

Instant antiques. Skin grafts peeling before

sky/water cemetery of Thatcherism, cloud-reflecting sepulchre towers: an

evil that delights the

eye (the eye in the triangle).

obvious solicitation of the pyramid,

a

corrupt

designed to be seen through, to keep vision

— even

the compass

astonishingly

(Climb

thirst for eternity.

the true tower of St Anne’s Church, and stand

crumbling Portland stone lanterns, pyramids

An

set

among Hawksmoor’s

above catacomb arches,

alive;

the river,

all

points of

the futile bluntness of Canary Wharf’s phallic

topping.)

The

planners have dabbled in geomancy, appeased the energy lines

(while attempting to subvert them), and have achieved nothing beyond futile

decoration.

A city state built on self-regard. A colony where news

dies (Fleet Street in charge

of

own

its

VDU

where

obituary), and

screens play back electronic wavelets, green lines filling the machines

with poisoned water, responding to the

You

menagerie net.

A

a reprise

is

(Mudchute with

island

of Marie Antoinette’s sheep).

It’s

window. its

Toy Town

a surveillance

spaghetti western ghost with serious, multinational co-produc-

tion budget.

of another is

walk through the

can’t

tides outside the

terrified

Each time

layer.

We

a

we

thin as

found. Turn the

cattle

peeled

life is

I

fields.

say:

“Give

it

back to the herdsmen.”

Traces of ancient orchards can

still

be

out into the empty avenues and boulevards.

Island repudiates graffiti. There’s

no

surface

rough enough to

A field

take the pen. We’re trapped in an isthmus of signs, not language.

of force deliberately

Marc

walk. There’s nothing to be said.

of the shaggy cows.

These were the fattening

Dog

camera pans to catch you, your

set

up

to eliminate the freelancer, the walker, the

visionary. Public funds for private roads. Systems

of control based on

Minor

necrophile geometry: underpasses, barriers, security guards.

pyramids misaligned with the boss tower. Meaningless stones thrown by

people in

Even threats.

glass houses.

Class

War have jacked

in the aggro.

No

pronouncements.

No

The

an-

Leave the disgruntled dock fringe to Derek Beackon.

archists haven’t

bothered to

heritage, dead dockers

defile the billboard poster that boasts

queuing on

this

ground

for a day’s work.

can’t

compete with the Ronald McDonald clown nodding on

atoll

of petrol burgers.)

shimmers

in rainlight.

The

relief:

(They

a traffic

and Greenwich, where Maze

Island Gardens, fronting the river

a return to language.

41

The

of its

Hill,

blessed

no longer matters what is for crumbs. That the city’s

continuity of rage, electric fix anl scum.

argument with

The lift,

we ’re

of Dogs,

said; after the Isle

itself

It

grateful

should not be discontinued.

hoop of the foot tunnel is visible on a giant TV screen in the floaters. The merciful release of imagery that doesn’t cut on

tile

silent

%

'I

impact, that

isn’t

that edits to the ing,

out to explain

rhythm of the

itself

away.

breath.

Rhndom

pleasures, a

could happily stay here

I

all

camera

morn-

but I’m puUed out of my reverie by the need to transcribe a handbill.

HAVE YOU SEEN HIM? DANIEL CHARLES HANDLEY. BORN

RED BIKER

27/4/85.

SUIT.

The

chamber

lift

is

sheer old-fashioned luxury,

roomy and

well-

benched. The teak and polish of pre-war steamers. There are uni-

formed

by the mechanical repetition of duty into

operatives, pitched

no longer

secret mindscapes. Passengers are

become

a time-travelling

window:

surveillance

stranger than Brother

When

it’s

it’s

a reality.

The

cage has

module, connected to the outside world by a

a

Nautilus on wires, lowered into depths far

Thames can

provide.

our turn to perform for the camera, to walk

down

the nar-

row bore of the tunnel, to contemplate the tons of brown water above our heads, we remember that, of all London, this is PD James’ worst nightmare. For that reason, if no other, we relish it. Pleasantly disorientated: the south side of the river is much more than a simple culture jump, it operates on an entirely different pulse. The citizens of Greenwich have no choice, a north-facing consciousness (the brass rule of zero longitude in their spines): Canary Wharf as the inescapable point of focus.

We wet

were due some breakfast and

now

that this

posh

general condition

—

rain,

a reappraisal

of our

goals.

We’re so

sharper and cleaner, seems to improve our

Old Ford,

sluicing off the sooty deposits of

Limehouse, Poplar, Millwall, and stinging us sauna, a complimentary birching.

It’s

until

coming

we

straight

glow.

A

pauper’s

down, no argu-

ment, bar-code blocks of it — driving us into the shelter of the nearest grease

caff.

No

time to be picky, to choose somewhere rough enough

to feel comfortable with

NO DOGS ALLOWED.

our patronage.

We

Steam

in the

window, knees

rattling the

formica; affecting the biosphere with our transported weather systems.

Melting the

plastic plant life.

When

I

recite

our orders,

I

notice the

inscribed photograph in pride of place above the counter: Arthur Daley, genius

loci.

The

small trader’s small trader:

PETRILLI TERMINUS CAFE BEST WISHES

to

luigi

GEORGE COLE.

42

enza & franco

It’s

beginning to

The

apart.

fall

University of Greenwich

isn’t

actu-

The gaff is four hard miles downriver. But the University of Woolwich doesn’t have the same ring. (Even Arsenal Football Club found Woolwich too lowrent and relocated to Highbury.) The ascent of Maze Hill — contemplated as we try to pull our spoons out of the Sicilian coffee — is losing its appeal. We’ll never make or appointment on foot. We’d like to hop a riverboat to the Thames barrier, that would be within the spirit of the exercise, but the Greenwich,

ally in

that’s a

boats are not running.

courtesy

Wrong

title.

season.

have to be that charity wagon, the bus. Can’t keep Makin wait-

It’ll

ing in his cave, with nothing to sustain him: his composition on the wall like a

ogy.

permanent rebuke.

A

one poem

Back out

Yesterday’s inspiration.

collection.

there, in the

It

was bound to

monsoon, we

A

pall.

are obliged to take a sabbatical,

to dry out in a primitive shelter, forget text

numerology —

we

as

single sheet anthol-

and concentrate on

wait for a bus brave enough to open

doors in

its

this

weather.

The minutes to

our

heels,

are ticking away.

run

it?

state: rain

blows

roof and

down our

We

can’t

Should we abandon

this folly

and take

even enjoy the intermediate, half-sodden

straight into the

open-fronted

on wet

necks. We’re sitting

sweating, precipitation fogging

shelter, cascades

from the

timber, shivering atid

my spectacles. We know

that

we

will,

aU

too soon, be drenched again.

They

leap to their feet, the potential

The

darkness. ing.

Up

shelter

is

like a

commuters,

game of bingo

and down. Curses aimed

stare

out into the

for the blind.

Arms wav-

non-stopping vehicles. Packs of

at

“on test”, “on trial”. Step out there, trying to attract their attention, and you risk the contents of a displaced puddle; a puddle that throws itself at you. Or, play safe, stay back on the bench, and you’U never stand up before the airpressure doors seal with a self-satisfied hiss.

empty

buses,

We’re unpractised in the etiquette of public transport. novice’s error of leaping onto the ited in

A at

its

destination

first

vehicle with

We make

the

“Woolwich” cred-

window.

true adventure, this compulsory leisure, pitched from side to side

the rear of the bus (the flight out of East

Curtain

comes

to

Germany

mind: fellow passengers aU

in Hitchcock’s Torn

frauds, actors acting,

back

projections you’re not supposed to believe).

A of a

Faustian bargain: we’ve signed away ticket.

can serve

as

(We

all

our

don’t even collect the things.

marks.)

We

turn from

all

43

rights

No

with the purchase

books

in

which they

hope of Woolwich and head

into

the interior, uphill. Logic

ger status. At

is

suspended with your acceptance of passen-

Marc has something to photograph: our fellow hooked on travel, the willingly bemused, a troop of

last,

victims, travellers

dope-swollen moomfaces, the sort usually glimpsed yellow special needs minibuses with

lifts

infiltrated a secure-hospital delivery, a

at

they stare out of

as

the back. I’m sure that we’ve

roun^i^up of sectioned carpet-

chewers, white line walkers, parrot imitators, biddable psychotics, folks

who

with the daily horror of seeing things

live

Once we morphine

relax, let

it

cocktail high).

or action of any kind; a

happen,

as

they actually

quite pleasant

it’s

Washed-out

streets,

(a

post-operative

without shops or garages

mindless progress, on the

literally

are.

drift, floating

soup of putrid breath and steaming gabardine; stopping and starting

in a

without reason, nobody gets on or

back country. Lost

narcosis of the

off,

deeper and deeper into the

foothills to

which only commuters

return. After the archipelagos of cloned housing: scraps of parkland, tol-

erated forest.

map. (A

girl

I

can’t

know

I

connect any of this with the elegant fiction of my tears the pages relevant to

of the /1-Z, throwing them away

The

serial city

is

a

as

her day’s excursion out

she advances into fresh territory.

manageable concept. She’s in control, never tempted

go back to where she has been before.)

to

The

migrants we’ve got on board are uncatalogued. They’re quite

unlike anything

them out ble

and

on the

streets.

into the weather.

slurp;

on board

solved the riddle.

Time

They’re fixtures. Nothing will tempt

They

have huge bags of food.

all

ignores them. false pretences.

through the automatic doors, we’ll find ourselves

The

nib-

for the duration. Stateless, but content, they’ve

As walkers, we’re here under Kent.

They

paranoia of travel

account of time races on —

is

delightful.

until, the

And

If

we

ever

lost in the still

make

it

middle of

the wristwatch

hour of our meeting being

passed,

the bus relents, swings away from the prison colony of tributary streetlets,

and into the mainstream; downhill, gathering pace, Ha-Ha

Road, Woolwich Common. Woolwich the port, the barracks of Empire. Grog shops, whores, sodomy, the generating of ordnance, the temples of artillery: laid out before

us.

We’re released, pedestrians again, scoured by the storm. to our heels, bullocking lunchtime dawdlers, hunting

down

We

take

Makin’s

seminar room.

The

bureaucratic complexities of the University of

child’s play to

someone who got

Greenwich

his start navigating the

44

are

mile-long

rubber corridors of the

NE

London Technical College

Art) at Walthamstow, hunting

down

(and School of

day-release rockers and razor-

Or so thought, as dragged Marc, for the first half-hour, up and down flights of stairs, in and out of deserted offices. Confused and gasping, we were soon back at the entrance hall with a new set of questions. Out; across bleak courtyards and into fresh towers, scalped trainee

racists.

I

I

security doors with grander and grander

less

and

Circles of plastic chairs for unattended seances in earth

less action.

science or

covering up for

titles,

human

geography.

The energy

is

in the corridors: Metropolis

zombies endlessly processing from non-destination to non-destination. Finally,

on

saccharine coffee

electricity,

the

room

the giddy rim of dementia (recognising that

I

on an intravenous

drip),

hum

of bad

found myself in

I

had been connected with for so many hours

in telephonic

argument.

Uncanny: with no dialogue picked up

effort

on the

my part, we ’re straight back into beat by my opponent. The woman on

it.

The

I

bad-

mouthed is courteously resistant to our quest. There is no such thing as Makin and Room 178 doesn’t exist. But I was free to take a cup of coffee

and dry out under the

Room

striplight.

(I

was beginning to suspect that

178 was the ultimate Orwellian fantasy:

a mirror, a

door

that

opened on a door, that opened on another door, that .) While I raged, Marc wandered off, fearful that he’d be forced to experiment with the obviously drugged coffee. Room 178 was his first discovery. It shared a wall with the office in which I was trapped. The .

man Makin,

his

back to the corridor, was waiting

ber of smaller tables pressed together).

He

the table

at

looked

.

like a

(a

num-

permanent

fixture,

an installation representing “The Writer”, “The Philosopher”;

the

flickering flame of an intelligence distilled

last

ticeUed building. He’d stiU be here

when

from the

his wall text

sullen,

mul-

had decayed into

gnomic incomprehensibility. With the author so abundantly “in residence” alongside

his

work,

took nerve to step forward to examine the exhibit. These words, fixed arrangement,

make

it

were what we’d carry away with

back for the seminar, the explanations.

us.

it

this

We’d never

No justification was nec-

Worse than a poetry reading: having to engage with the script while the poet watched us. Just eight words to play with. How long can you stretch that out? Eight words and a set of essary.

Today, now, here: this was

it.

close-fitting parentheses. I

shuffled

down

the length of the composition, towards the window,

playing for time. There was plenty of white space (and the dread of the 45

mathematicians in their lation, at

words

tutorials, staring distracted, in their terrible iso-

on the

like those uplifting tags

walls of Victorian

operating theatres). \

storm

germinal (driving towards the harhdur)

chamber

empty

Storm Chamber. And we were the

into an antiseptic laboratory. Wanting, before threshold, to drive

on towards the harbour.

Ian Hamilton Finlay.

Which was

words were shaking themselves

news

carriers, transporting rain

I

we had

stepped over the

muttered something about

clearly a mistake.

But the weather arbour,

free, targetting us as future hosts:

germ, wards. Snap anagrams: mort, re-malign, beach rm Our walk was “explained” by the lines of attraction between Makin s separate terms. Germinal travelling south-east to chamber. Chamber .

labouring under storm.

Chamber

.

.

casting us back, west, towards the

empty quarter. A storm in a chamber pot. The drive towards harbour, we carried within us, in those broken umbrella brackets. don’t want to make it sound as if we discussed and debated Makin’s I

wall for as long as the intensity of his involvement merited.

good

a place to

Annotation the

is

publish

as

anywhere

My take

out of the question.

nod of acknowledgement.

else,

If the

but

it’s

on the

A wall

as

browse.

difficult to affair

is

was over with

poet hadn’t been around, we’ve

have been back in the corridor in seconds. Fine, got

it,

nice plot; check

home. (George Davis, D/S Mathews and Dursun Karatas aren’t sitting under their names ready to debate the proposition of their innocence.) This is more in the nature of a private view. No disout the photo

at

interested Courtauld girl to stand

telephone; just the a

speech-bubble in

We

man a

as

we

Spoken aloud, put

Moore comic strip. come up with an explanation,

truth

is

him

like

post-Alan

stalk the table,

into words, our

to defend

dripping puddles across the

journey sounds insane.

What’s the purpose of the photographer?

The

with the

fiddles

himself — his words spilled out behind

are the ones forced to

our presence,

you off while she

It is

floor.

insane.

Why Woolwich? Why the V?

that we’re in different stories. Atkins,

Makin: the names

begin to shapeshift. Each containing dominant elements of the other: kinship. Atget the Paris

photographer of

streets,

the maker.

some primitive version of cinema (lacking the “I”). The solution is to fuse them, subject and object. Atkins 46

Kinma,

bluffs his

way

into another part of the building, poses inscription visible

beyond him. Snaps from

Makin had waited tial

Makin

widow, the

in the

outside.

so patiently for this, at the table

end, a substan-

s

paperback gripped in white hands: Gilles Deleuze. Something about

Now the portrait clinches of difference. We ’re free.

scepticism and schizophrenia. aration; a definition

Woolwich

tips

everything loose

down

an act of sep-

it,

towards the Thames. We’re shep-

herded, wind-pitched, between charity shops.

A

Dieppe, lacking the

booze warehouses, but with its literary exiles in place, low price beds. LAST FEW days! WHOLESALE. A window of giveaway books: THE

DEFINITIVE DIANA, WHITE TIE TALE, GUIDE

MARKS OF THE WORLD. back in

a graffiti culture:

HOLLYWOOD Townscape found

it

IS

TO GOLD

Faces to the north, the river, we’re

the moonie boys.

FRANKIE GOES TO

SHIT.

in a liquidiser.

We’re so

worthwhile to close

down

map that nobody ferry. Work boats that

far off the

the free

has are

always off-season; passengers responding to the limited elation of being

out on the water. First-time voyagers sprint around the decks looking for

Old hands take up the position that will let them off first when the moving platform swings into place on the north shore. Downriver of Silvertown, wind carrying the stink of sugar away from us; the coated tusks of the Thames Barrier. The illusion, from which we all suffer, of midstream freedom, choice — to step ashore or stay on board for the whole cruise, out of time, backwards and forwards between South and North Woolwich. The curdled Bisto swell of the the bar, the duty frees.

river,

its

width under racing black clouds.

Daniel Charles Handley, 9 years old. 4'2" tall. Blonde short hair with a pony tail, wearing red bike suit with the word “racing” on front, brown boots; in possession of old silver missing:

BMX

cycle without a saddle. Information room coloured 071-275-5732. The boy had been playing, as 1 remembered it, around the Beckton Power Station; a rubbled wilderness that Kubrick and his crew (ex-Nazi rocket technicians) had turned into Vietnam for Full Metal Jacket.

The

river

emptying

is

back. Shlepping ashore,

itself into

down

the sky and the sky

is

a

chucking

the long drag of the bridge, we’re

point of letting the day go. Marc can’t operate in

notebook

is

wedge of sodden pulp 47

at

the

this

it

on the

weather and

my

bottom of my pocket. The

become

wall tattoos have

BNP NAZI SCUM.

and

stale

V

over, the

It’s

as wilson

listless:

has closed

081—459—8113.

legs.

its

We

can take

North Woolwich to Hackney and write the walk off to experience. (Like hdl we can!) But it’s poUtic at this point to allow Marc to think we might abort the mission. And, meanwhile, there’s the Royal Pavilion opposite the station: this is where TriE big lambs hang out. A

the train from

couple of Guinnesses and something to

The paid

(two regulars

vast bar

They must have had

for.

went down: newspaper men,

No

food.

Not on

Tuesdays.

See

in) represents

how

it

looks after that.

good times known. And

decent crowd the night the Princess Alice

a

disaster gulls,

A packet

with vinegar, will have to

stiffened

eat.

fill

hopeful

relatives. Stout’s off.

of stale

crisps,

the gap.

An

autopsy scratchings

abominable

cigar, pre-

sumably salvaged from the wrecked paddle-steamer, diamond white

EXTRA STRONG WHITE CIDER. PEEL AND REVEAL.

Life

is

Creeping back into

Marc sneezes. Steam rises from our coats. Get in another round. The edge has been taken from the afternoon. Maps mean nothing now. We’re up for it: the smoking apocalypse of Silvertown, the sun breaking through behind the sugar-smelting mills. Script on every availthe veins.

able surface. We’ll

That

walk for

as

long

as daylight holds.

from North Woolwich to the City Airport and over the Royal

single track alongside the railway,

Silvertown, before

Docks,

is

we

cut past

an ecstasy of transcription: the

we’ve discovered since

we

left

first

true language-contour

Hackney. We’re back into the rhythm of

striding out, pausing, shorthanding the graffiti,

next

cluster.

dereliction

is

Movement under pure excitement.

steaming factories will

work. As

a

It’s

evident that Marc’s portraits of the

that’s all

railway crossings to get

them —

One good

shot to

he needs.

freeze the universe.

RED ON GREEN WAR

SILVERTOWN

BACK NO MARKET

JOHN PEARSON + PALUNDER KULAR ’94 PAUL DICK-HEAD N BUSHY READY

I

to the

these skies and through this responsive

— he scampers up on

photographer

swooping on

TO SHAGG SORT I.D.S.T KENNY + ANGEL/ NO NECK/ WUZ ERE SAXON + STUMA WELL HARD CHAZ WOZERE/ ABOUT NOW i’m/ NOT SO I LEFT/

MY NAME TO TURN/ YOU ON. 48

PS 40

UP

A

delirium of coded information, hot

text:

cancer-grey lampposts

frantic to declare their allegiances. Scribbles stacked like battle

honours.

Scudding clouds, an avenue of disappointed nautical ambitions. ALEX JOHNSON SOLICITOR — FRANCIS

IS

REPENT!

A DOPE OWNER AGAIN

STOP TORY IMMIGRANT CUT/ VOTE LABOUR

CARS WANTED FOR CASH/RUNNERS & NON-RUNNERS/SMASHED OR CRASHED STEVE PETERSON

WHY don’t you

SILVERTOWN BOY!

94

build UP A SPLIFF/ MAKE

ME

A JOINT/ SUCK MY ARSEHOLE

Through

Regent s Lane

the unselfconscious ordinariness of Prince

(Greengate Street, Plaistow Road),

we ’re

comfortable, pushing on; sus-

tained by voices that never let up their attack. These streets street

—

Resigned

disaffection.

don’t

with no hidden agenda. They

are operational,

make much

something

to

profit,

but they survive. Sticky buns

them), burgers, cauliflowers

still

all

are content

than mediocrity.

less

-

(yes,

one with

The shops we sampled

coated with earth. Mechanics prepared

to take things to pieces.

ANN

IS

A SORT. Doii’t Votc Nazi

DELICIOUS HOUSE/ FISH & CHIPS/ CHINESE FOOD

TO TAKE AWAY

IT’S

THE YEAR

200! BNP WANKERS

EAT SHIT BNP/ SUPPORT ANL/ LICK SHIT BNP

You can walk here without appearing a

damn.

A

modest leavening of

dirt

The

freakish.

streets don’t give

and rubbish. This

weather visionary (cloud defmer) Luke Howard had Plaistow boy

who

had the sense to look up. Check the

JANE VICTORY

IS

TANYA

TFIE SEXIEST GIRL ALIVE +

KISS

12th century church of All Saints

respectfully

where the

his factory.

A

sky.

— YES

CARVY/ MEGASORTS

RICHY BENNETT CANT

The

is

around the churchyard. As

TO SAVE

is

we

HIS LIFE

locked and bolted. close

on

Stratford,

We detour we

pick up

intimations of a centre, a place that must once have been of 49

some

—

significance a

on

a staging post

narrow boutique

filled

the

with

way

out. Civilization

represented by

PVC,

rubber,

fetishists’ gear:

is

Only

zips.

marginally different from the shop supplying protective uniforms for industrial wear. Youxran’t have

decadence without

MODELS REQUIRED, SHIATSU,

SCAl'P

first

having

a culture.

MASSAGE

DONT BUY THE SUN

DO NOT ASK FOR CHANGE/THIS

IS

DEFEND THE LEADER OF THE REVOLUTION

DG Working

MINE!

IS

a route

I

DREAM THAT HE

PERU

IN

LOUISE

through the confusion of the Broadway,

known ground:

safely delivered to

IS/

NOT A BUS

we

are

climb into the cabin of any of the

heavy cranes and you can see Hackney Marshes.

A

few scrubby

acres

and broken sheds alongside the shunting yards were once known

Chobham

Farm.

worked

I

there (with

Tom

as

Baker, scriptwriter of the

autumn and long cold winter: loadBroken pallet boards burning in oil

film Witchfinder General) through an

ing and unloading containers.

^2S

drums. Cheap scab labour (under

a

week) brought in to circum-

The docks were finished. pseudo-dockers, marooned

vent the union stranglehold on the docks.

Chobham Farm was

the final dispute:

inland, defending their jobs against the restrictive practices of a labour elite

— whose

bases

were being captured and destroyed, even

the river to defend them. chalkstripe suits, nals

of the

mud, were

Isle

The Chobham

a trial

run for the

cities,

LDDC

tins

and

container units stacked

real thing, the republics

of outdated foodstuffs, thermos

on

of glass.

pockets of our overalls with broken wax, with which to

smuggled out

left

pirates, the cardi-

This was the era of power cuts, the three day week.

We

they

speculators, hard-hats

were the forerunners of the

of Dogs. Their fantasy

as

We

filled

make

flasks

the

candles.

topped up

from punctured drums of wine. Days spent humping slippery sacks of talcum powder, anthrax-enriched sheep casings.

with axe handles and ordered to reduce industrial

washing-machines to powder.

“Damaged

in transit”.

Heartbreaking sunrises the Lea Valley.

as

Lunchhour

we

a

among

issued

loading bay packed with Yells

drove to work,

picnics

Once we were

chill

of manic laughter. autumnal mists over

the sunflowers, effluent-fed

weeds. Trains shunting in the background. Talk of travel, gossip with the drivers. Letters

from Tony Lowes

in Kabul.

50

The day was

weren’t going to get

much

icy acreage,

project

its

have to wait.

We

further than St Patrick’s, Leytonstone, that

slumberland development with its

Mount would

exhausted. Chingford

its

forests

of white

statues. St Pat’s,

and

yearlong winter, would take the temperature of the

down. Bringing Marc

stepping back into the Prima

in

through the

Donna

gates,

episode of

I

was conscious of

my

novel Downriver,

into the psychotic topography of local mythologist John Morrison.

John, in

his set

of shoebox rooms, packed with their cargo of fabu-

lous documents, was a self-hypnotised voyant

— who, with

the aid of

sweet sherry transfusions, had circumvented the inhibitions of historical

He

time. scraps

absorbed pulse signals of the late-Victorian period, fondling

of graveyard cloth, rusty blades, ribbons,

summer

hat.

He wore away

at

a twist

of straw from

the tedium of the present.

over”. Travelled freely through places and events that

more

understood to be available only on prescription, through or

a

bad

a

a

He “went prosaic folk

good

library

Refraining from any gesture of intervention, he spoke

trip.

with the dead; conscious that one misjudgement, one action to prevent the horrors he was witnessing, and he

stuck between worlds, a

mute

would never

return.

He would be

presence, a quality of light hovering over

the rank vegetation of an unfrequented burial ground. John’s particular sweetheart was Marie Jeanette Kelly, the final victim

ofJack the Ripper. (She gave him the

Bronte

sisters.)

Morrison paid

tip

about

who murdered

the three

There’s a pathetic tale behind the memorial to Kelly that to have erected in St Patrick’s cemetery.

MARIE JEANETTE KELLY AGE

25.

THE PRIMA DONNA OF SPITALFIELDS

AND LAST KNOWN VICTIM OF

JACK THE RIPPER. MURDERED

FRI.

NOV. 9TH

1888.

DO NOT STOP TO STAND AND STARE UNLESS TO UTTER FERVENT PRAYER

(MARY MAGDALENE INTERCEDE) DEDICATED BY JOHN MORRISON DEC. 3RD 51

1986.

The

of brothers who, fronting a monumental

tale involves a pair

mason’s shop near the cemetery gates, established a connection with

Mickey Rourke who was hanging about the graveyard, ready to shoot his Prayer for the Dying exteriors with Mike Hodges. (Alan Bates was also involved, tossing his hair, rolling his eyes, going through the motions as a

“flamboyant racketeer

Get

Carter,

who

doubles

as a

moftician”.) This turkey was

no

Hodges’ celebrated exploitation of the photogenic elements of

Newcastle gangland: betting-shops, boozers, slot-machine and child

porn

of bite in rusty landscapes.

rackets. Plenty

Osborne

campy crime

as a

Bob Hoskins Rourke

’s

as

a

laid

even recycled John

hands were

boss, but his

Belfast shifted to East

priest.

full

with

this

one.

London. Mickey

accent.

Rourke, while he was sweating himself up for be

He

through the broken

statues, fell in

it,

waiting for tracks to

with John Morrison. This

Ripper yarn (Morrison’s from the horse’s-mouth solution) sounded

like

The mason brothers brokered the deal as Rourke took out a cash option. The boys would stand Morrison a marble headstone showy enough to pass muster with Rudolph Valentino — and, in exchange, he’d a

winner.

sign

away

a

major chunk of his screenplay and seed money.

The movie

caravan

moved on

celebrity boxing career.

grave of his

own

(to oblivion).

And Morrison

design, with

Rourke

duly got visiting rights to a

Odeon-sized

text.

very soon alerted the cemetery authorities —

A loud stone page who

insisted

immediate removal. Morrison, and the younger (more equipped themselves with spades and

a handcart,

The Old

Bill

that

upon

its

pliant) brother,

and prepared to dig

Kelly up, take her into safekeeping in Morrison’s chambers. tion at the graveside.

tried for a

An

summoned. Morrison had

alterca-

to content

himself with substantial portions of the broken headstone for his private

museum. The tomb

moved several more times, at Morrison’s expense. Less script with each flit. Not much more, now, than name and date: a postmortem tag. A long correspondence with Douglas Hurd and other functionaries has brought the truth home: “There is no Mary has subsequently

Kelly”. Kelly’s bones had

been taken out of

their paupers’ pit, in the

remotest corner of the cemetery, crushed and burnt.

The headstone

stood above seventeen layers of unrecorded East Londoners: pigeons, pebbles and rings,

The

gates at the east

back where

we were

all

end of St at

impacted in the heavy

Pat’s are

the start of all 52

cats, rabbits,

clay.

chained. In the twilight, we’re

this,

dodging among tombs.

We

down Cathall Road towards and bump into John Morrison, out

have to climb the fence and work our way

Maybe

the railway.

with

we’ll get lucky

about to indulge in some nocturnal archaeology.

his lantern,

Claremont Road catches us unprepared: the barricaded remnant of the

Mil motorway

away

extension protest.

^20

in policing this obscure railway cutting.

lost their

homes.

It

million has been pissed

A

thousand people have

has to be a major perversion: that anyone could have

targeted this terrace with a prime view of the cemetery as a significant

element in the blacktop revolution. As the

down, the

conflict

totally

is

The

palpable in their absence.

chill

of the evening clamps

one-sided - the invading forces are barbarians huddle around small

or

fires,

ready themselves for the next bout of journalistic interrogation.

Claremont Road ing the

spirit

and open to

pre-electric,

is

of resistance all

comers

vate,

is

inside.

on battered

There

It is

defended

the same time. Clusters of communards

kept for best in front parlours,

Outside

has blitzed itself backwards; find-

in a conceptualised self-trashing.

at

the middle of the road

it

are

no

sit

in

sofas.

Furniture that was once pri-

is left

to the

secrets.

The

road

mercy of the weather. is

closed to

traffic

by

a

number of contrived barriers and mini-henges of roughcast concrete. It’s doomed, they know that. The situation would be insupportable if it wasn’t

finite.

But

for

now

the tribes are in occupation; painted faces,

funny costumes, invocations of Lewis Carroll, “no, no!” said the QUEEN, “sentence FIRST AND VERDICT AFTERWARDS.”

Claremont Road

is

the destination for the missing

graffiti that

has

migrated out of Tower Hamlets, forced evictions /are a gross/vio-

LATION/oF human rights, red-united nations, help save CLAREMONT

road/phone 081-558-2638. Masts

rise against

protesters can climb

EAT MY(AN) PEANUTS.

the darkening clouds, crow’s-nests into

when

the bulldozers

roll.

The road

has

which the become an

adventure playground of treehouses, dens, hideaways: a confederacy of the gratefully dispossessed. Alliances have been struck

They

between

ancestral

no longer opposing motorways, they’re celebrating a forgotten parade of houses that would otherwise not be worth a glimpse out of the car window. LOCK ON THIs/WAY. THIS TREe/iS ALIVE, HOUSES/ AINT LOVe/ THE FLOWER enemies.

are

POT TRIBE.

BENDER HOUSE: TSG BATTER CHILDREN/BE

AWARE!

OUR MOTHER

IS

WATCHING NOW. NO FORCED EVICTIONS! LOCK-

ON barrel/fill with /cement /insert arm.

down with BOSSES

& FOREMEN.

fitted/with a bunker.

WARNING this building Walking through is like visiting, on 53

is

sufferance, a closed film set;

some Godard essay from the Sixties — Weekend, Les Carabiniers, One Plus One. The encampment has evolved to the point where it looks staged, a forum for bored journalists. But it’s real enough for the people who live here in a state of semi-public siege. Claremont Road, by its sympathies, announces itself, in the manner of Derek Jarman, as “The Last of

A

England”.

ruined terrace overlooking a railway and a graveyard.

squatters flitter through the twilight, busking for energy input,

to

complete their

narrative,

SEX Ground

is

IS

move on

SACRED,

yes/

to the mu.

captured, inch by inch, in a weary process of encroach-

hands of the developers. Africans, rumoured intervals, protecting (for a

hard

hats.

boots.

wanting

to the next battleground.

ment. Board fencing surrounds the territory that has

the fence. As

The

One hand

art.

immigrants, stand

at

couple of pounds an hour) the integrity of

Marc approaches, they cover

Performance

illegal

fallen into the

Beuys

in the pocket.

their faces

with their yellow

waistcoats, doffed helmets.

Mute

minstrels at the

Too

bright

end of the

pier.

WE ACT WITH/ANGRY LOVE. 29.5.95.

A letter from Richard Makin. He heard me deUver the opening Cambridge church. His quote me, and should now be amended:

section of this essay in a

formed, he

tells

has

been

trans-

the necromancer dee dreams of a lapus linguae island flying in force dyin^ in

poverty drunk on an^elspeecli which paradoxically he has not actually heard, swift scales of music tripping create

upward

to

evade him in perpetual deferral

open outward the palace blueprint of reflexion.

54

to

THE DOG

THE DISH

&

Oh

keep the

Or

with his nails he'll dig

Dog

far hence, that's friend to it

men,

up again!

TS Eliot

This smaU-brained animal, primed to hate, straining leash,

is

universally recognised as

And

bad news.

eyed, drooling familiar, the killing machine, relationship

is

that beast

by compromise,

tissue

creature, thrashes possible, he’d

mask

embodiment of threat.

man come

and

it

wear

in place

with

perversion of

a

chain in a ferocious

Man

show of love.

new

truism

a

curses his If

it

were

vest, the dog’s snarling

of his own. He’d zip himself inside the hot skin and take

spite. Jolts

own

The

odd couple wearied

manipulated by shared embraces.

that burnished pelt like a

chain, atavistic fears.

toon, his

a

better.

of course

It is

to resemble each other; an

the world by the throat.

prodigious

much

protector becomes the very thing that must be

as

protected against: squat

the dog, his yellow-

not

is

the end of a short

dangerous misconception,

a mistake, a

The dog

actual needs.

at

The dog

channels, gives sculptural form, to

of electric tension pass through the links of the

The man

believes he

is

tethered to an heraldic car-

courage expressed in meat form.

He

is

pulled forward by

an intelligent muscle, a growling machismo. His phallic extension has achieved independence and swaggers beside him; twins that would put the Krays to shame. it

rolls

from

The dog

is

a prick

with

teeth.

side to side in a ruptured waddle.

Its balls

The

are so

heavy

ultimate carnivore,

incest’s glory: the pit bull.

My

wife has taught for years in

a

borderland school.

Its

catchment

some of the worst estates in Hackney and a number of the tower blocks they blow up on Sunday mornings for the benefit of TV crews perched on the far side of the marshes. But other schools in the area includes

neighbourhood pick up the coverage: “Headmistress in Lesbian Love Tangle with Governor”. That stuff. “Romeo and Juliet is Sexist Propaganda.” Otherwise the area inner-city crimes sHnk

away

to

is

invisible,

one of those zones where

be buried. Public housing that incubates. 55

and provides refuge

for, child

pornography

drug poverty,

rings,

of

lives

petty fraud and tranquilised rage.

The

school-yard

is

surrounded by

a

precautions, designetl to keep out the

storm-fence, and other security less

determined and more obvi-

ously visible spectres of threat. (The real danger

extended families

who

lies

with the parents,

use their freedom of access as an excuse to have

pop at a teacher, or to encourage their kids to get their retaliation in first. “Kick ’im back,” they scream. “Fuckin’ nut ’im, you little poof.”) In the mornings - as the children straggle in, with mothers, sisters,

a

grandparents, keepers, or alone

OK

hitching-post outside the

They

intervals.

—

the fence begins to resemble the

Corral. Pits bulls are leashed at regular

stand, stock-still, flanks heaving,

gleaming bronze in

the pale sun, staring with eyes of incomprehending anguish at these potential feeding-grounds.

Dogs confer bottom of the

much

status,

even

heap, that

is

else to aspire to: respect. Diss these

Kennel Club and you’ve got bull

is

(even

bottom of the heap. Especially at the where status is most needed. There’s not

at the

twinned

if the

a

dog clamped on your vocal

in desirability

machine

that goes

honorary members of the

with the possession of

with

it

will have to wait).

cords.

The

pit

a satellite dish

Ugly

each

lids,

one representing a flattened dog head, creep like barnacles across mildewed properties that are waiting in the queue for demolition. The dog and the dish, they hang out together, chummy as a pub sign. Dog protects dish, and also basks in its addictive glow - a sort of lowrent tanning bed.

dopamine

The

activated dish feeds doses of liquid Sm/-light;

only possible reaction to programmed inertia ness

—

which the wolf howl of mad-

substitutes that induce a paranoid trance-state, in

fire

is

a

images of violation, apocalyptic seizures.

Satellite

TV

is

a

longdistance heart attack, incremental cancers: the narcoleptic trauma in

which the dreams of the dog and the dreams of the man steroids, blood and sawdust) meet and mingle. Experimenting with Murdoch’s electronic highs,

is

imagery thetic:

(“I’m cool, man.

a risky business. is

you

pumped

into your

home,

see dogs everywhere.

consume; we

summon up

ible investment.

Cash on

Everybody has

munity together, Dalston Lane,

ecstasy, his

I

disbelief

stage-managed

can handle is

given

a

(lager, sport,

it.”)

Recyled

general anaes-

Nerves frayed by envy, the urge to

the things

we

fear most.

PIT BULLS.

legs.

their favourite pit bull story; yarns that pull the like

who

A vis-

V2 myths

in wartime.

The Cypriot

com-

tailor in

operates in the ambiance that sent the Krays to the 56

Old

Romanian

Bailey looking like

secret

policemen dressed for

wed-

a

ding, recalls the incident in an adjacent property that was guarded by a pit bull

don’t

tell

credit’s

German motor, second home

import. (American dog,

me

in Spain:

we’re not living in a multicultural society.) “Credit where

due, he gave her

fair

The

warning.”

police

wandered

across the

road in response to several complaints of unexplained “noises”

(The dog

that didn’t bark,

warning,

that’s

at night.

wedding tackle in a mincer). The door was broken down. The dog had been in there for a week or ten days, unfed, unwatered; nobody seemed to know if the absentee landlord had done a runner, or if he’d finished up in the boot of a car after a commercial dispute that had got out of hand. But when the policewoman effected an entrance — brave, direct, as trained, looking the beast in the eye, holding out her hand, palm upwards, for the lick of acknowledgement - the dog sprang straight at her and “took off her face”. They secured the place and came back later, when things had quieted down, with a gun. (Pit bulls will growl a keened;

it

it

wailed

as if it

had caught

its

the fable, but Rottweilers, guard dogs used to patrolling

perimeter fences, go from drool

mode

to frenzied assault with

no per-

ceptible change of gear.)

The

stories

“Crazed Devil

have been around for years in the local fright sheets.

Dog Thrown Off Balcony”

the Hackney Gazette. to his second-floor

Nkrumah Warren

flat

for a

is

one

that caught

my

eye in

invited a couple of mates around

cup of tea and

a natter.

His

pit bull, a rare

white costing ^2,000, did not altogether take to the intrusion. In the wretch tore the trousers from one frontal

on the

tonsillectomy

reputation for liveliness too kitchen.

But the dog wasn’t

head that he reduced

it

man and

Mr

Warren locked the animal

finished yet; he hit the

to kindling.

Wanton

property can have unforeseen consequences:

and threw him

to the balcony

brief, privileged

ken back. The

not give way to is

over.

The

view of Hackney, and

family,

who

grief. “I’ve

perform

a full-

This was taking the breed’s

other.

far.

tried to

fact,

door so hard with

his

destruction of council

Mr Warren wrestled his pet

pit bull

hit the

had gloried

in the

sucked

air,

caught a

ground, suffering a bro-

in an expensive accessory, did

got another,”

Mr

Warren remarked, “who

absolutely fine with the baby.”

Dog news works its way on to the walls of the borough, portraits of mad eyes as a signature of rage. The eyes are the only warning you’re going to get. “It was when his eyes glazed over, a smoking white film over the gold, that he became dangerous,” wrote Scott Ely in his novel Pit Bull (1990).

The

eyes that

mark out the doomed

57

buildings of

the Haggerston Estate are red.

unoccupied hulks, stant

remember walking through these before they came down. The con-

I

in winter, just

gush of water from broken pipes had frozen into icy cascades,

Mad

solid blue floes dressing the dereliction. a

red eyes glared out from

how

helmet of rime. Discontinued shrieks of graffiti: fuck the rent,

MUCH LONGER MUST WE

HOUSE SALUTES BOBBY

LIVE HERE, HILCOT

SANDS.

Closer to home,

my

back

they climb the

stairs

can watch from

1

of jaunty supplicants

as

window of

the procession

redbrick

a lowrise,

block, to the metal-shielded door of the free-market pharmacist

operates (under franchise) his top-floor dispensary. Trade

upward

curve, but the dealers haven’t

Their pride and joy

is

made

it

yet to their

an Alsatian, an embarrassed anachronism,

on up between a

this turf as cruising in a

Zodiac.

first-time pit bull

a toss

on an

first pit bull.

sorry a confession of status (It’s

is

who

and

a

40,000 miles on the clock. Talk terms, guy, with John

as

two-tone

BMW with at

Mildmay

Motors.) Alsatians are good for nothing except barking, bouncing impotently against the mesh fences of scrapyards. They’re kipper

ties

and

like flares

and

of “blags”: they belong in Seventies television, in

talk

The Sweeney.

Now

the wholesalers, the

tomtoms with

the Ashanti gold reserves

around their necks, the ones with the customised motors,

armoured

the precinct like an

They’ve got

a pair

you, two heads on is

who

ride into

car into the Bogside, they have a pit bull.

of them;

a

Cerberus monster advancing towards

a single trunk.

When

poor old

Lassie sees this

mob,

dragged over to pay homage to the eyepopping, trunk-necked guys in

the leather hats, she develops a sudden interest in cigarette packets,

burger cartons. She contracts

a devastating

thinks wistfully of those golden days bulls

Writing

And

pit

gifts

the suss laws were cast into temporary suspension.

the hack with

adds colour to a dull

look

flags

— back around 1985 — when

were mere pack animals; when the product was carried inside

their collars.

a

incontinence problem. She

tale.

at a pit bull that

As an

Dutch courage: act

was panting,

of research, at ease,

if I

the worst happens,

it

risked stopping to take

unprimed, on the cool stone

of the Regent’s Canal, right opposite the gasworks. His oppo had

what was going on across the water. The man had a razor-cropped skull and no neck. His small flushed ears (crusty blood blisters) were stapled with rings. I expected him, if he moved too sudinterested himself in

denly, to jangle like a

wind-chime. The

pit bull,

master, was disconnected from the world.

58

It

disconnected from his

was an

alien life-form.

It

belong here.

didn’t

If it strayed

ably perish by attacking

The

its

too near the canal bank,

own

and scabbed pocketed

would prob-

reflection.

dog’s ears, ragged purse flaps, had

black bootlaces.

it

been stitched together with

The needlework was

amateur. Flesh

wounds

On

the far bank a

man

in the oily sunshine.

flak jacket

was dangling

bubbles rushed to the surface.

a

festered

in a multi-

rope into the water, from which

The

little

team were taking

air

a leisurely

weapon or wounds” on Hector Anthony

afternoon, searching the canal’s pungent mucilage for the

weapons

that inflicted “multiple stab

Slaly (aka

“Mike”), whose body, tied up in

weighted with

a toolbox,

blue plastic sheet, and

a

had been recovered on the previous

day.

victim lurked, half-submerged, for between “one and three days”.

atmosphere,

as

The The

the sun dipped behind the gasholders, picking out the

gap in the fence and flashing against

a

burnt-out van, was unhealthy.

was conscious of the triangulation developing between myself, the

I

man

Nothing was happening, and happening slowly. I had to summon up the noblest traditions of documentary reporting to stop myself shifting to a fictional mode, planting this pair with guilt by assoand

his pit bull.

ciation (association with me).

The al

canal path has an affinity with sour luck.

evening

stroll

for the late

James Moody,

Brixton and an associate of the Richardsons.

a

It

provided the habitu-

longterm escapee from

He

thought

his trail,

along

the canal to Victoria Park and into the Royal Hotel, was anonymous,

mundane, unworthy of invisibility. rally:

notice.

The man stood out

But he grievously overestimated like

an Hasidic Volvo in

a

his

skinhead

he didn't have a dogl Curtains. Soft wages for the hitman.

What worries me we need to invoke

is

why,

at this

period in the evolution of our

city,

Robert Graves’ druidic triad, one of the creatures of the White Goddess? The dog runs wild at the very moment that the Roebuck, that votive pub on the corner of Durward Street, is being gutted. Why, by granting it attention, do we indulge this elemental whose jaw, once locked, has to be broken open with a specially-contrived wedge? We have created a totemic animal

we

the dog, the “prime secret” of

can openly hate, an animal that hates back, that

is

hate. Selective

breeding in the good-old-boy, peckerwood, white sheet, lynch-mob states

that

have brought about

is

a

monster

that can

be sold to the world.

auditioning for the apocalypse, trained until

Romain Gary

expresses

in White Do^, his case-history

“viciated”, as

of a German

on sight. Can it be that we require some powerful enough to represent all the hurt that is loose

shepherd schooled to “viciated” thing,

it

it is

A dog

kill

blacks

59

of folklore inter-

in the landscape? In previous plague times, recorders

preted the sighting of dogs

warning: Padfoot, Trash, Shriker, Black

as a

Hound of

Shuck, Pooka, the Beast of Bodmin, the

the Baskervilles.

Messengers of death, dark familiars with “streams of sulphrous vapour”

from

issuing

We

sickness.

They

We

have granted

an indication of our

pit bulls a franchise to

our urban myths —

will populate

whose breath poisons our

toy, a pest

is

demonised, too greedy for novelty, to repress

are too

band of eidetic imagery. us.

now

their throats. Seeing such things

we

until

children,

can invent

whose

a

this

haunt

worse

eyes are as cold as

our own. “Black dog”

is

mood

the

of bottomless, suicidal despair suffered,

most notoriously, by Winston Churchill (himself

a

kind of bulldog in

wheezing smoke, swollen veins fired with brandy). It’s the dark hole, the pit from which mania bounds. This dog is the alchemist’s nigredo, black outside and nappies, a logo for Empire; growling and dribbling,

white

inside, like lead: the

uncut horror;

nightstuff,

it

pects under interrogation

do not howl. Their

bulls sis

element that must be transformed. Pure

howls in

from

prison corridors to keep sus-

tiled

their dreams.

silence

It fits

hood. Pit

like a flesh

a greater threat. It signals the pre-cri-

is

on which we have now arrived. Our best hope then is to identify, and name, the opposite of a dog, plateau

the pit bull’s contrary.

We

have connived

our backs on misjustice and abuse, judicial

The “dog”

map

I

am

aware,

no

has always

Pepys shunned

it.

as

it

And

Dogs”

is

movement Whatever

by

its

is

we do

a

first

The

of

phrase that

play took

text has

now

never to be

is

must have

an unpredictable

shift in

a special quality;

We

can look for

the intensity of light.

not infected by being dragged over the ground.

ravished inattention.

Whatever

Jonson’s

nature will be impossible to define.

in the air,

is

Isle

the equivalent of the luvvies’ “Scottish play”.

so the contrary, the dog’s opposite,

a quality that

If

Ben

it.

landed him in prison.

vanished. For writers, the “Isle of it’s

The

an unlucky and ill-favoured swamp.

Blake anathematised

and

is,

Even the

for choice desiderata.

exhibition of canine tags.

its

been perceived

that location for a title

whispered;

the term bookdealers give to the

term

colloquial

has to be circumspect in

Dogs

it is

more than we can

items of their stock, the definitively unsaleable. There

least desirable as far as

our totem:

is

darkness, turned

assassinations, social engi-

We know

neering, the wilful destruction of care. absorb.

much

too

at

Whatever

resists

being

listed in a

A

music.

A

newspaper.

unregistered by surveillance cameras.

not find

this thing, if

we 60

fail

in

our quest,

we

will

be

left

among

with the vision of that prince

brought

and

illu-

the hands of one of the partners were already at K.’s throat, while the

K. could

still

see the

immediately before his

was

identified

when he

of death:

futile instant

other thrust the knife into his heart eyes

— when he

conclusion

his avatar, K., to his

minated the meaningless and But

paranoids, Franz Kafka,

as if he

meant

With

there twice.

it

failing

two of them, cheek leaning against cheek,

face,

the

and turned

watching the final

shame of it

to outlive

act.

^'Like a dog!” he said:

it

him.

2

Krazy Dogs & Pet Portraits '‘Dogs should be considered a natural hazard,” he said werewolves.

stiffly.

“Like

”

Ian Thomson, Bonjour Blanc

My pit bull history,

say

May

notes were begun, as a commission, in

“another era entirely”,

of his pre-prison

as

1990; ancient

“Kray boss” Tony Lambrianou would

years. Pit bulls

were

a significant

element in the two

fingers for culture, union-bashing, Belgrano-sinking years, the future

have hopefully

left

behind

us.

They were showbiz,

we

Yankee-lifestyle

imports to be laid aside with the gas-guzzling limos, the weaponry and the Mafia tailoring that characterised the aspirations of The Long

Good

Hackney-born Bob Hoskins had by now declined performer, spitting venom, conjuring with dreams of

Friday gangland.

from

a pit bull

redeveloping Docklands, into

From

hire. tial,

a global

a riverside Mussolini,

to a softshoe shuffler cosying

like Performance before

it,

Cockney,

a

charmless dwarf for

with Shakespearean tragicomic poten-

up

to cartoons. {Tie

by plunging

Long Good

Friday,

recklessly into the profane stew

of

London, defined its moment; being, by temperament, both analytic and prophetic — making intelligent withdrawals from John Pearson s Kray document. Tie Profession of Violence, and also anticipating the hubris of Canary Wharf. The genius of the film lay in its ability to satirise events that had not yet occurred. To muzzle the totemic pit bull before it had taken

its first

bite.

Both

off the diffieult trick

polymorphous future, entropy

films earn their place in social history

— producers

will fight to strangle

perversity, the intermingling

and

ecstasy.

it

by pulling

at birth

— of

of high and low, past and

Borges and Bacon can go slumming with 61

the Krays and the Richardsons, the Elizabethans and Jacobeans with

rogue cadres of the INLA; psychedelic psychotics can vamp the sadomasochistic pretensions of protection racketeers with red paint hair.

The famous photograph of Ronnie Kray on with Lord Boothby and tion that

is

a

bleary-eyed rentboy

a

is

beyond the reach of our cynical libM

lemon-coloured sofa

brought to laws.

These

life

more such a way

films,

than any works of literature, float the dance of archetypes in that the collisions are

The

of works of

list

in a fic-

wholly unexpected and perennially rewarding.

a similiar stature, if

extended to America, and to

other periods, would include John Boorman’s Point Blank, Robert Aldrich’s Kiss

Me

Deadly and

Like Maggie and lains in

Don

Ron

Siegel’s

(last

Sam

Fuller’s

seen

as

remake of The

Underworld USA.)

the sugar daddy of conspiracy vilKillers) cruising,

thigh to thigh, in

motorised golf buggy, the special relationship with the

their

pit bull

Alzheimer’s heaven. Golden days misremembered. Bill Sikes

off:

Thatcherism, with the

pit bull as

its

John Major’s Forrest Gumpery: the

proud emblem, had yielded place

to

of twilight Toryism.

A

idiot savants

tyranny of the suburbs insisted that fighting breeds (inner-city riors)

should be castrated or quietly put

No

public barbecue. reporters last

was

camped

minute

stays

down — by

war-

class

lethal injection,

not

No Home. No

emotive canine executions were required.

compound of Battersea Dogs’

outside the

of execution.

No

humbling phonecall

to fatally

weaken

Major Minor’s law and order stance. Pit bulls were forced underground and the landscape was freed. That was the theory. Horror headlines (“Mad Dog Rips Off Toddler’s Leg”) “Heartbreak of

gradually dissolved to

Muzzled were

as

made

beasts never

anachronistic

as

it

as style accessories

Norman

pit bull that couldn’t bite

Condemned Family on

the street.

Pet.”

They

Tebbit tattoos. Chaining yourself to a

would be

like sniffing for

pussy in

a

stocking-

mask condom. The point of pit bull investment was aggro: “Step aside, pal. Diss me and you diss my meat weapon, my holocaust toy.” The charge from acquiring a fighting breed was the buzz the Richardsons got from purchasing the special services of “Mad” Frankie Fraser. “Like

China going

Now you trail,

nuclear.”

could

without

fear

down the Bow Heritage of demented bowwows. Or so thought — until

stroll

through Victoria Park,

1

I

penetrated the north-east corner, beyond the obelisk, the rarely visited

war memorial, which crossed,

where an invisible barrier is and you move out of Tower Hamlets (Old Ford) into South

Hackney.

It

was here,

is

sited at the point

in the twilight

62

of an early winter evening, that

I

came

Dog

across the

Tree, a small republic of the hanged.

A

pair

of

police horses, leaking gusts of icy breath, were not diverted from their

A young woman,

leisurely circuit.

receiving minimal protection from her expensive leather jacket

hair,

dampness

against the chill

two male companions bulls to the

was setting

that

The dogs

lower branches.

with strange white

fruit

—

lit

were

all

career smokers, fags

moved

them

their cigarettes.

No

cupped

fear

their pit

hung on, veins The tree drooped

no

sign of enforced

emascu-

you’d take the gang for off-duty cab

in their

fists

They

rituals.

like candles flickering

of intervention by the park authorities.

on, carrying this disturbing image away with me, leaving

in the thickening dark, this silent trio

The power

The men clamped

was no attempt to disguise their training

halloween lanterns. I

up

detached herself from her

leaped obediently,

genital clusters,

lation. In their flash/casual gear

drivers; there

in,

to act as lookout.

popping, while their handlers

in

with stridently bleached and cropped

in the dogs’ jaws

London

patience of the

plane.

killers.

would leech the tree’s sap, outlast the They’d hang until they ripened. Until

some monster hybrid had been hatched, ble prohibitions

with their suspended

a

new

species to defy the fee-

of the bureaucrats: dogs suckled on

wood blood,

yellow

fungus and recycled soot.

As the savage imports vanished from

who had

keepers, the hurt-addicts couldn’t exist

on

own, they were

their

of salts was required. Without the

sight, so

did their cropheaded

Dogmen:

sponsored them. a

dependant lifeform.

pit bull, a certain

they

A mingling

breed of warrior was

how

incomplete, unfinished, half-cock. Without combat,

should he

synthesise his courage?

Gerald McClellan, the super-middleweight

and concussive damage to the brain” Nigel Benn, had

from the brutal ing for the

a

hobby,

disciplines

Benn

fight

who

suffered “cumulative

after his ferocious title fight

domestic interest to take

a

of his profession: he bred

was tapered off in territory

sympathetic to his double

(Doors closed for one day to

his

mind away

pit bulls.

that

with

His train-

was profoundly

gymnasium in North Woolwich. honour the passing of Ronnie Kray, “The

life,

a

Colonel”.)

McClellan was three rounds.

a

short-fuse assassin, he dispatched pretenders inside

“Pound

most destructive

for

hitter

pound”, the Fancy rated him

on the

planet.

The

as,

debatably, the

intimate association with pit

him stamina. He’d never quit. Cut his head off and he’d chew your ankles. Benn was going. He was marked timber: that was the

bulls

would

give

63

word

in the betting-shops.

down

Benn was

refusing interviews. He’d climbed

own

into a sweat lodge of his

devising, to ingest

cocktail of narcissism, self-hatred, tribal courage

and disco

some

lurid

blast.

He’d

out-dog the dogman.

The else?),

battle,

had

all

when

it

came, in the London Arena, Docklands (where

the futurist primitivism of tecBn'o-combat snuff movies.

hurt to watch. This was what Sky

TV

had been invented

for: a

It

nation

of dishes to catch the gore. Virtue from the spilled blood of warriors, irradiated

by the cable

light

of fighting dogs. This was

of satellite violence, should feed generations

peep

a battle to

Wagnerian smoke opera — trumpets,

at

from behind the

sofa.

spotlights, tributes to ex-heroes

A —

enacted in the perfect setting, Frank Warren’s grandest (doomed) speculation. Frank,

who

was climbing

fast

to the top of the

of ex-numbers racketeer, convicted stomp-killer

mouth prophet with

the hot-seat hair).

He

Don

heap (courtesy

King: the motor-

had sweetheart deals in

Rupert Murdoch’s emissaries. Frank had this vision: an arena in Docklands. Frank Sinatra. Liza Minnelli. Tyson. Bruno. Las Vegas without the mob. Off-shore investment. The acid rain of lights on water. Electronic haiku. (Frank had the balls for it. He’d got his start promoting unlicensed shows in

place with

partnership with the notorious street-fighter,

“The Hardest Man

in

“Pretty

Boy” Shaw,

London”.) Frank had shrugged off the

the jogging hitman: case unsolved. torial

Roy

Now

bullets

of

he had the ultimate gladia-

men who would elevate the refusal to quit into a McClellan didn’t know what it felt like to lose and Benn,

match, two

philosophy.

who had been

there, suffered the

and would die before

tasting

it

shame, the disrespect of the media,

again.

accept telegrams of pain, the world

is

When

the brain/body refuses to

stood on

its

edge. Anything can

happen.

The

way onto the Isle of Dogs (heavy budget tunnel bringing them up on the roundabout where McDonald’s have colonised the prime site: inflatable clown on the roof nods in premature parkinsonism, punch-drunk in the wind from the river). The island is divided against itself: its lumpen fringe, in manipulated fear of the alien, circus battled

had resumed an

(remember the

its

earlier flirtation last

with populist racism and the

BNP

dockers marching on the Houses of Parliament,

chanting in support of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” threnody?);

while

its

hollow centre was busy trying to flog empty units to dying

newspapers. Here was bull culture.

a battle at

The American,

the end of time, the

the

last

hurrah of pit

dog breeder, cool and 64

controlled.

would take on (and destroy the pretensions of) the unpredictable Essex man, the ex-squaddie with the flair for drama. Benn was a throwback, pre-dog; a dangerously lisping, James Brown showman. He flaunted customised accessories, but he could take them off and leave them outside the ring. He made no treaty with his animal part. After five rounds McClellan was travelling through

gumshield hanging

aslant like a

secondary cubist mouth. Seeing double,

he had two of everything: he was twice the in shock,

he was

drowned man

a

terra incognita, his

target. Half-blind,

forcibly returned to

life

dazzling mica beach; television lights fusing into a dwarf sun.

remembered Benn, he

hit

was horribly swollen (no of the

pit bull

left, a

kept McClellan on his

knowing

there was

from

hallucinogenic tango.

this

When

McClellan

finally

on some

When

he

him. Hurt him. Punished him. Benn’s jaw

bite

no way

blinking

The inherited bravery Benn punching — in fear,

liquid diet). feet,

to stop the

kept

American s advance,

to break free

dropped (dropped away from himself), and

work his passage, on the seat of his pants, back towards his corner, it looked — to those who hadn’t been there for the Rod Douglas and Michael Watson fights — nothing worse than exhaustion, dehydration, started to

The two

the trauma of disbelief.

between them, were divorced,

when

fighters,

in different films:

the referee stepped

McClellan trapped in

the slowmotion of involuntary autism, and the victor, Benn, raving at the

unsteady cameras, to deliver a triumphafist monologue that was too swift for language. Bruised, sweating, a

misshapen mask, the champion was

a

scene-of-the-crime photograph blessed with speech. Speedy with a natural

mix of combat

soHloquy.

He would take

of hurt and

there.

from the unlucky This was

ness.

there

days to

self-justification.

was no longer

when

chemicals, he ranted in tongues: a Rottweiler

stiU is

his

genuine respects to

travelled west in

the “golden hour”, the

is

a

to unravel the tangy a

weave

man who

an ambulance, away

back to Whitechapel: “on the point of death”.

stiU realistic

Recovery

To pay

McClellan

island,

wind down,

first

hour

after the collapse,

hope of drawing the mind back, out of dark-

long and painful process.

Rod

Douglas speaks of

being blindfolded and passed various objects which he was required to identify.

stone”.

A

He

slim 5p coin, squeezed in his

had been

fist,

initiated into the terrifying

felt like

world of the damaged

shaman, the shape-shifter. Objects no longer had names. der that the futures market took a plunge in Tokyo?

been

called in to describe the

memory

“a big rough

(Is it

The

any won-

future had

geography of a present divorced from

traces.)

65

its

The ambivalence of this suspended time — bulbs flickering and flaring, at the point of failure — affects the aura of the Royal London Hospital. The building loses its firm boundaries: gauze windows tremble in gaslight. Strangers,

drawn

in

out for

a

from the

unaware of McClellan s floating presence,

streets: solicitous

and talking

weekend ramble, described

howfc

fixed purpose, climbing the steps, joining the

(My

in whispers.

editor,

found himself, with no

crowd

in the reception

The hospital had developed its own microclimate: weather racing down the rubber corridors, tropical rooms, thunderheads

fronts

hall.)

bating in stairwells. Everyday vision was filtered, bruised. Like

had been polished

until

it

are

incu-

slate that

was translucent. The wards were loud with

The anomaly that The damaged boxer,

the pulsing silence of dogs with their cords cut. alerted Sherlock

Holmes: dogs

the pit bull breeder,

is

that refuse to bark.

here and not here.

The

battle

he endured remains

unresolved while the zone around the hospital plays host to

dream dogs, summoned

awkward with

plague of

to heal, to call their sponsor back.

fighters shuffle through, not quite

sickbed,

a

knowing how

to

Former

behave

flowers. Witnesses to a sacrifice they

at

the

do not

begin to understand.

Muzzled and

castrated, the pit bill

embarrassment. His place

been given is

meaningless. Disenfranchised.

An

the end of the super-strength leash has

to the bull terrier, that long-nosed plodder.

The

bull terrier

an expensive, hi-wax version of Bill Sikes’ abject Bull’s-eye: “a white

shaggy dog, with

A

at

is

his face scratched

and torn

in

twenty different

places.”

on its past reputation, pampered beyond its gift for retribution. A dog with its nose in a jam jar and the look of an iron-pumping minder shoehorned into tailoring he has done nothing to dog

living

deserve. Sullen, sulky, with ears pricked in pretend alarm.

A

mercenary

of the worst kind. The sort of pooch that gets to pose with James Ellroy, the pulp Dostoevsky, on the back of American Tabloid. The accessory

dog

that proves a writer’s status, that confirms the leap

Los Angeles lowlife

(“1

was homeless before

it

was

in

from

vogue”) to

Connecticut landowner.

The blokes who had dragged their chairs into the sunshine, outside the London Dog Centre in Middleton Road, were extremely courteous and helpful when pitched around there with my copy of the Ellroy I

blockbuster, and asked

them

to identify the breed of

“Bull terrier,” they said, with evident approval.

Handsome

indoors.

Good

as

lounging lapdog.

“About /^300

a throw.

gold with the kiddies. Lovely animal.” 66

Of

league.

on

a

Twenty

years

secondhand

me

They smelled it. wasn’t in that of hack work and I might make the down payment

course, they saw through

once.

at

I

goldfish.

Ellroy merits the

Marion

studio treatment, the

full

Ettlinger portrait.

Flecks of grey in the cropped hair and moustache, tailored seersucker jacket and a wet-nosed

lumpy

bits.

Man

dog the

size

of a small reindeer

lolling across his

and animal have the same quizzical/psychotic

eye, the

same sheen of achievement and earned repose. The bull terrier has a jangle of keys and disks around its neck (dog tags?) — as if it were the keeper of the

estate, a butler in

sciously, reminiscent

portrait:

dogs

defined by

its

first,

white

The whole

fur.

of Stubbs, Reynolds, the

women

and children

livestock holdings.

in Ellroy ’s driven prose, but

it

The

classic

con-

is,

country house

to the rear.

bull terrier

also possessed

set-up

was the

New money bite manifest

an iconographic gravitas.

It

repudiated Ellroy ’s “reputation for strangeness”. Domesticity, the acquisition of property, and the selection of animals,

came

all

together. “I got

married in December,” EUroy told the journalist John Williams, “we’ve got a dog now.”

The

bonding between owner and pet can be genuinely spooky, especially when the pet not only mimics its master’s facial physical

expressions and moods, but assumes the persona of a

phantom

child.

EUroy, reminiscing about his time in the Los Angeles of the late Forties, recalls a sighting

of the connected mobster

who

was to resurface in

his

remember meeting Mickey Cohen in a bar.” bershop on Fairfax Avenue; he had a bulldog named Mickey Jr Such is the sentimentality of these old viUains, the dog fancying novel Tlie Big Nowhere: “I

.

.

gerontocracy, that they surround themselves with surrogate children.

(Non-speaking

mercury

tears.)

parts leading, aU too soon, to a flowery grave. Rivers It’s

of

quaint to compare Ellroy ’s cover portrait with the

Mad

offering at the rear of Frankie Fraser’s apologia. a Life of Crime). EUroy,

unnervingly

tall,

Frank (Memoirs of

haunted, catching the light on

the curve of his contact lenses, proudly exhibits his prize breed, his

lounging bruiser — while

Mad

Frank

snap) gets his gnarled mitts around thing.

A

lady’s

teU if Frank’s

companion,

grown

the

a

some

charmer,

wee scamp or

This pensioner of violence

is

(in a

much tiny,

woolly, no-eye, terrier

a catcher if he’s

cheaper living-room

of crumbs. You

about to bite

working the opposite

its

of life. The Richardson’s dental consultant

got a Uttle import/export business

now — glass, 67

is

head

off.

pitch. He’s adver-

tising his innate cuteness, his soft spot for the dinky, furry,

parts

can’t

perfumed

a solid citizen: “I’ve

fancy goods.”

He

lunches

with the

with Peter Ackroyd

literati,

has taken a punt

on

Camden

Passage in

be found in

serving cappuccino

he

friendly.

a little cafe, off

“No one

With

antique dealers.

the

to

me

has been to see

old school,

cuffs, he’s

Moody

abpyt the

the

killing,”

boasts.

Mad it

Fraser

one of the

Reaganised barnet, black brogues, four-button

media

Mr

domesticity, marrying the daughter of

train robbers. He’s to

Islington,

in Granita. Like Ellroy,

Frank fondles the

“Only went

all:

terrier.

after

No

need

for a caption, the picture says

our own, good to

mum,

streets safe for

grannies.” Like an amateur ventriloquist, Frank’s got his fingers around

make

the terrier’s throat. He’s trying to could.

It

would

yelp about the wonderful

the

work

dog

talk.

would

It

if

it

the boys did for charity.

3

The Biggest Street Party Since THE Death of Churchill 23

.

3

.

Entry

95

.

Bethnal Green to Chingford Mount.

in the space reserved for '^occupation'' in

passport:

A

crisp, clear

DOG BREEDER.

morning, bright and

fresh

flaunting of anklelength black crombies a funeral.

and cold enough to make the

no burden: the

my

horn-handled cane,

appreciate the unnatural, expectant stillness

down But

is

—

to road works; an extension of the red

Cheshire Street, that to the

I

am

able to

dispersed by the fretting of

already beginning to snag up. Outsiders, transients, put

three helicopters to

meat

perfect day for

Walking towards Bethnal Green, through Haggerston Park

and over Hackney Road, twirling traffic that

Ronnie Kray's

is

the south,

unusual.

cone hole

that

is

it

London.

somewhere over Vallance Road or

One

helicopter, ferrying traumatised

Royal London Hospital, we wouldn’t notice

it.

Helicopters

tracking suspects through the Holly Street estate, you can set your

watch by them. Strap down the furniture. They’re

noon cannon

in the tropics.

Three

silver

as

regular as the

choppers, remorselessly circling

the same small patch, are worth remarking; an arrogant display of budget that speaks of royal visitations, the

London Marathon, or John Major

on walkabout, prospecting for inner-city blight. (Perhaps this lowlevel clatter was prophetic: the Prime Minister did, within a few days, appear 68

London

in East

clenched to George.

He

buttoned, hands

like a bloodless apparition; jacket

his sides, surgical smile.

An

understudy for Gilbert and

was, according to the Hackney Gazette, “glad to see the back

of Dalston’s ‘eyesore’ Holly Street Estate”. Retreating rapidly to

“You

limo, he delivered his verdict in a strangulated croak:

money about ness, a

at

on

housing.”) But

unearned, mint morning, the

cashmere colonel,

is

about to be folded into

is all

of expectant necrophiles are packing the fringes of Bethnal

business gentleman

(who

decent send-off.

a great

It’s

Peter Tatchell

George Cornell’s ad

has been living out of

turnout for

somehow

libs in that

that’s just

Romany /Jewish

the salaried media. They’re here to give an elderly,

whom

fuss

his box.

Green Road, dodging motors, climbing on lampposts — and

tor

throw

indigenous royalty; one of our local princes of dark-

real royalty,

A mob

this

can’t

his

town

26 years) a notorious homosexual preda-

a

for

never got around to “outing”.

direction (both sexist and weightist)

having tragically backfired. “Fat poof” was an anachronism that received a public riposte

from the affronted pedagogue. Say what you

like

about

doped inertia of the slacker generation, the timidity of pensioners, give them what they want and they’ll still make the effort. Give them the biggest gangland funeral since the Albert Dimes do and they know how to show their appreciation. (The Twins set the benchmark in floral tributes with their wreath for Albert: “To A Fine Gentleman From Reg and Ron.” At ^25 a letter.) The point is that no other strata of the

society has such a sense of tradition, such a ings. Stanley Baker, in his trilby

major’s coat, never missed.

sentiment backed by

been shuttling

to

strict

memory

and three-quarter length, cashiered

End had its reputation to uphold: discipline. Senior members of the Firm had The

East

Maidstone nick to go over points of procedure with

the surviving twin. There ’d never be another

been nothing

for previous plant-

to touch

it

Ronnie

since Churchill,” said Carole

Kray. “There’s

McQueen,

florist

to the fraternity. Splitting the Twins, divorcing like splitting the

leaden cloud

atom;

scarf,

of

the asphalt.

The

when

clarity

lenses; telephoto stalks

embarrassment. (One of the extra in The Magic Box,

first

“other half”, was

of the

light teased

could be displayed without

Ron

still

was

as

an

photograph taken from

dark, sallow, serious. In his

69

out

film portrait of William Friese-

Greene, “the inventor of the movies”. In a is

sky, lifted the

sharply-outlined shad-

public glimpses of

John Boulting’s

the television version, he

his

had done something to the

pitching us into a day

ows were printed on phallic clusters

it

Reggie from

flat

cap,

he

looks unnervingly like a ghetto child marching away to a darker destiny.)

The merely

curious, the event junkies, packed along the pavements

of Bethnal Green

would were

take

Road and

on the route the hearse

Vallance Road,

from W. English’s funeral parlour

tactfully backlit; tired hair

to St

Matthew’s church,

scorched into seraphic aureoles.

A frieze

One

of those

of witnesses to an El Greco apotheosis: the hoijnvcoming. rare occasions

stature

of the

when the crowd is as important as the central figure. The dead man has been weighed in the ranks of those who are

prepared to stand for hours, mid-morning, to collar final

a

few

of the

details

journey.

Ron

had known for some time that

retirement to

his earlier fantasy,

dog breeding, would never happen. He’d died without that consolation. Reg had been brought from Maidstone to take his farewell, a pinched, fit, close-cropped senior citizen, gold spectacles perched on Suffolk,

grown more prominent with

the slope of a nose that had years. After the

the Twins was

the passing

enforced separation, the physical resemblance between

no longer remarkable.

Ron

had shrivelled on

his

chem-

ically-controlled diet, kippered in a fug of cigarette smoke, the battles

with

his

The Krays were anterior to pit bull culture, German shepherds. There’s a fine photograph of

paranoid demons.

they’d always fancied

the teenage

Ronnie with

Alsatian, Freda.

We

his

dog Freda. (Caption:

“Me

used to spend hours wandering across

London. Our parents always encouraged us Unusual name, Freda,

I

thought — until

I

and

bomb

my

sites in

to be kind to animals.”)

remembered

Erzulie Freda, the

Dahomean divinity, the Mater Dolorosa of the Voodoo cosmology. A flirtatious Madonna with a soprano voice, recipient of gifts from men and women. Ronnie and his shaggy pet invoke the sepia East End of Wolf Mankowitz: Yiddish-spouting chancers, dewy-eyed urchins. The germ of sentiment goes with

the territory,

it’s

endemic.

overheard a

(I

drinking session head-to-head between Kray foot soldier, Tony

Lambrianou, and old Etonian favourite films.

Cook

Palma remake of Kid a

for

Two

unicorn

in

a

and

Home.

It

Mankowitz confection, concerning

a

De

A

the quest for

Fashion Street.)

Reg

villains,

dog-love

justifies everything.

never recovered from premature exposure to Lassie

Come

blighted their emotional development and helped to formulate

the lodge rules for survival in the dance

mouth

the subject of

while Lambrianou eulogised Carol Reed’s

According to these hoary old

Ron

Robin Cook, on

raved about his 18 viewings of the Brian

Scarface,

Fartliitij^s,

novelist,

Cockney

mum

halls, clubs, spielers:

and never harm 70

a single hair

never bad-

of a dog’s head.

Those

are the mantras

of gangland, approved for post-prison inter-

Even wrong’uns, like Cornell and Jack McVitie, never went that far. They cheated, popped pills, did damage for cash, but they loved their families and patted Alsatians for luck. They were cursed for views.

another reason entirely: they cost the Twins their

them

we

that

got put away.”

making you

victims for

kill

A

because of

lives. “It’s

nice piece of sophistry

—

to

blame your

them.

The dog days were over. Ronnie Kray had been laid out in the back room of W. English’s establishment at 464 Bethnal Green Road; painted, primped, pressed. The event, the procession, the crowds (many of whom didn’t know who was being buried or what he stood for), took on the nature of

a self-fulfilling

because the journalists said

we

were there. Ron’s

ask?

A

chance to

smashed by a

were

It

It

meant something

was important to be there because

television,

what more could anybody go out

at night,

singalong

the beat. Messrs. English were quietly ecstatic, soberly

a rare

chance to show what they could

bucket and spade

after the

last rites

did.

recall better times; safe to

on

pubs, coppers

it

prophecy.

VE Day

mob

really

do.

These were the funeral

was

like

Hyde Park

picking up the contract to clear

celebrations.

It

rites

of dog

Even their trade name fell in with the mood: English as the lettering on a stick of Margate rock. Bethnal Green was one big street party: high ritual and low comedy, martial pomp, conspicuous expenditure. Helicopters, outriders, helconsciousness.

mets and hand-sets. Newsreel crews, deals made, filmed the principal faces,

while Secret State technicians panned the crowd.

The

press

were

caught in the confusion between burns of hyperactivity and almost intolerable

wedges of boredom.

Style scribes did their

homework,

thumbing through the gangland memoirs so that they’d recognise Frankie Fraser or Tony Lambrianou when they poodled into the churchyard. Researchers were busy inventing quotes, hammering golden nuggets into the carious mouths of bemused recidivists. Paparazzi risked life and limb, setting rickety ladders on traffic islands, dangling from stop

signs.

The Kray

funeral

was

a

major boost to the

economy: paydirt for florists, renters of black horses, firms that stretch limos. (Know-nothings asked if the Queen Mum had snuffed it.) local

Even with

Ron

no chances with a

sters,

starched dicky, the lesser faces were taking

their floral tributes.

They

hadn’t been privileged to get

Rumours of death had often been exaggerated. had long since moved into the realm of mythology; young-

peep inside the

The Krays

stiff as a

coffin.

aping their dress code and hairstyles, thought that they were 71

contemporaneous with Jack the Ripper. The Twins co-existed with Craig and Bentley and the Reservoir Dogs: natural born killers on the Terminator figures floating through

spectral plain. Brightly inked

monochrome world. The funeral cortege would

turn into Vallance

Road

a

the Cornwallis

at

pub, where there are two street names: the shabby original and the new,

Tower Hamlets-approved trouble.

The

signs, in

elegant green motifs creeping into

of the Major

on

New

version.

visitation) are

accompanied by railings

experience,

Hackney

traffic

mean

(forerunners

meters, prohibitions

comes with

laissez-faire street parking. Cleanliness

neighbourhoods and restored iron

my

“Safe”

a price.

have to be paid for by Kray

Eco babble and brass knuckles. Tony Lambrianou agrees: “Today, if I see anyone damaging a tree, or drawing graffiti, I go

era tithes.

absolutely potty.”

We

have,

up

now, misinterpreted the Kray philosophy: the pitch

to

was Green, and the boys were the natural

who

Brothers. Free market capitalists

allies

of the Goldsmith

cared about the environment,

channelling excess profits straight back into high profile charity.

housekeeping that

Animal voodoo

It’s

when

necessary, to rap the

Anthropomorphism

fetishism. ritual.

isn’t afraid,

a

shame

so intense that

that the Krays’ political career

soon: the Twins were very active

members of

Good

odd knuckle. it verged on

was aborted so

Green

the Bethnal

Conservative Association. Lady Mancroft, president of the Association at that time, recalls

him close

“a frightful

across the road

through

row

a

and the hospital managed

providential that Geoffrey free legal advice.

High

.

to a

sew the

pushed through the

mob

chap’s ear

back on.”

coming man, was on

call to

It

was

provide

unexceptional in the House, were

deemed to be wholly out of order in the good grass-roots Tories took a different I

they attacked someone, threw

shop window. The police were very

Howe, spirits,

.

of voyeurs

East End.

So the

careers of two

turn.

who

blocked

a

path to

Pellicci’s

where I had arranged to collect Marc Atkins. There was no way to dodge our outstanding contract with Chingford Mount Cemetery. The cafe,

may have petered out in the millennial twilight of Claremont Road, but now the Kray funeral procession would complete the second arm of our proposed V. As dedicated psychogeographers, we

first

attempt

had unfinished business in the Lea I’d

Valley.

had an interesting time with Messrs. English trying to wheedle

out the route that the mortuary cavalcade would take. 72

The

premises.

down

at

the

Cambridge Heath end of Bethnal Green Road, were under

low brick shed with a sloping glass and lead roof. (That’s the back view from the elevated entrance of the Bethnal Green United siege: a

Reform Church: resurrection power

evangelistic ministries.) Elegiac

shimmered on the rails of the steps, projecting tree shadows through the meshed windows of the death shack, into the coffin store. Behind me, the church door was smothered in Haitian posters: “Beyond

light

the mountain, another mountain.” (A translation of the popular proverb,

“Dcyc mon, gin

mon'.'

Take away one problem, and you reveal the next.) They

''The poor are not gifts from the sky.

are the products of the structures

of exploitation and those structures have their

Columbus Yes,

I

arrived in

roots since the

America.” President Jean-Bertrand

months udien

Aristide.

had broken off my Kray investigation to check out the church.

Primitive, nai'f paintings around the hall: “Suicide of Henri Christophe

with

a silver bullet.”

The

stock

Doc “Papa”

Williams had been trying to

promote in his Dalston Junction shop for ff/S, before seasonal fluctuations brought on a permanent state of sale. Day-Glo martyrology.

Madonna and

would soon be resurfacing as cut-price garden ornaments. The paintings were interspersed with Erzulie Freda statuettes that

colour photographs of poverty and squalor, inducing

flash replays

of Ian

Thomson’s "Bonjour Blanc” (A Journey through Haiti), which I was then reading. Thomson told me that he had spliced an extract from my novel Downriver into his text. Haiti/London: these strange circuits continue, the river that

is all

the paving stones. In

rivers, the

jungle that wants to break through

Thomson’s account of

Greene-celebrated Hotel Oloffson, he turnal howling. “Papa

Dog”, he

is

his stay in the

Graham

disturbed by a dreadful noc-

told.

is

English’s funeral shed aligns perfectly, so

I

notice,

with the gasholder

where they fished out Hector Anthony Slaly. On the far side of Bethnal Green Road: London look, manufacturers of DRESSES, suits. CITY VIEW OFF-LICENCE. COLMANS HAIRCUTTERS. Which

on the

canal, the spot

me as a fair summary of Kray Kulture. SAY GOODBYE TO STAINS. PRICE STICKERS £2.53. SMOKING CAUSES FATAL DISEASES. Tactful product placement on the wall above

Struck

English’s saturnine operation.

The

front entrance,

a half-hearted

attempt

stones. N.A.P.F.P clerk,

on the main

road,

is

a

grander

at rustification: bull’s

eye

FOR PRE-PAID FUNERAL PLANS.

affair,

glass,

sustained by

sample head-

VISA. ACCESS. English’s

nipping out to block deeper penetration into the mysteries of the

autopsy

cult,

is

superbly

cast:

coalblack jacket, pearl waistcoat, striped 73

trousers, bulled shoes, hair like

he

tification,

is

wet tarmac.

Initially,

and with every jus-

suspicious of us: your dishevelled, limping reporter

(who

can produce no documentation other than a mangled bookdealer s card,

used for claiming discounts) and

companion, the Oxfam

his stiff-necked

skinhead with the complicated camera. I

admiration

can’t help staring in

you’d have to you’d take

live

him

under

at

the mortician’s aristocratic pallor:

a parasol to achieve

for a secret tippler

The man

it.

of embalming

fluid,

card up the steps to the glass-fronted office and has superior, a

woman

does decide to reveal the route, he recites he’s

it’s

the event by

funeral

is

which the East End

Expenditure won’t be showy, trolled excitement, the rush

it’ll

he

run for

that will

checked out. His

him up

last

area;

When

he

there with the

performance, no expense

will

be judged. There have

conferences in Maidstone.

level

be exhibitionist. The mortician’s con-

comes from

gets,

his

not merely planting an above-the-title Sixties

managing, perhaps for the

my

with genuine enthusiasm.

it

command

a

been telephone consultations and high

is

but he carries

book of maps.

smart enough to recognise, will put

Duke of Norfolk. The spared;

so stiff that

of substance, follows him back to the reception

she stands behind his chair while he opens his

This gig,

it

is

awareness that he

villain,

but stage-

time, a great social tableau: library footage

ever. (But he’s

not too preoccupied with

his report to

censor Atkins’ attempt to snatch a portrait.) Six

plumed black

follow.

horses, with

26 top-of-the-range limousines to

Poland has been invaded with

less.

A

dark oak coffin with gold

handles would be displayed in a glass-sided hearse, borne on a gun carriage

—

as befits

carriage

would

the deceased’s martial status. test

out the ingenuity of Carole

ticultural engineers:

border;

seemed

how as if

to

how

to

spiral galaxies

wash of an ocean

liner.

if

and her hor-

a

profusion of blooms.

of red and white and blue.

dung

trailed

Some of the

A

behind the procession

cars

It

the body’s noxious gases had

wake of like the

had to be pressed into service

wreath transporters; there were enough

deserts

McQueen

THE COLONEL on to such a narrow

heap the roof with such

pollen and steaming horse

as

fit

the corpse had flowered; as

exploded into

The dimensions of the gun

floral tributes to replant

the

of Nevada. Four pall-bearers — Charles Kray (North), Freddie

Johnny Nash (West), Teddy Dennis (East) - would symbolise the homage paid by the four cardinal districts of London. The

Foreman

(South),

conceit was Blakean, the Sons of Albion “dividing the space of love

with brazen compasses.”

The

route too,

as

the clerk previewed

74

it,

came

straight

out of one of

those odd, but effective listings in Blake’s Jerusalem. Districts linked

together by will, not logic. University of Greenwich

detoured into St

n’t

It

was the path

graffiti trawl, if

Patrick’s,

like

Baron Samedi,

have taken on our

the light had held and

Leytonstone.

Green Road to Vallance Road in camera towers, don’t frighten the

we would From

English’s along Bethnal

a stately progress (don’t

horses).

The

The

to St Matthews’s

the

would pause

(“Fortress Kray”)

used to stand, then wheel into Cheshire Street, right

Arms and on

at

Pinched shoes

caravan

where 178

(horses loosen their bowels) at the spot

look

mortician, top-hatted

setting the pace, doubling as a mute.

effecting an expression of mournful solemnity.

we had-

at

the Carpenters

Church.

Expectant crowds had gathered

blue jeans and

early,

brown

leather

jackets set against the long coats of the minders, the jewellery, coiffures

and dark

glasses,

of the public mourners, local celebrities recognised

only by their own.

I

decided to take Marc with

me

to follow the pro-

The concept of “strolling”, aimless urban wandering, the flaneur, had been superceded. We had moved into the age of the stalker; journeys made with intent — sharp-eyed and unsponsored. The cession

stalker

on

was our

No

ing.

foot.

role

time for the savouring of reflections in shop windows,

admiration for Art

from the

term

model: purposed hiking, not dawdling, nor brows-

gutter.

“stroller”

Nouveau ironwork,

attractive

This was walking with

matchboxes rescued

a thesis.

had in any case been discredited by

With its

a prey.

(The

association with

George Graham, the former manager of Arsenal Football Club. George was an Albanian stroller, a pragmatic dandy with a fluid sense of fiscal probity. “Stroller” here is applied in the sense that a dwarf is called “Lofty”.) The stalker is a stroller who sweats, a stroller who knows where he is going, but not why or how. (Andrew Duncan, in a review in the

magazine Angel Exhaust, reads the work of the poet/sculptor

Brian Catling in precisely these terms: “The stalking; delicately, in a hush; as anxiety trol

on

and hunger

either side.” Catling’s The Stumbling Block

Book Works

by

classic

in 1990,

is

its

Catling theme spiral

is

out of con-

INDEX,

published

the stalker’s ur-text; a somatic investigation

of the interface of dream and memory, present tense anomalies discovered in the laneways that divide Whitechapel from the glitzy husks of the

New

City.

Debt corruptions and

creative poverty assault the narra-

tor as he stalks his “pillar to the dispossessed”.)

Following the funeral would prove

a nice exercise in this

minor drawways, crippled. Marc

the coda to our previous failure. There was however one

back: both

Marc and

I

were, in our different 75

new mode,

move his head. Fourteen hours a day in the darkroom had him with a ridge of tension at the base of the skull that felt, so he

couldn’t gifted

reported, like a bolt through the neck.

and

stresses, it

(allied to ity,

was

maintaining

double and treble

a

life

than a college of

titles

eye/brain/hand in

elective condition:

Stalking London, early and

whose

wasn’t just the repetitive strains

the^ inhuman concentration, the

more names and

tarian

It

of breathtaking complex-

c^irdinals). Stiffness

a state

was the

dusty metropolitan light nibbling

analysis

A

convinced vege-

and celebration of meat,

the unclothed female form.

at

Generously vampiric, he’d butchered himself in pursuit of the cataloguing of the ers,

clouds and

city, its

women.

W.

