It was seven o’clock. It had been, he would have to say, a good day – and that, of course, was the problem. Before turning off his computer, he checked his personal email. There was a series of group emails from Adam and Carl celebrating the success of last Friday. There was an email from Alice, apologising for leaving while making it clear that the party she had left them for was well worth it. And there was an email from Graham Oakley, Director of Planning at Nottingham City Council.
James,
Haven’t spoken for a bit. I know you’re thriving in the Big Smoke, but . . .
Guy Wood is leaving us unexpectedly (long story). If you are interested, then there’s a Deputy Director job going here. Let me know what you think and whether you’re tempted at all – if so, will fill you in. Guy’s working out his 3 month notice and you know we’d love to have you back. Lots going on here. That Science Park still hasn’t happened yet!
All the best,
James read it through carefully. It was just about the most interesting email he had received in months. Out of the blue, someone was offering him a job. That was, by any standards, a big deal. Okay, it was actually his old boss asking if he’d like to go back and do something similar to his old job, but still – he was wanted. And it was a promotion: Deputy Director of Planning at Nottingham Council with all that it implied: an increased salary, better pension, professional progress, surrender.
He turned off his computer. The office was deserted, but he still risked going down in the battered little lift, in which Neil Tuffnel had once been trapped for six hours, and out through reception. He nodded goodnight to the nameless security guard and looked at his phone. There was a text message from Rachel: ‘We’re going for an Indian if you fancy it.’ But James didn’t fancy it. He walked to the train station under the communist weather, his shoulders hunched, his face bowed, looking for answers in scuffed shoes and the cracks in the pavement.
Why not just take the job? He’d be a bloody fool not to. Deputy Director – a big job in a small team, but all planning teams were small these days. Lionel didn’t even have a deputy any more. Besides, he was through with London. He had done London twice, he had studied here and he’d worked here. He’d written masterplans, analysed traffic patterns and compiled spreadsheets. He’d given it a good go, and it just hadn’t panned out – it was a perfectly honourable defeat.
No, he should leave, and leave soon, for he knew it was going to end badly. He could see it in the crowds outside the pubs, gently cupping their cigarettes and grievances, and the bottles of beer spitefully dropped next to the recycling bins. The imprecise and rudimentarily structured anger, the poorly evidenced suspicions, all slowly souring and thickening into something else, something more dangerous. The people of London, all seven million of them, had come to realise who was to blame for all this and it turned out that it wasn’t the bankers after all. Nor was it the television presenters or East European labourers. It wasn’t even the politicians – no, it was their servants. It was the public servants who had fucked things up for everyone. It was the planners.
There was no use looking anywhere else for support. For the ones that needed him the most were actually the ones that liked him the least. The economically functional treated him with suspicion, but it was the others who were most bitter: the bewildered old men on social security benefits and the crowds that build up on the steps of post offices on a Thursday morning. Little pools of zero-utility people, trapped and held together by nothing more adhesive than a disused bus shelter and their anger. They all hated him, they hated everyone who tried to help them. And James did try to help – it was what he had just spent the whole day doing. It was what he did every day.
Well, maybe it was time for that to change. Maybe he needed to start helping himself a bit more. He should go to Nottingham, and not because Graham Oakley wanted him or the people of Nottingham needed him, but because it was a better job, he would earn more money and he wouldn’t have to live in Crystal Palace. Was there anything more to it than that?
3
1 February
London’s cultural and creative sectors are central to the city’s economic and social success.
– The London Plan, Section 4.32
It had taken James most of the week to write a reply to Graham Oakley – a long, friendly email that exaggerated all the things he was doing in Southwark, cautiously welcomed his offer and, while making it clear that he was very happy and not likely to consider leaving, made some off-hand enquiries about the role. Graham had replied almost immediately.