‘How interesting.’ Sebastian placed his hands behind his back and nodded, adopting the kind of pose Prince Charles holds when a foreman describes the cubic capacity of a drainage outlet to him. ‘Of course, one mustn’t confuse diction with clarity of intention. Did you know that there are as many accents in an English street as there are in the whole of America?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Vince. ‘Anyway, what you say is more important than how you sound.’
‘True, but it’s advisable to speak properly if you wish to be taken seriously. Listen to that.’
He looked down towards the lake. One small child was hitting another with a large section of torn-off branch. Even from there Vince could hear them screaming ‘Fuck off’ at each other.
‘Of course, one’s language has a tendency to reveal one’s class, doesn’t it? Which position in society’s beehive do you occupy?’
Vince closed his book and rose from the seat with more aggression than he had intended. ‘I’ll give you a clue. My dad rode Routemaster buses down the Old Kent Road. He died of a heart attack at forty-eight. My mum still works in a shoe shop. I grew up in Peckham.’
Sebastian dismissed the reply with a wave of his hand. ‘Oh well, it’s a classless country now, if the television is to be believed.’
‘What class am I to assume you are, then? Upper middle?’
‘Me? Heaven forfend. There’s nothing remotely middle about it. Nobody in our family has ever held down a proper job. We just own land. Lots and lots of it.’
Vince studied his companion carefully. He looked to be about twenty-seven.
‘Yeah, but you must do something.’
‘Why must I? We socialise, support charities, run societies, that sort of thing. My father works for the WBI, an organisation that is attempting, wrongly in my opinion, to remove all trade barriers between European member countries. As a lord he cannot represent in Parliament, of course, and as the House of Lords exists primarily to delay legislation, he has to find other ways of filling his time. At least that way we don’t have to rush about raising money for the upkeep of the family pile.’
‘And you?’
‘Oh, I chair debates. Hold parties. Play all sorts of games. I like games.’
‘Games get boring after a while. You must wish for a more substantial occupation sometimes.’
‘Yes, perhaps even in the same way that you do. I suppose in that respect our lives run on parallel lines.’
‘Which implies that they never cross over.’
‘Except at moments like this.’
‘But I work to eat,’ said Vince. ‘It’s not a diversion from being bored. It may be stating the obvious, but I do it because I don’t have any bloody money.’
They studied each other, equally intrigued.
‘I take it you are in employment, then.’ Sebastian made the idea sound disreputable.
‘I work in a home entertainment store. Just to pay the rent.’
‘Home entertainment.’ He savoured the concept for a moment. ‘What is that, exactly?’
‘CDs, videos, laserdiscs, interactive CD-ROMs, PlayStations, you know.’
But one look at Sebastian’s face told Vince that he didn’t know. He masked his ignorance with a brave smile. ‘Well, Mr Reynolds, I passed a coffee shop on the way in here. Would you think me exploiting the social orders if I offered to buy you a cup? As I’m to be the subject beneath your microscope, perhaps we should get to know each other a little better.’
Somewhere on the green slopes below, a bird was startled into singing. And somehow, through some mysterious osmotic process, Vincent Reynolds allowed himself to be gently drawn into a different world.
Chapter 5
Friends
The offices of Stickley & Kent were located in a parade of shops heralded by a long purple-painted brick wall with the words ‘Shambala Skins’ decoratively sprayed on it. On his afternoon off, Vince headed to the Kentish Town estate agency to share lunch with his two oldest friends.
‘Men are like taxis,’ Pam was telling Louie as he arrived. ‘You think the one you get inside is all yours until you realise that the seat is still warm from the last passenger.’ She held a steaming plastic beaker at eye level and examined it, turning over the contents with a plastic fork. It was the first time she’d paused for breath in twenty minutes. ‘You know, a simple anagram for Pot Noodle is Not Poodle. I shudder to think about what people stick into their bodies. Come to that, I shudder to think about what I stick in my body. Or rather, who.’
‘Your choices take some explaining, I’ll give you that,’ said Louie.
‘The trouble is,’ Pam continued, ‘everyone’s become so knowing. Men are adept at making each girl they date feel special for a set period of time before moving on, like waiters. Hi, Vince.’ Pam immediately broke off the conversation when Vince entered the office. She would never speak of other men in his presence because she loved him with every fibre of her being and longed to monopolise his every waking hour. The object of her adoration could not reciprocate, however.
‘That’s ’cause we’ve read all those magazine articles about what women really want,’ said Louie. ‘We know all the right moves.’ Louie was a velvet-voiced Antiguan who had been raised in the neighbourhood and was now studying at the University of North London. The real problem was that the three of them knew each other too well. Vince, Louie and Pam had grown up a few streets apart. Vince was amazed that they were still friends, given the different directions their lives were taking. He was aware of Pam’s infatuation with him—how could he not be when her eyes followed him around the room like peepholes in a gothic painting—but he also knew that they were not suited for each other. She entirely lacked imagination, a minor fault to many but a fatal flaw in Vince’s eyes.