My own

Marc’s liniment blended aromatically with the

and

right knee,

now

ing twinges and had last year,

it

was too

worn

away, shredded by years of misuse,

I’d relied

too

Hill,

much on

theory, ignored

with

a

I’d

walked everywhere — corning

cargo of books,

off against the usual spasms in the back).

much

The Krays

to do.

warn-

endure the grinding of bone on bone. Over

to

scratching at this book.

home from Notting (played

were wash-

English’s reception area.

pounding the pavements. the

fierce preservatives that

problem was pre-geriatric obsolescence: the medial Hga-

my

ments of

his project:

buildings, shrines, rivers, railways, writ-

floor polish, necrophile blooms,

ing around

was an

of perpetual arousal.

in a feeding frenzy.

late,

lifelong obsession

dredging of imagery

I

felt

1

the knee go

couldn’t

rest,

there

Meetings already arranged, permissions to explore.

couldn’t reschedule the funeral to a later date, any

they could have held over the George Cornell

grouse shooting season.

It

affair until

was unfortunate

that, in

the

one

more than start

of the

rush, we’d

climbed the tower of St Anne, Limehouse, right up the ladder to the

crumbling Portland pyramids, and then the old Port of London

Tower Hill, to photograph the giant stone oxen; then — fees paid — wound up the tight bore of stairs, under the hollow spire of Christ Church, Spitalfields. I was now on a stick, limping and hopping alongside the photographer who couldn’t turn his head to Authority building

at

scan anything that wasn’t directly in front of him.

This quixotic freakshow realised one of my

fantasies, the lightest

of

them: that pressure on the spine, wear and tear on the joints, estrange-

ment from language, would Driven towards dizzying over,

spirals,

reduce

me

I

abandoned tenter grounds.

was sure that

I

to the condition

of a dog.

meanderings, shit-snifHng quests.

pad through shallow inner-city runnels,

across the

bark.

finally

piss acid to

No weapon

fur

scorch a track

but a consumptive

was on the point of discovering 76

I’d

a talking dog, the

one with the

revelation: the

tion and mythology.

my

who

had been there

The company of mutes was

along, in fic-

all

an odd place to begin

search.

But

much worse

a

den pain feral

in the

knee

monoped Todd

was on the proverbial are

one

fear as

nagged

at

me: the interpretation of this sud-

the consequence of my long obsession with the

and

last leg,

it

was

bad prophecy, they don’t obey the

most

lent,

Dauj^hters.

I

self-condemned. Novels

failing,

which

rules: that

is

most fraudu-

We flatter the elegance of our our subsequent behaviour. We fix the future to rewrite

“fictional”, will

imagination by

of my novel Radon

Sileen, anti-hero

come

true.

The weight-lifter’s elasticated support in which my knee was gripped made it feel like a peg of timber. Like Sileen’s tin shaft. the past.

I

awaited the advent of Sileen’s carcinogenic visitations.

What and

a

a pair!

A

photographer

correspondent

at large for

who

can’t twitch

whom

every step

Botched from the

(I

having legs of dif-

start.)

around

hanging

was

Atkins

a small agony.

is

my

subsequently discovered that the problem lay in ferent lengths.

without screaming

outside

Pellicci’s:

no

dogs

ALLOWED /sorry NO PRAMS. His was the only unmoving head lifted above a tide of rotating Cockneys, who were straining to pick up the first muffled rumours of the horses’ hooves. There was no time to indulge him in a coffee and a round of toast. Pellicci’s is a fine, stepdown establishment; lace curtains in ice-cream parlour windows, shiny vanilla panels

Medium traits,

and the name spelled out in generously spaced Univers

lettering;

an Italianate ledge of pot plants above; family por-

mirrors and marquetry, inside.

Cornwallis to English’s austere shed career. Pellicci’s

sidised

was

a

it

is

short limp and drag from the

like a precis

of Ronnie Kray’s

key rendezvous — gossip, fashion updates, sub-

grub — for the firm

remembers

The

with affection:

in

its

earliest days.

“Pellicci’s

Cafe

.

that the twins used to hold their afternoon

.

.

Tony Lambrianou

was one of the places

meets

.

.

.

Neville, the

guv’nor often jokes about the number of people Ronnie knocked through the window.” fee fug.

A

post-siesta trance

Evenings working the

Horns, scene of

a

circuit

famous stand-up

rarely-opened drinker.

Its

of cigarette smoke and cof-

of sympathetic pubs. The Old

battle,

had

now

symbol: Jeremiah Bullfrog,

a

diminished to

a

horribly weath-

ered amphibian with a baseball bat. There’s a lot of time-killing in the criminal

life,

GBH

of minutes and seconds;

a lot

of slo-mo nights out —

rambling anecdotage sheering into eruptions of violence. Hours can drift by,

brushing ash from a starched 77

cuff, getting the

knot of a

silk tie

The Twins had

precisely so.

the advantage of a living mirror, a double to

be checked for dandruff and excessive nose It

was quite

a trick

who

don’t have the faintest idea what’s going

A restlessness

other day.

my way through the crowd — the jobless, haves, the ones who parrot the party line, and

blagging

the unwaged, the never

those

hair.

abroad.

is

They

on today or any

feel the buzz, the tremor, this

all

shocking beneficence of spring sunlight.

Musclework Gym: mens weight TRAINING /keep FIT. BODYBUILDING. PERSONAL TUITION. WEIGHT LOSS. WEIGHT GAIN. SAUNA. SUNBED. Like postcard from the Kronk in Detroit. The sign invokes America in the way that returned exiles will paint their houses on the Maltese islands with stars and stripes, a spiritual twinning.

Beyond

(No. 332)

Pelliccis

the

is

2L

Some of the

funeral cortege minders got their start here: a street style

quite unlike that espoused by the Krays. These are clubs for Tarantino

black

inflatables:

combat

skulls,

loose as bin bags,

suits

stubble.

A

ties

coven of steroidal warder types cracking their

knuckles. All of them with big shoes, even

those of tap-dancers.

as

hundred of these

thin as brass rules, shaven

A

machismo of

gladiators rented

when

size.

their feet are as dainty

Big

by the hour.

feet,

It’s

big dick.

One

not often you find

yourself so close to that quantity of tattooed ear lobe.

Random along ing

like a

at a

monopeds, amputees, skipping who only needs to buy one stock-

hallucinations multiply:

mocking

subtext.

A girl

time being carried into McDonald’s.

An

elderly adolescent,

an expression of profound cynicism, being hurtled through the a

customised wheelchair,

tering along

giving

it

on

away.

his jeans stitched at the

stump.

A

with

mob

wino

crutches, as if he’d just heard that Balls Brothers

A festival of the maimed in which we were no more

in

bat-

were than

pretenders.

Backing Jewellers,

Delboy. ity.

A

head

off,

we’re squeezed against the shopfronts: No. 350, Trotters

top price for gold. We’d located the inspiration

A trophy cabinet laying out all the

golden greyhound at

^125. Best of all, on

eton with red jewel eyes

Moving

at

this

&

TV’s

relevant totems of the local-

or a boxing glove

at ;{^115, a horse’s

day of the dead, a gilded voodoo skel-

179.

on: Alex Johnson, criminal law. in trouble with

SEE us. DIVORCE

No

at ;4^139,

for

the police

FAMILY PROBLEMS. ACCESS TO CHILDREN. SEE US FIRST.

question marks, statements of fact that define the special qualities of

the neighbourhood.

&

box clever & get your kicks. THE OXFORD HOUSE KICKBOXING CLUB. Heavy duty PRO pump. Airsoft No. 408. Meteor Sports

Leisure,

78

The impedimenta of defensive violence. Amusement Arcade. Steak houses. Florists. The grey shed

guns. Bull bars. Weights. Jesters

V

with the inverted

roof where the dead are

ness as usual. Respect

St

Matthew’s

its

own

is

is

and

respect

one of those

a dollar

typical East

laid out. is

here, busi-

It’s all

a dollar.

London

parish churches with

patch of grass, no particular ambiance, sinister or otherwise, and

permanently locked doors. The churchyard

is

a useful

walk through,

a

shortcut, a stool-carpet for dogs.

The church with

blackened windows has the

of a surprisingly well-preserved library

or tax

A

feel

its

dull red bricks

and

office.

notable incumbent, the Reverend

RH

paragraph in the pulp histories through

his

Hetherington, earned

his

long association with the

Krays. Hetherington, a muscular Christian of the old school, was fre-

quently called up at

as a

was

also

chosen to

officiate

Violet Kray’s funeral.

But the main point of interest is

He

character witness.

that

wasn’t a

it

tion, a project

Hawksmoor —

dreamt

of,

in St Matthew’s, before this great day,

although

a site plan for a “Basilica after the

Primitive Christians” in Bethnal Green,

Brick Lane and Hare Street

(later

Nastyness

&

construction that

to

that lay

Street).

Brutes” still

to guide the beholder

only

exists

floats

complete the purchase of

as a sketch,

to

keep off

an ideogram,

over the undefined territory. is:

between

The Church

Hawksmoor’s “septum or Enclosure ...

have been overwhelms what

A

on ground

Cheshire

Commissioners were unable or unwilling

filth

carried the taint of associa-

but unfulfilled. Hawksmoor, in his epic

reimagining of London, had drawn up

the land. So that

it

a

mind

What might

Hawksmoor’s “complete environment

and enhance

his

experience”.

moderate crowd, bareheaded, behind crush barriers watched noth-

ing very much. Accredited media paced inside the fence.

OB

vans.

Tripods on the pavement, trainee clipboard-directors letting their cam-

eramen

set

up

in

any way that took their fancy. Production

plotted coffee runs. Small groups of near-strangers professionals of ennui.

bled egg declare

vests.

itself.

around the

An

worked

assistants

together,

outbreak of yellow cones and police in scram-

Bethnal Green

is

enfete, a celebration that

cannot quite

Freakishly stretched limos, cigar torpedoes, barely

tight left-hander into

Wood

make

it

Close. These villains are so old

they think they’re being flash by giving two fingers to petrol rationing.

The term “wide boy”

underdescribes them; strident incognitos with

coathanger shoulders. Parked up, hidden behind tinted 79

glass, they’re

instantly recognised

by

a passing

bag

lady, a

Arms

Carpenters

familiar.

She hoots her derision.

One minor TV mouth, lights, fannies

“Where

are

toasted to an unhealthy walnut tan by studio

about inside the fenced arena, screaming into

we? Can somebody

please tell

me where

his

mobile:

we

the fuck

are?”

Helicopters circling. Grey bullet heads in Brick Lane buffalo jackets

bunch together on the west side of the street. Down at the far end, beyond the Carpenters Arms, you find the same knot of foot-stamping ghouls

who

used to wait outside Pentonville for the posting of the exe-

cution notice. (This cul-de-sac and railway crossing. Hare Marsh,

on weekdays, pitched by Sunday traders, has been featured in works by two notable East End writers. It w^as the location for Alexander Baron s King Dido, his homage to Arthur Morrison, and it was photographed as a background to the author portrait on the dustwrapper of Emanuel Litvinoff’s A Death out of Season. For Litvinoff the deserted

bridge and the railway arch had a peculiar significance point in Berlin,

a rite

of passage. Locations illuminated,

It’s

easy to forget:

hard old

men

initiation

and

somewhere

are closer to

in the middle of all this

throats goitred in gold. Faces last seen

club souvenirs:

as

he points out

battles fought.) is

knuckled

arthritic claws

it,

like a crossing

Through a Small Planet, by

in his autobiographical sketchbook,

memories of sexual

—

a corpse.

in sovereigns,

making up the numbers

Eric Mason, Terry Spinks

(a

The

in night-

cortisone cherub).

Ruthlessly ironed handkerchiefs peeping from the savage gash of a breast pocket. This has been a major killing for the car rental

Who says London refuses to

cle agencies, the three-chair barbers.

major film productions? Roads closed banks of cameras: the funeral

non-performance 140 ticketed reporters

is

at its centre.

a

in to

Houston’s torch song

Nothing

oblige

police, colourful extras, a

Mitchumesque

for the uninvited to witness.

worldwide media

interest, the

My Way

and Whitney

be serenaded by

I Will

off,

one-day epic with

seats barely covers the

booked

mob, the mus-

Sinatra’s

Always Love You — before the reading of the

honour role of those who have been prevented from attending, “friends from Broadmoor and the prisons”. Outside, on the pavement, we make do with miles of colour snapshots: the crowd taking its own portrait. (When I went back later, after it

was

all

over and the churchyard was

tombstone to get

a better angle

from beneath me. “You used

to

its

on the be

a

usual bleak

self,

I

climbed on

crucified Christ statue.

bookdealer, didn’t you?”

A

voice

One

the honorary Jocks, an ex-seaman with a Cheshire Street used-book

80

a

of

pit.

sleeping

He

ofF in the graveyard.

it

scampered away,

inconvenience, the noise, the bullshit, the crocodile

no percentage

there was

The

procession

plumed

moved

horses, back

my

off so slowly

down

— following

Bethnal Green

we were

For him,

stiff as

sight.

We

were

The

—

to the east

able to keep

grandfather’s stick. Marc,

was soon out of

tears.

the mutes, the black-

Road

sweated, giving off gouts of horse embrocation. riage

cursing the

in nostalgia.)

even in our distressed condition,

punted on

still

up quite

that,

easily.

I

an ironing-board,

gun carwondering

glass-sided

lost in the rabble,

went wrong. Albert Donoghue, one of many routinely described as “the hardest man in London”, had his own theory. “Ronnie should have been brought out like a pit bull.” The younger Kray Twin was, Donoghue felt, incapable of forward planning, sensitive man management, trading in futures. He was a pure frightener, a force where

it

all

of nature,

like the

“night-prowling devil-dog with ‘phosphorescent

eyes’, apparently in the service

Thomson

of Baron Samedi”,

as

described by Ian

(Reg Kray had occasion once to shoot Donoghue in the leg, in the way of business. And the Krays were always wary after that. “How can you trust a person you’ve shot?” Infallibly bent

in Botijotdr Blanc.

logic.)

Over Cambridge Heath Road and down

how

he used to wander here

at night.

the

He’d leave

Roman. Marc a girlfriend in

told

me

Heneage

make his excuses, and strike east. For this priapic navigator, London was marked out by the rooms where he had conducted clanStreet,

destine

affairs.

Or, rather, by the walks between them: anticipation

heightening sensory awareness, appreciation of stone and

sky.

His

monologue reminded me of the Hackney Irishman I nod to, a lopsided pedestrian in white cap, raincoat, trainers — always out on the street. I was never able to satisfactorily explain his circuits until I met him com-

The

ing out of the betting-shop.

superstition, defensive magic, posts to Spirals that

He

routes he adopted were pure

be touched to bring him luck.

favoured the jumps, detours for

all

was going over the ground, firm or heavy,

the Curragh into Queensbridge

the different racetracks. in his

mind, converting

Road, Haggerston Park

into Aintree.

His hikes had to be adjusted to the measurement of the course,

a

long

preamble to the laying out of cash.

How tician,

far

was

it

map open

the journey.

We

to

Chingford Mount? Ten, twelve miles? The mor-

across his lap,

didn’t

had gone gloatingly over every inch of

need an excuse to peel off 81

to ask the florist

McQueen

Carole

Roman Road)

(409,

to help

Tasteful corner premises, polished brass lamps

with our enquiries. (lily

necked) swooping

A

over a green awning, chocolates, cards, balloons.

team, very obliging'— and with

a sense

cheerful

little

of humour. “Florists to the

A proper discretion. A diamond operation.

Fancy”, that was their bag. Competitive pricing.

Nudge, nudge. No gossip where none intended. Ronnie’s do had been a challenge. The Channel Islands denuded to meet the demand. Colour combinations Hke an explosion in a paint factory. Floral sculptors

working around the clock

boxing

to shape

rings,

wreaths like dog tracks, hearts the size of Sri Lanka. (Cue another

moonhghted tures for postmortem tributes.) reckoned she could knock up quite

Atkins revelation: he’d

welder once, making the arma-

showy

a

daughter-in-law,

Carole’s

Paula,

display,

with

full lettering,

Cashmoney.

for X^ISO.

Wheeling relief is at

as a

right into St Stephen’s

hand; around the corner, in

are waiting.

Road, the marchers know that Tredegar Road, the big black cars

26 of them, polished to mirror

second-language Balkan labour. spring

ritual:

of the

last

The

glass

brilliant

by English-as-a-future-

roof gardens suggesting

a

dead king, metal bursting into bloom. The permed heads

witnesses in the

crowd support

this conceit,

blown dande-

lions.

At

last,

those top hats can

come

off;

the

mopping of sweaty brows.

Ticket holders haul themselves gratefully aboard. This the cruise to Chingford away.

We know where

Mount. The

best for them.

is

the best of it,

The

they’re going, but we’ve lost sight

flotilla pulls

of them in the

fury of the Blackwall Tunnel Northern Approach. We’re stuck in a sirocco swirl of diesel fumes, grit and greasy paper, under the

Bow

Flyover, looking east towards Stratford.

No

point in spelling

it

out, the long dusty purgatory of that tramp:

swinging by Angel Lane on to the track of our original walk. Through

Walthamstow, without the encouragement of

Leyton

to

Baker’s

Arms.

home?

We

A

meditation on mortality.

had been wrecks

at

Matthew’s was playing in the

of Hoe

Street. Pirate copies

Would

it

graffiti.

The

be worth coming

the start of this: newsreel footage from St

TV showrooms before we reached the

end

of the Kray funeral video would be on offer

Walthamstow Market by the time we reached William Morris’ house in Lloyd Park. The borough was hideously familiar from my misspent youth, teaching in Waltham Forest Technical College and School of Art. Walthamstow is where prospects of gentility, the Epping arcadia, come in

to die.

82

We

are

now

there’s

no

trace

on our own;

entirely

No

of it.

dislodged

crowds hanging about, caps

ful

if

came

this

way,

the gutter.

No

tear-

the procession

floral tributes in

in hand.

Bethnal Green

a

is

foreign

where they’re all escaping from. Outside the pre-war glamour of Walthamstow Stadium, we’re reduced to straining to catch dog country,

it’s

noise: humanity. inality

The

fixes

and

fiddles, the razor

gangs and petty crim-

of Robert Westerby’s 1937 novel. Wide Boys Never Work.

Greyhounds: they don’t belong

money on

same

to the

species as pit bulls. They’re

You see them out on the Marshes in all weathers, being trained by fit young women: nerves on a string, shivering on the hottest day. They must have been hunters once — of a peculiarly dim kind. Who else

would be

just the as

legs.

soon

to chase a

lump of old

fur

on

a wire?

time, but every time; tongues lolling, or muzzled,

first

as

enough

stupid

the trap opens.

cladding. They’re

They

and innards. X-rays of themselves.

ribs

all

don’t have outsides, these dogs,

up

no

Not

for

it

flesh

Febrile,

bred to be elsewhere. If ect.

I

make

The

to

it

Chingford Mount,

rest will

be

libraries

archives. Picture research.

KILLER SERIAL of shops and

a

A

the finish of the stalking proj-

that’s

and armchairs. Strolling through the

black and white poster

TWIN PEAKS. Chingford, the town

bus turnaround:

it’s

at

the bus stop:

centre, a parade

every Hackney cab-driver’s dream.

move you’d never have expected from the Krays, they hung on so loyally to their East End roots (Hoxton, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel): they made a career out of it. Lea Valley suburbia, the

Even when

Ron

forest fringe.

the one

It’s

hid out after the Blind Beggar shooting

it

was on Lea

Road — where you can find everything from chefs’ hats to the that supplies the Queen Mother with ladders. The real country,

Bridge firm

yes. Suffolk,

I

could understand

that.

A

country mansion, breathing

space where a true urbanite could learn to appreciate what he was missing;

outhouses geared for dog breeding. But Chingford. Elbowing cabbies

and market is

casuals aside to reach the sherry shelf in Tesco’s.

for rate-payers

with

kids.

Chingford

you

eradicate slumland memories.

urb.

The

aristocracy

Nobody

can spray

on

its

years of maturity, those

Ron,

compulsory amnesia. give

him

credit,

It’s

where

was anti-sub-

uppers, showbiz and villainy: hearts of gold.

a patina

Recollections are perfect

is

Chingford

on childhood

- names,

little

like a retired gangster.

faces, details

—

until they reach the

episodes that haven’t been

documented on

their record sheet. I

have to swing

my

leg, stiff as a plank, to

climb the gentle declivity

of Chingford Mount; to leave behind Churchills Club (no apostrophe. 83

generous green awnings), the charity boutiques, steak and rants, the

A

locksmith and dog training centre.

swallowed in ribbon development. With

Church, and

relief,

fish restau-

town high

small

we approach

street

All Saints

splendid view back across the reservoirs and pylons of

its

the Lea Valley. All Saints, low, square-towered, with

leaded windows,

bushes and creepers,

its

rows of the cemetery, the

The

on

this

random,

The

great

departed, the crowds have dispersed.

well-tended grass tump are detached

resting place

of generations with proper

and the good of the

MDCCXXXIII”. No

I.

parish. (Including,

which

“who

of Robert Boothby, Esq.,

December The

church on

a feature; a village

oddly, a white tub-shaped vault with curved sides,

memory

its

I

graves and sepulchres

residences, scattered at

the

extension,

A 11 2. It distances itself from the too regular New Town of the dead. Marc and sit on the

The mourners have

birth certificates.

is

tile

of the

a hillock at the side

stone wall.

b^ick and

its

dedicated to

is

departed

relation, as far as

I

this

life

know, to

Ronnie’s bow-tied patron from the House of Lords.) Crossing towards the cemetery, vision back

down

the hiU

that grants the city

uncancelled. This

Time Mount fuse, town.

its

is

lifts its

float.

is

we come

close to being

and evocative;

so grand

run over, the

a distancing effect

Wharf is

mystery, horizon blue as smoke. Canary

a site

of transition; we’re nearer to the sky than the

finger

Our

from the

pulse.

Abney Park and Chingford

We

petty discomforts go into remission.

turn

towards the peaceful avenues of the dead. In at the gate, this

cemetery

is

a/dog free zone/dogs are

BANNED /except GUIDE DOGS. We both laugh. We’ve surely earned it the hard way, this “dog free” zone. But, going inside, we feel it’s true. The dogs — with this burial — have been put aside, discounted. The V has been accomplished and the hellhounds dropped back into another dimension. The auld alliance was broken and the power of the Twins neutralised.

We’re

tired,

hurt,

mad enough

Immediately to the right of the

to

see

symbols everywhere.

gate, alongside the

Hall memorial, a grey granite plinth,

is

William Alexander

the robed statue of a decapitated

angel with a white spike neck and a bad case of creeping leaf rust. This

was his

it.

didn’t have to say anything to Marc,

I

camera. Unofficial mourners were

straight avenue,

decked

looking from side to

still

side,

he was already busy with drifting

down

checking out

all

the long

the flower-

graves, the cellophane bundles, the fantasic tributes

included

a

donkey shaped from pink carnations and 84

a football

— which of giant

We

wouldn’t join them.

didn’t witness, but

read

later,

how Reg Kray, handcuffed to one of the tallest policeman they find, a man with a presentable grey stripe suit, touched his lips

could

daisies.

young

(I

I

to his

tombstone. The photographs caught him bending

wife’s

forward, supported by layers of large hands, cabinets of rings, heavy

gold watches.)

The head of the

the memorial plinth, just beneath the words split

i

cleanly in half, the divided sections touching at the hairline; a dark

between them — the perfect V. Waiting

triangle

what we have

realise

contrary of the ley

spiral

—

for

Marc

line.

Dog lines.

avoidance of the shortest way. his

1959

film, Sirius

mounds), the “dogline”

recalled the track

(I

Remembered,

sympathetic magic of mimicking the

“Movement does

I

Instead of direct paths of light linking

like the sorcerer’s vevt. a stool-sniffing, circling

camera in

to finish,

discovered: not the “opposite” of a dog, but the

significant structures (spires, earthworks,

loss.

on the rim of do not ask to see. It was

stone angel had been carefully placed

back on

a

itself,

of Stan Brakhage’s

his elegy to a

dead dog. The

beast’s halting surges in a

seem,” Brakhage wrote, “to be the prime

London, we were convinced, was mapped by cued

is

lines

dance of realator.”)

of energy, con-

necting buildings with natural geological and geographical forms; making

down which

paths available aborted.

more

tedious laws of time could be

Now there was another, wilder system in play: the improvisations

of the dog. The

I

the

retreats, spurts,

let it lie for a

galloping loops and pounces of the stalker.

few weeks, then, on

a pleasant

cycled back along the Lea to Chingford.

checked out

(learnt

do no walking.

I

about

my

legs

I

had the ligament damage

of different length) and been told to

gripped the bicycle for support — in the fashion

favoured by drunks on Irish country roads

cemetery

I’d

Sunday morning,

gates, the Hall

—

as

I

made my way from

memorial, to the Kray family burial plots

at

the the

far end.

The

freshly

turned earth, and perhaps forty yards of grass behind the

tombstones of Ronnie Kray’s

father,

mother, and sister-in-law, were

blanketed in dead flowers, gaudy colours fading to browns and mauves.

The

“wedding cake left out in the rain”. Ribbons and bunting gave the low tumulus the appearance of a place of pilgrimage. I

traditional

had only

to follow the crowds.

Fathers led their early taste

young

children by the hand, so that they

of it — mortality, fame. Old Hollywood, the

royalty that

had been

lost:

would

faith in hereditary

the Kray grave seems to have replaced 85

get an

all that.

Young women with long

skirts

and shoulder bags. Some of them have

brought small bunches of wild flowers, out show on to the

The

effect

violets,

which they drop with-

floral carpet.

was both emotive and grotesque, an overblown rhetoric of

man who had

grief. Self-aggrandising tributes to a

chemically palliated zombi; a

man whose humanity had was dead

victims. In a sense, he couldn’t die: he

himself. Victim

been, for years,

died with his

already, estranged

from

and servant of the voices. The endlessly repeated (and of those few short months of glory, which

revised) fables

a

left

him

trapped forever in a coffin of newsprint.

Dead ground that had burst prematurely into bud; stench of home-brewed perfume, flowerheads rotting in THE COLONEL. with

THE KRAY TWINS.

scarlet tulip

water, ronnie.

Spelled out in pink carnations,

crowns for emphasis: lettering on the

Colour combinations too rich with broken veins, the other half of me: gambling

the sweet-sick

hell.

to stomach. Fresh pinks as if

Reggie had been

interred with his brother. (The crowds outside St Matthew’s release,

an end to

That would be

this

unnatural punishment.

like rewriting history,

of a neon

side

Which

call for his

can never happen.

opening the grave to make us see

the spectre of our past wasted by time,

pinched, crookbacked,

shrunken.)

RONNIE iced into sacrifice

a

birthday cake of daisies, into a boxing ring.

of thousands of carnations, pink and white and

roses sweating

with shame. Eggy bundles of lilies, pinched

by purple ribbons. Wreaths

Birmingham, actress apostrophe).

signatures: Barbara

&

like the

wheels of articulated

at

Puce

the waist

lorries.

Hearts

god bless. A plethora of tributes from bishop, muldoon auto’s (with traditional gro-

and hoops and American

cer’s

sclerotic.

The

flags,

FREEDOM AT

LAST, FLANAGAN. Showbiz

Windsor, Roger Daltrey. Enough armatures to keep

Marc Atkins in spot-welding for a month. A body woven from flowers. The East End loves them (heaped on the pavement at the site of a killing or a road accident).

Monochrome

lives recalled in

hot flushes of

colour.

Too much black coffee the night before; sleepless, I had got out of bed to read William Burroughs’ My Education (A Book of Dreams). Nobody has more relish for the dark, greater access to postmortem revelations.

A

tunnel which leads into a large round room with a

truncated sphere. This the

womb, and

domed

top like a

as I approach the far corner I feel a

87

and

strong magnetic pull, another few steps loose. I

wrench free and move back

Allen Ginsberg,

who has

THE DOGS!!^^

to the

a nosebleed.

I will not be able to pull myself

tunnel entrance. Here I meet

Now

still

BMW,

DOGS

in De^tonstone.

A nail-varnish

engine running, leaking carbon monoxide fumes into the

cruises the

air,

‘'THE

'

The Mexican Day of the Dead: Lowry scarlet

a cry goes up.

A

cemetery path.

couple of black T-shirt, leather

primed

up the

vibes.

Blatant herb merchants, mobiles in pocket, stepping forward to

make

jacket tearaways slouch across to the grave,

the touch. “This

Ronnie

Kray, mate?”

The

to pick

five-foot letters spelling out

name, rank, sobriquet, were not enough. They wanted confirmation before making the energy exchange, soliciting the blessing of the dead.

An

impertinence that would have the Colonel spinning through the

clay like a drill bit: lowlifers dressed like vagrants,

peddling drugs, no

bowwow. The

filth

German motor,

he’d spent the best part of his

career keeping off the streets.

The

me I

smell of decaying carnations, reds and pinks and livid greens,

in a state

of visually induced nausea. Long shadows of leafless

trees.

couldn’t wait for the undergrowth to take over, the revenge of the

A

child,

encouraged by her parents,

let a

bunch of

daffs

left

ivy.

drop on the

mound. The mother balled up the newspaper wrapping and tossed it on to the grave of some unknown. I couldn’t resist it. When they’d gone — and before the next troop arrived - I smoothed out the paper. Hackney Gazette, April 20, 1995: PIT BULL SAVAGES FAMILY. MUM AND HER TWINS ATTACKED AS UNMUZZLED DOG GOES BERSERK.

88

BULLS & BEARS & MITHRAIC MISALIGNMENTS: WEATHER IN THE CITY

'‘My friend ” said the Gatherer of the Clouds, best.

ship's

Choose

the

approach

to

moment when

all

"this

world

what

I think

eyes in the city are fixed on the

turn her into a rock off-shore,

like a ship, so that all the

is

may

wonder.

high mountains around their

and

let this

Then throw

rock look

a circle of

” city.

Homer, The Odyssey (Tr. EV Rieu)

Walking through the

City, there

sky. Historically, for

most of this

“unreal City/under the

no encouragement to look up at the century — from the time of TS Eliot s

is

brown fog of a winter noon”,

his

upright dead,

Robert Franks bankers, photographed in 1951, uniform drudges purposefully scuttling under the lee of tall grey buildings (the lids of their polished top hats, their bowlers, shading the eyes from the heavto

ens)

—

it

has been forbidden to

into the middle-distance has lips tight

with swallowed

back the neck.

tilt

been

secrets.

cultivated;

An

unfocused

stare

Adam’s apples hobbling,

forbidden to stop, to slow down, to

It’s

admit changes in atmospheric pressure. There’s no weather here: light-

weight

suits,

loose raincoats, at aU seasons.

for through traffic

— where

else

The City never was

was there to go? Within the

zone of other-directed zombies, procurers of shave flakes of ancient dirt from the high

a place

walls,

fog, scurrying ants

cliff walls

it’s

a

who

of banks and bro-

The gargoyles keep watch: dragons, They check to make sure that eyes stay on pave-

kerages and temples of finance. griffins, lions, eagles.

ments, on the legs in front of them. extravagant stockings. Walkers

The

An

who make

sexuality of the enclosure

enclosure of high heels and

walking impossible,

concentrated entirely on the

is

Shoeshine boys working their way through openplan

women, on

offices.

their knees, polishing away, while the serviced

numbers. Foot and mouth.

temporary men.

When

a

Women

woman

a stunt.

89

Shoeshine

men

talk

women, neither can they be down into the pit, when things

aren’t

goes

feet.

and

are quiet,

Which,

seems,

it

identity

is

accepted in the

goes up: “Beaver!”

a cry

intended, in

spirit

good

part.

Sexual

objectified into target specificity, a general temperature of

is

and

arousal

time to notice them,

there’s

anxiety.

'The

generated electricity that puts iron into

salty,

the cloud masses, fouls up the climate for the rest of London.

The angled

umbrellas, canes, and rolled newspapers of Frank’s grim

wands of office; they are used to measure decent interval between intimate strangers com-

financiers are non-functional, distance, to maintain a

peting for the same destination.

The City

termite territory: thousands

is

of heads-down workers serving an unacknowledged queen, buried deep in the heart of the place.

Which

why

is

all

A

motor

a fear

dominatrix with carmine

lips.

those drones, wideboys, and compulsive hustlers,

responded so feverishly to the imago of Margaret Thatcher. She made it all

greed was good, work was holy, the clouds were frivolous

right:

nonsense. There was no such thing

— no cosmology, but

the present

as society,

no time beyond or behind

the great darkness, the worship of her

achievements.

How the planners laboured, modernism, Burton.

A

to invoke the

with their pastiche

Gotham

totally controlled

statuary, their

cloned

City of the graphic novelists, of Tim

environment,

a studio

on. In their fantasy lives they wished for nothing

with the

lid

firmly

more demanding than

Michelle Pfeiffer in her windowless apartment, uncertain whether she

was

a secretary

or a personal

gle forced to get her kicks

raincoat.

timorous and bespectacled sin-

by stitching

a catsuit

PVC

out of an old

what the City preaches. A phoney ritual of which the economically dominant partner pays for his

Submission

punishment, in

assistant: a

is

relieving humiliation.

And need

yet,

for

it,

even

at

moments of this post-human hiatus, survived. The pressure of those towers,

the bleakest

for “skying”,

sheer weight of glass and steel pressing into the dull pedestrian to respond. S/he across mirror

windows,

is

clay, forces

the

the

the

blinded by reflections, cloudscapes racing

intricate

shadows casting

a

cool path

down

those tight gullies of permission. If they escape to the river, they are

confronted by gymnasia, bicycles that go nowhere: the

ability to travel

hard without arriving. Stockjobbers can build up the necessary ridges

of neck muscle. The sweat of narcissism,

world outside: self-addiction.

bank of the

river,

you

It’s

glass

impossible to walk along the north

are constantly

dodging between building

locked churches, roads that have been closed gers,

manic exercise

angled to exclude the

freaks, office escapees

90

sites,

You are hustled by jogwhose greatest desire is to off.

smash the paving stones, suck through

of press-ups,

ecstasies

bad

in

they were dry

as if

stones. Like the

Pope

virgin airport.

The gyms and

Hyper-fit onanists groan

air.

in overdrive, they orally

hoover the

These days businessmen take

instead of their mistresses.

the flag-

of another

dirt

sauna sheds are interspersed by pink-

nobody

tablecloth restaurants with river views that notice.

humping

has the time to

their cellphones out to lunch,

No booze. No

hanks of bloody meat. Elegant

blue bottles of carbonated water. Tables that seem to have been laid out

perfume launch. The absence of cigar smoke.

for a

The City Outside

is

worked hard

inside: small forests

Real

atria.

has

blight into a sealed system.

climate.

“rescued” and tastefully arranged around

look worse than

trees that

annulment from

to earn this

The

fakes. Sick trees feeding their

plashing of a plurality of fountains in

mustard-brick courtyards, heavy with the ghosts of labour. Junk

monster women, tortured wood,

can horses. Bring back

tin

art:

myxo-

matosis to save us from this plague of cocky Barry Flanagan hares:

anthropomorphic cartoon

scam

pests granting credibility to every

development

piazza.

Essex

is

parasitical

Liverpool Street

of women

trains

—

upon

this

mess. Into the shopping arcade of

chocolates, cheese, perfume, knickers

who would once

— come

the

have been called “typists”, and are

now something more complicated: smilers, laptop princesses. Men who would have waited years for a shared telephone, effortlessly sink merchant banks. Number-crunchers

The

future

is

optional.

Money

is

treat the

a cosmetic.

City like

a betting-shop.

Male and female

are pro-

no landscape outside the train window. It’s too dark for that. They start early and drink late. You have to be able to out-breakfast the opposition. Night has been abolished. The new City has exploited images of terror, wrecked buildings, fessionally attractive, available. There’s

newsreel carnage routines,

as

an explanation of its desire to

seal itself off,

up physical barriers at all the ports of entrance. Vague spectres of menace caught on time-coded surveillance cameras justify an entire to put

network of peeping vulture

lenses.

A web

of indifferent watching

devices, sweeping every street, every building, to eliminate the possibility

no

of a past

special

tense, the

moments:

“Real time” in to to

its

freedom to

a discreet

forget.

There can be no

highlights,

tyranny of “now” has been established.

most pedantic form.

It is

only

when

there

is

no one

watch the watchers, when the machines are left to hose imagery on banked screens in an empty room, that a melancholy futurist poetic

begins to operate: visionary street scenes unrivalled since the birth of 91

cinema. in

all its

from

The

delight of a thing that

essential mystery; a train

of slow-moving

a river

is

simply

coming

cars.

A

mechanical process

itself,

into a station, firefly lights

cinema

that spurns the vulgar

excitement of editiiig, the control-freak buzz of nominating the closeups,

moving

The

the camera.

inner sanctum of surveillance imagery in

Bishopsgate Police Station oversees

revolutionary

this

new art form: the City is at last able to compose human intervention. But the new City has a defining image. In

its

movement,

own

this

no

poetry, with

the entrances of ofEce

on the fake marble steps security personnel, pompous

blocks, just outside the revolving doors,

(behind which can be glimpsed internal desks, escalators, suits.

hanging Jim Dine

Women

torsos) are these suits.

in

Slightly shifty blokes. Insiders, badge-wearers, forced to taste the

weather, to step outside social lepers.

They

veillance cameras.

— because

they want

have

They

smoke. Addicts,

defy the will of the building.

live to

weed

They

to lips, dragging deep.

to a sub-species. They’re prisoner types, recidivists.

should be circling around some stone yard. Tobacco

is

They

a prison currency.

smoke. They’re supposed to get cancer. That’s

All prisoners have to

what

to,

don’t care if they’re caught by the steeply angled sur-

express themselves in this existential act;

They belong

to,

they’re there for: they are a cancer. Prisons are cancer factories,

beagle cages. flannel

Smoke

The

the product. Wistfulness, nostalgia.

is

old

about the great times that have gone.

City smokers, alone, or in couples

who

spurn eye contact, or

together, have an adulterous aspect: clandestine

women

and brazen. They look

like shoplifters

waiting to be bussed to court. They’re hooked and they

don’t give a fig

who knows

it.

They’re

class traitors,

flaunting behaviour

you’d expect from a lowlifer, a boho, an unreconstructed writer.

From

Martin Amis. He’s made

after-

noon. Delivery break,

it’s

a career

men and

their translation

out of smoking and tennis in the

labourers use the roll-up as an excuse for a

of Tom

Eliot’s coffee

spoons.

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leanitig out of windows? They pace

.

.

themselves, these fumblers with cellophane, with their

cupped hands and

fiery

mouths. These mint suckers. They foul up the

entrance to the place of business. Paul’s.

.

Gobbing

green.

It

doesn’t

It’s

like

seem 92

hawking on the

to matter.

steps

of St

Nobody comes and

goes, the occasional messenger with a

ment.

Smoke

of the

tastes

possibility

package. Voluntary banish-

flat

of another kind of life, remembered

pleasure.

What

the smokers never do

is

watch the

sky.

They

look into the faces of their co-conspirators. This

is

a

can’t

even bear to

shameful but nec-

essary act: like a whistling line in the Gents, they gaze at their feet, not at

the things in their hands. Their thoughts are inward. If an angel, or a

would not notice. They would remain modishly unimpressed. Now that Ronnie Kray is off the scene, they are the sharpest smokers in London. The tailored elegance of the women smoking in doorways should call up the Soho of the Messina brothers, the spunky covers of exploitational paperbacks, Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie. But these bright Spring afternoon tableaux are nothing like that. Karina’s cigarette was decor, a prop. She smoked like a charming amateur. The nicotine junkies have a much more significant horse on

passed along the pavement, they

fire,

role to play, they help to

ambitions.

restrial in its

peg the City

They

time-punished prison, ter-

as a

are puffing like locos to

lift

the

“smoke

values” of their area, to counter the derogatory remarks floated by TJ

Chandler The

The Climate of London:

in

ptmty of air

relative

in the

City of London can be attributed both

to its

small resident population and smoke-control regulations. Pindard and

Wilkins (1958,

smoke it

1) estimated a reduction of

p.

40 per

concentrations over half the city’s smokeless

was surrounded by built-up uncontrolled areas

.

expressed more guarded views and the figure must suspect for

The

it

was based upon readings from

sullen knots

.

but others have

now

be regarded as

of stain.

air that

rushes

of the

vagueness, a

moony

perament

want

flesh envelope,

down

the

Street.

the contrary of the star-gazing romantic

to break out

to

.

at a time udien

of menthol-breathed renegades will have to put in

Lea valley and into Lower Thames is

zone and

different sizes

heroic sessions to trouble the drift of cleaner

The smoker

cent in the average

who

mingle with the vapours.

sense of elsewhere;

it’s

a part

thirsts

It’s

not

a

of the English tem-

to classify everything, including the clouds.

They’d

weigh them and measure them if only the buggers would hold still. Nothing could be further from Odilon Redon’s centaurs and fallen angels:

who

confront amorphous floating socks, generalised cloud

forms. Barrage balloons of melting cheese. precision,

Gradgrind

facts.

The ambition 93

The

English disease

to quantify the ephemeral.

is

John

on the rim of glacial

Constable, out on Hampstead Heath,

He

ing over the huddle of London.

he frames nothing but

Nothing

is left

out.

does not need to include the City,

The City

patch of sky.

a

The

look-

drift,

is

there by implication.

swirling curvature of the heavens

is

kind of

a

mirror, a water bowl. Clouds are “influenced” by the layout of the streets,

the pattern of rivers and parkland, fhe eccentricities of those

who use weather systems as Noon looking Eastward large Clouds nailed

as

they

move

“27 augt

aids to meditation.

silvery

(?

Clouds) wind Gentle

Ho at

clock

S.West.”

through: the “chief organ of sentiment” in

any composition.

Which ologist,

brings us to

Luke Howard (1772—1864), Quaker, meteor-

and small businessman. Howard got

He

operating from premises near Temple Bar. assert,

you’d search hard to find

is

a figure for

whom.

contemporary equivalent.

a

attended, efficiently enough, to the

his living as a retail chemist,

mundane

I’d

He

routines of his trade; he

prospered, finding the leisure to proselytize, to publish tracts sponsoring his religious prejudices (against

ance), as well as to

Clouds.

A move

Howard up

make

profane swearing, in favour of temper-

east, to Plaistow,

against

wider

with

work

own

a factory in Stratford,

rhythms,

spurts, leisurely

couplets, cliffhanger serials: they’re

the Modifications of

brought

cinema of weather, long before

skies: the

cinema was invented. Lyric ing their

On

detailed observations

up there

all

at

satires,

heroic

the same time, chas-

agendas. Constable sketched and annotated. Howard’s

inspired him; he scribbled frantically in the margin of his second-

hand copy (described by the bookdealer as “published at 10/6 scarce”) of the second edition of Thomas Foster’s Researches about Atmospheric Phaenomena (1815) — which included,

as its first chapter,

Howard’s Essay

on Clouds.

Howard had

the passion to name, to classify cloud types

out their characteristics, their

foibles.

He became

the stern analyst of meteorological tendencies.

work and

—

to search

the Freud of “skying”,

The Quaker

ethic,

hard

the fellowship of labour, required this antidote: the lifting of

the soul, a libidinous permission of vapours, constantly

metamorphos-

ing skies. Cirrus,

Cumulus and

Stratus

were christened. The publication of

Howard’s long years of observations (1818—1820) brought him

a

more than

in

The Climate of London

local fame. Shelley

worked

these

exotic terms into his compositions. Constable had something to kick against, to inspire the 1

822. But, most importantly,

made

Hampstead in 1821 and Goethe discovered the one Englishman he

cloud studies

94

at

addressed

we

“Master”.

as

The

greater part of the autobiographical “facts”

read about Howard’s childhood and apprenticeship have been gar-

nered from Goethe’s

famous

a

considered

letter sent to

Goethe,

at

the poet’s request.

was the poem, “Howard’s Ehren-

response

gedachtniss”, and a description in verse of the chief cloud forms

according to his correspondent’s After

Howard

it

classifications.

was possible to be precise about things which had

previously been described in the loosest terms; to espouse a kind of pseudo-scientific terminology, a reading of omens, signs in the heavens,

was almost respectable. The sky became

that

screen

on which intimations of the

futures

a spreadsheet, a

curved

market could be sketched

and interpreted. Disinterested observation came to excuse prophetic hucksterism,

a

gambler’s climate: the computer terminal, with

its

advancing pressure systems, was an updated version of the gypsy’s crysball.

tal

Howard’s discrimination of cloud families mitigated the

rhetorical excesses of Turner,

and

of psycho-dramatic narrative and

his epic British skies

allusion.

with their

layers

Turner habitually carried

his

weather notes back to the studio, where they could be recomposed

swift

some grandiloquent scheme. Long hours staring out to sea, sky pressing down on a rising tide, calm evolving to storm, prepared him for the to

furious present of the creative act. role; lashed to the mast,

galleries

He

wasn’t satisfied with the passive

he conducted elemental chaos — gifting placid

with future weather, feeding

art-historical bunkers. In the intensity

for the fated captain as

it

Count

carried

Now

it’s

too

late,

of

a rage

of his engagement, he doubled

of Bram Stoker’s tempest-tossed Dracula’s cargo into

complacent

light into

vessel, the Demeter,

Whitby harbour.

the fears are out. Weather/City serious anomalies in :

the electrical force-field. Poets, those hiphop neurotics, got there Sensitivities

together

the disparate signs and portents.

all

to handle.

picked raw: with jump-cutting,

But horribly

keep them around poison

accurate.

like canaries,

The

hoping

state

restless

Uncooked

first.

minds splicing language.

Ugly

should fund these jokers,

they’ll

pick up the

first

whiff of

gas.

Take William Empson. The story goes, the

gossip, that a

group gath-

ered in the old Statesman building in Clerkenwell to pay tribute to the

Cantab poet/philosopher. To honour him: for being

bloody-minded

mob would

to the end. (Difficult to

celebrate. Poetry

thy of the job can

name

is

For staying

imagine which poet the current

off the agenda.

No

five living British poets.

95

alive.

radio presenter

wor-

The only employment

for

once famous

deceased

a

versifiers

is

hacking out obituary notices for their

rivals.)

There were lengthy speeches, drinks; more drinks, longer speeches — presentation. But When the moment came and they looked for the

They searched the building from the cellars up. At length, Empson wa^ found. Under the eaves: trembling, head on knees, in a huddle — a book pressed against his face. great

man, the bearded

One

of those worthy review copies that

compendium,

sage, he’d vanished.

effortlessly

account of global warming.

can’t

summarised. It

A

be

fitted into a

convenient

grand enough theme: an

was already the obsession of the

poet’s cli-

macteric, this metaphysics of sweating ice-caps, peevish monsoons, big

symbols in the hurt of chaos theory. Inundation, crushed lungs, steepling walls of white water: the City swallowed in a chilling rush.

(Those other prophets, the science fiction visionaries, the Turners and

John Martins of generic

pulp,

had been pushing the story for years

before modernist poets caught on.

S.

Fowler Wright in

his

novel Deluge,

published in 1928, described an England underwater, the Cotswolds an Alternate world copywriters respected the spirit of

archipelago.

Gilgamesh, that ancient epic. London was submerged beneath

surrounded by primordial wilderness, in Richard

lake,

a great

Jefferies’ After

Loudon, or Wild England, a post-holocast fantasy of 1885.)

Weather ular

as

the cleanser of the City, as apocalyptic threat, was a pop-

message in the

platform of the

Sixties.

It

was delivered

doctrine from the

as

Roundhouse by Gregory Bateson

in 1967,

during the

Congress of the Dialectics of Liberation for the Demystification of Violence. His sobering philippic, preached with a smile, had Allen

Ginsberg,

RD

Laing, Alex Trocchi, Stokely Carmichael, and other

They

wafited to hear the worst, the

doom: grave prophecies

delivered like news. Blake’s

counter-culture luminaries, drooling. spidery voice of

voice

change over:

received, pre-Houd, by Ginsberg in Harlem. Unless there

as

in the level

of global consciousness, the audience was

told,

was it

a

was

Chaldean dreams of enveloping catastrophe. The

city

was already old when the gods within

Decided that the great gods should make a

The City invoked flatterered

world.

flood.

it.

It

focused them,

them, pleasured them - to the exclusion of the

We become

sense in

the horrors that most excited

it

which the

rest

of the

we fear. There was, for example, a real communal strength of the Greenham women -

the thing

96

votive priestesses circumnavigating a field of phallic toys

— began

to

incubate the apocalypse; granting credibility, juice, to the evil on which

they lavished their attention.

Weather’s got a disease, always out there,

It’s

sion

we

it’s

restless,

sick.

It’s

migratory, seeding towards

some conclu-

don’t have the nerve to predict. In the City, there simply

the time to notice these capricious screen.

been infected by our inattention.

The gamblers

Heads

shifts.

isn’t

numbers on the

in laps,

don’t understand that their moods, their small cor-

ruptions, affect the pressure, destabilise the thunderheads. Weather, sliding in

from elsewhere,

is

No

a personal thing.

two people

see the

same cloud. Eavesdrop across the City, scribble that

you

strangers

meeting

for three days a

no meteorology.

hear:

talk

of nothing

without catching

worst possible scenario.”

down

It’s

else.

the snatches of conversation

remarkable. Outside the walls,

The City

is

immune.

I

wandered

“We-11 ... I’m working on

a whisper.

got thick security, iron gates you can’t get

“It’s

.” you know “Paul Dickinson may not be the world’s best advertising man, but he’s been with us since he was sixteen, and his .” “The shotgun people have chances of getting another one aren’t

inside without,

.

.

.

.

cabinets already made.”

Writers, to

on the other hand,

natural moralists, are obliged to tune in

random monologues, watch

the gutter and the

stars.

Weather

what

is

dignifies the cartoon

monsters of Martin Amis’s London

neighbourhood view

smeared by crippled cumuli, expectorated out of

is

Fields.

His

The some graveyard in the skies. “I saw a dead cloud not long ago dead cloud came and oozed and slurped itself against the window ... I .

.

.

thought of fishing-nets under incomprehensible volumes of water, or the motes of a dead TV.”

Down below,

in the garbage streets, the

contagious glamour,

The

is

observed

authorial presence

sits at

—

as

by an

Amis

stock

company with

its

articulate surveillance system.

window, smoking and brooding, while

a

the plebs strut their stuff between boozer and bedroom.

with scurfy beer-guts, foul the

glass.

The

Urban

writer’s reflection

clouds, erased.

is

He’s part of it, a cirric pox printed across his profile. Looking up from outside, the journalist

on the doorstep

sees a

with an isobar problem. Fast prose puffs the cloud

streets,

It’s all

Sixth Sense,

anvils

face: a thinker

of moisture, the

encourages them into ever more exhibitionist forms.

become too

polite society.

clouded

personal.

Weather can no longer be mentioned

As Peter Redgrove points out

we

are “so violently affected

97

in

The Black Goddess and

by weather changes

.

.

.

in the

that

it

can easily

confesses himself a

“Jekyll

become a clinical problem.” Redgrove and Hyde to the weather.” He suffers, both

physically

itually,

the fluctuations in the magnetic

spir-

the minute shifts in air

field,

of pearly light above the morning ocean.

pressure, the seductions

need our weather

and

We

more than our shrinks. Migrating depressions, Eternal Jew — homeless, restless, burdened with

analysts

“lows”, wander like the

Cloud banks absorb the hurt from wounded psyches, mop up the frenzy of the City. Weather allergies stalk us like serial

arcane knowledge.

The

killers.

pressure of bad will can generate a sympathetic storm.

tempting to claim

and the panicked

a link

between the great winds of 16 October 1987

on “Black Monday” — when

financial markets

corporate nerve swept from Tokyo to into a critical condition. Consoles

New York,

went

from the

figures drizzled precipitately fossil

anxiety. Forecasters blustered

and

lost

lennial fear persists, the flood at the

Unitarian chapel

hidden

tory,

at

49

behind

corrugated

with their

interface

of

Paper fortunes dissolved. walls, this mil-

end of time. There

Pond Road;

Balls

An

beyond the influence of the

yet, outside the City,

of

cocky columns of green

ape,

screens: ancient forests,

it.

a loss

throwing the software

hoards of weather memory, crashed to the ground.

And

It’s

a

decayed

a

ghost with an interesting his-

sheeting.

headquarters of Oswald Mosley’s legions

is

Once

was

this

the

— from which they ventured

out for acts of provocation in defiance of Dalston’s long-established aliens: a

Road

skirmish in Ridley

The kind of affair that was The chapel became a source of

market.

witnessed by the young Harold Pinter.

charity in hard times, handing out free shirts (one colour only: black),

sturdy boots, to anyone rights

who would

of ownership are in dispute. turned

a

temporarily blind eye to

group of multinational boho this sense

The

A group

arm

artists. It

in salute.

Current

of Sikh speculators, finding

down, dealing with the

the cost of pulling the place hibitive,

raise the

its

asbestos dust, pro-

occupation by

couldn’t

last.

a

They knew

nameless that

and

of truce, provisionality, influenced their actions.

gutted body of the chapel was invaded by

a parasitical

ark constructed from the floorboards of the building

host structure had

woven

a

defensive

module from

form: an

itself. It’s as if its

Internal weather hits hard at the pedestrian, stepping in

own

the

entrails.

from the usual

diesel-soup, pollution cocktail of the road outside: airborne motes, saw-

dust beams, sodden asbestos, wood-glue, coffee grains, cigarette smoke,

discontinued psalms.

The

stink of latter-day creativity, art guerrilla

revivalism: joss-stick madeleines

This totally unseaworthy

from the decamped Exploding Galaxy.

craft, this

98

wornb/ark, could have been

a

direct ofF-print

around

from one of the Unitarian

in the chapel.

sight

of land

Little

Do^'s Day).

was

It

tracts that

were

death ship, designed to sink, just out of

a

the pleasure boats of old folk in Jack Trevor Story

(like

The polythene

between the boards of the ark

skin

a

mummy

from Nineveh. The skin

working

No

perilous gangplank.

concept

air.

You

2

Loudon

is

wrappings on

enter the boat by

question of two-by-two on

any meaning, the

to have

is

dry

free in the

flaps loose, like the

s

worm

encrusted with threads of living material: river-map outlines, charts, insects

lying

still

way of a If the

this trip.

rains must follow.

.

was, but

is

no more.

John Evelyn

Returning

town from a disappointing visit to the gardens of decided, on a whim, to drop into the Barbican to

across

Lambeth Palace, I book some theatre reviewed, but

I

tickets.

was in

Twelfth Night:

a reckless

why

performed and thought,

had been ominously well

it

mood.

not, this

out-of-character gesture was required to

never seen the play

I’d

might be the moment. Some lift

my

spirits after

the futility

of the Lambeth experience. Years had been wasted quietly seething outside that wall, circumnavigating the private enclosure, cursing the lack of access, the ecclesiastical privileges.

when

mysteries unexplored. But, in the

bucket — for

largest private

better to leave these

the postern gate was flung wide

—

The “second London”. The Archbishop and Mrs Carey

a single

garden in

had gamely allowed

Much

their

afternoon,

I

couldn’t

resist

it.

grounds to be included in the National

Garden Scheme, along with the ranks of proud suburbanites and innercity Greens. Along with, for example, 3 Wellgarth Road, NWll (“7 minutes walk from Golders Green tube station

long border of bushes

.

.

.

herbs and mints,

.

.

.

swathe of grass with

some uncommon

plants”);

Upper Grotto Road, Strawberry Hill (“33 bus to Grotto”); or 25 Albion Square, E8 (“on two levels with pond

or 15

Pope’s beside

camomile patch”).

A

utilitarian grass carpet suitable for a

address.

I

bought

myself and the

a raffle ticket

WI

cake

sale

with

a

good

and won, to the mutual discomfort of

size sixteen floral print, a small cylinder

99

of “relaxing”

pink massage inch of

oil

from Boots. The garden had been renovated within an

Washing

its life.

Concrete

fleshy clumps.

with striped pyjamas half-hidden behind

lines

A refusal to

leisure areas.

and licence of this location: the view across the backdrop of Lambeth Palace. a

wanted

I

wanted

it

this

to boast

chuck away

enclosure to despise

river to Westminster, the

felt like a

mendicant, not someone being tapped

fund. I

should have

I

engage with the rank

fo'r

me

dusty trespasser, or

the church restoration

and everything

for.

of the millions the church’s financial advisers could

wheel-of-fortune property speculations.

in

stood

I

wanted the

I

of karmic history: Lollards imprisoned in the Tower, martyrdoms,

bite

grand and glorious corruptions, fancy

tortures, blasphemies,

tony, simony, high art. distinguish

it

Not

dress, glut-

poodle parade, with nothing to

this

from the park outside - except the absence of leisure-abus-

ing citizens.

And

so

it

was,

April, 1995, that

on the fine and pleasant afternoon of Saturday 8th I found myself trying to walk in through the front

Complex and being

entrance of the Barbican Arts

bomb-carrier. This sensation

how

they want you to

want you

feel,

is

not

uncommon

treated like a Bogside in the

new

City.

uncomfortable: the stranger in town.

to carry a card, with a

It’s

They

photograph and number, that defines

some sort of non-person lowlife. You don’t belong. You’re wearing the wrong clothes. You’re walking with no destination. You don’t have the credentials that will get you inside. Because the City — like a Dantesque module (or secular temple) — consists of three distinct zones.

you

as

The

Inner

tionaries. built

on

is

available only to a hierarchy

Its

Bank of England,

Mary Woolnoth.

On

and func-

pyramids, obelisks, stone quota-

the Royal Exchange,

the operations of this zone

once they were run by

a tight

bred into the landed gentry,

brahmin infiltrated

caste

Anthony Hilton

in

Financial World quotes the

City

Due

witliiti

I

Mansion House,

St

can merely speculate:

of families, carefully cross-

and re-energised by Sephardic

and Ashkenazic implants. The same names tions.

priests

palaces are studded with defensive imagery, iron gates

a fascist scale, heraldic beasts,

tions: the

of workers,

float

a State:

through the genera-

A

Portrait of Britain's

de Richelieu: “There are

six great

Europe — England, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia and the Baring Brothers.” The Barings were hierophants who operated, on a

powers

in

global scale, a cult designed to ensure, for tus

of the City. According to Hilton, one

Cromer, “took time off like a

country

estate.”

in the last

all

time, the wealth and sta-

member of the

family.

Lord

century to run Egypt more or

The nexus of land, 100

less

investment, exclusion of the

uninitiated, insinuated

through

its

web from

the government of the day,

down

money-minting failsafe of Lloyds. These bankers guided the Saudi oil coffers back into the embrace of the City, pimped for the arms brokers. They managed the CIA investment portfolio: their patronage of New American Art, tame all

the ephemeral quangos, to the

Action paintings for drugs, drugs for torture catalogues.

leftists.

Currency hedges

Thorns

The

to protect the castle

question of how

out East the very

all

of sleepers.

was brought down by one rogue trader

this

unanswered. Perhaps Ezra Pounds psychotic curses on

is still

name of Threadneedle

Street, the

damage

it

did him, have

been brought to ground. But whatever happens, happens every-

finally

where;

and out of

visible,

sight. If

meant: the jungle of provisional

The

be penetrated by casual pedestrians.

that are not to

I

saw

it

I

the lush

statistics,

know what it meadow of money.

wouldn’t

rooms are still at the top of the buildings, fine art in Other ranks stay below decks, beneath lowered ceilings,

private dining

the corridors.

marble

striplight in

City’s

halls,

one

swift shunt

second zone, the outer:

briskly

from

a to b.

from the

move

permission to

a

The second zone

motion,

is

yards.

You can

eat if you

into unappeased storage

The third, and most zone — which is neither

do

it

unpick inscriptions

a treadmill

standing up.

in

is

the

through, to hike

of com-

may not wander

muters to drive the invisible engines of business. You here, or pause to investigate, to

Which

street.

weathered grave-

You must bleed your image

facilities.

intriguing, of the discriminations office

nor

street.

The zone where

The zone

is

the inter-

everything

is

no interior or exterior, where anyone can pause, and no one is at home. Broadgate Circus, with its borrowed amphitheatre, its cod New York ice-rink, its cafes and bookshop, its upended Richard Serra girders, is the most visible exemplar of this mood. Interzone aspires to the condition of virtual reality. It’s

permitted that

lost

is

not forbidden.

that has

the louche texture of the William Burroughs original: exile, preda-

tory sex, shape-shifting drugs.

brought to

life;

a

It’s

a brochure,

an unworkable proposal

perpetual lunchhour.

A

place to painlessly

on assignment

to

count the number of drinks

Journalists are sent there

the cellphone dealers are doing these days.

The

piazza

is

kill

time.

the interzone

model: de Chirico and mineral water. Drudge surrealism for insomniacs.

Random

statuary, pissing fountains,

moning of an and

atria,

tions.

imported cobblestones. The sum-

entirely mythical past. Interzone extends to entrance halls

fun jungles, ledges for sandwich fanciers and clerical assigna-

Primary colour sculptures

as a

101

vulgar compromise between the

and the innate philistinism of the develop-

aspirations of the architects ers.

The concourses of

Art that positively begs to be exploited.

Liverpool Street and Fenchurch Street stations: shopping opportunities,

impulse buys to teml^er the frustration of trains going nowhere. Pick-up

Racks of hobby magazines,

points.

newsprint in rationalized public beneficiaries

fiscal

porn, to replace the grazing of

libraries. Selections

and the victims of career

adulterers.

Even the

ting out, escaping, the luxury of pre-travel vacancy,

The

Barbican, so

An

aspirations.

I

until this

of get-

task

must turn

a profit.

shakedown, nursed interzone

investment terminal, an honourary airport without the

of departure;

stress

assumed

of perfume for the

a culture

pond

at

the heart of the labyrinth, the con-

clusion of every yellow line in the City.

Now

the simple act of trying to purchase

awkward

as

two

theatre tickets was as

checking on to the Tel Aviv shuttle with

and Libyan stamps

in

my passport. With no

formed security personnel (boredom in paranoia)

a collage

of Syrian

apology or explanation, uni-

plus focused aggro, plus diplomas

cranked into slothful action. Slightly too plump for their

Star Trek leisure wear. Pat-searched, disinterestedly groped, channelled

through the electronic hoop. “Empty your pockets,

please. Sir.”

and coins and furry mints. The multi-entrance Barbican, and levels,

Keys all its

walkways, graded restaurants, bookstalls, display cases of avant-

commandeered by a conference of European Bankers, Rescue and Development section, with their twitchy minders. “Its the only way we can fund our operation,” said the ticket-seller, garde jewellery, has been

when

I

eventually found him. “You’ll love Twelfth Night, a marvellous

show.”

Held on the

stairs,

looking back down, over the water gardens to the

newly-islanded church of St Giles (where John Milton was buried), to those torpedo tombs stacked in a neat line

on the

flagstones,

saw the

I

me as a geometric design of black and white: dark suits Men and women, tailored, barbered, sweet-smelling, discretion of blue shirts with mobiles. An impressionist

terrace beneath at

every

table.

protected by a take

on

leisure in the City.

of The Big

who

had never

Piecing Wall

Issue.

—

a

The

left

ideal

No

buskers,

of urban

no

vagrants.

living, as

Not

a single

copy

imagined by an architect

the safety of the suburbs.

walk together along the craggy remnants of the London

ragstone blocks, brick bonding courses

memory, the

visual evidence for truths

we

is

like retrieving a false

prefer to forget.

defines the limits of the imagination of Roman

102

—

London — and

The Wall is,

in this.

an act of modesty. To try to get

a

sense of the original shape by tapping

accredited ruins, following the designated route,

its

futile.

is

You

are

contradicted, misinformed, fenced out, overseen for every inch of your

journey. But the perversity of that desire, to pick up on the energy is

as

and

strong

as ever.

I

am

haunted by

a

mythology of gates:

field,

metaphors

as

Gates cut into the Wall’s continuity, truces of going and

as facts.

coming: exchanges with the idea of outside, with the

field

and the gar-

den. Instants of risk and betrayal, capture and farewell. Anticipations of

journeys and pilgrimages. John Bunyan. Apertures between death: the path out to the dissenters’ burial-ground. in Bunhill Fields.

To the madhouses,

and give meaning to

and the

first

plays

life

hospitals

life

and

To Blake and Defoe

and markets

that sustain,

Row,

Shoreditch,

within the walls. To Curtain

of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, Newgate,

Ludgate, Billingsgate, with the Tower, the Barbican and Castle Baynard:

wounds in an electrical circuit. (“Hurt him in eleven places”. Sir Toby Belch.) The City, as is proper, is one gate short of holy Jerusalem, eleven

of symmetry. The

and had twelve gates;

walls of it were of a great height,

twelve gates there was an angel,

of the twelve three gates,

tribes

and over

at each of the

the gates were written the

names

of Israel: on the east there were three gates, on the north

on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. The

walls stood on twelve foundation stones, each one of which bore the

city

name of

one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Even the angels have been blinded and scattered. They are there but you will have to search for them: on war memorials, alcoves, stained glass,

above the keystones of pinkish-grey riverside buildings. The

London

Stone, with

its

mantic cargo,

is

now

kept behind bars, beneath

the pavement; a trophy for the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation

Limited in

Cannon

Street.

Grievously misaligned.

The meaning of the gates has been carted away with the brickwork. The Wall is no longer a border, it’s a preserved feature: a well-scrubbed and biddable

geriatric.

But

it

remains an enticement to the urban

the fragments of it, the excuse to be out there ing; starting at

when

possible,

inside an office

we

Tower

Hill

when

the

on

a dull

and walking the westerly

masonry

development —

to

hasn’t

touch and

sniff

Spring morn-

circuit,

been sealed

stalker,

off,

stopping

—

or trapped

and photograph. As

progress, the City reveals itself as a confederation of petty mysteries:

103

no Square Mile, but

Thames

peting hieroglyphs. If the is

com-

chaos of triangulations, botched mandalas,

a

is

seen

the curve of a bow, aimed at the north.

as a taut string,

When we

then the Wall

climb into the ele-

vated Barbican syslem, the waves and ripples, the contour lines of

A

getting and holding, are visible.

smoke from

haze of pollution and undispersed

the sacrificial barbecues of Srhithfield. Surges of current

flow between the pattern of churches.

bombs and of

traffic,

— only

blitz

clarify,

destroys itself — fires and

the essential manifold. Spasms

scurrying businessmen/adepts, reinforce the

systole, diastole.

The

gence.

to reassert,

The City

The City

Wall, broken as

allusion to the sites

is

Londons

it is,

where the

imagery:

sorry heart, the hearts intelli-

directs the

gates

tidal

exchanges of energy; makes

once stood. Blue plaques confirm

the votive presence of the great English poets: Chaucer, the controller

of petty customs, with

Swan

& Hoop,

his

house in Aldgate; John Keats, born

Moorgate, in 1795; Milton,

who

lived in

at

the

youth and old

Ward - and Alexander Pope, misshapen, born Plough Court, Lombard Street.

age in the Aldersgate the centre of it in

at

As someone congenitally incapable of accepting the notion of “accident”,

I

interpret this conjunction, poet/gate, as significant.

The

gift

of

language that compensates for the “sickness vocation” of the poet’s fated existence

closely associated with the liberties

is

of the eleven

points of entry to the City: fissures in the brainpan. Poets are never

properly incarnated, trapped in their meat bodies. to risk everything

on

a single

system of time.

It’s

They

my

are too

conceit to imagine

their spirit bodies whirling in a vortex as they anticipate the shape traffic

cones.

They

exist in

an eternal present:

behind them, the pulse of human congress

canny

meadows and

of the

orchards

of their eyes.

in front

Mithras, the double god, the Manichee, was an early role model.

The

quiddity of these eccentric architectural arrangements, the

com-

promises and epiphanies worked out through the centuries, has been

wantonly and mindlessly City into

a privileged

extendable nightsticks. ers

—

set aside

by an attempt to turn the zone of the

playground. Legoland with shoulder-arms and

A

new barriname big foot

profoundly depressing system of

red and white cones, pyramids stamped with the

and backed by squared sections of timber — has been assembled porary (permanent)

measure of control;

a

visible

consciousness. Aftershocks of terror can be replayed to excuse the imposition of this “ring

of plastic”,

tem-

narrowing of

whenever required

a ring

with no gates

or breaks. As the Standard reported on 15 February, 1995: to

as a

“A

proposal

be discussed next week will seek to extend the no-go area westwards. 104

closing streets at one end and turning others into

one-way routes

.

.

.

Existing plastic bollards are already being replaced with concrete and

paving in ally

million upgrade, and the

a

become

a

have thrown

permanent

a tight

new

feature of the City

cordon around Wall

.

extension would eventu.

.

Meanwhile,

US

police

braced for another ter-

Street,

rorist outrage.” Ironically, these repressive, anti-flow bottlenecks

introduced without consultation or democratic legislation

—

— were being

when libertarian/Greenist factions were Camden Town and other parts of London in favour of

instituted at the very time

demonstrating in

The

road closures, barriers: an alliance of extremes.

surgically-masked,

lycra-clad cyclist offering tacit support to the private armies of the

money market. Armed with Nicholson s New City of London Access Map (Security Check Points, Through Routes, Road Closures) and accompanied, as ever,

by Marc Atkins,

set

I

out to photograph

points and barricaded bridges, police slow.

this

sub-system of check-

At Bishopsgate the

traffic

out of bandit country (Shoreditch, Hoxton, Dalston, Stoke Newington)

chokes to a single

German motors

line.

A quorum of Afro-Caribbeans in over-ambitious

are discriminated to the side

of the road. (Affronted

owner-drivers lean against their vehicles, refusing eye contact, while one

of the cops rings distance

in.

Taking-without-permission suspects back

between themselves and

time.) Forests

this car

they are seeing for the

of surveillance cameras interrogate number

Bevis Marks a vanload of brilliant cloth bales, is

off,

bound

put first

plates. In

for Petticoat Lane,

painstakingly sifted, while the driver grumbles at pedestrians. At the

indifferent

policewoman. Control

freaks in sadistic gold spectacles are

licensed to snoop by the Corporation. These intrusions into our free-

dom

of passage are the “something” that must be seen to be done in the

wake of a bomb initial assault.

(Before the

of searchers and

of arrogant response

scare; the species

sniffers

were marked with

VE Day

bingo in St

it is

a useful rehearsal

lump

protection scams,

— for

uniformed

is

not remotely Belfast,

post-conflict investment: drug laundries,

labour. See the hard-hat lads caressing their

Friday afternoon pillows of currency. guards,

in the City. Secure lids

Rooftops were scanned. Dogs turned

loose in stairwells and basements.) Bishopsgate

but

provoked the

Paul’s Cathedral, squads

checked every manhole

a special seal.

that

The

parodic courtesy of Vatican

hirelings paid to protect the

most baroque crooks

in

the kingdom. Black magicians with a cure for Alzheimer’s disease.

The

New

City

gates, gates that

is

immune from

can be shifted

threat,

at a

105

defended

phonecall.

as it

By

is

by

invisible

rapid response

paramilitaries hotwired to vindicate their undisclosed budgets.

Photo-

graphing each of the surveillance checkpoints meant that Marc and

Word was

were, in our turn, also photographed.

limped up King William

There

is

a

major complex of camera

gleaming gold as

thistle

which

“Bulls Bears Brokers”.

the four cameras, tilted

complexion.

on the

report

at different angles,

to

make

out permission,

my

to guess

didn’t notice the

London helmet badge and can

I

courteous (but philosophically

us, professionally

me

locked in an ontological stand-off.

back to the

station.

wanted him

I

to

He wanted

behave badly

we

the incident worth recording. And, inevitably,

were both disappointed. about

I

only examining the snapshot later that

(It’s

we were soon

an excuse to haul

enough

that

correct sequence of events.)

Being, both of opposed),

recently rechristened

so engrossed in effectively recording

rapidly-approaching plod, with his City of his fresh

between the

small bird^ drink), sited

became

I

poles, cones, plastic building blocks

Monument and a pub

of the

we

out by the time

north towards the Bank of England.

Street,

(with long trenches from

I

why

didn’t see

I

couldn’t photograph, with-

I

of cameras that were making

a thicket

wanderings in the

City.

when you had broken

Without

gates or walls

of the City’s

free

a feature film

you were

gravity.

left

You had

to

make assumptions based on a decreased intensity of surveillance: the precise point at which you became a walk-through extra and not a featured player. The King William Street checkpoint was old Hollywood: George Stevens shooting Giant with angle, leaving his editors

a battery

of cameras covering every

with enough footage to make the most tedious

look good. These mean grey boxes were actually

script

qualifying natural colour.

And, worse than

erasitig

truth, dis-

that, their interference, their

unceasing attention, disturbed the time-stream, the dance of photons.

Their

alien consciousness

coma

left in a

no

after a

phallic dew.

A

a

mortuary dream, the dream of someone

road accident.

heal, the

a subversive

I

is split,

psyche to

blow

divided from

didn’t try to discuss

he, give

me

that was,

him

dream with no

Watchers

sleep. Surveillance abuses the past

subject

A

rage,

no

anxiety,

dream without symbols or archetypes. Instead of

coding these images to

had to invent

was

my

credit, spell

away, stomp

me

fit

in their

Bishopsgate precinct

the crimes that trouble urban

while fragmenting the present.

The

itself.

improvisations with the policeman; nor did

out

his frustration

to butter

on

that

he couldn’t simply

the pavement. His sense, whatever

of threat, was sublimated into

a

choked

sewers, dole-chasers strolling tree in the 106

—

politesse: Fenians in the

midday sun, scuffed shoes

kicking up the dirt torial

ruck with — in

do whatever

it

was

quote chapter and

they had

as if

his case

that

I

—

a perfect right to

the gloves

My

verse.

This was

a terri-

He didn’t want me to didn’t know why. Couldn’t

still

was doing, but he

it.

on.

offence was essentially one of distance:

I

was too close to government property. Properly respectful photographs, the postcard kind, might, under special dispensation, be permitted.

“What

distance then,”

Hard was

I

enquired, “was acceptable

to say. Fifty yards

a collar.

And

and they’d turn

made

precisely?”

a blind eye.

Ten yards and

it

then he spotted Marc and the debate became techni-

My little Japanese toy was one thing,

cal.

—

Atkins’ sophisticated long-focus

mockery of distance: he could sneak away to the other side of the river and still work in close-up. The skinhead’s camera was a

lens

a

weapon. Special Branch

issue.

Sarcasm gave away to overt

one

threats:

wrong word and he’d frogmarch us back to Bishopsgate for a “Section One Search”. Would we fancy that? (From his heavy breathing it was evident that he did.) We were less keen, but it would make excellent copy for the book 1 was working on. And so the affair de-escalated into peevish mutters. The engagement was broken off before it reached the point of paperwork.

3.

A plumper and portlier bull,

says he, never shit on shamrock.

James Joyce

Repeated walks, the labyrinth

circuits,

— proved

attempts to navigate

frustrating.

There was no

had been botched, the alignments twisted to

money

lake.

The City was an

—

(On

centre.

tributaries; hit

we

traced vanished rivers, the

mission to

MARCUS

Walbrook and

its

and

threadlike

logged the distribution of tribes of totemic animals;

desired shock of revelation.

the

they were to

less visible

the edge of old Bedlam, the sign of the Eye,

every church, recording armadas of stone

On

the

off-shore island surrounded, protected, by

scalloped in scarlet, stands out from the premises of

ADLER.) We

of

The geometry

flatter false imperatives:

high walls. Walls that became more effective the the uninitiated eye.

to get to the heart

The City

vessels.

And

all

we

without the

resisted us.

morning of the 14th of March, 1995, we were given pergo up on to the roof of the former Port of London Authority 107

building

Tower

Trinity Square,

at

appeared from below to be

and photograph what

Hill, to inspect

a pair

of white

(Perhaps the energy

bulls.

grid of the Square Mile could be graphed by the scatter of bulls and

Tower Hill wa?^ one of the sacred places of London, the Bryn Gwyn (or White Mount) of EO Gordon’s groundbreaking 1925 triangulation: Prehistoric London, its Mounds and Circ)ei. Here was hidden the severed head of Bendigeid Vran, crowned king of the island, his face

bears?)

“towards France”.

And this

they buried the head in the White

was the

when

disclosure

sea

came

third it

Goodly concealment; and was

to this island

overwheening

it

was the

it

was buried

third ill-fated

inasmuch as no invasion from

disinterred,

decoration,

its

had fascinated

rhetoric,

me

its

Corinthian por-

for years, but

never before stepped inside. That would be challenging

“no

asserted:

across the

while the head was in that concealment.

This elaborate white temple with tico, its

Mount, and when

site

had

Gordon

be found of a Keltic king erecting any

single instance can

kind of building upon the

fate.

I

of

a sacred

mound.”

It

was already too

PLA, they had decamped to Tilbury. We were the temporary guests of Willis Corroon pic, “one of the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance intermediaries”, specialists in “risk management”. Just the boys we needed in our present predicament. Bulls on the roof. BuUs guarding the river gate. Where else should we

late for the

start

our circumnavigation?

Had

not the city once been measured by the

distance covered by a baited bull? alleys in

Whitechapel had to be

from the

side

been published.

when we

crazy pattern of the lanes and

a faithful tracing

of the blood running

of a tormented animal. White Chappell,

“explanation” of the has

The

have

title

of that novel

And

is

arrived

will not the discovery

finally located the centre

at,

Scarlet Tracings:

long

of

a

after the

minotaur

the

book

tell

us

of the maze?

where they now hang in Europeanapproved naves of meat sculpture. Bulls were roasted on the frozen Thames. But were they also used to map the City, these animals dediBulls

were run

at

Smithfield,

cated to the cult of Mithras? Butcher’s Survey of Stamford outlines the

ceremony of

bull-baiting,

which was

from the thirteenth century

until

it

a regular practice in that

was suppressed,

“after

much

town local

opposition”, in 1840.

It

was peformed just the day six weeks 108

before Christmas.

The

butchers of

the towfi, at their

can ^et

.

charge, against the time, provide the wildest bull they

.

.

Proclamation

made by

is

their shops, doors offer to

own

the

common bellman

and ^ates, and

do any violence

shops and ^ates shut up, the bull then hivie, skivie; tag and sizes,

with

all the

.

.

.

many

tacles:

the play with

a

“Harry Hunks”, were

as

its

kings and clowns,

its

The Merry Wives in,

both spec-

mimed

songs and

deaths,

I

at

Whitehall Palace would

windows where they could look down tethered bull would be attacked by dogs.

a

pubHc entertainments:

Of men

bear, chained to a post, “represented” assaults

the river) had

(in its licensed satellite across

disembowelment, execution.

from the

its

court ofJames

their special enclosures set aside for

walls

in

feast to

Whitehall and the City

ture,

celebrated as the

wagers, champions and cathartic conclusions.

visitors to the

which

as

audiences enjoyed, and participated

ceremonial

square in

Garden, alongside the Globe Theatre, in

mentioned by Master Slender

is

The same

Diplomats and

a

to

of hell for the punishment of Cerberus, as

at Paris

and the bear-pit with

on

one would think them

did not lag behind her provincial cousins. Bulls and bears

“Sackerson”

move from

and

sorts

Pirithous conquered that place.

Southwark. Bears, such

of Windsor.

the

turned out of the alderman's house, and

is

men, women and children of all

rag,

furies started out

were regularly baited actors.

that each one shut tip

dogs in the town promiscuously run after him with their

when Theseus and

London

.

Which proclamation made, and

bull clubs spattering dirt in each others faces, that

be so

.

upon payne of imprisonment,

that none,

to strangers

.

rituals

and animals. The

of tor-

bull or the

grounded power, protected by

of bandogs and greyhounds. The dog, once

again, stands for darkness, unpoliced liberties, the forest. Initiates, tran-

scribing the pattern of blood

Marc and

I

in

would

divine the fate of the

carried these dubious theories with us to

waited in the entrance “the nearest thing

ple,

loss,

Rome”, while

hall

has to the Vittore

was made for

a

woman

to shepherd us into

then through the directors’ corridor, and out into the sunshine.

lift;

We

tracked a succession of exquisite private dining rooms

polished hierarchies of glass and

silver.

adjustments. Soft cell silence, limited edition light.

of

telephone nor the dry

pleasured with marine guide,

who

oils,

rattle

of

a

—

crisp linen,

Starched waitresses making their

final

Our

We

Emanuele monument

the

a

Hill.

of Sir Edwin Cooper s river-facing bull tem-

London

a search

Tower

city.

word

processor.

Not

the tweet

Dim

corridors

allusions to the building’s previous function.

confessed to mild vertigo, didn’t have time to waste 109

on

was indoctrinated with compliance, the subtle

casual tourists, but

of massaging the male ego.

was

at

the centre

been destroyed by

a

she did the patter: the building

aligned with the cardinal points of the compass.

a square, its sides

The rotunda

Effortlessly,

art

—

bomb

the mandalic circle within the square in the

Second World War.

A bomb

— had

which

no other damage. Stepping outside, we were invited to sit for a moment in the area reserved for power breakfasts, leisurely coffees taken within sight of Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. A morning of fine heat haze softening distance, smoothing over an excess of detail. The drudgery of our walks, down there among the insects, under constant surveillance, beating against locked doors, was instantly appeased by the width of “surprisingly” did

this visionary

formula.

exemption.

bounty of

this view.

his galleon

Our

who

The

drawn by

like

moving from

had traded

portrait to landscape

the arrogance of these Lords

their

immortal souls for the

sculptural representation of Father sea horses, reared

above

Thames,

us.

humouring her disability, stayed where walkway that took us around the back of the the east, where the great white bulls guarded

guide, short of breath,

she was, pointing out the

temple, the tower, and to their portal. ritual

was

You could even sympathise with

of the City, the ones

and

It

The alignment was unimpeachable.

It

chambers within the tower were no longer

didn’t matter that the in use; the

pensioned

demanded no government, no structure of control and sacrifice. Father Thames had abdicated his Idomeric status, refusing to patronise

river

grand and noble themes. Spenser, Eliot and Pope were off the

payroll.

The brown presence, shimmering beneath us, ugly and delightful, was diseased — but in remission. A tolerated transient to be fought over by competing millennial conmiittees with ever more preposterous schemes: Ferris

wheels, waterfalls,

Greenwich

axis.

What

magnificent husk.

role

meteorological platforms to botch the

could be found for

How could the

put back into service?

The new

a

colonised temple?

A

geomantic powers be turned, tamed,

operators acknowledged the dilemma,

highlightling the surviving symbols in their glossy brochure: in the

south-east wing, formerly the

PEA boardroom,

carved motifs pay

homage to Pepys and Chaucer, while others in the reading room commemorate Newton, Hogarth, Inigo Jones, Harvey. In the floor of the entrance hall is a mark that represents the boundary between the City of London and the civil liberties of the Tower: the distance, so it is claimed, of a bowshot from the Tower walls. Edwin Cooper’s glacial folly, commanding the City’s river-gate, with

no

overblown

its pillars,

darkness within, was

statues,

much

as

quoins and masses,

its

its

sepulchral hints of

triumph of quotation and pastiche

a

any

as

Without the labouring PLA clerks, at their concentric counters beneath the dome, scratching away to record every ship on the river, the temple was a hollow shell. It suggested noth-

post-modern docklands

ing weightier than

And

ziggurat.

a fully-realised anticipation

the bulls, the ruby-blooded beasts,

prod their

flanks, stare into their lifeless eyes,

of the

now

set for Ghostbusters.

we were

that

were exposed

free to

oxen with

as

dubious hairpieces: syrups hooked over stubby cornet horns. These

were slack-necked

beasts

of the Odyssey. Titular

mud

of burden: the

spirits

Oxen of the

mocked by James

of crocodiles, or medical students”,

Hormone-enhanced

inflations,

as

Sun.

Joyce.

The drudges

“Down

in the

Richard Ellman had them.

they are unworthy of sacrifice, existing

only to break ground. They have been constructed in segments; the joins are clearly visible, dotted like a butchers card, ready for carving.

Ox-dumb

been bred

extras in the imperial circus, they have

to drag

some winged female, a muscle-beach faggot with strap-on, pistol breasts. The whole parade suggests a TV club night, leper-white poseurs with wispy drapes elastoplasted over their naughty harp-ribbed chorus boy (aka “Husbandry”)

bits.

who

The knees of

the

oxen

are

leads the

malformed pineapples. Photographing them reminds me of the state of my own ligaments, the quiet agony of crawling about on rooftops, squeezing into crypts and bent, black camera skull, is

And

cellars.

moulded

like a

growth

also flattering future infirmity.

is

Atkins, as

The

acts

is

intensity

of his concentration keeping every-

detail,

not pure revelation out of the frame. Savage and repeated

of will that leave him with

his

head twisted

den him with the catalogue of the

enough

notice him, head

to the stubbled pebble of his

an act of exclusion, eliminating extraneous

thing that

I

to print.

The

city,

images he can never

sharp pain in his spine

is

live

the presence of

untreated brickwork, a gluttony of skyscapes, imprisoned

— no

bur-

like a vulture; that

long

all

light.

this

(His

no lecture base — than the feeding, by the late Theo Crosby, of the whole of Whitechapel, every doorway and window, into his computer system. Piranesian reefs to snag the unwary project

surfers

is

stranger

thesis,

of the Internet.)

We ’re

in the right place, every aspect lives

prescription, but these are the it

would be

a blessing to

wrong

up

animals. This

to is

a

EO

Gordon’s

roof on which

be turned into stone. Any number of lifetimes

could be happily wasted looking out over the reservoir of money, basking in the illusion of being exempt from poverty, disease, mortality. All 111

of strange notions

sorts

for example, I’d got

always,

it

drift across the

what

if,

completely wrong about Lady Thatcher. She was

true, the protector

it’s

screen of consciousness:

of this self-regulating kingdom —

get, grab,

squeeze — but mighfeshe not have been acting on behalf of another?

Of

Denis, her consort. She was the window-dressing, paraded to take the

amas^ng wealth, shoring up the immemorial “liberties” of the Square Mile. Denis was a Wodehousian con; a brilliantly impersonated buffer. Telegraph man, decent cove, snaffling the directorships, shaking hands on deals while his statuesque figurehead wife excited the prurient fantasies of the backwoodsmen. A flak,

while he got on with the

real task,

would be at his ease in the private dining beneath us. Gin and North Sea oil. Nick Faldo-

dominatrix’s consort, he

rooms,

down

there

autographed golf clubs and heat-seeking

On

the trot again, gabbling, the bull

missiles.

still

an elusive figure, invoked by

tavern sounds, drinking sessions: the wind-rush of the bull-roarer.

