East-West Read online

  A slow rise to Perivale and then a much quicker descent to Shepherd’s Bush, the cliff to climb to Holland Park and then the long descent from salubrious Queensway to stressful Holborn. A cliff face again, up into the City, the fall to Leyton and the rise out north. Like an obstacle course. Vanatins in life expectancy are not unlike the pattern of voting (shown overleaf). Sometimes the slopes are a little less steep, but the cliffs are found in much the same places: between Shepherd’s Bush and Holland Park, for instance, or just after Holborn, where people in three wards don’t even get a conventional vote (in the ancient ‘City of London’), or by the social cliff that has to be scaled when moving between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green. Then, abruptly, just after Leytonstone the politics become very Tory again, despite the fact that people don’t live as long. It is almost as if some believe that by voting that way they’ll get the longevity that tends to be associated with such areas … But for now we are still travelling through those parts of the line where it is assumed that folk, most often, have it all.

  Source: See http://www.londonmapper.org.uk/features/inequality-in-london/

  Bond Street, 2.00 p.m.

  At 2.00 on a Saturday it’s just hell. Tourists! They are a curse sent to plague him. A curse for some great sin he had committed in a former life. At his time of life, at his station, he should be living out of town by now, but he needed to be around in case anything went wrong. And they had to do some operations on Saturdays. The human body didn’t appear to appreciate the need for a day off shopping, or the Sabbath. What was even funnier was that they called this place ‘the village’, ‘Marylebone Village’.61

  Everyone associates Marylebone with a train station, not with one of London’s premier urban niches. It was all the fault of that station on the Monopoly board game. It was even worse for Bond Street. Bond Street had to be posh: it was one of the green ones. Did Sotheby’s locate their London offices on Bond Street after it had been coloured green or were their offices the reason for that colouring? Did he really care? That was just the kind of question they might come up with as part of the ‘I’m so clever’ consultants’ Christmas pub quiz: all those new young registrars trying to show off, trying to get one up on their rivals. Well, he’d made it: 48 was still quite young to be a consultant specializing in cardiology. The fatter everyone got, the more work for him! It was just a pity that those getting the fattest usually couldn’t afford to go private.

  As he waited for her to return from the cloakroom in the little bistro they were eating in near Harley Street, it dawned on him that the real reason he lived in ‘the village’ wasn’t the world-leading state hospital nearby and his NHS patients, but the work on the side, his independent consulting. The work that paid off the mortgage early, paid for the second home in France, paid for the skiing, paid for the lunch and dinners with the young female registrars (they always expected him to pay – so much for women’s liberation). He had to be around, nearby, for popping in to give consultations in the evenings, on Saturdays, even Sundays. He worked hard. He should play hard too. The NHS work was really philanthropy; he sometimes told his much younger female companions this, when he’d had a bit too much to drink (at his private patients’ expense). He was on the hamster wheel because the salary they pay in the NHS couldn’t keep the wolf from the door.

  ‘Jerry del Missier, the Co-CEO of Barclays Capital, got £47 million last year, almost twice what Bob Diamond got,’ he had told her over lunch.62 He’d ‘read it in the Daily Mail so it must be true,’ he told her, laughing at his own joke.63 ‘Do you know how many cardiac surgeons you get for £47 million?’ It was a rhetorical question; she was just supposed to look interested and widen her eyes.64

  ‘More than 500!’ he exclaimed (he was using the old salary, for the basic NHS job, 9.00 to 5.00, few ‘on calls’, no London weighting, no out-of-hours work, no seniority awards or any clinical excellence awards, but he didn’t want her to know about all those extras. She might start thinking he was greedy. He wanted to plead a bit of genteel poverty.

  ‘If I just worked for the NHS I’d have to live miles away,’ he explained. ‘It is in the interest of my NHS patients that I also take on “independent” work so I can live nearby and also prep up on the very latest techniques. It’s free training,’ he said (he didn’t like the phrase ‘private medicine’).