Louie had piercings and a white strip of hair running down the centre of his stubbled black head, a look he had designed to accentuate his independence and nonconformity. Everyone he hung out with sported this look except Pam, who as an estate agent was excluded from the world of exotic personal statements. Louie was six feet, two inches tall and wore tight black leather, a common look in North London but this leather was expensive, not the usual rocker-tat they sold on the high street stalls. Instead of skull rings he sported enough gold jewellery to suggest that he was the advance scout for a Barry White revival. The other estate agents in the office barely noticed Louie’s attire; in this cosmopolitan section of London it labelled you a Neo-Punk, and was virtually treated as a job description.
Of course, neither Pam nor Louie expected Vince to be fashionable. Vince was Good Old Vince, dependable, down-to-earth and durable, like a pair of workboots. He cut his own hair, shopped in street markets and never bought a shirt without telling you how much he’d saved on it. He wore his background like a badge, so much so that he sometimes seemed almost a parody; a forgotten cockney caper, a throwback to a more innocent time.
‘Well, I’ve had enough,’ said Pam. ‘I’m really tired of this city.’
‘You’ve been saying that since you were fifteen.’
Pam provided a total contrast to Louie. Her hair was cut in a tight blonde bob, its hue discreetly elevated. Her suits were pastel, and her earrings (always ovals or drops) complemented her pearlised nail varnish. She idolised the corporate women she saw on American soaps, copied their clothes and read their magazines, but was unable to duplicate their aggressive behaviour. Vince reached over and dug a spoon into her lemon cheesecake.
‘Good to see you two haven’t run out of things to talk about.’
‘I just need to get out for a while, go somewhere where there’s some light and air,’ said Pam, finishing her cake and carefully brushing the crumbs from the desk. ‘The three of us could go away together.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Vince waved the idea away. They had this conversation twice a month.
‘Where would you go if you left London?’ asked Louie, filling three cups of coffee on Pam’s desk.
‘I don’t know. There are other cities. I’ve got to leave the flat. The council’s busy stocking my building with rehabilitated sex offenders and refugees who’ve not quite broken the habit of street-cooking. I’ll go somewhere where the men haven’t wised up yet. Eastern Europe. Prague, maybe.’
‘Prague’s full of American students doing Europe.’
‘Germany, then. I can’t stay here. London is finished. It’s dying under the weight of its own past. Look at the place, filthy, run-down, the roads permanently dug up, ugly new buildings cropping up like weeds, the public transport system collapsing, the politicians useless. And everyone’s so—angry.’
‘It was always like this,’ said Vince, accepting one of the coffees. ‘Take a look at the old photographs. Barely controlled chaos. That’s what I like about it.’
‘We know you do,’ said Louie. ‘Pam was telling me about this Sebastian Wells character. What’s the deal?’
‘He’s a genuine toff, photo in Tatler, pile in the country, father in the House of Lords. My passport to fame and fortune,’ replied Vince. ‘When I finally managed to track him down I left about a million messages on his machine, but he didn’t answer any of them. Then I wrote to him and explained that I was working on a book—well, he doesn’t know it’s only a quarter of a book—about the British class system, and he agreed to be my live study subject.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He plays games.’
‘Games? What kind of games?’
‘Chess, mah-jong, ancient blocking games, puzzles, word games. I guess he has too much time on his hands.’
‘Upper class and idle. And a rich bastard too, I suppose.’
‘I don’t know, I only just met him. He looks rich. Manicured. His clothes have—’ He hunted for a suitable word.
‘Linings,’ suggested Pam.
‘His father’s some big shot in the European community. He bombards you with information all the time, like he’s teaching you stuff. He likes facts. Exactly what I need.’
‘I’m surprised he agreed to let you question him,’ said Louie, ‘considering your chosen subject.’
‘He doesn’t know anything about the angle I’m taking,’ Vince explained. ‘He’s gonna let me conduct a series of interviews, but he’s asked to vet the manuscript once I’ve finished.’
‘What if he doesn’t like what you’ve written? He could screw the whole thing up. You’re better off being honest right from the outset.’
Vince dropped his chin into his hands and looked out through the plastic sale-cards that dangled in the windows. ‘I don’t know. This is the first break I’ve had. People aren’t prepared to talk about the class system when it works in their favour. They’re wary of making enemies. As it is, I feel like I’m writing this under false pretences.’
‘You won’t be if you have to show him everything you intend to publish. So long as he has final approval, you might as well be employed by him.’ Louie checked his Swatch, then hefted a sports bag onto his shoulder and rose, turning to Vince. ‘There’s a simple way around that, of course. Take what you can from this geezer, lie yourself blue in the face to get his confidence, drain him of information, don’t show him what you’ve written, then do a real slag-off job in print. That’s how the tabloids do it. What do you care? He can’t sue if it’s all true.’
‘Nice attitude, Louie,’ said Pam. ‘Can’t you see that Vince feels uncomfortable about using someone?’ She did not understand his choice of career, but was always ready to defend him. To her, writing seemed a peculiar way to try to earn a living, as did any job without set lunch-hours.