Invoked but not represented. The bull becoming

The

bear was

Thames, it

easier.

The

to Bankside:

a Papal prohibition.

bear had decamped to the other shore of the

Bear Wharf. The bear was out of it, back where

belonged, with the revived Elizabethan theatres, the stews and prison

rubble.

A

hung

stained glass panel

Southwark Bridge. The

across a

window

that overlooks

bear, representing Arcturus, an astral form,

belonged in Rotherhithe with David Jones; a shagy circus dancer, glimpsed by a sick child from a bedroom window. The bear has been banished:

it is

a skin

worn by

quest hero

a

who

is

under enchantment.

(Echoes of Twelfth Night. “To anger him we’ll have the bear again.” Sir

Toby Belch. Or: “He brought bear-baiting here.” Fabian.) time.

It’s

me

The

out of favour with

bear

is

visible traces

— having checked out

Aldersgate

lady about a

deactivated, muzzled, waiting

the bull that has been driven into the

Reaching the end of the

my

wrong

of the

its

pen.

Roman

wall,

the head of Mithras in the

beyond

Museum

of

London — we found ourselves in St Botolph’s churchyard, the “Postman’s Park”. You could, being generous, call it a kind of solution, but this dim parenthesis would not serve as a place of revelation, the heart of the labyrinth.

cides to tablets,

It

sit

was dominated by

and be sure they were making the right decision.

A

wall of

suggested by George Frederick Watts, recorded serio-comic

episodes of Victorian fatal

tall-sided office buildings: a place for sui-

life,

domestic tragedies: drownings,

fires, acts

of

heroism. Prompts for bad poems, sentimental woodcuts. Let the

dead celebrate the dead. Such events, exposed to ceramic decoration. 112

amusement among

provoke

a cynical

part in a

melodrama.

The been

park also features

sited a

it

mound, or

Michael Ayrton Minotaur,

mute, blind creature

burden

a small

strollers:

is

those unqualified to take

grassy knoll,

a black

on which

has

and greasy bullman. This

crouched in pain, struggling to comprehend the

has to bear, the constricting helmet of bone: upturned horns

which transmit the contradictory messages of the serpentine City. Some spark of human consciousness has been trapped in this awkward, unbalanced deformity. The Minotaur is yet another avatar of the Elephant Man, one of those hybrid forms that lurk, disguised, across the web of London:

guilt-provoking bestiary.

a

From

the rough stone head of the

monument above the drinking fountain, outside the entrance to the St Mary Matfelon Park in Whitechapel, you can trace these man/animal monsters down a path that leads directly to the Minotaur. The path will of course be emphasised and confirmed by attendant beggars, winos, cripples.

Deranged messengers with garbled prophecies, misapplied

curses.

The Minotaur was

illegitimate, the

miscegenation, Pasiphae’s

form of a

bull.

lust for a

“byeblow” of an adulterous

of

god, for Zeus or Poseidon in the

Ayrton narrated the episode from the point of view of

Daedalus, ordered to construct the love-hide the naked queen

would prepare

darkness, a destroyer of virgins.

—

the cowskin in

which

The

herself for a furious assignation.

child of this self-induced ravishment

would be

a

monster, hidden in

Only when Theseus,

playboy, was given a red thread to follow could the

The

act

the chancer, the

Minotaur be

red line that offers one of the walks through the concrete

slain.

maze of

the Barbican.

Ayrton’s Minotaur, without

Neo-Romantic

gesture, a

been excommunicated,

left

some

act

is

is

nothing

botched fragment of autobiography.

It

—

a

has

outside the walls, to be visited by occasional

antiquarians, such as Geoffrey Fletcher

Park in 1967 for

of possession,

who

sketched the Postman’s

his booklet. Offbeat in the City of London.

The Minotaur

another misalignment, an accident of patronage in keeping with the

regular attempts by the City fathers to subvert and annul the original

grid of energies. Everything was to be preserved that could be preserved, the

proud heritage of churches and

neutralised

by

antiquities; but

respect, rendered meaningless, explained

designed museums; or broken up and displayed

rooms and

vestibules. Restorations

confuse the picture.

away

was to be

in tactfully

as trophies in

board-

and near-perfect copies further

The complexity of the whole, 113

it

the unified City and

the

necessary dualities

operated

that

symbols of cohesion —

as

— have been

light/darkness, square/circle, bull/cow, altar/mound exploited, atomised, perverted.

Where

is

as

important

why

as

Ayrton may have painted on the

Dogs, in Rotherhithe and Wapping, but construct

laboured under the

it,

of upstate

hills

New

York. Like

away,

is

all

this

a strange

1908

its

“Bedlam

its

Collection of

London

to

it

smoke.”

as

difficult to locate, squirrelled

Mouth

inn signs,

Figures”) by the Guildhall

Museum

and wonderful gathering of Bull and

catalogued (alongside in

much of

plunder,

when he came

of

name of “AYkville”, and was sited in a Jewish weekend resort. The form of

the maze, Ayrton said, was “as impalpable

Among

maze,

his

Isle

Antiquities.

There

is

a sandstone tablet

removed from the Queen s Hotel, St Martin’s-le-Grand, in which a bull appears, trapped within the yawning mouth of a grotesque, whose beard is formed from hanging bunches of grapes. The inscription at the base of the tablet reads: milo the cretonian/an ox slew with his fist/and ATE IT UP AT ONE MEAl/ YE GODS WHAT A GLORIOUS TWIST. The “twist” in the vortex is the one consistent feature, the doubling back, the superimposition, the scratching away at layers of darkness. A notable variant on the Queen’s Hotel design is the other major example in the Guildhall collection. This as a

described in the catalogue, without irony,

is

“finely-executed” bull, standing foursquare above the grinning head.

There

no doubting the authenticity of this

is

winner -

now

shifted west,

imprisoned

as a

bull, a

quotation from “Medieval

and Later Periods” in the Guildhall Museum. entrance to rifice. It

hell,

no

less.

was retrieved

that runs

in

The

bull

is

on

1887 from Angel

the

mouth? The

Street, Aldersgate: the

immediately to the south of the Postman’s Park, but

Ayrton’s fearful Minotaur

mound and

pursuing, then

it

is

a substitute.

The

is

the beast for

grotesque head

road

safely

which is

then

altar.

If the residual traces

als

And

parade, rampant, ready for sac-

within the protection of the City Wall. This

both

Smithfield prize-

of bull-sacrifice offered

was important to

were enacted. The temptation,

a

metaphor

establish the place

as always,

that

was worth

where

these ritu-

stood firm: to

inflate a day’s

wandering, out in the weather, into something that could be described

Rigby Graham, the Leicestershire artist and print-maker, man whose work derives directly from the tradition of Graham

as a

a

“quest”.

Sutherland, John Minton, John Piper, was a cynical hyperactive bullshit detector.

He

Romantic with

a

wrote the introduction for an Ayrton 114

show

at

gle”.

Graham

Goldmark Gallery in Uppingham, demonstrating an evident sympathy for the maze-maker as “a man of stress and strain and strugthe

also

produced the image

that

was

a

keynote for our walk.

His multi-coloured monotype, The Ritual (1994), depicts a bull’s head hanging from a rope: wide-open pink eyes, lolling tongue — and blood,

of the same colour, sion persists,

filling a chalice

when

the picture

deliberate act of blasphemy

— an

or grail-cup beneath.

no longer

is

in front

The

impres-

of you, of

a

iconoclastic blending of Iberian pagan-

ism out of Picasso with the most sacred device of Christian mysticism.

Blood of a

would scorch rather than cure the dead ground. Yet again we tracked the submerged Walbrook, from the wellgrail that

watered bowling green of Finsbury Circus, through gates with the sign

of the

triple

compasses,

the bulk of the

honour god

(was there a missing

Bank of England with

its

l?),

around

battery of niches and alcoves

bookshop advertising perfectly legal tax loopholes; to the Mansion House and the site where the Temple of Mithras was uncovered by Professor Grimes in 1954. Moving south towards the Thames, down the street which preserves the name of its most notable tributary, the presence of the river is palpable. Stone reverts to water. On what would once have been the eastern bank. Wren’s church, St Stephen Walbrook — whose dome he designed before that of St Paul’s — asserts its claim to the ground once occupied by the Temple of Mithras; even though the interior embraces an entirely contrary spirit, being filled with light and centred on a broad, cold, altar stone from the studio of Henry Moore. A smoothand

tall

iron doors; to a

topped block of cheese. This was never the place of the bull temple.

making its way out of Asia Minor to Rome, and then on with the legions to London. It was a cult favoured both by the military and the mercantile classes. The energising symbol was the slaying of a buU in a cave by an initiate possessed by the spirit of Mithraism originated in

Persia,

the god: Mithras Tauroctonos. the booklet put out by the

umph

ritual act

Museum

of slaughter, according to

of London, represented “the

of light over darkness”. Like Manicheanism the cult was

a balancing

of contraries:

the clout of illumination.

nades,

The

submerged

mystery and awe.

a

The

dualist,

dehberate submersion in shadows leading to

The

floors,

tri-

design of the temples, with their colon-

was intended

to foster a proper sense

of

structure of the building sympathised with a cult

organised through levels of initiation.

Women

were not permitted

to

attend the ceremonies. Water was an important element.

The

act

— Mithras

cutting the bull’s throat 115

—

as

depicted on the votive

Bond Court

tablet discovered near

1889

in

is

one of the

crucial icons in

any understanding of the psychogeography of the City. The figures of the

god and the

bull

form

within the framing

a triangle

logical symbols. Mithras, in his characteristic

form of blood,

will

of astro-

curved cap, turns away

from the animal, cutting the throat from behind with stroke. Light, in the

circle

a

right-handed

gush from the wound.

And

the

where the blade touches the throat, will be a sacred site in the mapping of London. Here: the bull falls. Here: the maddened animal point,

runs through the quality of light,

streets,

wisdom,

the circling and charging, ends. Here: a special is

invoked.

So the knowledge of precisely where the original Temple of Mithras stood

is

crucial

—

if

we

are to

fumble our way back,

if

we want

to

uncover the subterranean mechanisms by which the contemporary City

And

functions.

that

where our

is

difficulties begin: the

never part of the territory of St Stephen Walbrook. Professor

Grimes on the west

so nearer the is

Thames.

It is

a

of the road, and

no longer

another City watering-hole,

This was not

side

a

there,

not

a

Temple was

It

was uncovered by

a

hundred yards or

brick of it. In

wine-bar/restaurant

—

place

its

the Mithras.

very satisfactory conclusion to our researches.

wouldn’t be enough to crash through the

It

our dusty boots

glass doors, in

and sweat-soaked jackets, and demand the biggest steak in the joint. But it

wasn’t quite over: the

Walbrook temple,

of two cult centres —

lesser

a satellite

it

has

been suggested, was the

development.

A

good

place to

no more than that. During Professor Grimes’ archaeological investigations a group of statues was discovered beneath the floor, including a vast hand — “far bigger in scale than the hand of Mithras”. The hand gripped the pommel of a dagger, the sacrificial blade. It was thought that this hand had been rescued from a larger and more important site, hidden away for safety when the cult was threatlaunch

a quest,

And

ened.

so

we

did not have to retreat indoors, not yet.

The

stalking

and snapping could continue. Neither had the Walbrook ’s Temple of Mithras been entirely eliminated.

It’s

fate

was worse than

that:

it

had been borrowed, subjugated,

up and shunted to a more convenient site. It had been — as if were no small matter — dramatically realigned, so that the skeleton

parcelled it

now

ran from north to south, instead of west to

east.

Everything that

had happened within the shape of that building was loosed on the City as

psychic interference, bad karma, white noise.

tling

down Queen

Jumpy

pedestrians, bat-

Victoria Street, took an additional hit of rage,

looked west, towards Lord Palumbo’s work-in-progress and the 116

as

they

pomp of

(Marc and

St Paul’s.

came

man

across a

crowd of fascinated

en route to check out the effigy ofJohn Donne,

I,

lying in the road with his head split open; a small office

workers munched sandwiches;

a

lowering sun

twinning the two domes, victim and church.) Londoners, workers with somewhere to go, simply don’t notice the

rump of the Temple. space. Roofless,

It

looks like an unfilled paddling pool, a parking

exposed to the gaze of the

structure, an approximation. If you

need

it, it

Its

office block,

it is

shamed

a

potency has been ruthlessly neutralised.

can be found outside Temple Court, the headquarters

of the Legal and General Group, the London base of Sumitomo Banking. If the present

City has

of

lost

ritual

it;

and

Temple

stands for anything,

it is

a

symbol of how the

corrupted the integrity of its founding greed,

sacrifice,

human

decent

secrecy, cynicism, surveillance.

vices,

Unprepared

its

pattern

by yielding entirely to

to let the past go, the off-

shore investors and short-term profit takers have deliberately enslaved

every artefact they can claw out of the ground. Walks are permitted only

on agreed tawdry

The

paths.

ancient gates, energy sluices, have been replaced by

plastic barriers.

A policy of deliberate misalignment

of Mithras, London Stone, the surviving

effigies

Temple

(the

from Ludgate) has vio-

lated the integrity of the City’s sacred geometry; leaving, in the place of

well-ordered chaos, regimented anonymity ruption thrives. Poisoned weather, sick

—

a

climate in

which cor-

confused humans.

skies,

4

Not for

a boozed

Murphy's

for the

bull in curial-cursive

scarlet pontiff o' the

D AVID

The hunt was

over, let

City’s obfuscations. Stay

it

drift;

and leaded

West

Jones

we’d never reach the bottom of the

on the move,

that’s all that matters.

back on

great

theme

fresh

rumours, to step eastwards.

that

on the morning of Ascension Day,

that will not eventually turn It

itself.

There

Time

up into the tower

Fisherman’s Friends, ministrations of

Mr

we

to

hymn

intended to

Peter

no

to chase

had been whispered in Limehouse at 7

am, the vicar of St

George-in-the-East, off the Ratcliffe Highway, would lead parishioners

is

a party

of

the rising sun. And, gasping

on

infiltrate that

Mason of 117

group. Thanks to the

Purley, an orthopedic magician.

Atkins and

I

were restored to nothing worse than our usual moderately

distressed condition, ready for a fresh

round of ascents and

investiga-

tions.

Thursday, 25th

cloud cover

light

May

1995.

lifting to the

shadows across the small park

We

stubby pyramid. splendid fake. that

It

at

was

all

too

easy, strolling

promise of

a glorious

morning; long

the rear of the church; leafplay

on the

climbed the steps and stood within the husk of that

The body of the church had been

we found

without pain,

destroyed in the war, so

ourselves in a private courtyard: the glass of the

chapel dramatically reflecting the tower behind

us.

In ones and twos, they appeared; this benign congregation. All to each other, too polite to question us

ple of City suits

and the

reindeer sweaters,

hooded

rest,

-

smiles of complicity.

mainly women, in Christian

sweatshirts, laundry

new

room

leggings.

known

A

cou-

casuals:

The

par-

son, balding, austerely bespectacled, black-cassocked, led us into the

dark bore of the tower.

The

service was described

on the hymn

sheets that

to the circle, the twelve of us, as “Ascension Day:

were distributed

White or Gold”. Two

croakers to botch their plainsong. Clubbable, welcoming: the fellowship

who

of those

swim

have

come

together to break the ice

on the pond and

before breakfast. Conspiratorial grins and friendly asides: the

vicars lady told

Atkins

me

about the

flats

one of those of whom

is

it

beneath the pepperpot towers. Marc could be

said, as

of Richard Brautigan, that “the only respect

Edward Dom wrote in which he was a

Christian was the interest he shared with Christ in professional

Now

women”.

who

creature

as

visibly drooling over the self-evidently saved

was placed opposite him in the ring — long hair blown

over her face by ing V,

he was

a

warm-breathed zephyr;

A

late arrival,

wide

in

an alarm-

hymn: “Hail the day that sees him rise. panting up the steps just before the reading

she bellowed the

Alleluya!”

legs spread

first

from Luke - “And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and spent all

their time in the

temple praising god” — botched our numerology.

A

bearded, leathery-faced party with a heavy cross slung around his neck: the coal-bright eyes of an inquisitor.

The

we were look down on the

short service over,

highest point, to

free to

vicar

climb

and

a

metal ladder to the

his group,

beams of light

cutting in through the arches in the stone; or turn our heads to the

panorama of London — Canary Wharf, the river, the City, the white blade of Christ Church, Spitalfields. To the west we were aligned directly

with the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament, with the 118

bell.

Big Ben,

cast at the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry

viewpoint the path between the two

cities

in 1858.

From our

was unusually

distinct:

Whitehall and the City of London. Government and the creation of wealth: the rest of the landscape, in the lush sweep of morning, existed

only to serve those principalities.

drawn

Churlishly, not wanting to be

our

for

snack

visit,

we

alchemy

Bethnal Green Road.

had to be

it

as

might prove

had surely

seized.

our theme. helpful.

arrived.

I

had

had

It

The

The “White on

my

was

quality of this day

or Gold” motif suggested

yellow packet waiting

a

lain

The

desk for

a year,

donor, John Hudson, was

at

but

home that its moment poet

a neo-classical

and antiquarian bookdealer based in Vancouver, with in

on the reasons

declined the ecclesiastic fry-up, and headed north to

at Pellicci’s in

special,

into a discussion

whom

I

had been

spasmodic correspondence for some time. Mopping up

Pellicci’s

excellent

bacon and

ished formica, marquetry panels,

when Hudson’s

by the aura of family

eggs, seduced 1

cultural aid parcel

obvious that Ascension Day,

its

decided that

would have

was the

this

to

portraits, pol-

moment

be activated.

It

was

ceremonies observed, offered unusual

would be open, secret formulae spoken aloud. We were constrained to act on Hudson’s papers or shut up shop. He had, I knew — I’d met and talked with him — been constructing, at a distance, his own psychogeography of the City, based on a close concessions: church doors

study of the

life

and works of Elias Ashmole, the seventeenth-century

genealogist and alchemist. For

Hudson

the prime

site

was

St Paul’s

Cathedral, his calculations began there.

Back

at

the kitchen table in Hackney,

laid

I

out the various elements

of Hudson’s collection:

1

.

A

3pp word-processed

letter,

with holograph corrections and

additions. Signed in red.

2.

8pp of handwritten quotations, numbered: 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Obviously extracted from a much larger manuscript. Typewritten extracts — “Notes from

RYWERT” — had been

pasted to the backs of several sheets,

(ie.

a belief among

goodwill that forms of communal practice of the inner override theological differences

and attendant savage

life

men of

would help

to

intolerance/

pythagorean-solomonic mystery / (Wren) a pupil at Oxford of a strange person

who makes

the link (to

''Rosicrucian” Peter Stahl, at

Dee and Bacon)

who

explicit: the

established the first teaching laboratory

Oxford /William Stukeley (admitted a master-mason) did just 119

that,

and transformed Church, 3.

a temple into a rather eccentric version of Christ

Spitalfelds.)

Photocopied biography of Ashmole (DNB). 1617—1692. and

greatest virtuoso

curioso that ever

Dee, together with an anonymous

anagram ofJatnes Hasolle. In ‘Tlieatrum

alchemy

4

.

A

.

Chemicumf

tract

652 he

1

A

on*the same subject, under the

published the first volume of his

.

after the

for the reconstruction

of the

Great Fire of 1666.

hand-drawn geometric chart

triangle,

Dr

a collection of ancien t metrical treatises on

photocopy of Wren’s proposal

City 5.

.

was known or read of in England

... In 1650 he edited an alchemical work by

before his time.”

‘‘The

within

circle): as

within square, within

(circle

an aid towards the completion of the

calculations set out in Hudson’s letter.

Irresistible.

The

monty:

full

College, Dee, Ashmole,

Invisible

we had

alchemy. Masonry, maps, graveyards, cosmic conspiracies. All

to

on to the photocopied sheets of The A-Z of Georgian Dmdon — which I had picked up at the bookshop of the Guildhall Library. Hudson had written (24 February 1994): do was transcribe Hudson’s

I

am

sending you the enclosed

that they will not too

much

thesis,

scraps, scribbles

increase

story, if

it

were

true,

would go

astrologist, historian, alchemist

his letter

and photocopies

may

as follows:

my

interesting

is

a

man

.

interregnum: the past and the monarchy are one

to

Most particularly, he

—

the puritan

the Restoration relies on

institutions.

To

this end,

Ashmole

forms the so-called Invisible College.

The

notes on

Ashmole

Wren,

substantiate his connections to

via

Oughtred, the Oxford Society, Wren’s father and uncle, and the Order of the Garter.

Wren Royal intents

along with Oughtred’s other pupils were founding members of the

Society, following the Restoration.

and purposes, Ashmole’s

membership

is all

The Royal

Invisible College

but identical.

120

.

dedicated to preserving the

upon himself the task of this preservation during

knowledge and

.

Ashmole, antiquarian,

learning, including the hermetic learning, of the past.

the preservation of certain

them

at least find

hope

and one of of the first Freemasons never

have previously wielded a trowel,

takes

in the

your burdens ... I have drawn

conclusions on other evidence, but you

The

from

Society

made

is,

for

visible: the

all

After the Great Fire, Charles II (who maintained an alchemical laboratory under his royal bedchamber) laid the foundation stone of the

Royal Exchange,

and time

at a date

Meanwhile Wren had supplied

his

plan for the reconstruction of London,

The plan -

only four days after the fatnes were extinguished. Italianate

piazzas and wide European boulevards, the

might have become

if the

Romans had

instead employed rebuilding

on the

determined by Ashmole.

astrologically

left

what had already

of older churches;

sites

never

like

full

city that

— was

London

rejected,

He

existed.

of

and Wren

built his churches

Ashmole, preserving the past for the sake

of the future. Wren*s London became Ashmole's vision, the reminder in stone

.

The

.

.

letter

continued with Hudson s instructions for tracing out “one

of the principal alchemical symbols” on to John Rocques map: the ure he had provided in his geometric sketch.

fig-

Atkins worked with a pair of scissors trimming the photocopied sec-

while

tions,

strong black coffee,

borrowed

them together — and

pasted

I

we

laboured

and pieces of

bits

the mathematics of the thing.

at

my

then, over several jugs of

geography

son’s

kit,

lengths of thread, compasses stretched to their limit.

we grew

map, doodled on notepads. Until evidence to “prove” what

I

tired

it

was

visible: a line linking

ated with St Dunstan

Stepney

as

meat-skewers,

We

of it and

I

spiked the fiddled the

had already guessed Hudson was suggesting.

Marc’s geometry provided belated agreement.

wobbly, but

We

— who

I

The demonstration was

churches and enclosures associ-

remembered from

“a metal-worker, alchemist,

earlier researches in

& bearer of west country grail-

force.”

We

were invited by Hudson

easterly

a line

from the most south-

corner of the triangle, up through the centre of the inner

and “to continue the

line

beyond the bounds of the outer

connects with a certain churchyard

extending the line church.” Using

walk

“draw

to

first

.

.

.

confirmation

also to the south-east, until

Rocque our

destinations

were

it

circle until

may be

it

received by

connects with

now

circle,”

revealed:

a certain

we would

to the west, to St Dunstan’s churchyard, off Fetter Lane.

On,

where Hudson asserted that “what happens on the outside also happens on the inside”, to St Dunstan’s Hill, up from Thames Street. Entering Wren’s cathedral we were informed that: “The first circle is via St Paul’s,

drawn

for you: the great circle

crossing. circle,

Draw

within

and the same

this

line

Wren

laid

on the

floor of the transept

the same arrangement of triangle, square and

toward the North-West. Just before leaving the 121

bounds of the certain,

who

by

structure, the line connects

now

with

a chapel,

familiar saint.” (This excursion

wants to sample

it.

No

is

named

available to

calculations are necessary.

for a

anyone

A straight line to

walk between the'churchyard, off Fetter Lane, and the ruin of St Dunstan-in-the-East.)

Hudson, signing off, “is my contribution to your Invisible City. If you make anything of it, I would be pleased, if only because Ackroyd treated Wren so shabbily.” “This,” said

It

was mid-morning by the time Marc and

I

located the churchyard of

Robert Maxwell s hideous Mirror building with its splashes of red and tested various Fetter Lane tributaries. There was nothing to announce or to commend this site: another palpable absence. Church gates and iron railings around a small rectangle of grass. The oddity was that no development had taken place. Nothing had happened here and was continuing to happen. Marc took his phoSt Dunstan, having negotiated

tographs and

I

scratched at the soil to uncover a small plastic tablet: 5

SWORD-EDGE BLADES. In early summer the area behind the gate, where there would once have been steps leading up to the churchyard, was clogged with

last year’s

dried and fallen leaves.

we drifted south to Fleet Street to sample a church that was still very much present (if not an active part of the Dunstan line): St Dunstan-in-the-West. Here we rejoin the tourist Dues paid

to Hudson’s scheme,

circuit, officially

approved and brochured architecture. We’re back in the

book, mingling with crowds

who

who

have to look interested

have bought their bus tickets and are

now

—

the ones

being fed rapid sum-

maries, blitzed with culture-bites.

We’re

still

outside the City, but inside

protection of the rebuilt

and

tile,

now removed Temple

on an octagonal

plan. Eastern

ripe: incense, painted screens,

speed of streetlife.

— by

It’s

good, for

cold stone enclosure

a

— where

thirty or forty yards

Bar.

The church

has

—

the

been

Mediterranean Christianity, high sounds unsynchronised with the

change, to walk around a

visible, tac-

individuals are praying or meditating

John Donne preached here, so read. St Dunstan-in-the-West has been associated with a clutch of poets: Bretton, Drayton, Cowley, Dryden. Another worthy, who takes my eye on the honour roll, is Thomas White or brooding on

some

peculiar detail that takes their fancy.

I

(1575—1624), founder of Sion College and the White Lectureship

at St

Paul’s.

Externally, the twin figures that excite the tourist cameras are

122

Gog

and Magog, bell-bashers

in an elevated alcove: Hercules-clubbed,

draped in loincloths, muscle-pumped. These gaudy puppets bear

much

as

resemblance to the chalk figures carved into the Wandlebury

Hills (that

TC

Lethbridge describes in Goj^

The Discovery and

Subsequent Destruction of a Great British Antiquity) as does Steve Reeves in

the Italian epic, Hercules Unchained, to the

Cerne Abbas

Only

giant.

the

names matters. Magog, according to Lethbridge, was “the great Mother of All, the bringer of life and also its destroyer. She was the moon goddess her lunar symbol was found on the head of every horned beast and on the hooves of horses.” Gog was connected with fire ceremonies, bonfires. “The ring dances were his, making the persistence of the

.

.

.

shape of the disc symbol.” Lethbridge sees

moon

worship”

as a part

dearth and darkness.”

The

bining male and female:

“combination of sun and

this

of the “perpetual war against the powers of figures should therefore

fire

and

ice. (In a letter to

be intertwined, comThe Times,

May

10th

1957, discussing the “epoch-making” discovery of the Cambridge figures.

Dr Margaret Murray

Enghsh archaeology cession?

.

.

.

begins by asking:

that three

The

major

of these

first

“What

Then

boy of 15,

a

totally

objects of the utmost importance

happened

has

to

have occurred in rapid suc-

failures

was when the

failures

pronounced the excavation of the Mithras Temple complete.

hill

in

‘experts’

London

be

to

untrained in archaeology, discovered

on the

‘finished’ site.

Next came

the

.”) on the Gogmagog hiUs The cycle of famiHar names recurs, as the cargo shifts, as the balance of psychogeographical elements is shunted. But tourism has its benefits.

discovery of the

A knot of casuals tempted

me

figures

hill

.

gathered beneath a stone effigy of Queen Efizabeth

to pay

it

John Dee’s queen,

more

ball

attention.

and

The

down

in 1760.”

the old plan: facing the

She should be up

was

a representation

A

plaque explained that the

traffic.

side

of LUDGATE

Another misaligned refugee,

Temple and the

there, seen

river,

.

a

.

fragment of

her place on the

by pilgrims making their way to St

minor

queen was

compulsory

rustification, the

Bar arch

in

act

of heritage piracy to

hill lost.

Paul’s

The

—

cap-

set against

removal and reassembly of Wren’s Temple

Theobold’s Park, Cheshunt. (Dyos and Wolff in The

Victorian City: Images

true

a

that gate

.

while she stared over their heads along the path to Whitehall. ture of the

of

of Empire, crowned and

had “formerly stood on the West

being taken

figure

I

sceptre, ruler

cloaked, lifted above Fleet Street’s statue

.

& Realities,

1973, describe

embodiment of early-modern London”

sation piece.”)

123

this

conversion of “the

into a “suburban conver-

Elizabeth battles for dominance with a bust of the press baron Lord Northcliffe, a dark bronze against a white obelisk-outline set into the

another deranged empire-builder, with his Newfoundland

wall:

boost the circulation of The Times by slashing the price

his attempts to

These

to Id.

Gogmagog his sons.

of the church repeat the male/female,

figures at the side

dispute of contraries.

doorway, are

a

forests,

Beyond tHem, dumped

shadowy

in a

banished trio of even greater significance: King Lud and

The founder of the

City, the ruler

of the

gate, rotting in the

shadows; cast out, reforgotten.

There

is

one minor detour

make before we can confront

to

the focal

point of Hudsons alchemical interpretation, St Paul’s Cathedral. Patrick Keiller in the intersecting journey/quests across

London, planted his camera scapes, Arcadian

at

many

town

heart-stopping viewpoints: river-

upstream prospects, sun-dappled inner-city courtyards.

These alignments were magnificently right (they agreed so

my own

in his film,

closely

private catalogue: locations where, visited at the right

the day, light affects time).

I

with

hour of

recognised, and respected, most of Keiller’s

— through which we

choices, belonging as they did to a fully realised alternate city

a ver-

sion that floats above or alongside the streets

hustle

about our business. light,

Keiller’s retrieved

belonged to the

stalker.

vision of a dusty church

me. For Keiller

seemed

it

London,

his architecture

But there was one

window

that

I

of sun-

particular lane,

couldn’t place

— and

it

one

bugged

to represent a literal passage in time, a location

where it was possible to step, not back, but through; laying aside the burden of our conditioned reflexes. In this place the past had somehow got ahead of him. It was uncontaminated, freed from its human ballast. The lane with its peeling wartime posters was somewhere in the neighbourhood of St Paul’s. I’d come away from the film with the idea that the church

Was

it

with

a

window

was part of the cathedral, a part

possible that Keiller

time

filter,

I,

“now”

separately

We

Paul’s imagery.

No window

We’d photographed the broken

on the north-side, but we couldn’t it

now

sequence

and in concert, worked our way around

had no problem with the other

layout of the building as

this

into “then”?

the cathedral in wider and wider circuits. in the film.

didn’t recognise.

had managed to photograph

translating

Marc Atkins and

I

fit

this

bits

fitted the

image

and pieces of

statues in the

St

churchyard

obscure passage against the

stood.

Not until Ascension Day with its special truce, its permissions. Coming up Ludgate Hill towards the cathedral, we branched off into 124

the

maze of alleys and

half-forgotten streets with boarded

windows, the

ancient offices perched between failure and future speculation: a limbo

of medieval prompts hiding

from

Addle

And

much from

development. Pilgrim

crass

Street,

as

then

Hill, Distaff

we found

Wardrobe Place with

Apothecary

shaded

trees

prepared

turning from Addle

us;

camera position. The

Keiller’s

confusion had been a simple matter of picking the

Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe was the time from the light

City’s

stopped

depended more on tion, than

my

on

traveller,

weather — operating within

down

Knightrider

our mistakd. The sequestered court of

Wardrobe Terrace, we found

Hill into

Street,

Lane: the birthplace of Thomas Linacre.

realised

it,

its

Street,

the Great Fire or the Blitz as

of the

to the limits

fossils in

St

magnificently removed

own

its

wrong church.

visible,

microclimate.

The

an illumination that

on memories of conflagra-

the brickwork,

gas or electricity or the position

of the sun in the

sky.

And

on it, as we emerged into St Andrew’s Hill, we discovered an abandoned bookshop — the individual letters of its title, as they peeled from the glass, reflected on a shelf that was thick to

with

I

delight, putting the seal

dust.

have to confess that

Paul’s,

which

is

why

I

never struck an easy relationship with St

I’ve

contrived to postpone our

we had

important of the City’s focal points, until quest.

John Hudson apparently shared

Paul’s as a building,”

able with

the

flag,

world: is

as

as a

it

and

it is

its

he writes in

who

Its

flag

as

is

I

love St

not the cross but

and carried

a religious one.

Ashmole would have wanted, making no

“Much

was never very comfort-

emblem

upheld the

not

a national building,

true

reached the end of our

unease.

his letter, “I

place of worship. saints those

my

the most

visit to this,

But

this,

distinction

into the

it I

suppose,

between tem-

poral and metaphysical power.”

Hudson’s reservations

humpbacked dowager

is

strike

me

as

being absolutely correct: the

too grandiose and

self-satisfied,

dominating

the heights of Ludgate Hill like a baroque power-point. St Paul’s

is

contaminated by ill-conceived ceremony: the Royal Wedding, Charles

and Diana,

a

marriage

made

pute, riot in the streets. virgin, soft

A

porn on an epic

in hell to take the heat

away from

sugary public rape of the scale.

War

last aristocratic

celebrations, the clinking

potentates in operetta uniforms and self-awarded medals. generals. Funeral barges for senile

civic dis-

of petty

Deathmask

thunder gods. David Lean’s

fictitious

account of the memorial service for Lawrence of Arabia — remembered

and replayed when the

last

witness 126

is

dust.

Flags

and drums and

And

necrophile marble, the rhetoric of the charnel house.

security per-

sonnel in ecclesiastical drag manning the cash registers, hooking out fare dodgers. Staying faithful to the free-market flag of convenience under

which Old

St Paul’s always sailed. In less queasy times

had

up very

to get

moneychangers of the nave,

early to secure their pitch at the side

where domestics touted

for hire,

harlots cruised for trade,

and runners plucked

commercial introductions were made, at

the sleeves of potential

punters they hoped to lead to a nest of pornographic bookshops. St Paul’s

was the Thatcherite temple: the blue and the

struck in a congregation giving thanks for victory.

arms deal

grey, the

The

ultimate heritage

operation. Fallen heroes, granite adventurers, pikes and swords and can-

nons:

gathered to put the bite on susceptible investors.

all

stacked with plunder, grails and robes and

A

crypt

Christ militant lay-

effigies.

Swooning with reverence, the patsies buy their the rim of the dome, the small circuit that offers

ing out his business plan. tickets for the ascent to

up the

EO

entire city.

Gordon’s Celtic superstition

mound. The mythical Bladud — of Lear — crashed to earth on this site; the British

structure should be erected

son of Lud, father Icarus,

unshakeable: no vainglorious

is

on

a sacred

having flown from Bath. Bladud, founder of

Mysteries

at

Stamford, a healer, a shaman, took to the

short-liv’d sublunary joys!”

His kamikaze

flight

was

a

School of

a

“Alas!

air.

triumphant

How

failure,

a suicide’s

dream: lunar necromancy brought to grief on the Temple of

Apollo

Troja Nova.

at

Wax

melted by the

approached from the west, by the gathered ing disk.

The

transition

rays

priests

of the sun. Seen

and

initiates, as a

hallucinogenic act of sacrifice symbolised the

between

cycles of lunar

and

solar influence;

as

he

shin-

moment of

Druidic knowl-

edge stepping aside into symbol and rhyme and mystification, ceding public worship to the temple of the sun.

Even contemporary mythologists have pictured St Paul’s as a fitting conclusion to an occult mapping of the city; the ancient taint still exercises a powerful influence on any imagination that allows itself to float over the streets in a willed discrimination of archetypes. novelist

Alan Moore’s prize-winning sequence. From

position, neo-Victorian in scope

and energy,

is

The

graphic

Hell, a serial

superficially a

reworking

of the Jack the Ripper murders in terms of pyschogeography. In the project develops, carrying along

notes that

make TS

bubbles that sag like that

Moore

is

its

own

critical

com-

fact, as

equipment - foot-

and David Jones seem tight-lipped, speech condoms filled with lead shot - it becomes clear

Eliot

engaged

in an epic deconstruction

127

of previous Ripper

scholarship, a sharp-witted collaging of existent narratives, a tapping of

The

voices.

pictorial aspect (illustrations

by Eddie Campbell) proved

who

very seductive to the Hollywood dealmakers,

increasingly

want

product served ne^t. Naked storyboards. Instant breakdowns, glyphstrips that

obviate the need for pages of tedious synopsis.

Rumour

Oliver Stone aboard for the movie of Frirn Hell, with Sir

Hopkins

slated to reprise his sketch

darker tones,

as Sir

William Gull.

of Sir Frederick Treves,

Mega

had

Anthony

this

time in

budgets are brokered. Stone,

busy exhuming the demonology of Richard Nixon, gave way to Ridley

— who decided

Scott

to transfer

the streets to the studio. In Chapter Four,

A

Moore s untrustworthy geography from

steam-punk Blade Runner.

‘*Wliat

Doth

the

Lord Require of Thee?”,

— X-ray

launches Gull and his coachman, John Netley

Moore

spectres bor-

rowed from Stephen Knight’s transcription of Joseph Sickert’s “memories” of his father’s Masonic/Royalist conspiracy theories — on a fantastic criss-crossing journey between the needle-points of London’s energy mantle; a journey which becomes, with Gull playing the tour guide and pyschic instructor, a brief history of the arcane, the chthonic, the illegitimate.

way,

as

A

lecture tour of the lefthand path. King’s Cross gives

Gull munches through

a

bag of black grapes, to Hackney.

we aspire to probe Regard the London Fields

“Albion Drive. ’Twould seem auspicious ventricles

of London, England’s heart.

the

in that

.”

.

.

on the Dionysian (“the Mind’s unconscious hemisphere whose symbol is the Moon”), and the cab rolls on to Bunhill Fields; Hawksmoor’s obelisk at St Luke, Old Street (pencilled crosses on the map); then Cleopatra’s Needle, the Tower of London, St Snippets of Blake, brief asides

George-in-the-East and Christ Church,

Spitalfields;

“and,

finally,

St

Paul’s.”

(Christ Church, in the person of a representative of the Spitalfields Trust,

was the only Hawksmoor church that charged us to climb the

tower. After

some bargaining

I

beat

them down

to

^30 — which would

also allow

Atkins to take photographs of the nave and

turned up

at

istic

signs

altar.

When

he

the agreed time, the building was filled with smoke, cabal-

and calculations were outlined on the

was being shot

in

floor.

A

documentary

which Alan Moore realigned the church and

its

fel-

low East London leviathans according to some dangerous occult prescription. Nicholas Hawksmoor’s flagship had willingly rented itself out

as a set for

Clive Barker’s history of horror.)

St Paul’s, for Gull,

is

exploitation) of the City

the nexus around

which any explanation

must be constructed. 128

It is

(or

the dark hotel, the

of malign

library

potentialities. “Christ

... in our paintings

est guise

is

we mark him with

still

Sun God’s

lat-

about

a solar disc

Lud, Belinos, Atum, Christ or Baal. All one God,

his head. Apollo,

on the

Netley.” Gull, discoursing

of Diana, leads

cult

the centre of the geometric design:

Ashmolean

clearly but the

The map

instructions.

if

as

his

coachman

to

obeying John Hudson’s

spread out on the flags (fortu-

is

church in the late-Victorian period seems to be profoundly

nately, the

unfashionable, there

isn’t a

single visitor to disturb their public

demon-

of geomancy). “Keep drawing, Netley. Next, Battle Bridge to

stration

Road and Cleopatra’s obelisk ... to Albion Drive, through Horsley down {sic), The Tower, and Christchurch {sic), Spitalfields Draw bisectors ’til they cross. St Paul’s is in the Herne

through Hercules

Hill,

.

.

centre.

We

Netley.

It

are the centre

surrounds us

male

rational

.

Womanhood

of this pattern now! You

.

.

.

it,

the

Moon

and

are chained.”

pavement. The

final

panel

Marc and

I

a

is

moonlight on the dome. The

Now

unconsciousness,

overcome — “Hwurrrr

Netley,

OUTRUN

This pentacle of Sun Gods, obelisks and

wherein

fire,

can’t

.

.

.

— spews up on the grim London nocturne,

urr urwulsh”

longshot, a

text: “.

.

.

engraved in stone.”

are the dogs returning to

Netley ’s vomit, bilious

with overripe speculations, high with ascents, cod “discoveries”,

We’ve gazed down on the prospects of the City from so many church towers, it’s almost as if we have flown like Bladud in an arrogance of vanity and delusion; as if seeing a pattern was creating one. authentic

As

blisters.

if walks

linking discrete

compete with the

We

pick our

gears

sites

could manifest some miraculous whole,

and bearings of the

way through

secret machine.

the loungers

on the

steps, to

join the

crush of camera-heads steaming in towards the security bottleneck, the clattering

group out.

tills.

ticket,

It’s

I’m waved

piss off for the

Wren is

a

squad of

laid

on the

I

is

a

troop of Nordics on a

challenged and pulled

lower orders.

John Hudson’s prescription

Alan Moore’s Gull —

need

through with

but Marc, gangling skinhead,

pay up or

Fulfilling

straight

is

difficult

because

—

unlike

don’t enjoy the luxury of a private view. You’d

SAS minders

to get

anywhere near “the great

floor of the transept crossing”.

so graphically established

by

now

that

it’s

a

But the

circle

NW/SE

line

simple matter to locate the

which Hudson refers. The problem is that the chapel is out of commission and back beyond a gate, a security barrier: back with the unticketed trash. With Atkins. I signal him to check this one out while I see what the Dunstan line offers in the crypt. side chapel to

129

No

surprises.

A

glass cabinet

“Surveyor to the Fabric”;

with

a bust

his knife-case laid

gold. His ceremonial measuring rod. His

properly arranged, -corner to corner, to

white lard head, protected from micro-landscape,

as his

The way out of the the fresh

of hook-nosed Wren,

on the green

green and

Which is Dunstans ley. Wrens

wand of

flatter

felt,

office.

and corruption, dominates

dirt

most ostentatious chufch dominates the through a shopping mall, drops

crypt,

its

City.

me back in

Atkins has found a painted notice, turned to the wall,

air.

which announces the closed chapel (though formerly

known

as

as

being dedicated to St Dunstan

the Consistory Court). So

down

for us to leave St Pauls, drop

towards the Tower, to find our

it

only remained

towards the river and back east

Dunstan marker, the church of

last

St

Dunstan-in-the-East.

And of

course, as with

temenos revealed

directed, this

incline

of St Dunstan s

somewhere

The Wren

the other

all

itself as

sites to

which we had been

an erasure, an absence.

Hill, alongside Idol

On

the

Lane, was a secret garden,

for office workers to drop off the pace, refresh themselves. steeple

was

all

that survived.

It is

said that

when Wren was

November 1703 which had damaged so he remarked: “Not St Dunstan s, I am sure.”

told about the hurricane of

many of the City

churches,

During excavations on this site, several relics of the church destroyed by the Great Fire were unearthed, “amongst them the fragments of an east window” — which served as a model for the construction of the central east window of the new church. At the heart of the design were “symbols of Hebrew worship”, including the Ark. Images of fire and flood to reassert the City’s exclusion zone, the weather apocalypse.

From Dunstan-in-the-East

to Dunstan-in-the-West, a

zone within

a

zone; a cylinder of alchemical experimentation and manipulation of the

Blocks of Portland stone tempered by the green and the gold.

light.

Earlier that day, after a lunchtime pint in Bride Lane, just as we’d expected

—

that the iron

Street, the printers’ church,

(We’d tried that

A

it

was

it

many

spiral

to the

tower of St Bride, Fleet

was open: Wren’s “madrigal

times before and had only Stewart

ever possible to

panting

door

we had found —

make an unaccompanied

in stone”.

Home’s word

ascent.)

through the darkness gifted us with another of those

miraculous urban prospects to which

we were

in real

danger of becom-

ing addicted. This interlude, a breather outside the Dunstan thesis,

allowed us to

and

is

and

let go, to

will be.

glimpse the whole pattern, the

Scudding cloud

streets drifted in

130

London

that

was

from the west, the

Howard with

kind to delight Luke

metamorphoses.

their extravagant

Sunlight breaking through the flocculent quilt caught the golden cross

above the

dome of St

Paul’s.

Beast faces

on the rims of soft stone bowls

were eaten away; toothless mouths wide open, cursing

folly.

All the pri-

vate roof gardens, the satellite receivers, gargoyles and elective monsters,

the lush green corridor running north from the

Temple

to Gray’s Inn

The white spine linking the twin hemispheres — Whitehall and the City of London — was radiantly exposed. Blood-lights of stuttering traffic down Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street, the Strand. Twinned principalities in a treaty of power: Gogmagog or Ronnie and Reggie Kray (the “Other Two”, as they were known to members of the Firm). The City is revealed as a naked brain, uncapped so that all its pulsing cells are offered for exploitation. The churches are needles, driGardens, were opened to

us.

ven into the clay to bend the flow of current. Electrodes can be attached

by any mogul with the price of a helicopter pad in is

an unreliable dream.

We begin to

impose

his portfolio.

We know now that we know fires

The

past

nothing.

and bUtzes and millennial

sunsets, to repeat

Reverend Thomas Vincent published in 1667 in God’s Terrible Voice in the City. “The yellow smoke of London ascendeth into heaven, like the smoke of a great furnace; a smoke so great as darkened the sun at noon-day; if at any time the sun peeped forth, it looked red with blood.” We begin to see the gold of alchemy spread across the scatter of domes from St Paul’s to the Old Bailey; streams of silver spurned in the gutters — as when the lead melted from the roof of the old cathedral and “the very streets glowed heresies, to share the prophetic vision the

with

fiery redness”.

We

are incapable

ror, these terrifying

memories we ders in the Paul’s

are

air. I

of seeing anything

as

it is,

without

memories of events scorched into the

determined to provoke.

remember how

My tongue

is

all

the

haze of hor-

stone. Future

bHstered by cin-

the bookdealers packed the crypt of St

with the pick of their stock, with the cathedral’s

they sealed away

this

knowledge

that

own library; how

was worth preserving. The

church would repulse the flames of the Great Fire and London’s ory would be secure in the cold

Nobody knows

mem-

vaults.

what happened. Perhaps one of the dealers, impatient to check his treasures, opened the doors too soon. Hot air reached the bundles of paper and parchment and they gleefully ignited. “They burned for a week until they were no more than a great mound of ash”. its

And

quite

the amnesiac church was

fancy.

131

left

to invent any past that took

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MARKS THE SPOT

X

‘'If

he

starts ^(fetthig mystical

—

hose him

down”

Derek Walcott on Aidan Dun

How about this? A niiddle-aged man in and Sam Peckinpah long Johns the Royal Albert Hall to

ebration of.

when

.

.?

He

luxurious of downers.

Oxfam

book

it

grunge T-shirt

barefoot into the crimson casket of

— one

night only

—

for a

hasn’t quite decided what. He’ll think

the time’s right,

The Zen

stalks

a black, defiantly

when

He

monster

cel-

of something

the reality chill hits his system like the most

feeds

on edge (with

built-in survival clauses).

tonsure (grape-smooth caput shaved to an Alcatraz fuzz), the

drag, the deep-breath, sixty fags a day, pyschobabble

unexceptional

if this

would be

sharp-eyed spieler were punting religious revival-

Second Coming of the Brick Lane Buddha — or if he were a heavy-metal impresario in civvies. The Royal Albert is simply the posh-

ism, the

est

church

hall in

England.

A Kensington scout hut with budget.

Every

ego-tripping nutter in the land has gigged there: once. Every clown

with an unperformed symphony in the bottom drawer. Every pub band

whose income exceeds

their talent.

price of a second sharkskin

who

suit.

Every messianic conman with the

Our boy

doesn’t faze the characters

accept the downpayment. They’ve seen

speed freaks or

a stone, rabbiting like

they can

make

their cross

on

a

them

silent as the

cheque, they’re

all:

shaggy or bald

as

deeps of eternity. If

in.

The awesomely hirsute arms and low centre of gravity prowl of a bouncer with a Hermann Hesse habit wouldn’t rate this latest village hustler,

hot from the

glance from the flap

or lapel that

at all,

it

sticks in a

cloud of big city paranoia,

a

second

doorman who was struggling to find some convenient would accept a laminated pass. If he thought about him

would be

as a

music business anachronism.

A

well-fed ghost.

down, or out of it entirely, were the which this chunky sadhu with the gold-

Professional eccentrics, dressed up,

norm. But the pitch

rimmed is

for

accountant’s spectacles

is

prepared to lay

poetry. Madness!

133

down

/^20,000, basic,

Poetry: the hard

the toffee of the universe.

stuff,

The

antimatter that

granted validity to the Thatcherite free-market nightmare by steadfastly

manufacturing ter

period in which

They squeezed

to take language for a ride. it

publication, of

acknowledged or unacknowledged, the pdets

lators,

with concrete boots and threw

it

it,

was the

becoming

relished the

surfed

it,

—

freedom it;

fit-

were no

trade editions of one,

giveaways, offers you couldn’t refuse. This

thirty,

poem

from the heady days of Pete Brown’s famous

shift

legis-

scorched

into the river. Presses

longer “small”, they were microlite, singular

mass market runs of

a bet-

be unknown, off the record, ex-directory. With

tt)

no chance whatsoever of mainstream

ted

There never was

contrary: a flame in the dark.

its

Few,

featured in the Michael Horovitz’s anthology. Children of Albion: Poetry of the ‘Underground'

in Britain.

Brown, the

original poetry

the road performer, “staggered into the bogs/at

and jazz, on

Green Park station/and

found 30 written on the

wall.” “Surely,”

more of us than

In the Eighties and Nineties thirty

that

Thirty

a sell-out.

.

.”

complimentary

a

is

.

Desktop concerns, run

he thought, “there must be

glass

is

a

mob,

of Absolut Vodka.

for love or politics, flourished in

Cambridge,

Brighton and London. Poetical Histories, Parataxis, Equipage, Angel Exhaust: gonzo outfits with marvellously pretentious

each of their pamphlets, arriving

bites.

Amyl

skin.

nitrate snorts. Shamefully,

Furious compositions:

demented autodidacts put

to

treated

I

a series

it

of

didn’t always read

them. Handling the pages was enough, letting the inky

through the

I

they did with the frequency ofjunk

Real news. The world compacted into

mail, like holy writ.

wafer-thin

as

titles.

would

riffs

take a

burn

ward of

keep up with the pace and intensity of this out-

— lowercase, unpunctuated, long line, Adorno and Benjamin

citing,

who

had published

modestly for years, were energised by the pressure of

disinterest, to

dialectically lyrical,

achieve

new

Georgette Pearl),

levels

and

revenging song. Superb poets,

of excitement and control: Denise Riley (Mop

Barry MacSweeney {Flellhound Memos and

Stair Spirit),

Grace Lake {Viola

Mop

Tricolor

and Bernache Nonnette), Brian Catling

{The Stumbling Block and Soundings). Lines of heritage were vigorously asserted. Fresh voices,

assume, track

a direct

Vatican of periodicals

such

Drew Milne

as

path through John Wilkinson to

came

Prynne himself on

lecture at the Tate

was luminously

JH

would,

Prynne.

I

A

no purpose beyond reinterthe minutiae of the Prynne oeuvre. In

into being with

preting (muddying with exegesis) contrast,

{Sheet Mettle)

Smoke (notably a Dawn at Louse Point)

his occasional trips to the

on de Kooning’s Rosy-Fingered

direct, practical

and straightforward, dissolving from the 134

pattern of paint drips on the canvas to

Homeric mythology, by way of

empty zone at the heart of the composition. Difficulty exists only when you insist on it. The solid citizen who marched into the Albert Hall from a twenty that mysterious lacuna, the

year exile in the East Midlands, with a mission to revive English culture,

knew nothing about

the subterranean nexus, the cult of the unreadable.

He’d been taken up with survival and expansion. His genius — Stalin’s

—

lay in his ability to plot

Future perfect

is

the tense with

Joseph

for nothing that

He

he was

a

ahead in seven-year

which he

is

most comfortable.

like

cycles. It’s

not

schoolmate of Stephen Hawking, back in St

commodity, it’s negotiable. History, private and universal, is rewritten by the man who owns the pen. He has the intuitive sense that the moment is swiftly Albans.

understands

as

well as any physicist that time

approaching for poetry to go public. sanity his

of the Albert Hall

tame

Exhibition Road.” So

sweat, Mike.

that’s

OK.

a

were any doubts about the

he assuaged them with

gig,

“No

clairvoyant:

(If there

is

I

a

^20

phonecall to

up had a

see hordes storming

Plus which, his girlfriend

prophetic dream with the same scenario.)

The Aquarian tions, the

age had been announced by,

Wholly Communion readings

ofjune 11th 1965, with the as-total-consciousness”.

release

at

among

other manifesta-

the Albert Hall

on

the evening

of what Alexis Lykiard called “God-

The much derided

“British Poetry Renaissance,

(And in typical style — with much of the huge audience barracking Harry Fainlight’s hallucinogenic epic. 1965—1979” was The

Spider,

visibly launched.

while signalling their approval for the simplistic formulations

of Adrian Mitchell. Poetry poets

as

What

they wanted,

was

as ever,

a protest

prom.

CND sloganeering.) But no sooner were the photo-spreads of

on the

steps

of the Albert Memorial surfacing in the broadsheets,

than Fulcrum and Trigram and

Turret,

designs and their transatlantic

with their

lists

attractive

and considered

of Beat and Black Mountain

Cape moved in on Goliard. The scrapdealer George Rapp approached Tom Raworth and asked him what was needed to form a mutually beneficial alliance. “Hand over modernists, were noticed and distributed.

the cash and fuck off,” was the poet’s reply It

was bound

to

end

in tears.

And

it

did

(as

reported by Jeff Nuttall).

— with

sectarian strife at the

Poetry Society, committee wars which wasted energy and duplicating fluid,

was

and

a

widespread embargo on the whole tedious business. Poetry

blacklisted.

Journos hate

it

worse than

Channel 4 and Waldemar Januszczak

The man

will

yawn

in the black T-shirt doesn’t have

135

scabies. Pitch in

your

poetry

at

face.

any particular

interest in

those ancient squabbles.

markings

He

invisible to the

recognises poets by their aura, by occult

naked

prefers the quieter ones, the ones

eye.

By

who

have done

serendipitous accidents. it

on

their

He

own, her-

He certainly isn’t going to involve himself with the kind of schmuck who zaps him with perfect-bound CVs, wallets of press cuttings. He hasn’t read anything mor6 recent than about 1650, mits with cast-iron egos.

but he has the quirk of liking what he doesn’t understand. (He’s no fool. He’ll check every poet out with his coven of 24-hour standby telephone invigilators.)

on the bill, not yet. And no title for the event, no hook. This mysterious conductor of chaos is not dumb enough to have signed anything like a contract - but when his squiggle does go at the bottom of the cheque it will read: “Mike Goldmark”. Goldmark. Mr Uppingham. Property developer, publisher (one book So there

are

no names

to put

every eight years), gallery owner, healer, salesman:

one man Arts Council “can do”.

A patron

facilitator.

(doesn’t believe in public funding).

He

of the reforgotten.

An

Mike

is

a

apostle of

imported Gary Kasparov into

the huntin’, shootin’ and strategic response deliverin’ shires for a one-

night chess

blitz.

Show. But he

Kasparov subsequently puffed Rutland on the

can’t

of town for any of

persuade the metropolitan his exhibitions.

Graham

Sutherland?

attended

— even when,

gallery over to a

Not

art

Wogan

mafia to schlepp out

Michael Sandle, Michael Ayrton,

interested.

The openings

are always well-

with The Shamanism of hitefit, he turned his pack of clinically uncommercial, ley line-navigating, as

drum-tapping, crow-boxing, eel-weaving poets and sculptors. Rutland, Goldmark’s operation base, fit

comfortably under the lunar

his flag

dome of the

of convenience, would

Albert Hall.

It’s

nowhere,

Monty Python joke location. It doesn’t officially exist — except in the memory sediment of Deepest England. A couple of public schools (one a

of which expelled Stephen Fry),

a

drowned

valley, several

hunts and

a

Landed and cash comfortable, rural decay mixing with service industry short-haul commuters and media dropouts. Every Englishman has at least one relative hidden somewhere within its theoretical borders. Even the hardcore Tory MP has had to come up with a

scatter

bill

of

air bases.

to decriminalise cannabis to justify his

such

a nest

artists

of weirdos. Rutland

is

a

continued representation of

time-share gulag where

creep to reinvent themselves (with a

little

damaged

help from Mike).

The Goldmark Gallery/Bookshop on Orange

Street functions as a

networking centre, display case of sunset Romanticism, alternative health ashram — and command post for the revival of rural England 136

(craft,

Camden

cobbles, antique shops).

the middle of The Archers. to the patron

s

A

grandiloquent staircase —

DNA — sweeps

the casual visitor

deck, where a precis of postwar British art walls.

None of

that reviled

Bond

is

like a

monument

on towards

the upper

always available on the

Street hauteur, the well-connected

Sloanes firming up their social diaries on the telephone. Gallery, in the person

dropped into

Passage, Islington,

of the friendly and

The Goldmark

efficient greeter, Sally Jones,

whole schmear. A tiny pot — locally thrown — of decent coffee is plugged into your hand as you step in off the street, ensuring that, if you stick around, you’ll require constant topping up: leaving you open to be painlessly pitched, drawn out, at regular intervals. A caffeine demystifies the

The only

high soothed by piped Mozart.

escape leads straight through a

chamber into the bookshop. If Mike’s crazy, he’s crazy like a fox. Accept the thimble of hot dark liquid and you’ve been initiated into the club. Within seconds you’ll be introduced to other passing mem-

linking

from the

bers: a puff writer

designer, a

who

PR man

Telegraph, a

undergoing

hopes very soon to pass

near-famous ex-Nazi

set

a spiritual crisis, a serious art collector

his

Common

Entrance examination, a

prize-winning Quaker novelist with an interest in bondage, mendicants, hucksters, brickies

waifs

and

fee

drum

longhaired kids with

strays,

of Tolkien, seekers and

You

looking for cash, depressed schoolmasters,

sellers,

the guy

don’t even have to notice the art

who on

kits

and guitar

cases, relatives

used to be Peter Whitehead.

the wall to get your fix of cof-

and conversation.

The

— John Piper, Graham Sutherland, the Michael Ayrton — are all rigorously Tesco’d: priced and

paintings and lithographs

Nash brothers, summarised on idiot-simple

cards. Cecil Collins:

“He

consistently

explored the mystery of consciousness. /^2,450.” Ceri Richards: “His

mature work

The

of music and poetry. ^650!’

reveals his lifelong love

taste represents a tradition in

interest in inventive printmaking, his

ing)

which Rigby Graham, with his compulsive logging (and debunk-

of the sacred places of Britain, could be seen

flowering.

The

cactus in the

as a final

spiky

Bloomsbury garden. Graham’s influence

has been crucial in shaping the gallery’s pitch: figurative, technically

competent, enlightened conservatism. will not

chance

his

arm. Nothing,

riskier than turning his first big

the veteran of 42 disasters.

The

any previous exhibition and

his

at

Which to

painter sold

in the gallery.

137

not to say that Mike

would have appeared Graham, locally famous as “fifty times more” than at

the time,

show over

work

is

has remained a constant presence

Mike effects his magic, as he explains, by watching the feet. That comes from his period as a double-glazing grifter. He worked the bookshop (essentially flogging ‘'seconds” from the Cape/Chatto/Bodley Head warehouse) by' day, and going out on the road at night. He’d get husband and wife together on some dormitory estate outside Peterborough and focus on the choreography of their shoes. When they settled in a certain position, he knew he’d hooked another prospect. But all that Jack Trevor Story stuff is in the past. Now Goldmark is supervising the meltdown of our urban pretensions. He is offering high %

'I

turnip-bashers in a discreetly showcased car boot

art to the

Everything on the walls has

a value,

cashmoney. He’ll

shift

it

by

sale.

instal-

ments for school kids or pensioners. He’ll barter or trade or take part-exchange. Failing West

End

ing their Matisse doodles, their

who

brokers,

can’t lose face

iffy Picassos, at

by

ticket-

remainder prices, are

only too delighted to have Mike punt them, somewhere remote off the

Al. (You

can’t say

But there

is

so

“no”

to this

man; the only barefoot

much more

Rogers version which although that story has

Goldmark than the

Byron

official

recycled at regular intervals in the press

is

its

to

in the door.)

charms. This

is its

—

outline: parents as refugees

from Austria, scholarship boy St Albans, Board of Deputies interview. Jack the Lad with Marks

&

Spencer, blags a

schmutter hustler John Michael (one of those

management job with double Christian name

rag trade Jews from the Sixties), corners the market in floral

spread in financial pages

—

the

last

ties

time he hangs around in Piccadilly

10 o’clock on Saturday night to see what they say about him); bust; sells

The

up wearing

Hall, the antiques

ties);

and the

wife’s

Cobb

in

boom,

engagement ring

dog food, used books

(first

window

collection of Masonic directories); cash flow improves, buys J.

at

(gives

banished to Uppingham, dark night of soul, double-

glazing, outdated

Lee

(centre

all

display:

town

a

(“like

those old Westerns”), publishes novel, hand-set by

Europe’s finest printer (gives up wearing gallery, plans to take

shirts); therapy,

over hotel and turn

it

Xanax; opens

into a multicultural palace

beyond the wildest dreams of Arnold Wesker or Joan Littlewood up shoes); books the Albert Hall.

(gives

The Goldmarkian orthodoxy feeds off a repeatedly stressed fetish: X marks the spot. Remain perfectly still and the world will beat a path to your door. London is deluding itself if it thinks it can continue to dominate national consciousness: the centre

especially

Uppingham. The conceit

Goldmark

is

fond of

is

is

telling. It involves

138

anywhere and everywhere, expressed in a fable that

himself and one of his sons.

Sometimes the

setting

by Natasha Walter) beach.

started

I

its

fat

Then he went running decided

one

I

would stand

or sometimes

and

unfit

past ...

still

I

couldn’t find him.

kids

in this little

I

would

on the

got panicky.

I

and smoke too much, thought

I

(as in a profile

my

the sea-shore. “I lost one of

running around, but

because I’m

Finally,

a railway station,

is

stood

I

live that

still.

way ...

town and just look very

I

carefully

what came past.” If this emphatic provincialism were the whole story it would hardly be worth the telling; any cheese-stone town could represent itself as the heart of the matter. Whatever next? Something as fantastically improbable as Stamford being cast as George Eliot’s Middlemarch? The Goldmark saga would then be the plot for a Jeffrey Archer novel rather than a CV that, in its twists and turns, its steady ascent, has parallelled in

direction, to see

the glorious career of the Sage of Grantchester. Constant lenge, near disasters

strife,

and dramatic escapes: more bounce than

men

from Hay-on-Wye. Both

a

chal-

cheque

suffered an early traumatic reverse in

business and used that as the excuse to relocate and to

recompose

their

Both men opened art galleries that traded under their own names (while building up impressive, and eclectic, private collections). Both men took a punt on the Albert Hall. (Archer tried, disastrously, to double-book Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra. Who refused to perform in the same building. Goldmark’s calls to Seamus Heaney were not returned. Ted Hughes wanted a percentage of the door. Derek Walcott was thought to be unreliable. Philip Larkin was dead. At this point, he life

plans.

decided to take casting advice.)

There

is

a

photograph in Michael Crick’s biography,

Stranger than Fiction,

of the Archers posing

occasion of their silver wedding.

at

Old Vicarage on

the

open book on head. This

very thing for the

man who

is

has

is

to be

found

in

Orange

folly: text

around

The carved by Mark

an amiable but self-regarding jape. it all.

Just such a panel,

Uppingham, of the Goldmark empire. Indeed, Mike’s one recent Porter,

the

A grotesque caricature of Lord Archer,

carved in local stone, has been set into the wall of the rim,

Jeffrey Archer,

fixing the keystone

Street,

failure, his

conver-

sion of the old International supermarket into a cod-Edwardian, striped

apron and straw hat delicatessen, foundered partly on the meanness of the county

set,

who

cheese, and partly

on

won’t waste an extra penny on the

name he chose

to give

it:

real

motor, the secret passion. Mike

a rabbinical visionary.

An

artist at

promoting

139

art.

fancy cut of

Archers.

This knockabout stuff sketches the public man.

approach the

a

It

is,

doesn’t begin to

without question,

An

artist at

finding

work

most unpromising

in the

Cigarette kippering his

first

two

attached, he goes into action. to is

him on

A PhD

places.

in telephone studies.

fingers, intravenous coffee drip firmly

Two hour

seances are nothing. Listening

the blower, time stretches like Hawking’s spaghetti; our end

known hardbitten editors who have lost days and them. Who now wander the city like shellshocked vet-

our beginning.

I’ve

'

•

I

never recovered erans,

tuned to

this terrible,

unbroken monologue. From the Outer

Leicestershire carpenters and

New

York

to

bemused metropolitan mandarins.

A

Hebrides to Hackney, from Allen Ginsberg’s minders in

soothing hum, a litany of startling confidences: so that even the most implausible proposition begins to sound perfectly reasonable.

shake on the telephone

is

of clearing

all

hand-

better than an agent’s three-bottle lunch party.

Mike can — and sometimes does — walk away from retreat. Feel the

A

sand between his toes.

this matter.

He

He

all.

it

Go on

speaks of the cycle closing,

speaks freely and openly and at length

about the — almost Kerouac-like

—

sadness of being. (“Goldmark’s a sad

man,” Byron Rogers quotes Rigby Graham. “Some people are naturally thick, but he’s naturally sad.” First

it

was Rutland,

year, living

now

“The he’s

saddest eyes in the world.”)

ready for London. Barefoot for over

above the shop in benevolent

twice-daily regimen of T’ai Chi, even a

couple of hours’

sleep,

managing

that

he no longer charges.

soon, he’ll be paying

in

conditioned by

good weeks

a

to get

he has alchemised profound melancholy into

fugues of imaginative action. His shrink

opment

austerity,

a

Mike

to

come

And in.

replaced by Albert Hall night-sweats, the

so fascinated by this devel-

is I

get the feeling that, very

The

tranquillisers

full realisation

have been

of what he has

taken on.

But standing there on the

stage,

surrounded by plush and

gilt,

aware

of the voices of previous poets and prophets, he successfully channels that loose energy.

One

of the sound-baffles overhead shapes

meniscus from the dome. He’s got the

come

city in his hand.

all

a perfect

The names

Lou Reed (maybe Dylan, or rumours of Dylan), a spare Beatle, Sorley MacLean, Brendan Kennelly, David Gascoyne. Put that lot together, or try for them. Mix them with a raft of others, whose intransigence and long-husbanded rage nobody in their right mind would risk. Take advice: find a couple of women and ethnics. Whozat rap geezer? Benjamin Zephaniah. The slaphead Irish chick? Sinead O’Connor. There’s even a title to go on the poster, which to him: Ginsberg,

should look

like a

boxing promotion: Return of the Reforgotten.

140

2

London

is

who would have thought that a sticks would be the man to front it? Because book, an epic poem by Aidan Andrew Dun, which

begging to be rewritten, but

chancer from the

Goldmark s second

proposed King’s Cross

as

the epicentre for the spiritual rebirth of the city

and the nation, was about to be published. The manuscript found

way on

its

recommended by Oliver Caldecott who

to his desk in 1988,

edited the esoteric Rider imprint for Hutchinson. (Rider didn’t go in for poetry. Levi’s

Their

was

list

built

around such cornerstones

The History of Ma^ic, or The

A

Kabbalistic Tree.

them on my

shelves in suspiciously

with cancer, rang

Dun

Adam

Prophecies of Paracelsus,

portable library for urban mystics.

good

I

as

had

Eliphas

and

the

number of

a

nick.) Caldecott, hospitalised

“to reaffirm his belief” in the

poem and

to

encourage him to make contact with Mike Goldmark of Uppingham.

Mike was not simply commissioned

it.

last

was

he

launched,

erly

the

Mike —

of his bunker, casting

a

chance the manuscript had of being prop-

man who, all unconsciously, had Dr Mabuse of old — was, from the safety

the like

new

chart of the labyrinth.

Dun’s bulky typescript thudded onto the gallery floor just

owner was recovering from title,

a novel {White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings).

arette

from the dying stub of

fascination at this

Royal the

He

its

called,

read:

I

was lighting one cig-

and the logo on the side of the

Rothmans

Goldmark

the synchronicity hit him. Vale

new pack he

Royals.

passed the word-hoard over to me.

the time.

He

first

the

predecessor and staring in horrified

new problem — when

poem was

had flipped open

at

the shock of publishing the

as

I

happened

to

be in the

office

was, as author of White Chappell, implicated in the event

in this project,

whereby

sections of

mythologies exposed and activated by

London would have a publisher

their secret

based in Rutland and

a printer in

Verona. Untrustworthy history in the grand manner.

skimmed

first

the

few pages, caught the references

—

I

to the child Blake, to

William Stukeley, to Chatterton, to St Pancras Old Church, and sug-

book out on Peter Ackroyd. The principal Dun’s argument came straight from the Ackroyd stock com-

gested that figures in

Mike

try the

pany — or they soon would: Doctor Dee.

port of

Ackroyd could be

work

that dealt

relied

upon

for a

and

House of generous quote in sup-

Chatterton, English Music

with the Matter of London.

If

Tlie

he could be

waspish in private, he never stooped to badmouthing his peers in any of his reviews, essays

or public statements. 141

He

dutifully kicked in

on Dun’s

behalf with a prescription that covered

“He

ing in his serial compositions: creative sense

of the

Vale

later.

happened

Royal

has an extraordinary, powerful and

He’s one of those people, along with Blake,

past.

who

Chatterton and others,

he himself was attempt-

that

all

are like a divining rod for history.” (Years

me

unpublished, Ackroyd asked

still

about what had

up North, Whatsisname, Mark some-

to that “strange firm

body?”)

Goldmark was more than

half convinced.

he never reads anything he publishes before

(An honesty

that sets

him

from other

apart

one of his conceits

It’s

appears in printed form.

it

waste time on an unsolicited manuscript. But Goldmark

one

who

it

man. Letting no safely

He

into a boast.

lodged in the best-seller

“Never glanced

at

a title until

it’s

charts.)

before

it,

the only

is

doesn’t have to pretend to be Teflon

Admitting no connection with

shit stick.

of whom

None

publishers.

ever

turns

that

shipped

I

off to

it

frequently told journalists about White Chappell.

did accept the typescript without checking

it

This

Italy.”

It

is

what he

wasn’t quite true.

over

— but we had

He dis-

cussed the project pretty thoroughly for years.

Mike had been victim

my

lunch in

oddball speculations over

a pleasant

anybody to understand these things?” ures

whom

on

enough

— and

real life fig-

The self-promoting book Mike had read his guidebook

a particular favourite.

of

to indulge in a flurry

the kind of questions that

would shame

And

legal threats.

through White Chappell — by whatever method

estimate

met many

he’d

the characters were based.

runner Driffield was closely

my bookdealing

had copies of my previous books — “can you seriously expect

He

days.

many

—

until

chap called Iain Sinclair

.

.

of his. But he was

can’t find a publisher for

the revised version. called Ian

[

5 /V]

Cape. ‘Right,’

long before the

a textual scholar,

said.

a

man of great

your book.

Told

‘I’ll

bring

property deal, and

I’ll

sell

books.

integrity ...

publish

it.”

old friend one day, a

me

he’d just had his

it

out.’ ... I’d

whacked

first

.

The given

a

said ... if you

I

gets

bookseller

novel rejected by

managed

“The novel had been turned down by half Goldmark sold his Jaguar and published it.”

“A

wasn’t really

London

again:

it

I

Byron Rogers

a

I

to Natasha

of his publishing career thus.

used to pop in to

“Met an

Sinclair. I

.

start

out of

ers ..

gone

came back from Verona.

Goldmark remembers the

a friend

he’d

he was able to put

These retrospective accounts can be confusing. Talking Walter,

to

to pull

into the book.” a

footnotes of literary history are of no account,

^16,000

And

Walter

dozen publish-

I

was certainly

launch that no London publisher could have rivalled — and 142

few months

within

a

found

its

late

way north

of Notting

other clump of mystical geography, Vale Royal,

this

to the

Uppingham

clearing-house.

and the Charrington Street squat, had

Hill, Trinidad,

amputated an “n” and gained an Aidan

Dawn).

He

Goldmark

arrived, draped in black,

A

Gallery.

(the

and

double

notable non-presence, a

summer

vitalist

— and

shivers, tendonitis

had to be measured in megabits.

He

A

of the Golden

out of synch, in the

slightly

a

absence: finely-

of hair. The

chiselled cheekbones, strong avian profile, spiky crop

troubadour with

Andy Dunn,

classic

determination that

was the quietly regulated

trickle

of

water that cracks stone.

Goldmark made sympathetic noises and sent him away. White Chappell had emptied the coffers — but the moment would come. Dun was not discomforted, he had been working on Vale Royal since 1973 — what was another ten or twenty

years?

version of the revised version was ready.

Goldmark had got

The timing was

London

set.

a fart in a

eye “to scour the

a private

for a poet called Aidan”.

asking a skip-tracer to find

Dun

again perfect,

the loan sharks off his back and was eager to begin

another cycle. He’d considered sending squats of North

was 1993 before the revised

It

But

that

would be hke

hurricane.

The text was Demanded explana-

sensed the vibes, cruised the aether, drove north.

Mike broke

the habit of a lifetime and read

tions, notes, pages that

This wasn’t

a

would

act like the

it.

prompt

cards in the gallery.

Waste Land number, padding out a manuscript that was

too slim for commercial publication: an exercise in irony. Vale Royal

is

The Region of the Summer Stars or David Jones’ The Anathemata. The notes form an independent unit, a closer in spirit to Charles Williams’

parallel text.

Britain

—

The theme

is

a

contemporary reworking of the Matter of

scrupulously parsed and explicated; an active project, rather

than an antiquarian exercise; an attempt, no a spiritual centre.

That King’s Cross,

or,

less,

more

Church, be brought once again to the sacred

to swear allegiance to

specifically, St site

Pancras

Old

proposed by William

Blake, the altar stone enclosed within a psychogeographical quadrangle:

The fields from

Islington to

Marybone,

To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood,

Were builded over with

And

pillars

ofgold,

there Jerusalem's pillars stood.

143

& KeiiHsh-towti

Pancrass

Among Among

her golden pillars high, her golden arches which

Shim upon Dun’s argument,

repose

the starry sky

like the

one Charles WfUiams sketches

in his pref-

Summer Stars, is based on “the expectation of the return of Our Lord by means of the Grail and of the establishment of the kingdom of Logres” - though Vale Royal is not a work of Christian mysticism and Christian symbols are only one element in its helical ace to The Region of the

Dun’s expectation

structure.

long gestation and instant field.

final

is

that the

coming

arrangement of the words, the

into being of his

of renewal: an immediate reversal of the

(This begins to connect

Hawking.

He

rang

book.) Vale Royal,

me to ask Dun felt,

poem, city’s

up with Dun’s recent if

will signal the

entropic energy

interest in

he should send Hawking

should be interpreted

copy of the

a

as a

Stephen

sequence of

visionary equations: the physics of metaphor, the cosmology of blank verse triads. (“Seven long years spiral into the stellar void/leaving a

hazy blue

trail

of light/around the blazing

axis

of the sun.”) The elegant

phrase, fitting perfectly into the scheme, brings about a

material universe.

The

up from the

clusion,

had to be reflected by

shiver in the fabric of the culture.

Dun

delighted by the construction of the Cross, announcing, as

from

its

poem through

miracle of seeing the

streets,

it

did, the

change in the

a

to

its

quantum

con-

leap, a

was one of the few people to be

new

British Library in King’s

migration of power and scholarship

dark stronghold in Bloomsbury:

from the shadows of

Hawksmoor’s misaligned church, St George, to the more benevolent ambiance of the child martyr, St Pancras. The peculiar charm of Dun’s poem is its anonymity: egoic interference

is

recovers effects.

minimal, the poet wills himself to disappear into it,

rather than inventing

He

He

spurns novelty and shock

At readings — long-jacketed, loose-laced, tense and trembling —

some messenger had just, at that moment, them. With no script to prompt him, he reads from a phan-

he whispers the delivered

tom

it.

his text.

riffs: as if

autocue. Eyes wide and unblinking.

The poet impersonating

the

poem.

What concerns Dun, much more fate

than the launch of his epic,

is

the

of a degraded, fought-over, post-industrial landscape. Publication,

achieved after twenty years of struggle, he saw

The book had

to succeed.

It

wasn’t his work, 144

it

as

merely inevitable.

was the present articu-

lation

of an ineradicable benediction: an incarnation of the numinous

on the ground of the I

had

soon

as

as

city.

Mike spoke of commiting himself to

the Vale Royal

project, to declare a special interest. I’d long held the fancy that the skin

of London should be divided up by poets and seers

as

much

of gangsters. Poets didn’t need brothers. Didn’t need

ilies

of suits and

attitudes. Didn’t

they stole from, haunt

a

by fam-

as

conformity

need dogs. They would service the ground

a particular territory,

tune themselves to notice

everything, every irregularity in the brickwork, every dip in the temperature. Chris Jenks in an essay

on ‘The History and

Practice of the

We

Flaneur’ speaks of “alternative cartographies of the city”.

have to

recognise the fundamental untrustworthiness of maps: they are always pressure group publications.

They

represent special pleading

on behalf of

some quango with a subversive agenda, something to sell. Maps are a futile compromise between information and knowledge. They require a powerful dose of fiction to bring them to life. The Nicholson “Access Map” was a sop to paranoids. The City of London revealed through the distribution of security checkpoints (subject, presumably, to constant

The key

revision).

to “Special Security

Symbols

&

Instructions” uses a

yellow line to enclose the “area protected by security cordon”; coy

pink arrows for

“blocked off”

“new compulsory

turns”,

and

a reassuring black bolt for

streets.

how these multiple cartographies (the microclimates under which we all navigate) “represent just some of the many versions of how the manifestly shared (or at least explicitly potential Jenks sees clearly

.

.

.

public) streets

and buildings delineate fragmented

localities

and senses of

placement and identity ... In another dimension the Kray’s longings are both

more

bizarre

and more

sinister

territorial

than other accounts

.

.

.

of minatorial geography.” Writers, wishing to “rescue” dead ground, will have to wrest

from the grip of developers,

We

are

gies:

all

JG

empty

welcome

eco

clerks, clerics,

to divide

freaks,

London according

to

it

and ward bosses.

our

own

antholo-

Ballard at Shepperton (the reservoirs, airport perimeter roads,

film studios);

Michael Moorcock

at

Notting Hill

Trevor Story); Angela Carter — south of the

(visited

river, Battersea to

by Jack

Brixton,

Mottram at Herne Hill, communing with the ghost of Ruskin; Robin Cook’s youthful self in Chelsea, while his fetch minicabs between Soho and the suburbs (meeting Christopher Petit who is making the reverse journey); John

where she hands over

to the poet Allen Fisher; Eric

Healy sparring down Caledonian Road towards the “grass arena” of 145

Euston; Peter Ackroyd dowsing Clerkenwell in quest of Dr John Dee;

James Curtis in Shepherd s Bush; Alexander Baron in Golders Green (recalling his Hackney boltholes); Emanuel Litvinoff and Bernard Kops disputing Whitechapel and Stepney Green with the poets Bill Griffiths

and Lee Harwood (author of Cable

Street);

Stewart

Home commanding

the desert around the northern entrance* of the Blackwall Tunnel;

Gerald Kersh drinking in Fleet Street; Arthur

London Adventure goodness

tleness,

knowledge” —

He

as

.

.

for grabs

homage

/ have

from

his task

emblem was

to

—

in the liturgy

and

elected.

discipline

of the

David Jones. in case I

might see the living creatures

appearance of lamps, in case I might see the Living

the Machine. I have said to the perfected steel, be

Domine Deus, my crystal a stage-paste

had

gen-

of contradictory promptings. Aidan Andrew Dun. A.A.D.

some beginnings of His

glassy towers I thought I felt

My

man of remarkable

the stag: the stag trapped in a thicket of

watched the wheels go round

like the

(“a

zealous for God; but not fully according to

.

had named himself for

facts, a forest

and Aidan

Bede wrote of his Lindisfarne namesake) was

Celtic church. His

His

Art of Wandering.

or the

Kings Cross was up

Machen composing The

my

God projected sister

and for

creature, but

A,

hands found the glazed work unrefined and the .

.

.

Eia,

the

a, a,

terrible

Domine Deus. grew out of my own failure. Royal was taking form, to work on

prejudice in favour of Dun’s task

tried, at exactly the

time Vale

I

a

long London poem. Red Eye. “Songs” in homage to the film-maker Stan Brakhage were interspersed with

Church, an island shaded

drowned dead.

I’d

visits to

in torpor,

such

sites as St

Pancras

heavy with melancholy, the

been working up the road

spent time wandering the area. But the notes

for the Post-Office I

and

made never achieved

focus and were soon overtaken by a Limehouse project that evolved into

Lud

Heat.

any value

I’d like

as

to include an extract

from Red Eye, not because

an independent unit, but rather for

locked subterranean matter,

nigredo,

the

its

that

Dun

successfully

16,1973:

at St Pancras

pavements

Old Church. Drawn

to investigate the

against the repetitive boredom of the

building

—

its

146

slight eminence.

has

sense of the light-

transmutes.

May

it

It is

twlocked

10.30 am.

hour:

(briefly) at this

I encounter the vicar

hobbling on a

stick, a

Powys ghost.

Empty.

some of the

I study

A

woman

relics.

emerges, shows St Augustine*s stone under

She

the altar drapes: Kentish Rag.

The

talks.

curate

work

the church to

left

at the hospital

for nervous diseases. Suffered a brain haemorrhage.

down done

the all

Has faith

left side.

in a cure.

Gower

Now paralysed

Street have

they can.

Tltere

a subdued disapproval of the motions implicit in

is

—

his actions

Today he

as the is

woman

departing

describes them.

leaving her to lock the doors.

early,

He

is to visit

the Bishop of Durham: on a mission that

has not been disclosed

The church from ancient

The

is

to this lady.

part of that northern

drinks

rail. It

Christian sources.

helper worries about vandalism. Children

give her a '‘mouthful of language”

.

Lack ofgod

is

her spider.

The

place

Note

is

cold

& moulting.

I purchase a

several items:

About 6

feet

down

in the foundations

stone was discovered minus five

its

relics

of the old tower an

altar

but clearly marked with

The form of the but that on the tomb of

consecration crosses of curious shape.

crosses

is

said to

be unlike any other

Ethne, the mother of St Columba, it

leaflet.

would seem

who

died in 597. If this

is

so,

to date the stone as late sixth or early seventh

century, and point to a connection with Celtic Christians via the

kingdom of Northumbia which extended much is

further south than

usually realised.

& The young Thomas

Hardy, then an architect s apprentice,

supervised the seemly carrying out of the 147

last

part of this

work

and perhaps gained there

church-

his ever-recurrent interest in

yards.

& Here PB

Shelley, 'lodging at 5

out by the railway arches),

Godwin who was

Chapel Terrace .(now blotted

first

saw and

fell

with Mary

in love

visiting her mother’s graVe.

3

He

mad

is

by every measure of a standard man.

Aidan Dun, Vale Royal

The

saturnine, widdershins excursion of Alan Moore’s anti-solar myst-

agogue. Sir William Gull,

revealed in Chapter Four of the graphic

as

“She

novel. From Hell, begins, traditionally enough, with Boadicea: a stripe

of ash,

London’s geologic

a cold black vein in

strata.” Gull,

resenting lefthanded Masonry, the Scottish Rite,

is

a

left

rep-

fraudulent

promoted beyond his station, Sidney course at the Abbey of Thelema. A paternal

revenger: Sidney Greenstreet Greenstreet after a crash

misogynist with

a tendresse for “fallen”

women

(so useful for

marking

out the pentacles of a perverse geometry).

journey — in which

coachman, John Netley, a lowlife clown, dutifully absorbs a lecture on the city’s occult mapping — begins at Battle Bridge, described, with poetic licence, as being “below Gull’s

his

Parliament Hill where Druids once

now

site,

holders,

made

sacrifice to a Father Sun.”

crown of gaswhere the former

an undistinguished cul-de-sac, dominated by

is

a

condom

gutter

—

the louche territory

The

a

Director of Public Prosecutions chose, rather unwisely, to kerb-crawl: the set operatically recreated for Neil Jordan’s saccharine romance,

Mona

Tumescent predators, tax discs in order, willingly obey Gull’s directions. “Come Netley. Back to King’s Cross, then down Pentonville. Do you begin to grasp how truly great a work is London? A veritable textbook we may draw upon in formulating great works of our own! Lisa.

We’ll penetrate

upon

its

Aidan

its

metaphors,

lay bare

its

structure

and thus come

meaning.”

Dun

rather agrees, setting keel for his

own

urban alchemy from the same scar on the landscape. buried queen.

But

Dun

at last

is

The

stations

great

The

work of

X

of the

of the Cross in their “mystical geography”.

playing for higher stakes: he 148

is

soliciting the

re-enchantment

of the “cone of high land”, Blake’s

He

Cross.

abdicates

“pillar’d rectangle”, the place

from the tyranny of “transience” and begins

He

sured survey of Old St Pancras’ alternate history. the

he

start, as

happened

says,

by

a

mea-

was inspired from

of recognition: what was happening had

a sense

He would

before.

of the Pan

and write over

transcribe the unwritten

whatever was incomplete. Modernist notions of “originality”, language

games — speed,

—

did not concern him. Reading,

alone in the Charrington Street squat, he convinced him-

late at night,

prose-poem, ‘Promontoire’, one of Rimbaud’s

self that the

was

synthesis, atomisation

“metaphoric description” of the part of London

a

come

He knew from

to live.

and Verlaine had shared

He

from the churchyard.

were

pathetic as they reality,

in

Royal College

Rimbaud

Street, a short

walk

pored over those incantatory formulae, sym-

to the

the trembling of the

The

floor.

which he had

Edith Starkie’s biography that

room

a

in

Illuminations,

derangement of the moment: fractured

veil,

on the third an interface between

mild hunger pangs,

pages became sheets of coloured

glass,

life

the shrouded buildings and Rimbaud’s once-and-forever translation of

them.

trouvent notre brick an large en face de

L!aube d'or

et la soiree frissonnante

cette villa et

de ses dependances qni forment an promontoire

entourh de

glaciers, des lavoirs

singuliers

.

