Impressions Of London (cont.)

She missed Margaret Thatcher.  “Didn’t matter whether one liked her or not; at least we knew she’d put things right.  Stupid bloody thing to do, getting rid of her.

“But isn’t the current PM doing well?” I ask.

“Yes, but he’s too nice.  Maggie wasn’t nice.  She was formidable and effective.”

We talked about the National Health Service.  I asked her how things had changed.

“Well, doctors are writing less prescriptions, ordering less tests.  It does make sense to put physicians in charge of budgets.  Make them accountable.”  She compared the National Health Service to France’s prospective payment system.

We got up and walked up Horseferry Street together. 

“I’m in the book,” she invited.  “If you get really lonely, give me a call.”

Despite a park full of people, Kensington Gardens remained largely silent, subdued.  No radios blaring, no loud teenagers, even small children played without screeching.   

In my new hotel (I’m now in Bayswater, having left grim Pimlico) six young Japanese women, traveling tightly together.  A Spanish man, by way of Canada, traveling without his wife, who calls him, interrupting his breakfast.  An older married couple from Israel, she complaining of the prices and the many stairs in the hotel, he smiling, as if in apology for his wife’s surliness.  Two French women: one quite old and wizened, perhaps the grandmother; the other thin and young.  The granddaughter translates and never eats.  Two German couples, looking healthy, well-to-do, middle class.  And me.

I firmly believe that if you take a wrong turn on the many levels and pathways of the Tube, you will end up in Hell.  It smells like Hell, sulfuric and smoky.  It feels like Hell; a hot whistling wind comes up preceding each train.  It looks like Hell; well, maybe not Piccadilly and some of the larger, newly rejuvenated stations.  But the smaller stations are old, crumbling, squeaky, haunted.  And the people on the trains, with blank subtly terrified faces, look like they are on the road to Hell.  Be careful down there.  The next beggar may hide horns and tail and try to steal your soul; the street musician whose eerie flute follows you from level to level may not really exist.  A train, nearly empty, may swallow you up and never stop, hurtling, spiraling downwards, downwards until you cross the River Styx. 

The churchyard of St. James Piccadilly is a most urbane yet countrified spot.  The moment you step off busy Piccadilly you enter a special world which blends now with a day lost in the 17th Century.  This is a small Christopher Wren church, built between 1676 and 1684.  It is a vital part of the city today, offering a lively program of talks, discussion, recitals and debates.  A pleasant cafe, The Wren, is attached to it; and terraced above the churchyard is a small park, Northwood, where workers lunch and shoppers rest.  I gravitate here, a place to rest and munch grapes, check my camera lens, write a few notes and have bracing, invigorating tea.  Tea which restores the weary city searcher for more meandering.  I wonder how many other visiting souls have found solace here.

The orderly, organized life of the English.  Boundaries are set, rules observed.  Tea at Fortnum and Mason.  I am sitting at the counter towards the back, marveling at the precision with which food and drink is dispensed.  This counter is the coffee-tea-frozen dessert counter.  Five women work behind it; four are immigrant Caribbean or Trinidadian, maybe.  The fifth is a laconic, tired looking English woman who would be dangling a cigarette from her lips if allowed.

A call is made for two desserts, a Dusty Road and a Tropical Surprise.  Immediately two of the women go to work.  Two dessert dishes are tumbled down from a shelf.  The Dusty Road contains vanilla ice cream, mocha ice cream, caramel syrup, whipped cream, a sprinkling of cinnamon and nuts.  It’s topped by a glace cherry and two triangular shaped wafers.  The Tropical Surprise contains pineapple, ice cream, mango, more ice cream, whipped cream, etc.  While the two women are building this, two others prepare pots of tea and an iced coffee.  These women are the dispensers of sugar as well; an empty bowl is brought for replenishing.  Specialists in the dessert world, a practiced system for serving ladies made peckish from shopping.

Up the Portobello Road on Queensway in Bayswater, over on Kensington High Street, up Notting Hill, thin girls with little money make intriguing fashion statements.  They are young.  The younger the girl, the more intriguing the statement.  But older women too who may be able to afford designer labels seek the satisfaction and accomplishment of putting an outfit together from cast-offs.

“What’s in the package,” said one fashion lady to the other; this is in the La Gallerie Cafe, a vegetarian place off the Portobello Road.

“It’s a book, a bloody great book.”

“What, no clothes?!  I found this great coat in a shop:  it’s wool, and has this sort of great collar, which goes over here and under and makes a hood like Maid Marian.”

“How much?”  Long pause.

“Three hundred fifty two pounds.”

“Did you get it?”

“What do you think?”

The door to the cafe opens and a tall, slender woman enters.

“Oh look, there’s Jacqueline.”

“Oh God, what a great suit!  Where did you get it?”  Jacqueline is wearing a baggy purple pantsuit, hiking boots and huge dangling earrings.

“Oxfam,” she answers.

“How come I never find stuff like that at Oxfam?”

Her companion said, “Because you’re off looking at coats you can’t afford.”

She laughed.  “And you’re buying books you’ll never read!”

You can never walk too much in London.  I have walked many miles and still have so much to see.  From Paddington through Little Venice to St. John’s Wood.  Along the narrow streets of The City.  Battling traffic on Brompton Road.  Emerging from a tube station near St. Paul’s.  Down Oxford Street, up Regents Street, around Charing Cross Road.  From Regents Park, down Marylebone to Baker Street.  And more.  As I walk, I make the city mine.

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