Ian Sansom - Flaming Sussex

But in London: birdsong?

I remember being momentarily confused. I lay gazing at a crack in the ceiling above me, through which it would have been possible to insert my fist.

Was that the sound of birds?

Was I in Norfolk?

Or was I back in Spain?

Was I dreaming?

It was definitely the sound of birds. Lots of birds.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see empty beer bottles and cigarette butts piled in a saucer. The place, wherever it was, seemed dirty and unloved. I raised myself up on my elbow. There was a woman lying asleep beside me.

And then I remembered.

It had been a very long night.

I turned my head. My clothes lay discarded on the floor. The Limehouse chap and another woman lay sleeping in a bed opposite. There was a lighted cigarette smouldering in an ashtray on an upturned case by the bed, and what looked like a fresh glass of whisky perched precariously next to it.

I took some deep breaths and then coughed quietly in order to gauge any response.

Nothing.

Having thus determined to my satisfaction that my new friends were either fast asleep or at least innocently dozing, I rose quickly and quietly, intent on hanging on to whatever remained of my dignity and in my wallet, gathered up my clothes and fled from the room, down a dark stairway and along a corridor towards a door.

It was precisely at that moment, cold and ashamed, and the previous evening’s activities returning clearly to my mind, that I determined that I should no longer live my life as a slave to my whims and desires, or indeed as a slave to the whims and desires of others, but that I should once again attempt to master myself and my destiny. It was then that I determined that I had had enough of being used by life, by London, and by everyone. Morley believed that on our grand tour we were surveying one of the great wonders of the world – Great Britain – and London of course, as it always has, believed it was the great city in this Great Britain, but at that time, in those years, it felt nothing like great and I felt nothing but forever lost and losing, a man condemned to life on a slowly sinking ship.

Stumbling as I reached the door, I thought I heard movement from my companions up above, and so fled from this latest prison of my temporary lodgings with new resolve – and into a scene of utter chaos.

IT WAS THE SOUND OF BIRDS, and it was the sound as much as the sight that struck me, a cacophony of whistles and trills, accompanied by the bass-soprano of the voices of men and women, and the deeply disturbing sound of whimpering animals.

‘ Pretty foreign birds! Pretty foreign birds! ’

Out on the street, as far as the eye could see, piled one upon the other, there were cages full of birds: larks, thrushes, canaries, pigeons and parrots. There were also dogs and cats in boxes, and chickens and snakes and gerbils and guinea pigs and weasels and tortoises, and goodness knows what else, animals of every kind everywhere. Here, a new-born litter of puppies tumbling over each other in a child’s cot being used as a makeshift pen. There, a raggedy black rooster peering out of an old laundry basket. And endlessly, everywhere you looked, there were bulldogs and boxers and pit bulls straining at their leashes, restrained by men who looked like bulldogs, boxers and pit bulls straining at their leashes. It was a Noah’s Ark, with flat caps and cobbles.

I’d forgotten about the market.

On Sundays, in those days, the centre of London shifted; it went east to Bethnal Green and its environs, from the junction with Bethnal Green Road and Shoreditch High Street, onto Sclater Street and Chance Street and Cheshire Street: here, on Sundays, you could buy and sell just about anything. Petticoat Lane, down by Aldgate, became the people’s Piccadilly, the mecca for cheap, cheerful and ‘unofficial’ goods: on Sundays, the East End became the dirty, cracked dark mirror of the West.

And here I was, in the midst of it, Club Row Market – the place where the working men and women of London came for their animals. A nightmare of containment and enclosure.

As I shut the door behind me and entered the chaos, I remember looking up and noting that opposite, across the road, there was a wet fish shop with the traditional, unnecessary sign outside, ‘Fresh Fish Sold Here’. (This sort of signage was one of Morley’s many bugbears, addressed in one of his popular, hectoring Some Dos and Don’ts pamphlets, Shop Signage: Some Dos and Don’ts . ‘We know it’s “Here”, because it’s here, we know it is being “Sold” because it is a shop, and if not “Fresh”, then, frankly, what? So “Fish”, in short, for a fish shop, will suffice.’) A man in a white apron stood outside the ‘Fish’ shop, scooping jet-black, chopped, gelatinous jellied eels into white enamel bowls: the mere sight of it made me want to retch; I had to struggle to contain myself. Pausing mid-scoop, as if having sensed my dis-ease, the man in the apron looked across at me and scowled in disapproval. Gagging rather, I glanced away to see standing directly in front of me an elderly gentleman in a fez selling hot roasted nuts from a pan heated over a metal drum of embers set upon a simple wooden trolley. I could feel the heat on my skin. This man too looked directly at me and shook his head, acknowledging and also somehow regretting my very presence.

Which was when I realised I was naked.

Fortunately there were so many people jamming the street – it could have been a medieval fair, or a football crowd – that no one paid much attention as I huddled in the doorway and frantically pulled on my trousers, shirt, jacket and shoes. The problem was not that I was getting dressed, but that I was getting in people’s way.

‘Oi, oi,’ came one cry.

‘Oy, oy,’ came another.

‘Mind out the pave!’

‘You on the bash, mate, or what?’

‘Shove over!’

Hastily dressed, I looked back towards the hot-nut man, who nodded at my newly clothed state with calm approval. I put my shoulders back, took a deep breath, turned left and set off quickly down the street.

It was good to be back in the city.

People used to say that you could enter Club Row Market at one end leading a dog, lose it halfway down the street, and then buy it back at the other end. Certainly, it was a place where the usual rules of commerce did not necessarily apply: bruised and beaten dogs were covered in boot polish; cats were dyed; exotic singing birds turned out to be voiceless creatures, their song merrily whistled by their merry vendors as they merrily bagged them up and merrily took your money. Fortunately, it was a place where a man might easily get lost in a crowd.

It was a crisp, bright morning, though dark clouds on the horizon suggested that some cold grey London rain was soon to arrive and turn crisp and bright into dull and damp. I barged my way along the street, continually checking over my shoulder for sight of the Limehouse chap and his ladies – sight of whom, thank goodness, there was none. I barged past men and women hawking animals, bicycles, knives, tea-sets, stockings, second-hand suits and the day’s papers, all at half-price, fresh from outside newsagents in the West End. There were high-value goods at rock-bottom prices, ‘genuine’ articles almost as good as the real thing, and on every street corner urgent men and their accomplices were conducting Dutch auctions that left their customers with half of what they bid for, or nothing at all.

‘ Brand new, madam. Never seen daylight or moonlight, or Fanny by gaslight. ’