.

peiipliers

.

Des

.

d^Allemagne, des talus de pares

et leurs railways flan quent, creusent,

.

.

surplombent

les

dispositions de cet hotel, choisies dans Vhistoire des plus elegantes et des plus colossales constructions d’ltalie, de

VAmerique

et

de VAsie, dont

les fenetres

a present pleines d’eclairages, de boissons et de brises riches,

et les terrasses,

sont ouvertes a Fesprit des voyageurs et des nobles, qui permettent, heures du jour, a toutes

merveilleusement

Golden dawn

les tarentelles illustres

les fagades

.

.

.

de Part de dkorer

de Palais Promontoire.

slopes of singular parks ... St Pancras railway sta-

tion as the hotel of dreams. Dun’s hallucinatory triads vision, the spikes

aux

and

turrets

lift

from

this

of the promontory standing out against the

Dun would confirm, recompose, Rimbaud’s imaginative seizure. The poem had already been written, every finely balanced stanza; now it was Dun’s task, his duty, to dreary flood plain of the city of darkness.

read and research, to set out ing”.

“To throw

Vale

units

Royal

is

of bardic

light

on

on foot

to

make

his

“wide

arcs

of wander-

the great secret of London”.

unspectacularly traditional in form, regular three-line

verse.

The

triad

which speaks 149

in

an eternal present tense

of things which were and are and will be again. The poem, worked

at

over a twenty year period, became a spiritual autobiography (homage to earlier avatars, influences

honoured

as

co-authors of the project), and

mythopoeic colonisation of a sacred patch of ground: the

also a

X of King’s Cross. This threadbare strip of back country, skulking

garded

between railway and

upon

tus conferred

why

not see

canal,

it

golden

must achieve - so the poet asserted - the

pillars,

could

emphatically planted in vision, should

make

He

conceived

his epic in har-

with the cosmological speculations of Stephen Hawking

understood them).

He

sta-

Dun

by William Blake’s Jerusalem prophecy.

any latter-day manifestation redundant.

mony

disre-

associated the figures of

(as

he

Hawking and Nicholas

Hawksmoor with Horus, the falcon-deity, the sky-god (and avenger of Osiris): “an Egyptian hawk in the willow-month”. Vale Royal expresses London in terms of Egypt, believing that the old gods are not exclusive to their country of origin, but valid descriptions of a much dimmer climate.

Spirals

and

chevrons, living

and

existent,

move on

the outer shafts, while a blank central pillar

rises into

pyramids of spinning androgynous Godhead.

Hawking’s revelations, worked out

in

an almost unintelligible

cuneiform, predicted future motions in the

star-field.

What was

thought, became. Dun’s mingling of the speculative and the arcane

achieved an intoxicating tension, somewhere between the

and orthodox

fantasy: a cross-pollination

Tim

Space-Time and

Anubis Gates

of The Large

New Physics

Scale Structure of

Powers’ time-travelling, steampunk novel. The

— which opens not

far

from the source of the Fleet River,

and goes on to trace the career of the early-Victorian poet William

on a nightmare journey back to the London of 1810, where Egyptian magic invests a subterranea of tunnels

Ashbless; while taking the hero

and monsters.

A

parallel

account of Dun’s “burning ocean of ruined

thought-forms and auras, /full of mathematical fermentations of mentality

-

Vale

the pit.”

Royal

is

composed

sodic narratives that

invoking the same Pancras), the old

two unequal cycles, double-spirals, rhapturn on themselves, go over the same ground, in

figures: the sacrificial child (as

man

Blake or Chatterton or

or Archflamen (William Stukeley) questing

among the willows. A karma of battles lost and nobles assassinated, mind control, psychic theft, alchemy, numerology, dragon lines. 150

Arthurian mysticism. Colours recur: gold, red/blue, black, and above silver (of “acres”, “rays”, “metals”, the

“blade”). Place self,

is

all

“image”, “precipice”, “edge”,

emblematic. Silvertown

not

is

weary downriver

its

the boarded-up ribbon of dust between the City Airport and the

sugar-drench of the Tate

&

Lyle factory, but “a silent quay ... a bale of

cinnamon ... in the night-air”. “An Aquarian moon rises over Limehouse”. The psychogeography of London is affected by the special pleading of the poem. Dun’s sense of the archetype, of converting the specific into a shape-shifting universality,

is

at

modernism as expressed, for example, Olsonian South London epic. Place.

English

odds with the

drift

of

in Allen Fisher’s post-

— openly invaded by a consciousness of “the other”. He accumulates an almost unmanageable mass of contradictory documentation. The project is Fisher’s

BrLxton

is

fragmentary, multi-voiced, schizo

open-ended, “found” material can be against long stretches

poem

set

alongside cut-ups,

of quotation. The typesetting

is

columned

The

explosive.

responds to the chaos of the moment, shapes a path only to

abandon

The

it.

past

is

when

given access

it

can usefully make

con-

a

The poem gathers malpractice: when it is all

tribution to our understanding of present confusion. its

evidence like an enquiry into bureaucratic

assembled the poet can walk away.

Dun. Dun,

a “lucid

A

luxury that

dreamer”, has no contact with fashion. He’s resolutely

unpromotable, refusing to work in convenient play with a

makes

marked deck,

are confirmations

mound, enclosed by

take

on

heritage.

a

it

WS

Graham, but at

Gascoyne, without any awareness by the

with

Vale

affirms

The Sun

at

that doesn’t

is

creating a

mean mod-

midnight” summons David Vale

Royal poet of the 1970

Midnight (Notes on

Civilization as the History of the Great Experimental Scientist). It’s

He

are unconscious. “Night-fishing for

of references. “The sun born Press publication.

polishes each

into the mosaic pavement.

The homages he makes

Enitharmon

He

hills.

Aidan has studied the relevant publication, or

ernist grid

happy to

dead man’s hand. The discoveries he

water, under a curve of

rib-cages and skulls” might invoke that

lyric bites. He’s

of previous knowledge: the church on the

cerulean fragment before setting its

denied to Aidan

is

the Story of

Work of the Supreme

hard to believe, reading Gascoyne’s book in conjunction

Royaf

composition by

that the spirit stealth,

of the original has not entered the

by morphic resonance. The

illustrations

new

—

the

Hermetic androgyne from the Vatican Library and “Nature as woman and tree” from the “Alchemical Manuscript” in Basle University 151

-

Library that

emblems

read like missing pages of Dun’s text; they are the

would bring

these

columns of words into

focus. Gascoyne, the

most

courteous of speed-freaks, the most informed of London’s night-walkers,

confesses that his addictive use of

“seemed

make me more

to

lassitude

and above

actively intelligent

my

by counteracting

thing,

of

all

Douleur

as

and interested in every-

normal mental

seriously depressed

dispiritedness!'

experience of Mike Goldmark) that

becomes an

amphetamine compounds

He

state

recognised (echoing the

however borne,

“all suffering,

activating, energizing agent in the soul. 'UAlchirnie de

Baudelaire

.

.

.

of

has clearly indicated,

is

one of the

la

secret

The new eternity latent treasure of Love and Forgiveness in all who have known pain and grief is an incalculable reservoir of force which will now be gradually released for the rebuilding of the world we have nearly shattered.” forms of transmutation, in preparation for

a

.

.

.

Marc Atkins and I took a day trip to the Isle of Wight Gascoyne and to record him reading a poem for the Albert Hall

(Chris Petit, to visit

Out

extravaganza.

back garden, over the

in the

tea table, late afternoon

wedge on the poet’s troubled face, he spoke of alchemy: how the Goldmark event, and the publication of Vale Royal, had revitalised him, brought him “back to life”. “It’s a miracle,” he said, sunlight falling in a sharp

laughing; as Judy Gascoyne leafed through the albums of photographs. iAllen

Ginsberg in

to the island:

me

passed

Bob

New York.

future projects.

The

into the Fifties.

Now

tions

filled

Dr

Bluth,

with black ink

San Francisco. Visitors

was writing again. translations, notes

it

came

in a rush. battle

hammering on

surgery, before shooting

a

He

Dr

Caligari

— were

hitting the streets,

Like Gascoyne,

and

spoke of Rimbaud expedi-

of Cable

Street.

white piano in

Gascoyne up with

a

He his

recalled the

Notting Hill

mixture of ox-blood and

methadone. Anna Kavan and Conrad Veidt — rescued from The of

He

inspiration back after a long silence that stretched

through Docklands, the

sinister

in

He

Dylan, George Harrison.

notebook,

his

Robert Duncan

beneficiaries of the

bug-eyed and hot to

Dun

stands apart

same treatment.

All

Cabifiet

of them

trot.)

from the schools and schisms of the

moment, his “spiral train of thought turns backwards.” The pace with which the poem’s narrative unfolds is disorientating: it seems to have been frantically composed, and then played back in slow motion. Drug dealers

and station-haunting vagrants

are noticed, but seen as archetypal

The away-day tart becomes a “Magdalen from the red doorways of Holborn”. The heroic persistence of reading the world in this way, when interpreted by the “standard man”, becomes a form of madness. forms.

152

so selective,

It’s

“allowing” the

The poet confirms

elitist.

poem

to flow unhindered.

by

his occult possession

He

a self-confessed

is

“out-

law” drawn to the ancient church “by the magnet of shadows”.

Gascoyne

in the prefatory

poem

“Grass, grasses, fields, the field, “lost

to

The Sun

terre’,

‘la

Midnight writes of

our home.”

A

world of meadows gone to seed”.

at

Dun mourns

the

wilderness in the place of

enchantment. Fallow ground in which too many

layers

of the dead

have been impacted. Curious promptings that have to be obeyed: “infernal,

dynamic anxiety accompanied by auditory hallucinations and

“May

delusions of persecution.” Gascoyne, in his entry for snatches at themes that might

form of transference, become 1.

A

become poems;

..

The

cloudscape

The Sunset

A

.

.

.

— grisaille

revelry

Two

among

bee?

de Seghers

Vision of nocturnal

Birds. Pelican in the wilderness.

3.

Gold: the Psyche.

voice from childhood. Buttercups. Butterflies.

.

through some

part of Vale Royal.

Royalty incognito and children. 2.

that might,

1969”,

—

ruins

London

London

.

.

.

and

Evil and

birds at dusk.

the cornices above the neon

.

desolation. civilisation.

Their

.

.

other possible poems:

—-Jerusalem (and Athens?)

Cities of our civilization now.

—

In

Uke

my own

off

my

live

up

its

odd

this

.

.

.

copy of Gascoyne’s book he has written: “So glad you

little

book written during

a

period

head.” Vale Royal, a notable attempt to to the challenge sketched

decency,

are too right, status as

mad

when I was more or less forge a London epic, to

by Gascoyne,

sanity. Is

it

an unpublishable work-in-progress:

who

sites

he

a position

The poet

now

as a

chal-

romantic

opposes Masonic and Secret State conspiracies, the ugli-

ness of the pit,

by the

perhaps weakened by

enough?

lenged by the intervention of Mike Goldmark? outsider

is

The argument, persuasive as it is too evenly distributed. The sources on which it draws too unobjectionable. Is the poem undone by the safety of

its

proves to be,

its

Grass

is

there to be admired.

celebrates. His language

He

He is

is

an elective alien pensioned

smooth and

unstressed,

it

flows

on the vision, rather than suffering it. He stands back, commenting on the immaculately turned phrases as he composes them. Vale Royal could be said to have too conservative a programme. We want more spleen in our illuminati. We effortlessly like a clear stream.

reports

153

want

them

to see

sacrificed, cut

down. The flaw

been too deeply corrupted

to accept,

park where “lambs

the

instead

roll in

warm

without flinching,

We

grass”.

have been seduced as

Pdchard

“cycle” published in part

by Equipage in 1995: “a treasure troth pligkt of/revenant diction traum aback of two its

horme It’s

have

this heritage

by the compressed and driven language of works such

Makin’s unpunctuated monologue, forward

We

our own.

is

geis-

beasts a batUe/ diesel shunts the roge thanatoseros for

.” .

.

worth comparing Dun’s measured and

Chatterton in “transtemporal flight” with the implicated sequence published by Barry

stately

much more

MacSweeney

account of urgent and

as Brother

Wolf in

1972.

Oh germ-cloud was one,

of tomorrow, Walpole

his

illustriously fabricated

off a

U2

battery for the holy chair.

Trees shiver with

the temple

MacSweeney

is

human

condition

&

thick with smoke.

mask

poetic

’s

ruby forehead glows

half-ripped from a pulped face; he

is

He aims at possession, identification with the doomed poet/pretender. He reworks what Chatterton left unfinished: as Blake reworked Milton. He drags the doomed youth, the prances.

spits,

He

broken shaman,

He

risks everything.

home

to

Northumberland; rescues him from geogra-

own lyrics to scorn a “cheesy triumvirate of ghosts.” Knowing as much as Dun, he feels able to subvert the tyranny of facts, and to damn himself in the process. He honours by exploitation. “I will have Fame”. He wants it, the whole curse: the poem that is true only to itself. Nothing else will do. Fuck the consephy.

cracks the shell of his

quences. to his that

The poet

has a dual responsibility: to give himself over entirely

work, and to stage-manage

now.

He

a career.

Aidan

has joined the company. His project

modest and subtle

poem without

that

it

an author.

Dun is

its

a significant

almost eludes fate by delivering It

one, so

itself as a

could be discovered, scratched on parch-

ment, in the tower of St Pancras Old church: that generosity and

will have to face

achievement.

154

is

a

measure of

its

4

''Memory's not what

it

used

to

he"

Jerry Lee Lewis

13/6/95.

An

afternoon meeting was arranged with Aidan in the

churchyard of St Pancras Old Church, “the shrine on

of us

would be

it

a case

past, a nostalgic shifting

And

of moving forward by paying our dues to the and comparing of memories and belief systems.

with that sense of excursion and expectation,

so,

walked west

I

along the canal with Marc Atkins and his black camera-bag.

out the Studios

on the

still-visible lettering

— which Marc

around 5,000 images

dutifully

— now,

ten years

since

to

(which he used to estimate

life

dragged him on foot through the

I

“Adrift in the city of exterior light”,

clocking

inaccurately

Queensbridge Road),

until

we

said,

keep him in the dark room,

Rotherhithe Tunnel, revised downwards to

bikers,

pointed

photographed. He’d taken, so he

Enough

this year.

I

of the old Gainsborough

side

perfecting each print, for the rest of his at

For both

a hill”.

the

we

five).

shuffled along,

wildlife

(a

reached the City

heron

dodging the spotted

Road Lock and

canal slid coolly away, like a scintillating stream, into

its

at

the

Osiric tunnel.

map we are all Estuary Egyptians: like the Victorian cemetery designers, we want to dabble in a more exotic iconography. The white obelisk of St Luke, to the south across the City Road basin,

At

is

this

point

on

the

an hieratic intention botched by unplanned industrial development.

That glyph of sun/water/ stone remains securely Following Dun’s prescription

we

climb through Islington to “the

good walking-country of the long curved

down over Vale Royal: ments of light”. Or so we thought dune, looking

honked, gestured

queue waiting

at

through the

to turn out

in the mind’s eye.

crescent”.

On

the lip of the

“Glorious pedestrians on pave-

we were open window of a until

rudely hooted, car held in the

of Copenhagen Street into York Way: John

Healy, the Guardians house vagrant. This was ridiculous, the one time

months of pounding across the landscape, that we get picked up and offered a ride — and it’s a career street-stalker, ex-wino, excelebrity itinerant, at the wheel. He thinks we’re on the skids, going down to the Cross to pick up some change. It’s much worse than that. in

It’s

all

these

difficult to explain that

we’re out dowsing for poets,

no hopers,

psychic vampires.

Healy

lives

with

his

mum in

a tidy flat off

155

Caledonian Road, where

he practices

breathing and works on film-scripts. He’s got one in

his

development

moment,

the

at

a

sword and shield number featuring

a

mouthy Cockney/Irish William the Conqueror. Who knows? With the present state of the movie business, this could be a winner — especially if

he can bring

it

out

first as a

comic

strip.

^

John guns the smoke-coughing Rover, as Atkins folds his length awkwardly into the backseat. It would be much quicker to walk, but I wouldn’t want to miss the way Healy drives with his elbows, handling the stop/start of London traffic, and rattling along, idea to idea, at the same time. He’s heading the

viate

for

boredom of

Hampstead, cruising for chess action to

the writer’s

He

life.

keeps

prize-winning autobiography. The Grass Arena, in ous position. the

filth,

his

It’s

beHef that

he can produce

thus circumvent any

this

when

awkward

status as a

copy of

a blatantly

{when rather than

proof of his

a

alle-

if) he’s

his

conspicupulled by

published author and

enquiries into the vehicle’s

documenta-

tion or roadworthiness. This expectation of the tugged forelock

is

a

power of the printed word. In experience the word “writer” carries the same negative resonance

refreshingly old fashioned notion of the

my

with customs sors.

officers or constabulary that

Better far to travel hopefully

as for

holding your hand up

as

it

does with insurance asses-

“husband of school-teacher”.

denizen of

as a

a

And

“world ruled by psy-

chopaths and peopled by beggars, con-men, thieves, prostitutes and

where the law is enforced with the broken bottle, the boot and the knife” — you might as well throw yourself down the steps into the killers,

them the paperwork. Still afloat on Dun’s mesmeric triads, seeing London as a network of coincidences and cyclic collisions, it was salutary to be on the receiving end ofJohn Healy buoyant pragmatism. The machine-gun raps, shoulcanal and save

’s

der-shuffles, sniffs;

turning,

wrong Healy

on

side a

a

monologues with

all

the voices; impulsive generosity

misunderstood gesture, into violence. The drudgery of the

of the Islington ridge, the sorrows of Pentonville, gave

very different insight into the valley of the Fleet.

the eye of a veteran

— childhood

scars, binges,

He saw

it

with

skippering, blackouts:

absorbing and intensely realised memories (where they hadn’t been

more aristocratic overview. churchyard steps — with Healy recalling a

extinguished) that precluded Dun’s

We

tipped out

at

the

Richard Boston, the bucolic Guardian another church in some Oxfordshire

concerned, was

He waved

a piece

us off,

visit to

essayist (“pisshead”); the ruins

field. St

of

Pancras, as far as Healy was

of countryside that had not yet been found out.

abandoned

us to our self-indulgent antiquarianism.

156

Aidan was pretty much on the button through the gates about (the standard variation

time

scales).

Which

minutes

later

is

to say,

than the agreed appointment

forced us to give the shady enclosure a thorough

Monument, designed by

the architect in

and the famous Wollstonecraft tomb,

his wife,

he sauntered

between the spiritual/metaphoric and mundane

going-over: the Soane

ory of

fifty

that

still

mem-

tended by

where Shelley met — and made love to? — Mary Godwin. A rectangle of buttery pansies. Marc is particularly struck by the Hardy feminists,

tree

with

its

fins circling

of surrounding headstones —

cluster

the massive trunk, feeding

on the

like a

school of grey

secretions of the dead.

Hardy’s poem, ‘The Levelled Churchyard,’ recalls the clearance of

ground:

memory

field to

spurned park.

O Passenger, pray Our

sighs

Half stifled

park repels humans. are

no

memorial stones!

to

human jam.

each to each exclaims in fear, ‘7

There

catch

late-lamented, resting here

And

slopes.

and

jumbled patch

in this

Are mixed

The

list

and piteous groans,

Of wrenched We

this

know

not which I

They

am!”

slide away, slithering

down Rimbaud’s

regular drinking schools here, just the occasional

benched and muttering. If the place is a potential the heavy waters have grown foul with disuse. The

disorientated solitary, reservoir of light,

incursions of cultists are there to be noticed by those with a taste for

such things: rags of tree worship, candle and bowl

door of the Sacrament House

(a

Most

on the

striking

is

the oval design

Our Lady of Walsingham) monument seen to the south side

Shrine to

of the church in the view engraved for The Traveller.

An

angel,

wings spread,

set outside the sealed

is

New

Universal British

carrying a child through the

air.

A

zigzag of trailing ribbon gives balance to the acute position of the

But the implication of what should have been a pietistic commonplace has been transformed by some freelance occultist who angel’s legs.

has chipped away, in a rectangle, the angel’s profile

—

leaving the sug-

gestion of a devouring beast, an axe-headed monster carrying off a sacrificial victim.

Perhaps

this

is

an unconscious representation of Dun’s

“Sunchild surrendered in the Dark House of 157

Chrome”

in order that

“the hidden city of the Royal Vale” might be revealed?

Then, when we had forgotten our reason for hanging about the park, the poet was with us, or almost with us jacket, spiky

coxcomb of

—

than threatening (more

hair, elegant rather

glam rock than punk). Meaningful handshake and

—

as

the fault

the churchyard

is

on

ping from

at 5

railway arches

lodgings

The

grave.

He

a loop.

droplets.

wall.

Terrace, out there

Fleet River,

down from

erased. Boadicea.

The

The sun on fantastic

from

its

among

the

falling

source near

its

Road. Nothing

is

elephants that terrified her tribesmen. This

golden

pillars a city

of revelation will be

built.

the horizon catching the skeletal gasholder crowns, the

mustard hotel of St Pancras railway

pinnacles and red brick balconies. So

goods

happened

The doomed Chatterton

sparkling in place of the Pancras

holy:

Dun’s take on

can see them now: Shelley step-

Church

beyond the south

open

is

of

ours

Kenwood House, ground

“ummm”

uninsistently proprietorial: the things that

here are eternal. They’re his

is

gnomic

other. Teasing information released in

into an

a quiet

— of being slightly out if Aidan might have been over-dubbed by some censorious

recognition. Again that feeling

of synch:

slim, upright, black

yards, allotments,

station,

much hidden

its

windows and

land, nature reserves,

between the railhead and the

canal.

Dun

leads

down some steps - a path he could sleepwalk — towards the room that Rimbaud and Verlaine shared in Royal College Street. He believes that Stephen Hawking is another version of his us out of the

back

gate,

“child demi-urge”: primary school Hampstead/Highgate, paintings of

Kenwood House, jumping on and off buses in search of a lost magical palace. Hawking — and perhaps Rupert Sheldrake — should join with

Dun

and

his

earlier

friends

and

Heathcote Williams, to found, on perpetual symposium”, “the

inspirations, this site,

human

an Invisible College; “a

face of the cosmological.”

poet, speaking of his vision, says that he

down on my

John Michell and

felt

The

an “ineluctable urge to get

knees, take off my clothes and give thanks”.

There’s an alley

—

so

moodily apposite

sored by English Heritage

-

that

it

must have been spon-

you onto Royal College Street right alongside the plaque which announces: the french poets/paul VERLAINE /and /ARTHUR RIMBAUD / LIVED HERe/mAY—JULY 1873. From this that brings

map of seas and deserts and curling landmasses, the poets set out on their London wanderings. spent so much time gazing up - from the back of the house - identifying, with magnificently peeling wall, an aerial

1

Aidan, the right window, that

which now covers

I

didn’t notice the anti-vandal paint

my jacket. 158

we make

Chastened,

for

Compendium Bookshop

Camden High Aidan

to find

a

Street.

reading

Compendium. And then

at

Murdoch’s accountants saw no reason to Barry took

loss leaders.

MacSweeney was

with language, he was

tion”

—

McClure

Twenty-Two — and

I

Tells

of

low-turnover cultural

His was a true “sickness voca-

of fame, firework

silks

Rimbaud

And

then,

when

the

He

fix-

politics,

circuit,

had

in

‘The Boy

with

didn’t

sit

seemed that work the plug was pulled.

comfortable outcasts,

its

Barry perfected the

lost its appeal.

profession of being difficult, the gift of rage.

He

‘Just

it

was being allowed back into the debate,

triumphally defeatist

effects,

Mother’, Jim Morrison in

his

Don’t Mind Dying’, and Chatterton.

Trundling around the small-press its

Rupert

shriek cut with French decadence.

out the dead years in comfort. as his

Hazard, was launched

rapidly pulped.

spoiled heroes, stopped in their youth:

from the Green Cabaret

such

an anthol-

in

than any other British poet

also cursed.

questing for the heats and

dazzle of a Michael

on

go to

possessed by the knowledge that, being one of those

gifted

ated

of

tolerate

More

hard.

it

to

copy of Barry MacSweeney s

ogy put out by Paladin. (The book. The Tempers a

want

— which was included

Chatterton poem, ‘Brother Wolf’

with

I

Took

to the point

of col-

progress was hobbled by the necessity of waiting while

Aidan

it

lapse, his life in hazard.)

Our chatted

to,

and sometimes

tithed, supplicants in

shop doorways. But

a

brief biographical outline was teased from him: childhood of respectable

bohemia

in

Notting

from 7

Hill,

(Marie Rambert was

ballet school

where mother ran a grandmother), back to London,

to 14 in Trinidad his

walks out of Highgate School after playing Aufidius, General to the

of Coriolanus — and getting

Volscians, in a “leather jockstrap” production

rather carried

am It

away by having the

struck with sorrow

was pretty

Europe.

much

The hippy

.

.

.

last

Yet he

“My

word.

shall

have

a

rage

is

I

noble memory. /Assist.”

out of the school gates and on to

trail.

gone,/And a

motorbike.

Busking along the Mediterranean and down to

Marrakesh. Meeting the usual people and picking up the usual imprints

of communal culture: India, dope, mysticism, white magic, Egypt, the Grail, poetry.

The

ideal foundation course for life in the

Charrington

Street squat.

The Tempers of Hazard had gone — even from Compendium. instant rarity. A book that began life as a remainder and was now than

a

rumour.

reforgotten.

A

quarter of a century’s

But the shop (how many

came up with human consolation 159

work

less

for the poets: scrubbed,

ley lines

in the

An

must

intersect here?)

form of the

art guerrilla

(one-man

Home — whose potato-head we

distribution service) Stewart

could see through the window, bobbing and nodding,

as

he pulled out

the mid-afternoon edition of Re: Action (Newsletter of the Neoist Alliance)

with

its

splash headline:

when

stood

is

it

viewed

continuous becoming.

announced

to

the grail unveiled. The

historically,

On 20

that

is

say as an unstable signifier of

to

February 1909

a startled world that 9ime

Grail can only be under-

*the

Futurist

and space died

FT. Marinetti

yesterday.' It

words that ushered in the current epoch of avant-bardism. Likewise, the founder of the Ecole Druidique

Max Jacob;

was

was

it is

these

said that

cubist, poet, critic, occultist,

hoaxer and notorious blagueur. Druidry was (re)hwented

in the aftermath

Renaissance as ‘educated' opinion became divided over the

of the

relative merits

of the

Ancients and the Moderns.

Atkins and

I

stood off to watch

this

amazing head-to-head: Dun, the

of the two, swaying back, away from Home’s more animated

taller

Seen from behind

ripostes.

aristocratic

of books, the debate looked

a stack

cockatoo dipping for apples.

tling the fate

of the

city.

an

A floater and a foot-soldier set-

Aidan wincing from the violence of Home’s

delighted subversion, the barks of laughter. is

like

always knapsacked, always in

transit.

Home

Aidan

is

one of those

is

perched, even in

who

move-

ment.

They have

to disengage

— Home

bank and Aidan leading us back

book to the canal Old Church, which is due

retreating with a

to St Pancras

open its doors at 6.30. Aidan worries about the aggressive nature of Home’s karma: the wrong path. He has a friend, a martial arts expert,

to

who ers,

lost

it

by dedicating

his life to putting a psychic trace

on crack

deal-

breaking their bones and then healing them.

There’s

still

time to wander

down Charrington

the legendary squat. (Expunging

Leigh

satire.

High Hopes, with

its

Street, to

look over

unworthy memories of the Mike dope-smoking despatch rider.) The

dimensions of this backwater boulevard are so gracious that we’re forced to is

wonder how it has virtually no traffic,

survived. plants

It

must be

a front for

and chairs have been

something. There

left

on the

very easy to accept Aidan’s account of his period here retreat,

attendance

at

as a

an anti-university that required no

street.

It’s

monastic

fees.

Some

people had books, some cooked, offering free food from the house on the corner. Catullus.

It

couldn’t

He immersed

last.

But Aidan was given

himself in

Rimbaud and

set

his first taste

of

about uncovering

the secret history of the church.

The dominant African,

personality in the shifting

commune was

the South

ex-Oxford don and hallucinogenic voyager, Robin Farquharson, 160

author of Drop Out!

— which was

published, complete with psychedelic

endpapers and Alan Aldridge dustwrapper, by Anthony Blond

Dun a

thinks he

still

in 1968.

has a copy of the novel somewhere, fondly recalling

scene where Farquharson, meandering away from Kings Cross, enjoys

of Magellanic clouds and hears

a vision

new

He

a

voice telling

him

to drop his

Walks on for 300 yards and is then tempted to turn back. The coat has gone. (John Healy? Or Samuel Beckett’s coat.

does

so.

Murphy? Too many ghosts to

on

lick left

toffee-paper

let a

slip

while there’s half a

it.)

Farquharson went through the changes, from messianic inspiration the founding of a counter-cultural college with

—

RD Laing, Alex Trocchi

and other cardinals of the alternate establishment — to paranoid depres-

BOSS, Ml 6, dealers and double-agents: he moved down the road, took a room on an upper floor in a house with no occupants, other than a pair of hard-drinking Irish workmen. One night a fire was started.

sion.

Farquharson received third-degree burns, was taken into the Hospital

and subsequently

for Tropical Diseases, alongside St Pancras churchyard,

died.

The Irishmen (“Michael O’Connor,

26,

and Peter Hilditch,

both labourers”) were charged with “unlawful killing” and found

An

it

was composed from

conspiracy scenario, the end of an

We

guilty.

episode which has never been explained to Aidan’s satisfaction. (In

other words, a

18,

rattled at the

church door and,

particles that fitted very neatly into era).

after a

few minutes,

it

was opened by

camp curate dressed in the full fig. He let us wander freely, while he got on with lighting up a rack of candles. This church, accorda discreetly

He

ing to Aidan, was “the keystone of Vale Royal”. notes, citing the Vatican historian,

describes

MaximiUian Misson,

and Mother ofaU Christian Churches”; founded

at

as

it

in his

“the

Head

“the time of the for-

mation of the Grail Cycle, even with the time of Christ’s actual Britain”.

Can

this

dim and

rarely accessible interior carry that

visit to

burden of

belief?

Nobody

which

is

down

The hour of the whether any celebrants arrive or not —

breaking the door

— which will take place approaching. The curate offers

service is

is

to

confirm

it.

us a sight of St Augustine’s altar stone,

preserved beneath a heavy cloth.

A relic

that provokes another

debate, another scrupulously polite cycle of question, answer and

counter-question, between Aidan and the hierophant. Aidan to the

north of the High Altar and the curate, defensively, behind pushes for

a

spoken confirmation of the 161

special status

it.

Aidan

of the church, the

building.

The

— but he

allows

Finally, just

no further than canonical authority

curate will go

indulges the speculations.

before two old folk

slip in at

for the service, the curate brings out a

the back to take their chairs

supposed fragment of bone from

the boy-martyr, St Pancras. Authenticated^ by

Rome

from the Vatican hypermarket —

dubious Rubens from

on the

Sotheby’s,

packaged behind looks

dered

as if it

say so

like taking a

of the auctioneer —

in the dark.

down and marketed with

The

chip

is

golden crucifix.

It

this nail-paring

a glass clockface, set in a tinny

might glow

and purchased

entire skeleton, properly ren-

impressive certificates,

would

sanctify

every church in South America.

The is

leap of faith

nothing

as

needed

symposium” bolster main-

to generate Aidan’s “perpetual

when compared with

the superstitions that

stream Catholicism. Marc has whipped out his camera and

away — with the cials are

curate’s permission.

no more than

Aidan knows

that the

is

clicking

church

offi-

tolerated caretakers, functionaries of a bankrupt

concern. I

wait outside, toying with the notion that each essay so far written

book can be assigned one letter of the alphabet. Obviously, the first two pieces go together, the journey from Abney Park to Chingford Mount: V. The circling of the City: an oval O. The history of Vale Royal, its poet and publisher: an X on the map. VOX. The unheard for this

voice that

On

is

always present in the darkness.

the 16th of October 1995 Goldmark’s Return of the Reforgotten event,

MacLean, Anne Waldman, Benjamin Zephaniah, Alice Notley, Brendan Kennelly, and the usual suspects from the home team, duly happened at the Albert Hall. Two and a half featuring Allen Ginsberg, Sorley

thousand people turned up, the biggest audience for poetry seen in country since the Wholly

where they noticed

on the

finances.

it,

The

Communion

The

readings in 1965.

Even

me

The

poets enjoyed themselves (one or two of

dragged there by

to express his

The evening

wonder (and

a

younger and hipper

to ask for

girlfriend,

Anne Waldman’s

closed with Ginsberg duetting (the Chas

‘n’

them

their fees

good

audience, in general, were surprised: they had a

Driffield,

press,

were sour and mean-spirited. They concentrated

were paid, while others were so carried away they handed back).

this

time.

rang

particulars).

Dave of the

counter-culture) with Paul McCartney.

Goldmark stood

in the

Seven minutes each.

It

wings pushing the poets on, pulling them

worked: even Mike Moorcock’s 162

off.

failure to

remember who or what Denise Riley was didn’t matter. The audience took it in good humour. And Moorcock made a fruitful connection with co-presenter Howard Marks. It was all somewhat unreal, too easy, too smooth. I found myself talking about Henry James’ garden, the burial of his pets, with Linda McCartney. She and Paul lived near Rye and would check it out. She was clicking away, taking photographs of the bemused poets. Mike Goldmark, bare feet on the pedals, drove home in the early hours of the morning.

(Or had

it all

He

was

been maya, an

still

alive,

illusion?)

he wasn’t bankrupt;

Aidan

Dun

was

over.

had enjoyed the most

spectacular launch in the history of poetry publishing.

163

it

What

next?

% i

\

LORD ARCHER'S PROSPECTS

'7Ve always served”

Lord Archer

I

Weston-super-Mare

of

approached Alembic House, Lord Archer’s Lambeth

my

tol to

head and both hands

my wife

promised

no

sneers,

that

no cheap

across the

Painters

satire.

Archer

and

art

behind

would be on

I

picaresque comedy. This

of Modern

tied

None

would be

Hello!.

my

back. As

my very best

with

gaff, it

were.

a pisI

had

behaviour, no jibes,

of the usual kneejerk, formulaic, disinterested reportage, a nice blend

Footnoted gush. Discreet tracking shots

hoard, admiring references to the famous

Thames

views. I’d

put

my

request in writing, explaining that

weigh the

the collection and to ist

raids

John

on

this stretch

Bellany.

I

made

I

wanted

to look over

pictorial values against the expression-

of the river by the painters Oskar Kokoschka and

it

clear that

I

didn’t intend to

poke into any of the

material recently aired by Michael Crick in his blue-chip biography, Jeffrey Archer, Stranger than Fiction: the allegations

of insider dealing, pla-

conspicuous charity to prostitutes on station platforms,

giarism,

enhanced CVs, or any of

that “inaccurate precis” froth.

I

thought

might experiment with the Alan Whicker treatment, tiptoeing Persian rugs while Archer talked tions. (Apparently,

and

I

increased his short-term

the

titles

primed For

a

and

me

dates, if necessary,

his

this, as

the novelist’s weight has

has started to go.

But we could

with the prompting of

a

sweetener, the postscript to

my

Oxford

days. This

is

letter

in

properly-

dropped the name (with

a close friend

why, where

my

of Jeffrey Archer’s

wife was concerned,

dancing on eggshells. Her family had no problem in drawing tion

fill

researcher.)

her permission) of an in-law of mine,

from

across

through the glittering acquisi-

sympathise with

memory

I

between the

relative merits

Their sense of tribal

self-interest

of blood

made

ties

and speculative

the Mafia look like

I

was

a distincliterature.

wimps with

suntans. Fiction writing was, properly, a kind of hobby: unfortunate, but

165

tolerable if

brought

it

of bad manners.

If

Lord Archer came style

— by

in cash or fame. In essence,

was an exhibition

such matters had to be performed in public, then

as

plose as anyone to

managing them with the proper

divorcing himself from textual mess and running the opera-

tion as effectively as any other public comp^ajay. visible

it

product identity and no author.

There was

A trick for which

I

a highly

felt

immod-

erate envy.

Alembic House, 93 Albert Embankment, kept secrets: anyone

who

can pick up

Archer has bagged the top two

all

floors,

If you

one of London’s worst-

newspaper knows and spent almost

A show home

pounds refurbishing them. Wouldn’t you — if you could? to expose yourself to

a

is

had the

bottle. If you

oxygen. This agents pay

is

million

were prepared

that metropolitan magnificence: the

Houses of

London

in perfect

alignment. Nothing separating you from the heavenly

You

^2

for a social balloonist.

Parliament, the Tate Gallery, the great bridges of

sheets of glass.

that Jeffrey

can’t get

dome

but

a

few

more upwardly mobile without taking on

the ultimate “riverside opportunity”, the one the estate

homage

to in their

Rotherhithe brochures. All those tacky

hutches, peeping out over sewage creeks and dried-up poultices of yel-

low mud,

aspire to this.

The

New

York

callisthenics

and the sweaty

some chipboard-partitioned wastelot factory are replays of the Alembic House paradigm. But there’s still something odd about pitching your crow’s nest, your glass box, on the thirteenth and fourteenth floors of one of the most visible buildings in London. Leaving aside the rumours — quoted by Michael Crick — of the building’s earlier identity as an MI6 sleepover, a couples faking loft-living ecstasy in

safe

house, you’d have to be

doubles to

live

comfortably in

Howard Hughes and employ a team of such theatrical opulence. Maybe that was

the secret of Archer’s energy, his legendary “bounce”: he couldn’t be

one man and get into so much trouble in so many places. He was legion, showing himself at the window, while sound-biting the skin from our TV screens, while wearing suede shoes in LBJ’s White House,

just

while giving the good word on John Major, while popping up as an insert in faked Beatles’ photographs. Which Archer was he now? Jeffrey

They both wrote thrillers. Was he the one who doubled as a newsreader? Or the one who lent his name to the Powell and Pressburger film company? The guy must be an entire government or Geoffrey?

department,

Not

for

a

cloning experiment that had got seriously out of hand.

nothing did

his personalised

number-plate read: any

obvious case of multiple identity: he’d change personalities 166

1

.

An

like the rest

of US change

suits.

(He’d change

suits too,

although they

looked the

all

same.)

Alembic House was

throwaway

a

package that came with

its

of the

secret, the headline kind, part

flamboyant neighbour

palace of the vanities at 85 Vauxhall Cross.

hybrid of Gotham City and Alhambra

An

— Terry

Farrell’s

M16

Inca jukebox so blatantly

you almost suspect someone somewhere, between commissioner and architect, of having a sense of humour. It has to be one of the most expensive pissa

takes in history

— and

the joke’s

because there are no more

on

us.

secrets,

fascist

Spook

chic that

Castle

open

to the world,

only authorised denials.

One

of the

monuments to Thatcherism: along with the hollow boast of Canary Wharf and County Hall, the deposed GLC ghost barracks, through whose partly-boarded windows it is possible to view the stalled conversion that would convert London’s seat of government into three great riverine

a

Japanese piano bar. These three, taken together, give us

ition It’s

a

new

defin-

of shame. a strange business to live,

by choice,

in a film set

—

so that the

memories you work with are entirely fictional. Alembic House, so they told me in the Tate, where they keep records of such things, accounts of the river, had featured in the first Sweeney film, which was imagina(“Cops find

tively titled: Sweeney!

suicide in this successful spin-off”).

warp: gang bosses, Billy Hill

political dirty

deeds are behind

The very word penthouse

era, in glass coffee-table pads.

Baker in Joseph Losey’s The Criminal, basing

loot to recreate the

who

redeems himself, in

Globe Theatre,

with Theo Crosby. But

that’s

real life,

thatch, wattle

another

time

(Stanley

and

Sam “The

by using movie

all.

In partnership

story.)

Penthouses go with the innocent vulgarity of the James

Bond

films

— Archer’s property once belonged to John Barry, best-known Bond composer, and he retained the 0077 telephone

(which the

a

performance on night-

his

club research with the PJchardsons, being double-crossed by

Snake” Wanamaker —

is

a

is

appropriate

number). Exhibitionist paranoia. Chairman

Mao

boiler-suits

from

Savile

where Rex Mundi has his operational base as the latest avatar of Fu Manchu. Penthouse is also a magazine, a style statement, a brochure for Nigels. (“A wanky name”.

Row,

fluffy

Archer

white

says in the

cats:

the penthouse

is

Mike Ockrent documentary). But

stood for wanking with

a

philosophical base {Penthouse included William

Burroughs, AJex Trocchi and Colin Wilson amongst

wanking with privileged

Playboy’s rival

prospects.

the city spread out lasciviously

A

bikini-line

its

contributors);

nude on the rug and

beyond the panoramic window. 167

Alembic House was rented

Cold War turkey

Ipcress File, a

whom

—

Sinatra

for Sidney

Royal Albert

Reggie Kray and Eric Mason Patterson/Eddie Machin

made

of Class, for in

in

follow-up to The

s

The Naked Runner (starring Frank

called

Archer brokered to appear in

charity bash at the

Next up was

Furie

J.

and

Hall,

his

who

Stockholm

“Night of Nights”

graciously entertained the time of the Floyd

;at

fight).

the Glenda Jackson and

before Glenda

moved

George Segal

over the river

A

vehicle,

Member

Labour

as

Touch

Hampstead, and before her moviettes plugging the Hanson Group global, asset-stripping triumphalism.

all its

get that

would run Channel 4 s positive-discrimination

until the

The

film

bud-

a

programme

millennium.

penthouse’s credits provide a potted history of Anglo-American

cinema. Special-relationship

thrillers (Californian

out in Eaton Square), spirited love/hate

Woman Jackson

and unredeemed

itself

with The

Politician

Archer’s penthouse that

is

Wife.

's

tiffs

producers camped

TV features

By

New

symbolised by

and businessman:

Segal, dress-designer

then the descent into burning-rubber

TV

Each advert shot on

(Sweeney), and finally

this time,

no longer Lord

it is

rented, but a lower floor.

And

it’s

not even

a

film but a mini-series, blatantly post-modern, using our subliminal

who

knowledge of just

lived in the

flat

expectation of some convenient scandal duction.

The

politician’s

wife

who

overlooking the House, in the

coming along

starts

out

as

Jacobean revenger,

Mary

prompts dropped

to achieve the look

David Mellor (once his

high gloss beauty

Norma

is

made

over into

like Julian Barnes’ sketch

of

Archer: “You could crack eggs on her.”

All the fails

a

hype the pro-

an idealised

Major, background support, happiest in the country, a

to

constituency

socked

great

Narrow

man who

Archer at

in

river,

windhe has been

commanding one of

Alembic House, Mellor

the entrance to St Katharine’s

Street,

handled

1973). Mellor has

downfall into a media triumph, so that

Lord Archer on the

prospects:

in

a

Jeffrey Archer’s researcher, the

Dockmaster’s House

Owen

of

work between 1971 and

his political

able to join

— except the leading man who cream-fed chipmunk — point towards

in the film

Limehouse. Mellor and

in

the three

the

old

Dock, and Lord

Owen

are in

some

senses satellites of the

Mellor, fresh

Archer empire, the super-materialist world view: from Cambridge, given his start by the young MP — and

Owen, whose wife Deborah was for many years Archer’s literary agent. The monster-monster success of Archer’s fiction underwrote Owen’s political manoeuvrings, allowing him to conspire at his leisure. 168

who

(Finding out

checking out the

has

social

first

temper of an

moratorium, nostalgic

Moraes — hymn

when

Thames

the action was

Chelsea. Jagger and his mates in

way of

a useful

is

Published under

era.

— Marianne

retrievals

period

a

option on the

twenty year

a

Henrietta

Faithfull,

on the north

shore, in

Cheyne Walk. Christopher Gibbs,

connected dealer in remarkable things,

with

a salaried facilitator

a a

famously good eye, camped out in Turners reach. Upstream sunsets in a

cloud of African smoke.

visionary

London

The name “Turner”

painter to the

Square for the film Performance. for

Marc Atkins

wrecked rock

And on

my novel Radon

in

drifting

star

away from the

hiding out in Powis

again to a fictionalised disguise

Daughters. Axel Turner: a cheap

pun

to christen a compulsive punster.)

The view from Lord

Archer’s

flat

was never simply

production

a

value to be leased, short-term, by location scouts; Alembic also a

charming

who met

setting in

Archer on

which

to breakfast film deals.

a transatlantic flight,

House was

Otto Preminger,

was soon toying with the idea

of taking an option on Kane and Abel. (“One of the best novels ever read” brags the paperback

— not

realising that this

is

I

have

no compliment

Hollywood producer/ director: a breed allergic to anything fatter than a three page synopsis). The bald virtuoso dutifully turned up at Albert Embankment for the novel’s launch party. (Maybe he thought he could garner some seed material for an English version of Advise and Consent — blackmail, corruption, telephone promises, coming from

political

a

appointments

every alcoholic Clinic?)

set against a sensational

ham who

backdrop, and parts for

could get day-release from the Betty Ford

Archer product-placed Preminger’s Exodus in

Honour, and Otto indulged the novelist by testing eventually

Graham

went

Greene’s The

Despite fresh

to Nicol

liftloads

their

own

Human

Matter of

for the part that

in his rather pedestrian

account of

Factor.

of meetings, and high-level tipplings of coffee and

among

orange juice

went deeper than

Williamson

him

A

the art works, Hollywood’s interest never

air-kisses

terms —

and

fiscal foreplay.

The

novels

shelf-fillers, presents to sick relatives

worked on

who

don’t

media jokes for production assistants who can boast that they actually finished one — but they refused to break down into viable read,

performance elements. They didn’t survive the X-rays of the script doctors. In truth, there wasn’t much of a skeleton to be found and the characters

wheezed

low Grade fodder:

in cartoon speech-bubbles.

television that

They were,

at best,

would make the commercial breaks

look good. 169

book man. His books happened. They understood, better than the rest of the fast-fiction conveyor belt, what the true function of a book was. An object, a brick of paper, good to handle, nice to have around. Inoffensive — except to whingeing aesthetes. The epitome of a Archer was

good yarn

name

a

(that

was the

in high relief: too fat for

the product, practically

the

pitch).

seal.

A

your pocket. You had to go steady with

announce your engagement, before you snapped

more than any of this,

But,

wad with authors

kind of bgqkie’s

they didn’t have to be read.

friendly

it

talked

It

power of the novels

lay in the

The much-edited story was so back. The plot was so familiar

fact that

spoke to you.

the

user that

simply bending back the covers was enough, the thick black lines of text

Ownership of one of the novels gave you a direct line to the author: he was incarnated in a way that his ephemeral productions never would be. Take any title from the shelf at Smith’s, Liverpool Street Station, and you are shaking hands with Lord (virtually braille) did the rest.

WH

Archer. He’s there, barking

at

serviced, brisk. His presence

worthy time.

light shifts,

its

He

flat

need

didn’t

is

the antithesis of film with

fractured narrative,

The Alembic House

ing theatre.

your shoulder: compact, immaculately

its

altogether

its

leftist

untrustsense of

was cinema enough. Lord Archer was

film,

he had control of the

finest set

liv-

on the

river.

2

.

know this place is full of falcons” Robbie Coltrane (in Christopher Petit’s ''You

Chinese Boxes)

2/6/95.

much

I

took

so that

this

insisted that

I

bring sweat and house. like

I

dirt,

daren’t risk

one of my

appointment with Lord Archer very

less

we

drive

down

to

Lambeth.

seriously, so

We

couldn’t

the road, into the antiseptic bubble of the pent-

one of our walks. They tended,

all

too often, and

disciplined paragraphs, to take over with an agenda

of their own. “Better to journey than to arrive” wouldn’t work, not

when set against Archer’s known obsession with punctuality. He had the ex-NCO’s proper respect for good time-keeping. (This episode now seemed I

so pivotal in the

development of Lights Out

for the Territory that

almost decided to sleep in the car overnight, beat the jams and the city

road-blocks.

I

was checking that Marc had film 170

in his

camera and that

he’d cleaned his at

my

nails,

brushed

watch so often

Whatever

twitch.)

else

that people

we

to

assumed

wrong

got

bumptiously rude — we’d arrive

on the dot of 10

and polished

his teeth

at

--

his head.

developed

I’d

a

I

looked

nervous

too creepily subservient, too

the door of the apartment absolutely

We’d walk in as Big Ben started to chime. It was very strange after all those months of voluntary pedestrianism be driving again. The run along Old Street and down Farringdon o’clock.

Road

towards the river would,

in the

book.

I

suspected, be the only motorised jaunt

the meeting.

We

to counterbalance the parade of shaggy scufflers,

my

hoped

needed Archer

1

it

wasn’t a bad

omen,

a blight

on

company of anarchists, disenfranchised artists and petty criminals. (The thought came to me as we passed Bride Court — where I once picked up a very nice copy of Patrick Hamilton’s Twopence Coloured — stock

that in

all

my years

high and low, I

I

dealing in used books,

had never

listed a single

when

I’d

pitched most things,

ARCHER Jeffrey.)

work by

clutching the wheel, uncomfortably constricted by a black linen

sat

waistcoat and jacket (Burton’s special offer) that gave

me

the appearance

of a Mississippi mortician — while Atkins twisted himself up in an unresolved attempt to find

room

for his telescopic legs.

on a second wasn’t even any blood on it.

habit of a lifetime and put there

We

were

early

He’d broken the

clean T-shirt in

and had forty minutes to

kill.

one week. And

An awkward

interval:

not long enough to explore the churchyard of St Mary’s Lambeth search out Elias Ashmole’s

memorial

(to

stone), but just right for a strong

cup of coffee.

Undecided which way to turn to begin our quest (I vetoed the place opposite Alembic House which I’d braved on an earlier walk), we stood on the embankment, looking up at Lord Archer’s tower in its nest of scaffolding. The building seemed to have been sawn-off, amputated. It wasn’t priapic enough.

The pyramid was

missing.

Chatting on the phone, a couple of days

earlier, to

Chris Petit (who was delighted by the psychokinetic

audience with Archer), he’d asked

men who had

fallen

me

if I’d

tionally first

it.)

Petit,

from the building and been

it

feature film, Radio

—

weather, future rock

of this

killed.

(He managed

He

to

to

had the right

occurred to me, was not unlike Jeffrey Archer’s

enhanced account of

existential journey

possibilities

heard about the two work-

give this information a quietly threatening sound.

voice for

the film-maker

fic-

himself: a cerebral doppelganger. Petit’s

On, ran Archer’s

life

in reverse, a mysterious,

Weston-super-Mare (with swathes of prophetic

stars

tending petrol pumps, and unconsummated 171

adulteries).

The

tease out Archer’s true

was

still

a trace

glum as an family tree. But that

anti-hero was as

lovely

West Country burr

element in Archer interviews, an endearment to soften

human, who once

the rehearsed bluster. That a place,

Insight researcher trying to

lived in a particular

survived. Petit was true establishrnejit; his father had

still

been

well-placed in a military/political job of the kind that can’t be openly

and he received

discussed,

University (with kosher

his

education

“O” and “A”

Ampleforth and Bristol

at

levels

and

the trimmings).

all

would have to look elsewhere, as Petit fell among journos and wannabe novelists. It was, from then on, a case of compare and contrast: Petit, the circumspect poet of suburbia, a man

After that, of course. Archer

who

could keep

own

his

counsel, and Lord Archer

who

wasn’t and

couldn’t.

The

on Alembic House were interesting the usual paranoid bells: Regalian (“Development of

construction firms working

and rang

all

Exclusive Apartments with Magnificent River Views”) and Laing of

Marc to take a couple of shots of the advertising hoardings whose texts seemed to have been chosen with the penthouse in mind: DANGEROUS LADY (when she was good/she was very VERY GOOD /but WHEN SHE WAS BAD ). Tuesday 8.30 pm. ITV. London.

I

got

.

THE ARTFUL DODGER

.

.

(vauxhall corsavan).

STAY IN THE

BLACK. The south bank I

was another country. Angela Carter was quite right.

remembered driving down

simply not seeing fingered

We brick

it:

London

is

road to find her place in

Clapham and

crazy detail. Wise Children, Carter’s

“two

cities

novel,

last

divided by a river”.

Road where there is a notable red and crafty art — now boarded up, for sale —

backtracked to Black Prince

folly, all

where

all this

this

grapes and

once, of

I

all

Book Club

tiles

things, gave a reading

from Downriver

to a gather-

Which might explain the building’s current dereliction. But further down the same street was a very welcome signboard: SIRENa’s. ENGLISH BREAKFASTS & ITALIAN SPECIALITIES. Our ing of

reps.

suspicions should have

phe. But

it

was

a siren

been aroused by the correct use of the apostrosong that we couldn’t ignore, although finding

the true entrance to the dive wasn’t easy. First business

— “two cups of coffee and perhaps

uniformed security operative

at

a

the desk; then

you had

to state

your

—

to the

you were required

to sign

round of

toast”

the ledger and clip-on a laminated card (No. 000002). This was as

tough

as

But

was worth

it

getting into Penguin

Books

at

it.

172

the height of the Rushdie

affair.

Sirena

was another glorious

s

plumbed

the Italian restaurant of your dreams

set:

into the cellar of a functioning office block.

There were no

other customers. Traditional red and white checkered

(plastic) table-

pink cloth flowers, photo of football team, poster from Amalfi,

cloths,

Gaggia espresso machine, overhead

ominous

brass fans, strings

of onions and an

wall mirror with a selection of Mediterranean postcards

arranged along

its

base.

The atmosphere was

so calm

and seductive

that

we must have been hit with an anodyne spray: Sirena s (Sans Ire). The set-up was a fake. It had to be. A Secret State listening post, crawling with as many bugs as a rotten log. How else could it stay I

felt

How

open?

else

could such

feelgood ambiance be unrewarded?

a

— Walter and

The

— were actors, convincing but too courteous, too prompt. Those waxy bottles are obviously miked. High frequency squeeks bounce off the garlic bulbs. Cameras whirr behind the long mirror. Not content with the entire river proprietor and his wife

Silvana

frontage between Westminster and Vauxhall Bridges the spooks had

wired

all

the pubs and

were snatched away

caffs.

Debriefing came with the grappa. Ashtrays

for analysis as

soon

as

you

laid aside

your sigaro for

a breather.

Our unspoken fears were confirmed when we tried to sit down. The patron scuttled over: “Not there, please. Two gentlemen come every day.” And this to an entirely deserted room in which there must have been fifteen or twenty girders

and great red

temple

at

toast

pillars (like

King’s Cross).

coffee

is

ceilings held

excellent, the service swift.

The

chunky with marmalade. We forget ourabout the coming encounter with Lord Archer. The lid of

comes ready

selves, gossip

The

Low

up by exposed the boundaries of Aidan Dun’s spiritual

tables.

buttered,

the pepper-grinder glows, and

The Alembic House

lift

absorb any cries for help.

starts

— spontaneously —

was heavily quilted

We

were deposited

to spin.

like a soft cell. It

would

in a panelled hallway, an

A Graham Sutherland goat’s head did its best to invoke the Goldmark Gallery. We felt as if we had blundered into the coda of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; the had been a rebirth and now we had to choose the right door. We antechamber with no obvious

exit.

lift

scratched and tapped at the panels, conscious of the clock hands

ing away from the appointed hour the

“wrong”

decision. Archer

incarnation: as

panels

dung

— ready

would be

to start spinning if we took

revealed in

beetle or talking egg. Then,

swung back and an

attractive

173

young

mov-

some

all at

past or future

once, one of the

Sloane, crisp and efficient.

appeared — to

on

a

tell

book, and

his

us that unfortunately

Lord Archer was away working

son William, the art-history graduate and archivist of

we could help much interest.

the collection, was not available to give us the tour, but

which we had expressed

ourselves to the views in

Game,

and probably match, to Jeffrey

set,

magnanimity by allowing us letter

— ponder

prospects.

I

to

do

precisely

He

what

so

had demonstrated

his

had requested in

my

I

the art collection and photograph the splendid riverside

was in

debt

his

— but he had not

presented

me

with the

opportunity to indulge in any form of interrogation, however bland. Absent, he was

immune

decent thing by tactfully

to ridicule, while

was obliged to do the

I

listing his possessions. Flawlessly played.

The secretary — personal assistant — retreated to her gantry, leaving us to come to terms with this gobsmacking exhibition of wealth and privilege. It would be a strong man who didn’t fantasise about having the use of this flat, the low London skies, the glittering river. A great place for hatching plots, planning coups, or indulging in cosmological meditation, but a hopeless place for hammering away at the keyboard. How could you compete with the panorama that enveloped you? I’ve

never been in a writer’s

you with such

that hit

a sense

home —

if you

could

The

of its separateness.

call this a

home —

qualitative differ-

ence that Scott Fitzgerald (one of the authors Lord Archer purports to

saw

collect)

wealth

as a

as

dividing the rest of us from the seriously rich. This was

vocation.

I

was used to apologetic

cribs, part inherited, part

- book wrecks, uncorseted sofas - not so much lived in as resurrected. The writer’s life as an unequal struggle with chaos theory.

salvaged

Provisional slums awaiting the big advance, the Finnish translation that

would

furnish a

new

set

of curtains. Lord Archer,

content with simply buying his it

made

in larger than life size.

thrones like a mosquito

Before initiating

a

on

own

had the chutzpah to have satin

a tiger’s nose.

complex and convoluted as the Radio On, I pondered Archer’s indul-

tracking shot

in allowing us to

born-again cad, not

He’d perch on one of these striped

dark opening sequence of Petit’s

gence

furniture,

a

wander

as

freely over his fabulous

domain.

I

had

written to half-a-dozen others with a stake in this stretch of the river painters, archivists, businessmen, keyholders

-

asking for interviews,

intelligence, permission to view. Universal silence. Legal

Property Management,

Kokoschka painted

who now

I

his 1962, god’s-eye riverscape

should

visit

the spot

and General

control Millbank Tower,

from the Vickers Building, Millbank), were gracious request, that

{View of

enough

where the painter

174

-

set

the

where Thames

to grant

up

my

his easel.

but they were obliged to

upon an insurance indemnity: /^250 + cheques in advance. An offer which had,

insist

VAT. Per person. Certified

(Kokoschka s Westminster

reluctantly, to decline. flags

I

and towers; unpeopled but

alive. Its

not

a

matter of hierarchies and

under

architectural detail: a pulsing cellular sample

UnEnglish, the excitement of a

molten stack of

a

is

frantic sky.

a

from

capital city lifting itself organically

the river’s sediment.)

We

were

in

Lord Archer’s debt and

it

left

us uncomfortable.

Cynicism, bred of the times, had made us suspicious of altruism and the public charity of gangsters Perversely,

(which remains charity for

who

was the character

it

ject (whatever that was) that

we

had shown most

trusted least.

The

all

faith in

that).

our pro-

leap of consciousness

We

required to calmly evaluate the penthouse was beyond us.

were

almost obliged to demonstrate our integrity by throwing ourselves from the balcony.

The

spacious L-shaped apartment

is

on two

levels,

with the river-

facing office/ study set above the reception area, and accessed by marble stairs,

The

flanked with golden griffins (multiples of the Maltese Falcon).

design

by Julian Dakowski —

is

The

Granchester.

Parliament on the

eastern

arm of the L

bank and

left

who

St

also

renovated the kitchen

Houses of

faces downriver: the

Thomas’s hospital on the

at

with

right,

the three bridges (Lambeth, Westminster, Hungerford) diminishing in perfect perspective. Sitting at the

with

tragic poet

a

taste

end window, sundowner

for sentimental elegies

in hand, a

would have been

uniquely placed to watch the Marchioness go down. Photographs, however tactfully composed, cannot do justice to the civic prospect.

The

kick of visionary rapture outreaches Wordsworth on

the roof of his coach glideth at his

own

as

he jolted over Westminster Bridge: “The river

sweet will

.

.

.

And

all

that

mighty heart

is

lying

still!”

Mendacious and mascuHne, the khaki Thames is as much present on this day, as it was for the Cumberland poet: a mirror of clouds and shadows.

The span of Thomas Page’s cast-iron bridge doubles into a rank of caves. The low tide reveals steep gravel beaches. Bruised blue pebbles, flints,

glinting bottle-tops against the fleshy pink of the bridge’s paint-

work. Poets can snatch

at

it,

carry away their hasty illuminations for

revision in tranquillity. Painters are forced to take their time, let the sub-

ject

work them

over.

The

poets don’t

they’ve been gulled. They’ve been

realise, until

programmed

it’s

too

late,

that

all

these

domes and

balconies by a peculiarly seductive electromagnetic

field.

Painters

prey to epiphanies of light on stone.

fall

175

to celebrate

They bend and

twist

the shapes at the margin until the river sition, until

a slash

it’s

after days in the

of reflected

darkroom,

are

is

squeezed out of the compo-

sky. (Marc’s prints,

when he emerges

cloud: a sense of width and

all river, all

expansion.)

We’ve His at

lost

it,

the

way Turner knew

earliest oil in the Tate’s collection

that the, Thames is

a

nocturne. Moonlight:

Millbank (1797), sombre and melancholy

fiddle

of place.

The

Impressionists

stone and water and sun

as a

was everything.

- having no

wanted

to

A

Study

truck with the

compromise, perceive

shimmering stream of

light, a

drunken

dance of particles. Kokoschka and the Expressionists struck metaphors for their

own

Violent compromises

between

responding and exploiting: the

sickness,

art that

is

—

the kind for

which

commissioned and

felt a

I

art that

is

soul’s

weather.

residual affection

free to indulge

—

wa^^ard

parabolas of insanity.

John Bellany in St Thomas’s Hospital, undergoing a course of treatment and taking tests before his liver transplant, painted London Scene (1989), a furious seizure, upstream towards Alembic House — with Lambeth Palace as a trivial aside; the septic river draining like a wound. The sky’s a botched lid, a sponge of blood. “They should think of the view when they build hospitals,” Bellany said. “I was always in the ward for no-hopers and everybody around me was dying.” He presented St

Thomas’s with the work that was, in

series.

Which

fere with,

is

opinion, the best of the

absolutely right: that his canvas

window

should inter-

and enrich, our perception of the external world.

These paintings belong from the

his

river.

I

read

to the city, they should never

somewhere

one of Mrs Thatcher’s

cabinets,

that

be removed

Lord Gowrie, on taking

immediately had

a car sent

office in

around to

Bellany ’s studio to pick up a clutch of works to humanise his office. Peter

vened

Wright at

the

in Spycatcher (1987) reports

flat

of Dick White,

who

on

a security

had replaced

Sir

meeting con-

John

Sinclair as

head of MI6: “paintings from the National Gallery lined the walls”. State art shunted from department to department, from civil servant to Secret State creeper, from desk-admiral to temporary politician: public trophies stolen from the public gaze. Glance at the at

all

the territory along

its

map of the Thames,

banks, within the alembic, between

Hungerford and VauxhaU Bridges — the ministries, military/political architecture with memorials to war heroes; Treasury, Foreign Office; historic

and contemporary bunkers and tunnels; abbeys, cathedrals,

church palaces. Parliament, private and

official

residences of party func-

tionaries; enclosed gardens, police surveillance, counter-terror. All

176

of it

funnelling back into the royal parks, the benches reserved for spooks to

meet

their controllers; art chat, the leisurely debriefing

of Sir Anthony

Blunt; the rare privilege of being allowed to pay to tiptoe lesser bric-a-brac

The shifts

then

we

river

the

orthe somnolent House of Windsor. Immeasurable

we are not tithe-paying on dur own inheritance.

chunks of London have been swallowed. tourists

among

are suspects, trespassing

moves through

If

time, obsessively painted and sketched,

of light captured, so that

it

retains

its

special status as a

ribbon of

memory: a journey through a collection of these images becomes the best way of travelling back, discovering what we have done to ourselves. And yet how many of the Tate Gallery’s dozens and dozens of riverscapes have we been permitted to see? The list is extraordinary, running from George Price Boyce’s

Moonlight Sketch (1863) to

Blackfriars Bridge:

Walter Greaves’ Battersea Reach

(c.

1870), to Whistler, Kokoschka, Paul

Maitland, Victor Pasmore’s The Thames

at

Chiswick (1943—4),

Andre

The Pool of London (1906), Claude Muncaster, Francis Macdonald, WiUiam CoUins, Patrick NA Smyth, Turner’s London Derain’s

JMW

Muhrman, Samuel CorneHus Varley, WiUiam

from Greenwich (exhib. 1854), Peter de Wint, Henry Scott, Charles

Nappier Hemy, Daniel Turner,

Roberts’ The Port of Lotidon, William Marlow, David Bomberg’s St Paul’s

and

the Riuer (1914),

Joseph Axe Sleap, George Thomson, James

Barry’s The Thames, or Triumph of Navigation (1792),

James Burnet,

David Cox, Edwin Edwards, William Havell, James Holland’s The Thames Below Woolwich (1843), Lord Methuen’s The Tate Gallery from the Surrey Side (1940), Arthur Douglas Peppercorn, Sir Joshua Reynolds,

Richard Wilson, James Dufheld Harding, John LinneU, Charles Ginner,

Holman, George Vicat Cole’s The Pool of London and another version with the same title by Matthew White Ridley. The Thames has Francis

been diverted into an underground channel, the darkness and obscurity of the reserve collection. A greater acreage of London views hangs in government departments, in elegant offices, than in all the refurbished salons of the Tate Gallery.

A virtual

reality river, in

framed panels of oil

and watercolour, has been broken up, suborned to flow across the stucco of Whitehall like a private trout stream.

The journalist David

Lister reported that

“more than 200

paintings

have gone missing from Ministry of Defence buildings”. These had

been

by the Government Art Collection which “currently owns 15,000 works”. “206 paintings are unaccounted for” in one department alone. They have simply vanished from the corridors of lent out

.

.

.

those imposing white buildings, with their flags and blind 178

windows

and regiments of uniformed security personnel. They have slipped through the surveillance screen like all those other meaningless, selfimportant secrets husbanded by Group Four, the Ring of Five, and the

Red

Orchestra.

If the official catalogue ficient,

of 15,000 potential

then ministers can always raid the

space-fillers proves insuf-

state

hoard. John Major, for

example, “sequestered” a Hockney double-portrait from the Tate, along

with “five masterpieces” from the National Gallery. Kenneth Clark

makes do with eight paintings from the National Gallery

Downing

at

No.

11

with ten others “squirrelled away” in the Treasury.

Street,

This Goeringesque zeal for acquired culture trumps those plutocrats

who

buy

still

own

their

stags, waterfalls

and dingy landscapes.

Covert redistributions put Lord Archer s collection (“one of the most valuable in the land... which

some

million”) into perspective.

begins to look

own

an assertion of his for

with

own

his

cash,

It

estimate could be worth around a pretty

modest proposition:

which he

displayed in a building

taste,

and which he makes more readily

has paid

available to

students and busybodies (such as Atkins and myself) than the galleries that

we

have been required to support. Archer’s current exhibition can

look across the river that

random

at

the Tate without blushing. At ^(^10 imllion, if

means anything,

figure

his

holdings are negligible, no

significant than the meretricious trash

posthumous jumble

sale. It

more

amassed for Robert Maxwell’s

couldn’t be compared, for example, with the

collection accumulated by the Dublin fertiliser magnate, Sir Basil

Goulding — with

Kokoschka and Jack B. turer, a

magnificent examples of

his Expressionist portfolio,

New Man

Yeats.

Archer

confirming

is

more of a Jacobean, an adven-

his status

by exhibiting

a

cabinet of

curiosities.

But the

scale

to the vases

and the organization of Lord Archer’s

of dying

liHes

in public spaces, hotels or

the City).

And

that

is

as

it

—

is

set

—

right

down

one we have previously encountered only

boardrooms (glimpsed on our explorations of should be: because the penthouse

is

the head-

quarters of a public company, Jeffrey Archer, his works and thoughts.

You

can’t

TV

dinner.

sit

here doing the crossword, clipping your

You

are perpetually confronted

nails,

or scoffing a

by the unresting buzz of

London, the challenge of all those centres of power and influence — the indifferent, remorseless river. This glass cage,

of the toys on the for a

table, the

man of ambition and

whatever the indulgence

mirrors and the golden birds, must be hell

unflagging energy

who

from the inner councils of government. To be the 179

has been excluded first

clown

in the

warm-up

land,

act,

and well-disguised

becomes

left

successive book,

The

a harder labour.

any longterm

To be

bitterness.

— which, with each

prose up,

cheerleader, must be an act of peculiar generosity

with the surrogate drama of

more and more

material used

brutal exposure of inadequacy that

is

literary career.

Choosing the art that will promote your oWn special quality of discernment (and also express, by analogue, your personality in the form of a pictorial autobiography of developing taste) demands specialised help: investment brokers, fabric designers, style consultants. You always end

you are the one who is footing the bill — with much more stuff than any one life can reasonably absorb. You’re overadvised, over-exhibited. The room becomes a personal statement, a confession that belongs with your analyst and not on public view. There are far too many choices: lamps, chairs, rugs, chandeliers. Which Miro up - because,

after

for the staircase?

Which Lowry It

all,

Which

Picasso dove shall

common

should signal the

hang en route

to the lavatory?

touch?

was too much for Atkins. Cultural overload brings on

form of migraine.

He

asked to be

started to log the collection.

let

a savage

out on to the balcony, while

Alembic House

is

I

the contemporary

annexe, Archer’s equivalent of the Bankside branch of the Tate

whom he remains in constant rivalry. The domed building on

— with

the north

bank, housing London’s altogether inadequate apology for a survey of

twentieth-century

showcase (once

was the

art,

a prison),

of

gift

Sir

Henry

over the years,

it

among

the treasures

as gifts, tax substitutes,

will never

this

gems from the original that would accumulate

or purchases. But,

British Library, the Tate has an impossible mandate;

expands

Without

an ungrateful nation was disinclined to accept

the sugar trader’s stash of dreary Victoriana: 65 collection could be lost

Tate.

be able to

with the

as

however much

it

fully represent either the fluctuating

reputation of international art stocks, the story of British painting, or

even the endless attempts to make some valid response to the shifting mosaic of

city

and

river.

always think of the gallery on Millbank

(I

twinned with the belching

down

- but

treacle factory at Silvertown, a

as

long haul

which

all

cultural pretensions are abdicated. After negotiating the flood barrier,

it’s

every

river

man

the distance that measures the point at

for himself: the

should be allowed to gawp

Congo at

is

as relevant as

No

the Thames.

the Stanley Spencers, or

lift

the

felt

one

from

the cases of Blakes, until they have completed a tour of inspection at

Silvertown, licked sugar crystals from the Private plunder, the discreet

web of their

fingers.)

pornography of the tycoon, evolves 180

towards institutional benevolence: departments of research and education, sponsorship facilitators, career aesthetes, well-bred diplomats

schooled to talk money. Lord Archer s collection stage. It will

after his

be

left,

so

it is

son William, the

when

understood,

art historian, has

is still

comes — and pick - to Archers

the time

taken his

The westward-stepping

old Oxford college, Brasenose.

in the primitive

funerary caravan

will nicely duplicate the twelve cartloads that carried Elias

Ashmole’s

from John Tradescant’s found the Ashmolean Museum.

raree show, his alchemical exotica, his cuUings

Ark, out from his Lambeth estate to

The Thames

is

like a thread

of consciousness,

a

water spine between the

two cities. Linked settlements: the getting of fortunes and the more measured pace of learning and contemplation. All museums, libraries and

galleries,

should be banished to Oxford. Let them be for the exclu-

of those

sive use

who

walk

will

there.

London should be

left to

cutpurses, brigands, hustlers, ganefs, courtiers, actors, whores, and other

— but never speedy enough. There are too many artificial Deep England villages, too many smoke-free zones, too much repressive hypocrisy. Museums have got above themselves, touting for funds, when they should remember their creatures of business.

It’s

speedy, crazed, murderous

mere cabinets of curiosities. Boxes of tricks, bits of animal skin, fossils, plant freaks: blood cargo. You can’t make this pillage respectable by enclosing it in a fancy pubHc building — with an outhouse for the sale of postcards and embossed pencils. Lord Archer understood origins as

this:

he would scavenge, bargain with gallery owners, play the market.

(He

also

had postcards made of the prime items

these were for promotion, not for I

took out

who

at

the east end

endowed with

are

visual equivalent

of Philip Larkin).

burnt out match-ends.

like

genuine,

I

To the noisier

say.

A

those

who

list

the art works:

don’t like

those

measure of English cynicism — the

A

weary and bloodless

elitism dis-

1958 seascape with jetty and trippers

steep flight of steps

from 1961. Both

Cannily modest, with plenty to be modest about.

right of this pair, in a position of prominence,

affair, a

art,

VuiUard, a family group.

An

acquired

set,

is

a

much

not Archer’s

— although the woman, it can’t be denied, has something of hauteur of Mary Archer. Painterly virtues, colour harmonies, bal-

own the

would

A

like a baiHff, to

(art for

a healthy

guised by technical competence.

But

retail.)

my notebook and began,

two Lowrys down

in his collection.

family

ance and composition remove

this

piece from the genre that comes to

mind: the reworked Polaroid.

Moving down

the passage that leads to the 181

stairs

and the private

sleeping quarters,

you

of political

glide along the inevitable anthology

cartoons (reminding me, once more, of the clustered wall of the upstairs

Goldmark

lavatory at the

Gallery).

There

the exhibition, beloved by

is

of a demohstrable sense of humour. But Archer’s originals do

politicians,

not feature himself, they are more subtle than their kind:

Vicky and Peter Brookes,

Shephard and

Max Beerbohm.

as

These

well

as*

that,

among

the best of

Steadman and

are, if it’s

not

Scarfe,

EH

a contradiction, car-

toons with gravitas, an unspoken programme. Searle’s Churchill portrait

and

his

1960.

Kennedy motorcade (“Kennedy

More

would

Churchilliana (Lady Thatcher

home): Churchill and Beaverbrook by

George by Beerbohm.

Not

Disraeli.

of October

for President”) feel

completely

and Lloyd

Searle, Churchill a lot

ephemeral of forms. The framed doodles fade

at

of laughs in

most

this

like old copies

of Punch

with the captions erased.

Beyond

the cartoons, at the foot of the

away Mir6s — and,

at

stairs,

are a couple

of throw-

the end of the corridor, above a potted plant, a

Leon Underwood: Venus in Kensington Gardens. This is a rather academic affair in which a nude sits in an openair cafe among Underwood’s art-school colleagues. But it is a totem for Archer, a notable

memento of

his

Grafton Street Gallery (“one of

which was featured in More, Not a Penny Less.

his first

my

rare failures”),

and most personal novel. Not

a

Penny

Russell Flint, Lucien Pissarro, Sisley: works mirrored in the columns

of art books gleaming on the low to identify,

glass tables.

examples of the almost

familiar.

by Giacometti. (I’m missing the Goldmark price-tags.)

I

summon

Moore bronze

Small sculptures that

Anorexic things that titles

I

fail

aren’t

and explanations, the

Marc, bring him inside to help locate the Henry

that I’ve read

about — forgetting that

he’s

an ex-

Cheltenham art student with a first class degree and is therefore excused knowledge of precursors and rivals. I should have called for one of the hard-hat lads from the scaffolding.

Too much time is wasted on this quest — we’ve already been up here for over an hour — but need to complete the Moore triangulation. The I

big bronze (that looks from the river like the figure 2) upstream of the

Tate and the one on College Green that camera crews use

park their equipment: pulse racing to the state, city.

I

as a shelf to

believe that they are wired, connected, a gauss-

between them.

Late, factory-produced high art acceptable

and useful for mapping, weighing down, the divisions of the

Visible investments that are not easily dented or defaced.

Cold

metal surfaces to refract the whispers. (These Moores are the equivalent 182

Wren

of the

churches. In time,

all

civic sculpture

from the second half

of the twentieth-century will be attributed to the Yorkshireman. a

church in the City,

on the

forecourt,

it

it’s

must be

a

Wren.

If

it’s

If

bronze, a shaped

a

it is

lump

a

Moore. Owning

a

mirror that extends the conference table where

a

Moore

like

is

hallmarking

your property.)

On

the west wall

is

salesman can be brought for pep

talks,

where

potential glitches circumvented. This

is

deals can

be struck, and

the place to hang Albert

Goodwin’s monumental account of the Palace of Westminster. So

that

the painted version plays against the other, but around the corner from it,

out of sight.

The

world

real

alongside the window, gazes

is

duplicated.

down on

A

spindly figurine, posed

her twin, held in the palm of the

hand by one of A. Drury’s massive female presences that guard the piers of Vauxhall Bridge — the one that symbolises “fine art”. Microcosm and macrocosm: Lord Archer’s designers have achieved a fine balance, a quasi-magical essay on the nature of power. Like a blindfold raid by

Imelda Marcos on the Royal Academy

Summer Show,

the collection

is

— betraying no psychological profile, no is as anonymous as shop stock, an exhibition

driven but wildly eclectic

theme, no compulsion.

It

curated by a squabble of financial advisers.

We

climb the marble

assistant

make

is

working

at

the upper gallery,

stairs to

the keyboard and fielding telephone

the cheque out to Lord Archer. He’ll see

place”.

The low

where the personal

ceiling (with telltale

the light from the river: this

damp

lightweight furniture. Everything bolted in

its

on

place.

“Just

gets to the right

patch), the

a purser’s office

is

it

calls:

wood, the

a cruise liner.

rails,

No

Uncluttered desk

and built-in bookcases with some small part of Jeffrey Archer’s collection of first editions

- aU by one

paperbacks bound in

most

fastidious

books bright and shiny enough

silver,

of dealers.

(Is it

“His” and “Hers” desks a

author, himself. I’ve never before seen

sit

to satisfy the

possible to re-read an Archer?)

on

either side of the stairwell,

backed by

run of Raoul Dufy Thames riverscapes, liquid blue sketches recalling

the posters in the cafe-bar

emotional prompts

The PA

is

success. She’s

—

like the

onion

struggling, ringing

been asked

begin to pronounce,

Having

on the other

let

to

book

side

of the road. Inoffensive

strings in Sirena’s.

round her mates tickets for a

for advice

show with

- without

a title she can’t

alone feed into the spell check: Peer Gynt.

suffered through a misguided production at the Barbican, I’m

enough to help her out. To employ someone to take care of Ibsen for you must be the ultimate luxury. It goes with the cricket bat

reckless

183

inscribed by the English Test team of 1992 to the best captain they

never had, and the

(books

furniture),

as

WG Grace

sculpture (bookend size), the

japed Coke can, the rebound

caricature, the

edges

Max Ernst

set

of Dickens with

gilt-

lamps and mirrors and framed

the

photographs.

The PA was you

still

can’t look at a

ghttering avian

“Gd

to

Harvey Nichols and

summer outfit for under ^2,000. Honestly, you need T-shirt” — as we waved our farewells, semaphored our

^50 for a gratitude. One final at least

busy on the phone —

track across the penthouse: gold, birds everywhere,

objets that link

with the gilded acorns and pineapples and

Ad

obelisk flames of Westminster and Lambeth, with the Per Ardua

on

Astra eagle

its

column.

riverside

Ashmole

aldry in the tradition of Elias

the birds in the east

Roman necked

legionary’s creature,

A wistful blend of alchemy and her-

window look then the

staff,

(established. Royalist, arcane). If

as if

they belong on the end of a

griffins

on the

and the long-

stairs

beneath the mirror on the west wall, carry us directly

back to the mysteries of the Tradescant tomb in St Mary’s churchyard,

Lambeth.

It’s

uncanny. Lord Archer’s imperialist conversation pieces

duplicate and extend the hermetic iconography of the family of seven-

teenth-century gardeners and collectors. the novelist has assembled

alchemical cult with the lance,

is

The bombastic chamber

the go-between linking a long-submerged

MI6 complex and

computer-generated

that

secrets

its

heady brew of surveil-

and occult manipulations.

We would

have to extend our investigation, go right back to the beginning, to the

churchyard

— and on

foot.

3

“Salomon’s House” The

prison-contractors lay out plans

for Pentofwilles

The jndj^es

and ^rand Panopticons

lay foundation-stones in the rain

.

.

.

Aidan Dun, Vale Royal

3/7/95. With so exorcised,

we

set

much

to be absorbed,

out early for

a day’s

and the

taint

walk along the

of car-travel to be river.

Hackney

to

Tower Bridge, then back upstream towards Lambeth. I was preoccupied not only with the after-images of our visit to Lord Archer’s pad (and how I was going to tone down my report to a level where it would 184

restore domestic

harmony), but

House”: the attempts,

early

and

also

with the concept of “Salomon’s

late, to establish

for the interpretation of Nature,

“a Colledge, instituted

and the producing of Great and

Marvellous Works, for the Benefit of men.” This college, incorporating the notion of the in the

museum,

imagination of

its

the library, the herb garden, was always sited,

planners

—

secret architects

its

— somewhere

along the Surrey shore. Dick Humphreys of the Tate Gallery’s Education

Department fed me a very useful essay on this subject by Arthur Macgregor — ‘“A Magazin of all Manner of Inventions’ (Museums in the quest for ‘Salomon’s House’ in seventeenth-century England)” published in 1989 in the Journal of the History of Collections.

Macgregor

traces the various attempts

made

to give practical expres-

Bacon

sion to the visionary notion floated by Francis Atlantis, nity,

published in 1627. Bacon proposed a kind of secular

sheltered

New commu-

in his tract,

from the world, which would have the space within

grounds to display inspiring objects and

artifices

from the

past alongside

inventions and prototypes from the best mechanics of the present. spiritually-inclined

herbalist

would work

astrologer-poet, the musician with the psychic

lishment of

this

The

harmony with the geographer. By the estabin

protected module, the health and potency of the

commonwealth, the working its

its

city,

would be

attractions. (Inspiration leading rapidly,

incipient chaos: something like Black

safeguarded.

The

through colliding egos, to

Mountain College, North

Carolina, at the time of Charles Olson’s rectorship.

Or London’s

Laingian anti-university. Glorious in retrospect. Sacrifices

Those who feed

idea had

made

to sus-

on the risks taken by better men.) Salomon’s House, if it could be realised, would combine all the richest and strangest elements from the flotilla of museums on Exhibition Road, the Tate and National Galleries, the Chelsea Physic Garden and the Royal College of Surgeons. Bacon’s seed-idea germinated aU sorts of shapes - but always in this tain the culture at large.

for generations

London, beyond the bearpits, theatres and brothels. Robert Boyle and Samuel Hartlib were two members of a group that conspired part of

to convert the visionary thesis into a practical form. Bacon’s concepts

document that outlined a series of proposals for the establishment in VauxhaU of an “Office of Public Address.” (Such grandiose - but convincing - moonshine rhapsodies are common cur-

were synthesised in

a

rency to the Millennium Committee. Fantasies to mitigate the squalor

of our banana repubfic

London

as

lottery.

A great gambler’s wheel for the foreshore.

Las Vegas. Virtual-reality towers to foul up the natural 185

prospects of Greenwich, to blight the necessary wilderness, out there

beyond the sewage farms of Beckton. “Capture the view”,

as if that

excuses everything.)

Elements of Hartlib

s

memorandum —

the housing of “rare

and Engines”, the creation of “a place of resort whereunto

Models

Artists

and

'

Ingeneers from abroad and

one of the many

into

at

home may

lavish brochures

of the

thetic climate for the launching at

The chosen

Bankside.

the

new

plant

.

.

I

— would

repaire”

knocked out

new

fit

seamlessly

to prepare a

sympa-

Tate Gallery of Modern Art

Herzog and de Meuron, are keen to of the power station a “luminous glass

architects,

incorporate into the structure

beam”, “a construction

_

that simultaneously advertises the presence

of

gallery to the outside world, houses the air conditioning .

and accommodates the glazing for the top

floor.”

The

senti-

mental strategy of featuring one or more of the defunct generators, heritage ballast, was toyed with and rejected.

An

as

overhead crane, useful

be retained — and encouraged

for shifting

major works of sculpture,

to oscillate

“between the matter-of-fact and the mysterious, the sub-

stantial

will

and the evanescent.” Casting the future

is

now

a

simple matter.

Computer

graphics, laid into the publicity material, are as convincing as

any of the

tactfully

lit

illustrations.

may never happen: Rachel

We

can appreciate exhibitions that

Whiteread’s House dwarfed and solitary in

where generators once convened without a team of han-

the shafts of light that flood into the vault

howled. Richard Long’s

The magical

dlers.

art

slate circle

of the proposal.

Vauxhall, Lambeth, Bankside: favoured landscapes in

which

to locate

House of Memory, the properly aligned set of complex of orchards and gardens. The colleges

the Invisible College, the

buildings within a

founded on the other City,

side

were another thing:

of the

river,

protected by the privileges of the

a resource, a think-tank, generators

of strate-

— Gresham College, where Wren was Professor of Anatomy, and Sion College, whose name promises so much more than its overt presence can deliver. Gresham College was funded by the rents Sir Thomas Gresham received from the 100 shops he placed on the first gic intelligence

storey of the Royal Exchange. Seven professors ture

on astronomy, geometry,

were appointed

to lec-

physics, law, divinity, rhetoric, music.

Learning put to the service of merchants. The college buildings stretched from Old Broad Street to Bishopsgate, with Bull Alley and

Wormwood

Street to the north,

to the south:

ground now

lege, a

and Sun Yard and the South Sea House dominated by the Nat West Tower. (The col-

ghost of itself, has been banished to Holborn, where free lectures 186

are

still

given.

At one of these - 27/2/95 - Atkins and

Home

behind the psychogeographers, Stewart

sitting

dissertation

to

and Fabian,

examine the

tion of the Salomon’s

We

Stopped for

candidacy for operating the

Tate’s

House paradigm. “Deplanting” was

latest

the

without destroying

arcadian

Lambeth

tour of this

site,

its

in

Galaxy”

commune

(I

power

had been invited on

from outside, along with

investment bankers, cultivated explainers, practitioners, such as

muta-

“Deplanting”: the antithesis of the

by the Tradescants.

initiated

peeping

fabric.

a

name of

the game, getting the industrial evidence out of Gilbert Scott’s station

at a

on John Donne.)

