The Planner(37)

He was still considering his strategy when Harriet returned from the bathroom. It was entirely possible that she’d been sick, but she didn’t appear to be in the least bit wounded or weakened.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get a cab back to my place.’

Outside, on the street, in the back of the taxi, Harriet was in control – everything she did was quick and authoritative. She removed his glasses again but this time it was done more gently, looked into his eyes for a full second, and then kissed him firmly and comprehensively. It was the most accomplished kiss that James had ever had in his life. She pushed him into the corner of the leather seating and held his face with both hands. There could be no doubt that she was highly trained in all of this. Meanwhile, they were travelling north at great speed. James wasn’t sure exactly where, his vision was obscured, but he knew that it was further and further from home.

‘Let’s get out here,’ said Harriet, suddenly pulling herself away. ‘I need some air and some cigarettes. I need some chocolate.’

The taxi stopped at her prompting, but Harriet had neglected to negotiate a price beforehand, and so James had to hand over an incredible amount of money to the driver before they could climb out. He looked warily around him – he hadn’t been here for some time, but he knew exactly where they were. Some years ago, James had chosen to live in South London. It had almost certainly been the wrong decision, but he had self-identified and there was little he could do about it now. But that was okay, because he had studied Camden Town in depth for his planning certificate and knew exactly how it worked. He had read its strategy documents, gone over its numbers and written a high-scoring essay about it.

So he knew that the planning framework for Camden Town had for many years been predicated on the development of its night-time economy. It had been a pioneering and influential approach. You didn’t need factories any more, everyone knew that, but it had turned out you didn’t need business parks or offices either. You didn’t even need prize-winning shopping centres and generous car parking, and you certainly didn’t have to spend millions of pounds on arts centres and museums. All you really needed was lots of young people getting drunk and spending money in foolish ways. It was a winning strategy, and for years now Camden had had one of the fastest-growing economies in the country.

James had to acknowledge that it was all very dynamic and entrepreneurial. Everywhere he looked, in the bars and on the streets, in the shops which never closed, outside the churches that never opened, older people were making money by selling younger people things that they shouldn’t have but very much wanted: strong European lager, spirits mixed with caffeine and sugar, a wide variety of recreational drugs, fried food with high levels of fat and salt, contraband cigarettes and unlicensed forms of transport. James had never been to West Africa, but he imagined that the cities there looked a lot like Camden Town.

‘God, I love it here,’ said Harriet. ‘I’m feeling much better now.’

As a result of its wildly successful local economy the public realm was ruined. It looked the very opposite of James’s masterplan poster: the street furniture was broken, the pavements were littered with bin bags, soggy cardboard boxes, broken glass and polystyrene cartons, and the signage had been vandalised. The frontage of the bars, cafes and restaurants were strikingly unattractive, shrewdly designed to disorganise the senses and encourage sub-optimal decision-making. The pollution was post-industrial but nonetheless immense, for it was a product rather than merely a by-product of all the activity. All around were light, noise and misdirected energy, and the thinness of anything that tried to contain them.

It seemed to have been raining in North London, for the neon and sodium lighting of Camden’s night-time economy was reflected in shiny roads and dirty puddles. There was a stiff, cold breeze. Cars, buses, taxis, minicabs, scooters, and intoxicated young pedestrians were inharmoniously sharing a badly designed junction. Horns honked, pub doors opened sending out pub noise. Lost male undergraduates, young and new to the city, blundered across the road with their bottles of beer, recklessly trusting the traffic to stop for them. Girls with too much make-up and not enough clothes walked behind them. There were teenagers here too – white ones huddled together, brave enough to come to Camden on a Friday night, but not to do anything else. And there was at least one authentic lunatic – a man whose age was impossible to calculate, and who sat on a traffic island pulling menacing faces at anyone who dared to catch his eye. It occurred to James that for an economy dedicated entirely to pleasure, it was striking how unhappy everyone looked. The only people who seemed to be really enjoying themselves were a pair of alcoholic tramps, laughing manically in a supermarket shop front.