  ‘Except they pay you,’ she corrected him.

  ‘Well, it is free training for my NHS patients and I do a lot for the hospital charity,’ he replied, paying for lunch (again).

  She wondered if he thought of her as charity, whether he was really interested in her career and ‘giving her some tips’, or whether he just liked talking about himself and feeling hard done by. She hadn’t gone into medicine to drink over lunch and then go operate on some rich private patient in a glorified hotel. She didn’t envy him. She loathed him, but she needed his patronage.

  Oxford Circus, 2.30 p.m.

  The older woman was 51. This shouldn’t be happening to her. She was too young. If it wasn’t for the regular check-ups they would never have noticed. If it was not for the health insurance policy her firm took out on her behalf she would still be on some waiting list. If it took longer than 18 weeks to treat her at an NHS facility then, apparently, the NHS wouldn’t worry how long it took as the hospital would have already missed its waiting-time target. The nice consultant had told her that. He worked mainly in the NHS, he had said. But there was a backlog there. That was why she was having her operation on a Saturday, and because she could be out and back at work for Monday morning.

  It was just a minor operation, keyhole. They push a tube up one of your veins from your groin right up to near your heart and then put a little device in to widen the tube so the blood flows more easily. He’d shown her what it looked like on the screen. That was her heart, he’d said. ‘Look. It has to work too hard.’

  She’d always had to work too hard, and now she was lying on a trolley being moved from the ward to theatre to get her ready. ‘Prepped’, they called it. She’d be conscious throughout it, he had told her. ‘Safer that way.’

  She had everything. A Park Lane address. From where occasionally, with just one or two companions, she could pop into some of the finest restaurants in the land whenever she thought of doing it, or at least on weekdays, when they were not so busy. These restaurants were the kind where they brought your dinner in with a cover (cloche) over it and a waiter stood behind each diner to whisk the cover off simultaneously with all the other waiters. Had she eaten too much over the years?

  She practically shared a back garden with Buckingham Palace, as she liked to say, exaggerating the geographical topology a little. She was valuable. Her firm needed her. They paid her enough, so she knew they valued her. And they needed her in on Monday. Was that fair? Shouldn’t she get some time off? Her mind was racing. She was trying to think of anything but the operation, but the operation kept coming back into her head.

  She was between husbands. It was the work hours mainly, that was why she hadn’t had time to find the next one, and there was always so much to do around here. Everyone who was anyone had an apartment here. Rupert Murdoch had a place here. He stayed here whenever his London business was in trouble. She was surprised the paparazzi didn’t film him coming and going; perhaps one day soon they would.65 She guessed her tastes had become a little more expensive too, and all the older men seemed to have younger wives, of course. Round here the women did not look normal – all that plastic surgery (one day those boob jobs would come back to haunt them). But they were also selected for their looks. The young ones came from all around the world but had one thing in common – looks. The older ones had money.

  This hospital looks like a hotel, she thought, as the trolley finally pulled into the operating theatre. There was her consultant:

  ‘I’m just off to get gowned up,’ he said reassuringly, as if he did this every day of the week. Was that a faint hint of wine she could smell on his breath? ‘Nothing to
worry about,’ he flashed a smile back. His teeth were stained.

  Tottenham Court Road, 3.00 p.m.

  ‘The biggest footfall in Europe,’ he said (trying not to sound like he’d said it a thousand times). He was talking about Oxford Street. They were walking from the tube towards the university campus.

  ‘But cross the line, cross the street at Tottenham Court Road, and you are no longer in Westminster, you’re in Camden,’ he explained. ‘It’s very different.’ He paused, then joked, ‘It’s not Kansas any more.’

  She didn’t enjoy the joke. She’d heard it too often, an occupational hazard of being called Dorothy.