ELIZABETHAN SECURITY. DEPLANTING BANKSIDE.

moment

found ourselves

I

art

a

gaggle of Swiss

diplomats

— and even

David Medalla, once of the notorious “Exploding

of 99

Pond Road.

Balls

1

nibbled the canapes and

heard the pitch, valiantly and persuasively delivered by Sandy Nairn.

how

a

I

demonic machines of Nuclear Electric were to be pacified and the entire South Bank re-enchanted: Globe Theatre, with its “Starrs Mall” left open to the skies, opera house, prison as museum. But others, according to the whispers I picked up, were already plotting understood

the

against the conversion

of this

austere, light-swallowing

monster with

its

crematorium smokestack. Acts of Steinerist counter-magic were openly discussed: bricks

removed

at

night and substituted for duplicates, packed

with the ashes of burnt formulae. millions impacted into a

tile

Rumours of the

that could

K Foundation,

their

be slipped unnoticed into the

exterior wall.)

This blatant “deplanting” of Bankside was an assault on the energy field;

meditative /explosive art consciousness

generation of electricity.

from some pitching smoke. The river in the

The

craft,

attracts futile

to replace the

above the tower, seen from the

skies

were

would have

river,

wonder: cloud-coral standing in

a

for

energy-creating machines: the treadmill

Millbank Penitentiary, or the proposed millennial Ferris wheel on

Embankment. Punitive circuits designed to impress committees. Atkins and 1 made a hurried circumnavigation of the site, discovering,

the

on the south

side, a

sunken

grass arena,

approached by ramp and by

eminently suitable for performance or ceremony. This, within splash

of the Bear Gardens, was where

to the area’s transformation.

Two

we

a

steps,

blood

witnessed a playlet dedicated

bullet-heads were sprawled

on the

bank, drinking, and loosing their dogs, pit bull compromises, in fierce

combat. The beasts were taking effectively destroy a series

hurl the cone into the

air,

it

of orange

and

in turns to see

traffic

as far as

187

cones.

who

could most

The non-owner would

he could manage without

falling

on

flat

then time

his face,

pathetic curls of rubber.

while

his rival’s pet,

The

grass

militant Buddhists. (Watching,

I

looked

as if it

shredded the cone into

had been cropdusted by

how terrorists would smug-

understood

They would simply

gle explosives into the road-blocked City.

with

it

of traffic cones, cones stuffed \vith

a lorryload

arrive

lethal fertiliser.)

4.

poisonous an egg should have been

most horrid it

much

longer

whence, one must

fear,

a

many people,

will be born if

and be formented with further

bilious matter''

basilisk, a great

be hatched

laid,

danger

to

very

John Dee

St Mary’s

Churchyard, alongside Lambeth Palace.

inside the church

— which we

need

still

It’s

far

too early to get

to do, to locate Elias Ashmole’s

memorial f durante Musaeo Ashmoleano Oxon. nunquam moriturus"). When, a few days later, this is accomplished, and we amble through the Garden Museum, read the prompt cards, study the maps, notice the duplicate of Powhatan’s Mantle (original in the Tradescant

Ashmolean),

we

are

no further

in

Room at the

our quest. Ashmole’s stone

behind chipboard, part of an administrative complex: to be

some

the eyes of the uninitiated at

The

light

soft,

is

a

hidden

laid before

future time.

sympathetic to stone.

shorthand, the Tradescant story, tune

about to take:

is

Marc

family of notable gardeners

I

summarise, in pamphlet for the photographs

whose

estates

he

is

were about

a

mile and a half to the south of Lambeth Church. John Tradescant the

Elder like

(c.

1570—1638), grey-bearded, earringed, skullcapped in black

Dr Dee

(according to the portrait attributed to

Emmanuel De

Critz in the Ashmolean), was a botanist and collector, a traveller, an

importer of alien shrubs and

man who was his patron,

plants.

Tradescant was of Dutch descent, a

comfortable in Europe, making excursions on behalf of

Robert

Cecil, the

first

Earl of Salisbury, to acquire trees for

Hatfield House: cherry, quince, apple, pear, walnut, lime. Paris

The

and Rouen

in search

of exotic

fruits:

pomegranates,

Then on

figs,

to

peaches.

gardener, like the poet, the architect and the musician, served at the

court of political

some great temporal lord, helping him to express wealth and power in a visible form: geometric plantings as part of a system

of metaphysics. Herbs to heal, sounds to soothe, curious natural objects to contemplate.

Language

in perpetual revision, fretted

188

by the

new

philosophy, the discoveries of travellers, reports of alchemists and workers

of angel-magick. Tradescant,

who

had only one defect

— compensated

sense ot smell

who

ships

with those

those

who would

(In Elizabethan

botanical gardener

his gift for

— no

forming relation-

could be useful to him, to his covert purpose:

allow

London

him it

to

make

surrogate voyages of exploration.

was possible to meet everybody, walk every-

human knowledge. Now we keep to convinced that we know nothing — that each new

where, be in touch with ourselves, hide away,

by

for this

as a

all

discovery eliminates former convictions.) Captain John Smith was a

with

friend, returned across the Atlantic

Pocahontas had aroused great interest

—

tales

at court.

of the virgin

forest.

Tradescant invested

—

Company. He secured the Mantle of Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, for his Ark - his collection of curios at Lambeth. And what a thing this was for the coming mercantile city, the “adventured”

in the Virginia

cosmological blanket stitched from four deerskins: with figure,

its

totemic animals,

its

star-field

of clustered

its split

shells.

Plunder the

equal of anything in the Egyptian rooms of the British Tradescant offered his

map of intent

(which had the name of a boat); back, returned to her death

He

at

to the river, placed

let it

remain

it

human

Museum.

in his

house

when Pocahontas was

sent

Gravesend.

progressed, after the demise of Cecil’s son, William, to Keeper of

the Closet of Rarities for

George

Villiers,

Duke of Buckingham:

a

catholic collection that included an elephant’s head, as well as that of a

“River horse

museum was Ark — tised

.

.

the Begest that can be Gotten”. Buckingham’s proto-

.

the inspiration for Tradescant’s storehouse at Lambeth, the

which the public were admitted on payment of 6d. A privaculture-for-cash transaction that showed the way to future to

riverrine enterprises.

Recognition from royalty came with Tradescant’s appointment

as

Keeper of Gardens, Vines and Silkworms at Oatlands Palace (on the Thames, between Walton and Weybridge). He was also able, during this period, to advise

on

the planting and laying out of Oxford’s Physic

Garden — while continuing to cultivate his orchards and experiment with bio-dynamic imports in South Lambeth. Lambeth, Lamb of the River, damp pastureland, was blessed by the rudiments of

a

new Oecology,

a

tentshow rendering of Salomon’s

House. The kind of cottage industry that was to be attempted, in very different ways,

by future

Road bower) and Jeffrey

residents:

William Blake (naked

in his Hercules

Archer, assembling the treasures of his period. 189

as

he understood them, in

When

his

high

glass cell, his pilot

s

cabin.

the great gardener died and the bell of St Mary’s tolled for his

John Tradescant the Younger (1608—1662), was in Virginia, carrying on his father’s work: the pursuit of the rare and strange. He returned to England, to his inheritance, with “about two American hundred plants as well as seeds and dried specimens funeral, his son,

.

Plane,

Swamp

There

Emmanuel De ond

man

Cypress, Virginian Bladder Nut, purple Pitcher Plant.”

two

are

portraits

fine

Critz

a skull

a

related to Tradescant’s sec-

one painting the red-bearded, open-shirted

powerful hand on

on which

of the son, again attributed to

(who may have been

wife, Hester Pooks). In rests a

.

.

he contemplates

his spade. In the other,

mossy wig of curls

is

growing. (Sympathetic magic,

suggested in his

Kenelm Digby of Gresham College, who the Cure of Wounds that powder should be

rubbed into

that caused the

by

like that practised

wound

Sir

book Ofi the weapon

wound and

not into the

Digby according to his epitaph was “born on the day he died, th’Eleventh of June”. And, since we share a birthday, I choose to honour his eccentricities. ) The significant and inevitable moment in the younger Tradescant’s

life,

itself.

the convergence of streams, arrived

Ashmole, genealogist, alchemist and

in 1650,

fanatical collector.

he met

Ashmole

Elias

visited

proprietor, and even settled himself into a neigh-

the Ark, cultivated

its

bouring

the

estate. In

when,

summer of 1652 Ashmole brought

his

second

wife, Mary, to “table” with the Tradescants, so that the wives should

become

as close as

the husbands.

He

insinuated himself into the house-

hold and was given every opportunity to examine the collection leisure.

Wishing

to

be of service, he offered, with

to catalogue the rarities.

The

at his

Dr Thomas Wharton,

was gratefully accepted and Musaeum

offer

Tradescantianum published in 1656.

no one to safeguard the South Lambeth Ark, he began

Tradescant’s only son, John, had died in 1652 and so, with

add to the holdings, or to to fret over the future

of the collection. The idea of willing the

And

rarities

Ashmole was on hand to facilitate the arrangement. After a seasonal rout in December 1659, when heroic quantities of drink were taken, Ashmole produced a deed of gift which Tradescant signed in front of witnesses - granting the colto a university

occurred to him.

Elias

lection to Ashmole.

Within Bill in

The

a

month of Tradescant’s death

Chancery

case

against the

was decided

in

widow,

in 1662,

a lady

Ashmole preferred

of insecure temperament.

Ashmole’s favour. (He was, 190

a

after

all,

a

lawyer

and to

a

notorious and well-connected

keep the

during her

rarities

litigant.)

Hester Tradescant, entitled

ceded them in 1678 — two

lifetime,

years before she killed herself.

Ashmole, in retirement, extended the Tradescant property, the Ark, successfully assimilated

his

South Lambeth

estate to absorb

He had

orchards and gardens.

its

whatever virtue

lay in that patch

of ground: the

arrangements of plant beds, native and exotic, astrologically sympathetic allies, medicinal herbs

—

their texture, shape, odour.

BuUrushes” sent back from Virginia,

scarlet

in the

runner beans from the West

Cornelian Cherry and the

Indies, the Lilac, the

“Moses

now

extinct Great

Rose Daffodil (with its unique capacity for doubling). The coins and seals that Ashmole assembled to replace those lost in the Middle Temple fire of January 1679 were brought to Lambeth, added to the Tradescant curios, the books and alchemical papers (including those of Dr John Dee). Ashmole pondered, but never accomplished, a history of Freemasonry and a biography of Dee. What he did do was to initiate an hermetic museum of the river: linking Dee’s destroyed library into the

air)

Mortlake (alchemised by

at

their astrologicaUy-inspired architec-

and with the Tate Gallery (with

remembrances of an

ideal

its

men

(the

Narrow

Archers, David Lean’s hidden arcadia in

seascapes,

structures,

its

combining

Owens and MeUors and Street,

Limehouse), pay

House: gathering images and icons, laying out

to Salomon’s

rooms and chambers

dynamic Turner

London). All these

with the private holdings of successful

homage

angelic dialogues lifted

with the future cottage of William Blake, the Globe and

Rose and Fortune Theatres (and ture),

fire,

that achieve an idiosyncratic quality

operate outside the reckless

fret

of

stillness,

of the present. So that the removal of

Oxford was an act of liberation: unseen, unexthe Ark would achieve its true potency.

Tradescant’s hoard to ploited,

And

it

is

the light

tombstones and

on

this particular

partially erased

blistering finish to

memorials, the haze that promises a

our excursion, the vegetable

of wild speculations, and motivates yard of St

broken

Mary

texts,

at

morning, coming up from the

Lambeth

as

this

now

We

excursion.

an uncovered

gallery,

chain

see the church-

an intriguing

set

of

herbal hints, signifiers, symbols to be touched and tested.

We can’t get at the Tradescant tomb which is

light, that links a

part of the

is

in the enclosed garden that

museum. But we have seen

this

before (moored

alongside the stone vessel that contains the bones of Bligh of the Bounty); seen

it,

photographed

it,

brooded on 191

it.

Mounted on

granite

another Henry Moore, the sepulchral chest

slabs like

undoubted

treasures

of our floating museum:

pictorial narrative that will take

many

it

coded

is

one of the

is

in layers

of

miles of hard walking to unravel.

tomb — was Ashmole with his passion for sigils, magical ideograms, implicated? — could be read as a whole, a widescreen

The

design for the

tapestry,

with thick, sponge-cluster

could be divided into four discrete panels. the illustration from The Thames at

&

masking the corners: or

trees

its

The

Views,

Magdalene College, Cambridge, should

which, according to

side

now

in the Pepys Library

monas-

face west, features a

ruin (perhaps a reference to St Augustine’s garden

tic

it

at

Canterbury

employed by Edward, Lord Wotton). If the building, pictured in low relief, doesn’t represent an incident from life, it might instead be a prophetic vision of Lambeth Palace: the land slipping away to a primal swamp, out of which crawl the crocodile and

where the

the

and whose muddy bank

snail,

liberated

The sketch)

elder Tradescant was

life

decorated with ammonites,

fossils

from Tradescant’s Ark.

eastern panel (inaccurately represented in the Pepys Library is

What

the most remarkable of all: an urban apocalypse.

do with

to

is

a family

of gardeners? The revenge of the plants? Vegetable

exposing the pretensions of stone, reducing the

Aztec desolation? Broken

and inundation: the

has this

pillars, tilted

river rising to

temples to an

city’s

pyramids, tumbled arches. Floods

sweep away

all

the potentialities of

Nicholas Hawksmoor’s baroque overview, his ordered mapping destroyed

before

it

could be articulated.

revealed by a retreating tide.

The end

It is

The

Tradescant

both

a retrieval

tomb

and

a

is

a

monolith

warning.

panel, the panel nearest the church, clarified this climate of

incipient millennial threat into orthodox alchemical imagery: a skull

guarded, or threatened, by

a

seven-headed hydra.

A

creature that sends

us straight back to the

that invokes a place

we

have

already visited:

Archer’s gilded bestiary.

The

book of emblems, Alembic House and Lord

design of the penthouse exploited symbolic forms that had been in place for hundreds of years in the churchyard

it

overlooked.

Archer’s temperament, like that of Ashmole, could certainly be

described

as

mercurial.

It

was not only elements of the

radical left (cited

Christopher Hill in The World Turned Upside Down, 1972)

who

by

took an

magic and the mystical world-view during the period of the Interregnum. There was also a tradition, with Ashmole as the most notable

interest in

exemplar, of conservative, pro-monarchist investment in the hermetic

canon. Ashmole’s fascination with Dee,

Queen

Elizabeth’s imperial

geographer, and his lifelong obsession with alchemy (which included the 192

publication, in 1652, of Tlieatricum in the context

of

careerist, a social

He

advantage. settled

a

Chcmicum Britannkum), should be seen

profoundly hieratic notion of

society.

believed that “the Order and Symmitry of the Universe that the lowest things

.

.

should be

.

diately subservient to the Midle; the Midle (or Caelestiat) to those

Alchemy, with

—

its

catalogue of emblems,

above, so below

as

a

climber prepared to marry, several times, for wealth and

by the Lawes of Creation,

dences

He was

— was

its

is

so

imme-

above ...”

system of correspon-

the key to any interpretation of

Lambeth Churchyard. Looking around the

was open to the

area that

public was like leafing through the engravings in Michael Maier’s Scrutininm

Chymicuni.

(Maier,

a

proto-Rosicrucian, had lived in

England, intermittently, between 1612 and 1616, and was

known

to

Ashmole, Robert Fludd, and the alchemists of the Bartholomew’s Court circle — Dr Francis Anthony and David Dee.) Death and regeneration. The startling transmutation of the leaden water in the fountain’s bowl,

And beyond

dish of gold.

as

the sun breaks cover, into a

shimmering

the fountain, back towards the river, twin

and yellow holly-

obelisks supporting a pair of golden acorns. Pink

hocks climb against the grey of the church, against rough stone that has

been

set as

haphazardly

as

crazy paving.

To the south of the porch previous garden,

visits

we

deserves.

is

monument which

a

but never inspected. Barred from church and Tradescant

have the time to give the Sealy Family memorial the time

An

An

urn in the shape of a cosmic egg.

tongue of flame and intertwined by swallowing

have noticed on

1

own

its

tad.

(As Atkins

concentration, the pink tattoo

on

a

moves

his left

it

urn crowned with

a

dentated snake in the act of in

with

his

camera, tenses with

bicep repeats the motif.)

The

great

serpent seems to have been adapted from Maier’s emblem, Tlie Dragon and

Woman

the L.).

And

and

destroy one another

cover themselves with blood

(Epigramma

the background in this engraving, the ruined masonry, the pyra-

midical spikes, refers to the apocalyptic panel of the Tradescant tomb. (Our

excitement, rushing from grave to grave, standing back, photographing

close-up

detail,

blurts out his

The

chipped stanzas of necrophile

middle name — Bryan —

Sealy verse looks, in

twisted syntax,

as if it

its

as

use of

verse,

an offering,

random

such that Atkins

is

a confession.)

capitalisation

and

belongs in Ashmole’s alchemical anthology.

Lean not on Earth,

'twill pierce

thee to the Heart.

A BROKEN REED at best, but On sharp point PEACE bleeds, its

193

oft

a

and

SPEAR;

HOPE

expires.

its

And, more than

that,

on

closer examination,

can be seen that the

it

ghost of another poem, or earlier version of this one,

is

hidden beneath;

the letters filled in and partially obliterated.

some more leisured occasion. Now we have to push on, to locate Tradescant s Ark in South Lambeth Road. We have a metaphor with which to work. A minor mystery to debate as we walk south — pausing briefly, at Alembic House, to drop off, with a note of thanks, two of Marc s best prints, taken from Lord Archer’s balcony, classically austere river views, which the phoI

let

the riddle

lie

for future interpretation,

tographer has laboured over for hours in his darkroom. contribution to the In the lobby, as a

man

London

we

lift.

Good humoured,

we bump

missed the news that the Beatles have broken up.

white (loafing on the marina)

income. The

effortless

security operative I

know

Someone

manners of a

the face. I’ve seen

it

and

A

in the press.

his

westward route. this turf.

shirt

and away.

skips across the road, covers

on

A loose

beachcomber with a private natural gent. A cheery wave to the

slacks.

He

cents,

against

unhurried, he smiles and

nods. Dark, pudding-basin hair meeting the raised eyebrows.

who

small

portfolio.

carry our package to the desk,

stepping from the

A

It’ll

come

me

as

I

I

set

From Alembic House

to get the shot.

out to track our suspect on

me. There

to

Marc

signal

are

no

no inno-

civilians,

to Tintagel

House

(the Met’s

which Nipper Read and his team were photographed after banging up the Krays), the story begins to fall into place. This whole prime chunk of river frontage is Matter of Britain real estate. Archer’s Alembic House named after a base for covert operations, the building outside

standard item of alchemical equipment, a vessel used in distilling.

House (the Met’s gesture at Eastern European anonymity) and Camelford House (where BT does whatever it does, authorised eavesdropping): mock Arthurian, Tennyson-on-Thames. Mythical names

Tintagel

ironically

invoked for

neo-Fascist stacking. Three build-

this exercise in

ings so dull that you’d have to be out

on licence

to notice

them.

Tintagel Cliff imported to London: Either Pendragon’s stronghold, birthplace of Arthur.

(Could

it

Nine

floors

of nothing with

a spike

on the

roof.

be one of those photovoltaic scanners that are currently exer-

windows you can see the reflection of the next tower block, of Camelford House. And in Camelford House you can see the MI6 palace. The three run into each cising Chris Petit’s imagination?). In the gauze

other: the mercury, sulphur and

salt

of alchemy. Bad

something go wrong with the water 194

down

there,

electricity: didn’t

Camelford?

Isn’t that

the part of the world

where they have

to apologise for excessive enthu-

siasm in the application of X-rays?

When

names of sacred places are applied to Secret State architecture, duck out. The mythology was suspect in the first place, edited to appease Tudor power brokers with dubious bloodlines. Or varnished by Pre-Raphaelites over Victorian squalor. It’s the same scam as plasthe

names of poets around prolapsed housing pegged our man. He ambles along without a

tering the I’ve

He

He’s used to being followed.

from

he’ll slip

unconcern

to the river,

Farrell’s

on

him conspicuous. to the

he needs

to,

minimal arm movement: an aura of

That’s obvious, because today for the

down

care in the world.

When

doesn’t give a toss.

sight. Straight spine,

that leaves

estates.

first

He’s drawing us into a

time

it

trap.

proves possible to sidle

chequered walkway

at

the front of Terry

termite masterpiece.

ANOTHER LAMBETH ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENT. Helped by Money from the Government’s Urban Programme. The tide is low, exposing a remarkably pure strip of beach. The MI6 palazzo looks marzipan sandcastle

like a

(like that

memorable, cross-river shot in

Patrick Keiller’s London).

been reading Peter Wright’s

I’ve

a disaster if

walk.

It’s

bad name. But this

.

.

magnetic mines.

all

And

its first

never settled for

background

way

a

few pages,

to this

that gives

spell

out the

bridge-to-bridge nexus operates. Wright was

was

his area

weaving cables around

field,

Henry Moore

does, in

it

a technician, a degausser: that

scale.

as

.

mostly turgid ghost prose: posthumous in

system under which

ners, are

(“MI6

calamity could be found instead”)

table-tappers a

magnetic

Spycatcher

that’s

what

of expertise, reversing the

battleships.

He

was able to repel

these buildings, the triangulation of

bronzes, the seven-headed hydras, the photovoltaic scan-

about: reversing the magnetic

Throwing

a

loop around secure

field.

territory.

undesirable elements. Repelling intruders.

Who

Fucking

it

up on

Wiping

Who scuffle

a royal

the tape of

over pedestrian

what is happening outside the car window. Who are checked and flustered by freelance sponge-wielders waiting at the lights. Spooks disguised as

bridges like a pack of zombies.

bucket

carriers.

drive west without noticing

Degaussing.

Staying inside the oval circuit blesses you with a better brand of paranoia:

you

pose, as the

man we

of the small circular temple. can’t

have followed

He

can’t take his

is

doing,

at

the epicentre

hands out of his pockets,

begin to contemplate the enormity of this development. Get away

with building

this

and

you’ll get

away with anything. This 195

is

hubris

on

would embarrass Rupert Murdoch. The green and cream

a scale that

Castle looks like the ultimate publishing conglomerate (which in

Spook a sense

it

is

— pumping out

disinformation, suborning journos, cor-

rupting the already corrupt, funding dog fiction, lunching the culture).

probably a more active concern than

It’s

side

of Vauxhall Bridge,

Random

House. (Spooks fleeing over the water

to avoid drinking in the nearest pub, a

meet the work-experience

cadet version on the other

its

rundown gay pick-up

toilet,

editors rushing in the opposite direction in

quest of a decent cup of coffee, and a few minutes’ break from the

mad-

ness of corporate self-publishing.)

Stand here too long, listening to the synchronised plash of the fountains,

counting the

our guts for the

watching out for Wright’s “Watchers”, feeling

tiles,

bite

of irradiated bacon from

Sirena’s,

and

this daffy zig-

make sense. It develops a kind of beauty. We must have been thoroughly worked over to say it — but, cover the mound in vegetation, and it would display an inhuman charm. We should move now, gurat begins to

before

we

develop the giveaway

stutter,

the

liar’s

punctuation that Peter

Wright and Kim Philby exploited: a captivating, upper class mannerism brought to fruition by the actor Hugh Grant. The instant of hesitation confirms

The

yet again: everything that

building

to bridge

We

it

is

laid

is

not forbidden

out with terrifying symmetry

is

compulsory.

— from

sharp

prow

and pseudo-funnel. Hierarchies of blank windows, portholes.

promenade the immaculate deck with

operatives, identifiable

a troop

of uniformed hygiene

by the usual laminated badges. T-bar pergolas

of II Duce

belong in

a catalogue

eras they

seem more of a design

revivalist chic.

There

are so

many cam-

feature, artificial birds, than a serious

attempt to log intruders.

We

can’t quit

without approaching the beachcomber —

carelessly rolling a

for city walking.

under

fire.

necessarily Balliol

jumbo

He

spliff.

has that

Oxford insouciance, the

a

been

Lord Archer, or crashing

steadiness

who managed

now

of hand

beneficiary of those connections, he hasn’t in the penthouse.

decadent might not choose to acknowledge

instructor,

is

His white loafers were never intended

But, even as visiting

who

a

one-year

to get himself attached to Brasenose

A

PE

on the

strength of a bodybuilding certificate from the International Federation

of Physical Culture in Chancery Lane.

He

could have been taking tea

with anyone in Alembic House, the building was I

knew who

the press had a

it,

a nest

of conspirators.

dope fiend was. He shouldn’t be here. As the books and TV documentaries, he was banged up for the riverside

couple of eternities in

a

top security American penitentiary. This was 196

Howard Marks,

the biggest herb smuggler in the universe

— and he was

taking a leisurely constitutional through the heart of the Secret State; ting in a

phoney temple

example

that

Reports of

London

“Here we

Hill.

good

He ity,

wicked

was happy to

a lack

felt

he

said,

talk.

of pomposity and

five miles away, in

gifts,

self-justification.

smoking guns

in their hands, sacks

up

to

no

instant confidential-

You can

why juries,

see

he told them. (Put him

tale

they could have been caught with

marked “swag”, and walked away

chum. Marks’ chain of boutiques, spread across Europe, were used laundering cash and passing information (among other off-theactivities).

groups

as

He liaised with INLA splinter mob. And lived, quite contentedly,

Favours for favours.

well as the

under perpetual

Curzon

Street

surveillance.

Prison had been

all

once he’d worked

right,

felon he was unlikely to be a target for

extreme rightwing death squads

who

Hard drugs were

it

out.

random

kill as a rite

As

assassination

chance to catch up on

his tennis.

means of control). Soft drugs programmes. Cannabis stays in the

test

his reading in

The worst of it, Howard he had developed

a

know

There was

they’ve been inside.

admitted, backing away from the river, was

phobia about water.

shivered.

fast.

philosophy and poetry. Meet any-

can quote Alfred Noyes and you

He

by the

of initiation. Howard

bloodstream for thirty days. Traces of heroin disappear

his skin.

high profile

readily available (as a

were discouraged by regular

who

a

He worked on

helped the cons to prepare legal appeals.

that

Kenfig

on their characters.) Howard had been, so he informed by MI6, shortly after coming down from Oxford. A col-

record

one

valleys

com-

a stain

us, recruited

a

had been

introduced myself as

That was one of his

Mary Archer and

for

I

city.”

together with

lege

I

“two boyos from the

packed with females, swallowed any

without

nostalgic for things

Howard had grown up not

are then,”

in the big,

I

for thirty years to avoid.

ing from Maesteg.

be made.

to

famous Celtic charm have not been exaggerated.

his

Listening to that rich, deep voice, living in

draw Howard was the

to enjoy an undisturbed

had been made. And been seen

sit-

We

He

could hardly bear

walked with him, up the

it

on

steps towards

Vauxhall Bridge. Nicely mellow, he was going around to the front entrance. release?

Why,

He

I

wondered, had there been no major publicity about

grinned.

“You

can’t believe everything

you

read,”

he

his

said.

“Lovely to meet you. Catch you again sometime.”

The

bridge, with

Unlike Marks,

we

its

squad of fierce amazons,

couldn’t retrace our steps. 197

It

is

the borderline.

was time to cut inland.

pick up the Tradescant back, was that the

search for the Ark.

MI6 complex was

been made public so carried

trail,

that the

induce paranoia,

looking It

had

wet jobs and black propaganda could be

on elsewhere without hindrance: above

was to

instinct,

completely uninhabited.

Stepney, a suite of unlet offices in Holborn. folly

My

The

a

betting-shop in

point of Terry

Farrell’s

keep the populace jumpy. The building, the

complex of buildings, pumped out brain-bending white noise. Separate stations competed to create an electromagnetic field in which fears could be triggered at will, demons visualised. Implants in the nasal cavity or miniature radios concealed in the teeth would conjure up flyentire

ing saucers over Chelsea Harbour, or politicians so bland, so drained of

humanity, that they had to be the forerunners of an alien race, extra terrestrials.

Yes!

It

was getting to

me

already.

Radio hypnosis, mind

control,

voices in the head. If such a monster could be funded, then there were

no

limits to the arrogance

not stand

We

were

South Lambeth Road;

grateful to escape into

quantity, virgin ground.

of locating

a

been broken

There could be no

The

surviving bucolic redoubt, not here. up.

They had decamped

real

T

being exaggerated into

number, was soon confirmed

first

(spurned) ran in

a tau cross.

cal/Rosicrucian riddle was sprayed along

CHRISTIAN GOLDMAN? overqualified to

The its

An

length:

(Composed by an

word RIT-

other, a white

the correct decision.

as

expectation

to Oxford.

had to choose our pedestrian tunnel. The the

a relatively

mysteries had

the direction of the Oval and was decorated with the single

UAL,

we would

for.

unknown

We

of government. There was nothing

tile

alchemi-

WHO

IS

initiate sufficiently

employ the correct punctuation mark.)

From that point on, travelling south, our interest was held by quantum weirdness: the British Interplanetary Society at Nos. 27—29 South Lambeth Road and, on the opposite side of the street, an aerial pyramid with a spray of 666s. The omens were propitious, that familiar, teasing sense of things running away from us. The narrative fragmenting into a pattern so random that it outreached even our capacity for self-delusion. Once again our path intersected with Patrick Keiller’s fictional London walks

(his

attempt to uncover Vauxhall’s “famous association with

Sherlock Holmes”). Could

it

That we had been suckered into only

as a

we were inadequately degaussed? yomping down streets that existed

be that

sequence of static camera positions? Right

the red brick gates cal score, the

which appear

in front

of us were

in Keiller’s film as an unplayed musi-

deep green of municipal 199

grass

running away behind them.

(“Listen to the gateposts at the entrance to the park.”) Walking, unpre-

an hallucinatory experience.

pared, into another man’s film

is

know where we were and we

didn’t

know how

— were

A

Tradescant and Ashmole. Because there

is

Plaster

and

A

Tradescant Road. best

we

Bridge and the

It’s

of the Ark and street

its

names.

is

off the

menu.

with, before battling back to Vauxhall

Tradescant totem pole, sanctioned by David

a

is

left

evocative

House

over, Salomon’s

river,

nothing

security-alarmed chemist on the corner of

come up

can

of

substitute for the absence

doorways,

above

fruits

Unpollarded shrubs.

The

their smell

Portuguese. Delicatessens, barbqr^, driving schools, travel

agents: another country, another time.

gardens.

didn’t

to proceed.

Between the park and Tradescant Road, the shops — feel

We

Bellamy; a heaving wedge of polymorphous perversity, hacked out of

wood,

ellers: the

At

from

rising

word picked out

this point,

related:

globe of multicoloured

a

how

I

ironwork

in

Marc the

recall for

fruits

and flowers, trav-

letters.

story a friend, Carol Williams,

she had been part of a group, inspired by the research of

Sadao Ichikawa, planting spiderwort in the proximity of nuclear lations.

Measuring radiation by colour changes,

— before any

microscope, blue to pink botanical Carol,

name

who

me, enclosing

for these spiky plants

was a

now

back

Tradescantia.

Sag Harbor, Long

in

Island,

had written to

copy of Ichikawa’s “The Spiderwort Strategy” in the

magazine Bio-Dynamics (Summer 1978). Her covering

“Another name

for Tradescantia or spiderwort

&

(because of its 3 petals

me

under the

would be admitted. The

leakage

was

clearly visible

instal-

other 3 flower parts)

letter explained:

is

Trinity Flower

— which I’m

made

afraid

think again of radiation during recent markings of 50th anniversary

of explosion of atomic

Mexico was

Trinity.

I

bomb

was struck

love and the walk) by the

how

as

list

the code at

name

Museum

for

its first

test in

of Gardening (which

of Tradescants’

I

&

tions ...

I

human

wish

I

life:

like

had seen the

gelsemium,

first

did

muta-

the Ark!”

Ichikawa’s article clarified the role of Tradescantia:

Lonely and tiny flowers

.

.

.

have been showing an excellent performance

fyhtin^ against the hn^e technoloj^y of nuclear energy

The

story to be described here

were found nuclear

m

is:

.

.

in

.

Increased somatic mutation frequencies

the stamen hairs of a clone of spiderwort planted close to

power plants. Long-term

some

scorings of the somatic mutations at those

200

—

& helpful

like these radiation

museum,

I

plant discoveries

II

they found plants around the world that had a particular

relationship to

New

power plants

revealed that the increases occurred only during the operation

periods of reactors and mostly at the places located to the leeward of the

power plants. The

scorings

.

not only could break the

.

.

myth of

'‘safety**

nuclear power, hut also expose several important facts which have been

ignored and/or hidden from the public by the nuclear proponents It

was the stamen-hair system of spidenvort

(the scientific

.

.

.

genus name

is

Tradescantiaj that brought much more detailed information about the genetic effects of low-level radiations the most excellent test system ever

.

.

.

The system

known

.

.

Back on Vauxhall Bridge, we prepared female

deities,

only from the

with their river).

were finished with

domes and

therefore regarded as

.

to break free

from the

books, their admonitory fingers

steel

Their gestures were

would do

it,

one more tour

ference” and a viewing point

could be observed

cell

Bentham had

.

.

petals sharp as razors.

transforms riverside.

itself into a

the centre

at

at all

cells

a vast enclosure, a

shape

The bird’s Map of London

times of day and night”.

that,

flowerhead, or rose, six

with the twin gasometers

as eyes,

hideous bug, impertinently burrowing into the

and the Oval cricket ground

— “the dark” — were exposed during

Gallery.

anticipated

A beetle whose other sections are the Vauxhall Distillery

Farrell’s folly) cells

A

Inspection

on the outer circum“from which every corner of

with the

.

eye plan of Millbank Penitentiary from the “Descriptive

Poverty” of 1889 reveals

We

system of perpetual surveillance: “a circular

building, an iron cage, glazed

every

(visible

revealing the scale of the old

House, the traces of the military hospital.

own

of

across the

Millbank prison, the layout ofJeremy Bentham’s Panopticon or Terry Farrell with his

line

Dantesque prohibition.

a

this cultural reservation:

roofs of the Tate

is

And,

as

the thorax.

as

(now Underground

the construction of the Clore

Krzysztof Cieszkowski points out in his essay on

“Millbank before the Tate”, “many of the current employees of the Tate Gallery are graded

as

warders and keepers”. Employed to watch the

untrustworthy public and not the

No

need to report on the

rest

art.

of our

trip to

Putney and Mortlake, the

evening return along the other bank, through Syon Park, Hogarth’s

House and Hammersmith:

it’s

there, if you

want

it,

before the event, in

my novel

Radon Daughters. The unlooked for bonus, the necessary thing we didn’t know, came with the identification of the three Mary churches: Ashmole’s St Mary at Lambeth, John Dee’s unmarked burial place at St

A

Mary

in

Mortlake — and the

new

one, St

Mary

chatty verger clung to us, pointing out William Blake’s 201

at Battersea.

window

(he

was married here) and the chair Turner used to paint

The

site

was

popular film location. Blake’s father-in-

also, apparently, a

law had been

market gardener, the poet/visionary had

a

connection with

his riverscapes.

this place

— even though he

was, as

S.

Foster

real

a

Damon

&

points out, suspicious of Marian worship: \'A Vegetated Christ

a

Virgin Eve are the Hermaphroditic Blasphemy; by his Maternal Birth

he

Evil-One and

that

is

Maternal Humanity must be put off

his

Come

Generation swallow up Regeneration.

Eternally, lest the Sexual

Lord Jesus, take on thee the Satanic Body of Holiness!”

We promised ourselves a

drink

at

Head

the Duke’s

in Putney, in

hon-

Radon Daughters “research” — coming back from Pope’s Grotto, Sir Richard Burton’s stone-tent tomb. Dee’s Mortlake. That afternoon, a hot one, we had our of our previous

upstream,

trip,

part of the

as

flopped in a corner, to find ourselves disputing the bar with another literary excursion.

The

celebrated novelist and television impresario,

window

Nigel Williams, had bagged the afid a

Half Men

seat

and was plotting

his

Two

Boat package. (The half being Alan Yentob and his

atid a

cellphone.)

Williams was preoccupied,

met him once before never be made), so not of the his

I

exchanged

slightest interest to

for

passing here

me.

on

take years

look. I’ve

a

him

few words. Dee and

(Peter

who

but

us,

I

had

his relics

were

Ackroyd had not yet published

did another JK Jerome, striped-blazer frolic parted, definitively. Atkins

and

media friendly slipway — the whiff of

softshoe operators

noons without

Nor

Our ways

a

couple of pints ahead of

lunch invigilating a documentary that would

(a

Clerkenwell novel).

do much

a

take

two newspapers with

definition, shaggy dogs lapping

from

I

were

tres-

resting actors,

their lunch; afterashtrays.

It

would

no longer had to achieve that strategically rumpled Putney seen it on certain poets (retired) and on one or two bookdealI

who have successfuUy made the transition from stall to catalogue, and who don’t quite believe it. It’s a very English thing, the professional ers

amateur churning out volumes, running the culture while appearing to be incapable of doing up

We river,

indulged in then

a last

we pushed

his fly-buttons.

look

at

Archer’s patch, the gravy-coloured

on.

202

5

DEVIL:

.

So you walk around Loudon?

ARCHER: Oh DEVIL: Have

ARCHER:

time

all the

.

.

.

you worked with the security services?

No.

Interview, The Printer’s Devil

4/ 7/95. London abandons

mood

the

itself to

of the moment:

sleet skies

for state funerals, garden party haze for the Conservative leadership election. Like the rest

something

bishops in

Marseillaise

announce

lost to

life

The ones who

that

he was “resigning” just first

bet

defining

moment when

of him,

it

could have

Rob Andrew

come

straight

and the boys

now

all

television,

vote

guesting in the police.) It

was

a

of the

of Koninck Films, where producer Keith

offices

been worth watching over the

that’s

decade: Keiller, Petit, the Brothers

in front

that

that subtitle rolled across the screen

— sponsor of much

was happening in

the English

as

time in years, and with a perfor-

from the military or the

leave

of John Major s

a strategist

are not ex-land surveyors,

on extended

Soho

(I

If revolution

took

and ambition

office.

City, are

Griffiths

up

office drones skittering

fortunes, military bands playing the

France for the

so lacking in

portable in the

fete:

Internationale. It

out of Jeremy Hanley’s Tory.

garden

full fig telling

peculiar genius to

mance

as a

and the

rugby team

ready

is

comes to Britain heads of the monarchy on coconut

running the checkpoint.

be disguised

shies,

that

Street are prepared to talk to each other, to give the finger

to the helmets will

been conned into believing

Even the half-employed

to self-destruct.

it

city has

about to change — that the whole miserable farce

is

New Bridge

of us, the

Quay — was

explaining

why

last

nothing

and never would again. (Then here

it

was,

a surprise.)

They must have switched people got high just walking

off the degaussing

down

equipment

the Victoria

for the day,

Embankment, know-

ing that the most sophisticated electorate in the world was progressing

through

a set

of arcane and ancient (since the

leave everything precisely ter stroke, a

the

do

silly

like

The relief

where

it

was now. In

non-event that would engender

a

’70s) rituals that safe hands. It

was

would a

mas-

few weeks’ excitement

season. Properly handled, the election could

in

become an annual

Henley, Ascot, and the counter-demonstrations by Class War. river

had been

gilded.

The

public

monuments,

medallions of forgotten Victorians 203

(let’s

obelisks, bronzes,

hear

it

for Joseph

came

Bazalgette, the sewage visionary),

River-gates that

let

own. Were

visible.

They responded

to the

into their

out underground streams.

general amnesty with a proper sense of their symbolic role in the

scheme of things: the^

positively

You could put your

olence.

Nile. Atkins

hummed with

ear to a

electromagnetic benev-

damaged sphinx and

listen to the

we had

shares in the

and I jaunted towards WestminstAr'as

if

place.

We made

straight for

Downing

keep undesirables out of it.

Street or, rather, the iron gates that

down the red carpet for warm welcome to the press,

(Bizarrely, they lay

the most worthless category of all: giving a

the snappers with their priapic lenses, Murdoch’s jackals.

one of those dinky

gate with

sets

of aluminium

steps

and

Walk

past the

they’ll forcibly

Why

do they bother with these leather-blouson’d dwarfs when they could hire out Marc Atkins and save the cost of a pair drag you inside.

of stilts?)

do wave you through

If they

it’s

probable that you’re hefting an arm-

of flowers (celebration/requiem?), or wearing lycra and looking

ful

you’ve mislaid the Tour de France. Cyclists arrive carrying identical

jiffy bags.

they can

lines: lines

trust.

are

A BT van

is

turned back

—

wrong

the

at

at.

Euro

at

signatures.

rolled umbrella.

who

is

holding

You can watch

it

aloft, as a

moving

only rates two minutes. Lens caps

Even government

off!

like

recognisable standard, a

Moses’s

And on

staff away

overalls rushes

den

parts.

The

the vehicle

The tic

And

of these

is

a

on her hands and knees

at a

Street

March!

that’s just

a

are

thoroughly

the start of it: a

mirror under

Grand Prix

carrier bags, inelegant shoes, fielders

all

the hid-

scoots around

pit-stop speed.

- “bodies” with

their plas-

of phone-calls, moppers of

floors

—

They

share a single point-of-view, fixated

Number

Downing

woman who

very nifty

routine of these comings and goings

is

towards

alarmingly from the ground and a functionary in

out of a security hut to poke first

again!

morning)

cars (cleaned every

inspected before they’re waved through. rises

there

ironwork. Germans gather

the Houses of Parliament. There’s a schedule to respect.

metal barrier

if

something, there must be something for them to

tourists squash us against the

around their leader

all

the gate. They’ve

presence encourages the gradual formation of a crowd:

people looking

look

regular intervals,

Obviously, there aren’t enough telephone

got paperwork, but not enough of it

Our

at

as if

not deemed worthy of notice by the hubbub of cameramen.

10.

Sometimes

der of excitement.

He

a

on the closed door of

policeman emerges and

takes a

few

steps,

204

there’s a small

shud-

then freezes, and never moves

again.

Are the photographers allowed

there a conspiracy to pretend that

located

nowhere

to shift, try a different shot?

Downing

Street

in particular (like the Tardis),

Cabinet Office and Whitehall? The door

Thatcher was driven off in Wilson, posed for

when

and

tears

where

(Lately, the

is

set,

to the

when

was

it

Harold

that prescient child,

photo opportunity.

his first

an immortal

unconnected

exactly

is

is

Or

weather play-

ing along, John Major has taken to using the back garden to create the

No room for helicopters to

swoop down. Barely enough for a game of French cricket. The “new” Cabinet would be paraded there when this business was all over, awkwardly hanging on to their tea cups while Deputy Leader Heseltine plunged purposefully towards them with that mad gleam in his eye. ) Everybody is having a good time. They know it’s a fix. The best stroke Major has ever been advised to make. He can’t lose. He’s turned the game around by the simple act of forcing his opponents to reveal illusion

of a presidential

style.

themselves: a genuinely scary gaggle of aliens in outlandish

hot

spell has

found them out,

as

suits.

(The

they parade for the cameras in outfits

that have the broadsheet essayists arguing over science fiction metaphors.

Major, the retired geek, can chortle with the

Redwood,

rest as his rival,

John

brought back from banishment — Wales — to have

is

his

Vulcan ancestry confirmed.)

we move

Reluctantly,

on.

It’s

soothing in real-time boredom. film.

Any movement

orgasm for the the shape of

senses.

how

mesmerising standing here, and quite

It’s

like

watching

24-hour surveillance

in the frame, after such epic foreplay,

But we have

a tidal

is

to fake at being reporters: take

on

the day develops, sketch in the lightning cameos,

eavesdrop on other men’s interviews. List

A

a

chunky minder-type

TV journo Head

Whitehall towards the House.

all

the correct ages.

in quality threads saunters like a

anachronistic moustache. This must be

medicine

what they

ball.

A

down

brutally

call a political

heavy-

John Pienaar. He does the interviews on College Green. And possibly some bouncing on the side. We trail him, slipstream his wake as — hands in pockets — he gossips with weight, a face.

I

even

know

the name,

the competition.

College Green,

by

rival

TV crews.

of cold, white

a

threadbare rug of turf, has already been marked out

Tripod encampments and wholly unnecessary boosts

light.

Again,

this

is

bone-coral of the Houses of Parliament bottle.

The

And some

sweating

suit offering

plinth of Henry Moore’s

you ever see: the dead the label on a brown sauce

the only shot like

up

his

formulaic prescription.

Two Knife /Edged Bronze comes into 205

its

own

somewhere useful to stack camera equipment. It’s the accepted smoking room for the greyheads who have seen it all before. Not a yard of grass that isn’t claimed, but none of the politicos, even the most desperate publicity ho^s, have breezed out. Ten^to-ten on the clock, as

another

warm

Atkins

day,

and nothing to shoot.

mistaken for

is

a

mini-cabber on thb Shepherd’s Bush run and

almost pressganged into doing

vox pop.

a

If

we’d hung around

much

longer we’d have been number-crunching for ITN, trying to put some bite into dull statistics.

up, jeans

below — was

A

neat Latin gent

rattling

away

- immaculate from

in Spanish to a

camera

the waist

set so

high on

pins that the operator, a Sanchez Vicario lookalike in baggy white

its

shorts,

for

had to stand on

performance

who

was, with

tiptoe. (Sandals

got

art (Atkins

pantomimed

and painted

shot of

a

gravity,

toenails.)

went

this)

The

prize

to the striped tie

interviewing himself. (Could

A

be the notably strange Peter Bottomley?)

this

virtuoso routine that

involved balancing his Sharp in one hand, while nodding vigorously to an interrogator liners the rest It’s

who

wasn’t there, cutting himself off with the one-

of us think up on the bus home.

building nicely but

it’s

not happening

themselves. Opinions are hedged.

yet.

None of the

their heads over the parapet until they can

The

voices are pacing

serious players will stick

go

live,

nationwide.

wander

off into those shady, private streets that converge

coding:

TE

We

on Smith Square and Conservative Central Office. Here is discretion you can taste, invaded by OB vans and monster aerials that allow you to hear Jeffrey Archer sneeze. Even the blue plaques fit with the general colour areas

Lawrence and Lord Reith. Period

with wartime notices

government,

a collegiate

and dusty doorways

intact.

survivals

The whole web

is

and basement

an extension of

network of passages and stone-flagged paths

that link the

Abbey, the public school and the leafy

rooms where deals are done. This is where Michael Portillo blew it (or was blown), setting up his campaign in Lord North Street — before he joined battle. Photographers happening along to catch BT running in the extra

HQ

And

phonelines. ated,

without

this

fuss

is

also

where John Major’s re-election team oper-

from No. 13 Cowley

Street.

A

bright blue door with

polished brass knocker.

A

lesser

squad of photographic layabouts took their chairs onto the

pavement and prepared but they

still

to wait.

stuck together like

They could pick any angle they wanted, a flock of gulls. They had time and space

to spread themselves, read the Sun, send out for coffee

206

and sandwiches.

on our second or third run, that a complimentary car let out this silver-haired gimp with a stick at the end of the street. A person of influence, obviously - and unhappy at being caught was

(It

in the

later in the day,

neighbourhood.

He

bellowed

at

Atkins: “Don’t

anything better to do? You’re not going to get backsides here.”

The checkered

lightweight

proximity of Lord Reith’s plaque

made me

you

fellows have

a story sitting

suit,

on your

the discreet motor, the

think of Marmaduke Hussey.

would be to fabricate all sorts of illegitimate webs of conspiracy. Or, more probably, pure coincidence.) We headed back, ambling with the schoolboys on their break, into the dappled Abbey cloisters and through to the garden — where a marBut

that

quee was being erected,

tables

and

chairs carried out.

You’d never know,

but just over the ivy-covered wall from the madness of College Green is

this

enclosed sanctuary, with

meadowbank of wild

its

flowers, butter-

cups, daisies, forget-me-nots, a dense quilt of colour: the paradise of the

Right down to the

Assassins.

An exemption

circular fountain in

its

mandalic courtyard.

which you drop a few coins into a box. The lift to the Abbey roof costs much more, but for a wad of cash they throw in a hard hat. And the view is worth the price. 1 1.45 am on Big Ben and it’s hotting up below. Crowds foam and break, disperse and form again as the next taxi arrives. Soundmen with their furry scythes surround the unlikeliest suspects in a carwash lynch mob. Ready to pol-

them

ish

activity

rations

to death.

is

From our Hitchcockian

grotesque and meaningless.

down on

Michael first

to the

Portillo’s

behind the

this

termite

plaster

deco-

advent throws the pack into a feeding frenzy. He’s

traffic to a standstill

position itself in a favourable light. last day,

in a

see,

all

mob.

of the frontline players to make

saloon brings the

pack.

We

perspective

of the great church, the rods that stop these white stone bosses

crashing

the

for

The

a

move. His Morse-red Jaguar

by backing out. U-turning, to minister,

making the most of his

before being shafted with Bosnian visiting rights, milks the

The demented urge

to get

something on

choreographed improvisation

.

.

.

film.

He

goes for

it

and

takes off his jacket. Slips into a yel-

low sweater which — we subsequently discover — is blocked with the Imperial Cancer Fund logo. The buttery yellow plays beautifully against the scarlet car. Portillo hops onto the bonnet one beat ahead of the universal request

wonder

if

from the photographers

he was putting out the most

topped by that vulpine

They wouldn’t

let

that

he should. (Cynics might

effective signals: yellow, cancer,

grin.)

him

go.

Dennis Skinner, 207

who

had been hovering

and pepper tweed, flicking back his hair and offering his repertoire of unreconstructed socialist grunts, was upstaged. But it s not often you get to watch a suicide dance, the manic tarantella of a career all

day in

salt

down

vanishing

Marc down

hustled

I

the tubes in fancy-dress. the

and across the road to within

stairs

were pregnant with

yards of that unforgiving leer. Portillo’s cheeks

stretchmarks of forced laughter, but interviewers in their

bad

little suits: as if

The cameras and

bite.

imploring

cries

of “Mr

he rapped

still

the female

at all

promising them, personally,

the furry sticks followed

Michael, over here”

Portillo,

few

a

him

big

a

—

to his car

— manoeuvring

us

back in the direction of College Green. I’m sure

run across Lord Archer.

that, at last, we’ll

duty, cracking the whip, putting himself about.

made

that’s

It’s

He

the kind of day

And, sure enough, there he

for his special talents.

the Jewel Tower, hands clasped across his wedding- tackle

perky — barking clipped statements straight

He

work.

at

We

behind us now.

“It’s

—

serious but

A

on and

have only one choice.

back to

is,

the camera.

doesn’t require a feed, just switch the red light

of range.

on

has to be

We

pro

at

step out

like

gov-

ernment.” This

not Lady Thatcher’s royal “we”,

is

The

first.

grasp.

insider formulating

boardroom “we”,

a

It’s

well. He’s got too

many

this

is

more

what shakier brethren a blatant

suits to

busk for

be taken

clubbable. Party are too slack to

Archer dresses

office.

seriously.

And

they look

as if

he bought them, had them made to measure. They haven’t been adequately distressed: not to a Cabinet level, tortured in and out of cars, up

and down blue, too

stairs,

through long afternoon

smoothly

appearance of those

Half

a

Is

head

is

a

fit,

to have

and moves seamlessly into the next.

hair that has spilled

been

fitted

is

a

down

across his fore-

formidable instrument,

on the wrong way around. The conk

power-tru filer. His thick sandy eyebrows are unusual to

mask

come

his eyes.

Close

husbanded

Atlantic. There’s “It’s a

good

to.

Archer

is

unreal, a

Anthony Hopkins

as

manufactured

degree

that in the

A victorious day. The 208

effect, like

the

Nixon. His defects have been

to an extent rarely achieved

no question

day.

a

over in photographs. Frowning against the sun, they

posters representing artfully

a

brisk, sun-ripened: dangerously

tidied away. His nose, in profile,

that doesn’t

deep

can take holidays whenever they want them.

The peak of thin

which seems of

who

finishes the first interview

rewired.

are too

cut. In the flesh he’s got the slightly caramelised

stone too comfortable, but

He

alert.

They

sessions.

USA

on

this side

of the

he’d be a candidate.

markets will bounce back.

The

enemy

real

can be effortlessly edited.

squash-ball.

To

much of a

tough

it

plug from his

out.

No

He’s just a

risk.

when

android:

civilians,

a

It’s

off.

He

marches away, regularly

book buyers — and each of them

can’t let this

I

my

wonderful world.”

opportunity

pass. It

turn and grab his hand. He’s

in the eyes.

We

We’re too

scruffy,

he’s

eager to confront the

little too

handshake and the upbeat message. “Major: good.

your nerve.

a

they cut the cameras and pull the

go

ear, his light doesn’t

pounced on by

is

of many.) He’s got more spring than

last

nothing of wealth and property and wife. But

say

too human, too

speaks. Like. That. In soundbites that

sad to think that, as with Portillo, this

It’s

(The

surely his final stand.

press,

He

are the socialists.”

One

gets the firm

Socialists: bad.

Hold

of nature’s redcoats.

rounds

my

essay off so neatly.

discommoded

too road crazy

for an instant:

— even

it

I

wait

shows

for press vermin.

carry a mephitic cloud. At a signing session we’d be recognised as

trouble and ejected.

camera

But

steps back.

there’s

no

escape. Atkins has his

lofted.

explain

I

He

who

am, the relationship with the lady

I

He

application to view the penthouse.

“You

ing to be her brother.

gets confused, thinks

he growls.

can’t be,”

fellow like you couldn’t have such a beautiful

Which he

tribute in a similar vein.

laughter and away, at speed. As

I

who

takes in

good

“A

sister.”

looking

return

I

part, a roar

he’s

my

I’m claim-

terrible

mutter our thanks. But

him a card. cover it. Marc is convinced

backed

some

of sales rep

gone even

before Atkins can give

us.

running with

That seems

to

We

Go anywhere and the doors open, the faces we need magic. He feels we ought to route our return to take in

appear

that luck

is

can’t miss. as if

Duncan

by

Terrace in Islington, where

exercise his

pooch

“Mad”

Frankie Fraser

is

reputed to

in a small park.

We make the detour. And our luck does hold. There’s not a sign arrive unscathed in my kitchen and put on the TV Frank. When I

catch the result, there the same soundbites. will

bounce back.

The

episode

is

I

is

Archer,

“The

real

am happy

closed

—

like the

enemy

left at

to

National Gallery, parroting

are the socialists.

The markets

to serve.”

until, three

my

crushed envelope drops onto riverscapes that Atkins

lit

of

of four days

mat.

It’s

when

a fiercely

the remnant of one of the

Alembic House

brown

later,

as a gift for

Lord Archer.

no backing, and now depicted a Lambeth subjected to a Ludwig Meidner apocalypse. The bridges were folded and split, and the Houses of Parliament creased with shadows of coming doom. It

had been packed in

a plain

209

rectangle with

There was

a letter.

The Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare House of Lords 5th July 1995

Dear

Mr

Many

Sinclair.

thanks for your letter of 3rd July and for enclosing the

photograph.

I

similar views

fear that

and

I

am

I

have several paintings and photos of

therefore returning

Marc Atkins

photograph.

It

was very kind of you to think of me.

With

best wishes.

Yours sincerely

Jeffrey

Please reply

to:

Archer

Alembic House, 93 Albert Embankment,

London SEl

7TY

210

HOUSE IN THE PARK

This park belongs

to the

people of East London, if you harm

you

it,

harm them.

B ow Neighbourhood signboard

“What

did your street look like in the past?”

ephemerals of the heritage industry

Ordnance Survey Maps:

“who wish

those

dising that

is fit

a largely

of the more seductive

the Godfrey Edition of

is

to set alongside the repair

Canny merchanand enlargement — in sepia —

its

history”.

of retrieved family photographs (not necessarily your noticed a shop that specialises in

of

sition

existed.

this trade in

a fraudulent pedigree, the

own

family).

the city and

its

a past that

lying around like so

much

Old maps, with

all

never

spurious divisions?

Why not exploit and redevelop properties that are in the public streets, lost rivers?

I

Vallance Road: the acqui-

hard evidence of

Why not extend the tactic to

vanished

Old

Victorian patchwork intended for

London and

to explore

One

domain,

their fictions intact, are

out-of-copyright nineteenth-century

litera-

ture.

The

Bow

neatly-folded scarlet reproduction featuring Bethnal Green

(1894) uses, for

Hotel, Grove Road. that the

pub

is

now

under the cut-off

when

the

its

&

cover illustration, a postcard of the Royal

Which

struck

me

odd choice given

as a slightly

adjudged to be in South Hackney, and barely ducks

line at the top

document

is

of the map. The

smoothed out and spread

district

on

display,

across a table,

is

a

black and white jigsaw of impacted terraces, burial grounds, canals, railways.

It

is

seriously lacking in

photographed structures with the

required gravitas, sentimental triggers to recall the glory.

The chosen image

into

life;

cart

with

is

like a single

moment of Imperial

frame of film, about to

to bring back the stroller in the straw boater, the its

beer barrels.

The triumph of nostalgia

is

flicker

horsedrawn

completed by the

inclusion of a functioning public convenience (Gentlemen only), the

kind

now

converted into subterranean wine bars or sun-bed tanning

chambers (on Rosebery Avenue). 211

must delight the Parks and Amenities Committee of the Tower Hamlets Council to know that the Royal Hotel survives, freshly It

painted, draped in flower baskets, bright with petunias, keyed to the

dark blue and gold colour scheme that makes a run

down

the strip

towards docklands like a pan across a packet of upmarket cigarettes. ' jl

Railings, ironwork gates with

heritage

lilies

and crowns,

antiquarian word-bites: they

trail

There

all

litter bins,

conform

many of

plaques with to a sense

of

urban

revival, a retro future.

much

loose history lying about, that Victoria Park seems to have been

are so

these plaques, so

parcelled off by estate agents. This plague of information,

boards

on

lavish

each entrance, mixes self-serving political rhetoric with pious

at

we

revisionism:

are

informed

that the park “suffered

from underinvest-

ment and remote management” at the hands of the GLC and the LCC. A multi-million pound restoration programme initiated by Bow Neighbourhood — and funded by a list of private sector benefactors and Euro charities — made this a fit location in which to parade that most precious of icons, Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on her ninetieth birthday.

park

A

photo opportunity

that linked the triumphalism

fountains and sleeping

(its

old dame’s previous East

Wartime

dereliction

pohcemen) with newsreel footage of the

London excursion

at

the time of the Blitz.

was smoothly twinned with the blight of postwar

planning. All that remained, if they had the nerve for

socialist

No

rename these lush enclosures. parks:

of the restored

why

not go for

it,

more

talk

it,

was to

of “green lungs”, people’s

the Royal Elizabeth? Wasn’t there already a

Queen Mother and

powerful association between the

the commission-

ing of gates?

Cruder boards warn the public

that

“guard dogs are in use” and that

Armour Security with their manned room”. Grove Road is therefore secure; an avenue of

these “premises” are protected by

“24 hour control hanging larly

baskets, pristine

hosed.

The park as

off, secure, a

“left littered

leaf-roofed marquee, safe

of the Gay

&

Lesbian Pride Festival,

when

with paper, cans, bottles and used condoms”, were

MUCKY

DEVILS!

screamed the East London

ging out the usual pix of

Sir

Ian

''Ex-EastEnders star” Michael

what you

get.

stat-

the park

future nightmare. 150,000 shirtlifters and muff-divers pissing carpet.

regu-

the titular Dogs of Alcibiades. (Horrors, such as the

trash alp aftermath

was

fenced

is

of police horses, the exhibition of restored public

for the exercise

uary - such

is

pavements from which poodle-squirt

a

on the

Advertiser, dig-

McKellen, Lily Savage and

Cashman. Let the hordes in and this is “There were Durexes everywhere and my dog cut his 212

Chairman of Bow and Poplar Area, sorrow than in anger, that “The Pride Trust have

paw.” Councillor Kevin Morton,

remarked, more in

queered their pitch somewhat.”)

Every

kidney outline of the park must align

artefact within the

with the gonzo concept of the be walked,

that can actually lessly

from dog

exist

first

Heritage Trail”. This

metaphor,

Top

plinths to the

crime, charity

a

it’s

gloating celebration of the ripest:

“Bow

a conceit,

Morning

is

not a path

meandering aim-

public-house, with

its

railway murder. Schizogeography at

its

o’ the

eco fundamentalism, and bent ley

follies,

itself

lines that

only to assert some deranged territorial piracy.

East

End boozers have

game

always been

to follow the market,

adopting extreme measures to keep their names in the guidebooks: think of the Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road, forced to servatory, shift

its

install a

con-

ambiance from the Brothers Kray to the Brothers

Roux. Early afternoons

are a babble

of

suit-talk,

crash of dropped names, as the art strategists chain

punctuated by the

up

their bicycles

and

rush in to claim the seats of departing motor-traders. I’ve drunk away

more

of Radon Daughters, books of Marc Atkins

failed projects (films

photographs) under the restored George Cornell bullet holes than any-

where else in London. Even the Royal Hotel managed

Duncan Campbell’s The wearing

Underworld (1994).

— having parked

a leather jacket”

wave and make it into hitman — “6 foot tall

to catch the

A

.

a stolen

.

.

Ford Fiesta on the

where the Victorian urinal used to stand, took advantage of the balmy summer evening, the open doors, the stroll-through layout; he ordered a pint of Foster’s (a good choice not to drink) and ambled over to the table where “Big Jim” Moody, a face who went all the way back spot

to the affray at

Mr

Smith’s in Catford, was nursing his contemplative

beer.

Moody,

since

burrowing out ofBrixton

a friend

were destined

to

of the

late

lamented Cornell, had been on the run in 1980.

become markers on

Both men, off their own

turf,

licensed premises, blue plaque vic-

Famous for dying. Moody, a keep-fit “fanatic”, found Victoria Park as useful as Reggie Kray once had. The grass circuit, with its culture of sweat and repetitims.

tion,

evolved

discipline,

unwary.

A

its

own

meditated

electrical pulse: a

acts

loop of focused self-love,

of violence. Thought forms to infect the

relaxed urgency of lycra, martial arts rehearsals, flying drop-

kicks under the plane trees. into a cult of invisibility.

He

Moody was so

location, that he couldn’t be seen.

converted these spiritual exercises

much

He 213

there,

so

much

existed only in

a part

of the

rumour: webbed

up with the Thursday Mob, stitching a gash in his arm that went to the bone with needle and thread, carrying out drug assassinations in South London.

Anyone who came into contact with him had to obey the rules, make a maze of every journey; double back, wipe footsteps, confound surveillance teams. Moody’s son, Jason, speaks of stretching time, extending distance, “making U-turns” to throw off the Watchers. The mystification had the opposite effect: it made the tedium of pursuit interesting. The whole family was grafted to trained shadows. Moody was

openly in the limbo of Hackney: neither

free, living

alive

nor dead.

Unregistered.

The malign Hotel was

a

tourist

who

stood over

kind of double,

a fetch.

him

that June night in the

Moody

had grown

Royal

careless, let his

concentration relax to the point where a crueller version of his spite

He

could step forth.

had conjured up

conduct an

a spectre to

indissol-

uble marriage with place. There was no resistance, no instant of

The

unknown

Webley .38 and shot his target four times in the chest at point blank range. Four wounds. Gates in the park. The 1894 postcard has been tainted by this drama, crimson seeps into the border — like an apocalyptic sky, the city on fire. Hurt can be retrospective. Furious displacements of energy are capable of damaging the membrane of what we call “the past”. The past is an foreknowledge.

optional landscape.

faceless

We

are gifted

pulled out a

with unearned memories, memories

on which we have no moral purchase. It is

tempting for the

stalker striking

south towards

Roman Road

block out the civic tidiness of Victoria Park by invoking the

William Blake,

Hackney

.

.

.

the

godfather

of

psychogeographers:

all

towards London/Till he came to old Stratford,

to Stepney

& the

ticular: the

jewels of Albion running

lanes as if they

Isle/Of Leutha’s Dogs

were abhorr’d.”

failed speculation,

is

.

spirit

.

.

And saw

&

to

of

“thro’

thence

every minute par-

down/The kennels of the streets & The Hertford Union Canal, itself a

banked by the gutted

shells

of “various

mills

and

manufactories”, waiting for investment to catch up with imagination.

Developers have to hone their psychic powers, look into the future, envision regenerated husks, industrial ruin carved into the

number of units. Evocative names

cancel brick dust.

The

optimum

right quarter-

page photograph in the property section of the Standard projects bucolic idyll in place of dank waters, gasometers, feral dog packs.

Take the

a

(March 1995) on behalf of Empire Wharf, E3. “A lazy afternoon in the park, a short walk along the canal to Lock House Gate effort

214

and over the bridge into beautiful Victoria Park.

Empire Wharf you only

live in

Zone

two,

its (sic)

couple of miles from the City.”

a

“Zone two” punters

exist,

still

When

you

live at

difficult to believe

its {sic)

to believe that

Sic: it’s difficult

couples likely to be excited by

brand

this

of lazy Impressionism. The promoters of these canalside complexes

— and making

have to be scryers capable of seeing ble

others see

tomorrow. In other words, they have usurped the

The models sprawled under

role

—

a credi-

of the

artist.

a tree in Victoria Park, the reinvented

bandstand behind them, are looking

at

the property pages

.

.

.

and

laughing. Dappled shadows, big hair: the promise of a Renoiresque

perpetual access to the park.

lifestyle,

You

ing pictures of houses.

bedroom, somewhere

The

You

don’t

sell

property by show-

summer. And one “from” ^54,995.

space, greenery,

sell

in the general vicinity:

scavengers follow the predatory instincts of the sculptors

have already surveyed the ground, every underused

Developers become the poets of

They

shamans.

“see” white

trespass.

They

loft

who

and bunker.

are like possessed

gymnasium temples where

the rest of us,

pedants picking over our heritage maps, find nothing but serrulated blocks of poverty housing, dull grey coral packing the space between the Hertford

Union Canal

west), the Great Eastern

Railway

We

are stuck

Railway

(to the east)

.

Regent’s Canal

(to the north), the

North London of exile known as Old

(to the south), the

with an island

Ford or St Mary Stratford (the “old Stratford” of Blake).

Bow

reveals

an absence of breathing space, a

ders pitched hither and thither at the railways, carrying passengers

acted

as barriers

to

whim

through

mad

tangle of termite lad-

picaresque desolation, also

this

all

them

planners, to give

fantasies

their due,

of escape.

were

they conceived the transcendent notion of

Corridor, connecting Isle

biopsy of

keep the indigenous population caged. They

The Tower Hamlets

Park and the

A

of industry. The canals and

reversed their supposed function, snuffing out

visionaries:

(to the

all

a

closet

Green

the broken patches of grass between Victoria

of Dogs —

a vegetal strip

running

parallel to the line

of

zero longitude.

They would decant parkland and

sweep away

the unsightly clusters of temporary housing. Grass, the

spread of

it,

all

use

it

as

the lush green emptiness of a deserted pool

an excuse to

hall, is

what

they wanted to celebrate. Over-cropped and over-fertilised paddocks.

fenced and locked chain of canine reservations

A

corridor that

it

was impossible

to

into the road, the rage runs of local to

make

laid

walk without traffic.

215

out to the horizon. irritating expulsions

Rate payers

the attempt. These small enclosures

A

rarely

- more than

a

bothered

back garden.

less

than a park

— were

left as

monuments

They were out of sympathy with ums, earthed-over

streets that

to their innate surrealism.

the rest of the borough,

shadow muse-

always threatened to break through their

\

provisional covering.

Wennington Green is the most northerly of these sanctioned gestures at the pastoral. Neighbourhood politicians fiave disguised the Joseph Beuys-like lyricism of their modest proposal by talking up the environmental benefits. Councillor Eric Flounders of the Liberal Democrats, unconsciously echoing Le Corbusier, asserted that “what people live in

(who

tower blocks want

parkland”.

profound

in reality have a

inside the

is

An

Arcadia for the underclass

distaste for grass,

Royal Parks on sufferance

who

and

who

are allowed

to cheer the latest jubilee, or

ished with their rods and maggots to the canalbank).

The

ban-

parkettes of

Green Chain have been close shaved, barbered to within an inch of their lives. Wood carvings and eccentric pathways represent a punt at a municipal version of Capability Brown. Arbours have been created, in which lurk strange men and stranger dogs. Rustic camouflage for exiled the

drinking schools. Hillocks for meths-crazed hermits.

downland monologist, Patrick Wright, a

left

to stride through,

need the

weighing up

rhapsody of Powyses. This

is

of that Dorset dream, the old green roads of England. This

is

landscape that

what’s

We

is fit

only for tanks or

a

where authoritarian race fantasies strike their treaty with classicism. Wennington Green demands its own maker/priest, its Ian Hamilton Finlay. The planners conceived it in a rare and disinterested flight of

An

fancy: a mental landscape for a culture of compulsory leisure.

enclo-

which care-in-the-community waifs can safely spasm and foam. It was an historical inevitability that Wennington Green, with its last sorry huddle of housing, should be chosen as the location for Rachel sure in

Whiteread’s spectacular experiment in cryogenics.

The only

entry to

Wennington Green on the north

inevitable gap in the railings created

by fishermen wanting

the canal. Squeeze through and the immediate impression

side

is

the

a shortcut to is

troubling:

avenues of sycamores trace the fault line where the back gardens of the

former Grove

Road

Negotiating moist

drawn

terrace

casts

of dog

give dirt,

way

to

tolerated

wilderness.

flung by the rotation of tractor-

you approach the badly fitted carpet of replacement turf that delineates the ground where Whiteread’s House once stood. “triples”,

Wennington Green prompts, the

who

solicit

slabs

is

otherwise

a

graveyard without any of the usual

and angels that record the names and dates of those

remembrance. All the

specific visual clues that

216

provoke

memory It

have been deleted. This

a

is

was prescient of Whiteread,

through housing

lists,

and

meadow of voluntary months of

after

amnesia.

careful searches

with James Lingwood of

a collaboration

where her project — “a mute memorial to everyday existence and the pathos of remembering” — would fuse all the loose wires of potential catastrophe. The whole affair seems to have occurred with a dreamlike logic: obstacles were overcome, implications were ignored. Whiteread drove forward with the courage of a sleepwalker. House, seen from across the field, was a giant bone plug Artangel, to arrive

at

the one

site

feeding current into the madness of the

Grove Road had the

city.

Feeding and receiving.

an end of terrace house with three

lot:

exploitable sides (and a sitting tenant), a hyperactive local politico will-

ing to play the heavy (Bob Hoskins

as

UK casting, Danny DeVito in the

US), anarchist squatters, post-Situationist music business trouble-makers

looking for the grand gesture, and peg-eyed pyschogeographers

prophesying war. This terrace was in the wrong documentary. blatantly touting for millennial funds.

It

stood

as

It

was

an affront to the radi-

Green Way, an all too human shambles. High art had to be capable of making the transition, erasing the tape. The “old sweat” intransigence of the last inhabitant, Sydney Gale (as he was known to the broadsheets), or “Sid the War Hero” (to the tabloids), was ant blankness of the

the only thing keeping the ruin upright. 193 Grove

through right of long occupation, to

docker had nothing

else to feel so

Mr

Gale and

Road

his family.

bloody-minded about,

Even

belonged,

The

ex-

to exercise his

surname seemed to allude, punningly, to the night of the Great Storm, the 16th of October 1987: a natural drama hijacked by the Parks Committee. The storm, hereditary prerogative to cussedness.

with

its

tangled avenues of uprooted trees, was the perfect front for a

strategic refurbishment, the sequestration a car

his

of the Victoria Park Lido —

Mr

park (with no direct access to the grassland).

Gale became the

incarnation of the wind, a self-generating hurricane of grievance.

was even ready to busk painted banner: this

is

as a

performance

my home,

i

to display his

artist,

live here.

A

as

He

hand-

tautology that was

all

too soon to be confounded.

Up

to this point, before the

LibDem

the

Mr Gale, held to their uneasy alliance. Mr Gale would be rehoused and Whiteread,

caucus, and even

Contracts were drawn up.

no

work on House began, Artangel and

stranger to the area,

would move

in her

team —

forensically

wrapped

and masked - to commence the process of mummification. Whiteread s earlier Turner Prize contender. Ghost, had been exhibited at the nearby 217

Chisenhale Gallery,

The Chisenhale a culture

a traditional (ex-industrial) East

keep out the smell of the veneer

women who

turned out

They

set-dress

most

effective.

enough presence

just

minimalism, make

good: the

feel

it

Ghost, encountered unexpectedly (in

backing away from the trash destined

is

what

“Mute pathos”

art.

to

echoing voices of the

factory, the

Spitfire propellers. Ya^:uity

promote: mind

sitional structures

art space.

mediated gestures in

specialised in emptiness, absence:

vacuum. Fetish objects possessing

London

is

these tran-

their shtick.

least disturbed, the

company with

Patrick Wright,

as a sculptural rinse for

the

Bow

Quarter), was a revelation. Literally so: the cube of retrieved and impris-

oned

light illuminated the

The was dynamic. The

windowless

sculpture and containing space

chamber

nate (or deny) the history of the

it

had been brought.

Archway room,

original

mysterious monobloc:

this

between

piece did not domi-

which

to

A lengthy period of solitary labour in the ing and reversing, had resulted in

relationship

gallery.

cast-

this icy

and

unforgiving depiction of the unconscious. Ghost outranked pathos,

much

it

The allusions are to Egyptian and Assyrian plunder in the British Museum, to the whiteness of an idealised past, not to the sentimentality of false memory, colonised domestic enclosures. The Archway room was not called upon to sur-

was

and brighter than

crueller

that.

render the shades and movements of the elevated to an archetype, demotic

lives

it

had witnessed:

overwhelmed by

hieratic.

was

it

Whiteread s

was profoundly female, not feminist, responsive and shaping — pur-

art

posefully limited,

open

sculpture park, a corporate watercourt, the dissipated.

It

would be

of time. Set outside in

to a biological flow

as ineffective as

can yawn through in the Geffrye

venom of

a

Ghost would be

one of those “period” rooms you

Museum.

House, a few hundred yards to the west of the Chisenhale Gallery,

exposed to the spasms of passing

traffic,

was

Whiteread, innocent of irony, remarks

a

(in

much

trickier proposition.

her video diary) on

would not be secure: would be open the whole time.” She

surprised she was to discover that the park n’t realised

the gates

constantly under observation.

the

Archway room

will not.be possible.

under sentence of death.

mock-up at the sion would be amputation.

lawn

art, a

A

The prolonged and

It

visible

House from

would never (except

Tate) be brought inside. as

silent

as

The

its

“I

how had-

will

be

hermeticism of conception was

for the

computer

entire process

of conver-

an act of public surgery,

a

virtuoso

bride stripped bare by her bachelors. House was front-

sponsored bastard.

The

stakes

218

were high enough

to alert

demon

every

in the dictionary:

vampire aesthetes,

on

those factions prepared to underwrite any challenge

all

energy balance of the Green Corridor.

Come

in the

K

A

Come

the torpid

Home, Councillor

War, the BNP, and the

in Class

stalkers,

of extremes.

freakish alliance

Foundation, Brian Sewell, Stewart

Eric Flounders.

and

strollers

Mil

protest

lobby.

After 92 searches through dusty housing records, Artangel and the

Whiteread team were fortunate to nominate “protection” of a sensationally contrary

a vagrant terrace

LibDem

cadre.

A

under the

wild bunch

quite capable of trashing the user-friendly rhetoric of upriver spin-doc-

Grove Road fell within the influence of an embattled cell of activists who, by brazenly championing the “local”, could promote tors.

their

own

notion of village values in a horizon-to-horizon panorama of

urban meltdown. Covert racism (“We have produced

Scotsmen

in kilts”), boastful philistinism,

immaculate

leaflets

streets: that

with

would

be the unspoken manifesto. The slashing of the Arts budget (curtains for the

Half-Moon Theatre) was

therefore twinned with the conceptual

reinvention of this rubble of abandoned terraces park.

It

wasn’t that the ward bosses disliked

themselves

artists rnariques,

card-carrying opponents of the Europhile

modernist conspiracy. Under

Neighbourhood became of streets lacking

could lick your dinner.

straw-sucking regime the

this

a reservation

a centre,

but blessed

The

art, as

Neo-Georgian such. No, they were as a

real

Bow

wedge with pavements from which you of Laura Ashley

pieties, a

achievement of Artangel was

political:

the drawing up of the contract for House, the acceptable parameters of toleration, while the

most

spokesperson for

effective

a

philosophy of

enlightened prejudice was out of the country.

Councillor Flounders returned to the

Cromwell, fizzing with cal

spite. It

He had

another

It

was

life as

Cunard. The perfect choice to puff the

his fate to spread bullshit

on

PR man

for

a theatrically drab Titanic,

astrous Christmas cruise to the Caribbean; instinct for disaster. Flounders

“hit the headlines in the East

was gay”. Quite

why

bismuth

wasn’t just the name, Eric was a nauti-

troubleshooter by profession.

troubled waters.

fait accompli like a

or explain away that dis-

he had an exquisitely honed

was an experienced news manager

who

London Advertiser when he announced he

he needed to tout

move

his sexual preference

is

unclear.

would prove a vote-catcher among the incoming pink community. Bow, if Flounders got his way, would redefine itself as a satellite of Bath. But it would take something more exotic than regular bulletins on his gender orientation Perhaps an orthodox career

for a fading thespian

219

to keep

Rubik

him

Whiteread House,

in the limelight; the

that

postmodern

cube, was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a media event not to

be squandered.

Exposed

as a cultural

Luddite and political bother boy by

a half-page

spread in the Guardian (enough to resurrect humbler careers), the cor' ii

nered demagogue’s seal-cub eyes visibly moisten behind lifebelt-sized spectacles. His portrait threatens to

reduce newspaper to soggy pulp.

plum-fuzz tonsure gives definition to

blancmange poured into

otherwise be

as shapeless as

He hunches

his shoulders, trying to

coat.

a troubled head,

A

which would

a surgical stocking.

hide himself in a Methodist over-

His one gesture of decoration, an abbreviated moustache, invokes

Peter Sellers (in Fred Kite

House was

a

mode) impersonating Peter Ackroyd.

chance for Flounders to address

wider audience — to

a

defend the eviction of 100 Bangadeshi families, badmouth Hampstead lefties,

and

tell art

scum

sniffling for

In other words, Eric was a

alms to “fuck off”.

down-the-hne

traditionalist,

quickstepping

on the grave of blue collar concepts that been laid to rest twenty years ago. But you couldn’t help admiring his bottle: the way he resisted the party apparatchiks, the vigour with which he notched up a record number of LibDem own goals — in the certain knowledge that he was never going to get to Westminster, that he was pissing his future straight into the river. Flounders, despite the ridicule of the trendies, stayed true to the spirit

ple

of Passport

who want

resolute

I

it

to Pimlico.

to stay there,”

House was

he told the

still

“The more peoAdvertiser, “the more

“crap”.

faithful

become.”

2

Avant-hardists declare the

letter

.

“c”

to

he particularly contemptible.

Stewart Home

“Ric” Flounders sounds even more preposterous. when questions of aesthetics are debated, the most unlikely

Sorry, Councillor, but It’s

just that

figures find themselves in agreement. “Crap.” “Junk.” disaffiliated (or over-affiliated) class

Road were primed

warriors

who

“Moronic.” The

squatted 199 Grove

to take a special interest in an increasingly volatile

situation.

One

of those

who

lived (in the mid-eighties) a

few doors from the

future House was the self-confessed “representative of the avant-garde”.

220

.

Stewart

Home. Home

is

too modest: by 1995 he was essentially the only

(unelected) representative of the avant-garde

left.

The

others had

drained away into utter obscurity or been forced to perform on request

by the advertising/media/gallery/ fashion nexus.

He was

Home

had

the Beaverbrook of the counter-culture: Smile,

his outlets.

The London

Psychogeo^rapliical Association Newsletter, Neoist Alliance flyers, multiple

identity black propaganda, squibs planted in the press, samizdat leaflets

The man

shot through significant letterboxes by the bicycling author. existed in a rush of paranoid.

Masonic conspiracy excavations: the prob-

lem was finding new locations in which to have himself photographed. Home sustained a programme that would have exhausted a less committed self-publicist: readings, lectures, club performances,

essays, postal

videos, expositions of historical avant-garde tendencies, creative

art,

plagiarism, denunciations, feuds, schisms, occult investigations, post-

pulp novels, demolitions of those innocent mainstreamers getting It

more

was

and the

attention than he was.

a racing certainty that

fuss

who were

it

generated,

“The Avant-garde and

Whiteread s

trespass

on

would be countered by

Fictional Excess”

College, Cambridge, in the same

was

week

Home s

a raft

territory,

of anathemas.

a “talk” delivered at Trinity

that

Whiteread received the

making her casts, I satirised the art world in a story called “Straight” ... At the beginning of this year, 1 wrote a novel partially set in the terraced row of which Turner Prize. “About

House was once I’d

a part.

a year

I

wasn’t interested in universalising the situation

encountered there ...

from most of those

before Whiteread began

in the

I

wanted

book

The response The book. Red

to trade in specifics.

trade

was astounding.

London, was considered too original to be published.”

Home’s speed (Poplar to Stepney to Whitechapel to Camden to Hackney to Westminster to Greenwich to Hackney to Whitechapel to the Elephant to Southwark to Poplar) gifts the schizocyclist with prophetic infallibility. His fictions become the most Stalking the city at

reasonable approximations of the truth. Misheard asides mature to full-

blown rumours. Pub whispers

infiltrate gossip

Secret State controllers. Impossible to say

invented him. If he exists or

On my walks

with Atkins

if he

we

it’s

a

who

funds

He

Home, who

has

regiment of clones and imitators.

usually crossed paths,

with the overheated provocateur.

So

is

columns, feed back to the

two or three

always palmed us a fresh

times,

leaflet.

not surprising that Red London successfully analyses and decon-

structs the

background

Whiteread’s

initial

to the

House scenario

conversations with Artangel. 221

several

Home’s

months

before

anarchist fringe

readers,

unaware

were supposed to be

that they

heroically rancid imagination,

public art

dumped on

were alerted

their doorstep

a

figment of the author s

to exploit this rare

by outside forces

example of

knew nothing

that

of their existence. (Publishers called for Home’s work only to compete with each other in the composition of the most dismissive rejection ters.

“Next door neighbour

The

let-

to Strasserism”, ^aid Neil Belton.)

culture guerrillas, sex criminals,

and entropic

activists

of Red

London, would do anything to preserve the integrity of the pre-

Whiteread terrace — short of actually

Octagon had modation.”

offered to house in

forces at play in

Bow

“Every Buddhist

Grove Road turned down the accom-

Home whizzing a wicked

score-settling, delivered a

living there.

cocktail of disinformation, satire,

much more

accurate survey of the psychic

than any of the subsequent depth-researched

reports of the telephone journalists

from Canary Wharf. Every

fictive

would receive its subsequent justification. Written, it would happen. “The co-op was controlled by a secret committee of monks who’d been co-opted from the Teutonic Order of Buddhist Youth.” What was Home’s background and how did he come to achieve such a grip on the Matter of London? He grew up on the southern excess

fringes in follies

Merton, then transplanted

he was

later to deride).

to

Notting Hill (crucible of all the

As much an

instinctive autodidact as that

other notorious skinhead, the bibliomaniac Driffield, he was soon weeviling

through bookstall fodder, from “skins” and “sorts” and bikers to

the reforgotten illuminati of the Gothic, to Black Mask,

Up

Against the

Wall Motherfucker, Dada, punk, Situationism, Lettrisme, autism,

— and any other “ism” that could be turned to advantage. The apprenticeship was over: Neoist and moved to Stoke Newington.”

lism, surrealism

Hackney was the

logical progression.

rapidly

popugutted and

“I ceased to

Home managed a

be

a

ten-year tour

of duty and Hackney, in return, provided him with some of his ripest material.

There were abundant

squats, sturdy Victorian properties rot-

ting into the swamps, unparalleled vistas of civic corruption, housing

scammed by Buddhist gangsters; beggars, winos, junkies and insecure hospital wards that would have given Otto Dix the shakes. Home had simply to open his windows and plug in his word processor. The books wrote themselves. They were anonymous, mediumistic, so co-operatives

rapidly

produced

that

no

single press could

keep up with them. Other

Home for pace, usually with the aid of performance-enhancing substances. Home had something better. Home deranged voyants have equalled

had Hackney. 222

The

Home

of the Thatcher/Major (bingo millennialist) era was,

art

recognised, the art of the proposal.

The

as

event or manifestation

was usually no more than the excuse to break open beer and indulge in postmortem documentation.

a case

We ’re

of sponsored talking audi-

ences that could be counted on the hands of one of the X-ray martyrs.

Audiences that were not sure

if they’d

dered into a knocking-shop.

Nobody remembers

witnessed a performance or blun-

An

if

they were there or

grew up for describing things that hadn’t quite happened, epiphanies for empty rooms. Found objects, clippings of skin and hair, torn maps, cullings from pornographic magazines — the vagrant shamanism of the streets — were if they

simply read about

it

afterwards.

industry

accepted, revered, as part of the defining strategy.

Much

of this

activity,

out on the eastern fringe, seems in retrospect to have been contrived for the promotion of the alien consciousness that

“Stewart

Home”. Think about

that

is

sometimes known

moniker and the picture forms:

Jacobite pretender, initiate of the Scottish Rite, the lefthand path.

not for nothing that Scotland”

he

as

layout of the

calls

Home it.

McIntosh

hides out

The LPA

as

on

a

It’s

the Teviot Estate, or “Hither

Newsletter playfully suggests that the

estate at the entrance to the

Blackwall Tunnel

“obviously” represents the “dog head variant visible on stone 5

at

Rhynie, Aberdeen”.

South of Teviot the game that

gets darker, you’re closing

Island,

remnant overshadowed by the vanity of Canary Wharf: the end

zone targeted by Derek Beackon and This

on Dog

is

where

Home

his

lumpen

enters into a ludic contract with the

of the skinhead. Dangerous games: on the

The

BNP. demonology

followers in the

estate, he’s

been pelted with

managed to keep abreast of the latest recyclings from the Frankfurt School. If you skulk around in small-check Ben Shermans, slippery bomber jacket. Doc Martens, with a No. 1 crop glossing towards suedehead, then you are what you appear to be. They haven’t grasped the niceties of role playing, gender jumping, street theatre. A wanker is a wanker. And he’s soliciting a stones.

unsophisticated proles haven’t

thoroughgoing, ironically anachronistic kicking.