‘He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met,’ Vince tried to explain. ‘His accent is so refined I can barely understand him. He can trace his ancestors back hundreds of years, to the House of York, John of Gaunt, all the Edwards and Richards. I can’t trace mine back two generations. If I was him, I wouldn’t even consider passing the time of day with me.’
‘You’re in awe of him, you wanker,’ shouted Louie gleefully. ‘You’ve gone all proley and apologetic. He’s already got to you. That’s how it works, don’t you see? They come on all superior and charming, and moments later you’re wringing your cloth cap between your hands and making excuses for getting in the way of their horses.’
‘You do always put yourself down, Vince,’ said Pam, clearing away the cartons, cups and paper bags that had held their lunch. ‘It’s such a shame. You’ve no self-esteem. Of course, neither have I, which is probably why I haven’t had a date this year unless you count Darren Wadsworth, and I don’t. Wait until I’ve finished my business management course, though. I’ll be a new me.’
Vince doubted it. Over the years his oldest female friend had not changed one atom. She was still hopelessly shy and inward-looking, and clung to the idea that the courses she took would eventually provide her with a dynamic personality, a change of character that would finally enable her to marry him and settle down.
‘It’s great that you’re getting a break on your project. I’m very pleased for you. You just don’t look too happy about it, that’s all.’
‘It’s because we got on so well. I didn’t think we would.’
‘Where’s the problem in that?’
It was so hard to put into words that he felt uncomfortable even discussing it with Pam. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said finally. ‘I’m the only one who benefits. Why would he bother to help me? What’s in it for him?’
‘You wanna watch it,’ Louie said and laughed. ‘It’ll be up to his club for tea and crumpets, a fine claret and a spot of buggery, and before you know it you’ll be back on the street with a sore arse and a gold sovereign for your troubles.’
Vince laughed too, but the questions in his head remained unanswered.
Chapter 6
Q & A
They had arranged to meet for the first of their formal interviews in three days’ time. But here he was, standing before Vince in the reference room of Camden Library, the honourable Sebastian Wells himself. He had been seated across the room, making notes from a stack of what appeared to be gaming manuals. He was paler and thinner than Vince remembered, dressed in a superbly cut black suit and club tie, far too immaculate for grungy old North London.
‘Well, we meet again!’
‘Jesus! Sorry,’ said Vince, jumping. ‘You always seem to catch me unawares. What are you doing here?’
‘I must admit it’s not my territory, but I needed to look up the rules of a rather obscure Polynesian blocking game, and Highgate Library recommended a book held here. Saves spending hours at the British Library. What about you?’
‘The usual, research.’
Sebastian pulled out a chair and sat opposite. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking.’
He’s changed his mind, thought Vince, he doesn’t want to be interviewed.
‘The day before yesterday I agreed to answer your questions, didn’t I, but you know, perhaps you can help me just as much.’
‘I can? How?’
‘In our brief chat you made me realise just how little I know about working-class London. Forgive me, but you did admit to being working class.’ He smiled pleasantly, anxious not to cause offence.
‘Absolutely.’
‘So you can teach me something as well.’
‘What would you want to know?’
‘Facts, Mr Reynolds, facts. The more one is in possession of them, the better one’s overall frame of reference. How long are you going to be here today?’
‘Another hour, I imagine.’
‘I’ll tell you what. I’ve got all I need for now. I’ll come back for you in an hour, unless you have another appointment? We could go for a drink.’
‘I think I’ll be free then,’ said Vince. Like I have another appointment to go to, he thought as he watched the elegant subject of his interview stroll from the room, leaving the gaming manuals scattered across the table for someone else to put away. There was a charming air of vagueness about Sebastian
, as if each thought he had was freshly plucked from the ether. He trusted everything to fall into place in its natural order. People like that never had to worry about landlords or night buses. The mundane clutter that separated most people from their dreams did not exist for him.
An hour and a quarter later they were sitting outside the Dingwall public house in Camden, watching bargees operating the canal lock below them and discussing Vince’s determination to be a successful writer. Sebastian had once attempted to write a technique manual on contract bridge, but had lacked the necessary drive to finish it.
Vince was unnerved by his new friend. Considering his argument for the equality of the classes, it was absurd to be in awe of someone like Sebastian, but he could not help himself. Perhaps this built-in respect for social order was a genetic thing. Looking at their surroundings, he felt embarrassed at the dirt and shabbiness, at the tattooed tribes folded up against walls, nursing their cans of lager.
‘I wonder if you have any idea how unique this is,’ said Sebastian, sipping his pint with a delicacy that suggested the experience was new to him. ‘Nobody I know would ever do anything like it.’
‘Then why are you?’
‘You asked the same question when last we met, remember? Surely you’ve acted out of sheer curiosity before.’
‘I do it all the time.’
‘There you are, then. The “class divide information exchange” starts here. I’ll ask you something, then you can ask me something, how about that.’
Vince dug around in his bag for a notebook and pencil. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘You start.’
‘Vincent. May I call you that? Were you named after van Gogh?’
‘Nah. My dad liked Don McLean.’
Sebastian searched the air. ‘I’m not familiar…’
‘The title of a song. My turn. Why are you willing to do this? Why talk to me? Be honest.’
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