The Planner (11 page)

‘But that’s not what I do at all. I—’

‘I know it’s not what you try to do. I’m not questioning your morals or anything. It’s just what invariably happens. It’s not even about economics. The way I see it is this: when people spend money on themselves, okay, it’s not great – in my case I tend to buy books I’ll never get round to reading. But when people spend money that belongs to somebody else, on behalf of other people, well, that’s never going to work is it? Even if they’re clever and well meaning it’s unlikely to work. Never mind if they’re stupid or venal. And let’s be honest: almost everyone we work with is one or the other.’

‘And what about the environment? You must worry about that? What happens when people do whatever selfish thing they like, and end up destroying the planet?’

‘Oh God, yes – the environment. Don’t worry – I’m not one of those mad old men who hasn’t had sex for thirty years and is convinced that climate change is a plot invented by communists. It’s just that, somehow, I can’t bring myself to worry all that much about it. And, of course, I can’t stand woolly headed environment­alists, who do seem to be the only type there are.’

James stared across the room. He couldn’t be sure if it was Laura’s worldview or the pub that was making him so dispirited. There were two young men in duffel coats drinking lemonade and pushing buttons on a quiz machine, a red-faced man at the bar reading a tabloid newspaper and four middle-aged North American tourists sipping half pints of bitter and consulting their guidebooks, wondering if they had the right to feel let down or not. The barwoman, a young Ukrainian with poor skin, was playing a game on her mobile phone. He decided to go to the bathroom.

‘It’s not true,’ he said, as he got up. ‘About everyone we work with being so awful and so useless.’

Although actually it was. He might not be prepared to admit it, but he would accept that it was at least partly true. For even now, he was still dismayed by his colleagues. Okay, Graham in Nottingham hadn’t been so bad and Rachel was good at her job, but where were all the highly competent taciturn professionals with specialist technical skills and for whom service was its own reward? Why weren’t they more like him or, failing that, why weren’t they more like nobody at all? Why were they so much like themselves? Why were they so much like
Lionel?

They were unmistakably inner-London pub toilets: small and ancient with inadequate ventilation, the damp walls had been coated comprehensively but unreassuringly with a dark red paint, and a urinous tang was still perceptible beneath the carbolic acid. But at least they were empty, and there was no danger of anyone else trying to wash his hands for him. James checked his phone. There were three text messages from Rachel: The first one said: ‘Are u still with L or have you bored her already?’ The second, sent two hours later said: ‘I thought you’d get on. U owe me for this’ and the third, sent an hour after that said: ‘OMG! Your most probably having sex right now’. Although probably impossible, maybe he should have gone on a date with Rachel instead. He would, in as much as this counted for anything, have enjoyed it more.

He tried to order two small white wines, but it seemed that such a concept no longer really existed, and he returned to the table with two unhelpfully large glasses, which he knew could determine the trajectory of the evening if he didn’t keep his wits about him. By now they had had so much to drink and so little to eat that it didn’t really matter what they talked about. They discussed Rachel for a while – James was sure she wouldn’t have minded – and speculated as to why she didn’t have a boyfriend. And then Laura embarked on a long account of how the Treasury worked and all the things she did there, which seemed to centre around the fact that they had better mathematical models and more robust data than the economists at the Department of Work and Pensions whom, as far as James could tell, were sort of her rivals. In turn James told her what it was like working in local government, and she gamely asked lots of questions about his job and shook her head solemnly whenever James admitted to inefficiencies or organisational failings.

‘You know, I’ve never really got local government,’ she said. ‘I know it’s fashionable these days for everyone in central government to say how important it is. But it just seems to be full of busybodies who don’t know anything about economics.’

‘Yes,’ said James. ‘It largely is. That’s probably why I like it.’

Anyway, the good news was that Laura wanted very much to kiss him. She’d probably had too much to drink, but that didn’t account for the manner in which she was leaning across the table and reaching out to hold his hand. No longer combative, she was now attempting to be amorous. But of course she was far less good at this. Laura’s talents were of a higher level than James’s: she was accomplished at scrutinising spreadsheets, identifying flaws in public policy arguments and being disagreeable in meetings whenever someone wanted to spend money. But she had no talent at all for being friendly, let alone for seduction. She was, thought James and it rather impressed him that this had occurred to him, bound to be terrible in bed.

‘So what do you want to do next?’ said Laura. ‘Shall I get another drink? Or we could get some food if you like?’

He had never expected this to happen, but it was clear that, however much wine they drank, James was now in control of the evening, and what happened next would depend on how he felt about it. And how did he feel about it? Well, many things, but above all he felt
tired
. He was tired of the small dark pub with its prints of Victorian London and illustrations from Charles Dickens imported from the Philippines, he was tired of eating roasted peanuts and salt and vinegar crisps, and he was even tired of them being the most attractive people there. But changing the venue, which he could easily do if he wanted, wasn’t going to help, for most of all, he was tired of Laura.

‘Let’s go,’ said James. ‘I think we’ve had all the fun we can out of this place.’

Laura sprung up to leave, with an over-eagerness and willingness to please that her professional conditioning was meant to have suppressed.

‘Yes, good idea. I think if we stay any longer we’ll soon reach the point of negative marginal utility.’

As she said this, she urged a chuckle into her voice, to make it clear she was attempting a joke.

Outside, it was quiet, as the streets often were in the very centre of London, as if the entire ruling class had left for a cocktail party. All around them were substantial square buildings made of Portland Stone, set back from the road and protected by cast-iron railings. It was here that plans were drawn up and instructions issued for the rest of the country by public servants who were far better paid than James and enrolled on to different pension schemes. But it was Friday night, and the lights were all out. Nor was it clear that anyone was listening anyway. And maybe Laura was right, maybe it was for the best if no one in government did anything other than come up with compelling reasons for not doing anything. It wasn’t as if anyone seemed to like what James did. That was another problem with spending an evening in the company of somebody who was right-wing: you often ended up agreeing with them.