  ‘Still in posh south Camden mind, British Museum and all that, but 48 per cent black round here, out of 9,450 residents (although I’m not sure they got that number right),’ and he reeled his statistics out: ‘Estimated number of adult smokers: 1,990 to 2,530; estimated number of obese adults: 1,040 to 1,240; estimated number of adults binge-drinking: 2,070 to 2,610; estimated number of adults who eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day: 4,140 to 4,210.’

  He’d memorized those numbers well.66 He was quite proud of his memory. It had helped him pass the 11-plus. That was why he was a lecturer, memory. Although now he was only employed part-time, a fact he tried to forget.

  ‘How could they possibly estimate all that?’ she demanded. ‘How could they know the number of people who eat five portions of fruit and veg a day to the nearest 70 souls, or to the nearest 350 kumquats?’

  She wasn’t bad with numbers either. It crossed his mind that she might be taking the piss.

  This part of London was like a chessboard. It is hard to explain if you can’t see a map, but to go north-east you had to go east, then north-west, then east again. It was like tacking against the wind to sail a boat the way you wanted and the way the wind didn’t want to go. He thought of trying to explain that to her.

  ‘So where are all the smokers?’ Dorothy asked. ‘And how many were those numbers out of – 2,000 to 2,500 out of what?’

  ‘Out of 9,450,’ he said. ‘Not many aged under 15,’ he quickly added.

  ‘So at least a quarter of adults round here are smokers?’ Dorothy said, more as a disbelieving statement than a question.

  ‘They could be. It’s London, it’s stressful,’ he replied, a little hurt that she was not impressed by his ability to recall all those numbers. ‘They’re planning for there to be even fewer children here soon,’ he said, trying to change the subject on to something he was surer of. ‘There are 17 per cent drops forecast in under-fives in the next ten years, in Bloomsbury ward alone, 15 per cent drops in five to tens, 7 per cent drops in 11 to 15s,’ he said authoritatively.67

  ‘So they know how much sex we’ll have then?’ Dorothy was being more direct.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘They just extrapolate forward from the way things are going, and the way things are going there’ll be far fewer children and more people our age here soon.’

  ‘I’m not your age. You’re 54,’ Dorothy pointed out. ‘And, anyway, young people can’t get a mortgage now, so they have to stay around here when they get pregnant. There’ll be more children, not less soon. Where do you get those numbers from? The banks could crash tomorrow. Who thinks they can forecast ten years ahead?’

  Holborn, 3.30 p.m.

  It was a lovely street, ever so quiet, pedestrianized, with the statue of a ballerina at one end. It was perfectly sited for the tube. Either Covent Garden (to get the tube to Heathrow) or Holborn, but quicker just to walk to Holborn to catch the Central Line, no point changing. She was learning that about London. It was often quicker to walk than catch the tube or even a taxi. One day she might master the bus map, but not yet. At her age, at 57, in a foreign country, that extra adaptation was a challenge too far. People expected you to be quick getting on buses and everyone was so fast around here. There were zebra crossings at the end of her street, but the taxi drivers appeared to resent you using them. And they talk about Greek drivers being bad!

  When she had come here her nephew had given her lots of information about the area. He was a good boy. He was studying at the London School of Economics.

  ‘The best in the world,’ he always said. At least the high overseas fees were no problem for her family.

  ‘It’s the most expensive, so it must be best,’ he had declared.

  He was studying economics. She had asked him why it was better if it cost more. Surely things are better when cheaper? That is how her family had become rich. Buying cheap and selling dear.

  ‘Cheap is best only up to a certain point,’ he had told her. ‘After that, when people are rich, expensive is better. Expensive watches rise in value as they age, but don’t tell the time any better than cheap watches, less well as they age. These things are called Veblen goods.68 The apartment you are buying near the Opera House is much smaller than cheaper ones you could buy just ten minutes’ walk away, but its value will rise much faster despite that. It is because of where it is. It is because of the status it gives you. People don’t go to the opera because they love the music. These people, the English, cannot even understand the words!’