Undiluted plagiarism not pastiche was Home’s bag Sound they

call it “selective

(in Sight

and

quotation” or “homage”). Having toyed

with the biker novelettes of Peter Cave, and the works of Mick Nor-

man, Alex R. Stuart and

Thom

Richard Allen Bildungsroman

Ryder, he nominated the 18 volume

as his

model. Delivered from any bourgeois

neurosis about invention and inspiration (the uct”),

demand

for fresh “prod-

he successfully took possession of the reactionary melancholy of 223

Allen

with

The

s

paperback

originals.

He

subverted Allen’s mechanistic cynicism

menu of hyper-violence and polymorphous

a parodic

New English

words) fabulations

Library hack used his terse (never as a

vehicle for summarising

all

perversity.

more than 50,000

the excesses of tabloid

on newsprint. He slashed into the fears of the moment, basting them with just enough narrative salt ‘to link his petty fugues of urban mayhem. Boots and belts and randy slags. Allen was never more than a cod moralist, guiding his female victims towards relieving acts of sexual masochism: “the woman would be subjected to extremes of intercourse”. The underlying programme was fascistic: having at the horror; he fed

outset distanced himself from the furies he was arousing (“In the interests

of sanity

no one be under the mistaken impression

let

that the

writer sympathises with anti-social behaviour, cultism or violence for the sake of violence”), he readily accepted the status that typing a “top

ten” paperback conferred. His authority figures are remote but benevolent,

doing

by the book, offering cups of

it

tea to the cop-killing

teenage psycho, Joe Hawkins. (“Seriously, though. a dictator

could do in

this country.

see

I’d like to

what

Slums wiped out, harsh measures to

curb the grab-all boys, savage sentences for injury to persons, hanging for child rapists

.

.

Home

Stewart

.

the birch for

young offenders

like these skinheads.”)

cannibalises the primitive energy of the genre, the

page-turning punch, the deliberate absence of subtext: he subverts the

impoverished form with tremors of perverse ualistic

he intercuts

rit-

orgasms with improving passages from Marx, Hobbes, Richard

Jefferies

ments

sexuality,

—

as

that

technique

Home relishes “In my fiction,

antidotes to premature ejaculation.

more

known

fastidious critics despise: as

the plot thins,

what I’m saying

is

that I’ve

the eleI

use

a

adopted

way of resolving what happens to my characters as a story progresses, which is to kill them off.” He’s in a fix of his own making: he’s anti-language in a written medium. The intricate, layered senthe easiest

tences of a Martin Amis, with their sensuous conceits, their twists, their

Home’s mouth. He

self-regarding cleverness, are clinker in

works

aspires to

that are “conceptually, rather than verbally, overloaded.”

trashes trash

—

to grant

it

a

second

life.

He

models

his prose style

He on

non-prose, tabloid journalism: that hybrid of pictograph and scored shriek.

Speed

is

everything.

The diminishing

returns of serial buggery,

coprophilia, mechanical masturbation, are spiced by rapturous passages

read aloud from Hartmann the Anarchist his

— who

strafes

the

Thames from

airborne dirigible.

Richard Allen, laureate of Plaistow 224

(its

most notable celebrant since

Luke Howard), struggled

to bastardise the last croak

of the London

no longer acceptable for publication). Former practitioners were now marginalised: Alexander Baron in Golders Green (“I don’t know who the publishers are anymore”), Emanuel Litvinoff still at work, wondering if the latest reissue ofJourney Through a Small Platiet would find a readership, Bernard Kops knocking

proletarian novel (which was

out radio

Allen could afford to contemplate these matters from a

plays.

remoter

perspective

—

With what

Gloucestershire.

comfortable

stockade

the poet Paul

Holman

his

in

deepest

perceptively

describes as “the genuine pulp writer’s trance”, Allen’s cut-ups of

The

newsprint did achieve moments of prophetic vision. written-out consciousness

at

a

the end of its tether. His suedeheads of the

boot boys travestied in mohair, progressed to the Stock

early Seventies,

Exchange. They were the

first

jackals

of the

Me

Generation:

anti-everything conglomerate affecting status

social,

of

fireplay

“An

anti-

as their protective

cover whilst engaging in nefarious pursuits more savage, more brutal than other

cultists

Yes, Allen

brought to

is

we

have seen

rise

— and

fall

the

man who

in this past decade.”

who

caused fiction to be

envisioned the Savile

Row knuckleheads

the one to blame, the magician

life,

—

of the free-market: Lord Joseph’s scum progeny. Even the Cotswolds,

where Allen hid himself away as a country squire with a secret life, suffered as its energy field was warped by the aural vampires of Cheltenham, the Listeners of GCHQ, tappers and transcribers obliged to record everything. This whirlwind of bad sound — interference, hot sheets, babble — went rogue, manifesting its venom in the corpse gardens of Gloucester, racism in local

politics, a cult

of

unexplained outbreaks of meningitis and necrotising mythical anti-career of Brian Jones.

The malign

Hell’s Angels,

The

fascilitis.

triangulation of royal

residences.

None of this name

He

is

is

He

of any account to Home.

London. “The only character

in

my

has

books

one is

client

the place

and

itself.”

wants to drop any notion of impartiality. He’s hot to fuck the

But he

is

as frustrated as

one of Buhuel’s lecherous old dons, he

find a centre: “ambling along London’s

its

city.

can’t

numerous waterways probably

provides the most gentle means of experiencing the sharp contrasts

between the variegated zones

Home,

is

unusually eroticised,

poetry, dreams

make up the city.” The language, for tender. The author, succumbing to

that

and writes “about destroying whole swathes” of the

ritory that provides his inspiration, but

he understands very well that

“the hero undergoes psychic breakdown 225

ter-

as

the price he must pay for

acting as a cipher through

Home

which various oppositional currents can

on restlessness, frustration, lists of trains and buses, rucks outside phone kiosks, conversations in grease caffs. The light is sexual. The smell of diesel and dogshit on thin grass: it generates arousal. His excitement grows as he moves from district to district, the very names are a mantra of lust. London is his bi^ch and his bride. He likes nothing better than to be between events, waiting, reading on a canal bank, watching. He speaks of sitting in a Soho coffee-bar, fascinated by the trembling hands of recently serviced businessmen, getting thempass.”

feeds

selves straight for the return to the suburbs, scarcely able to

bring the tea

mouths without spilling it. Which was why Stewart took the Whiteread House as a personal challenge: a house is not a Home. It was all to do with gender; he interpreted the art project as an attempt to compromise his city in a Sapphic flirtation. He had no truck with memory, the fetishism of domestic to their

detail, shards

of wallpaper,

solitary representative

of aU that Grove

— had once been.

plaque

of East London; Loudon

fossilised tiles.

mocked

It

House, standing alone, was the

Road —

from

that her

Home

many

blue

hectares

ugly ghost. Home’s Red

their author,

he had already anticipated. (Whitehead,

found

Stewart

the destruction of so

this self-elected survivor,

anarchists, separated

a

began

to

behave in ways

as this craziness

progressed,

behaviour was fictionalised by the press into modes that

nowhere outside a Stewart Home novel.) The Green activists felt that the famous white structure, like an immobilised military machine (the sawteeth of the missing staircases existed

resembling tank tle

against the

should be returned to active service in the bat-

treads),

Mil

link-road that was being fought in Leytonstone.

Solidity should imply solidarity. (Whiteread,

evening,

bumped

sledgehammers and

into a

few of the

drills to

lads,

making

who

a

spot-check one

had turned up with

break into the interior of an exhibit that had

no interior. That was its essence. If their raid had been successful, they would have reversed time and never been seen again in this dimension.)

The house of memory,

the tree freaks believed, should join cause with

their cousins, the plank cabins

perched in the branches. Having

Turner

many column inches as drop out of the book launch circuit to

prizewinner in the frontline would be worth persuading Salman Rushdie to

a

as

face the bulldozers.

Home’s mates

in the

London Psychogeographical

Association, strate-

gic allies of the arboreal squatters, published an editorial, housey!

housey! (Newsletter No.

5), that

drew attention 226

to a perceived irony in

Tarmac sponsoring the

genesis of Whiteread’s revenant while simulta-

neously ordering the trees of George Green to be hacked

down by

dawn-raid mercenaries, in order to clear the ground for more “motor-

way madness”. The alignment as a living

buffs, sustained

by their notion of the

city

body, were discomforted by the proximity of House to the

Greenwich/Limehouse Church/Meath Gardens axis: a shining path acknowledged — as the architect Katherine Heron asserts — by the planners of the London Docklands Development Corporation. “Surprisingly the

LDDC

in

its first

keep and accentuate the length that

This was ers

a

would a nice

axis

1982 chose

to

by not permitting any building along

its

c.

interrupt the view from one place to the other.”

theory

Olympia and York

counter vision: the

The

and only published guide

— which

lasted for as

to ruffle the edges

new Hong Kong,

long

as it

took develop-

of their cheque-book, and

cast

Venice, the Pearl of the River.

towers of Manhattan rising out of swampland. Unlimited, on-line

credit.

A

window.

city

An

of

A giant slot machine with clouds in every centre. A conceptual city. A centre that could be

electricity.

inverted

anywhere and nowhere. The

definitive repudiation

of the discredited

philosophy of place.

Canary Wharf had the vulgarity

to climb off the drawing-board.

knew how to behave: they were never intended for the landscape of London. They stayed where they belonged, in the notebook, on the gallery wall. You were Claes Oldenburg’s giant lipsticks were jokes that

free to life:

imagine them, you’d didn’t have to

like that blunt

suffer

acupuncture needle, that

them every day of your

dissatisfied glass erection.

Perpetual arousal without coitus was a meaningless boast, but the magnetic lation

field.

it

warped

A false ley line was generated, boosted by the instal-

of an acorn/omphalos on Haverfield Green (the paddock

immediately to the south of Wennington Green). The wooden acorn

was yet another tribute to the Great Storm, part of a

series

carvings reminiscent of Glynn Williams or Lee Grandjean

of windfall

on

a

bad

day.

Ruralist romanticism capable of delighting the shade of Peter Fuller and

Canary Wharf, Whiteread’s House, and the roughly-chiselled acorn were in perfect alignment - rivals to the true path, significant debris to fuel the attracting the attention of taggers

and aerosol

revisionists.

geomantic ambitions of the Green Chain planners.

Home’s psychogeographers were as keen as the tabloid hacks to copyright the indignation of Sydney Gale, the token occupant. The man wouldn’t go away. Unrequired on set, he hung around the edge of the frame, polishing his one-liners, if that’s art i’m Leonardo da vinci. 227

The money was what

got up his nose: the figure of ^^40,000 available

for the construction of the artwork in an instant his

of uncharacteristic understatement.

head around the idea that

art

Foundation were soon to prove). stuff. It’s

no use

mark — and

had been punted by the yellow

It’s

more like signature. Money,

thtdretical,

Salvador Dali’s

universe of the reputation brokers,

Gale couldn’t get

money is funny money (as the K You don’t buy a new flat with this

in the betting-shop.

as unreliable as

Mr

press

a hall-

in the

the only guarantee of seriousness.

is

enough of it on the table, that the art is kosher. If you are already famous, it’s the material you work with — like the gold leaf of Byzantium. If you’re an unknown, a non-player, and one of the Saatchis drops around with a credit note, you are promoted directly into It

proves, if you heap

the brochures, the essays of explanation.

Money

is

credibility.

It’s

better

than a medicine show cure-all: good for pickling sheep, poking into bodily orifices, hanging pianos, making bricks.

of the conceptualists, the angel-aether of

It’s

Dr Dee. But

more negotiable than Monopoly money: you although lots.

it’s

What

pissed

Mr

unearned banknotes, a at

happy

perfectly

bad case of the

art loot

is

can’t actually spend

no it,

be used to build toy houses on vacant

Gale off was seeing

like a

new

to

the ultimate concept

come-on

in the

home as a haystack of Sun. He was suffering from his

psychosis. National Lottery rage. Suicidal despair

being forced to watch someone

else

walk away with your

fantasy.

The guiding spirits of the K Foundation, Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond, were equally exercised by the paradoxes of cash and art. But unlike Mr Gale they had money to burn. (And, worse, they had the full support of Stewart Home, who eulogised their provocations in an essay entitled “Doctorin’ Our Culture”, first published in G-Spot 9, Winter 1993.) No wonder that K, that angriest of letters, came to represent

Konfusion

Drummond burdened with success, critical

(in all its

and Cauty were romantic all

in

millennialists, anti-materialists

the potential material that liquidity represented. Their

and

financial,

music market japes {Wlmt

them

elements).

the

with the

Fuck

is

KLF pop

Goin^

On?

group, and with their

to Doctorin' the Tardis) left

an ethically perilous position. Having cracked

it,

the back catalogue and proceeded to disinvent themselves. easier in the days

when

into fleets of limos

the cash

went

straight

and bottle-blondes

they deleted It

was much

up your nose, or converted

in the

swimming

pool.

They

weren’t really into rain forests or self-promoting acts of public charity.

They had somewhere

to live,

enough

motors, combat fatigues; what was

left

228

to get

by on,

suitably distressed

over was shit on their hands.

They decided

go

to

Money was

money.

their art.

Which proved

unpopular move. “Been done before,” to

know.” Burning

They had

Peanuts.

scam written up

ART. And

for the big one:

a million

theme was

their

be an inspirationally

to

said the curators.

“Don’t want

quid on an off-shore island? So what?

tame journalist

to practically kidnap a

in the Observer colour supplement.

It

to get the

smelled of the

self-indulgence that rock aliens had always practised: burn

drink

and

it,

eat

it

—

what’s the difference?

Drummond

given

were bored with

and

Cauty

a major body of cash,

nobody wanted. The

money. They’re relieved not

dislike

to

truth

it,

the responsibility, the need to consume, invest, recycle.

dirty,

it’s

ugly.

your house. Dead people. Royals

It

who

the loose change in the universe. They’re born to

If there

is

a conspiracy, they’re in

it.

The green

revelation for Bill

towards the car on the

Isle

Drummond came when

Masonic

stuff is like

down with

rain.”

pranksterism.

It

Let

wasn’t a satire

all

belonged in

dead sheep on the

held, instead of

it

steps

he walked out

ofJura, in the Inner Hebrides, just before the

bonfire: “This feels better, going out into the night

it

it.

family album.

The

a

It’s

are the experts in the silent

doesn’t embarrass them. They’re not fazed by creeping

symbolism. a

all

is

covered with engravings of people you wouldn’t want

It’s

acquisition of

a

be stuck

with

in

it,

these suitcases of dreck. They’d

it,

proposal for a thematic exhibition that that people fear

gesture was boring.

MONEY

with the

their best shot

it

The

snort

it,

when

it’s

pissing

wash away, the whole weary mess of art a forgotten Terry Southern novel. Leaving

of the hotel where the Brit Awards were being

going inside to pick up their prize

on inane bingo

culture, or a

“Best Group”,

as

comment on

Geoffrey

Howe,

was an anticipation of Damien Hirst (who they thought of inviting

the solitary witness to the

money

as

burning).

There’s something bizarre about the

way

these prize ceremonies

excite the imagination of counter-culture activists.

Home

organised a

Booker (with no takers). The event had passed beyond catatonic boredom. It is meaningless. The same nothing has

picket for the satire into

happened too often. Any critical gesture only corpse for one final spasm of animation. The Turner Prize cash

on

offer,

ple” decide press I

its

singular

running

“who

is

a

moment of global

TV

and

press

the worst of

serves to

K

jump

start

the

Foundation gave the

attention by doubling the

campaign, and letting the “peo-

them

all.”

pack provided by the Wapping-based

If

PR

it

wasn’t for the glossy

man, Mick Houghton,

wouldn’t have remembered who, beside Rachel Whiteread, had been 229

nominated

for

infamous

that

(Hannah

shortlist

Collins,

Vong

Phaophanit, Sean Scully).

The art

pack,

which

destined to

is

become

a valuable artefact,

primary

documentation, 'is one of the best samplers for the Karma of the Ks.

Canny copywriting

ensures that browsers (originally journalists) are hit

by subliminal messages, emotive

flashbacks:

ABANDON ALL ART NOW.

major rethink

The words change

in progress,

places

on the

dumped, stand by for/MAJOR/art history/announcement/in 30 MINUTES. Apocalyptic prompts that should have engendered a War of the Worlds panic. But nobody was watching Channel 4 at the time. The invitation to join the motorcade board, the prime minister

is

who

was spurned, except by lowlife hacks

spoiled the purity of the

design by stuffing their pockets with wads of cash that they were sup-

A

money/art questionnaire was provided as part of the complimentary kit. Nine questions, answers on a postcard. The direct ones won’t have been any problem to the outriders from the Street of Shame — “Have you ever shagged somebody who works in a Bank?” — but the more philosophical probes will have posed to tamely

been ignored.

nail to a board.

“Why

is

‘raw nerve emotions’ not the correct phrase to

describe the anger, jealousy, embarrassment, resentment, hatred, disgust,

and longing inspired by the

disinterest, love, admiration, laughter, lust sight,

sound and smell of money?”

The

result

of the

K

Foundation’s award of its booby prize to Rachel

Whiteread was unpredictable. Fame of solicited

kind that Whiteread neither

a

nor wanted — and anonymity for

Whiteread had been passed the black

spot.

Drummond

and Cauty.

She was stuck with ^40,000

which she then had the angst of redistributing. Like it or not, she was an unofficial Arts Council, hit on by every beggar in the borough. Her work, whose essence was its privacy, its slow-cooking, meditative acts of repetition, was stripped bare on the street: asked to explain itself, when any explanation would negate the enigmatic stillness she worked so hard to cultivate. Meanwhile, the K Foundation, who wanted to enter the catalogue as serious jokers, critics of society. Dadaist thinkers, were treated with the scorn

and incomprehension usually reserved for the

avant-garde, conceptualists, performance geeks. Their identity as ex-

rock weirdos with more

confirmed — even So,

it’s

when

money

than they

that description

business as usual.

Drummond

knew what

to

had no base in

has taken his

first

do with was

reality.

steps as a

van-

ity

publisher by producing a lavishly-bound elephant folio, beautifully

set

- and

schizophrenically decorated by an appendix of sampled, full-

230

frontal

pornography.

The book

lectors

of curiosa and

art speculators.

its

nature, remain unseen.

is

too expensive for anybody except col-

A single

a populist gesture that

It’s

copy, treated as a holy

relic,

must, by has

exhibited from time to time; only to vanish again like the holy There’s talk of flying sponsored witnesses out to look

some

Irish

mod-

dropping in on obscure readings in East End synagogues, or

sitting

shadows of toilet clubs

in the

After one of these events,

and

grail.

himself is to be seen, from time to time,

tower. estly

And Drummond

at it in

been

Bill

Drummond

sat

in Islington or

unknown

back to back

Fieldgate Street. Whiteread was

still

Camden.

to each other,

at

Rachel Whiteread

the bar of the Queen’s

angry enough to regret

Head a

in

missed

opportunity for unloading some of the pain she had been caused. But

Drummond

slipped

away

early,

plotting the next coup. Whiteread was

history.

3

.

Rachel Whiteread kept a scrupulous video record of the process whereby her concept (her successfully funded proposal) was brought to life. It’s

obvious, watching this material, that the real winners were the

industrial contractors, the plant hire

combos. House was

a great deal for

McGrath Brothers and Tarmac: peel off the brickskin, then return two month later for a day’s graft knocking down (with high visibility the

coverage) the most famous sculpture in England.

The

early video footage

exposing the deserted

shell

is

heartbreaking: filtered October sunshine

home

of the Gale

to inspection, a

warmth. Tableaux of arcane domesticity viewed

honeyed

for the last time:

con-

toured floorboards, wallpaper collisions, breathy curtains of ancient dust.

The

furniture, the

bric-a-brac have been ily.

The house

state, to

is

household appliances, the accumulations of

removed -

in limbo.

It’s

as if in

tempting to sentimentalise

claim that the soul of the building

dition of the light. Whiteread’s camera will

response to a death in the fam-

is still

lists

this privileged

present: a special

con-

the accidental survivals that

be frozen and defined. These mild heats and small excitements

will soon,

when

the

ter canister as a film

perception of

this

windows are boarded over, be sealed in their plasof memory. The sculptor’s power derives from her

originating phase, the tapping and casting of the

She understands,

unpeopled

space.

wood and

cloth and chipped

tile,

in her handling that she

231

is

of the textures of

working

a

ceremony

to

The

exclude the mundane, the temporal.

blind

room becomes

a record-

ing instrument, a machine for the implementation of a revised history. I

am presumptuous enough

to assert that this

would be

the best of it, a

period of reverie, undisturbed solitude, before the arrival of her collaborators

— and

the bother of getting the Job done, justifying the

commission.

The

pleasures of the chrysalis stage are visceral: brisk technicians

White

spraying Lockrete (the substance used to patch the

Dover) across

a

grid of steel rods.

The video

records

must have been

it

to

work

wetness of the walls, the morbid obliterated

by the

fur,

in this

sense of

environment

the muffled

geometry of the finished

brittle

of this, making

The

the viewer privy to the secrets of transformation.

unpleasant

all

pod

of

Cliffs

life

how

acute: the

is

that will

be

structure. Inside the

cube, invisible to the spectators, this larval, sticky, insect thing will

SWAT

remain: a living, angry core. But the masked assistants are like a

team fetched cellar

to

some

tragic address, the

mass suicide of

known and

regenerating

sliding

backwards into the

itself from illegitimate

are the exterminators

future.

starting

House

is

from what

a time-traveUer,

of normalcy.

rubble-strewn declivity. faults

—

a

evidence. Whiteread’s forensic crew

The dermabrading concluded. House and

or the

of a psychopath. They’ve been landed with the task of building

pyramid/ro/i; the inside, reversing nature’s alchemy is

cultists

It

was

now

an

stood exposed in

art object:

smoothed over with Lockrete

it

had died,

(plus a splash

The

a shallow, its

flaws

of white to

enliven the skull-grey of

its

begged

of unsponsored sign painters, spraycan poets:

WOT

&

for the attentions

with

filled

ment, not

a

week. The unedited book of the obscenities,

wot for

is

city

is

a state-

a question.

the electromagnetic

— even

those

They were primed grounded UFO,

have been

first

cacophony of quotations,

The pre-posthumous

a

virgin walls positively

FOR, WHY NOT aiid the airbrushed addendum, homes for all black

WHITE, appeared in the

hole

complexion).

a

structure that

field, it

brought disciples running from every

who knew

metaphor

for

rat

nothing of the history of Grove Road.

to sample this a sign. In

was House became an intrusion in

the

new

source of interference. House was

B-movie

Communism:

a

it

would

would

defini-

cycles of the Fifties

something

that

recompose defensive, small-town consciousness. The enigmatic object was circumnavigated, probed, photographed. In the twilight, it tively

was fed by

flashbulbs.

negative, printed.

Convulsive therapy.

The white

Thousands of different images, 232

ghost was seen in

different readings

from

different heights: a terrace

of repetitions,

a city

of broken mirrors. Loss

was multiplied. Loss, carried away, was confirmed tion. Professionals, archivists,

chemist-shop

general condi-

as a

casuals:

they snapped and

snatched and pondered. House was broken into an album of fragments, longshots, close-ups, colour,

remade by school

kids.

A

was sketched, painted,

It

dreadful autism of detail: nothing must be

left

down

the

The

out, nothing forgotten.

monochrome.

images, laid out,

would

stretch

length of Grove Road, and beyond, repopulating the grass wilderness, as far as

the railway bridge

Clem

(A local man,

where the

first

Baylis, survived the

flying

bomb

fell

on London.

trauma of being buried

alive

three times. First as a 16-year-old Artillery gunner in his trench at the

of the Somme. Then, twenty-eight years

Battle a

later, as a

firewatcher

on

roof in Grove Road, where he witnessed the “flaming apparition” of

the

V

1

finally,

bug

,

before his building and eleven others were demolished. And,

just a

month

he had been pulled from the

after

shop —

hit his tobacconist’s

trapped in the rubble,

a

potential rescuers at bay.

also in

ruins, a

Grove Road. This time he was

“bloody great dog” alongside him keeping

Long

before Whitehead’s experiment. Grove

Road boasted of bad luck. It was twinned with Pompeii.) The trick for the sponsors, needing an upbeat icon, was viewpoint that would exclude

Head-on, face Barnado’s tion.

to face (and

home on

Cropped

doodle-

all

to find a

the mania, the mess of the streets.

Dr

back to the Sheppard House, the old

the other side of the road) proved the slickest solu-

tight (no sky), the park

was banished.

A suitably formalist

— which all parties agreed could be used for the label commemorative bottle of Beck’s Beer (best drunk before

shot was achieved

on the

February 1995). This icon had been so severely edited that for prosecution

under the Trade Descriptions Act: the park

thetically incorrect,

No

anarchists,

no

K

No

as

unlovely

No

Foundation, no flying bombs.

chaotic: futurist zigzags, lightning bolt staircases, blue is

railings, aes-

pedestrians,

Mondrian composition of rectangles and ordered lines, asymmetry in greys and greens. Moving back and away and the shape of the artwork struction

qualified

had been airbrushed by computer, allowing House

to stand directly against the real paving-stones. fiti.

it

as a septic tank.

Night-trippers examine the corpse from

no

graf-

dogs.

nicely

A

judged

much more smears. The conis

WARNING HAZART.

all

sides.

Only

civilians,

out

on the wrong side of the railings, see anything resembling the Beck’s print. But there aren’t many of them, not yet. Most of there in the street,

the supplicants are bussed in, culture punters with affiliations.

233

It’s

like a

A Beirut excursion sponsored by Harvey Nichols:

the war zone.

visit to

Gucci bags, Hermes scarves, leopardskin prints trip across the greensward to pay their respects to Whiteread’s sugar-dusted skull. Nervously, they huddle together to catch the

They

can’t wait to get

the canal.

They

away from

to

about

can’t wait to talk

touch the

plaster, to

the explanation.

reek of

this fearful place; the cold, the

others, self-propelling anoraks, skitter

ward

spiel,

afterwards.

it:

around the

At home. But

circuit; darting for-

report their admiration for the fossilised

fern-prints of ancient wallpaper, the cast of fireplaces that float in the air like the vertical coffins

of children. There’s

favoured distance

a

— about

25 yards back - from which to indulge in prolonged meditation: the

bottom of one of the cancelled gardens. Human lurk in the half-dark, traced by the smoke of their breath, black the powdering of snow that chills the peppery grass. position at the

One most a

of the strengths of House was that

closely associated with

“Rachel Whiteread”.

didn’t

want

to,”

it

was

of confusion.

Whiteread

work

finished

had accumulated

his legions

go

to

The

At the death,

tion, forgetfulness.

Flounders and

It

it.

repulsed those

it

its

own

was

against

who

were

didn’t have the feel

of

urge towards extinc-

in league

“It

figures

like

with Councillor holding

a party

I

said.

While the influential friends of Artangel were manoeuvring for time, and the western world was camping out for a final glimpse of the famous fetish (famous because they were there), Whiteread concluded her video diary.

had

a

subdued

Knowing of the

air.

Subdued, but

structure’s death warrant, the pilgrims also delighted: at

being part of it, the

Wennington Green was the preview of a public execution. Winter light. None of them would dream of spending the afternoon hanging about a corrugated-fence to watch an ordinary demolition. House allowed them to pay tribute to their own sensitivity. protest, the fuss.

It

was the

last visit

to a sickbed, a rehearseci bereavement.

well-behaved, sober.

They needed

wreaths to heap on the front

Whiteread to bundled into

risk stepping a

floral tributes to

steps.

occupy

They were their hands,

There were too many of them

out of her

car.

heavy jacket, peeping over

a

She pulled up

for

at a distance,

newspaper (which probably

carried a dot matrix version of her face), to keep surveillance. If she started to

walk across the

grass, they’d

cern; their need to touch,

have torn her apart in their con-

own, express

solidarity.

She fumbled

for a

whispered confession to the diary: “If I get out of the car. I’d get swamped by people.” Marginal to her own creation, she found herroll-up, a

self duplicating the actions

of Bill

Drummond 234

and Jimmy Cauty,

who

watched from

a

jeep parked

at

the riverside, while their hirelings called

Whiteread out of the Tate shindig

to face the

scrummage of the booby

prize presentation. Peter Brooke, notable for his baroque eyebrows,

of the

A

finest

Tory Ministers for

government Rover

was

Disaster,

one

Grove Road.

also present in

discreetly positioned for a quick getaway, while

make out what all the bother was about. It any politician had come to art without breaking a bot-

the warbling fogey tried to

was the tle

over

closest

or digging

it,

Just then,

it

up

to take

home with

him.

by one of the correspondences by which the whole

affair

was characterised, an area of grass close to the property Whiteread was restoring in

Hackney came under

threat.

doormat. This unfenced green space had

of prefabs, “temporary” housing that struction well into the Seventies.

was

a

But

it

standard leaflet

of compromise, nests

a history

lasted

on the

from the postwar recon-

The yellowing rug of scuffed ground

troublesome lacuna — scarcely

nience.

The

a park,

nor even

conve-

a dogs’

was nurtured and tended by the more civic-minded

ratepayers, particularly those

with an investment in Albion Square

aspired to parity with their westerly neighbours in

De

who

Beauvoir Town.

wind from Islington, it was possible to see this raised corner as a village green. John Betjeman would have approved. It was an area for which he had a particular fondness. Former magistrates and professional persons weeded and planted the borders. Children played here on summer evenings, within sight of their homes, and large mixed gatherings (all ages, weights, inabilities) churned it to mud in their weekly “Big Match” rituals. Unlike Grove Road’s Green

With enough determination, and

Chain,

this turf was in

sary breathing space.

a

constant use.

A

It

served a purpose.

was

a

neces-

harmless device for sustaining the illusion of

community life. Which, of course, was seen as ing Labour Council, as deeply entrenched labyrinthine corruptions as the that a small terrace

It

LibDem

a

provocation by

in

brothers in

its

a rul-

prejudices and

Bow.

It

was decided

of houses (“eight maisonettes”) would be shoe-

what the square dwellers, shamelessly signalling their aspirations, liked to call “The Green”. The Nimbys (who were both surprised and delighted to see Whiteread show her face at their AGM) mounted an effective campaign of resistance: snippets of local TV, camphorned on

outs, rafts

to

of documentation, points of order, fighting funds, top of the

range legal stationery. Middle England’s version of the

And

with

much

the same result.

Newslook C'We Always

Haggerston Labour

Tell

The

Mil

They found themselves Truth!!!”), the official

Party, as “a vocal minority”.

235

ecowars.

slighted in

organ of the

Their achievement.

months of meetings, emotional speeches, threats and gestures, was modest — a few adjustments to the builders’ plans that would have merited a wan smile from Gavin Stamp. So successful was this compromise that the scheme, in which the Sanctuary Housing Association cooperated with Hackney Council, was “nominated for an award” — as Newslook gloatingly boasted, before moving on to puff the invasion of a much grander space, pride in the east end! “Labour and Liberal councillors in Hackney have welcomed the choice of Victoria Park as the venue for the annual Lesbian and Gay Pride event.” They didn’t allude to the fact that seven council employees would be delegated to clear the after

rubbish of 150,000 marchers and celebrants.

The

Wennington Green witnessed the premature abortion of House and the reinstatement of some purely ceremonial grassland — while the abbreviated lawn screened by final

Whiteread’s

exchange was almost too

neat:

new home was

by houses which, in the long

limbo of construction, stood sculpture.

The

conceit allowed

and

way

gaunt and empty

as

true “vocal minorities”

them

as

works of conceptual

were the councils whose

to speak for the people, to interpret

frustration as ripples

the

(in

built over

self-

howls of rage

of applause. Petty despots, frustrated in their

that Mussolini

was

a failed novelist), take

it

art

out on the land-

scape.

Across the canal, and a

little

to the south

of Wennington Green,

another agitated and reforgotten carpet of

known

turf, a

non-place

is

now

Meath Gardens. It is blessed by standing on the true path of the Blackheath/Greenwich/Limehouse Church ley line. Meath Gardens, in an earlier incarnation, was the Victoria Park Cemetery a

as

notorious bonepit, putrid with multiple occupation.

A

field

stench and pestilence regularly denounced in progressive journals,

was

also the burial place

of an Australian Aboriginal cricketer

of it

known

“King Cole”, who died in England in 1868, during the first tour undertaken by a team from the southern hemisphere. A few years ago, watched by another squad sponsored by Qantas, a eucalyptus tree as

was planted to revive and commemorate this fable, and a brass plaque was screwed to a polished wooden block to record the event. Naturally, the plaque, along with the legend, disappeared within days

of the ceremony. The empty block

The totemic

tree,

is

useful for scraping off

leaning crazily to the

east,

dog

and supported by

dirt.

a stave,

been bent and brutalised: a damaged dreaming. But the validity of the King Cole myth gathers momentum as all the prompts of memory weaken. That is the nature of riparian London with its cycles of deletion has

236

and resurrection.

We

are the fiction

They have nothing but our

lies

bricks were cleared, joined that

of the vanished

and buildings.

lives

to sustain them. House, as

soon

as

company — misremembered and

the

last

inerad-

icable.

Whiteread s artwork belongs with the Matfelon in Whitechapel,

took

its

name.

An

a

removed

invisible

structure

church of St Mary

from which

that district

absence, a brick outline in the grass, that gave cre-

dence to the surrounding crush of business and development. The church appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in many forms, destruction: the Great

Tempest of 1362, the

fire

soliciting

of 1880 which gutted

the Victorian building in an hour, the fire-bombs of 1940, the tearing

down of the ruin in 1952 — and its reduction to the status of “garden” in 1966. AU that is left is the skeletal tracing, a psychic barrier that repelled the vagrants who gathered around the solitary sepulchre — until the Rowton House in Fieldgate Street (Jack London’s “Monster Doss House”) was closed down, given over to its new identity as a fashionable derelict, a venue for performance artists and rap promos. The reservoirs

of psychogeographical energy are identified by being

to the attentions

frame

is

of cameras and recording instruments. Only

blank can you be sure that something worth looking

when at

Parks are like strips of blank leader attached to reels of lost film.

Nothing

is left

on which we can

to decorate the borders

been

set

get a

fix:

resistant

is

the

there.

memory

gravestones are cleared

of market gardens. Angels and emblems have

over empty earth, bodies “snatched” for the hospitals and lec-

ture theatres. Springs bubble to the surface through pits of putrefaction.

At

St George-in-the-East the vicar

pump: DEAD men’s broth. The

hung

a placard

over the water-

narrative of the city

is

rewritten,

scribbled over, revised: the “lost” earthwork of the Whitechapel

(“considerably higher” than the

synagogues are discovered

as

London

Hospital)

is

Mound

unaccounted

for,

Bangladeshi supermarkets. House aspires to

the same provisional status.

4.

Eavesdropping on the conversations of those

who came

to debate the

nature and central mystery of Whiteread’s construction,

it

was

clear

many felt, or wanted to believe, that House had been turned insideout by some conjuring trick (like the ritual performed, four hundred years before, by John Dee on the Isle of Dogs). A vacuum had been that

237

created in

which time

itself

was held prisoner,

a solid X-ray.

And

this

process of transformation, inside to outside, was also recurring across the

map of

the

city.

Sacred markers (stones, statues, gates, obelisks) were

being stolen from the centre, reassembled in the suburbs — reversing

Temple Bar

polarity: so that

finds itself banished

from Fleet

Street to a

' I

wood in Theobald’s Park, and Euston Arch is broken up and dumped in the River Lea. This has always been the way. Prison walls becoming roads, church foundations supporting office blocks. The scrub

on

quarries of Portland stone, out there all

Hawksmoor

the cathedrals that

Dorset promontory, hide

their

imagined, the unachieved

London of

the mind.

House, in

brief apotheosis as a public artwork, stimulated a network

its

of parasitical

activity: lavish

books of tribute,

articles, visits

by investors

and supporters, guided tours for the young and innocent. The educa-

Rachel Lichtenstein

tional co-ordinator at the Chisenhale Gallery, (original family

name

reclaimed by deed poll in 1988), was an

specialised in not-forgetting, the recovery

process

is

of “discernible

constructing her

own

was an

It

no

biography out of a heap of disconnected shards

would have no ghost with no sub-

life,

She would be an unjustified survivor,

a

she

veins of blood and suffering.

was Lichtenstein’s pleasurable task to conduct

children

traces”. This

of the unconscious,

archivist

and images. Without the hard evidence of a past stance,

who

quite distinct from memory-theft. Lichtenstein accumulated,

retrieved, polished, presented: she

existence.

artist

on

site visits to

been made and what

its

Wennington Green,

parties

to explain

of local school

how

House had

history had been. Later, back at the gallery, she

would encourage and provoke a wide range of responses. The children, like many more sophisticated tourists, favoured a fairy tale solution to the mechanics of construction: liquid concrete poured ney.

They

painted and modelled their

own

down

the chim-

versions, a mosaic in

primary

which every house was a portrait of the writing on the Ruins of Glamour/ Glamour of Ruins

colours, a restored terrace in artist.

event,

(Stewart

Home

which took place

begins with

a

art

Chisenhale Gallery in December 1986,

piece reinvoked for “those of you with short memories”:

Stephen Szczelkun’s Provo

in the

“felt

covered and smoke belching

derived from child art derived from

.

.

.

wendy house”.

)

Lichtenstein, the other Rachel, was obsessive, ritualistic in her pro-

cedures.

The

quest for identity, for a family that

essence and existence, took her

on

a series

238

would confirm her

of journeys: to Poland, to

New

York, to

-

ration

-

Israel

and, inevitably, to Whitechapel. Each explo-

interviews, recordings, buildings and contents listed and

photographed — brought her closer gathered

all

(like

When

of origin.

it

was

the manic accumulations of holy junk in David

Rodinsky’s Princelet Street

would be

to the point

would cancel

she

attic),

The moment

free to travel in other dimensions.

fronted the existential terror of loss

herself out.

came when,

as a

She

she con-

teenager, she set

herself to photograph a wall of photographs. Holocaust victims, chil-

dren. She couldn’t look at

what she was capturing. She convinced herself that she had identified a provisional account of her own face. Her 1993 installation Shoah, at the West London Synagogue, was, amongst other things, an attempt to appease at

double. (In an earlier rehearsal,

this

Art School in Sheffield, she had covered

with printed sheets —

faint impressions

all

the mirrors in the college

of the fated

was unpopular. Lichtenstein replaced the white hoods

were torn down.) For

Shoali, Lichtenstein

The

portraits. as

soon

gesture as

they

once again used photographs

from the eradicated Polish ghettoes, printed on torn

strips

of linen. She

embraced difficulty, the stitching and sewing, the long hours that became a protracted meditation on the impossibility of her project. She would let nothing go, not an envelope, not a lock of hair. There was a quiet ferocity which was not to be found, or looked for, in Whiteread’s House. House was a concept, the human elements were the flaws: it

it

was the husk of an

was disposed of the

place

its

own

then could

better: only

it

work on memory,

volume. Lichtenstein would have

corners of curtain, cabinets of splinters. She had

dis-

albums from

filled

grown up among

antique dealers, shuffling through boxes of depersonalised histories,

The sooner

idea, extinguished in execution.

stuff,

optional

invented pedigrees. Pawnbrokers, jewellers, gold merchants:

they are the true custodians of heritage, knowing both the price and the value of everything. Lichtenstein’s art was inspired by a love of these indestructibles, residual whispers. in

found

objects, she constructed

From the temperature that remained new ceremonies. Her interests led her

straight to

Whitechapel and the Princelet Street synagogue, where she

obtained

residency

life

a

— which allowed her

and mythology of the vanished

Lichtenstein spent lived, alone,

making

many hours

David Rodinsky. room, where Rodinsky had

caretaker,

in the attic

or with his mother and

to pursue her interest in the

sister,

accumulating

his translations, scribbling jaunty verses

and

satires.

his library,

She took on

herself the Herculean labour of cataloguing the mysterious caretaker’s possessions: as postcards, they could be “re-collected”.

239

Whitechapel had to be read

unknown

relatives.

like a scriptural roll,

became

Lichtenstein

a guide, a lecturer,

the territory so that she could learn by explaining. She coveries by revisiting familiar

sites.

an album of

Talking to herself,

walking

would make disshe would catch

the echoes of immigrant voices. In her travels she encountered, and

struck up a relationship with, the patriarchal figure of the string and sticky-tape merchant,

Mr

string/twine/cord/&/paper bags:

Katz.

CHN Katz in Brick Lane was virtually the

the shop of

a great tradition.

survivor of

Katz — overcoated, bearded, black homburg on head

could be glimpsed through the window, bent over

room; marooned upriver, businessman and lation

last

of Joseph Conrad’s

Mr

his

—

books in the back

scholar, like

an Hasidic trans-

Kurtz. Balls of golden twine were always

on display. There must have been customers, though it was difficult to remember seeing any. The closed door had been sprayed with an advert for a cowboy mini-cab firm. Katz didn’t have to be here: he owned several properties in Princelet Street, making him, potentially, a wealthy man. Something that looked like a coathanger had been twisted into the loose wires that ran above Katz’s window: an ancient television set playing back patterns of spectral interference? The paving slabs were glossy and yellow as beeswax. The twine shop was the right place for Rachel to hold her Ner Htamid exhibition. As an

act

of

retrieval, this

was the

was shocking. You could walk

down

antithesis

of House:

its

discretion

Brick Lane without noticing any

intervention in the usual fabric of events. Lichtenstein exhibited twelve panels, “Eternal

dow where

Lamps”, against

them

The

at

the corner of

in resin, before

New Road and

dle wax: a frame

Whitechapel Road, difficulty)

steel-grey, ochre, can-

of memorial photographs. They did nothing to draw

attention to themselves. If the

numerology was

twelve frames represented particular

A

had recovered

welding (another self-imposed

heavy metal frames. The images were recessive —

flame.

artist

of numinous curiosities from her grandfather’s defunct

watch-repair shop set

white cloth background, in the win-

the spindles of twine usually rested.

a collection

and

a

letters, it

significant, or if the

was not obvious.

A

quiet

three-dimensional calendar.

Lichtenstein had a direct relationship with the objects she had chosen.

They had

travelled only a short distance, less than half a mile west,

from one long-established shop to another. They were not for sale, nobody was paying them much attention. Unlike Rodinsky’s room,

enough information here to build a biography. Trade goods, intriguing artefacts. There was no encouragement to construct a there was not

240

golem from the clutter of a lost life. The arrangement of the frames had no particular aesthetic, no sculptural bias: they were like so many rusted tins on a shelf. The postcards Lichtenstein subsequently produced would have passed without comment in one of the shoefantasy

boxes of Victorian and Edwardian memorabilia in the Cheshire Street market. Instant antiques:

bayonet bulb,

hair:

delicate face

of

A

created by the act of selection.

thimble of inherited

a

woven from unknowns.

relics

with

a

its

ticket, the

The

watch.

light.

An unredeemed

number

portrait

of

a

6.

A

mother with two

A

key

many more more than nence:

A

plate.

chart of

numbers coated

is

the

infants:

brush, a

galaxy of clock

in resin.

There were

museum; she could show. Houses had no importance, no permaitems in Lichtenstein’s back-catalogue, her private

was the

it

A

decorative fork floating in a cloud of lace.

A

small

death-ring

white eye that

buffer with the outline of Noah’s Ark. Ivory tags.

wheels.

A

intricate machinery, the portables that mattered.

Things that had been handled, touched, animated. Through them she

would

reaffirm the past-in-the-present, the eternal now.

Wennington Green,

a year after the

The

old complacency.

House episode, had retreated into

suspect brilliance of an Indian

summer

its

cast

few stolen

ribcages of charcoal shadows from the surviving trees. For a

hours the Arcadian conceits of the politicians were manifested.

The

pal-

pable absence of Whiteread’s sculpture validated the “secret garden”

An

aspect of the park. property.

The

had

tree

like surgical dressing

boundary of

ash tree confirmed the a

deep gash in

wadded

into a

its

Mr

Gale’s

bark, a second skin beneath

wound.

A

flight

of drunken wasps,

heavy with autumnal liquors, struggled to maintain altitude above heap of glassy white grapes, arranged

at

the

—

tree’s base.

They were

a

vile,

these grapes, a tray of artificial eyes. Disguising this votive offering was

an arrangement of bricks — and on the bricks, coins. In the long, lush grass, close to the tree,

the surface, and the tle

of

to

decode

where thick

of copper

roots broke

couldn’t operate, was a broken bot-

Vagrant sponsorship.

Foster’s Ice.

dejeuner SHr Vherbe.

motor-mower

a collection

Random mementoes

of some

Grave goods. There were no other clues from which

this ritual.

We

do not know, or need

to

know,

who came

here to honour the anniversary of the destruction (and confirmation) of

Whiteread’s vision.

241

THE SHAMANISM OF INTENT

Intentionality

is all.

Kathy Acker, Hannibal Lecter,

My

I

finished the

Father

Whiteread ruminations and decided

move

to

straight into

companion piece, the urban shamanism investigation. I had some material to hand - the catalogue of a small exhibition/series of readings the

that I’d curated in

Uppingham and

Brian Catling and Gavin Jones; but

a pair I

of essays for

wanted

to bring

Modem all

that

on

Painters

up

to date,

what the boys were doing now. I got Jones first, still in the same place, the old bunker off Devons Road, in Bow, East London. Devons Road runs parallel to one of the dankest sections of the Limehouse Cut. A waterway that has, so far, repelled the efforts of the most inventive landscape pirates. There isn’t an angle to be found that will customise this sewer for the supplements. Nor is there anything in the outer aspect of Bracken House to suggest to find out

the mysteries of Jones’ hermitage.

A

drab block of public housing set

around some tarmac on which trashed vehicles spare parts to will hft

make

it

you over the

try to gather

to the breaker’s yard. Unless

roof,

you won’t discover the

you have

enough

a crane that

secret garden, the sun-

flowers and exotics that disguise an underground shelter,

left

over from

the Blitz.

The Bracken House community tial

artisans

artists,

inhabitants are a

administrators with nothing

and accredited

workspace you

mixed bunch: Bangladeshi,

recidivists.

step over catalogues

under canvas. The structure

is

left

to administer, poten-

Climbing the

stairs to

Gavin’s

of unclaimed object, lumps chained

sound, and the views

— back towards

the

green riot of Tower Hamlets Cemetery — are breathtakingly modest.

A

torrent of new

work to be looked at: experiments in electroplating, racks of paintings. His underground shelter - the entrance hidden by an upturned fishing boat — was disguised by a sub-tropical garden, worked by teams of Bengali

women

and children. 243

A

miracle of recovery: this

mud

green plantation that had grown over the

carpet that

I’d first

seen

or seven years before.

six

But

I’d

have to wait until mid-September. Jones was leaving, the fol-

lowing morning, for

his tin shack, in the

shadow of a lighthouse on

a

rock in the Outer Hebrides. This was where, in monastic seclusion, he

worked on cloudscapes, seascapes, recovered the energy for another winter in London. These visits usually ended in disaster: the roof would blow off the shed, rows with the landowner or the

sweated out the

locals.

city,

And

Shotguns, booze, hysteria.

fresh paintings, oceanic blues

made ready

another group of marvellously

and greens, turbulent

One

for burial in the ground.

skies,

were

rolled up,

of these gems. Landscape

(1989), a cross-section of rock, sea, and sub-aquatic depths, was

exchanged niceties

of licensing, insurance, driving

Unlike the

been

artist,

the car never

made

tests,

home

it

took off for the north. again

- and

has probably

fetishised into a storage vessel for unsaleable art, before

ven into I

which Jones, unconcerned with

for the ruined Citroen in

a

being dri-

bog.

was not

much

luckier with Catling.

I

could,

I

thought, rely on

him

To be free of ownership. He was one of those who confirmed the Martin Amis definition of a poet — as a person who does not drive. By choice, by conviction. (Ed Dorn, who composed Hello, La Jolla at the wheel of a car, cruising to work, was the exception.) It’s all to do with pace and intensity. Catling is a master of to stick to the passenger’s seat.

synthesis, rapid-eye perception slowly

formation of a crystalline structure.

He

simmering, building towards the used to write on

trains,

between

engagements, in the way that Allen Ginsberg scribbled during intercontinental

Not

flights.

driving ensured a kind of independence: the

right to fiddle with the tapedeck, invigilate landscape, be creative with

maps, take the odd

snifter

But Catling, and not ing for the

Isle

without worrying about the consequences.

for the

of Lewis -

first

in his

shamans were taking to the road

time, threw

own in

vehicle.

A

me: he

Volvo,

God

some kind of Chris

Catling wouldn’t actually be driving, but acting

also

was head-

forbid.

The

Petit nightmare.

as paterfamilias

and

route-finder was worse: his neck usually responded to the intensity of

concentration with car

on

a

a bolt

of pain. They’ve had to carry him from the

board. Something major, in the

afoot. Jones

way of psychic alignment, was

and Catling, independently, and

converging on the

home ground of

at

the same time, were

the sculptor Steve Dilworth.

(Catling and Dilworth were old friends, confederates, colleagues at

Maidstone Art School: not so

much 244

hunter-gatherers of the

Isle

of

Grain

as

pick-up truck poachers, headlight bandits, familiars of Skink

Tyree, the roadside scavenger of Carl Hiaasen’s Double

only chance of seeing Catling before he

Oxford

in the afternoon heat.

left

was to drive immediately to

The tarmac was bubbling

cheese. Traffic funnelled and stalled in the East

nervous car-phoners couldn’t risk opening their

down

the line.

its

black propaganda,

What

its

dose of misat-

copies were touted up and

as

a strange publication

paper has become: from

like black

Acton chicken run: windows. There was

time to read the whole of the Evening Standard with tributed articles,

London’s sole afternoon

and humorless pastiches of

Jak’s rabid

My

Whammy.)

Giles,

through book pages that offer grazing rights to squadrons of otherwise

unemployable rage

aristos, to

simmered

in

its

the latest

rabies.

The

I

insanity of JG Ballard flyovers: oil,

semen.

I’d

been

re-

but

this

INDEX that morning,

The book rebutted the Sherlockian mentor, Conan Doyle: when the impossible

been eliminated, what remains, however improbable, must be the

truth.

The Stumbling

belief.

Worse than

what

survives

still

defies

impossible, a wall of invisible

neatly over a section of the

city.

anomahes, CatHng removes

clean.

and

Block, sequentially, eliminates the impossible,

the end of the massacre

its

its

the

itself into

nearly turned back.

formula of Catling’s early has

from Docklands. Road

leather sweat, petrol highs. Blood,

reading Catling’s The Stumbling Block

was too much.

plants

primary form, before translating

French version — La Rage,

chrome porn,

PR

Driving to Oxford,

In protecting

this

zone

previous systems of

glass.

it,

A beU jar dropped

curating

as a useful

was completing

I

all

at

it,

celebrating

token, wipes the

map

a fictional triangulation (the

curse of Radon Daughters), drawing a line between the Whitechapel

and Castle Mounds,

as

Jones and Catling travelled north to their fixed

point in the Hebrides. (He-Brides.)

The original Shamanism of Intent exhibition was generously sponsored by Mike Goldmark — even though much of the work (and several of the went against the grain. It has to be said that neither he, nor Gavin Jones, were comfortable installing Jones’ sculptures, his heron casts, on the upper deck of the Goldmark Gallery. The paprika circles

participants)

spread across the floor, the inherent unsoundness of the structures,

might have had something

who were

looking into

dozing on the itate in

a

to

do with

it.

Or

the

visit

complicated kidnapping

sofa, a bottle in

each pocket

-

from the

case.

police,

Jones took to

or slipping away to

med-

the yew-cool churchyard. Visitors, particularly those from

Cambridge,

who came on

the day of the event,

245

went away

in an equally

uncomfortable

immodestly

state.

articulate

Not

all

of them, of course. But the younger,

element seethed with discontent. They couldn’t

stomach the rhetoric, the hyperbole. Shamanism smacked of the

Sixties,

dope-freak indulgeilce, unredeemed phallocentrism, Castaneda: woolly thinking, slack language.

new

The

by the

The whole approach to the numinous was “shamanic” text that was in any way respectable was JH

austerity, elite

suspect.

didn’t have the precision required

It

last

populism.

Prynne’s Aristeas, In Seven Years (Ferry Press, 1968), underwritten

was by genuine and

visible scholarship.

Simon Jarvis

as

it

“The

in his essay,

cost of the stumbling block”, speaks of how Prynne’s text “demonstrates

the possibility of taking up with this fractured and extensive knowledge,

of not rushing to his figure,

is

a

self-exile

measured

And

from

its

supposed impurity”. Prynne’s

flight,

risk:

his songs

were invocations in no frenzy

of spirit, but clear and spirituous tones from the

pure base of his mind; he heard the small currents in the air

There

is

a

& they were

truly his aid.

coherence here that the Goldmark

day,

with

its

mitment to “frenzy”, confusion, mixed metaphors, could not And what the hell, if anything, did it mean — The Shamanism

Was

there a current in the social

life

of the

city that

com-

suspect

aspire to.

of Intent?

could be usefully

identified with this conceit? Artists so stubborn, so ruinously estranged

from the

tribe, that their outcast status

horn mask.

a disguise, a

Is it

was something more useful than

too preposterous to think of this delusion

—

work is capable of re-enchanting place — as a reality, a significant marker on the chart of our culture? Such questions — and the need to pitch the show — provoked a kind of retrospective manifesto. that

2 .

.

.

each

shaman has

.

a Bird-of-Prey Mother,

with an iron beak, hooked claws and a long

shows death.

itself

It

ripen on a branch of pitch pine.

distributes spirit

tail.

is

like a great bird

This mythical bird

only twice: at the shaman's spiritual birth, and at his

takes his soul, carries

the bird carries

which

it

back

it

to the

When

underworld, and leaves

evil spirits

devours the part of the body that

246

to

the soul has reached maturity

to earth, cuts the candidate's

them among the

it

body into

bits,

and

of disease and death. Each is

his share; this gives the

shaman power

future

devouring the whole body the evil restores the

bones

corresponding diseases. After

to cure the

and

to their places

deep

The Bird-Mother

spirits depart.

the candidate

wakes as from a

sleep.

Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy

We

(

have been walking too long in someone

ging sense —

we reward

through

travelled

a

1964 )

else

ourselves by insisting

dark night of the soul, a

sleep.

There

upon

it

s

is

a

nag-

— of having Sick colours

lightless tunnel.

spiral

from the grey-mauve scurf of cathode-ray addiction, recessing

some

infinitely remote, infinitely cold region:

however of

stupid, outranks contemplation.

bog

lost

in the

Celebrate death.

We

sleep.

Any

stars.

The Bird-Mother,

action,

a necklace

her yellowing, equine teeth, returns from the battlefield,

skulls in

some

dead

South

Drum with

are the residue

Out of rage and

Atlantic, ordering the tribe to rejoice.

The Bird-Mother cannot of her waking nightmares, we are her pain. scattered bones.

confusion, whisky fumes, fantasies of revenge, emerges

the Radiant City: Docklands.

Swamp

creatures,

hungry

ghosts, shiver in

their oil slick suits. Chalkstripes strobe like migrainous bar codes.

clamped on expensive

hats are

to

hair like prophecies

Hard

of gold. Art, and the

making of art, has to explain itself to these pirates. Doubt is inexcusable. Any future programme — prompts in notebooks — has to justify itself to a cabal of accountants. Novelty (that tired old whore) is back on the agenda.

We

painters

and movements that have never gone away, showcasing entropy.

Certain

own

somnambulate through

artists

—

the ones

you came

irritation, struck

me

improvise

tinue,

by accident, working

across

as

of discomfort,

exemplary.

upon

chaos,

“sickness-vocation”, as Eliade has

this restlessness

Worthy of notice. The could be it,

and perhaps of the culture

city,

flights

defined

as

an elective trauma.

itself,

seemed

to

and

their

of them) could

my mind

summon and

sustain.

fruitful

will to

con-

“intent”:

The

a

health of

depend upon the

of redemption these disinherited shamans (there were

too, plenty

in

house of mirrors, rediscovering

turf — began to look strange, otherworldly, out of it. Their behav-

iour, this remorseless pursuit

the

a

They were

women

associated

with other avatars of unwisdom: scavengers, dole-queue

antiquarians, bagpeople, out-patients, muggers, victims, millennial babblers.

One

of the most visionary and heroically perverse experiments in 247

deregulated shamanism was undertaken in

London, too

from the tunnelhead

far

corner of East

a blasted

to have felt the

first

wave of

dockland development, by Gavin Jones: painter, sculptor, earthmover, outlaw ecologist. The essence of Jones has been described by architect as

who

(TV

young

him, in search of the secret generators of the

visited

who

and the folk

directors, picture editors,

city,

on by sex and

“incredible enthusiasm and determinati'on driven

alchohol”.

a

attend exhi-

bitions in boilerhouses, raved about the cheekbones, the

way he

photographed: the cover for Cosh Boy redrawn by John Minton.) Sensory

derangement

“make

it

a traditional

is

Jones

to

rehearsals for the kind

One

tool.

of novel that

not untypical evening,

a

is

best

left

no obligation to give or take the odd

felt

make it at all. The art circus, Colony Room, could fuck itself.

new”, or

night out in the

shamanic

Life

was

of

a series

unwritten.

contact of the painter’s, pissed but

benevolent, laboured up the complexity of steps and balconies towards Jones’ bolt-hole studio, carrying a tray of live four?

—

flights,

Three — or was

snails.

then the weaving past obstacles, bicycle frames,

canoes, puddles that stuck to the plimsolls.

A

bits

it

of

warty sun was dying in

windows of the barrack blocks of Devons Row and Bow Common. Gavin was not at home. What happened next would have to be imagined by an investigator with nothing to work on apart from a small pyramid of blackened match-ends. The frustrated donor, denied access to the artist, burnt the snails, torched them in their shells in a ceremony of low cuisine — and spasms, as

it

slunk across the

posted the smouldering remains through the letterbox. presence was noted by neighbours,

who

refused to acknowledge the precise point at

overdrive and offers

itself as

The

lurker’s

swallowed the stench, and

which the

surreal goes into

next week’s lead in the East London

Advertiser.

Gavin returned pins, to discover,

late,

glutted by society and a

by treading on them,

a tide

little

unsteady on

of distressed molluscs

melting across his narrow hallway. His immediate response to domestic

crisis offers

methods he employs

He

procured

to service

a large canvas,

it.

forced the snail-kebab maniac to slink

In purely formal terms, the composition

as

the incident was restaged.

was cropped

could have been anybody’s hand that gripped the

flaring match.

pyrotechnician.

this

an insight into the singularity of his vision and the

back to the scene of his crime, and to pose,

it

his

in

such

a

spiral shell

way

that

and the

The way Gavin operates, it had to be the original The thin yellow flame is ominously cool. The massive 248

hand immobile,

a

meat hammer. The background

of the stretched

acres

canvas

—

with

busy argument of English romantic motifs: razor-edged

a

like the flap

of a medicine-show tent — are lovingly “toshed”

crowns, blowsy dandelions. There

thistle

demons. Jones has been driven

The

a willed invocation

of nature

what he perceived as the memories of frog slaughter, mean-

to audit

inevitable acts of childhood sadism: ingless cruelties.

is

leaves,

directness of the child, the arrogance, the

need

to

experiment, to discover the parameters of permissible behaviour: these

were the constituents ofJones’

he investigated the

art, as

rites

of passage

that have replaced a tribal initiation as hunter or killer.

At

this time, in

Mrs

Thatcher’s middle period, Jones had

obsessed with deep-focus distortion.

nated his foregrounds,

as

Carmine

they arranged

worms

an unstable platform for the mating dance of

friezes

of hands domi-

for the

hook, or offered

snails.

His canvases were

kingsized bed sheets. (Jones confesses that in his early days

four or five lines of his handwriting to steps

from

lifted into

a pleiti air session in

the sky

tion in

series,

a page.)

Tower Hamlets Cemetery, the

became

crosses)

took only his

painter was

executed in neg-

a kite.

featuring hands and snails, was rounded up for an exhibi-

Limehouse Church. Seen

religion, fierce

and masochistic

terianism of the Outer

Isles):

as a totality

(like

the

they suggested a

skies.

The

new

El Greco macerated in the presby-

artist’s

cumbersome, self-constructed

frames enclosed aquatic ceremonies, priapic gastropods,

blood red

it

Once, retracing

his latest landscape (a flesh tree

bed of Celtic

ative against a

The

when

fill

become

gulls, cliffs,

baroque interior of Hawksmoor’s church was

chill,

an ideal setting in which to witness Jones’ work for the

first

time.

(I

was

an instant convert.) Gavin had an unerring instinct for place: where he could best exhibit in the grand manner with rity.

Previous attempts included

Smithfield slaughterhouse

cellar,

a

a

guarantee of total obscu-

flooded air-raid shelter and a

run by

a flaky rag trade princess

look-

ing for cultural credibility. There must be, so Jones asserted, a treaty

between

site

to develop

and displayed

from the

Portraiture

is

artefacts: a

chance for something unexpected

collision.

another method of defining place.

The Kokoschka

alogue, the rogue’s gallery of artists, musicians, businessmen,

is

a

cat-

handy

way of summarising a period: the pressures of the time distorting the challenged faces. The paintings in Limehouse Church were portraits of landscape, as well as landscaped faces. The sitter with whom Jones had once fished the icebox

Medway

as a future subject.

also

He

provided the deformed

fish stored in

the

couldn’t attend the show. He’d vanished.

249

“fitted

up”

murky

for crimes too

to be discussed, but vivid

The

grace the painting with an additional patina of threat. strength captured in these faces

“confirmed” by

is

acts

full

page advert in the

It

acknowledged the

side

community. The

in a

vague and

rector,

were manhandled up the

like taking

event had an Exhilarating, but menacing

final flare

who

of the old,

dirty,

dangerous river-

had allowed the thing to go forward

of reconciliation, was alerted

liberal spirit

self-

Police Gazette.

The Limehouse Church edge.

is

to

latent

of suicide or

mutilating madness. Being chosen to pose for Gavin Jones

out a

enough

He had

steps.

as

the pictures

been tormented by the

already

impositions of camera crews and the vulgarly curious, guided onto his territory

by best-selling gothic

fictions.

Who

Bragg and Peter Ackroyd, deep in conversation, stone pyramid sepulchre?

could forget Melvyn as

Rumours of Masonry,

they approached the

child sacrifice, graffiti

Book of the Dead continued to plague him. Even the vagrants found better shelves on which to bask. They wearied of media out of

Tlie Egyptian

exploitation, being rods,

woken by

lunatics

poking the turf with dowsing

psychogeographic journalists taking their

own

editorials too liter-

ally.

No,

phosphorescence of

this irradiated

snails

was too much. The

sky-pilot snapped, locked the candlesticks in the safe, and bolted the

church doors the

wooden

until

it

was

all

over.

gallery like Captain

Leaving Jones, alone,

the

exhibition that

a

paradigm of hermetic modernism,

nobody could view —

Canary Wharf skyscape

stamping

Ahab. But the word of a Christian had

been given. The show continued: a valid

inside:

(visible

a

scaled-down version of

but impossible to reach).

The

intense displacement of energy generated by the arrangement of Jones’

work was unaffected by

the fact that

Bishop Berkeley was refuted.

it

could not actually be seen.

Work and church

who

rary alliance, this shotgun marriage. Pilgrims

the riverine wastes of East feel the benefit

on the

shadow of

watch

as pathetic clusters

glitter

of British sherry bottles - wondering

the building,

a

wall, in the

new

of art buffs

a

beached fishing-smack, and

rattled the doors, if this

stepped over the

was

it?

They were

kind of communication, to imagine the paintings,

brighter and stronger for their passage through the resistant

Portland stone.

tempo-

of Hawksmoor’s image-generating time machine. You

sit

make

this

had traipsed out into

London could circumnavigate

could

forced to

gained by

They

collaborated with the

artist.

Nothing

filter

sold,

of

Jones

continued.

His career had relatively orthodox beginnings, 250

at

the Slade

— where

his

attachment was

He

conveniently casual one.

a

licence from Professor

Gowing,

spent time, under

London, he haunted University College Hospital — the Mortuary and the School of Anatomy. He sought a connection with the Great Tradition, where in Shropshire. In

close observation inspired high risk strategies, taboo breaking: cadavers split

and analysed, the shadow

line

to his studio. Jones solicited

between

life

and death brought back

unholy laughter. The chosen corpses

Muybridge photographs. He interested himself in colours particular to the postmortem limbo. He was fascinated by the shifting, settling mass of the naked bodies on their slabs. The dead are the most obedient of models. He observed the

received a brief remission, danced like

clotting of blood, the flowering of dull bruises, the rapid

of

One

grey.

canvas depicts the photographing of a headless cadaver,

strapped in a vertical position on a revolving turntable. listlessly at

iour,

encroachment

A

student picks

the flesh of the legs. There are reasons for this curious behav-

but the strangeness of the image,

its

weird perspective, overwhelms

them. Increasingly, as

he

is

forced to debate with interviewers and busy-

bodies, Jones sees himself as displaced, fancies himself living in an age

squandered.

He works

with

born

at

when pentimento

fierce attack,

the

wrong

has

time.

He

been spurned or

without quite achieving the

concentration to resolve his contradictions, to define the springs of his

He

obsession.

mud

for

is all

some

too eager to

on, shift into sculpture, dig river

(The

exercise in public relations disguised as patronage.

piece in question, a heron in lasted only as

move

long

as

it

the event. But credit

is

flight,

attached to a tower of baked slurry,

took to be captured for the brochure that puffed

due

to the developers

and

their agents:

without

would lose some of dynamic. With nothing worth opposing

the hubris of Docklands, Jones’ totemic oddities their impetus, their justified

there

is

no honour

Balance

is

in

being contrary.)

achieved in Jones’

life

London

Scalpay in the Outer Hebrides. talks, drinks, is actively

(not society).

or

on the

He

stalks.

streets, bits

private views,

engaged

where he

is

in conversation,

Information can be

island

of

feeds his anger,

argument, the social

effortlessly

acquired in pubs

of books abandoned by other people, exhibitions,

monologues

private lunatics

by regular purges on the

in the

and quotidian

back of a

visionaries.

taxi,

the endless parade of

Nothing

is

wasted.

He

is

inspired by throw-outs, brochures from skips. X-rays, negatives,

pornography, bones, rings, magnets, the skull of a tle.

The

isolation

of the Hebrides

will

251

blow away

lark, a

all

snake in

a

bot-

this froth. Life there

The world

weather.

is all

By

slows and the punctured

body

is

restored.

news is something Jones avoids. He spurns live estranged from television, which he treats as an entirely

deliberate choice,

newsprint and

random

is

of disconnected imagery. His

scatter

of Pop have him

brittle ironies

sibilating like

art

remains uninfected: the

He

Brian Sewell.

has incu-

bated a rogue ecology with which to handle the idea of the place in

which he Arcadia

forced to the

(like

achieve a

out

is

site

in

live.

Rather than using

an

his paintings to create

Green Chain), he has laboured, physically and which a fitting art might one day be produced.

hard, to

He dug

wartime bunker, and developed in the process the strength to

a

undertake the sculptures that the bunker inspires him to attempt.

no existence on the maps of the borough, was excavated with an irresistible combination of will power and taboo-defying nonchalance. The effort, initially nocturnal and covert, was worthy of Howard Carter or Schliemann; but no team of This bunker, with no

official status,

pot hunters, no cowed peasants, worked alongside Jones. Sentiment

and heritage didn’t enter the equation. The sculptor lived here because he lived here. His view of his vocation was suitably pragmatic, or

“whatever

ist: I

I

do

is

my

elit-

art.”

witnessed the excavation

various stages: the spade pressing

at

through coarse grass to find the clink of metal, the trapdoor, the descent into darkness.

make

it

The bunker was

usable,

converted,

was

a

major undertaking. The

as a diversion,

to the prescription

constructed in four chambers; to clear

of the poet Paul Celan: “There was earth inside

rough

walls,

no space

in a

own

vortex from

fat. Fertility

this

he had to reach,

for his paintings,

would

gift

a

he would

him with

was

secret, the restoration

returned to inert

clay.

The Bracken than Whiteread’s peeled shell —

recaptured nowhere.

project had greater validity it

that

the rubble and

an alignment with the masters of the Aurignacian: beasts of

Energy spun because

way beneath

for future generations. His sacrifice

the hunt rendered in their

House

his

Something was down there

cave of silence. If the world offered

entomb them

above had to be

into a garden. Back-breaking labour, obedient

them, and/ they dug.” Jones scratched the dead ground.

mound

it,

of a place of safety: “God’s Corner”

where the bombs never landed. The shaman without a tribe is still an active nib. Hurt is perceived as wisdom. The sterility of the Isle of Dogs was questioned by the sculptor’s frantic acts, his predatory laughter. If the skyline was to be dominated by a crop of alien verticals, exclamation marks in mirror

must

eat earth.

The

life-force

glass,

then

of the

city

252

we must burrow is

measured

like

in the

moles.

We

candlepower

of its keepers, the activators of place whose

must be

follies

as

imagina-

of the developers and despoilers.

tive as those

Jones discovered the perfect hood for

his

bunker:

a

Hebridean

fish-

wreck that had been beached for so many years on the fringes of Limehouse Church. Too far gone to be relaunched on the Thames, where it had drudged in the twilight of its career, the herring smack was about to be burned as an affront to the church’s scoured ing-boat, the

The boat was hacked Bracken House garden, then

makeover. Jones intervened.

into

transported to the

nailed together

upended,

set in place.

quotation

(it

A

two

sections,

—

functioning shed, a yurt, and also a literary

had featured

many poems and neighbourhood

in so

sketches).

While Jones clawed and sweated

in the excavated space beneath his

secondary presence, an elderly junkman/collector, trembling

craft, a

with Parkinson’s

disease, filled his allotted

could drag, with

his faltering strength,

Once,

in his

pomp, he had trundled

chamber with

down from

all

the debris he

the exterior world.

doorless fridges, trunks of con-

demned

beef, unidentifiable elements of fantastic machines, spokes

without

a

fallen

circumference, books raked from bonfires, things that had

from so many

nition.

lorries they

had passed

Time had hobbled him. He was

beyond

far

forensic recog-

almost ready to vanish into the

Schwitters-like accumulations of his den: another David Rodinsky, a

ghost defined by his possessions.

absorbed into

damp

plaster

Rooms

turn into men,

men

are

and peeling wallpaper. The junkman was

a

patron of the spurned, a collector of the uncollectable, a stalker of margins.

He

haunted market

stalls,

gallery openings, theatres

—

led by a

dog on a string. He soaked up envelopes, feathers, fluff, hairballs, broken plastic spoons. His pockets were sticky with complimentary sugar sachets. Often he was the solitary witness at unannounced performance events, the only man in London with the half-blind

warm room with who does not deal

determination to find his way to some reading in “a

The

sweet tea” near the Elephant and Castle. achieves the status of an honorary established a

artist.

dealer

Jones’ tolerated sub-tenant

museum of memory from which

another London, dis-

turbing and demented, could be reassembled. engines and aboriginal robots.

The junkman’s

anced Gavin’s casual iconoclasm.

time (lurching through

seen for the

last

behind him

a collection that

oozing

When

acid: lethal to touch,

selfless

city

of articulate

piety counterbal-

dog were Uppingham), he left

the recluse and his

a twilight

was incapable of dangerous to 253

A

visit.

dispersal, a single

lump

we

In the climate of atavistic rage and congenital stupidity

wished upon ourselves, the climate in which Jones’s work than

as a threat rather

artists

We

We require inoffensive exhibits produced

with biographies that are extremely offensive in their

want shocks

and

banality.

that are not shocks, predictable outrage. Jones’ birds

wax

beasts, his

They have

bunker.

perceived

is

shaped objects are driven to plea-

a blessing,

bargain for their very existence.

by

have

casts

of

in the flooded

and heads, belong

snails

always been present, they are retrospective: an arc of

intention was launched long before the sculptor broke into the buried

chamber and discovered them. The to Blitz consciousness: the era “I

have a

into the sea.

He

seems incurable.

gleefuUy

worms, carcinogenic

— can

New

summons

Scottish

fish,

ways of seeing have to be found of slides —

a collection

He

all

blow aU

their

the giant molluscs, rope

It

is

rightfully theirs.

to explain the horror.

began

when he was

For

a

playing

the drained commonplaces, weddings,

trained himself to develop negative vision,

to see everything that way. Landscapes

ghosts.

—

to “just

toyed with reversal: brides in billows of black, the

voodoo of carnival. Soon, he

own

winds

take possession of territory that

holiday beaches.

see millennial disas-

hydrocephalic children, drinking club gar-

brief period, Jones painted in negative.

with

I

Jones waits for those glittering monoliths to be swept

crap away”, so that the forms he models

goyles

a return

of the surface.” Entrenched on the rim of Canary

ter as a cleansing field,

work announced

with which Jones was most comfortable.

nihilistic streak that

Wharf’s ice

sculptor’s

were meat.

Visitors

Heightened imagery escaped from the

were

their

easel into the

garden.

For the great life”

and

ceeded

Max Beckmann

“political reality”;

in fusing.

We

there were

worlds

for a

have been obliged by the temper of the times to

The heavenly

and the mundane interpenetrate any part of the

moment

“spiritual

that, paradoxically, his paintings suc-

feed such nice distinctions into the shredder. orders)

two worlds, the

(the angelic

city that

we

hold

before our eyes. Apparently occult acts are revealed

simple survivalist reflexes. Shamanism has developed

The Bird-Mother

in stiff peroxide

its

own

helmet watches over

us,

as

realpolitik.

her darker

intentions hidden behind “the lips of Marilyn

Monroe, the eyes of Caligula.” She is primed to bite and gouge, to remake the fabric of our nightmare, but not to restore stolen bones. Deposed rulers, refusing

public sacrifice, slink into a shrill and unsatisfied exile: powerless but congenitally incapable of remaining silent.

Without expectation of success

in his

254

own

lifetime,

Jones allows

his

He

reputation to rest with future archaeologists. vases into tubes, to seal

them and bury them

be dropped into the

will

become

city as his gallery.

He

in the

ground.

roll his

The

can-

bronzes

Let time and the processes of the weather

sea.

his collaborators.

intends to

will

conduct strange experiments with the

A fortuitous flask of mercury recovered from a

disused

of luxury hutches)

industrial site (soon to be turned into a nest

prompted notions of malign alchemy: the sculptor would inject the substance into certain trees, granting them a foretaste of a coming heavy metal existence. He would prepare them for the apocalypse. As the expected mutations occurred, he could sketch these living thermome-

The

ters.

vision,

landscape would not merely conform to an Expressionist

would become one.

it

“I feel so divorced

believe in

good,

it’s

from the time

making work durable ...

I’d

the earth for ten years,

it

live in,” says

I

for people of

The

age. That’s

love to see a bronze after

would have

a

should put things back for the future, trying to

my

Jones, “that

it

why

what

sculpture

is

had been buried in

very fine patina ... that’s

don’t

I

their task

feel artists

I

is.

They’re

buy some kind of immortality.”

constant presence of implied threat, the reckless urgency in Jones’

work, invokes the climate of a

city

under

siege.

Living with the imagery

of Blitz consciousness was one way of surviving the Eighties. Jones could be translated to wartime Soho

—

If

Gavin

the fable of austerity, black-

- he would be an acceptable figure, a hero of the supplements. There would be commissions from Poetry London, discreet homosexual patronage, a bit part in the memoirs of Julian MaclarenRoss, a paint-smeared mug shot by John Deakin. He would have a role out, chance encounters

as a perfectly traditional artist:

doomed

wild boy. Forty years out of synch, Jones and

as self-indulgent

and slapdash.

the air freezes in our let

I

bohemian, romantic, the prematurely

It

will take

mouths and the

some

light

his art are

derided

terrifying accident,

burns with a painful

when

clarity, to

us understand the true nature of his achievement.

Marc Atkins bunker, which we visited on his

had, in the course of our Lights Out wanderings, exposed

to a

number of bad

experiences. Jones’s

return from the Hebrides, was the worst of them.

through the Rotherhithe Tunnel had peeled tographer’s case.

life

expectancy, but the bunker

The march home had him

a

The long

slog

few years from the pho-

left

him

a virtual basket

hissing like a defective radiator. Lungs,

weakened from childhood, were now about bags. His complexion wasn’t so much pale 255

as useful as

punctured tea

as colourless,

drained to

subterranean ash.

pun.

He

had found an

I

couldn’t

lift

camera or extemporise

a

art that refused to

which the photographer would never

be captured on

film.

a single

A place

willingly return.

Jones, back from his northern retreat, was revitalised, up for

we

whatever

could throw

at

ported Elizabethan, of

Dr

a

new

it

—

The Hebrides

him. There was no yesterday.

were forgotten, he was off on

to

hack, tie had the look of a trans-

mountebank Manson. Pure

Dee’s nemesis, the visionary

Lank hair to the shoulders, eyes mad as intentionality; “the wanton serpent that conceives of its own seed, and brings forth on the same day.” Weathered corduroys and a distressed tweed jacket that must have been liberated from some laird’s game pantry. He floated through the rooms of his Bracken House flat. There

Edward

Kelly.

much

was so

to

show

that

he didn’t

the middle of an explanation and clusion.

He

left

to begin.

He

started in

off long before he reached a con-

gestured towards electroplated insects, pink and blue

improvisations that busked

The

as stencils.

know where

at

violence and obscenity.

danced from the polished

light

Odd

knives used

floor,

from Jones’s fore-

much

restored; a water-

head, the telephone, his gesturing hands.

The

pump

bunker, where he soon led

us,

had been

kept the floor almost dry, though the walls

The master

still

sweated and

work that would be produced, stored, and exhibited on one site. A chamber for sculpture, a chamber for the paintings, and a chamber where the old collector’s detritus dripped.

plan had advanced:

remained untouched. Further chambers,

still

closed off and rubbled,

would be excavated. When it was all done, everything made that had to be made, then the bunker would be sealed like an Egyptian tomb. It’s existence was

still

a

kind of secret. Jones could ship out with

his grave

goods and the world would be none the wiser. I

think

it

was

at this

point in the explanation that Atkins began to

pant and stare longingly in the direction of the unlit steps. But his sense

of obligation to the project kept him firm while Jones pointed towards a

new

to

of paintings that curled from the damp

series

be more of the pink and blue cartoons that

flat.

wall.

we had

These seemed

glimpsed in the

Loose, swift, spontaneous. Sometimes he found significant shapes,

animals, and

break

worked towards

off, leave

flicking blobs

revealing them; sometimes he preferred to

the canvas in a provisional

of paint, then blowing

His method involved

them with

a straw,

imprinting

wet gunge. The process interested Jones more than the coming,” he would mutter, before putting his latest effort

objects into the result. “It’s

at

state.

aside.

256

In the sculpture space he was playing with cans of high pressure wall

them and building up chaotic shapes from

cavity foam, puncturing

One

emerging spawn.

of these was already

organic, bestial, impossibly balanced.

with scaly

around

skin.

The

A

magnificent creation:

a

A

blind minotaur.

vegetal bull

of the bunker. Heaps of empty cans

spirit

ammunition. The bloke

like spent

the

DIY

in the

lay

shop thought

Jones was the ultimate bodger. Either that or he had a pernicious cavity

foam

We

The

habit.

sculptor bought his cans by the sackful.

more

weren’t allowed to dwell on any of these achievements for

than an instant before Jones swept us into the next chamber and the est

gimmick. The

Exchange

real

lat-

excitement came with the electroplating tank.

& Mart alchemy. A tribute to Hammer Films. He dropped his copper sulphate and threw the switch. The mixture was

plates into the

soon bubbling away and giving off acrid fumes, which had no chance of dispersal in the sealed bunker. Plans

were afoot

for

grander: the goldfish tank

would be replaced by

enough

of human bodies. The

to take a couple

The notion

favoured by John George Haigh.

a

something

much

sunken bath, large of contraption

sort

that excited Jones

was

that

anything could be electroplated: leaves, twists of wire, bats, biro caps, sardines, strips

of skin.

hooked out

a

acid,

And

was so quick.

it

immune

to gas.

He

thrived

completely absorbed in the spoke with blisters

a

He

couple of examples.

on

He

immune

was

it.

fished into the tank to the bite

and

of the

Frowning with concentration,

limitless possibilities

of

his invention,

he

voice of awful reasonableness. Dizzy, stumbling, feeling the

break out on our

we nodded

flesh,

with everything — in the hope of an early Atkins, a claustrophobic,

who

automatons; agreeing

like

release.

could barely stand upright in

this

low-

ceilinged tomb, survived by keeping his eye to his camera. Clicking

away

to maintain

silence

was

some

terrible;

no screams, no

not

traffic.

connection with

faint a

his

Otherwise, the

whisper from the world above

A place

that

utmost to incubate

it.

us.

had gone through the

taking a single casualty must be due

doing

reality.

some nobler

Removed from

Blitz

consider. all

He

already had

enough work

the

hope and

else to please,

for

sirens,

without

catastrophe. Jones

exhibitions and fastburn fame, he was free to go about his

with renewed vigour. There was no one

No

two or three

was

desire for

own

business

no one

else to

retrospectives,

of it buried, secreted in unmapped locations.

Viewing

this art,

coating our lungs. derline

we became

We began to

part

of it.

We could feel the lick of metal

accept the Jones

between maker and made.

All nature

257

thesis: there

is

no bor-

was absorbed into the

catalogue.

was the

Whatever Jones noticed or touched became

final solipsist, his

a part

of him.

experiments cancelled the boat and the garden,

Bracken House, Devons Road, and the

rest

of East London. Jones had

achieved the inspired dogmatism of Edward Kellys alchemical

Bodies receive their

from

and

of the inward

The garden above Bangladeshi

and temper from

figure, lineaments,

the dryness of the earth,

velocity or slowness

ladies, urchins.

more or

are

New

matured according

They nurtured

The dripping

and unblinking eyes of the ified as witnesses.

The bubbling

walls.

to the

We

artist.

Jones’s freak

mercury-fed monsters.

emerged, no one would know. The bunker was tionality.

water, their fixation

tended by other hands, troops of Agers.

his

trials,

less

tracts:

fire.

now

was

us

hybrids, his spiky plant

He

And we had no

were

tank.

there,

a

If

we

never

paradigm of inten-

The scorched hands but we scarcely qual-

We

other justification.

had better

surrender and climb down, without complaint, into the blue bath.

3

and

.

farewell for a space to the yellow key

of the Rosicrucians

Samuel Beckett, Whoroscope

Brian Catling, period

who grew up

when he was

South London, and

in

later lived (in the

writing The Stumbling Block) above a decommis-

sioned synagogue in Heneage Street, Whitechapel, has

wanted

it

very particular

name

the people.

to be a shape-shifting place not an actual city,”

he told Ian

sense of location. “I could never I

name

a

.

.

.

the streets,

Hunt (the writer and publisher who has taken it upon himself to become Catling’s Boswell). Catling’s pitch was always more feline than that of Gavin Jones: the summoning and articulating of “concerned agile violence”. Retrospectively, start, a

it

can be seen that he was, from the

master of strategy, exploiting

strengths. Quietly,

and without

appears from his CV), the a career

man

fuss

faults (it

and flaws

wasn’t as

until they

smooth

became

a progress as

it

has achieved everything that he needed:

curve that would put William

Rees-Mogg

to shame.

Turning

the darkest days for conceptual/performance art to advantage. Catling

emerged from the Thatcher

years in a position of fluent power:

258

publishers seeking his texts, academic status he could use to artists,

work

displayed

scripts in at

worldwide

to organise high energy events;

other

on the

promote

invitations,

of the British Embassy in Dublin, film

walls

development, videos of his performances, an influential show

the Serpentine Gallery, collectors beginning to sniff after his drawings,

confirming the mythology. Food on the table was no

thesis writers

longer

a

problem: he had dining rights and invitations from here to

Christmas.

He

to libraries,

museums and

tain a sense

of necessary

what

had access

to expect: to

gym and

to the

the shooting range, the keys

earthworks. No, the problem

work with an audience

risk, to

provoke

now was

to sus-

had learnt

that

his oldest ally, difficulty.

Catling had taught himself to create situations from which he could eflbrtlessly

withdraw, to discover

had sounded soul,

in a previous

of having seen

it all

sites that

He

life.

before: his

were transmitting whispers he

gives the impression of being an old

work

is

a series

of recognitions,

dis-

known. His primary excommunicate autobiography, which he

coveries that act as confirmations of things already

intention has always been to

regards as an “unsanitary condition”. thesised form,

From

it is

And

yet, in

its

disguised and syn-

the most potent element in everything he attempts.

London School of Art in the work was concerned, with

the early days at the North-East

Walthamstow, he was equipped, an enviable T-shirts,

self-belief.

(He had

as far as

to be, in the time

of suedeheads in boots and braces.

pinstripe suit

and wing

Holmes’ clubman

collar

brother.)

-

The

like

He

of loons and tie-dyed

stalked the corridors in

an asthmatic Mycroft, Sherlock

lesser business

- of living -

could, and

often did, degenerate into farcical complexities worthy of his heroes.

Laurel and Hardy.

This unconditional trust in the inevitability of

his

chosen

track that had chosen him, gave Catling the strength to

or botch.

The

pleasure he took in the

workshop

fail,

track, the

to stumble

(in his days as a

student

or a recipient of fellowships and art scams) was the pleasure of physical

work — welding, burning, scratching, hammering, scorching his flesh, tearing nails — and having the space in which to undertake it. Otherwise,

when

such indulgences were denied him, he molested

his

notebooks. These stiffbacked objects are a treasure store and should be

immediately bought with scholars.

There

poems - words, itself.

is

one book

in

Another book

cheque and turned over to the

which he

phrases, sounds, shapes

Which might come

revision.

a millennial

at a rush,

outlines the ideas for the

- before

under

the seizure of the thing

pressure, or

might require

will have postcards, images, drawings pasted into

259

it,

doodles and cartoons, prototypes that might hang around for years

The

before they can be activated.

of the Catling

career.

the notebook.

