That was, if you thought about it, what planning was all about: to let liberty flourish, to design a place in which people from all around the world could come and make themselves unhappy in as many ways as possible. And nothing, absolutely nothing he could think of, better exemplified this than where he was now. For James was at the opening of a visual art show in East London. He was at a private view – an event attended exclusively by trendsetters, opinion formers, thought leaders and, unusually, a town planner from Southwark Council.
For once, the venue was everything that James had hoped for. For nearly a hundred years it had been a printworks. Steel beams still passed above their heads from which brackets and belts would once have hung, connected to cast-iron printing presses and their crates of paper, binding machines, refuse bins and tanks of ink and glue. But those had all gone – rendered uncompetitive by East Asia and replaced by white walls and economically productive empty space. It was, thought James, exactly the kind of B2 light-industrial site that was ideal for an art gallery – the planning permission would have been an easy decision.
James had gone straight there. He no longer needed to meet up beforehand for a heart-warming gin and coaching session. Unlike with the book launch, the nightclub or football match, James was going alone. Well, not quite alone – he had taken Harriet with him. It wasn’t exactly a date, he was through with those, and anyway he’d decided that the concept was flawed. Rather, it was an evening out to which he had happened to bring along an attractive young woman. It was, as Felix might have said, an intelligent piece of repositioning.
Of course, he had thought about asking Rachel to come. But they had only seen each other once that week, in a waste-management meeting, and besides, she would have hated it here. But what did that say about her?
‘This place looks ace,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s totally my sort of thing.’
Outside, James knew, East London was unravelling. The factories had closed, the bankers had fucked up, the buildings were falling down and the buses had stopped working. Everyone was going mentally ill. But that was okay – because he was on the inside. He might not be that far away, but he was insulated from all the ones who had to queue, all those people in shopping centres who still drank beer in carpeted pubs and in public consultations said that crime was their biggest concern. He was with the artists, the creative entrepreneurs and the middlemen who made everything work. The only criminals here were drug dealers, and they had all been invited. It was London’s cockpit, the East. It wasn’t Soho where the story had now come to an end, and it wasn’t Camden – it wasn’t indiscriminate and tasteless. It wasn’t even like Clerkenwell, which had got too clever for its own good. It wasn’t necessarily very strategic, but nonetheless it was the direction that London was moving in – the visual artists and the town planners, the ones that were any good, all knew it.
‘Felix! It’s so good to see you. It’s been absolutely ages.’
‘Harriet – I didn’t know you were coming.’
Felix looked at James with a craftily raised eyebrow, as if he had done something that he would regret. That was, of course, perfectly possible. The main thing was that he was making decisions, even if they were ill advised, and that Harriet was looking very pretty. Possibly more dishonest, but definitely pretty – the weeks in Morocco had lightened her long hair, put deep round freckles on her forearms and darkened her face, so she could hide her inconsistencies better than ever.
‘Well, you needn’t look so grumpy about it. James invited me. It serves you right for not calling me any more.’
‘Well, never mind all that,’ said Felix. ‘Let’s get a drink. Ah, here we are.’
A woman walked past with a tray of beautiful drinks – tall slim glasses containing a range of pastel-coloured liquids, sprigs of dark-green mint and slices of unexpected fruit.
‘All the drinks are vodka-based cocktails,’ explained Felix. ‘It’s being sponsored by a drinks brand that we’re relaunching. They need to be associated with prize-winning contemporary artists instead of Glaswegian alcoholics.’
James nodded. ‘That’s very good planning,’ he said.
He sipped his cocktail. Apart from the vodka, he had no idea what was in it, but it was a nice pink colour, and sweet and strong. He could probably drink about ten of them. Harriet had seen someone across the room and disappeared. James wasn’t surprised. She was highly social, capable of interacting in a number of original ways, and anyway – didn’t she have at least a bit of a degree in art history?