  Then, as she’d paid for the apartment in cash, he’d said, ‘Anyway, you need to know where you are living. You’ll fit right in here. Most people here live in apartments like yours; so many live on the fifth floor that it’s almost like Athens. And most live alone,’ he’d explained, handing her the printout he had brought.69

  She didn’t really want to live alone. She spent as much time away from the apartment as she could. It was nice when her nephew visited, but he would complete his studies soon and would be off to the USA to try his luck, with a little help from the family. He liked to pretend he was more American than Greek.

  She knew her money was safer here than in Athens and safer in property than in a bank. She knew that if she returned to Athens for any longer than a few weeks at a time she might become liable for all the new taxes, and anyway Athens was becoming dangerous and depressing. But she didn’t want to live alone and, so far, none of the other ‘54%’ of people who were single (in Holborn and Covent Garden ward)70 were interested in a 57-year-old Greek heiress.

  She didn’t like to let on about the money because she knew the kind of man that might attract. Already she had heard that Greeks like her (moving to London) were being called the ‘new Arabs’.71 Soon that label might stick, she thought. Should she pretend she was part American? Many British people didn’t seem to like Americans either that much. She just didn’t fit in very well. She was beginning to worry that it was not only her. Almost no one fitted in very well round here. They were all, in one way or another, here for the status. No one here belonged. Back in Greece she had been Greek. She was there because she was Greek and, if she was a little careful with how she talked and dressed, she fitted in well. Here, she was only here because she was rich.

  Bond Street to Holborn

  It takes exactly five minutes to travel these four stations. During those five minutes you pass under a greater volume of wealth than you can ever imagine possessing. You could put a value on the worth of this real estate, hundreds of billions of pounds, but that price waxes and wanes as the world’s super-rich quickly turn from one safe haven for their often ill-gotten gains to another. What you can say is that you would be hard pressed to find another two or three square miles anywhere that were quite so pricey.

  Directly above your head is Oxford Street and some of the most valuable retail property on the planet. Then, just a few hundred yards north and south of you, between Park Lane and Kingsway, between Green Park, Regent’s Park and Hyde Park, is some of the most expensive commercial property in Europe, and yet tens of thousands of people also live here, often paying astronomical rents or holding astronomical fortunes in equity.

  The living does not necessarily get easier as you move from west to east along this part of the line, even though you are moving nearer and nearer to the heart of the money, to the border of the actual C
ity of London.

  Life expectancy falls steeply from Bond Street to Holborn, by almost a year a minute. You never hear this statistic. The statistic of how, as you travel from the opulence of Grosvenor Square to the majesty of the Royal Opera House, with every minute travelled and every station passed a year of life is lost. Those kinds of statistics are reserved for journeys into the East End and yet, within the wealthy heart of London, there are gradients just as steep.72

  For all his economist’s training, our affluent Greek woman’s nephew was not quite correct. His aunt would also need a society she could fit into, as well as somewhere her money would feel at home. Holborn is better suited to people of his age, a younger age. For her a better setting might have been a little further west, or it could have been a lot further west. The Dorset coast might have been a surer bet for convivial company for someone who was more afraid of being lonely than of being poor. For someone who liked being around children, who had none of her own, the heart of central London could be the very worst place to live, despite all her riches.

  To travel from Bond Street to Holborn is to move towards a swiftly rising rock face. As you journey east, more and more of your neighbours are childless, young, and pay high rents, rents that use up most of their incomes. Those few who are elderly have less and less in common with the young. The loneliness may be harming their health. People from all around the world have moved here. All have not much in common except for now being Londoners. A Harley Street doctor, a City lawyer and a very affluent economic refugee are, in fact, all a little on the high income side for typical households along this part of the line. Only the ageing academic on his half-timer’s salary fits the average; a great many are living on much less. Average incomes dip below £500 a week, less than £25,000 a year, where the Central Line crosses the Northern Line at Tottenham Court Road.