The

(with

The

cards

phone numbers,

studio,

The

studio

and

recipes,

it is

available,

is

Notebooks are also valuable tools pull one out, give the invigilators

and ‘error,

trial

the essence

an extension of

target practice);

from interested

visits

which

to

when

for interviews: a

from

bullet holes

useful space in

a

is

when

is

and sketches can be transferred to the walls

experiments can be undertaken, parties.

collection of notebooks

and think.

sit

things get sticky,

whiff of enormous projects in hand,

research, documentation, shorthand genius. I

don’t want to pre-empt Ian Hunt’s inevitable biography by

marising Catling’s career here (the large-scale pieces

College of Art, the

films, the

made

at

sum-

the Royal

books of poetry, the performances) but to

Book Works

concentrate on recent London-based manifestations: his

INDEX

and the

At

publication. The Stumbling Block

its

Lighthouse, undertaken at Trinity

Buoy Wharf at the mouth of the his life when he recognised that ele-

River Lea. They came

ments he had been

at a

point in

ritual.

careful to segregate (poetry, performance, sculpture),

and even to publish under different signatures, belonged energy

His sculpture had always included “voice”

field.

but significant component

with

a certain

the

formal

— while

stiffness, as if

Catling’s poetry it

were

a

in a single

an unstressed

as

was constructed

second language,

report of something overheard, but not fully understood.

It

was

nical language, a language for describing process, a language in

nouns frequently served

as verbs: a

a vivid

a tech-

which

language that could be read but not

spoken. (Samuel Beckett’s Poems In English have been a major influence; particularly the notion

of translation — between tongues, grammatical

The slate austerity of The Stumbling Block's design homage to the faded grey wrapper of the 1961 John

constructions, media.

was perhaps

a final

Calder edition of Beckett’s poems.) Before discussing the achievements of the early Nineties, to outline the less travelling

it’s

necessary

somewhat uncomfortable period that came before: endbetween art schools whose funds were being savagely cut

back, Jocelyn Stevens hyperventilating at the Royal College, residency

Henry Moore Fellow

as

estranged from

saw the n

t

Norwich — where he found himself

clutch of “life-modelling fundamentalists”. Catling

situation in stark terms:

even see

far as

a

in

me

as

didn’t

an outsider for the job.

they were concerned,

probably didn’t

“They

know

I

was

I

was

a

me

there, they did-

making sculpture as conceptualist ... At that time I I

a conceptualist.

260

want

wasn’t

The

conceptualists I’d

met

at

the Royal College were

people

all

who

on balconies with type-

sat

writers and then didn’t use them.”

Leaving East Anglia and returning to London, Catling discovered that

shamanic insistence on sticking to the high ground

his

ground

at

all.

His

work was

Countries

—

on like

He went where

he was asked to

and planes to Scandinavia, Iceland, the

ferries

an Elizabethan

home

His performances on

him with no

from the studio and turned out

liberated

into the streets: specific but unplaced. go: shuttling

left

of forbidden doctrine.

Jesuit, a bearer

turf,

Low

minimally resourced, were private

He dowsed forgotten sites, staying one jump ahead of the heritage pirates. He operated with the recklessness of the dispossessed. It was evident that he had found a new affairs

attended by a ring of the

formula for

his

work:

faithful.

iteration, transformation, erasure. Investigate,

Dr Dee, he played with the angelic tables. (A film with which he was involved — in the role of a surgeon or alchemical quack — was called Maggot Street. Unconsciously echoing the term “maggid”, or teaching angel, from the legends of Rabbi Loew and

locate the essence,

move

on. Like

Prague.) Carpets, books, and animal hides were found (or made) to

anchor

his installations.

Tools of inscription

—

pens, nibs, feathers

—

became instruments of confession. He masked windows, bandaged his steel moons: what he was chasing was remembered light. It was not that he relied on metaphor for his effects — but that the boundaries were down; artist, place, objects, were in flux, exchanging identities. Catling had developed the skills of a ventriloquist, a medium: he didn’t manipulate or impose,

own

he allowed himself to be imposed upon.

performances,

a

man

from mumbled incantation

He would move

in

to accept the risk entire

modus

a

to prophetic violence, to grotesque

commission

at will.

He

comedy.

was even prepared

that apparently contradicted his

Book Works, publishers of artists’ books, wanted record) made in response to “what’s going on in the

operandi.

a text (or visual

world today”. Madness: he scorned the notion,

And

curated his

possessed but articulate, capable of shifting

and out of character of

He

it

was meaningless.

then he began to write.

moment, the author’s most fully masterpiece of movement and intensity. It has an

The Stumbling Block was realised publication; a

a pivotal

improvisational inevitability that

fulfils,

but goes

far

beyond, the scope

of the original commission. The author, aware that he was working in the

last

of days — for the place in which he

immigrants and to attempt a

grafters,

lived,

and for the society of

protected for so long by indifference

Henry Mayhew circumnavigation: 261

a

—

set

out

journey of possession.

not

The

analysis.

subverting

Mayhew’s

it.

would be

intention

by

to discharge his undertaking

was never

insatiable curiosity, his proto-fiction,

memories,

part of Catling’s agenda. Catling gathered evidence,

fables,

only to describe the obstacle that stood in the path of enlightenment

and which, paradoxically, was anies

also

principal motor.

its

by which the stumbling block

is

confidence. Mesmerised by their charm,

such an object,

we come

a

parade of

medium, a basket

Mayhew

territory.

dog

catcher, the

dreamtime into

their

are

a fatalist

structed with the vigour of a Tarantino. Catling smears

them open,

book writhes breakfast, on

in the

This

miner with

the street magician, the bookseller, the vagrant.

fish,

wrenched from

food, slashes

is

necessary obeisance

These sentimental engravings, the heritage London we recall, are

delusive

stereotypes: the knife-grinder, the dubious

the cranker of barrel organs, the

of rotten

its

a

lit-

to believe there

of redemption for the blasted

a grail

repeated

invoked have

obstacle, floating like a Magritte anvil, receives

from

The

supposed to

scenario con-

them with bad

withdraw news of the

in order to

clamp of hunger (written

at

speed,

as

light.

it

The

was, pre-

the train to Brighton, each text one journey): knives,

“oxoed

cutlery, fish, “a bouillon hive”,

grit”, “fat sugar that clogs the

passage to any kind of paradise”.

The Stumbling Block

is

which the author (and

the map, the shape of this urban garden from

his disciples) are

about to be banished: ground

constructed like

a heart. Veins, the aorta,

stantly invoked.

Needles that

now

it

is,

while

“The shaping The book distils the

stitch the failing valves.

force,” as Catling later admitted,

essence as

channels of blood, are con-

“came from

summoning

reach: “the foundation of stillness

is

place.”

aspects that have passed out of

removed.”

The

pages, blocks of

black text, act like travel instructions, reports of mental journeys, alchemical prescriptions. “Without plan or direction they have begun to sleep a line.”

gutters

The

dispossessed are channelled by a stone pillow. “In the

and elbows of curbs,

they have threaded themselves in

dreaming

wall; a

its

all

made from

sealed gates, looking inward

he paraphrases —

is

the

softened

its

first

its

own

bitter well.”

a living,

quest.

mouth

The

a

visions that

the advantage of this barrier wall with

on

The “blocks” that — are worked upon,

a seething chaos.

plinths, spirit benches, desert altars

chipped with language:

That

necklace cleated to ring

a

perimeter fence. Their expulsion has constructed

cage that concentrates the greed in Catling offers are

approved architectural contrivances

in the

until they tip, spill, gush, yield their water.

The

“graphite font”,

to hold water”.

at

the book’s opening, “has

At the conclusion: “a night thing.

262

that

on the heart

sits

.

from the

will sip

.

.

of guilt.” The circular

ribs

excursion has brought the poet back to his starting point; ble

of satisfying

thirst, also

a stone,

capa-

marks “the well of Joseph”, identified

in the

The poet needs

uncollected poem, “Being here”.

from the page: “the paper

Even the

individual letters with

down

be melted

will

and tipped

Wounded

book

in a ladle, carried to the river at

own

his

traumatized

which the maker

.

usage.”

.

London Bridge

upon

the

shaman s

flesh.

He

invents a reverse

right to

returns his magical talismans to the

assertions that illuminate the progressive sequences

Stumbling Block operate

Conjurings, street

as erasures.

they are special and singular.

cies:

.

defines.

from

archaeology, in

The

of

stains

which The Stumbling Block was printed

in the tongue. Catling insists

artefacts

earth.

any of the

in a silver stream into the racing tide: fusing at last into the

object that the

draw

will drink

to leech his signature

They happen

of The

conspira-

fights,

just as Catling reveals

them. They will never happen again.

The second and more important

quest

is

the pursuit of light, the

provocation of blindness: “light in the eye of the needle grown solid

with anger.” Catling, in performance, bathes

them with chalk or dried semen. His

rubs

ity to

bucket in which

summoned

“others”

shaved and he’s an Elizabethan magus.

and

Road

an Old Kent

he’s

exposed

bad

as

theatre. He’s

thoroughly rehearsed for as long as will free

it

(if

The

come and

bouffant helmet

One wrong aware of

that.

restored

madman,

a

His improvisations are

only in the notebook). He’ll work

the self-imposed task.

is

gesture and these masks

“Mud

at

buildings

and gestures

takes to get his fix, recover the voices

him from

The head

go.

art spiv, a lecturer in heresy, a

grotesque, a heavenly messenger. are

face has a preternatural abil-

remain blank, to absorb multiple personalities and soul-invasions:

a canvas is

with ink,

his tired orbs

and

ink, paper

that

and

water are scoured into another projection.” Eliminate by careful definition

and the “primal eye”

will “sense the light.” Catling’s creatures, the

ones he impersonates, are “constructed spectres

enough

When scars:

to catch

his acts

.

.

.

almost strong

and drain the omnipotent cryptic grace of the block.”

of mediumship are successful, place bears no identifiable

“Lanterns of ice are offered to the early morning, light

is

stroked

through their steaming chancels.” If the

The Stumbling

Block, Catling’s attempt at “written sculpture”

—

exploiting the shifting transitional ghetto zone that wasn’t quite

Whitechapel, but was lance

— worked

parasitical

so effectively that

upon it

a city

freed

263

of business and surveil-

him from

a

landscape he had

loved too long, allowing

him

to

move

elsewhere, then another,

severe task was soon to hand. Matt’s Gallery,

on London

Lair in their space

lighthouse

at

now had

the use of an extinguished

Buoy Wharf on the outer lip of the Isle of Dogs: glacial rim of the new city”. Immediate fascination gave

to days of inarticulate bile: the

tower refused to communicate.

The

dusty, too obvious.

horizon mocked

his feeble strategies. I’ve rarely

uncover the right path.

He

on the western seen him sweat so hard

sensed that the building was “saturated in

absence, a dark sodden kind”. Solitary hours turned into weeks stared out at the river, toying

Its

radiant colony

charms were too to

Catling’s

Trinity

“the flickering

way

Fields,

which had shown

more

with the notebooks, picking

of this abandoned promontory. (Gavin Jones, offered

his

at

as

he

the history

docklands shot

on a greasy cloacal slipway near the Telegraph complex, had his trembling heron-mound constructed in days: photographed, filmed for the Late Show, vandalised and destroyed, in the time it took Catling to sweep up the black dust of the raider.

loft,

and pound

it

into ink. Jones was an Apache, a

Catling worked in sand, seeing the archetypal picture in the

moment of its

creation, before allowing

it

to be

blown

away.)

diamond-paned dome of the lighthouse’s lamp-room, you could watch the procession of empty river buses on the shuttle to the City Airport. A vehicle would drive down to the jetty to meet them, and go away disappointed. Investment was draining into the mud. Half-

From

the

finished flyovers

dominated poisoned

the area was the tea van

creeks.

which parked

The

itself on

only viable business in

Leamouth Road,

to ser-

vice lost salesmen, construction workers, and adventurous art drones

who had

heard rumours of the Catling manifestation. Cheeks bulging

with bacon

rolls,

hot

fee for the artist

fat

dripping

while he squatted in

which was biUcd of December, 1991. instaUation

It

ers,

to

took time, but he got

He’d understood

down our

all

his

there.

knew

it

fetched cof-

hutch, brooding on the

The notebook saw him this

the Docklands underwriters, used art to

Make

we

run from the 8th of November to the

along the sub-text to

the chattering classes.

shirt fronts,

show:

pimp

how

through.

the develop-

the territory, bring in

appear that something was happening.

none of this mattered. His

1st

He

memory: raising a wind, creating the eidetic images that other people would carry away. He would vampirise empty places, conspire with them to redirect the expectations and fantasy-streams that visitors would transport to this site, the lighthouse. “The sounding board is other people’s memory,” he told also

Ian Hunt,

that

“what they take when they 264

shtick was

go.”

There would be no

No

other

Moore s bronze from

when he

The paradigm of contemporary art method works so well. The popularity of Henry

nothing would remain practice.

Nothing would be imported and

installation.

casts

with

left.

industrialists

and government agencies derives

weight and imperturbability: you

their

can’t

hack your name into

them without the proper kit, and they feel as if, melted down, they’d be worth a few bob. These grave forms do not so much affect memory as displace it, decant their own weight, position themselves in our mappings of the city like railway termini.

Minimal adjustments were made: parabolic mirrors arranged

low was at

like

wooden bays identified and readied for occupation. It Trinity Buoy Wharf that Catling finally ran the light to earth. He saw the tower as an extinguished eye, not a phallus. His texts, ground down tables, the

from the dust and bone-flakes of the whispering

loft,

would

replace the

lantern (like Stan Brakhage pasting moths’ wings and sections of leaf

onto blank

film). In the

lamp-room

circular steel “writing table”

itself, a

creaked and groaned with the effort of inscription. Catling went deep into character,

removing

himself off from the

his spectacles, cutting

He

procession of the curious.

ghosted from bay to bay mumbling

mantra, six coded retrievals from the notebook. Each one a regret: for sight

1.

fluorescence showering into this lofty hutch.

shimmering glow we

see

.

... boulders which pounce and curve the

3.

... material

sliced in the first

the fluid back, suck

breath where

we

The

5.

Nailed cones and rods

light

beam ... To

name

lectern shoulders against the

see

.

.

we must remember, it

in

our

it.

beam

.

.

.

.

.

.

In this shaft of light, the ink cupped from here light into a well

its

scratch into the wave. Silked colours rent to

white, they bleed tendrils

own

.

through the optic nerve, hold

it

can chalkily

4.

By

.

.

2.

6.

hymn of

and colour.

... memories,

wind

his

where

is

red ..

.

It

pumps

stars are: a parabolic night rafted in

its

an iron

sepulchre of day.

His audience was admitted in small groups, twos and threes, by doorkeeper. Catling droned on, stayed in the building.

of character.

It

He

five

did not,

hours a day, for

as at

as

long

the Serpentine show,

as

a

anyone

come out

was partly an Hogarthian freakshow, partly an audience

with the oracle. The voice thickened and cracked. 265

He performed

and back again. At weekends, the crowds came — until the wharf, “once the centre of waterway maintenance for the docks”, was as busy as in its 1896 heyday Several thousand through

a

signatures

heavy cold into

went

in the archive

into the visitors’ book,

of the

fusion with an

fever,

The

area.

AIDS

making

trip to the light;house (that

charity, Virginia

document mocking con-

a significant

it

Wool/ and other

manifestations of

Some

plague and pestilence) became an important aspect of the show.

people never got there and had

a great

time doing

it.

Others,

lost in

the

up unlikely acquaintanceships: Elton John’s legendary percussionist Ray Cooper (last seen, photographed on the desert hinterland, struck

foreshore

at

Limehouse, modelling designer

Steven Berkoff) offered

a

lift

limo to

in his

with

tat

his old

rain-drenched

a

Hinton, poet, hedge-scholar, and apologist for that great

mucker

Dr Brian

lost guitarist

(and bibliophile), Martin Stone.

At ness.

illuminated ground that was trapped in torpid dark-

the Lighthouse I

found myself tracking the Grand Union Canal, the Limehouse

Cut and

the Lea, to arrive at the exhibition

scarcely needing to

erator of calm.

It

go

inside. Catling’s

The

where

a

then

gen-

easy for casual visitors to

it

fiction

was the highest

truth.

lighthouse signalled the beginning of the end for one period of

Catling’s

“carcass

work.

He

wouldn’t find

of a cyclops,

performance

his

state

And

by water.

performed presence was

stopped the world, making

drop into reverie, achieve the

site

at

its

it

easy to shake himself free of this

eye extinguished and removed”.

By

the time of

the Bridewell Theatre in July 1994, he had been

among

banished beneath the stage, exiled

water-pipes and rusty nails in

the caretaker’s cupboard: he was the Cyclops, “peering in the dark throat knotted to a glass for the catalogue

.

.

.

without

a true

of this event. Subversion

word

in the Street

Catling with his eyes blanked by circular card

condemned himself to tive

no

and the nose.

former

is

ability to

And

his

follow,

and obey,

to say.”

is

a sphinctal

smudge,

.

(Even the cover

He

seems to have

beam: losing perspec-

judge distance. His face has been folded. There

mouth

.

of Shame, depicted

labels.)

a single

.

is

The persummoned.

a gas hole.

haunted and possessed by the presence he has

Given the choice of roles, he has always been more Charles Laughton than Clark Gable: preferring the growl or the

padded codpiece. His favourite

identification

eyed drunkard. Rooster Cogburn,

he

is

tracked across

London by

satisfied articulation.

on The Stumbling

A

Block

viral

as

hump is

to the tights

and

with the blowsy, one-

manifested by John Wayne.

Now

Buoy Wharf', a disgolem. (The poet Simon Perril in his essay the cyclops of Trinity

makes great play of this metaphor, the penalty of 266

“The

trading in “unanchored identity”.

Cabalist,”

writes,

Perril

“endows the Golem with life by the inscription of the word emeth — truth - on its brow. When the clay creature has fulfilled its master s tasks it is dematerialised by the erasure of the first letter on its forehead, leaving the word meth — death.”) Catlings career can be thought of as having three phases.

First:

thing up to the Royal College. Grounding in South London;

museums (Horniman, ditions to Dorset,

room

every-

visits to

Imperial War, South Kensington complex); expe-

South Coast, Highlands; creation of Sherlockian

expression of personality (objects, found and made, books,

as

stuffed animals,

weapon

Maidstone and Walthamstow.

sculpture);

Defensive magic. Role playing. Poe, Lovecraft, night cinema. English

murder mystique. Work

that celebrated a personal

mythology (bomber

pilots, natural history field studies, architectural excavations,

fairground

Dutch interiors, forensic anomalies, star charts, London, Maria Callas) and work that was intended to shock or offend dim sensibilities. “Between fists & cunts his/personality pivots”, he wrote in his first

freaks,

book, Necropathia: before offering

his responses to

“earthworks”, “tv

loneliness”, gangsters, sex criminals, suicides, insane asylums, bathing

machines and “Siamese

The second

phase, in

altar pieces”.

my reading, Moore

conclusion of the Henry period of very

books into

Fellowship

at

Norwich. This

achievement opposed by constant

real

finding the space and time in ting

runs from the Royal College to the

print.

The

which

pitch was

is

difficulties:

a

of

to

work, procuring material, get-

still

schizophrenic: the poet and the

sculptor lived in different compartments, and both were alienated from,

and somewhat embarrassed books -

by, the

— appeared

at

unreviewed

umphs,

by

establishment. Catling’s a leper at

both

sets

of

regular intervals. literary

gifts, like

tables.

He

Marvellous

artist.

Vox Humana,

TJie

But they were subliminal

tri-

Nine, Das Kranke

Vorticegarderi, Pleiades in

Tulpa Index

performance

clubmen,

Tier,

ignored

by

those of Wyndham Lewis,

continued

as

the

art

made him

an object maker, often

extending and making manifest themes that were sketched in the books

of poetry. But there was until the

a

nagging sense of strain in

world caught up with him, and the

of the Thatcher years cut him

The mances

all this,

restrictions

and inhibitions

free.

of pure fulfilment: durational perfor-

third phase

was an

in buildings

he had coveted for years (beneath the

Tate Gallery, the British

“Monster Doss House”

unresolved

arc

Museum Reading Room,

in Fieldgate Street),

267

books

that

dome of the

Jack London’s

were appreciated

from the lenge,

moment

of their conception. Everything led towards the chal-

and public triumph, of the

influential Blindings j^Lmhoree at the

Serpentine Gallery. Catling was prepared, technically and emotionally, to

conquer

in a

was

this flavourless space. It

of the lighthouse event

a reprise

kind of disenfranchised park restaurant.

He would

be always on

show, surrounded by iconic texts and constructions that mediated

between the building and the poet’s incantations. Barefoot, this prophetic wideboy — Harry Lime with bunions — paraded in chalkstripe Harrods

suit

and dark

glasses, reciting

or raging, chatting to friends, or

wandering off into the park. With the publication of the catalogue, in

November

would

1995, the cycle

poems written

close: the

for the

show, and revised in performance, would be available for study, no

The

longer held like pebbles in the mouth.

monster, bastard son of Polyphemus, born in to inspection.

The Homeric

power of the blinded darkness, would be open

secret

Cyclops, a cave-dwelling shepherd, was

cursed for scorning Zeus and his pantheon.

He

was

a terrible

mixture

of strength (casual cannibalism) and deft tenderness, the care for flocks.

stave

A

giant

undone by

drink, by the

being driven and twisted into

comes from

a great

sound of a fire-hardened

his solitary eye:

when

axe or adze

a

“The loud

smith plunges

it

his

olive

hiss that

into cold

water”. Ian Hunt, rhapsodising the

of Catling’s holograph

show

texts in the

in Art Montldy, explains

how

each

south gallery begins “by describing

an injection of the eye with a fluid or suspension, to suppress vision in order to enlarge the definition of what seeing entails.”

The

attainment.

cost

wings butchered by will release is

it

like

the next

of wisdom.

in the pursuit

one of Wim Wenders’ stair

repeatedly asserted in the texts

He moves

terrestrial angels,

of the language formulae that

nail-clippers: in quest

him onto

penalties of

of knowledge. The devices of benevolent

masochism Catling inventories across the city, haunting

The

of enlightenment. The “here” that is

not the

gallery,

not Kensington

Gardens, not London: Catling has given up any claim on those addresses,

on the notion of place. He

is

offering himself as a wandering

some new series of projects of this awkward homage.

scholar and magician, ready to undertake that will surely invalidate every line

Last seen as a guide for a

one hour bus tour of Oxford, part of the

programme, he chose to present himself in the guise of a dog. Hidden behind a screen of canvas at the front of the vehicle, he barked and howled. Yelping in terror as they crawled alongside experHidden

Cities

imental laboratories, or woofing in delight 268

at

the appearance of

spectacularly long-legged female cyclists. His translation to fullblown

And

donnish eccentricity was complete. soul of London, was confirmed in

its

4

He

is

and he

a scrambler,

resolute, confident,

which

is

.

delights in subverting his work's

achieved

the sullen

exile.

formal patterns and

WS

the dog,

in putting his

most

most exquisitely

effects at risk.

Di Piero (on Robert Frank)

known, spoken of in a convenient shorthand as “the English Beuys”. Hundreds will follow him into the crypts of churches, out onto Oxford earthworks. Thousands will process through public galCatling

is

leries.

Fifty or sixty will read his

Jones’s

Bracken House garden

the will to find

it.

books with close attention. Gavin

an open

is

secret, available to

But what of those others? London

is

anyone with awash with

deregulated shamans, equal opportunity visionaries set apart from the tribe.

The

years have

them something

been kind

to

them, ignoring them

They have been rescued from

to kick against.

fusion of patronage, grants, state-sponsored prostitution. a

monkey’s what they get up

utterly,

to,

giving

the con-

Nobody

gives

these flakes from the Puzzle Club, the

memory-wipe generation with their vague hankerings after the glories of Punk cabaret. The Disobey mob. The toilet-club sitdown ravers. The unpublished of Stepney. They can’t afford the time to read. New books are out

room

of reach and the

for plague leaflets

involuntary shaman gies

and martial

— without

of derangement,

performer and

libraries are

decanting their shelves to find the

arts

promos. The

is

an

a tribe,

an outcast. S/he develops strate-

some

small part of the map. (Like the

activates

installation artist presently

shamanic moniker — with

solitary artist

his Institution

known

as

“Crow” —

a fine

of Rot. Crow, tonsured, wide-

Goth accoutrements, has customised Crouch End. “Rot, decay, decomposition

eyed, an unearthed presence in

house in Corbyn

Street,

.

a .

.

what the Institution is about,” he says, having lived for eleven years inside this decomposing metaphor. The city, with its possibilities of random meetings and discoveries, its gift of anonymity, is his space and his subject: when the man next door attempted to kill himself. Crow that’s

raided his doorstep.

Gold Top

as

The

Many

years later he exhibited the furred bottles of

Suicide Milk.)

269

Catling, with his years ducking and

weaving through declining

school gulags, honed his ability for finding the unexpected,

stubborn individuality. (Not bright-eyed popsies.)

provocation

—

He

of them in the

all

Not

bar.

artists

of

of them

all

encouraged — by

He

picked up on rumours.

art

But he had one

the most obtuse and singular elements.

very unfortunate habit: he sometimes inflitted his discoveries on me.

And

he was almost always

right;

me

thank him for introducing ings

and whalebone boxes,

(Dilworth also cooked, meals of my

wild

life

Then

life:

as far as

I

of Gloucestershire washed there was

can remember

down by

Aaron Williamson. as guest.

work,

have to

eel-weav-

his

pub

in

I

hare inside

.

drafts

my

tried to dig

Hammersmith, a

glass.

one of the great

it,

copious

Williamson was

reputation in Brighton.

bait. I’d

crows crushed between sheets of

his

a tiny bird inside a fish inside a

amateurs with Aaron a

would swallow the

to Steve Dilworth’s

time: a poetry reading above a

with

I

.

Half the

.

of whisky.)

heels in that

group of local

a

profoundly-deaf ranter

refused point blank. Catling persisted.

I

We

went out for a drink somewhere to discuss it, and before I could back out we were on the bus. The poetastic out-patients were all that I expected: epic confessionals, bleak

segued into thirty minute raisingly

good:

intros.

satires,

modest

Aaron blew

it all

concentrated,

intense,

refusals to read that

away.

He

was hair-

unrelenting.

savage,

“Punk-mortem thug tulpas”. Catling has called these texts. “VengefuUy articulate language ... an agile, writhing, tensile force that flickers between extremes.” So the prof was very much a

photographer along — “he’s

in credit

right”

all

in Princelet Street. This lurcher

sub-letting the

when he -

own

with the Leica was

way, a precis

a small price to pay.)

The

he could bring

was being made

a

Catling tenant,

Heneage Street that of post-Sixties modernism. in

(The windows looked out on architect Theo Crosby’s but that was

if

to a film that

rooms above the old synagogue

had become, in their

asked

stable conversion,

original deal with the Bengali

Boyd Webb to gift it, at a nominal rent, to a catalogue of sculptors on the way up — and always the right ones, the ones who would appreciate, and make good use of, this magical set. The long room, with the director’s desk that feaproperty owner must have been a golden one:

tures in several light: partly

it

allowed

of Webb’s staged photo-compositions, enjoyed

trapped from

rent occupiers. Alison

some

Wilding

earlier era, partly

generated by

lived there, then Catling,

photographer Marc Atkins. The room had shifted from domesticity to something rougher:

less lived in

270

and

its

own

its

cur-

now

the

a provisional

and collaborated with

than put to work, exploited. All the previous potentialities were redefined

studio.

as:

The

street

door was locked and the

unanswered. There was no telephone. Atkins, sculpted, draped, posed against a shaded

The

vegan

on choc

(living

concentrated on meat: the female nude, light-

bars, crisps, Guinness),

stone.

a

went

bell

window. Flesh seen

as soft

adjoining kitchen, no longer a place of improvised meals and

wine and family

breakfasts,

became

darkroom —

a

as

the photographer

laboured over the texture of his unique prints; experimenting with

dif-

ferent photographic papers, scratching at the negative, printing in such

way which

it

appear

as a subject,

that his

a

image would pick up the flaws of the wet board on

was placed.

An

obsessive

alchemy

in

which he himself would

hanging upsidedown among heavy

limbo towards

classicism, or crawling in a Beckettian

folds in a

debased

a radiant slope

of

parrot cages or cans of cooking oil (scavenged props). Otherwise, he had

no

interest in

clutter

of the

Luskacova —

Row

Club

He

what

lay

immediately outside

streets, so

who

market

his

window, the incontinent

tenderly logged by the exiled Czech, Marketa

responded to the unselfconscious surrealism of the as to a familiar

was repelled by the

local.

He

dream. Atkins didn’t want to know.

thirsted for the universality

unplaced, shaped in the studio of his

of high

art,

skull.

This was the baggage, the lumber he brought to the house with the peeling pink door in Princelet Street. (Before arriving he had shaved Catling’s head, as requested

floor of the studio for tions,

by the filmmakers. The grey wool

lay

on the

months, incorporated into shadowy composi-

swept into Crowleyesque heaps:

like a lens fault,

ectoplasm that

couldn’t be filtered out.) Standing outside, while incorporating himself into the group, the context of the film, Atkins

found

that his

pho-

tographs were not subtractions from the general energy, but a very real addition.

mood way

Heneage Street experiments, to the documentary fiction, unreliable hypothesis giving

was primed, by

of the project:

his

to fragmentation, confession,

Chris to

He

Petit,

was risking what was

become involved with

barbecued

left

vanities.

The

director,

of his career by allowing himself

these people: non-actors barely capable of

remembering who they were, but who couldn’t stop talking about it. Shady locations. Overload of themes: biblio-paranoia, the legend of David Litvinoff (local colour adviser on the film Performance), the persistence of place, Sexton Blake novels composed by Flann O’Brien, a checking in —

parade of marginalised and reforgotten writers and

artists

wrangled and harassed by the bookdealer known

as Driffield.

Robin Cook/Derek Raymond, Alexander Baron, Emnuel Litvinoff, John 271

Latham, Brian Catling, Aaron Williamson, Alan Moore, Lambrianou, Martin Stone, Michael Moorcock:

down,

insisting

all

tormented by

on

title.

The Cardinal and

one of the pulp novels O’Brien was supposed

show

that

he could. The commissioning editor

who

Januszczak, in

talking each other

all

version of the doctrine, at cross-purposes,

their

The

history.

Tony

at

the Corpse,

came from

to have written

Channel

4,

—

to

Waldemar

admitted to being “one of the most intelligent people

Europe”, never got further than the

credits.

Who

were these freaks?

In his role as an avant-garde essayist, he had puffed John

Latham

as

“per-

haps the only genuine radical in British art of the post-war era”, but

him on

seeing

tape, a

gaunt philosopher with an alien

fire

he

in the eye,

exclaimed: “lose the cadaver”. Atkins, an autodidact

who

tracked the culture

at his

own

pace, had

no such problems. Comprehensively underinformed about “lost” literature by his first-class degree from Cheltenham College of Art, his period at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, his Rome sabbatical,

unknown to him as a culling of desert hands-on approach. The photographs he took were

he was dealing with fathers.

not

His was a

group

as

they were not intended to

“stills”,

into a parallel I

inescapable thinness. Video

“vacuums

its

subjects”, as

WS

a field to a single

Di Piero

The photographs

clone, to a degree that

editing suite, he

is

performance

excludes.

It

is

artist.

says in

It

an essay on Robert

mock

this

all

the elements in

grandeur. Catling,

embodies the Elizabethan magus, the Dr

impossible on tape. Seen in colour, in an is

playing and also the other

Photography

lies

can exist in the same universe

Tony Lambrianou. Cook

self,

the

with more conviction.

It

harks back to

is

perched

at a

pub

as

the Kray foot-soldier,

table in

animated conver-

mouth with a hand, in a gesture of erasure, same event on a hidden monitor. A white line, which Atkins’ distressing of his prints, divides the composition —

while Petit covers

watch the

is

video tape with

concentrates essence. Within the frame of its formal prop-

erties, Driffield

but

texture of

taken for the Cardinal, using the sensibil-

the thing he

actor, the

sation,

The

emotional valence.” Frank wanted something more

silver-mint head, stubble, cigar,

Dee

elegiac, than

“tends to flatten

it

derived from the studio work, have

ity

to

more

final cut).

too eager to please, says too much.

is

Frank; with the consequence that

“operatic”.

off the actors, or the direc-

was never able to parley into the

Atkins’ prints was richer and blacker, its

show

mood. They were an impressive sequence that evolved narrative: including ironic asides on the making of the

tor in pensive

film (shots

a

a natural

his

form, the edge of a reflector board. 272

What

admire especially in these group compositions, and others

I

taken in bars and the cellars of the Bridewell, are the complex, floating relationships Atkins reveals: a sinister Las Meninas interplay of watcher

and watched.

one

ness;

and

It s

uncanny the way he and

two

figures at the

of them, while the other

The

rest

is

is

of still-

A bare

is lit

by

doesn’t

one print of which old

am

I

swimming

extreme edges of the frame, not looking

other, or the photographer.

tiles.

instants

And what

room beneath an

particularly fond, taken in a laundry

pool,

the camera.

stiffens before,

swallowed in velvet darkness. There

is

on

able to hit

figure raving, while the next turns to stare into the shadows,

a third notices,

matter

is

each

at

domed head of one creeping down through glass

bulb catches the

streetlight

gloom: diagonals from machines, blank door-

articulate

ways that lead away into unknowable passages.

The truly

one of them), was how

could get

a living

prints didn’t give

Newspapers time

up

it.

meaning

(because he

really

way

not

is

that

he

an option,

his

in such a

Photo-journalism was not

their

are after the

work

to those requiring an instant effect.

shock of the

familiar, the hit that

we’ve seen

They demand “strong” images without flaws in terms and lighting. The operatic shades that Atkins favours are no use

them. Neither was generic photography

too

arty,

too challenging, too dimly

harsh print and If

from

to pitch his

artists

after time.

of focus to

shamanic

difficulty for Atkins, as for the

he shot

a

heads.

But

for the pornbrokers

were

who

like

would end up looking like The Anatomy helped him to get involved with portraiture, author

wedding group this

help: his nudes

the detail they can handle, this side of cardiac arrest.

all

Lesson of Dr Tulp.

lit

much

I

it

was not altogether

successful.

The

strikingly

moody

snap of Petit taken for his Soho novel, Robinson, was rejected on the

grounds that the author would be too

But

portraiture

catapulted Atkins’

easily

confused with

his creation.

(combined with hiking) did open up the form which

work

into

all

the paying broadsheets: the obituary

Robin Cook, who gave a great reading — the living, excited issuing from a skeletal frame - a few days before he died. And then

tribute. First

voice

the poet and teacher, Eric Mottram.

contribution, to a in

I’d

volume produced

Parts of this Century.

My

been asked

for a brief,

one page

for Mottram’s 70th birthday. Alive

notion was that

we would walk from

Herne Hill, that I would explain to Marc, on the course of this walk, who Mottram was, my memories of him, what he stood for — and then, on arrival, Atkins would take a single image. Text would be printed on one page and photograph on the next. Unfortunately, the editors liked a number of the options Atkins offered so much that they Hackney

to

273

decided to use two of them: the contemplative Mottram

first,

then the

The book was launched at King’s in the Strand, where Mottram had taught for so many years, arranged so many readings. He was in fine boisterous form, enjoying the tributes and the company of

laughter.

A

his colleagues.

few weeks

he was dead, promoted into one of

later

those figures the culture feels guilty about, giving their lives

all

the cov-

The contemplative

portrait

appeared everywhere, alongside fulsome praise for the “best

known

erage that they denied to their publications.

unknown arrive

on the doorstep with

camera,

his

make

seeing Atkins

their excuses.

The energy

too intense. Leaving those marks on photographic paper,

exchange

is

drains the

life

No

Now writers of a certain age,

poet in England.”

force.

It’s

too risky a collaboration.

other form of autobiography existed beyond the landscape and

portraiture of the city:

weather, architecture,

its

artists, rivers,

graveyards, signs, crowds, patterns of electricity and

analyse

all this,

shamanic

to spy

possibilities.

on such

secrets

Photography, on

was

canals,

movement. To

to disqualify yourself

this epic scale,

from

was too knowing.

Too much hard evidence was left behind. Atkins tried to arrange the occasional show which he would advertise as a mental journey: the New York skyline intercut with Canary Wharf, a Heneage Street nude and a girl in Canada, clouds in West Wales, the Nevada desert. Robert Frank, trying to rid himself of the anguish of memory, the sentimental portfolio of achievement, asked a friend to drill holes through a stack of prints. Atkins, influenced

city

imagery boxed

in his

by Frank, and drained by the sheer mass of

room, the weight of all

mix colour

started to deconstruct his catalogue:

monochrome

grander

guage are tautologous: there

replete.

is

The form

is

hungry.

shots with strips

texts.

But

scraps

from

of lan-

already a powerful narrative element in

Each frame provokes the

the image. is

with scribbled

prints,

that stone light, has

next, implies

movement. Nothing

encourages, depends upon, a

It

restless

urgency. Atkins,

growing up

in a

mining community (according

to

one ver-

sion of his infinitely adjustable history), was subjected to Catholic pieties.

Even the Cheltenham

ing fundamentalists materialist.

(this is

art students

had their share of proselytis-

harder to imagine).

His work, influenced by

his tutor,

with active contradictions: substantial negations, contrails, entrails,

mud,

He became

spirits.

paint: to

a

determined

Nigel Slight, was heavy

A

crowd of absences and

evoke

isolation.

“Enjoined

to/lap blood with mailed/ pierced flesh and ripped/ clean screams danc-

ing/with greater though/lesser dimensional peers/a depiction of 274

sad/seduction entombed within/the sheath of an eye.” Narcissism and lethargy kept

him brooding, motionless

work, reasserted

out, at

Lxmelitiess o f the

itself.

He

in a chair, before the

says that

need to be

he mistook the texture of

Long Distance Runner, absorbed

Tlie

age 14, for a prophetic

at

message. To pull up short, drop out, refuse: instead of increasing the pace, devouring the territory.

such

There was an additional contradiction,

Robert Graves endured,

as

shifting identities): in that

rapture, a passivity.

The

Man

hooded

figures, the

woman

(in all

her

Woman

which demands without movement, like a Windmill

Does,

An immanence,

loving deactivation was a

worship of

he was enforcing, through the energy of his

that the female manifests herself

Theatre nude.

in the

conceit,

Is

fecund but without imagination. This

false trope.

He knew

that: the headless

and

profane madonnas with their closed eyes, were

women in a hurry. With a life outside be. He took a few years to come to it, but

replaced by contemporaries, by the studio, it

was

as his

somewhere

a legitimate

else to

breakthrough: the city and

its

true subject.

Atkins was, in

many

ways, the direct descendant ofjohn Deakin, the

best photographer of the feral

second-guessed

fate

Soho demi-monde. Like Deakin he

by committing

portraits

of not-quite-knowns,

never-to-be-knowns, and the reforgotten. Poets. can

people were revealed

we

rely

on

for accounts

of

Who

but Deakin

else

WS Graham, George Barker, Paul Potts,

Oliver Bernard, John Heath-Stubbs?

Who

but Atkins

else

is

working

at

nobody wants to collect. He is gathering a fugitive archive, sleeping on pillows of it; up at dawn, prowling the streets, searching out the empty spaces that will reprieve him from the babble it

now?

The

faces that

of portraiture. “London,” deserted early

as

Deakin wrote,

“is

most personal in the

morning or dusk — when

it

birth-certificate for Atkins.

He

half-

holds most promise and

mystery.”

There

nyms

is

no

for different types of art practice. (Yes,

Pessoa.) Suffering (at

willingly adopts hetero-

the time

he has read Fernando

from weak lungs and being summoned

when he had been

for an

my

taking photographs for

Daughters project), he gave the medics the

name of SL

X-ray

Radon

Joblard (an

invention loosely caricaturing aspects of a living sculptor).

A

reckless

procedure: plunging into metafiction, sub-text, the fantasy world of spectres, doubles, half-resolved literary projections.

Known humans

parodied and vampirised, unformed incubi cruising for connections. Atkins was asked for the Christian ity

beyond

his initials.

name of a

fiction

who

had no

“Steven”, he replied (upping the stakes). 275

I

real-

have

the X-ray plate in front of me (high kv/filter), with the rough draft of the Atkins essay behind

experiments, written text. as

when he The ribs

—

it

prefiguring the photographer’s formalist

on cellophane over pages of nebulous wisps that seem to shift

laid portraits printed

are

clouded in

you watch them, nothing obviously malign. Placing the X-ray over

the sellotaped map, taken from The

A

to

Z dfGeorgian London,

according to John Hudson’s instructions, the

prepared

results are spectacular.

The

name — appearing at the bottom of the frame as “Even Joblard 18.1 1.92” — is aligned with the Dunstan chapel at St Paul’s: the ribs and

Joblard

lungs are then thunder clouds, massed to east and west of Aldersgate

which runs through the centre of the composition like a bright spine. Lifting the plate sounds like a Lear storm, phony but effective. The orchards beyond Old Street are future cancers, nodules on the Street,

throat.

The

curious earthworks to the north of Ratclifs Layer are polyps,

hair eggs.

The

walks, out of all

this,

were healthful excursions. For both of us.

Taking Marc from the tyranny of the darkroom, giving

what

subvert

I

thought

of the rehashed

a

way

to

knew. Marching along the Thames, or cutting

I

into the Surrey foothills, gave this taint

me

essay.

book

form: removed

a

from the

it

Marc’s photographs, in the end, didn ’t have

book (though 1 would be delighted if they did): they informed the text. 1 would look at key images for a long time before writing. Sometimes he made a record of inscriptions, or signs on walls, to appear in the

or memorial stones, that saved

them

in

my notebook.

me

the drudgery of trying to describe

was keeping

(I

my own

photographic record, but

much more reliable.) His skill was to make himself redunknew what he would take. knew how it would look. He was

Marc’s was dant.

I

I

collaborating

on the formation of my

one of his images, out there n’t

bothered to log

it.

I

prose.

Sometimes

and wonder

in the landscape,

pointed out,

Wilson Park, the way the dry

grass

as

1

would notice

why

he had-

we came through Maryon

formed an

X on the opposite slope.

Marc clicked his shutter. (The day started slowly, flat light, Charlton House Library closed as usual, and Mark had only taken nine Obligingly,

shots by eleven o’clock. After the

with the usual three or four

Over

X things improved and he finished up

rolls to

develop.)

the months, the prints have changed: different papers, sepia,

near-brown. The quality has been consistent. The Tate & Lyle factory under a lowering sky, filtered for definition and menace (leading to a sequence of pure skyscapes).

The

last

days of the

public-house on the corner of Durward Street: 276

doomed

Roebuck as

soon

as

photographed. The care that Atkins lavished on

his

inanimate subjects

(however swiftly he operated) ensured that every image was an

There was no point

in

hanging on any longer, better to collapse in

He would do

rubble heap, exist in memory.

he wouldn’t go near

that

elegy.

at

make

a picture

bugger

his lungs

things to

any other time of his

by scuffling through the Rotherhithe Tunnel on

life:

claw

foot,

way up

his

church towers in the dark, put out on the river in the roughest with the

craziest skipper, shake

Photography

craft

hands with Jeffrey Archer.

of intensity was

at this level

a

also a

way of focusing

the

shape of any prose speculation. Atkins would provide the defining image: the

split

head on the sepulchre

Mount Cemetery, Rise.

It

found them on some I

the entrance to Chingford

the stone angel that had

didn’t matter that

photographs.

at

I

brought these things to

solitary expedition:

located

them on

ing the essence of something

become

I

his behalf.

had

I

a tree in

his attention,

saw them

He

Kensal or

Marc Atkins

as

was capable of express-

way

tried to describe in a

that defied

morbid fascination with the twin plaster dogs, the Dogs of Alcibiades, on their plinths in Victoria Park. They should symbolise something unpleasant, the possibilities of mere prose.

I’d

picked for years around

sentimental, and potentially perverse, that

We

could never quite locate.

trudged past them on the morning of our rainswept

Greenwich

The

light

University,

and

I

asked

Marc

was grim and unforgiving.

on the absolute edge of his frame,

He

to keep

to have a

pop

pulled lights

it

on

off:

enthusiasm), the shot

will

it

at

them both

walk to

the poodles. trap the dogs

and

in the picture, heart.

its

And

he

the glistening wet road, haloes of diminishing electric

their poles, desolation. Printed

invoke, and

graffiti

had to sweat to

contrive a composition that was not blank at

still

est

I

a

grasps

it

is

timeless.

in an instant.

It

on

thick Japanese paper (his lat-

has everything

The head

be wiped and we’ll walk on.

277

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I

would

love to

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bailiffs. (Which turns out

set, a lavish

be the

its

novels

novel. Strangers on a Train, and first

edition, in dustwrapper,

“Christopher

Pettit”. Indicating that

they weren’t best buddies, and that Petit used his period

as film editor

Time Out to prepare the ground for future survival

of

strategies as a

bookdealer.

A large

colour poster for

Wim Wenders’ American

Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game) and a Gavin Jones

orange clouds.

A

rack of

CDs.

A

bright rug.

stubs smouldering in a glass ashtray. There’s

oil

A

room

Friend (inspired by

painting of creamy

ruff'

of Hamlet cigar

here for one of those

would explore the entire gaff kitchen, bedrooms, corridor — before coming to rest in the old-fashioned bathroom. Then cutting to the desk at the window, the Apple Mac, the fat Irish thriller Petit has been working on for years. The windows are protected by a device that looks like the inner gate from a lift. characteristic Petit tracking shots that

Across the

street, stretching

aerials that delight the

high above the roofs

is

a set

of spooks’

They are known, he tells me, as Urban paranoia made manifest. The watcher

film-maker.

“photovoltaic scanners”.

watched This

made

Irish

a close

book. The Psalm

Killer, is

going to be

study of the genre, balanced

all

a big one. Petit has

the elements, found the

The maps and charts are spread out. He’s even changed his mind and made a few trips to Belfast. His back’s gone — he’s spent so long in that chair — but the book is almost finished. The omens were good, right from the start: poking through the dreck in the Oxfam shop in Kingsland Road right form.

found

It’s

an economic necessity, he has to pull

it

off.

paperback by the Welsh poet Jon Manchip White called The Robinson Factor. It was a tale of the Troubles that ghosted, in pulp form,

I

a

Petit’s thesis:

What was

conspiracy, torture, double-dealing, unreliable history.

absurd was that one of the most gifted film 318

essayists

of his

generation was driven to

condemned

this

drudgery to keep

his

nose above water;

to the treadmill with the rest of us hacks. Petit has an

uneasy relationship with television

s

commissioning

editors.

“Within

a

minor and often inconsequential characters, the force of the images of landscape and weather are striving to construct a different emotional way of looking at the world.’ As his producer, Keith Griffiths, expressed it in his essay “Anxious Visions”. These

fractured narrative, populated by

to either

do not endear themselves

qualities

of the dominant documen-

tary schools: the fraudulent fly-on-the-wall (manipulative while aspiring

to neutrality) or pictorial print journalism voices, a

“balanced” parade of witnesses

its

with

who

its

mediating narrative

cancel each other out in

babble of meaningless soundbites. Petit had,

charming

on

their terms, an early success

tribute to air hostesses.

More

with Suburbs

recently, entrusted

panion piece on bank managers, Chris blew

in the

with

He went

it.

Sky, a

a

com-

for poetry,

mantic images of factory estate clearing-houses. Night tracking shots: the coming information superhighway that will leave the former pillars of suburbia in a state of trauma. It’s a bleak prospect. Air hostesses can have their fling

Nobody Petit’s

and then

(like chalet girls)

cares if bank

retire

managers end up howling

on

their

memories.

in a secure ward.

But

intimations of breakdown, self-delusion (with inserts of appro-

were not appreciated. He was called in to The only film he could work on without problems from upstairs new version of Michael Powell’s Buttle of the Rwer Plate, shot

priately futurist locales), recut.

was with

a

his son,

Chris

Petit’s

and

of plastic models, in the bathroom.

amorphous period between the

film career spans that

cide of Michael

and the

a collection

Reeves

(the close

sui-

of those Sixties pirate productions)

approved chamber cinema of Patrick Keiller. landscape subservient to the drive of his narrative

institutionally

on a (Tom Baker remembers with awe the way he stood under a beech tree of them at in the rain orchestrating a troop of Cromwell’s cavalry, none

Reeves

home

insisted

in the saddle). Keiller

makes

his

journeys

first

(having written

and then formulates a finished text. subject, the Petit is perhaps the most troubled of the three: stuck with a the dictation of a script, while secretly wanting nothing more than to let

enough material

to secure funding),

camera run on the clouds. Gipsying around North London, from Hampstead to Willesden, to Belsize Park, to Golders Green, he established himself as the archivist of suburbia.

Maclaren-Ross was always

in his

mind 319

(or,

The example of Julian

more

vividly,

Robin Cook):

the night return from Soho. Metropolitan

room) reinvented telephone

Out

in isolation.

London was

Petit’s

(1973—1978).

soon moving sideways

Good

He worked

over

to^ 1;ake

days for the job: film was being listings

magazine

had replaced the defunct IT and Oz, Frendz and Red Dwarf).

task

was to make consumption inconspicuous, to give the appear-

of gay or

ticket.

The

a

leavening

of a futon, or

to soft-peddle the purchase

leftist politics

a cin-

of future movers: Dave Pirie

office tolerated a squabble

(an enthusiast for Michael Reeves), Jonathan

Meades (dropping

pick up a dining partner), Richard Rayner. These

men might

in to

influence

to take a ride out to Kilburn to tick off Revenge of the Blood Beast,

but they were not perceived

as

bona

to offer a transfer to the Street of

fide journalists.

Shame.

Petit

offer

him

back row — was not

a seat in the

being. Meanwhile, expenses were

Nobody was going

understood that watch-

— who were never going

ing films with a bunch of cloistered cynics

at

of credi-

a patina

ance of edge to questions of aesthetic consumerism. To use

you

film editor

more written about

had

still

as

(it

bility

ema

in

orders from Josephine Hart) and arrived at Time

than made, and the former

The

European cinema.

overlaid with

sales (taking

that way,

(of cafe, pub, cutting-

life

a career for a

good and he got

mature

to travel: in

to

human

Munich,

the end of a sympathetic interview, he passed a script he had been

working on over

Wim Wenders. Word

went out that the script had been spotted under the director’s arm at the Edinburgh Festival. It took him a year or so to read it, but the response was positive. Why didn’t Petit direct

it

Radio On.

to

himself?

A

strong

title.

A

beginning that labelled

Petit for

all

time

maker of angst-laden road movies. Wenders co-produced and lent his camera operator, Martin Schafer. The BFI kicked in and Keith Griffiths came on to the scene. It didn’t seem to concern anyone that as a

Petit

had never made

never even shot

a roll

stormed Downing

What

Radio

On

a film in his

life,

had no technical

training,

and had

of portentous 16mm. Margaret Thatcher had just

Street, the

proves

is

“can do” age of the fanatic was upon

that

much of the mystique of the

us.

director,

the long apprenticeship, the epic difficulties in setting up a project, are

phantasmagoric. Petit had a chat with the right

and walked into

it.

man

at

the right time

Like Reeves, he wanted to pit himself against English

work with weather. Unlike Reeves, he had no particular interest in a narrative armature. What he understood - from such films as Wenders’ The Goalkeepers Fear of the Penalty — was that he should landscape,

“apply his

own

experience to film”; that 320

it

was permissible to watch

a

jukebox

of

for the entire duration

a song.

He had

certain defining

what went in between could sort itself out. He thought of a journey made between London and Newcastle, but settled in the end for Bristol - a city he images to work with

knew

(a

shot of feet in the bath) and

well from his student days.

He went

scouting with Schafer, drove

him to some typically featureless Petit field in Wiltshire and asked how he would shoot it. Schafer took his time, banged a pylon into the middle of his frame, and the putative director knew at once that he’d got the

man

for the job.

Radio a

On

of interesting German women, cameo by Sting, Silbury Hill; Weston-super-

music and weather,

is

bottled-up squaddie,

a

a pair

Lord Archer never imagined it even in his darkest moments; a Bristol hotel and flyover unmatched in British cinema for their power of poetic displacement. Nothing that engages our attention actually happens, but the film is superbly shot. It’s already, at the start of Petit s - relieved by career, an essay in paranoia, anxiety, tension, restlessness

Mare

as

twilight reverie,

night

rain,

grant

it

drowned

cities.

It is

visions through a car

a film

window, quarries

in the

of emotional equivalents. You have to

of time. You are encouraged to let go, let the with the music. (Petit secured an assignment track-

a pluralist sense

attention waver, drift

on behalf of Melody Maker, made — contact with Kraftwerk, talked to Bowie in his perverse Berlin period Cloud. He picked up a reprise of the Francis Stuart novel. The Pillar of

Germany

ing

for provocative sounds

on Wreckless Eric - who would, gigs

with Martin Stone.

in a later incarnation, play graveyard

He wasn’t impressed by The

Police, but grasped

was very shortly going to be a global marketing point.) The soundtrack was the pitch. It was easier than writing dialogue. The film played the festival circuit and Petit travelled with it. He toyed with the idea of another road movie: this time taking two women, that Sting

Kreuzer (from Radio On) and Marianne Faithfull (from her Lots Road squat), to Scotland. It didn’t happen. Too many other ghosts were already out there, ahead of him or behind him: Barney Platts-Mills

Lisa

Road (expunged from the record books), Bruce Robinson Marks {Withnail and I), Peter Whitehead on an estate rented by Howard non-film, to receive a drug run from Colombia. Think of W^hiteheads with all the paraphernalia of production (except film stock), as the one

with

Private

that got away.

The

story that Petit never made.

be to involve himself with the He only internationally marketable local product, the mystery story. heartless) plots in read yards of Christie - thinking of her formulaic (and

The

best option for Chris

seemed

321

to

terms of Fassbinder. (Did Fassbinder’s Chinese

mood, of Petit’s Chinese Boxes'?) himself with PD James — and was unlucky enough

Karina, influence the

He

institutionalised

title,

would be

the

or dominant

An

to earn the right to 'direct this

German romantic road out, in a way

On was

a

European film made

ple

He

is

of West London, the

so profoundly un-British in

immediately have been asked to return

was landed with

was

a vanity script that

who wanted

of wealthy amateurs

in England,

had not been seen before: there

that they that

ironic that

It’s

undertaken by the most

Unsuitable Job, a standard industrial product, for Petit.

Woman.

sensibility seeing the buildings

“wipe” near Heathrow that Petit should

Unsuitable Job for a

truly English subject

first

English of directors. {Radio a

with Anna

Rot4lette,

to

buy

its

of

a painful

experience

brought with

into the business.

union crew, chancers flogging Rolexes from

a

Furst (pre-Batman) designing call for Jacques

megalomaniac

who

Cousteau, actresses

He

by

a

at

monumental go-slow:

less interiors. Petit

working it

a

cou-

found

full

iner-

Anton deep enough to

auditioned effectively and then

got swept away in the hubris of make-up. expressed his discomfort

it

suitcases,

wells

sets,

fluidity

his passport.)

himself dealing with half a dozen status-seeking producers, the tia

one

is

Added

to which, Schafer

in this unsympathetic

atmosphere

took him forever to underlight the

light-

accepted the project because he found Unsuitable Job

the least offensive item in the Janies canon (no Dalgleish and his Byronic sensibilities to flatter).

He

thought he would have the freedom Reeves

enjoyed with Witchfinder General to describe the Suffolk landscape. If any

on earth was designed for Petit’s camera, it was the Fens: slate clouds, no horizons, a network of suicide ditches. The logistics of the production forced him to make do with a Berkshire gravel pit. (He saved the location research, the exhilaratingly grim afternoons staring at place

And the death of Cookie, “We arrived at Denver Sluice

manifest nothingness, for his novel Robinson.

one of the as

he never directed.

finest scenes

came up on

the light

landscape that looked like a child’s unfinished

a

drawing: a huge sky bisected by the line of the land, the network of canals

—

mercury

oily as sluggish

the sluice

screen, while he

sapling

found

.

.

He

talked

‘We’ve twenty minutes

PD

his

I

light

— converging on

watched him, framed

camera positions.

of canal bank identical to the .

coming

whose churning waters sounded disconcerting and

such inanimate surroundings ...

stretch

in the

me at

rest,

He

apart

finally

from

alien in

windsettled on a

in the

a solitary, thin

through the shots again, gabbling them the most before

full daylight.’”)

James, given over to Petit and Schafer, 322

off.

is

an unnerving

experience. Like Anglia

TV

in a

power

dubbed

cut,

into

Norwegian.

some tight-jawed Ibsen family saga of sexual guilt, self-slaughter, lipstick on photographs of the dead. The metaphor of the bottomless well stands in for the fjord. Billie Whitelaw looks as if she can t wait to get back to something lighter: such as Beckett s Not I. The rest of the cast are all interchangeable members of the Guard family. Dominic, in Like

particular, turning

out

as

badly

unfortunate childhood in Losey s

as his

The Go-Between would have led you to expect (the foreknowledge that he would be transformed into a costive Michael Redgrave). Schafers interiors were so dim that there was nothing to do except stare

film of

the dripping foliage in the overgrown garden. Petits refusal to provide covering shots resulted in some notably abrupt cutting; charac-

out

at

ters

met, parted, fucked, brooded

wired

ferrets.

Dame

at

Phyllis, reeling

windows,

pack of badly

like a

out from a viewing, was heard to

remark, with characteristic charity, that she

felt “it

was the directors

film”.

Messing about with

PD

of lese-majesty which subsequent feature films would be

James was an

resulted in a long banishment: Petit’s

act

back to back, in Germany. The first. Flight to Berlin, was an original story by Jennifer Potter, intended for a Paris shoot. Difficulties with the unions meant making a last-minute switch to

made,

virtually

much a novice”, she based the character played by Tusse Silberg on herself. The emotional complications were worthy of Nabokov. And my own grasp of this

Berlin. Potter admitted that, because she

film at

is

unreliable:

it

was “very

appears fairly frequently

night to be sure

if

you’ve seen

it

on

television, but too late

or dreamt

The phantom

it.

microsleep of motorway driving, nanoseconds or lifetimes, before you jerk back to consciousness in the glare of an oncoming juggernaut.

Kreuzer was there again, and Paul Freeman from Unsuitable Job, and - how the hell did he get involved? - Eddie Constantine as a gestinkering ture in the direction of Alphaville. Schafer was now impossible, prodigiously with inkies, taking a week to light each set-up. The night-

Lisa

mare

is

an anthology of all

Petit’s

preoccupations up to that point in his

career, unravelling in a plot that threatened to flight

of stairs, another

bar,

another face on loan from

Jennifer Potter, a fine novelist

Hugo WiUiams, was

endless, another

a forgotten

who had not yet begun

perhaps the greatest investment in

poet

become

this fabulation. (Petit,

credited with the

working

movie.

to publish,

had

along with the

screenplay.) Potter,

touched on the background to the affair in a powerfully written piece for the Guardian Women’s Page (“A German

who

was married to

Petit,

323

Love Story”). She

German

from Radio On. “If I’d been born

lead

of woman

sort

her response to the directors dalliance with the

details

ment with

I

would choose.” And now

the

who

actress

autobiographical role in Flight

home and

kitchen of her old

of permutations and

mood

infected the orchestrate

I

believe that

Orson Welles

it’s

in

hysteria,

The Third

coming chaos

“The German commie gangsters.”

If

ahead of itself, read gash

met once very

a

Flight to Berlin

d^emanded

a

real sense

a Fassbinder to

and

fast

with urgency

tight,

Man and

both

is

nudge and

a

a

name

a rehearsal for the

wink

at

part in

given a minatory speech in which he

is

that will follow the demolition

of the Berlin

political vision, the

keep your eye on

fiction;

as Petit’s first

were shot

lost

news

six years

midnight movies.

colour film. Both Unsuitable Job

in colour, but

conceived in monochrome.

nothing in British cinema that achieves the transcendent gloom

of Martin Schafer’s grey on grey photography for Radio On.

dom

in the

the thriller achieves the status of

a role that

you want

think of Chinese Boxes

is

Potter’s

Spring,” he growls. “We’ll be overrun by sleazo

Wall.

There

she

There was

situation

work; shot

his best

future novel Robinson,

foresees the

and

playing

combinations and conspiracies, that

The

prophecy. Robbie Coltrane, in

I

A woman

didn’t care for.

film.

were,

it

provoke some dreadful conclusion.

and barely controlled

Petit’s

as

to Berlin.

alliances,

of the

there was another engage-

very sensibly, went straight on to Palace Pictures and Chinese

Petit,

Boxes.

it,

was,

man, she was just the

a

twelve-man crew gave

Petit to

two subsequent

best with the

fluidly

and

fast.

He

free-

did his

features to turn colour into black

and

down, keyed it against the zombie perhe required of his actors. To play the lead in a Petit film

white: he repressed

formances that

work

The

it,

stopped

it

was to accept voluntary redundancy.

It

was

like

joining the Foreign

Legion. Petit didn’t like rehearsals, motivation chat: he

sat

David Beames

down and dosed him on everything he could find that had Robert Mitchum in it. Sleepwalkers with attitude, that’s what he demanded. Chinese Boxes had a new cameraman, Peter Harvey, but — more importantly

only had against

a

—

it

had an editor from the Wenders company. Fred Srp not

surname

them

that dispensed

to the extent

with vowels, he took

his prejudice

of breaking every rule of smooth cutting. Srp

loved the harshness of chopping dialogue on the consonant. units

of grammar

in the film are extraordinary: a close shot

high heels in a pool of artificial opens, light floods

in.

light, a

jump

The

basic

of a woman’s

back, a door behind her

Close-ups of drinkers in an afterhours bar, arms

and shoulders meshed: sick neon, bad 324

skin.

Srp keeps the narrative

moving

in lurches

and

glides,

But

ferent linking material.

unexpected angles, the excision of indif-

this

time the story holds together with the

logic of a cold turkey nightmare. Petit exploits the physicality of the

American actor. Will Patton, and the corrupted Germans (Gottfried John, Adelheid Arndt). The him: layers of untrustworthy information,

a

intelligence of the

subject

is

made

for

countertext of jukebox

romanticism, the sexuality of hungry ghosts; paranoia, perversion, the city.

No

Mezcal (shaking up the can

secret

Within seconds

fail.

gun out of a

car

window

of

a bottle

the keys of the city

own

fiction,

The

in an underpass.

pages delivered by pony express, on the day of shooting, from L.

Kit Carson, self-destructs as

USA,

in

Chinese Boxes

Sam

ered by

Action

.

.

.

it

speeds along: drug mules, bathroom

broken bones,

deaths, phonecalls, beatings,

Made

worm) and promising

Petit himself appears, at ease in his

leather-jacketed, firing a story,

drunken Gottfried John waving

film that opens with a

But

cars.

much

closer to the

famous definition of cinema

Fuller in Godard’s Pierrot

Violence

.

.

.

le

far side

a

Fou: “Love

.

.

.

deliv-

Hate

.

.

.

Death ... In one word Emotion.” Only the

conclusion would have to be excised:

emotion, or the

doing

an essay on form.

his film isn’t a lecture, a critique,

is

Petit isn’t

of

it;

Petit’s

film

is

the antithesis of

a mise en scene that seeks to explain

its

absence.

The

highlight of Chinese Boxes

pulp paper yard (pulp fiction

made

is

a

white-on-white shootout in

manifest). Action, theatrically

effectively staged, years before Tarantino,

by

a

man who was

a

and

condi-

tioned by Gaston Bachelard, Robert Walser, Peter Handke, not video takeaways. Chinese Boxes

keep picking that takes

The

A

yet another version of the Petit labyrinth:

you achieve an where you started.

the layers until

at

you back

to

unsatisfactory resolution

film was so good, so self-contained, that

immediately. ing.

is

Moving

ignored

it.

was granted

It

Show

Picture

Petit

cult status before

was not so

special

much

on the

it

disappeared almost

it

had

its first

public view-

ponytails at Palace Pictures

blacklisted as

snowpaked, whited out

of the reference books. (David Thomson’s Biographical Dictionary of Film has no entry for Petit, or Keiller, or Reeves. They don’t exist.) Petit drifted into voluntary limbo, an office without a job at Palace Pictures.

The lost years fictionalised in Robinson. The breakaway publishers Bloomsbury history of Soho.

phone.

It

was

He became

a

at this

point that

I

offered a project

met

Petit,

leading customer for erased 325

on

the

London

- writing

a

end of a

tele-

fiction.

Poor

Mark Charing Cross Road at

bugger, he found himself taking part in the chain; having to chase

Benney

had already moved on to

that

titles

(The book

inflated prices.

in the hallucinogenic a

cellars

of Cecil Court

mirror-world of Robinson.)

major Soho bibliography: Benney,

also

had

a role to play

Petit rapidly

assembled

Robin Cook, Maclaren-

Kersh,,

Ross,

Wrey

Story,

Wolf Mankowitz, Bernard Kops, Frank Norman, Fabian of the

Gardiner, Alexander Baron, John Lodwick, Jack Trevor

Yard, gangland memoirs, the death of Freddie Mills. Fie kept a few dealers

from the poverty

book.

It

line.

There was one problem: he couldn’t write the

would only work

as fiction,

material, re-energised in a fast

an absorption of the original

moving

narrative of pursuit, “moral

decay and sexual collusion”.

Chatting to

Petit, as

became evident

that

an excuse for not getting back to work,

he had very good

taste

(it

agreed so closely with

own): Celine and the reforgotten London writers in

his

much

greater clarity, less wildness, than

novel would

fail.

prose was sharp

its

Granta, remains an insider’s book. teasing without resolution.

A book

J-P wrote

terse novel rather than

an extended

a dislike to a

reminded him of someone talked, the gestures

enough

that

to

else.

he made.

It

how

as a publisher’s

be extracted in

works best

in extracts,

and richer than Concrete

com-

Island.

story.

The germination of Robinson was an pub: Petit taking

couldn’t see

close to Ballard, not as visionary or

It’s

pulsive as Crash, but better constructed

A

I

Which shows why I’m not working

though

reader. Rohitison,

did:

I

my

fiction,

Melville and other odds, sods and marginals in cinema. Petit

with

soon

it

incident (or non-incident) in a

man standing at the bar, a face that He couldn’t stomach the way the man started there. (Just the sort

of alcohol

— between invention, false memory and interface where second-hand literature meets

fuelled epiphany that occurs

quotation

—

at

the

uncommissioned cinema. Poking through a box of books at a sale in the North of England, found a slightly tired copy of Aidan Higgins’ HelsUi^or Station & Other Departures, marked down to ^{^1.00. A I

palimpsest of previous sticky labels revealed that 12.95, X^4.99 and

The

^2.99 before finding

its

it

had been tried

ultimate purchaser: me.

clincher was a dustwrapper quote by Chris Petit:

writing that looks

random

.

of snipe, and gets bull’s-eye

you have

.

.

He

at

“The

sort

of

goes hunting the literary equivalent

after bull’s-eye,

making

it

look

easy, until

a go.”

Honouring found myself

the principle of random selection, in a

pub “down from Jack 326

I

flipped the pages and

Straw’s Castle, patronized

by

queers and queer-bashers”

Higgins

mistakes for

buoyant of the

pany of adoring young novel

is

man

took the

years to realise that he was

had mutated into Krapp^s Last

the thrice-bankrupt one

s

lives.

to an old soak with

lost novelists. It

lost, that his life

Petit

now

Petit

“odd ale-coloured eyes” whom he William Trevor. Also to be found at the bar was the most

drawn

is

where

the head of the road

at

very

.

.

.

firing

Tape: “Jack

down double

Trevor Story

com-

brandies in the

floozies.”)

much

like that.

The pub

at

world, where he could drop in and check on his

Soho model, Robin Cook,

the centre of the

was the Coach and Horses. Higgins’ pub, which he

insists

is

not to be

confused with the Coach and Horses (“a Young’s house near Hampstead tube station, patronized by the fancy”) Robinson els

is

not a

film,

nor

is it

is

called the

Coach and Hound.

one of those overwritten roman

a clef nov-

about film-making, stuffed with misapplied technical terminology.

But

it

does have an ex-film director’s grasp of

close-up

“The

detail.

“The

click

of

sugar cubes were pitted

his shoes:

where

metal quarters on the heels.”

on them, and when the

pissed

I’d

strong cuts,

essentials,

urinal flushed itself automatically they floated.” Petit’s

Robinson

narrator,

- who

is

like

and

The man

drifts

fading marriage, seeing Robinson

as his

the energising force in the narrative.

through Soho, escaping from fate

keeps his distance from

Patrick Keiller’s,

his salvation: a

a

Harry Lime

fixer, a

bad

father, a

Clerkenwell

him into a conspiracy of night drives, hotel sex, pornographic epics. The weather of the city. Even the geography of the streets is tilted. He is as likely to walk into a De Quincey apocalypse as a Graham Greene church. Soho is seen as an alternate Atlantis, an Fassbinder drawing

underwater kingdom. Death by drowning became Robinson.

I associated

of his description of Soho as a rat-run, with the wrecked nights

.

.

.

I fancied I

its

him with

suggestion of ships.

saw schooners moored

raft to

which I clung

Sometimes Soho was the ship

after being

Yet again the launch of a Petit

moved

During

in the streets

masts higher than the rooftops, a harbour in the square, the off its backwater creeks.

water, because

itself,

streets

.

.

.

running

sometimes the

swept overboard.

new

somehow botched and television. The hunger and the

career was

further underground: into

anonymity of the form might have been invented

somewhere near the top — with Miss Marple, worked his way resolutely down, and out. 327

a

for him.

He

started

Barbados freebie - and

Petit

saw

Christie’s

A

Caribbean Mystery

as

The

view, an exorcism of his colonial childhood.

Dame

Agatha stayed was

He

barracks in Malaysia.

TP McKenna

still

an exercise in point-of-

around, reminding the director of military

Donald Pleasance and the bar^ while he worked out the

listened every evening to

doing the anecdotes in

He

next day’s diagonal tracking shots.

succeeded admirably in de-her-

itaging Christie, offering instead a bleak existential fable

Barbados appearing about

Canvey

as inviting as

He

Rendells, v/ere not

his approval.

gave up drama for documentary:

The Moving

strations, Ballard’s

a short essay

on JG

Ballard for

Show. Fighting hard to avoid the author interview

Picture

and the chorus of talking heads.

raw

with crash demon-

Petit started to play

material. His documentaries

moved

closer

closer to

found footage:

off-cuts, bin ends, insolvent surrealism.

made

one of BBC2’s

terrible

for

“themed” evenings (on

seen, in retrospect, as the beginning of the end.

were attempted,

— with

Island in an acid rain-

Ruth

storm. Further scripts, episodes of Morse or

hiked around for

where

original hotel

a

and

A piece

Weather) can be

Numerous

re-edits

balance had to be found between the charmingly off-

beat (crop circles, fish falling from the sky, thunder phobics) and an

engagement with foaming millennial

man

linking the Great

Too

Storm

late to bale out:

Catling, Alan

The Cardinal and

Moore and

a raft

man

busking

his

of counter-cultural revenants in order. scale.

burning

all

his

roll call

of the ungrateful

with the

past: a discredited

It

unsold treasures on

of Sheppey. Martin Stone,

who

nobody was going

ends with the bookdealer

sewage beach

a

was discovered to be

toothless in Paris, wrote the music

After that

A

own argument

revision of London’s psychogeography. Driffield

Corpse found Petit sending

the

Robin Cook, John Latham, Brian

This was grave robbery on an epic dead, each

of the financial markets).

to the collapse

for a “freak wrangler” to keep

mad-

visionaries (bunkered artists,

alive

in the Isle

and well and

and delivered the obsequies. with cameras and

to trust Petit

a crew,

he was banished to an editing suite — where he constructed two very significant

London

films. Surveillance,

about ten or eleven minutes, and was neutral imagery.

on an important

made

this

post-human cinema.

machines. Dictated confessions in

The Late Show,

a shifting collage

Haunting and prophetic, subject:

for

was the

Home

of superimposed first

English film

movies made by

real time. But, unlike

Michael

feature-length compilation The Giant, Petit was forced to “heat footage, run a

few whispered observations — contradict

London Labyrinth, the equivalent of 328

Keiller’s

lasted

his

own

Klier’s

up”

his

thesis.

London, was not well

(Where Keiller would show the architectural aftermath of an IRA bomb, Petit would cut in a clip from the Dick Emery show: an explosive device on a bus confused with a lunch box. received by

its

sponsors.

Proving that successful comedy often anticipates future newsreel cover-

wrote

age.) Petit

piece for Sight and Sound called “Flickers”.

a

It

consisted entirely of present-tense images from favourite films: an epic

of fragments, arbitrary through

wind

LAX

“Lee Marvin walking, low angle,

dissolves.

in Point Blank; footsteps like gunshots.

Blow-Up. Driving shots through the windscreen in

in trees in

London Labyrinth was just

Vertigo!'

like

home

that:

Betjeman, Ken Loach bikers, suburbs, underground plays, strippers auditioning,

in

Fu Manchu

meltdown. The end of the

Robinson

in his

from endless sees

its

cutting-room -

reels

through Ridley

An abdication of involvement. Dr Mabuse — recomposing history

like

of documentation and

Road market on

crowd

into a

Rubbish blows about

coming

fantasy. Patrick Keiller, passing

pilgrimage to Stoke Newington,

his

swimming mass of spermatozoa: productive

his feet.

On

announce

to

We

about twenty-five

souls.

his first tracking shot

vagrant

a

Two

open

made

a

a

at

decent turnout,

rolled into Bristol, the rest

a

poetry reading crowd

The

it,

flat.

Thereafter,

alyptics,

final

-

was

a steady

snoring in the front row, with

scene where Beames encounters the

couple of laughs: the cutting

And

made

it

look

then, as the car sit

streets.

in a

door-

Four of us

stone quarry: East London’s defiant apoc-

squareheads crazy enough to

lunch to the

it

of them decided they’d rather

finish, the

without

the conclusion of one of

way, and take their chances with the weather in the

out to the

showing of

or three gave up before Petit had finished

the best of

pub provoked

a

to allcomers, gratis,

an obtuse gay pick-up. Sting was recognised.

it

plastic globe.

he screams, warning of

was to be

that there

around the dark

plenty of space to stretch out.

squaddie in

location, depicts

punctured

a

listens as

went along there

our walks. There was quite

A

Nobody

the Whitechapel Gallery,

at

card or qualification.

trickle.

holding up

same

rain.

Marc Atkins rang me

stuck

Cinema

night.

a solitary preacher, a black ranter

like

from

trains, clips

riverside conspiracies.

chaos. Petit, shooting a scene for Weather in the

Radio

movies, John

multiculturalism as a beacon of hope. His long-focus lens fore-

shortens the

the

The sound of

knuckle.

329

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on devouring

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|

THE CADAVER CLUB

PD

James, making

a rare visitation to a blighted

metropolitan zone,

downriver of Tower Bridge, wrote a very useful book; a book that I am Title? The Maul and still happy to draw upon. That was back in 1972. out to the Pear Tree. (It could cost you half a ton to send a booksearcher locate the

first

edition. Treble that if you

was co-written with

TA

employ

Driffield.)

The book

Critchley of the Police Department

at

the

where James then earned her crust as a Principal in the Criminal Policy Department. (Plenty there, you might think, to keep a

Home

Office,

lively intelligence

occupied.

No

danger of a

shortfall in criminal poli-

James had already produced four well-received mysteries, but this was her first work of non-fiction (apart, obviously, from interdepartmental memos, annual reports and the like). cies.)

The Maul and the Pear Tree was a spirited, effectively researched account of the infamous Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811; an account that offered, as an additional benefit, when the compulsory gloating over the lurid specifications of these crimes was accomplished,

of Shadwell and Wapping in their maritime pomp: brothels, grog shops, provisioners - the bustle and fret of a crowd in perpetual motion; oysters at midnight, drunks to be

a persuasive sketch

of the

districts

news from abroad, the bartering of exotic animals. dark All of this restless activity “bounded to the south by Londons blood stream, the Thames”. A working river and a community that existed only to exploit it. How offensive, how alien to James conservthe absence ative sensibilities, this licence, these maggots in the wound: of order. The English murder mystery is essentially concerned with fleeced or pressed,

good housekeeping, imposing

structure

on

chaos; identifying a villain

given the choice of committing suicide, or being dispensed with, off-stage. The Maul and the Pear Tree was a sabbatical, an opportuDickens - and nity for James to cruise the wild side, binge on heritage

who

all

is

within the conventional form of

a

documented criminal

investiga-

She had merely to pay her respects to Thomas De Quincey’s essay “On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts”, to defuse its excesses, and she was released from all moral obligation.

tion.

331

The

case

saw James

the height of her powers: a fastidious dabbling

at

in horror, the bright forensic eye

frustrating aspect

Adam

swooping on

was that there was no

irrelevant detail.

The

be unmasked, no

villain to

Dalgleish to twitch a nostril in righteous indignation.

The

sup-

posed murderer, John Williams, may havq been staked through the heart at the crossroads

went

missing.

It

(Cannon

was out

Street

Road/Cable

there, a trophy,

Street),

but his skull

under the counter of some pub,

implicated in Masonic or occult ceremonies, fondled

as a

totem of

power by gangsters and brown brogue fascists. Now, more than twenty years after her original modest raid on the riverside, James was ready for a grand return. She would invent a crime more suited to the spirit of Olympia & York, the new principality of Docklands.

A

crime that could be solved, dealt with, written out

the problems of the Canary

Wapping would then be

Old map; no

transport infrastructure).

from the

definitively erased, struck

decent, right-thinking citizen

What James

Wharf

would ever have

(or her researchers) discovered

to visit there again.

was too dismal for mock-

Victorian fiction. Property pirates, tarted-up boozers revising their legends,

gloomy

speculators in

(like

revamped

cellars,

wretched

own

art trading

on

the cusp of entropy, media fortresses bristling with surveillance cameras

and razor wire: loose money. What

vitalising

crime

(a sacrificial

murder

a territory

whose

dead ground) could be visited on

to restore the

boundary markers were properties owned by Lord Mellor?

An

after that

Owen

and David

made to appease her disgruntled audience of Men (stacks of which were appearing in

attempt had to be

turkey The Children

remainder shops everywhere). James had read about the problems of East

London. She

sat

on

all

the relevant tribunals dishing out Arts

The subject — the badlands on the wrong side of St Katharine s Dock — was contemporary (eight or ten years off the pace),

Council but

it

doles.

had been leeched of its

or Seamarks

Down

Rivet),

fictional zest

by genre hacks (Sax

by current sharpies such

as

Rohmer

Kim Newman

Wharf skyline dim-witted futurism. The

{The Quorum), by the endless exploitation of the Canary as a

convenient television shorthand for

predatory energy of Wapping’s lowlife past had been transported

upstream by Dalgleish’s impersonator,

Long John

Silver

have been

left

Roy

Marsden, for

his

annual

Mermaid Theatre in Blackffiars. James was left with a cold trail: dubious quotations, a London Dungeon of waxwork crimes exhibited in genuine locations. Her novel was destined to become the final testament of Thatcherism (like Edwin Drood, it should show

at

the

unfinished).

332

Original

Siti is a

virtual reality parable enacted in

defined by architectural models ingenue,

Mandy

—

an empty

set, a set

so that even James’s traditional

the Temp, in her “fab” gear, seems to be trying to

A

catch the eye of Gavin Stamp.

silly

parade of deaths and suicides

announces the dissolution of the golden age murder mystery: Agatha Christie forcefed a diet of Pevsner and the patriotic humbug of Kenneth Baker’s latest Faber anthology. (The freakish logic of these blood-on-

tweed crossword puzzles can only be managed, so James asserted on a radio programme, by a middle-class audience serviced by middle-class detectives. Summer vacation fiction. Consoling reading for troubled produced by professional amateurs: academics, country clergymen, doctors, lawyers. Or steely, independent women beavering away at one of the few options open to them.) What left this particular reader uncomfortable was James’ tendency to editorialise, colonise her narrative with pronouncements from Smith

times,

Square.

where

too

It’s

much

like

enduring one of those episodes of

Tlie Archers

from the Countryside Code and some pest husbandry spliced into a saloon-bar monologue. Two of James’ copdown for a swift half without debating the morality of

extracts

brochure are pers can’t

sit

punishment. “I happen to believe that the death penalty does to take deter, so what I’m saying is that I’m willing for innocent people conscience by a greater chance of being murdered so that I can salve my

capital

we no longer execute murderers.” (Give credit commie stomper like Mickey Spillane. He integrates

saying that

neck,

politics

too

his rabid

within the deranged psyches of his characters. His prose screams

and sweats.

No sub-text. What you read,

James’ robotic

get.)

to a fat-

much of her

humanism

as

your

lips

move,

is

what you

suggests that the author has donated far

time to literary

festivals,

book

gabble, the smokeless

backrooms of power brokering. She could even be

said to

have invented

new form of fiction, conducting the promotional interview within the Greenwich novel. The phobia about the Thames flooding through the

a

by the wimpish Frances Peverell signals an obvious autobiographical prompt (obligingly picked up by John Walsh of the Independent, who can gaze down from his openplan office on the Foot Tunnel which

is

suffered

over like a relevant section of the river). Original Sin has to be worked being ticked crib for an author profile. You daren’t skip-read for fear of off by the fastidious

The by

culture

Commander

comes from

a

Dalgleish for misquoting Jane Austen.

time warp: garlands of Eng Lit

a conscientious 16-year-old

as

memorised

from the Cambridge High School

Girls.

333

for

Despite (or because

has

of) all this, Original Sin

been

a notable success

as far as that

marginal community, the purchasers of hardback novels, are

concerned.

Dame

charts, after a

engagement

Phyllis

back where she belongs,

is

the top of the

at

nationwide publicity tour that swept her from

Hatchards

at

Birmingham — and

on

then,

evening spot in

an

Piccadilly^ to

in

lunchtime

a

successive 'days, a progress through

Manchester, Norwich, Cambridge, Chester, that might have had Lady

Thatcher reaching for the whisky decanter. With her unfailing good

humour, the pages

-

Dame

did an Archer, pitching product, defacing

ready-opened by deferential managers - with

slid across

black signature. Punters, publishing flotsam in tight red stragglers: all

were treated with courtesy,

Jamesian “dear”

is

all

title

a neat,

suits, local press

were equally “dear”. (The

Old fashioned

the Ackroydian “darling”.)

virtues

still

work. Reviewers purred and obediently recycled the plot survey cobbled together by the relevant Nicola: “a puzzle of extraordinary ingenuity and complexity

The

.

.

.

characters

freshness of the riverside setting

hacks

over themselves to

fell

make

the

who

was

will

remain in the mind.”

and the obsequious

stressed

book sound

Burke’s Chinatown. (The one exception,

as

Hugo

Original Sin as very unoriginal detective fiction

by

exotic as

Thomas

Barnacle, exposed

stressing the slapdash

craftsmanship, the evidence doctored in the best tradition of Agatha Christie,

and

a plot lifted straight

from Margery Allingham.)

Chris Petit did well to single out

PD James

Unsuitable Job for a

Woman

More

fairytale garden, English skies,

metaphorical

importantly, he avoided an encounter with the creepy

and prophylactic

Adam

Dalgleish, costive poet

and occasional

narcissist

addicted to solo amusements. “To lunch alone in

place

was

.

.

.

a rare pleasure.

There would be no time

Dalgleish a

rest,

James favours the same

Faron, the disengaged Oxford

don

in

solipsistic

his route

an interesting church to

The England of John

with

when

visit, a

walk

she gives

Theo made to

masculine types.

The Children of Men,

care; a

a

a strange

is

paraphrase the Byronic policeman’s sentiments: “Normally he

begin planning

filth:

for a solitary

or for exploring an interesting-looking church.” (Even

now

as a

novel that might effectively translate into his favoured brand

of cinema: overgrown weather.

An

good pub

would

for an early lunch,

detour to take in an attractive

village.”

Major’s Orwellian fantasy: “interesting”, “attrac-

tive”, uninhabited.) If he doesn’t sifier to

watch

it,

Dalgleish will find that he’s just the sort of ver-

be taken up by the disciples of Peter

Fuller,

Ruskinite bother

boys. As a high profile poet with atrophied tastes (and a

334

good

tailor)

he

belongs out there in the Fens, silhouetted against lowering skies, straining to escape the inconvenience of some vulgar stiff, hot to inspect the

rood screen of another John Piper church.

Villagers, estate dwelling pro-

on having themselves raped and murdered (social engineering), so that suspicion can fall on middle management boffins or aristos who nurture a shameful secret. Think of Dalgleish as Philip will insist

les,

Larkin (sans bicycle clips and pocketline ruined by the bulge of bondage magazines). Larkin made over for a transatlantic Burberry advertisement.

Larkin imagined by Barbara Cartland,

all

scowls and piercing hawklike

glances.

Descriptions of

wholesome outdoors mayhem between consenting

during periods of social upheaval. There’s nothing like an authentic hunger march, or a poll tax riot, to upgrade the country house murder mystery. The Thirties have long been acknowledged as

adults thrive

the period of the lethal spinster

(a

clean

Dorothy

Sayers, or a Christie in

few hundred pounds). Those great ladies were the only writers ever likely to be block booked for honours. As a coven they are equivalent in status to the theatrical knights of our own day: an easy and popular dispersal of trinkets to demonstrate the scale of any government’s interest in the arts. Margaret Thatcher dustwrapper, will set you back

a

famously “rereads” Frederick Forsyth and makes small noises about Jeffrey Archer. New Labour has to rub along with Ken FoUett (and keep the Pinters, Hares,

ner

McEwans and Mortimers

for the silver service din-

circuit.)

The Golden Dagger dames

specialised in the creation

of

parallel

worlds where bluestockings or rural busybodies stood alone against

a

conspiracy of social climbers, artsy-fartsy pinko bohemians, garlicbreathed gigolos, Hebrew financiers and allround wrong ’uns. (They

echoed the Spenglerian doctrine of High Modernism, keeping chaos at bay by swatting TS Eliot’s “jew” from the sill.) At the still centre of the classic English murder mystery is a sanctuary

where the plot-so-far can be recapitulated over a leisurely luncheon; where a well-connected amateur can lobby the professionals, schmooze with the unbuttoned judiciary, pull rank. PD James’ Cadaver Club is just such a place, a worthy successor to the Diogenes. “The lamb had and succulent and tender enough to be eaten with a spoon.” In England it is still the Cadaver Club, bib and braces, not any internationalist conspiracy of Masons and Mafia, that sets the world to arrived, pink

rights:

up.

warmed-over prep school grub,

(And

also,

when

a starched

arranged by private 335

ex-matron to dish

treaty, to dish

it

out.

it

Witch

hazel for throbbing bottoms.) “All the volumes of the Notable British

on

Trials are trifle

display, as

is

which Crippen was hanged. (“A

the rope with

morbid, perhaps, but barbaric

going

is

a little far.”)

