The Planner (4 page)

James,

Haven’t spoken for a bit. I know you’re thriving in the Big Smoke, but .
.
. 

Guy Wood is leaving us unexpectedly (long story). If you are interested, then there’s a Deputy Director job going here. Let me know what you think and whether you’re tempted at all – if so, will fill you in. Guy’s working out his 3 month notice and you know we’d love to have you back. Lots going on here. That Science Park still hasn’t happened yet!

All the best,

James read it through carefully. It was just about the most interesting email he had received in months. Out of the blue, someone was offering him a job. That was, by any standards, a big deal. Okay, it was actually his old boss asking if he’d like to go back and do something similar to his old job, but still – he was wanted. And it was a promotion: Deputy Director of Planning at Nottingham Council with all that it implied: an increased salary, better pension, professional progress, surrender.

He turned off his computer. The office was deserted, but he still risked going down in the battered little lift, in which Neil Tuffnel had once been trapped for six hours, and out through reception. He nodded goodnight to the nameless security guard and looked at his phone. There was a text message from Rachel: ‘We’re going for an Indian if you fancy it.’ But James didn’t fancy it. He walked to the train station under the communist weather, his shoulders hunched, his face bowed, looking for answers in scuffed shoes and the cracks in the pavement.

Why not just take the job? He’d be a bloody fool not to. Deputy Director – a big job in a small team, but all planning teams were small these days. Lionel didn’t even have a deputy any more. Besides, he was through with London. He had done London twice, he had studied here and he’d worked here. He’d written masterplans, analysed traffic patterns and compiled spreadsheets. He’d given it a good go, and it just hadn’t panned out – it was a perfectly honourable defeat.

No, he should leave, and leave soon, for he knew it was going to end badly. He could see it in the crowds outside the pubs, gently cupping their cigarettes and grievances, and the bottles of beer spitefully dropped next to the recycling bins. The imprecise and rudimentarily structured anger, the poorly evidenced suspicions, all slowly souring and thickening into something else, something more dangerous. The people of London, all seven million of them, had come to realise who was to blame for all this and it turned out that it wasn’t the bankers after all. Nor was it the television presenters or East European labourers. It wasn’t even the politicians – no, it was their servants. It was the public servants who had fucked things up for everyone. It was the
planners
.

There was no use looking anywhere else for support. For the ones that needed him the most were actually the ones that liked him the least. The economically functional treated him with suspicion, but it was the others who were most bitter: the bewildered old men on social security benefits and the crowds that build up on the steps of post offices on a Thursday morning. Little pools of zero-utility people, trapped and held together by nothing more adhesive than a disused bus shelter and their anger. They all hated him, they hated everyone who tried to help them. And James did try to help – it was what he had just spent the whole day doing. It was what he did every day.

Well, maybe it was time for that to change. Maybe he needed to start helping himself a bit more. He should go to Nottingham, and not because Graham Oakley wanted him or the people of Nottingham needed him, but because it was a better job, he would earn more money and he wouldn’t have to live in Crystal Palace. Was there anything more to it than that?

3

1 February

London’s cultural and creative sectors are central to the city’s economic and social success.

–
The London Plan
, Section 4.32

It had taken James most of the week to write a reply to Graham Oakley – a long, friendly email that exaggerated all the things he was doing in Southwark, cautiously welcomed his offer and, while making it clear that he was very happy and not likely to consider leaving, made some off-hand enquiries about the role. Graham had replied almost immediately.

Hi James,

Great to hear from you, and thanks for getting back. Good to hear that everything is still going so well down in London – I always knew you’d make a success of it.

Yes, the title would be Deputy Director, with full pay + conditions – I don’t think I could lure you back here with anything less! The job’s not completely in my gift (as ever, there’s an open and competitive process!!) But I could get you in on an acting basis for six months without any bother, and assuming it all works ok it would be relatively easy for you to then apply for the permanent role. Judith Davies has retired and HR are being a bit more cooperative these days.

Anyway, let me know. As I said, Guy isn’t meant to be leaving for almost 3 months, so you’ve got time to think about it.

And there it was: an informative and sincere email, without any of the guile and ambiguity that James had become accustomed to. That was, James remembered, what Graham was like. He wasn’t like Lionel: he hadn’t kept his job through cunning, but by working hard and being good at it. There again, Nottingham wasn’t like South London. People and planners there were straightforward and tended to speak the truth. They were, he supposed, nicer.

There was another mail in his inbox. It was from Felix Selwood, and it was much shorter. The message itself was blank and the subject title was just two words: ‘Drink tonight?’

Eight hours later and James was in the Red Lion, around the corner from work. Nothing very unusual about that – it was, after all, a Friday night. But the big difference, the important innovation, was that he wasn’t with anyone from the office and nor, thankfully, was he with any friends from university. He was with Felix.

Any wariness, and there had been plenty, had disappeared and James was almost starting to enjoy himself. They had had three pints of beer, that had helped, but there was more to it than that: they had formed a connection. They were allies and, as far as James could tell, it wasn’t based on loneliness, a mutual enemy or shared feelings of inadequacy.

They had some significant things in common. They were both thirty-two years old, single, and yes – Felix was a planner too! It even said so on his business card. But he was a
brand
planner, an occupation that James had never previously known to exist but, as Felix explained to him, was central to how modern advertising, and therefore modern business, worked. There were some parallels: one of them made plans for consumers and one of them made plans for citizens. They both convened focus groups, and studied forecasts, and then had to write and implement strategies, which only rarely led to anything happening in the way they hoped.