‘So whereabouts in London do you live?’ said James.

‘I’m in Balham,’ said Laura.

James nodded. He could have guessed that.

‘Yes, it’s nice there,’ he said, absent-mindedly.

He wondered what Alice was doing that evening. She wouldn’t be in a pub in Whitehall, that was for sure. Primrose Hill, Notting Hill, Islington, Farringdon – even James knew that no one who lived in London, who really
lived
in London, spent their evenings in the town centre. At any rate, it was a consolation that Laura was better looking than her.

‘Yes, I really like it. It’s got everything really. And fortunately my brother and I bought our flat there a while ago, just as prices really started to rocket.’

‘Oh, that’s great,’ said James. ‘What does your brother do?’

‘He’s an economist too,’ said Laura. ‘But he works for a bank.’

They walked together down the road in the direction of the Tube station – it seemed to suit them both not to specify a plan for the moment. Laura lurched heavily into him and put an arm over his shoulder but, again, she was no good at this sort of thing and it wasn’t clear if she was trying to be intimate or had clumsy ankles. James tried to think of something to say, something about her brother or Balham or the global economy, but it was difficult. It was difficult because he wasn’t interested. He already knew what her flat would be like, that it would have a glass coffee table, stainless steel kitchenware and blonde wood furniture, and he knew approximately how much it was worth, and the kinds of things her brother would have to say.

And so James left
her
outside the station. They had kissed goodbye at the entrance – on the cheek to begin with, and then, as she had turned her face into his, he had stepped back and used his height to neatly kiss her on the forehead.

‘Well, goodnight,’ he said. ‘It was really great meeting you.’

‘Yes,’ said Laura, confused and suddenly uneasy. ‘Yes, I really enjoyed it. Aren’t you getting on the Tube too?’

‘No, I think I’ll get a bus home.’

‘Really? Are you sure? That sounds a bit arduous.’

‘It’s probably the best way to get home at this time,’ he said.

‘Oh, okay. Well, goodnight. It was nice meeting you.’

‘Yes, goodnight,’ and as he said this, she was already moving smartly away from him, attempting, at the very end of the evening, to reassert her status. James knew it was important that he let her do this.

It had been simply done, but it was a massive victory nonetheless. True, she had been gruelling company and he was glad to be rid of her, but still, the fact remained: she was a very attractive woman and he could have kissed her a great deal more if he’d wanted. He could have taken her for another drink, escorted her back home, let the night continue in all sorts of ways, but he had decided not to. And the reasons for doing so had only been partly based on fear.

Okay, he had probably hurt Laura’s feelings a bit. But he reasoned that his self-esteem had risen more than hers had fallen. Plus, she almost certainly still had a lot more of it than he had. Laura herself could hardly object to his reasoning: it was the kind of analysis she did all the time, and, besides, the main thing was
she’d be absolutely fine
. There was very little point worrying about the Lauras of this world. She was, after all, Civil Service Fast Stream. Before too long she’d be going out with a special advisor, or engaged to someone in the Bank of England. It was only a matter of time. Ultimately, she was a much better prospect than he was.

Well, whatever the evening had meant for Laura, for him it had been a major confidence boost – a triumph he’d have to call it, even if nothing much had actually happened and he hadn’t really enjoyed it. He reached for his phone and sent a text message to Rachel: ‘Thanks for fixing me up with Laura. She was good, but not good enough.’ He regretted doing it immediately afterwards. But no matter – it wasn’t a time in his life to be nurturing regrets. It was a time to be doing things. And now it was obvious what he needed to do next. He needed to go on another date as soon as possible.

7

19 February

Decisions will have to be made at global, national and regional levels that will have profound consequences.

–
The London Plan
, Section 1.36

James didn’t believe in conspiracy theories – they were too good to be true. If only the world
was
being run by a cabal of highly intelligent Jews from Yale University. But no: the sad truth was that no one really was in control of all this. No secret organisation in Oregon was responsible for global warming or the crisis in the Middle East, which meant that no secret organisation was ever going to sort them out. Instead, there were seven billion people stumbling around doing shit things to one another and wondering why shit things kept happening to them. And the only people trying to help them were people like him – the planners. The regulators, busybodies and do-gooders. But there weren’t very many of them, not really, and most of them were so bad at it that they just made things worse.

He was with them now, on the fourth floor of Southwark Council, sitting at his desk in the middle of the Planning and Environment Directorates. It was, indisputably and reassuringly, an office. He was well aware that nowadays they weren’t all like this. He had been to other ones, architects’ mainly, where things were done differently with a colourful collection of conflicting objects and furniture – plasma screens, red sofas, leather beanbags, table-football machines. But there was no such ambiguity here where every desk, filing cabinet and patterned carpet had come from a single supplier, carefully selected from a national procurement roster on the basis of a wide range of factors, none of which had anything to do with the attractiveness of its products.

The most important feature of the room was directly in front of his desk – the fourth floor kitchenette, a monument to the failings of collective responsibility. From where James sat, he could see the white plastic kettle and the counter coated in hardened sugar and spilt coffee granules. Below was a cupboard of mugs with slogans from health promotion campaigns, and the communal fridge, long ago rendered unusable by the stack of unclaimed Tupperware boxes with their pasta salads and tuna bakes. How many rounds of tea had he made here? And how many hours at the end of the day had he spent at the sink washing up mugs in lukewarm water, rubbing away at tannin stains, or trying to dislodge the insoluble remains of instant soup mixture?