The Planner(76)

Nobody dawdled in Canary Wharf, everyone had a purpose and moved quickly across the squares, anxious not to be in the open air and unproductive. There were no post offices for people to huddle outside, no library steps where tramps could drink cans of cider. There was no graffiti or litter either – the public space was respected and well cared for, probably because it wasn’t actually owned by the public. It wasn’t really used by the public either, except to walk between the towers and then in July to eat lunch from boxes of sushi. A hundred yards away, ignored, was the river Thames.

All of the people that James could see made a significant contribution to the wealth of the nation while making the world a worse place to live in. They worked in business services, and spent their lives helping international corporations to pay less tax, acquire commercial rivals, exploit monopoly positions, evade environmental regulations and skirt legal responsibilities. They were central to the functioning of the modern economy. Twenty thousand other people travelled in every day to make them coffee, serve them lunch and guard the buildings. It was, everyone had agreed, a tremendous success, the sort of place that Laura would approve of. To his right, in a tower on the corner of the square, was the law firm where Adam worked.

James too was here on business. Although not, strictly speaking, Southwark Council business. He had got better at this, and hadn’t bothered calling in sick. He had just put ‘external meeting’ in his calendar and left the office without telling anyone. He hadn’t told Felix either. Felix would only have warned him against it, and then given an illuminating but unhelpful lecture on modern business practices. It was the problem with having a friendship on a pro bono basis – you only got the advice and guidance that he wanted to give you. And, anyway – what did it have to do with him?

Felix Selwood. There was no doubt he’d come into James’s life at the right time, that he had helped him, been generous, and that he knew some valuable things: strip bars, drug dealers, aesthetics, metaphysics and what was going to happen to capitalism. But were they really going to be friends? In theory, there were good reasons why James ought to feel grateful to Felix, but of course he felt no such thing. He knew that just because there was such a word as gratitude, it didn’t mean that it existed. Not really, and certainly not between adult men. If you gave someone what they desperately needed, then all you ever got back was relief and resentment. Anyone who worked in the public sector knew that.

No, if anything, it was Felix who ought to thank James. For two months James had been, just like Erica had said, one of his projects. He had allowed Felix to boss him, to instruct him, practise his speeches, elaborate on his worldview. There were few greater pleasures. Whatever other motives he might have, and there could be all sorts, that would be plenty. It was time that James got to do some things for Felix – to buy him expensive drinks, introduce him to useful business contacts and make informative pronouncements on the property market. It would serve him fucking well right.

He hadn’t told Rachel either. He hadn’t spoken to her since that night in Bloomsbury, but he knew she wouldn’t want him to be here – for sound reasons, but also probably some selfish ones as well. If he was ever going to try and kiss her again, then it would be so much easier if he worked somewhere else and earned more than her, but that didn’t necessarily mean she’d be celebrating his success. After all, he never did for any of his friends. But you had to look out for yourself in this world, no one else was going to do it for you. That was the true message of Canary Wharf.

James rose abruptly. He was still early, but he needed to get going, for Canary Wharf was no place for brooders. It was a place where people got things done, where decisions were made and deals were struck. He left the coffee bar and marched diagonally across the square. There was no doubt, he fitted in well – dark suited with briefcase and square glasses, his head up and focused on the task ahead. The spring air was thin and mild, and he was caffeinated, confident, purposeful. It was, for once, a good cause: he was doing something for himself instead of the council, instead of for Lionel.

The doors of the tower opened silently before him. Inside, it was like being in a small airport. There were security guards and electronic gates, a marbled bank of receptionists with headsets. There was a coffee shop identical to the one he’d just been in, and a large copper-plated cube suspended on a steel rod, an abstract artwork, which looked exactly like the type of thing that town planners put in the middle of shopping centres, except this one hadn’t been vandalised. He gave his name, showed some identification and was efficiently processed and directed towards a lift.