Of course, there were some important differences. As Felix said, it was his job to understand what people thought they wanted, while James’s job was more difficult – he had to understand what they ought to want. And one of them was much better paid than the other. James had a salary of £33,650 a year, with an extra £3,500 through his London weighting agreement; Felix earned £95,000 with a 20 per cent performance bonus and other benefits. But that didn’t matter so very much, because Felix was quite wealthy anyway. And, of course, Felix didn’t have a degree in geography.

‘It was my good fortune,’ he said, ‘to have studied some economics. This really ought to be a sub-branch of sociology, but has ended up providing the only kinds of explanation that anyone is now interested in.’

James noticed that Felix spoke like this a lot of the time. He articulated bold and unusual opinions in full declarative sentences that caught the attention of people outside of his immediate group. Where had he come from? From London, obviously, but that could mean anything. He was Adam’s friend, and he knew Carl, but it wasn’t clear how. In fact, thrillingly, it wasn’t even certain if he liked them all that much.

But the main thing they were discussing, and this really was unusual, was James. Felix was interested in James. Interested enough to email him, to come to this pub, and possibly even to help him. And despite having wise things to say on a range of important topics, he was also, just like James, a very good listener. He was attentive, he prompted with little nods and requests for information, and in no time at all James was speaking without inhibition. What did he have to lose? He talked about the night in the restaurant, and why he had run away to the washrooms, and how mysteriously his friends had become wealthy and Alice attractive. He talked about where he worked and where he lived, the difficulty of being a town planner in the modern world, the job offer in Nottingham and the fears and feelings that pulsed through him every day.

‘So, I’m going to ask you a few questions now,’ said Felix.

‘Okay.’

‘First of all, just to check. Are you still in love with Alice?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Felix.

‘I don’t want to go out with her,’ said James. ‘But it would be nice if she wanted to go out with me.’

‘Yes, I can see that. Next question: do you want a different career?’

‘Well, there are some issues with the job I’ve got. But I like being a town planner. I trained to become one.’

‘And the job you’ve been offered, the one in Nottingham. Presumably that would solve a lot of those issues? I mean, you’d be paid more, you could live in a nice place, that kind of thing.’

‘Yes, all those things. I liked it there. Or at least, as I remember it, I do.’

‘But if you did leave London now, it would feel like you’ve given up. As if you were running away.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what it would feel like.’

‘Okay, this is what I think the problem is – and excuse the pop psychology, but it is the best kind. What you’re seeking is respect – some admiration and affection. Your hope is that having a better job, more money, a girlfriend, a house, high-quality material possessions will get you that.’

‘Yes, well, they would. They would get me a lot of those things.’

‘If that was the case, then the move to Nottingham is actually not a bad strategy. One of the most effective ways to find happiness is to spend your life around people who earn less than you.’

‘But you don’t think I should go back there, do you?’

James was, for a moment, suddenly anxious. What would happen now? What if Felix told him he should go to Nottingham? Did that mean he would just go? Was Felix rejecting him already, sending him out to spend his life with people on lower incomes? And why on earth should he take Felix’s advice? He barely knew him. But there was no doubt that’s what he was doing. No wonder he was so successful at advertising.

‘No,’ said Felix. ‘No, I don’t think you should. The problem you’ve got is not winning other people’s respect, but your own. You’ve got a self-respect deficit.’

James took a gulp of beer. Felix seemed to have got to the root of the problem with unnerving precision and speed. Of course, there was always the chance that it was a different problem, or that he was completely wrong. But the swiftness of his reasoning was impressive.

‘Don’t worry, it’s incredibly common. Among Western males, it’s practically universal. In fact, it’s the principal reason why the advertising industry exists. You just need some personal, rather than professional, development. You need self-respect, confidence, contentment, enlightenment.’

‘But I can’t just conjure up those things. I can’t just become a different person.’

‘Well, it’s actually not that difficult. But for the time being, you’ll need to be in London. Otherwise I can’t help you.’

But now that Felix had decided he should stay, James wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted either. Getting out of London meant a promotion and pay rise, the chance to own a property, no need to go to restaurants with friends from university. These were all real things.

‘I think part of the problem is that you haven’t yet developed a coherent vision. You’ve got some ethics, but they’re just another source of confusion. What you need is a worldview. You need some kind of overarching belief about the nature of the universe and your place in it. That’s where the self-respect will come from.’

Well, there was something in this – James could see that. He’d often, in fact, thought it himself. He needed to be anchored. He needed a philosophy, something to base himself around – a cornerstone to his personality that wasn’t just his certificate in town planning.

‘It doesn’t even have to be true,’ continued Felix. ‘In fact, it’s actually better if it’s unverifiable – but it does have to work for you. You have to be able to believe it enough so that a rich and fulfilling life can flow.’

‘So I need a worldview. Okay, yes, I accept that. But how do I get one? It’s too late to go back to university. Won’t I have to read a load of books, or canoe down the Ganges or something?’

‘Don’t worry. None of that is necessary. That’s the whole point of London: we’ve imported it all. You don’t have to backpack across the southern hemisphere – you just get a train down to South London. Who needs Johannesburg and Calcutta when we’ve got Hackney and Southall? Some of the most spiritually powerful and economically dysfunctional places in the world are only a few miles away.’