How was your week?
Mine was a bit of a wash out. Not only did it seem to always be raining, or threatening to rain, or else the pavements were slick with rain that had just fallen. Everything seemed soggy all week. And cold.
It was also my first week back at work after an extended Christmas break. I’d planned to throw myself into this New Year with gusto (I have drawn up plans and everything! And feel I have a lot of gusto in the tank after the inactivities of 2020) but it was not to be.
I had Covid over the Christmas holidays and although my symptoms were thankfully negligible (I had a single day of shivers and a slight temperature and then felt a bit run down for a few days) I have continued to tire after lunch each day since, particularly by late afternoon. My concentration dips at that point, leaving me hanging on to the working day by my finger tips. As such I’ve been creeping home early from work some time after four. Just as dusk dissolves the day light and night starts to ink in the city.
I huddled in the almost empty tube carriages, taking myself home as fast as I could go. But on a couple of occassions, I came outside to find there was an interlude between rainfalls and decided to walk to Victoria staion from Soho, rather than get the tube home from Oxford Circus, as is my usual commute. It felt good to blow the cobwebs away and also to have a look at what was going on in London.
I left after dark the first time. Soho was as quiet as I’ve ever seen it. My commute audio book was Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul and I listened on headphones as I walked. Whereas the novel is set in sunny, steamy northern Argentina, quite a contrast to London in midwinter, there is a gentle paranoia in it which fits nicely with the empty streets of the capital. Almost all the bars, restaurants and shops of Soho are closed and it turns out there are not a huge number of street lights in the side streets. It was dark. The pavements were oily with rainwater and empty except for neon lights caught in murky puddles and an occassional masked person hurrying head down into the darkness. Other than that I had Soho to myself. It felt unnatural and not a little unnerving for the streets to be so silent. No music, no talking, no police sirens. Bar Italia, The Dog & Duck, Ronnie Scotts all silent and empty. Soho Square, Berwick Street, Gerrard Street: tumbleweed. As Dr Plarr was pursued by the persistent, insidious Colonel Perez in the story in my head, I turned and twisted to check if anybody was behind me and forced my fingers into the shape of a gun in the pocket of my coat like Michael Corleone outside the hospital in The Godfather.
I came out onto a Shaftesbury Avenue which was stripped of its bustling crowd of theatre-goes. There was only me and a Chinese couple in masks holding hands and a couple of red buses and some black cabs (all with their orange light on, available for hire) flying up the empty road. I thought of those taxi drivers and their cousins, the Uber drivers. How were they making ends meet in this lockdown world? How do they feel after a day of driving round looking for a rare fare? Bored, resentful, angry, suicidal? The Honorary Consul talks about religion and I found myself sending a prayer in the air to those poor drivers and others struggling under this lockdown. Piccadilly Circus was so quiet I walked round the Eros statue twice, taking photos of buildings normally obscured by traffic.
I walked along Piccadilly and thought of the lost River Tyburn that crosses the street before flowing underneath Buckingham Palace that I had learned about listening to a podcast with the historian Tom Holland earlier in the week. I turned into Green Park, following its course. The park has no lights and I turned my headphones off and walked quickly whilst listening out for mad axe men who might be coming at me out of the darkness!
My heart pounding a little, I escaped the park onto the Mall where I came upon the entrance to Buckingham Palace. I had it all to myself except for soldiers sporting bearskin hats, wrapped in overcoats and keeping guard in their boxes. I hung around there in the drizzle enjoying my splendid isolation. I’d never seen the Palace without tourists before.
Enough, already!
It was dark, I was getting cold. Time for home. I followed the wall around the edge of the Palace grounds before turning towards Victoria Tube Station. I walked down the steps alone. I passed through the gates and took the escalator down into the bowels of the building alone. There was one person on my platform and when I stepped onto the tube there were three other people in my carriage. Still it was rush hour…
These are strange days indeed….