Conrad Ackroyd, with his blue plaque moniker, is the member who signs Dalgleish in. As soon as the Conmiander has finished miming his invariable prune-lipped disapprobation of the 'club s morbid memorahe shuts up and

bilia,

was seldom

facetious,

most notable and

Demery

the

“few is

The

dull.”

char,

enough

by conditioned

fuck who killed Roger Ackroyd?”

reflex, the

Edmund

as

which he

conventional

putdown by

family pile in greenest Kent.

skinned wideboy given

as

Derek Raymond

“who

Wilson,

gives a

The Hidden

in

specialised, glossed the

a

man, quite reasonably, distanc-

a

Raymond was

cameo by

as

an Old Etonian with

just the kind

— genuine regimental

of tight-

Christie, before being discovered in

golf bunker, his skull smashed and his trousers held up by a

surprise

s

“pretentious crap for the well-heeled middle class

ing himself from his disadvantaged background

a

Mrs

Agatha Christie cor-

Raymond, attempting

define the “black” novel in

Jamesian school

a

like

Le Fanu and Wilkie Collins”,

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Or,

A

“one of the

a “turn”, the liveliest thing in a sensa-

is

frequently proclaimed, paraphrasing

market”.

all,

book. His surname, taken in conjunction with the club

to invoke,

nerstone,

Files to

“although he could be

London.” Ackroyd,

editions of Conan Doyle, Poe,

first

who

old queen was, after

reliable gossips in

Cockney

tionally turgid

Ackroyd,

listens to

—

surprise,

tie.

Class confusions continue to

dog English

fiction. Peter

Ackroyd,

a

who talks — of Wormwood

scholarship boy, and brilliant processor of information,

with poetic licence — of

his

childhood in the shadows

Scrubs, followed James into riparian London. But Liniehoiise

While

Golem has none of the procedural longueurs of Original

successfully

Dati Leno

Dan Leno and

is

masquerading

soon exposed

as

a

is

good

yarn, a revived shilling

marginal presence, cohabiting in

young man. The

Pooterish domesticity with a nice

narrative isn’t bur-

dened with the tedium of a convincing topography, or nostalgia decencies. Like an Edwardian masher,

Ackroyd

best yellowback style, as a spicy backdrop.

The

far side

night out. stinks artiste,

of the

He

glass in a

A

exploits

labyrinth of permissions.

Wildean opium den.

Mr

has a genuine relish for music hall, the

child of the streets,

is

like a

336

for lost

Limehouse, in Hyde’s funny

London crowd:

and songs and shocks. The execution by hanging of a

Sin.

front-desk Hatchards Literature,

as a rattling

shocker. Ackroyd’s detective

the

scene cranked in

a

female

a

penny

machine. These wharves and slipways are not overwhelmed by liturgical gloom, but lurid with torchlight; gamey, wet-mouthed, obligslot

ing. Sites

of sexual tourism, they sweat with greasepaint, horseshit,

moonshine on the razor s edge. (Meanwhile Derek Raymond’s old mucker, Mark Timlin, has taken it on himself to carry forward the campaign against Jamesian detective fiction by means of the class argument. Timlin, a former rock roadie, a dogtrack figure in

blue crombie overcoat, lurked with effect

a

Raymond’s shoulder:

part minder, part inheritor.

A

sense of threat

always present in that abstracted and watchful silence.

with any accuracy, the

guess,

at

Nobody

moment when he would

flip

could

and wreck

Nick Sharman, Timlin’s South London PI, ‘‘ex-cop, ex-doper”, works the interface where “the mob clash with rock ’n’ roll’s godfathe bar.

thers

Not

.

fables.

much

so

A kebab

hardboiled

skewer in the

as

pre-digested. Streatham steakhouse

Sharman has made it onto televiof Raymond’s “Factory” novels -

eyeball.

where the dark reveries frequently optioned — never get further than being a conversational gambit at funerals and book launches. It was left to Timlin, the survivor, sion,

to give

Dame

Phyllis a bit

of a

primacy of the well-educated Original Sin,

it

must be

said,

slap for

her innocent remarks about the

sleuth.)

does for Wapping what the Docklands

Development Board did for the Isle of Dogs. Commander Dalgleish arrives on set exuding “the moral rigour of Torquemada” — as John Walsh put

it

—

at

the head of a positive discrimination posse (one trou-

bled Jew, one feminist orphan), to sort out

house so surreal

in

its

work

practices that

some bother

it’s

in a publishing

almost believable. James has

always been most comfortable with in-house crime, the bunkers of the Establishment, the vertical hierarchies of hospital, nuclear power plant, research laboratory.

Book of Common

(It’s

a relief

when

her

that overlooks the old pirates’

is

building

-

apart

anything remotely like

Andrew

it

from the in

a fake Venetian palazzo

hanging dock, and

the state of the tide, by a private riverbus. There this

from the

Prayer or Palgrave’s Golden Treasury.)

In Original Sin the only substantial character

about

aren’t lifted

titles

is

is

serviced, whatever

something not right

fact that there isn’t,

Wapping.

It

and never was,

offends the spirit of place.

Davidson’s illustration for the Faber hardback depicts pastiche

cladding that has

more

in

common

with Terry

ganza than any structure between the

Town

Farrell’s

MI6

extrava-

of Ramsgate and the Prospect of Whitby. Neither do Davidson’s looming tower blocks fit the 337

scene; they speak of artistic licence, a wholesale displacement of the

Lambeth nexus: Tintagel House, Camelford House, Lord Archer’s apartments as the only floor in Alembic House with darkened windows. Now the book begins to make sense. James has folded the London gazetteer; her Wapping is a pale tracing of spook’s Lambeth. (Coming back over Southwark Bridge at the end of onfe of our Lights Out walks, I

discovered an even better model: a pillared phoney, with

and

up from the

steps

river, built for the

its

own dock

“Communality of the Mystery

of Vintners” by Wates Properties Limited. The side of this property that

Upper Thames Street has been let to Chase Manhattan, Chase Investment and the Sumitomo Corporation. Japanese gentlemen in pale

faces

grey

waving

suits

for taxis.

But the

river frontage

is

empty,

mock mar-

imminent arrival ofJames’ fictitious Peverell Press.) Publishing is sick. Quill pen nostalgics, labouring at their high desks fear and trembling, at the incursions of Murdochian brutalism, decide

bled, expecting the

in

to take the soft option

by committing suicide

in complicated ways, or

by

— with draught-excluders stuffed down their throats (presumably to stop them screaming “red herring”!). These macabre diversions don’t hobble the dialogue, which comes in two forms: sponsor’s messages and awkward plot summaries. What PD arranging to have themselves strangled

James does female

-

not

do

is

the police in different voices. Toff or plod, male or

the same ex officio paragraphs.

in gravitas until

A slender yarn has been basted

drags itself along like a ruptured Victorian three-

it

Themes of the tank) — AIDS, urban

decker. Wilkie Collins by correspondence course.

moment

(marginalia to catch the eye of the think

regeneration, yobs

on the loose —

are

chucked

at

hope about unemployment. the screen in the

some of them will stick. (“Don’t talk to me They may have been unemployed but they could afford expensive motor-bikes, and two of them had cigarettes hanging out of their that

mouths.”)

The to

life

narrative, after several pages

with

Famous

Five.

a clap

The

strain

of scene setting worthy of Enid Blyton and the

“He was wearing

of black curls and

of convoluted actuarial prose, comes

his eyes

of delivering

a

yachting cap

were bright

a text

slits

set well

in the

back on

weatherbeaten

would be

inoffensive in a

face.”

work with

fewer pretensions. (“His eyes were narrow, sleepy under heavy they were eyes which missed

who

mop

worthy of the censorious Dalgleish brings

forth a gush of generic cliches that

Wallace,

a

little

but

and gave nothing away.”) Edgar

could dictate yards of this flannel to

before scooting over to Deauville, didn’t feel

338

lids,

harem of secretaries, the need to blather on a

how

about last

“the criminal justice system has favoured criminals for the

forty years.” Find

injustice,

’em and shoot ’em. Next

interminable

trials,

for the black cap, the early

bent

briefs,

Systems of criminal

case.

judges climaxing

morning drop: they

as

they reach

of

are the lifeblood

hundreds of duff plays. Don’t knock

British fiction, the inspiration for it.

But the creator of Sanders o f the River wasn’t stuck with a hero who is increasingly embarrassed at being spotted in a romance he would never permit his housemaid to take out from Boots’ Library. Dalgleish’s

cameos

are

now

unconvincing

as

models himself on the Duke in Measure drag,

hanging around the stews and

buggery.

It’s

not hard to

He

Charlton Heston’s hairpiece.

as

rat

for

Measure, travestied in priestly

holes to sneer at a city going to

like Dalgleish,

impossible.

it’s

The higher he

more insufferable he becomes. Which is James’ major achievement: that one of the great and good, a woman universally admired, a diamond geezer, should prove capable of imagining such an unmitigated rises,

the

herbert. Dalgleish peaked too soon, in a landscape as

any living writer:

Ely, the Suffolk coast, darkness

churches, disappointed

Sapphic

James caught

lives.

Turnip

rot, icy

quag, incest.

Hope

levels

and an aureole of hair tumbling around her shoulders.

feisty

with

its

curved

underlit vestries and fetid canals,

window of a

is

Taste for Death,

a city seen

through the

The Commander, favoursilence — as he himself is gazed

“claustrophobic” Rover.

ing his alabaster profile, stares out in

upon by

young woman with decent A-

The London of A

Dalgleish thinks best in motion.

Empty Modest

everywhere.

attic.

some

well

picking over the Polaroids in the

alliances, inactive adulterers

represented by

as

bonding of voyant and voyeur. “She saw in his face a look with which she was familiar; a stern withdrawn self-absorption as if he were stoically enduring a private pain.” Elective haemorrhoids. There are stickily obsessive descriptions of the devoted Kate Miskin: a fetishistic

hands lying lightly on the wheel.”

seat-belts, driving gloves, “sensitive It’s

a rare

event for the

now

deified

AD

(“probably the most intelligent

detective in Britain”) to patronise public transport. train take the strain,

is

Live Now!’

The

to be “re-read”

own

down

true test of an author

and never risked

confess to reading Trollope for the

buying your

did, once, let the

but that was strategic, so that he could, like John

Major, boast of how he had “settled

We

He

to re-read Trollope’s

who

is

as a novelty. first

time.

definitely

No

Victorian.

339

“one of us”

politician

That would be

furniture. Potboiling serial fiction

is

The Way

fine as

as

would bad

long

as

as it’s

Thinking of car journeys, there Phyllis

is

a

much

recycled story of

Dame

being chauffeured through Middle England to some book bash

company of Will Self. (Why didn’t Petit audition that cast for one of his road movies?) They pass a village cricket field and James, amiably making conversation, asks the professionally saturnine ex-junkie if he

in the

plays? Self grunts.

No

“Rugby, dear?”

reply. Self

and James

are parodic

versions of Dalgleish and Miskin. Better, in those circumstances, to

keep shtum. Will

But

it’s

Self, a

few years down the

be

line, will

ideal casting as Dalgleish.

not the bone structure, the lazy television translations, that

worry me; no, it’s the fact that Dalgleish is supposed to be a poet. Who on earth would publish him? Conglomerates don’t care for the word “poetry”, they speak of sales peaking at a few hundred copies. Yet this part-timer, this civil servant,

known

is

to the entire readership of

England. Politicos, fellow spooks, suspects under interrogation: they’ve kept up with his output.

all

for

it.

I’m

sorry,

but

And

he seems to be handsomely rewarded

pushing suspension of disbelief too

that’s

far:

unless

way of laundering Secret State blood money. You hear these rumours explaining some of the crazier advances. The sort of figures it’s

a

cute

that scuppered Sinclair-Stevenson.

Dalgleish the versifier

must be

why Marsden

A

is

picks

Roy Marsden. Which

better

known

up

those authoritative voice-overs. Oral

all

than

Most versifying coppers have been something short of officer class: Edwin Brock, John Arlott in his Hampshire youth. You can understand that: pounding the beat at night, up on the toes, cup of tea and a scribble in the black notebook. Time to synthesise the free-flowing, random impressions of a long soliharassment.

tary walk.

poetic of toiletries and DIY.

But Dalgleish

dude’s too grand is

sponsored by

in his auto, never a

somehow

CH

moment

to himself?

for an anorexic Faber paperback. Perhaps

Sisson at Carcanet? Right credentials.

With

melancholia, austerity, his Hardyesque predilection for landscape,

him

as a

The

stablemate for Donald Davie.

What

I

he his

see

does he write about?

book of poems contained that murdered child.” A touch of Ted Hughes or

Obviously, the job helps: “His next extraordinary one about a

Tony Harrison? Surely not. Meditations in bling pared-down paragraphs by PD James.

A

strict

wide expanse

of heavily siin-speckled water which, as she watched,

340

metre, closely resem-

was

flicked

by the stren^theriinj^ breeze

into a million small

waves

like a restless irilatid sea.

English poetry. Poetry

of action.

When James

as a

talks

in Original Sin, the eyes

hobby, conferring sensitivity on the

of poets and poetry,

as

man

she frequently does

of her readers cloud over; they

flick

the pages

With the best will in the world, it s hard to swallow Gabriel Dauntsey — with a couple of pamphlets back in the Forties, when he was shaping to be World War IPs Wilfred Owen — as the to find the next killing.

pub show, “off the Waterloo Road.” I’ve been to that show, seen the audience of five wannabes clutching their bulky folders and waiting for their turn. The drunks who thought it was quiz night. There is no collective memory that embraces poets. That’s what makes them such monsters of ego: they are hanging grimly “advertised star of the evening” at a

on denying. “Sorry, who?” Being an English poet is serving a life sentence as Hitchcock’s “wrong man”. You are the only one who knows your name, what you’ve done. Even the bloke who organised the evening has no idea why you’ve come and has absolutely no intention of paying for the privilege of your to an identity that everyone else

is

hellbent

company.

Derek Raymond (aka Robin Cook) was, like PD James, fascinated by poetry. He was one of the leading lights of another establishment, the Compendium mob, favourite copy for rude-boy journalists. A Cook tribute

was the contemporary equivalent of the apprentice’s passing-out

ceremony. In both cases you were Clerkenwell dustbin.

likely to finish

Cook was known

X-ray: for his funeral piss-up

at

as

up

legless in a

the great survivor, the

boho

dug out a terrible oil on the wall. (In Petit’s

the French they

painting, a ghost train frightener,

and hung

it

Robinson the Cookie character talks of himself in the third person,

which

is

about

right.

Robin’s anecdotes, mesmerising to his audience,

were of equal fascination as

on

a

to their inventor.

He

reported on his past

life

well-loved video. Given a sympathetic prompt, he would yarn

at

length in a brisk, telegrammatic present tense. Petit spices this with

some

ofjulian Maclaren-Ross’ military swagger. “Cookie’s general phi-

losophy was simple, and got simpler in the course of his third bottle of wine. Life divided into those

who

sports

who

on the whole, was not good sport, though plenty of married and it was with them that Cookie formed most of

weren’t. Marriage,

good

were good sports and those

341

‘Wife

his liaisons.

journey up to the

Cook was

home, bored. Husband knackered by

at

a

two-way

Bob’s your uncle.’”)

city.

always game, always up for

it:

photocall in the

Coach and

Horses, black beret, untipped French cigarette, leather jacket, skin like

He

Tutankhamen.

was made to pose indoors,

of smoke dressing the composition. The wiry roofer bright with cognac.

shot from a

low angle

Dame

upright).

gets to pose in

(the

back to the

his

fitness

street, curls

of a workman,

A cashiered dandy A charmer. A lowlife photographer couldn’t

trust

a

ace

himself to stand

on the other hand, budget reflecting status, polo neck and cashmere overcoat on the foreshore at Phyllis,

Wapping.

Now, sadly, him in 1971,

it’s

was

a

who

journalists

envied the apparently footloose

drudging in

fought over by

shlocky airport novelist

a

deceased;

a

at this time.

as if

Which

is

posthumous

preceded

a

vineyard

as a (a

appreciation

hip bookdealers and

lifestyle.

Cook mani-

day labourer: his

Cook

referred to himself as if he

narrative.

Meades

were already

those picaresque adventures had happened to

how Derek Raymond came

name

medical horror dystopian)

diminutive, but perky, Scottish politician. Jonathan

noticed how,

else.

Cook had

Robin Cook

name whispered by obnoxiously

fested in France,

and

dead.

of The Tenants of Dirt Street. The years for anyone who could remember the Chelsea

too soon for the formation of a

far

His was

society.

is

after the publication

Seventies were lost Set. It

Derek Raymond

ofhcial.

someone

into being as a master of the

His Factory novels are the troubled dreams of a

man in the graveyard. A vanished England is invented in exile. Raymond was, in his own way, as much of a romantic as Shelley.

New

Perpetual rain, rucks in

Cross boozers, flesh rotting beneath the

floorboards of rooming houses: an out-of-the-body experience from the start.

Sexton Blake ghosted by Jean-Paul

Raymond

Sartre.

The

“general contract”

on your epaulettes. Poetry and death. Like PD James, he was fond of a good quotation: TS Eliot, or sometimes Auden. Jamesian themes abound in his work, the country going down the khazi — but from a different point of view. From the taproom floor,

called

it,

the vulture

the one-bulb

(Raymond Dalgleish

is

Kilburn bedsit. The crusted lavatory bowl.

motormouth whose interrogation his Jewish sidekick.) The wounded loner kick-

the kind of bolshie

would

leave to

ing against the heartless crowd:

that’s his

theme. Bad music migraines.

A

24-hour nightmare.

Cook was hooked on Moraes’

drum

for a bit

philosophy, always diving into Henrietta

of a barney about logical positivism; paying 342

his

and her novel. The Monkey

respects to his old flame, Veronica Hull,

Puzzle. (“A student of philosophy’s journey to disenchantment ... to

Soho, where poets, painters, intellectuals and bums gather in the com-

munity of drink.”)

The Factory novels are monologues of erasure, frisky with despair. Cook never shook himself free from the romance of the Spanish Civil War, Esmond Romilly. The good die young. The dead are good. That’s his sentimental side.

with him.

He

Old chums who bought

was affectionate even

it

prematurely were always

in his hatreds. Gust, the

psychopath

Red Fog Rises, spends his time in prison mugging up on Dylan Thomas. It’s a winning foible — allowing your

in his final novel.

Not

Till the

characters to share your

But Raymond, writer: ‘‘Writing

as is

own

he

literary tastes.

The Hidden

insists in

what

I

understand by

was

Files,

living.”

He

first

and

last a

do com-

didn’t

he had ever

mittees, or reviews, or visible charity, or panel games. If

membership card. He couldn’t sit through a tribute to his latest novel on the BBC’s Kaleidoscope without shooting out of the studio for a drag. (That’s when I suspected something might be wrong. He looked much as he had for years, fit and

joined anything, he’d long ago

lost his

lively,

but he had trouble getting through his second

third.

The

quack, so he told me, had warned

He

He

refused a

to stop drinking.

And

He’d switched to Guinness. But the energy level was cheerfully agreed to meet Marc Atkins and to let him shoot

he’d stuck with

good.

him

lager.

it.

a portrait.)

Cook’s honours

kept in his sock drawer. suitcase in Italy,

those of David Gascoyne) were

(like

He

was

a

A

being in the wrong place

at

-

iffy

to border post: Spain, Greece,

typically postwar career,

Irish novelist Francis Stuart

foreign,

premature European, shunted

hand - from border post

France.

all

was another

The

long past

its

who

a gift for transience,

had

sell-by date.

the right time: Berlin in Year Zero ruins.

Canning Town when the docks were dying. The Forties and Fifties were better times for a gentlemanly vagrant: Stuart might have to scratch a subsistence living as a warder at the Geological

Museum,

but Victor GoUancz continued to publish his gambler’s fiction.

A yellow

John Cowper Powys revised by Simenon. Dostoevsky interpreting a Jack Yeats horse fair. Triumphant perversity. Cook had many of the same qualities. As did Stuart’s friend, the ex-Boat Squadron, book-a-year man, John Lodwick. They lived

jacket novel every couple of years:

abroad whenever they could, the better to focus on the re-invention of a fabulous homeland. Masters of selective amnesia: the inheritance of 343

James Joyce - who could concentrate on mapping Dublin only from the safety of Trieste.

The posthumously

published

Raymond

novel,

Not

Till the

Red Fog

moves with the unforgiving urgency of Cook’s favourite video, the Brian De Palma/Al Pacino remake of Scarface. (“Remember, Tony, every day above ground is a good day”) Frenzy that stays on the cusp of losing it. The vindicated desperation of the best American pulps: Jim Rises,

Thompson, David Goodis, William Irish. Depression literature that is sure enough of its ground to substitute hallucinatory nightmares for consoling

from the

fables. start,

Stripped-down

fate tales: sorry characters,

trapped within the confines of

strict

doomed

genre discipline.

Deliver your pages, hold the attention of a jaded editor or butt out.

Orphan books written

to

be abandoned. Dream logic without the lux-

ury of revision. (The best you could hope for was that Orson Welles, talking longdistance to a potential producer, playing for time

port telephone, would notice

on an

air-

on the paperback rack and turn it into A Touch of Evil) Even the dustwrapper of Red Fog pastiches the sort of cover illustration that sold hundreds of thousands of Gold Medal or Lion books. It doesn’t make reference to any specific incident in the story (the artist would have had to waste time reading it), but gloats instead over a topheavy blonde who is spreadeagled in compromising conjunction with two fat pistols, an empty tumbler and a scarlet blana title

ket.

Unlike

Commander Dalgleish

with

his

pregnant silences, there are no

They They rep-

worries about Raymond’s characters playing mute in the motor. rabbit like speed freaks, speech bubbles of rancid vernacular.

resent Cook’s recall of his nights as a minicab jockey: the lunar deserts

of Willesden and Deptford, other people’s paranoia crackling over the intercom — the voices of the

down, the

plot of Red Fog

is

restless

dead.

With

advanced by the

the author’s foot hard

classic

Raymond Chandler

device of sequential confrontation: aphoristic head-to-heads every time

Gust ducks into

a bar, or seeks

out an old (and soon to be extinguished)

flame.

The

London with Moscow, Warsaw, East “sleazo commie gangsters”. Raymond

novel attempts to twin

Berlin: the revenge

of

insinuates his feverish land. Fifties

from Poland

hoods

(as

Petit’s

pulp-porno dementia into

a sub-Eliotic

waste-

depicted by Fabian of the Yard), the heavy

Street, brassy tarts,

mob

incompetent hitmen: an anthology of

urban myths to plague Gust, the dead man, the fugitive on licence from hell. (No serial killer movie can now be released in America 344

without

complement of quotations from Dante.) The book

its

reeks

with the stench of excrement. “Busybodies ... I shit ’em.” “Eyes the colour of old shit.” “Dry sphincter where he took her doggy fashion.”

“The shit.”

shit

shit’ll

come

“Nose

flying out of you.”

“Wouldn’t give you the skin off his

and I’m

in

it all.”

Incontinence

as

filthy

shit.”

.

.

.

covered with

“Ten thousand kinds of

the universal condition.

Swampy

The khaki drip and dribble of leaking bowels, liquid fear. Raymond believes that we are all, one day, going to visit that apple-green room “where people wait to be Colostomy

armpits. Flypaper flesh. Psoriasis.

told if it

is

cancer.”

Rogue X-ray machines people slapheads. The protagonist of any

Raymond

is

“black” novel has no choice but to his shape”.

And

with what

rel-

outlines that business in an escalation of spellbinding set

pieces. There’s a shootout in a

thing in

the city with chemotherapy aliens,

done before “quitting

get the business ish

bags.

Scatface.

Gust, with

forced to sleep rough in

Chinese restaurant that matches any-

^17,000 in fifties tucked into his pockets, Soho Square - having no change for the

buses.

“Democracy reate

these days

is

just a

show”. Derek

Raymond was

the lau-

of these special-needs non-citizens, self-mutilating bounty hunters.

what got him going, abnormal brain chemistry. Anything that would explain this compulsion to write. Dead Man Upright, the last of That’s

the Factory novels, was an essay in psyhopathology, not a

thriller.

PD

James, representing enlightened Conservatism, took a very different view of her craft. She had no truck with freaks. “Motiveless murders don’t interest me. Nilsen.

I

can’t see the fascination for serial killers like

Nobody knows what

motivates them. They’re just mad, bad and

dangerous to know. They’re not susceptible to Logic? James’ fiction, beginning with

Raymond’s, has given way

Dennis

logic.” a

to the institutionalised

ernment white paper. The language

is

cryogenic,

bleakness

to

equal

anonymity of a govleft

too long on

ice.

Crime, James seems to be saying, is generated in chaos; in bad manners, misquotation, modernist architecture. State intervention will not cure our ills. We must trust ourselves to the disinterested justice of a superior being, a poet/policeman

with

who

keeps his thoughts to himself and drives

his gloves on.

345

2

Someone

called

.

Cookie was

also involved

does not remember

William Burroughs,

A Book

and

liver,

I’d

assumed

of readings that Fleet Street).

bookshop. “No,

it’s

.

but

it.

Education,

Cook being in at

on his the week

hospital, tests

he wouldn’t be able to take part in

was helping to organise

I

the Bridewell Theatre (off

the

Murder One

absolutely impossible,” he confirmed.

“He won’t be

rang

I

that

.

of Dreams

heard the rumours about Robin

I’d

My

.

his

agent

Maxim Jakubowski

at

on anything like that for months.” Regretfully, I planned an evening that would would have to make do without Cook at the top of

taking

the

There was

bill.

still

generous dose of London’s subterranean

a

litera-

on offer: Patrick Wright introducing (and gently interrogating) Emanuel Litvinoff, Chris Petit (with a bank of TV monitors) curating the Soho bibliography of Robinson, while I would act as straight man to John Healy, prompt him through a career retrospective, before he delivture

ered an extract from The Grass Arena.

was discussing the programme with Paul Smith of Disobey (who

I

were sponsoring the show) when Cook rang.

He

was out of hospital

and feeling well up to speed and ready for action. there.

Wouldn’t miss

surprise, ha!

Make ily

his

it.

Liver hard as

Of course

he’d be

according to the quack.

slate,

No

Wouldn’t dream of having anyone sent to pick him up.

own

way. Staying with the writer John Williams and his fam-

while he convalesced. Marvellous! Can’t wait. This was excellent news, the

bill

was

revised.

(No problem

there,

Paul didn’t believe in sending his catalogues to the printers until about three days before the off.

—

audience. Exciting

as

The boxes would be

long

as

delivered along with the

you dispense with

trivia

such

as

proof

reading and getting the right photos alongside the right authors.) Litvinoff

would open and Cook would do

then close with usually

a short reading. I’d

came away

him.

He

false

modesty,

I

feeling sorry for the

to

of chat with

Petit

and

Cook’s readings before and

poor sod

who

had to follow

was the reverse of the trembling and intense poet, devoured by

who

breezed through tised riff

been

a bit

a

stops

and

and then goes on

starts,

Cook

forever.

couple of anecdotes, before letting rip with

a

prac-

from one of the Factory novels.

checked again

that

Cook was up

to

346

it

and told him he needn’t arrive

But he

until the interval.

The

voice was

animated

as

he wanted to be there from the

insisted,

hed

Paul wasn’t quite so sure:

as ever.

off.

seen

Cook’s Dora Suarez performance with the musicians James Johnston and Terry Edwards and found it “odd”. The tone too plummy. He was sympathetic and ready to be convinced — unsure whether the big crowd had

come along

Cook

for

There was

or for the sounds.

good audience

a

Litvinoffwas in

full flow.

for the

first

night at the Bridewell and

Meetings with Canetti, alchemical investiga-

John Lehmann and wartime poetry, trips to Russia, East End life and fictions: Wright took him through all of it. Cook hadnt checked in and Petit, curiously, had gone home to change. John Healy was pacing up and down like a condemned man. From time to time, he would lay

tions,

down

his carrier bag, lean against a pillar

which involved undoing, and doing

woman who

a

nervous gesture

up, his belt buckle. Carol, the

ran the place, was hysterically bright. She was convinced

church authorities

that the

and rehearse

who

controlled her lease were going to step

Healy exposed himself, or Stewart Home spat out one of his expletive-undeleted routines. My worry was: how were we ever going to put the cap on Wright and LitvinofP Manny was like his experience of a ghost returned from limbo. Initially unhappy (after The Cardinal and the Corpse) at being associated with this lowlife trash,

through the door just

as

away by the responsive audihe was alive and well and still

these shysters and ganefs, he was carried

ence ~

who

were amazed to find

that

hammering at the typewriter. Then Cook’s cab drew up. I could ting.

At

first,

I

didn’t

know who

it

see the street

was.

I

from where

I

was

sit-

could see the cabbie holding

nobody to get out. There was almost nothing there. Cook was a beret resting on a skull; enormous eyes, all pupil; neck like a lizard. acquired intelliIf Spielberg’s ET monster had stayed on earth, lived, he gence, hung out for decades in the Coach and Horses, this is how might have looked. Memento mori made flesh. Jeffrey Bernard without the Marc the pique. You’d struggle to make the connection between the door for

Atkins portrait in the catalogue and this slowly advancing apparition. The old Cook, the Cook of three months ago, was wasted but spry; lean, sharp-eyed

hair covered the

- not much changed from ears. A black polo neck. The

crown of the head, where mushroom. Something else was

the

sauntered

in,

There was

it

now

Long perched on

the Sixties sharpie. beret stylishly

enveloped

it

like a

malignant

missing: the untipped cigarette.

Cook

hands in pockets. a

moment

of panic.

Petit, in his

347

performing

suit,

hadn’t

returned. Litvinoff was

have to go straight on,

quick chat and a

I

It

worked.

we

I

wrap

to

him to hang around. We had a pub on the corner and left him with

up.

it

Cook was fetched from the pub and gave The voice was there, it sang. He told the old

Petit manifested.

the performance of his

life.

stories as if for the first time.

who

hand. Even Litvinoff,

Cook had chosen

writer.”

Cook would

getting ready to stand in for Petit, while Smith

'Ovas

Wright

found Paul Smith.

I

couldn’t ask

took him to the

few of his mates.

tried to signal

cruising.

still

He

had the audience eating out of

on

insisted

with great

his texts

over with John Williams. Everybody

was moved. “He’s

staying,

knew

his

a real

care, talked the selection

it

much more than own funeral oration.

was

a

They were watching a man deliver his Cook read from He Died With His Eyes Open.

reading.

I

dreamed I was walking through the door of a

couldn't distinguish

warned me: ‘Don't go

However, I went straight

was

the building

and glided up

in

in there,

was

clear

panes

in progress.

in the

chairs,

hands and

was turned slowly floated,

could

I

was

face

I

windows;

.

.

.

it

came through

light

was

Then my

and

faint

cold

the .

.

.

No

waist was held by

raised from the floor; at the height of the roof I

ground and then

downwards,

far

out in the half-dark as a grey

descettded quietly, of my

where

The roof of

Knots of men and women from another century

parallel with the

immobile and

make

haunted."

just people standing around, waiting.

stood about, talking in low voices invisible

I

too high to see; the quoins were lost in a dark fog through

There were no pews or service

it's

the nave to the altar.

which the votive lamps glowed orange. The only

diamond-shaped

Someone

cathedral.

own

accord,

had been taken, whereupon

above the people whose faces I blur, staring

and landed I

released so that I

walked

up

lightly

directly

at

me ...

I

on the spot from

out of the building

without looking back.

A

Cook was

The audience

in the

Bridewell wouldn’t have needed to have the news confirmed.

They

few days

later

dead, liver cancer.

understood the privilege of the occasion, the

More

life

in that thin voice.

than any other English writer. Cook’s quality was his special rela-

tionship with death.

engaged,

when you

He

visibly brightened, his attention

asked

him

to talk

was

fully

about the Factory novels

as

posthumous dreams. A busier and more mundane Swedenborg, he communicated with those he had known, and still knew: the ones whose faces were made from shadows. “They are always there,” he said. 348

being filmed in the City Airport;

choppy

I

double reflected out over the

his

waters.

went with Marc Atldns

to the

memorial service

through the gates and the ground these places as old friends

is

immediately

when you meet them

we had

in Kensal Green. Step

familiar.

for the

You

first

recognise

time.

It

was

on and wandered through the labyrinthine paths. We met Mike Hart from Compendium, coming towards us, making his circuit from the other entrance. Pyramids and stone mansions whose original pomposity had been weathered by long a pleasant

morning;

indifference into something

I

to put

more democratic:

a

sanctuary for wild

work-experience vampires. Irrelevant

nature, a trysting place for

ory doses. Boasts and

hour

half an

titles

and meaningless

mem-

dates.

spotted one particular stone angel that had to be photographed: a

robed hermaphrodite tangled in the bare

The image was

recollection of dry

trapped, as

Like Ezra

it

The

entirely mythical. fire.

wonder of a

Pounds obsession with

the

sight

a tree. like a a stag:

unexpectedly encountered.

who becomes

girl

a tree.

has entered tny hands,

tree

The sap has ascended my The

devoured the stone

tree

Like Actaeon, the voyeur, turned into

were, by the

The

Medea branches of

has grown in

tree

arms,

my

breast

—

Downward, The branches grow out of me,

The

angel’s

hands were gone, her face was hidden; the branches spread

Her wings,

tangled in the thicket,

Marc snapped away

busily: a cover portrait

out above her

like electrified hair.

were

decoration.

that

a useless

would have

I

There was

like arms.

a full

to

work hard

to justify.

house in the crematorium, standing room only: the

kind of social mix — writers,

riffraff,

perfumed

kohl, respectable gents in inherited suits

-

ladies

with too

much

that you’d find, late after-

one of Cook’s drinking haunts. Mark Timlin read from The Hidden Files. Cook’s brother Julian — same voice, better clobber —

noon,

in

brought him back to

been etly

if he’d

gone

life

straight,

in a parallel version:

what Robin might have

played by the rules. John Williams spoke, qui-

and with humour, about Cook’s

had merely suspected. Business

last

as usual, to

350

—

what we the end. Bessie Smith and

days

fleshing out

TS is

wrapped

Eliot

up.

it

“Go, go, go

said the bird

One

end, which

summary

for the last

.

.

.

always present.”

Petit rites

saw Cook’s wake

the French

at

of Soho bohemia: he pitched

was on

that he’d

Many

that

way

to the Independent.

to get the picture. Innocently, they

commission

a loose

it

as a useful

be able to line up the whole

mob

Marc

imagined

team photograph.

in a single

of the folk from Kensal Green would never make

it

back to

London proper. This was as close as they’d ever come to the countryside. The whiff of the Grand Union Canal had them reaching for the smelling

up

entirely used

powers of invention had been getting to the right venue on the right day. Others

Some looked

salts.

in

as if their

home. They had only to be matched with the right sepulchre, lifted onto an empty plinth. This, properly, was where they belonged. Hip flasks were much in evidence. Small groups formed and broke. Nothing to say. Nothing

were so

and waxy,

skeletal

it

wasn’t worth arranging a ride

be done. They touched, shook hands, moved away. If Cook was not immortal, what hope for the rest of the unregistered dead?

to

Marc and

together with Gerry and Pat Goldstein, went off in

I,

search of a minicab.

Harrow Road

are

Not our

worth

part of town, but the

visiting

—

if

you want

upper reaches of the

to feel

good about

liv-

ing in Hackney. If you have a taste for social anthropology. Gerry and Pat are one of the great metropolitan double acts, overlapping, stereo-

phonic yarns, memories, questions: they every writer, mover, face time, there they are

appearance

at

-

at least twice.

on your

some ravaged

sofa.

know

everybody, have met

A chance

encounter and, next

They’ve read everything too: their

bookstall asking for

.

.

.

Colin Macinnes

London novels, Maclaren-Ross, Gerald Kersh, Anna Kavan, Cormac signals the next cult. They are bibliographic litmus MacCarthy .

.

.

paper, strikingly dressed in styles (well-cut swagger coats with

shoulders and tight belts for Gerry, and tailored

suits

padded

of the kind that

Christine Keeler reserved for her court appearances for Pat) that can’t

mod, vaguely clubland. Gerry grew up with Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill. (“Goldstein

quite be placed: vaguely

Malcolm Mclaren was an

in

intellectual Jewish flaneur straight out

of Alexander Baron’s

Jon Savage, England's Dreaming.) He was a longtime advocate of Mervyn Peake (friend of his daughter Clare), and therefore a champion also of Michael Moorcock. David Litvinoff was

London

novel.

Low

LifeL

was Sandy Lieberson, the producer of Performance. passionate enthusiast, and liable, from time to time, to the

close to him, as

Gerry was

a

351

odd paranoid

outburst. “Since you’ve

been knocking around with

you’re turning into fucking Martin Amis,” he once yelled

Petit,

down

the phone. (Yes, he

knew Amis

that

at

me

in his guitar-strumming Chelsea

coffee-bar days.)

Harrow Road up

like setting

were

rank in the middle of the gtaVeyard.

a

washed up here

in

is

it

for the duration.

west to the borders of Harlesden,

A

operation.

run

a

Pushing north-

a fizzy drink.

finally

found

cars as a front for

a trashed

some

lips

far

launderette

more complex

big black guy, his spectacles held together with masking

along the

tape, led us

few

we

It

But we persevered; Gerry’s

with foam, he wanted

dry, flecked

that claimed to

would be Anyone who has

doesn’t go in for cabs. What’s the point?

street

towards a wreck that had obviously been

rejected at the breaker’s yard. I

was going to be paying, so

I

grabbed the front

seat.

Marc,

all

six foot

of him, squeezed in between the Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia

six

Fraser of Shepherd’s Bush.

was, but

—

as his car

The

no idea where Dean Street make it that far anyway — what did

driver had

wasn’t going to

he care?

The tyre blew just as we hit Westway. There was no spare. (There was no window on the passenger’s side, come to that. A few cursory strands of sellotape.)

We

ferred to the

underground — which carried us into

paid our

man

off (to his utter

stopped. Marc’s not happy in tunnels

Gerry and Pat to

to

in spate,

on

at

amazement) and a

tunnel and then

the best of times, but with

either side of him, he

was

in

no shape

work with his camera when we did eventually arrive at The bar was packed with very sober drunks. There was a get a few drinks in, to catch up, become part of an event

happening.

was

It

eye of that terrible

like celebrating a

Cook

trans-

to

go

the French. general rush that

was not

“not proven” verdict — under the

John Williams and his family had seen to the smooth running of the crematorium service, now there was no one in charge. Timlin worked his corner. Maxim Jakubowski was here and

portrait.

there, attending to business.

Malcolm Mclaren,

a

watchful presence,

strategically

unguarded, was reunited with Pat and Gerry.

The two

film-makers

who

of Cook,

had presented the best television

portraits

Chris Petit and Paul Tickell, guardedly assessed the prospects of the Factory novel scripts ever getting the go-ahead. John Healy, in

open-necked juice.

media story.

The

shirt,

truth

drifters

The

is

crisp,

stood on the pavement outside, nursing an orange that these

were semi-professionals,

irregulars, fringe

paying their dues, looking for connections, the inside

true gargoyles, the intravenous vodka hawks, the blotting

352

paper soaks

who

usually barnacled the bar,

were pacing

What was

it.

the

two the amateurs would be wet-eyed, standing

rush? In an hour or

rounds, issuing dinner invitations.

Marc

couldn’t hack

wandering the

it.

Not

city.

He

works best

this.

The

a

time: in the studio, or

Ronis with

his beautiful

beam of sunlight). The whole mob were too

too well aware that

came

own

afternoon was dim (nothing to

the great days ofJohn Deakin, or Willy

caught in

in his

this

recall

barmaid

self-conscious,

was supposed to be the end of an

era.

Groups

together, passed out cigarettes, shouted for another drink, parted. If

they emptied their pockets, they’d

still

be stone cold sober.

The ones

desperation and repressed violence was evident.

copy decided to cut

The perfumed stockings and

And

ladies

tart’s

The

their losses.

An

edge of

cruising for

gargoyles repossessed their territory.

with the kohl and the scrapyard jewellery, laddered

heels,

found

riding calmly through

their space,

all

made

of it were the

their connections.

relics

wives, children, brothers and half-brothers. Julian

of Cook’s family:

Cook, with his of it. He seemed

unnerving resemblance to the dead man, had the best to have absorbed the disembodied spirit. Glass in one hand, large

cigar,

arms around two women, he swam through the sweating survivors,

making up a party to go on elsewhere. Marc and I walked back to Hackney. He worked overnight in the darkroom, but he knew that what he had was of no use of the Independent. Lost faces in the half-dark. No Robin Cook. No story. He’d have to

settle for

another obituary portfolio.

3

.

‘7 thought you were supposed to be in Paris?'^ ” '7 am in Paris.

Exchange between David Hemmings AND Verushka, Blow-Up.

I

refused to cede the imagination of the riverfront to

PD James.

There

would expunge the horror of the fraudulent Wapping palazzo from Original Sin. I’d had my eye for some time

had to be

a final site to visit that

on Charlton House, according to Bob Gilbert (in The Green London IVay), “one of the most determinedly overlooked buildings in London”. I’d walked there two or three times (by myself, with my wife on a crisp Boxing Day, and with Atkins) - but didn’t feel that I’d cracked it. 353

Connections were made, views admired. You could come

in

by

river to

You could cross on the Woolwich Ferry and battle down the bleak Woolwich Church Street. You could stroll over, along the crest of the hill, fi*om Greenwich. I’d done all of them and was still the

Thames

Barrier.

I

Charlton Park was coded with obscure monuments, acorns

not

satisfied.

on

plinths, scorpions in relief, astrological signs,

eroded dates and

There was an orangery, supposedly designed by Inigo had declined into a Gents Toilet (decommissioned). There

inscriptions.

Jones, that

was an uncared-for mulberry in

tree that

claimed to be “the

first

planted

England in the year 1608”. Broken sentences. Revealed fragments. Charlton House

H

low and

is,

as

Bob

Gilbert says, “built in the shape of a shal-

with an impressive tower on either flank topped with

spire”.

Newton,

The

building

is

Jacobean, completed in 1612 for

tutor to Prince Henry, the eldest son of James

unrecorded

architect;

who

died

by an

the age of

at

eighteen, was the emblematic centre of a group that included

and Inigo Jones (who lived for were drawn,

I,

Adam

thought by some to be John Thorpe, builder of

Holland House, Kensington. Prince Henry,

We

cupola

a

as disciples

Cherry Orchard

at

of Frances Yates, to consider

grew up around Prince Henry Enlightenment”; being

time

a

as

somehow

being in the a

spirit

Newton

in Charlton). this circle that

of the “Rosicrucian

downriver equivalent of the court of

Frederick, Elector Palatinate, and his wife, Henry’s sister

—

the “Winter”

king and queen.

On our Boxing Day stroll, my wife and found the house closed up. We enjoyed the prospect across the park, the red brick with stone dressI

ings, the liquorice stick

frontispiece

chimneys, the walled gardens, and the west

which Pevsner

ornamentation of

all

calls

“the most exuberant and undisciplined

England”.

The

stone heads were not benign:

horned men, petty demons, protruding tongues, upward thrusting flowers. An arch on the grass in front of the house had been snarling lions,

surrounded, for toxic

its

own

protection, by a wire fence

and forbidden. The house, and

current disguise

as a

Community

its

— making

it

seem

meaning, was obscured by

its

Centre: “Children’s toy library, dance

groups, bridge, craft classes, tenants associations, chess, spiritualist church, T’ai Chi, Royal British Legion, photographic club, support

groups, race and health projects, weddings, seminars and disabled access.”

Racks of pamphlets were

visible

through

a

window on ,

the east

side.

warm redbrick church in Charlton Village was also closed. There was a monument to Sir Adam and Lady Newton by Nicholas St Luke’s

354

Stone. There was also a memorial to Spencer Perceval, the only British

Prime Minister

been

to have

assassinated: so far.

The church grounds

gave a splendid view, across the gravestones, to the Thames, and the distant

Canary Wharf:

which

We

ships, negotiating the

came back was

still I

shot at that

for years

had been

Now

I

By summer

was on

a

bends of the

that afternoon along the

dissatisfied.

it.

it

river,

could take

a bearing.

escarpment to Greenwich. But

(29.6.94),

a quest for the

landmark, a fixed point on

I

was ready to take another

missing Sions

had been making themselves known on

(signs), references

our riverrine expedi-

all

Syon House, the Sions of Twickenham, Zions everywhere. There was even a legendary self-published book by a local Charlton historian, Ron Pepper, that proposed a direct link between Adam Newton and tions:

the occult-political society, the Prieure of Sion. to track

down.

I

hoped

that the library in

It

wasn’t an easy

book

Charlton House would have

a copy.

Yet again,

when

A

was forbidden.

Atkins and

I

arrived, insufficiently disabled, access

film crew had taken over the building. Caravans,

baseball caps, plates of hot

grub being dished out, period costumes stairs

guarded by

Fair Field:

uncovered

hanging limply over fences; the library closed and the a

canvas waistcoat.

We

cut inland, towards the foothills.

myth —

Horn

came from the ox, a symbol of St Luke, not from the miller cuckolded by King John. By the seventeenth century the fair was established on St Luke’s Day, the 18th of October. A procession took place, meandering from Bishopsgate to Charlton, by way of that

the horns

Cuckold’s Point in Bermondsey; three times around the church and across to the field for the proper business, riot.

(The counter-procession

would, in due course, go from Bishopsgate into Whitechapel to celebrate the liberties of the London Hospital.) London was mapped by these

drunken and

ough, sacred phalluses.

site to

The

sacred

site: relics

of

saints,

borough

should

pushed on,

still

across

to bor-

drums and beribboned

walk, responding to astrological prompts, laid

rative trails that

We

licentious cross-town scrambles,

down

nar-

be respected.

meadows and ungrazed

terraces;

London was

We

were consoled by the oddity of the triangular folly, Severndroog Castle; the sudden turn in a path through the woods that gifted us with an anamorphic view, a sheer drop to a spread of com-

lost in a

heat haze.

placent, blue-grey suburbs.

which

to turn for

Eltham Cemetery was

home. 355

a

good point from

Coining back over the ridge and downhill towards Woolwich Old

Town, Atkins was seethrough

frisky,

aroused by a foxy lady striding towards us in

he broke into

skirt:

a

rush of Tourette’s syndrome puns.

distant river gave us a destination.

Road gant

into Herbert

tile

curved

Road,

we had been

lettering in a frame, a building

pillar

The

Waiting to cross out of Eglinton

found what

I

a

marked

looking

for: ele-

for demolition.

of a public-house, two surviving words:

The

SION ANTS.

on the Embankment, next to Unilever House, when we were walking towards Whitehall on the day of the

(We

located Sion College,

Conservative Party leadership election.

We

got our heads around the

door but were refused admittance. Neither was

Home in his provocative

possible. Stewart

&

Ups

library

of Sion College

as a

pamphlet.

“Prince Charles

Diversions, states that

London venue

is

Conspiracies, Cover-

temporarily using the

for occult activities

premises are shared with the City Livery Club, making centre of ruling class activity

College

is

notorious

black magician.

among

Among

in the library are three

.

.

.

appointment

a future

.

.

The

an important

it

Dr Thomas White who founded Sion

conspiracy theorists

as

both

a

mason and

other indications of lodge activity

masonic

.

still

evident

Home’s outrageous broken away from P2 to

chairs.” In

pretation, Charles heads a lodge that has

a

interset

up

own “Greek rite”; ceremonies involving child sacrifice and ritual sodomy. The Prince’s public concern with modernist architecture its

apparently masks an obsessive interest in psychogeography: a temple

be established within the pyramid that tops Canary Wharf.

to

Greenwich

control over the great

leyline reasserted.

The

to carry

through

all

And

signal for the

success of Charles’ occult conjuration will be the grant to the

Borough of the funds

is

Royal

of its preposterous Millennial

proposals.)

This was the

last

ring Charlton

House

would be open. the

graffiti,

excursion in the book:

We

to establish that the library

started

walk the V: Victoria Park, the

Same

even taken the trouble to

when we

canal. Isle

hill,

set

out to plot

of Dogs, Foot-

The boats to the we decided to stroll

Italian caff for breakfast.

Barrier weren’t running yet, too early; so

on, up the

A

few days beforehand

were back where we

Tunnel, Greenwich.

Thames

a

I’d

and over Blackheath to Charlton.

dull, overcast day:

Marc had

restricted himself to

no more than

three or four photographs (another attempt to produce a convincing

image of St Alphege). road

all

Now Atkins was suffering.

After being out

on the

these months, he’d acquired the aches and pains that

356

I’d

dispensed with: medial ligament trouble, headaches, the compulsive

annotation of

detail.

about.

need

I

didn’t

He

was taking the images

1

Borrowing Marc’s camera,

think

only thought

I

to speak.

A funfair was pitched on Blackheath, ings.

that

we both knew, even

1

ghost houses and horror hoard-

was the one taking the photographs.

then, that

it

was

all

yielded themselves to mild grey mornings and

too

full

easy. Secrets

stomachs.

It

never

was no

more than 1 expected when the woman at the coffee stall in Charlton House told us that she was sorry but the library was closed today, they’d rung around, but they couldn’t find anyone to come in. Forget it. We made no attempt to explore the stairs and the upper chambers; we walked

I

east across the park,

haven’t

never looking back.

mentioned Maryon Park

yet,

although

it’s

very important

a

element in the psychic landscape. Maryon Park was the reason

I

came

to

where Antonioni had filmed Blow-Up. In the Sixties the kick lay in finding it at all, the atmosphere was unique but the park didn’t connect with an area of London that I knew. It had Charlton in the

been

first

place: to see

briefly colonised

by European

art

cinema. Gradually, through fur-

more recent times, I worked out how Maryon Park gave way to Maryon-Wilson Park, to Charlton Park, to the Horn Fair Field. Charlton House was occupied by members of the Maryon and Wilson families until Sir Spencer Maryon-Wilson sold it to the Council. Coming into Maryon Park from Woolwich Road, as I did when I ther expeditions in

made my

original investigation,

film, into the

is

uncanny.

It

plays directly into the

very specific sound of wind in the

trees.

(An

effect that

Antonioni had first exploited towards the end of UAvventura.) Something you can’t fake by rustling film stock in a bin. An amphitheatre, a

wooded bowl, with

tennis courts at the centre.

An

old

Chinaman

on a green bench, a newspaper folded in his lap. Steep steps that run up to the tree-shaded lozenge of ground on which David Hemmings (as the photographer) sees Vanessa Redgrave in a white raincoat sitting

setting

ated)

up whatever

when

it is

the film

is

that happens; the

and distorted -

on achieving

a tragic explanation.

Antonioni took

It is

murder which might

the neurotic voyeurism of

a state

Whoever

a lot

revealed (or cre-

until they develop their

revise the past, narrate a

otherwise, have happened. his insistence

is

developed, the contact sheet examined, and

single frames are enlarged

momentum. They

crime that

own

never,

Hemmings,

of meaning and control, that proposes

cuts the film, cuts history.

of trouble to identify 357

this

enclosed meadow, to

see

it

story,

as

Las babas

Blow-Up

The

the essence of his film.

is

del

incident in Julio Cortazar s short

Diabolo (The Devil's

based, takes place

on

Spittle),

a quai in Paris,

on which the and describes

script for a

“narrow

%

escape”: an amateur photographer catches a iniddle-aged

youth

The

as

and

a

they are involved in an intense and^ambiguous conversation.

narrator, telling his story, sees only

railings,

woman

what

t*he

photographer

An

the harsh sunlight, the late-morning shadows.

straightforward arrangement of light and form.

and carried away, blown up to the

size

The

sees:

the

apparently

episode, frozen

of a small cinema screen in

his

complex resolution. There is another watcher, an elderly man in a car, who comes briefly forward to remonstrate with the woman. The photographer makes sense of these theatrical fragments — shocks himself — by deciding that the woman is a pimp, the boy a male prostitute, and the elderly man a client. He therefore becomes (or the studio, suggests a

narrator forces

engaged in a

script,

him

into that role) the director of his

own

fantasy. He’s

the traditional tasks of cinema: shaping and constructing

all

casting,

shooting, editing, post-production.

respectable, smartly-dressed

woman who

could

He

— because he

picks a

orders her

do it — play a procuress (Genevieve Page in Buhuel’s Belle de Jour?), a youth that appeals to him (Dominic Guard, too old for The Go-Between, to

too young for Ati Unsuitable Job

Stamp

as Billy

a

man

.

He

plays

closed

window

more innocent version of

himself.

part of the

pher:

Budd)

Woman, or James Fox, Terence games with reahty by deciding to take the for a

in the car.

The

reflects the

The

photogra-

photographer’s

intervention, his decision to click the button, has changed time. Paris described

by an Argentinian becomes the London of Antonioni:

somewhere exotic, dangerous — and misunderstood. The director’s partner, Monica Vitti, the one who did not disappear in UAvventura, was playing Modesty Blaise for an exiled American, Joseph Losey. Vanessa

Redgrave would perform the mystery,

less

Vitti role

with confused conviction;

of the submerged comedienne.

A strong woman who

herself taking her shirt off (“it looks even better

on

a

man”)

less

finds

in the

wrong story. The grass platform in Maryon Park is one of London’s more seductive secret theatres. You stand there and astonishing fables tempt you. This terrace, with its view of the river (rigorously excluded by Antonioni), was

first

surveyed by the Egyptologist, William Flinders

Petrie, in 1891. (Petrie

1915 revealed

a

was born in Maryon Road.) Later excavations in

Romano-British settlement covering 17!^

double bank and ditch surrounding

a

358

group of hut dwellings.

acres: a

Antonioni, accompanied by

Tonino Guerra, was

his script-writer

hauled backwards and forwards across London by the journalist Francis

Wyndham

(one of those fascinated by the Kray Twins and the gangland

mythology they were

actively helping to create). Style magazines,

and

which were just getting into their stride, were using iconic images by hustlers such as David Bailey that linked fashion, the colour supplements

rock and

villainy. (Hairdressers

Thus condemning the around

at

on the Richardson’s party is reported in Gore threw

a

could double

as

bullion blaggers.)

fastidious Italian director to stand forlornly

grim speed-freak

clubs

who

and catatonic

parties

raves; to trawl

patch, to sample scrapyard chic. Vidal’s

“memoir”.

Palimpsest.

pubs and

One

such

The Tynans

bash to celebrate the Labour Party’s electoral victory. Guests

included Marlon Brando, Richard Harris and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Brando boasts,

Tynan into the bathroom. “The evening,” Vidal

tried to get

“made such an impression on Antonioni

that

he made

Blow-Up!' If Antonioni was to turn himself into

it,

brand name, he had to exploit London, freaks, as Fellini

had exploited

Rome

for

its

of

multinational

excesses and sub-cultural

La Dolce

genius was in allowing himself to be found by

a

a film

Vita.

Maryon

His

moment of

Park, by

making

the most significant contribution to an anthology of vanishings.

Whatever happened on the grass terrace had to leave no visible trace behind it. (And here Antonioni did slip up. You can still find the flakes of dark green paint with which production designer Assheton Gordon “dressed” the wooden fence. He recomposed the setting so that it could look more Francis

like itself.)

Wyndham

had written

the Sunday Times Magazine, alerting to

make

“The Modelmakers” for Carlo Pond to commission Bailey

a piece called

a short film called Tlie Photographer. Bailey

(“David Bailey makes

on anyone who in moving upmar-

love daily”) was a famous predator, used to snacking

posed for him. ket

He

had recently signalled

by marrying Catherine Deneuve

Kensington

flat

in

Roman

his interest

(the frigid prisoner

of

a

South

Polanski’s Repulsion). Bailey (along

with

Michael Cooper, the heroin addict and suicide, who shot the Sergeant Pepper sleeve) became one of the models for the David Hemmings character in Blow-Up.

The

part was originally intended for Terence

Stamp, once a lover ofJean Shrimpton, Bailey’s famous protegee.

Or so

Stamp thought — until Antonioni saw Hemmings in Andrew Sinclair’s adaptation of Dylan Thomas’ Adventures in the Skin Trade at the Hampstead Theatre Club. Stamp, who was very much up for the role, “had begun

a

minute study of Bailey, Donovan and Duffy, even 359

to the

extent of imitating their hand

movements and improvising the tune he

would hum under his breath in the darkroom.” The loss of a role for which he was born (or so he felt) was a turning point in Stamp s career: from now on he would be an inanimate clotheshorse, all cheekbones and flaring nostrils, one of those lost Bud,djiist, rag trade aesthetes who drink a cup of tea very prettily, and pay for it by appearing in top-dollar adverts.

The photographer was not voyeur with the telephoto

a figure reserved for

who

lens,

Antonioni.

“invents” crimes with

The

which he

can counter ennui and sexual repression, goes back to Hitchcock’s Rear

Window (1954) — based on and

room

a hotel

a story

by William

prisoner. Neither

Irish,

himself an alcoholic

was Antonioni the

first

director to

Donen had Richard Avedon on set to coach Fred Astaire for Funny Face (1957). They were caught together by Magnum photographer David Seymour. By the base a film

Sixties,

on

a

contemporary

cinema was haunted by

games with appearance and

on screen and

is

unconscious:

Brechtian urge to expose

a

reality.

Petit Soldat to the

London

16mm

a

Tom

undiluted. Peeping

as a labyrinth,

is

not

a landscape.

Boehm it

is

an

Blow-Up’s dark

David Hemmings alien, incapable

down on

Boehm

victims with a spiked tripod,

as

was

of

film. Bailey, in a

of revelation, described himself, Nikon in hand,

three-legged phallus”. Carl

Tom

movie camera, but the

a sealed system,

accepting external reality until he has got

moment

play

paparazzi of La

darkest reading was Michael Powell’s Peeping

only comfortable in movement. Carl

rare

itself,

The photographer was everywhere,

from Godard’s Le

His photographer uses

voyeurism

is

off,

The

Dolce Vita. (1960).

practitioner: Stanley

as

“a

a phallic assassin, spearing his

he tracked forward into the

final close-

up.

Even

in England,

Antonioni was following

great institutions: Michael

in the

wake of one of our

Winner. Winner’s The System (1964) was

one of a cycle of “rebel” youth, yobs

at

the seaside, exploitation

flicks.

Most of them starred Oliver Reed. The System, like Losey’s The Datnned (1962), was no exception. Reed and Winner were made for each other. The difference between English and Italian cinema is the distance between Oliver Reed’s flaring nostrils and Marcello Mastroianni’s world-weary

smile.

The System focused on the rootless

Reed was plucked from rors, to

be

lit

his natural habitat,

by Nicholas

was another coming

life

Roeg

actor:

of

360

beach photographer.

grimacing in

way to David Hemmings. (on his

a

Hammer hor-

Performance)

In the cast

These all

connections

superficial

become more and more

intriguing: as if

the writers, directors and actors were trying to nail the times in a sin-

A story that could not be told until Antonioni located Maryon

gle story.

one covert

Park: that rus,

its

doorway

Blow-Up

strip

of grass, with

into other worlds.

rehearsal, in

Guy

Over was

sentinel trees,

Reed was

Hamilton’s Tlie

written by the excellent crime novelist

promoted

its

its

wind cho-

there again, for a crude

Party's

Over (1963) which was

Marc Behm. Hamilton would be

to serious industrial product with the

his single stab at a sociological

Bond

films; Tlie Party's

document.

John Barry, who had written the jukebox fillers for an earlier essay in the same vein. Beat Girl (1960) — which featured the compulsory cameo from Oliver Reed — provided the score: before moving on with Hamilton to serial Bondage and conspicuous wealth. (He sold that apartment in Alembic House to a youthful Conservative

riverside

politi-

cian, Jeffrey Archer.)

Blow-Up viewed

as a

video in 1995 provokes an overwhelming urge

to rush the tape to the cutting-room for

emergency amputation:

lose

mime, most of the secthe bone: some urban driving, some

those appaUing rag day students, the tennis court

ondary performances. Hack

it

to

Reduce

interplay in the studio, the park. •original story.

it

to essence, to Cortazar’s

Antonioni has invested everything in David Hemmings

the narrative hook.

And

good, he makes the strange dialogue

he’s

as

(fil-

tered through the director’s questionnaires, Argentine prose, translations into French, into Italian, back into English

by Edward Bond) sound

An

almost plausible. He’s stupid, but sharp; lethargic, but driven. narcissist. its

A puritanical decadent. A tourist on his own territory:

austere

he

vis-

clubs and dope-flops patronised by rock trash and bent aristos as if he

were seeing them Yardbirds.

A

for the

(Jimmy Page busking away with the mate of Martin Stone. Stone used to

time.

first

good customer,

a

keep him supplied with Aleister Crowley manuscripts.) Hemmings, a deracinated moralist, thirsts for experience, images that will offend. Despite himself, he becomes a latterday

Mayhew - responsive,

photo journalists to the obvious (whatever can be pitched nothing picture

editors).

Picaresque

squalor,

blown

like at

most

know-

fashion,

a

commercially viable underground culture. Antonioni’s locations are genuinely found, a mapping of surreal expediency and not the tired old

from the back catalogue. The vagrants’ shelter from which Hemmings emerges — and which is the start of my version of the film,

favourites

after I’ve

extras

—

is

eliminated not, as

all

the tedious cross-cutting with white-face

might be expected, in Whitechapel or Kennington, 361

but in Consort Road, tree

Peckham Rye. Near

where Blake saw

the spot

his

of angels.

The

“irony” of this counterpoint, fashion shoots and lowlife authenneedlessly laboured

ticity, is

back to

his roots” to

- but

produce bad

accurate. Bailey

art shots

was always “going

of ^yqather in the

streets.

Don

much truer eye, mixed frontline carnage with reports on teenage gangs. The incest of photographers photographing photographers begins to pick up momentum. Interiors McCuUin,

a

tougher craftsman with

Blow-Up were shot

for

Hemmings

in the studio

a

of fashion ace John Cowan, although

drew most of his external characteristics from Bailey. (Antonioni arranged for Bailey and Duffy to be interviewed at length. With Terence Donovan, they had been turned by colour supplement scribes into a representative triad: in the same way that the

Antonioni,

character

Fellini

and Visconti, were

a

convenient shorthand for

Italian

cinema.)

Hemmings

laying out his photographs for his caption-writer in an

Italian restaurant

is

a direct reference to

Goodbye Baby and Amen,

A

which Bailey put together with journalist Peter Evans. The book was the usual mix of Krays and Shrimptons, moody streetscapes, high contrast crones, poverty glitz. The manager and Saraband

for the Sixties,

power-broker

to

whom Hemmings

that prophetic toy, a prototype car

defers, frequently recoursing to

phone

in the Roller,

(We’ll put aside the fact that he does appear

from time

impersonated by Peter Bowles, and grant him recall those

called

“Ron”.

to time,

and

a crueller identity.

is

And

hard-edged Bailey portraits of the Twins, the sugary wed-

ding photos from Broadmoor.

The

cruising photographer, the flaneur

with an agenda, reports to the gangster: that Sixties

is

London. Michael Moorcock reminisces

dropping in on him in acquaintance and

his

a deal that

Notting Hill had gone

map of about Ron and Reg the psychic

is

gaff, in

sour.

He

quest of a mutual

says that, for the first

time, he “understood fear”; his knees locked, his bowels spasmed.

The

friend was not seen again.)

Marc

Atkins, a

was interested

camera

as a

McCullin

enthusiast,

in his technical

Nikkormat,

a

watched the video with me;

comments.

He

identified

precursor of the Nikon.

He

I

Hemmings’

laughed aloud

at

paper”, he said.

which the shots of the park were processed. “Fibre “It would take me six months to produce that quantity

of prints.” But

willingly suspended disbelief at this point: the revealed

the speed with

I

structure of the park

commanded

its

hallucinatory lensmen.

362

own momentum. The

choirs of

.

What do we

Hemmings,

have?

in

Cowans

studio, impersonating

(allowing himself to be possessed by) the spirit of Bailey. Antonioni

s

cameraman Carlo di Palma, under instruction, in a set-dressed park, shooting Hemmings. As is Don McCullin, on assignment, who is doing a

Hemmings, snooping

location report story. McCullin’s image of

behind

a specially

painted fence taking

Magnum Cinema

reprinted in

Beautiful grey sheen

his

shot of the distant crime,

{Photographs from

on the jacket — which

is

50

is

years of movie-making)

not,

of course,

visible in

the filmed version. Interestingly, although brash supplement colours are it

one of the principal

as

qualities

of Blow-Up, Marc Atkins remembered

being in black and white. This might be because that

the world, rarely working in colour; or,

most engaged

sage that

monochrome

prints

—

more

is

how

he sees

probably, because the pas-

attention was the production of the

his

the editing, enlarging of details, the pinning to

the wall.

David Hemmings, trapped developed gave

life,

a

in the claustrophobia

of Cowan

“master and servant” relationship with Antonioni.

and

rough edge, to the

a

Italian

s

s

studio,

Hemmings

self-conscious voyeurism

(as

Jeanne Moreau rescues an overly symbolic pilgrimage across the wastes of Milan in Lm Notte). Yet again I see the psychotic weather of one film being transmitted to another, and then another: The Servant to BlowUp to Performance.

Coded

accidents. Actors vampirised

by the nonentities

they impersonate. Paranoid plots evolving through generations of

cinema, the thousand nights of Scheherazade. Sarah Miles from The Servant,

with her breathy schoolgirl laugh, stroking

Hemmings

as

Hemmings s

hair.

an energised avatar ofJames Fox and Michael York. (The

pale jeans and blue shirt of the public schoolboy released into Chelsea.

Tom

Baker in Dublin, very

much of this

type, sent out to

photograph

Gents’ Toilets along the quays for a spread in the University magazine.

Michael Reeves shooting Restlessness.

minutes to have is

The

film’s

tests in

Hollywood

jaunt across the

my appendix

out.”

for Elvis Presley jailbait.)

city. “I

Hemmings,

haven’t even got a

few

perpetually dissatisfied,

“looking for landscapes”. Trying to find the one place that haunts

imagination, trying to invent a crime that will

London of

the surrealist, the alien, the speed-freak.

Gascoyne always dreamed of assembled from

They

see

a

hit,

The arbitrary The poet David

it.

this fantastic metropolis, a

geography

“collection of descriptions of London by foreigners”.

what we

tedium of public visionary

fit

his

They are not distracted by notions of class, the transport. They are on holiday, or on the run. A miss.

then out: Celine, Kerouac, Polanski, Godard. Gascoyne in 363

the Thirties was

excited by the notion as Patrick Keiller

as

Rimbaud and Alain-Fournier —

Verlaine”, he wrote in his journals,

“Dostoevsky, “Strindberg,

another sort

—

(and

today.

is

London at one time or Gustave Dore, and Van Gogh) — and all have left some they were

of record of their impressions, which

half-recognisable, like a

in

all

a^e^

naturally strange, only

dream of a place one knows.

Alain-Fournier’s appreciation of the suburban

villas

I

particularly like

of Chiswick and

Kew, and of the atmosphere of London summer Sunday afternoons at the beginning of the century, and his saying that of all towns, he would prefer

London

to

be unhappy

in.”

what Antonioni defined: a park that is unresolved, summer? An openair theatre from which all traces of

Isn’t this precisely

in time-shift, late

A copse

the ritual performers have been erased? Pissarro as the setting for a

Women. Because

it is

the

Kokoschka

woman,

deeply implicated in the crime.

Hope of most agitated; most

sacrifice? Murderer, the

in this case,

The

of trees undiscovered by

who

is

when

absurd body of her victim,

Flemmings discovers it — in a municipal park that stays conveniently open at night, when he is not carrying his camera — is as rigid as the John Major waxwork at Tower Bridge. (Can a corpse be too stiff? This one is the spitting image of George, one half of the Spitalfields doubleact:

the stained glass coprophiles.)

Even Hemmings, dipping his fingers in the sauce, talking with his agent over an Italian lunch, knows that the small meadow, and the light that is unique to that place, is what should close his album. “I got something fab for the end. In the park. it’s

it

best for the

doesn’t

Lights

end

to

be

do anything

Out on

like that

for me.”

that note.

A

(I

.

.

It’s

very peaceful and

I’ve

.

should,

gone off London if

had the

I

think

still. I

this

week,

discipline, close

few yards of grass about which

it is

possible

to be silent.)

Stop/start the video.

Go

over the blow-ups,

over Marc’s photographs.

Hemmings swoop never pose

“What

after pigeons,

like that.”

as

Hemmings

wanker,”

a

he

says,

does.

Go

watching

writhe and twist to find an angle. “I’d

But he would.

I’ve

got the snaps to prove

it:

shots

of Atkins photographing the grass arena in search of traces of Hemmings

impersonating Bailey. Bent

Chinaman on

One river,

a

like a contortionist.

the bench was recording

morning, passing through

me

(Probably the old

from behind

Spitalfields,

his

newspaper.)

on our way down

to the

and the walk to Putney, and Mortlake and Chiswick, we spotted

grotesquely overmanned crew shooting an underimagined

mercial. Cafe

life:

a

redhead

at

com-

an outside table being made-up by a 364

blonde

romper

in a black

The

suit.

tan-jacketed male lead lounged

about, bored and frowning, while he waited for his turn with the

T-shirts tried to look busy.

canvas chair,

I

of white

Reading the directors name on

a folding

the

plastic cones.

nudged Atkins forward:

of Atkins taking

become

A mob

skidded past the yellow

der. Traffic

bailey. (I’ve got the master shot

Carlo Pond wanted him to be, the

should have been given

He had film-maker who

was the oldest person on

his snap.) Bailey

man

pow-

his first feature at the

set.

time of Blow-Up.

The official stills photographer, in grey paint-smeared jeans, like Hemmings as he emerges from the doss house, was taking shots of the

A

portly director, not of the models. belt.

They

colour

all

pic,

that will

be

also seems,

is

mobile phone was clipped to

had these holsters — except wearing

left

in

a satchel: in

Alembic House

perhaps in

homage

Lord Archer

is

photograph

is

see

memory

to

my

from

river

clearly visible.

Mike Goldmark,

baggy T-shirt and shapeless black tracksuit

There

I

which the photograph of the

for

to

Bailey. Atkins,

his

(He

be wearing

a

trousers.)

no keeping

these

distorts the

flow of time. 21.10.94:

Every

thieves off the territory. 1

received a letter from

McNally at M-OCEAN Pictures Limited. “This may be old news to you but I found this Beatles photo session at Wapping Old Stairs very interesting — McCartney chained to the dock wall and Lennon playing ‘dead’ The session was part of a ‘Mad Day’ organised by Don McCullin on 28th July 1968. The other locations were St Pancras Old Church and Gardens, Old Street roundabout, Farringdon Road, St John’s Wood, Highgate and Notting HiU.” So these were the bodies found at the fictional Wapping publishing Paul

.

.

house in

.

PD James’

And now and she

the fear

was becoming

started, but

perched for a

The

Original Sin.

it

down

that suface something

the

was only a

moment on

strap strained

down

to the

from the water,

McCullin,

its

.

.

Suddenly

seagull.

The

bird

winged

there

was a wild scream

swooped above

its

her,

way downriver

.

.

.

puckered suface of the water, and beneath

was just

visible,

something grotesque and unreal,

insect, its millions

... At the end of the body shifted

in horror the

.

the railings, then

domed head of a gigantic

in the tide

real

strap

of hairy

legs stirring

like

gently

was a human body. As she gazed

in the tide

and

a white

hand

rose slowly

wrist drooping like the stem of a dying flower.

fresh

from

his

Beatles as they posed their

Blow-Up assignment, was capturing the

way

in a psychic progress across

365

London —

like

one of the mappings

got a

call

from Alan.

He

in

Alan Moore s graphic novel, From

had hired

Hell.

(I

recording studio on the riverside in

a

Wapping where he was working on

a

demo

tape that he

wanted

me

to

been wandering the foreshore and had found several “significant” objects. The piece he played me was called They say two can keep Litvinoff’s Book. “Off to a looking-glass house hear. In his breaks He’d

•

—

secrets

The

if

list

1

.

one of them’s dead.”) of locations from McNally’s

page of Lights Out: Aidan Dun’s Jeffrey’s book-stalls at

contents

letter read like the

New Jerusalem

at St

George the mys-

Pancras,

Farringdon Road, one of the gateways to

McCuUin’s photographs were uncanny: Paul McCartney, shirt posing with a chain on the foreshore, at the very point where a

teries. off,

character from

was based on

my

novel Downriver,

a real death), attaches

Dr Adam Tenbrucke (whose

suicide

himself to the wall and waits for the

tide.

The

Beatles,

it

seems from the account in McNally’s photocopy,

directed themselves.

McCullin followed and shot whatever he wanted.

They

arrived in the late afternoon, “parking their cars in

High

Street.”

turned

The photographer,

his carrion

camera on the

Wapping

taking time out from chasing wars,

of a group

antics

who

found

it

increas-

Yoko then went away briefly and returned for more Beatles tomfoolery on the steeply sloping concrete bed. John played dead, while George wore his specs and Ringo felt John’s forehead Then came the last sitting: John, wearing McCullin’s battle jacket, lay down on the ground as ingly difficult to be in each other’s company. “John and

.

.

.

Ringo, George and Paul stood behind him.”

when

number of themes were threatening to come together, cohere, lift towards some awful conclusion, the doorbell rang. It was Atkins, leading a wolf-dog on a string, and carrying two prints. Successive versions of the same image: a sneering David (At this point in the narrative,

a

Bailey in his baseball cap, stubbled, sweaty, suspicious of the strange lens

poked into

his face. Bailey

had dark rings under

his eyes.

He

looked

like

Hemmings — his photographic “evidence” stolen, his studio trashed — when he returns in daylight to Maryon Park, to find that the body has To see the wind, the shaking tree, the grass: as it is. Unphotographed and unphotographable. The moment when cynicism

gone.

turns to ice,

when he

loses

it,

and gains in exchange

a dreadful self-

knowledge.)

The important occasion came when Antonioni visited Maryon Park for the first time, when he recognised its potential. (Antonioni “follows” 366

Chris

Petit, the solitary

to find the

BlowUp

who

wanderer,

location.

arrived in Charlton

As he describes

on

Newman

in his essay,

it

a quest

Passage or J. Maclaren-Ross and the Case of the Vanishing Writers, the pres-

ence of the future director, with shape of Antonioni

s

urban anxieties, influenced the

his

unformulated project: the hanging figure from

An

Woman, the morally corrupt businessman, the unforgiving skies of Radio On. “I made my own map of the city.” The stranger, reading London as a dream, is guided to a patch of ground — enclosed, protected — that will serve him. That is already replete with Unsuitable Job for a

undisclosed fictions. David Gascoyne,

fell

few miles upstream, years

had anticipated the coming war: “Went up into the Park, where

before, I

a

asleep lying in the sunshine in

one of the enclosures, and had mad

dreams.”)

The

figure

of the distinguished elderly

meadow by

secret

look, as

I

a transparently coltish

Magnum Cinema And Hemmings open.

He

is

hung on

screens in the Festival Hall as part of the

Only

exhibition). at

the corpse doubled for John Major.

the fence, holding

up

his

camera, has his free eye

posing, not shooting. Redgrave was being un-directed to

Monica

give a

drawn into the Vanessa Redgrave came to is

re-ran the video, like the photographs of Antonioni himself

the large prints

(in

man who

Vitti

David Thomson

performance: the “ungainly comedienne” that

But Antonioni had leased her

discovers.

Losey, so that she could be paired with Terence

Stamp

to Joseph

in Modesty Blaise.

(And photographed alongside him by Eve Arnold.) The same Stamp who so badly wanted the part of the photographer. The Stamp who copied David Bailey s hand gestures. The mystery is resolved. The figure in the bushes, the undisclosed assassin, director

— who

shown

can be

this

national

Stamp

wonderful English location — and,

Hemmings.

{Wall

Street),

—

Nation), Virgin Atlantic commercials

A lethargic I

He

can

kill

man

that

at

the

the same time,

After collaborating in Antonioni’s

will then fade quietly into the

money market

version of the

Stamp.

has agreed to an assignation with his mistress, so that she

implicate David suicide.

is

he once shot

shadows of the

inter-

megalomania

{Alien

futurist

until

he

artistic

is

exposed

in the park.

A

grey

as a

Mr

bespoke Arkadin.

Kane.

started to pore insanely over

took with Anna,

my wife, on

my

photographic

files:

Boxing Day, and the place

the sequence as

it

was

I

when

made my first excursion, and then the walk with Atkins in the summer of ’94. The frames began to bleed and mix. Bare winter trees, I

strong diagonal shadows.

A

sunburst into the lens. 367

Cropped

turf.

Lush

grass

with

a

path cut through

it.

The photographer stooping and

Trees and bushes overgrown, thick flakes

enough

to hide regiments.

The

of dark green paint on the fence. The steps where Redgrave

challenged

Hemmings. The enclosure was an

eye.

was watched and recorded. Seasons could change the grass. Bushes flowered and died.

We

staring.

came

in,

on the day of the

failed

as

you walked

across

1

Charlton House excursion, from

down through Maryon-Wilson

the other direction;

Every movement

Park.

Marc took

the

X

on the hillside, and I imagined that we had returned to the point from which we started: the given word. The V of the walk (Hackney to Greenwich and home through North Woolwich), the O of the Maryon enclosure, and now the X, VOX again.

photograph of the

(“Noughts shifted to

“Blowjob”;

which is unobserved, the excitethe suit and the girl who persuades

a licence for that

ment of risk between the man in him to visit such an obscure site.

We

David Gascoyne.) Blow-Up

in their crosses/Ice in their eyes.”

didn’t take the usual steep steps.

I

decided, on a

whim,

to climb

the quarry. Noises stranger than any of the effects in Antonioni’s film

were coming from the edge of the scrub woods trio

of respectable, middle-aged

their Littlewoods carrier bags

“The dogs

We

a

forbidden path,

Barrier. Atkins shading his eyes.

very good spot to

House

scrabbling for stones, filling said.

love them.”

walked the ridge on

effortlessly

A

the quarry’s foot.

with pebbles. “For the dogs,” they

the sky clearing over the river

a

women

at

let it all go.

from post

mystery.

to post.

We’d

I

sat

down

in the sunlight

—

— to enjoy the view of the Thames The tattoos on his arms: F & O. It was

A squirrel ran along the fence, wanted one

get the boat back

final

down

shot

to

at

hopping

the Charlton

Greenwich and

I’d

town until found some trace of Ron Pepper’s elusive document. (One more photograph for the collection as we passed through Antonioni’s paddock: a ruined, wooden-frame tennis racket hidden in the grass. The alternative ending to Blow-Up. Antonioni shot two ver-

comb

the

I

Hemmings picking up an invisible tennis ball and returning it to the mimers, and Hemmings picking up a real ball from a phoney game. This was the racket. And the pun. Brown grass, tinder dry, with the sions:

scorch marks of a recent

We

fire.)

found the information in the

the tourist office at

last

place

we expected

it.

The

girl in

Greenwich had heard of Ron Pepper, she was almost 368

sure of it.

Not

a

book,

a

“weird”

the local history library in

So

it

was up the

hill

article. It

might

be checked out in

still

Mycenae Road.

and back to Charlton. But

the passageways of the market to see

if

first

we ducked

into

any of the print shops had an

engraving of Maryon Park or Charlton House. Interesting things in the

cheap boxes, tear-outs, architect s plans,

follies,

but not what

we were

Then we came across the inevitable out-to-lunch shop, locked, with a window display that had us both reaching for our cameras. A blown-up Roque map of the riverside from 1745, Greenwich to looking

for.

Woolwich, with an empty

gilt

frame on chains: creating a portrait of a

Maryon Park and

choice section. Charlton House to

the

“Hanging

Woods”. We stood in the narrow passage, pressing our noses against the glass to memorise the details. The V of the paths through the tight curls of woodland made a pubic mound. A gash. The heights that we had been obsessively exploring had of the Woolwich

name: “Mount Whoredom”.

a

A resort

Militia, the river rats.

They were very helpful at Mycenae Road; courtesy without an inquisition. The copy of Ron Peppers 31pp pamphlet, Charlton House - A ‘Hidden” Mystery?, had been bound in black boards. Were there further copies for sale? Unfortunately not, they had

all

disappeared. This was

the one and only.

between a local genealogist and a man checking the shipping records, and began scribbling. I wanted to copy the whole we accepted an thing. (“One Saturday evening in October 1983 I

sat at a table,

.

invitation

... to spend

check out

if

a

couple of hours with

‘anything was there’

.

.

.

Those

who

a

.

.

psychic sensitive to

accept the possibility

of tapping into ‘something’ will not be surprised to learn that this is what happened - on the main stairs where, it turned out from later research, over the years people have experienced feelings of unease, fear or a sense

of wrongness.”)

admiration for

a

stairs

man who had

I

was hooked on the actually

craziness, lost in

been able to get

as far as

the

of this building.

After ten minutes, with writer’s cramp setting in, and Atkins back

prowl around the gallery on the ground floor, his usual phonecalls, it struck me that there might be a photocopier available. Of

from

his

course.

No

hands. Sir

problem.

I

walked away with Pepper’s

Adam Newton:

“a Scot

who

spent

some

part of his early

in France, passing himself off as a Catholic priest

Scotland about 1600 and was appointed 369

as

entire text in

.

.

tutor to the

.

my life

returned to

young Prince

Henry, heir to the throne siderable learning’

.

.

.

.

.

Newton was

who, although

.

a

described

as ‘a

man

layman, was installed

of con-

Dean of

as

Durham.” A good authentio Holy Blood & Holy Grail preamble. Pepper was a traditionalist. He wasted no time in drawing in Ralegh and his circle, and the death of Prince Henry of a “mysteribus fever”. (“Headaches and buzzing

in the ears

Then

tains.)

it

.

.

.

delirium

.

.

.

raving convulsions”

was on to Charlton House

itself,

.

.

.

cur-

the structure and

ornamentation, the demons of the porch.

was

It

We

clear that Atkins

and

I

slogged along the escarpment

drum of book

make one last attempt. if we were on a treadmill (with a

would have as

to

revolving scenery). And, miraculously, having cracked the

everything was opened to

test,

us towards the

The malign

stairs.

We

us.

could go into

The woman at the table waved any room in the house.

on which are the figures which Pepper describes as “devil heads”; wolves and horned creatures attributed to Bernard Jansen, and carved according to Newton’s specifications. There are also four-legged obelisk forms — like staircase

is

constructed with square columns

instruments on which you might perch a camera.

yawn and jeer. They

contradict

all

the

community

The wooden

activities that

heads

happen

around them: the disabled dancing, the righteous seminars.

We

were alone

in the panelled upstairs galleries, sunlight streaming

through the west window, burnishing the polished deck.

We

examined

White Room: The Triumph of Death. We searched the fireplace in the Wilson Room for the “upward piercing flower” that repeats a motif from the west porch. Looking down on the Horn Fair Field, we brooded on Pepper’s notion that this was “an the allegorical panel in the

ancient place of worship”, a place that had for centuries been the conclusion of a pilgrimage out of the City of participants apparently travelled

down

London. (“Large groups of

river

.

.

.

landing

at

Cuckold’s

Point ... to march in procession to Greenwich and Charlton, with

horns of different kinds on their heads mitted.”)

The

familiar to

the

local historian

“shamans dressed

.

.

.

Many

concludes that in antlers

this

and animal

horned god, had appeared here “in various

years ... as

The

Herne

the Hunter, the

quality of the light

for a photograph,

on

it.

I

would

Green

was

a raised

platform

at

370

com-

“holy place”,

Cernunnos,

guises over thousands

Man

of

and Harry-ca-Nab.”

me

to

sit,

to pose

White Room. David Bailey cap. Let him

the end of the

to justify a

leaf through the rest

a

skins”.

was such that Atkins asked

The day had been warm enough show

indecencies were

of Pepper’s essay while

I

waited for

my shadow

to

he wanted

as

fall,

it,

of

across the reflection

long

a

window.

How would Pepper conclude his yarn? How would he rescue from

this infinitely

us both

extendible narrative? “Associates of Newton

men

have included such

as

.

.

Sir

.

would

Walter Ralegh, Robert Fludd, John

John Dee and Christopher Marlowe.” In other words, all the usual suspects. (“For those who read symbolism into local natural scenery, the House overlooks the great U-shaped Thames meander — a Florio,

pair

sation

No

And

of horns?”)

known

then

we

we had Our old

arrive, as

the Prieure de Sion”.

as

conspiracy thesis

is

to, at

“a secret organi-

Sion Ants.

friends, the

complete without them.

Isaac

Newton, of

Grand Master. And descended from “ancient

course, was a

Scottish

nobility”.

Well, that brings

it

closer to

home.

A summer-house,

with gargoyle

decorations, in the grounds of a property that belonged to family, at the time

Newton. Pepper

is

of our marriage, had, by as

fond

as

am

I

tradition,

of these arbitrary

with breathtaking optimism, “makes for

states

tionship with

Adam Newton

.

.

.

The

my

wife’s

been used by

leaps. “It also,”

he

a possible family rela-

potential relevance of this

falls

into place with a reference ... to the Sinclair family (originally St Clair)

whose domain was

at

Rosslyn in south-east Scotland, only

a

few miles

from the former Scottish headquarters of the Knights Templar ... In

a

charter believed to date from 1601 the Sinclairs are recognised as ‘hereditary

Grand Masters of

Scottish

family connection, linking the secret

network

Why

not?

I

.

.

.

Masonry’

Newtons

.

.

.

Could

there then be a

across the generations,

part of the wider Prieure de Sion

can think of worse places to

live.

with

a

web?”

Let’s

boot out the

and the Vietnamese lunch clubs and repossess the gaff. Atkins would make an impressive skinhead butler. Let’s go for the Remains of Day scenario. Dump all this wearisome travelling across meditation

classes

London and enjoy the fruits of a good library, twilight on the skulls of stone demons.

371

a

well-stocked

cellar,

rosy

\

Tom’s most well, now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-

guard for a watch, and ain’t

nothing more

is

always seeing what time

to write

about

.

for the Territory ...

.

I

.

But

and

so there

I reckon I got to light out

been there before.

Mark Twain, The Adventures

yii

it is,

of Huckleberry Finn

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