Don Winslow - A Cool Breeze on the Underground

Neal wondered about a bunch of things as he watched his countrymen absorb the culture of the Main Drag. He wondered how many of them, wary of visiting really foreign lands where people spoke a different language and did really strange things, realized that a good proportion of the Third World had migrated right here to good old civilized London; that many of the Empire’s former subjects had taken the phrase Commonwealth at face value and decided to try to get a little bit of the common wealth in the heart of the imperial city. It was a cruel joke, really, considering the fact that these Africans, Asians, and West Indians had created a big chunk of that wealth back in the good old days in their native lands when they bought at inflated prices the cheap consumer goods cranked out in factories in Manchester and Birmingham, and marketed by London firms. Well, the good old days were long gone, blown away by the Marne trenches, and the Blitz, and the “winds of change” that had transformed the British Empire into the British Commonwealth, or as some wags would have it, the Commonpoor. Neal wondered how many of the tourists would get beyond the artificial Mary Poppins land of tourist London to go into the Brixton slums and Notting Hill Gate hovels, or onto the stretch of Bayswater Road that had become known as “Little Karachi,” or how many would journey north from London to the vast rust belt of the industrial Midlands, where the factories had lost their markets, or up into the sooty coal towns that made their West Virginia cousins look like Opryland, USA. He wondered how a supposedly intelligent man in his fifties could be so stupid as to carry his wallet in his back pants pocket.

Another phenomenon that engaged Neal (what the hell, he had nothing else to do while on this fool’s errand) was the propensity of American tourists to wear clothing extolling the virtues of hometowns they had just paid lots of money to escape. It seemed that half the people he observed wore T-shirts with slogans such as NO PLACE BUT ELKHART and I LUV ALBUQUERQUE, or baseball caps proclaiming loyalty to home teams, which under further consideration Neal realized he understood perfectly. After all, he was the one who checked the papers twice a day to get the baseball scores and root in absentia for Steinbrenner’s team to win the Pennant, which even Neal acknowledged was like cheering for the Nazis to overrun Holland. He wondered why he was being so goddamn superior to the tourists and their expression of affection for their homes. Shit, he thought, he’d rather be home, too. He wondered why, though. He also wondered where the hell this dealer was. And where, oh where, has my little Allie gone? Seven weeks, now, and still counting.

Meanwhile, the hawkers and the gawkers were always well established by one or two o’clock, and by two-thirty or so the freaks, winos, druggies, and hard-core crazies moved on to their ordained places onstage, waiting with varying degrees of patience for the bit players to clear off.

Neal would get off his bench around this time and stroll over to the Dilly on the odd chance that Allie had opted out of the pro ranks to join the recalcitrant hippies and fake down-and-out young travel scene that gathered to sit like stoned vultures around the statue of Eros. These kids sat hunched over, checking out the other kids, watching the swirling traffic, passing the surreptitious joint, enormously self-satisfied with their mass nonconformity. Allie was never there, individual nonconformity being her particular taste and talent. Neal felt sorry, though, for poor Eros, doomed to watch over a mob of kids for whom sex had become so commonplace it was an absolute bore. And aren’t you developing a fine and snooty sense of irony? he thought. He didn’t like himself much these days.

The futile walk gave him an excuse to stretch his legs and shift the dried sweat around a little, and also work up a little fresh sweat. His route took him past, and all too often into, a Wimpy Bar, which brought up melancholy memories of Nick’s. He learned to smother the piece of cardboard the Brits called a hamburger with mustard (extra charge), catsup (ditto), and salt (on the house) before choking it down along with the greasy chips, which is what the Brits called their poor facsimile of French fries.

After the first week, he had begun to vary his route. He would walk down St. Martin’s Lane, past the perpetual demonstration outside the South Africa Embassy, over to Trafalgar Square. He’d check out the throngs of tourists and school groups milling around Nelson’s column. Good old Lord Nelson, who in winning the great naval battle of Trafalgar saved England from Napoleon and assured the rights of all Englishmen to drive on the wrong bloody side of the road. Then Neal would cross over on to Whitehall Street and wend his way through the crowd on the narrow sidewalk, then through Horse Guards barracks, across Horse Guards Road, and into St. James’s Park.

If there was any spot in London that Neal at his most xenophobic had to admit he loved, it was St. James’s Park. Here was refuge. Built around a superbly designed manmade lake, the park was an oasis of gentility in its finest sense. The towers of Buckingham Palace peeked in the distance over the several hundred varieties of the park’s trees. Neal would stroll, yes stroll, along the walkway to a large kiosk that sold tea, sandwiches, and pastries. He didn’t even mind standing in line at the cafeteria there, but would purchase his cup of tea, a couple of sugary doughnuts or perhaps a ham sandwich, and then walk over to the lakeside. Here he would rent a chair for ten pence and throw bits of doughnut and bread to the ducks, of which there were a stunning variety. He was sure he would have noticed Allie Chase if she had been riding on the back of one of the humongous black swans that glided past him, but otherwise he forgot about the case altogether.

On a bandstand near the kiosk, a military band played show tunes and light classics to a crowd gathered in canvas chairs or picnicking on the grassy slope. Neal, who hated military bands, show tunes, and light classics, grew quite fond of the daily concert and was sorry when the IRA blew up the bandstand later that summer, putting an end to the music and killing two soldiers.

This was old England, Neal thought, or at least it was what he thought old England might have been or should have been. The tourists went mostly to Hyde Park, but St. James’s Park was usually full of nannies wheeling prams or looking after toddlers, government workers from the nearby Whitehall ministries on lunch break, and retirees for whom a walk in this place was a daily routine.

After finishing his tea, Neal would sometimes walk north to the Mall, up Waterloo Place to lower Regent Street, and up to Piccadilly. Or he would head south down Horse Guards Road to Great George Street, Bridge Street, nod to Big Ben, then take the long hike up Victoria Embankment.

This broad promenade along the bank of the Thames was a haunt for some vagrants and kids, but it never produced Allie Chase for him. Still, he made it a habit. He preferred active futility over passive futility, even if he was breaking Joe Graham’s philosophy of the fat and happy tiger.

He’d get back to the square by 3:30 or 4:00, check out the scene, and then steel himself for the coming ordeal in the Underground. Each afternoon, he’d make the rounds of several tube stations during rush hour. Even amateur, unaffiliated panhandlers can make out okay in a big city during rush hour, if they have any smarts at all and a nice face. Allie had both, so Neal would launch himself on a two-hour journey from Leicester Square to Piccadilly, change to the Bakerloo Line and go to Charing Cross, check out the huge station there and then carry on to Embankment, change to the Circle Line, hit Victoria, Sloane Square, South Kensington, and Gloucester Road. There he would switch to the District Line for a quick swing to grimy Earl’s Court and then carry on up to Notting Hill Gate, where he hoped he wouldn’t find her, and on north to Paddington, where he would catch the Metropolitan Line, make a quick check of Baker Street, which always brought Sherlock Holmes to mind (maybe he could locate Allie), and over to King’s Cross, where he’d take the long Underground hike through the suburban commuter crowds to get back on the Piccadilly Line, have a peek at the Covent Garden station, and then back to Leicester Square.