‘Then you’re exactly the bloke I want to speak to.’
‘Do you want me to talk through the development plan? Do you live in the local area?’
‘I want to talk to you about our planning application, and why nobody in your office can be bothered to answer my phone calls.’
This was something that tended to happen at consultations. The problem was that planners spent a lot of time stopping things from happening. Up and down the country they were stopping people from turning their garden sheds into summerhouses and installing porches in conservation areas. And people hated them for it. It wasn’t fair, but they did. And when they did allow people to do things, if they let someone build a mosque or a factory or a wind farm, well then everyone else hated them instead. Worst of all, whether they were allowing or stopping things, it took them an awful long time, for James, like all planners, worked calmly and methodically, he worked incredibly slowly.
‘I’m sorry,’ said James. ‘Is this a specific planning issue? It’s just that we’re here to consult on a masterplan.’
‘Do you work for the council or don’t you?’ said the man.
James looked at Rachel, who for a moment looked as if she was going to disappear for another cigarette.
‘I’d be happy to talk to you about it,’ said Rachel. ‘James, why don’t you go and get lunch for us. Residential developments are something I have responsibility for, and I’m sure we can sort this out.’
James hopped down and walked away as quickly as he could. But where was he going? The shopping centre, even one as old as this, hurt his eyes and he had no idea how he would ever be able to buy something as simple as a sandwich here. There were too many reflective surfaces, too much luminosity, too many adverts. Of course, what he really would have wanted was to start all over again. It was every planner’s dream. Not to have to tweak deficient settlements, to accommodate narrow-minded residents or negotiate with selfish landowners. But, of course, you never did. Instead, you had to work with what you had. And what you had was always terrible.
It wasn’t just Clifford’s shopping centre or Sunbury Square or Southwark. It wasn’t even London. For James had been born in 1980 and all the battles had been fought before he had turned ten years old. After a century of catastrophic utopian experiments, the Western world, James’s world, the entire world, had settled on a system that best fitted human nature and was therefore, of course, the very worst of them all. A system of prohibitions and permissions, punishments and prizes, all constructed upon human faultlines and appetites, designed to provide an infinite variety of pleasures, and which had made people unhappy in ways that they could once only have dreamt of. And as a result, the shopping centre was unhappy, the city was unhappy. James could feel it, but he was unable to describe it, and all the town planning in the world wouldn’t be able to cure it.
‘I think I’ve just had a professional crisis,’ said James. ‘It’s dawned on me that everything we do for a living is futile.’
It had taken forty minutes, he had got lost twice, but he was back with a plastic bag of sandwiches, crisps and orange juices. And, thankfully, in the meantime, Rachel seemed to have neutralised the couple with false promises and hopes.
‘You’re such a hilarious novice. All planners come to hate and despair of the job. I can’t believe it’s taken you so long. This is a real breakthrough. You might actually have a successful career in front of you now.’
‘I don’t hate all of it,’ said James. ‘I don’t mind producing maps and plans. It’s just that we never actually spend much time doing that. Instead, we spend most of our time talking to people who don’t like us.’
‘Of course, it would make the job so much easier if no one actually lived in London.’
He stared at the shopping centre crowds, the men in red tracksuits, the teenage boys in their shiny coats and the girls in their bubblegum pink skirts. This was his tribe – the people who he had vowed to help and to improve, whether they wanted him to or not.
‘What can we do about it? We’re only town planners,’ said Rachel. ‘We’re not the city’s parents. If you start thinking like that, if you start taking responsibility for everything and everyone, then you’re doomed.’
James nodded calmly and sat back down on his canvas chair. They ate their sandwiches. The consultation continued, and lunchtime dissolved into Saturday afternoon. James and Rachel talked politely and listened carefully. James kept his spine bent, his shoulders hunched and tried as hard as he could not to be taller than the public. They asked people to write things down on cards and made a point of nodding their heads agreeably, asking helpful little questions and giving exaggerated thanks for each contribution. A man in a wheelchair was bothered about the safety of pedestrian crossings, but it wasn’t clear if this was a problem with the masterplan or a more general concern. An Irish woman with a lovely voice was worried that the new development would bring more Muslims into the area. A Turkish man with sad eyes said that he was scared to go out at night because of all the black drug dealers. A handsome woman from Jamaica said that the area was being ruined by the Polish, who were always getting drunk.