[originally an email to the morgueatlarge list, sent August 2003]
LONDON
Sun in blue sky, a lonely admiral. Isle of Dogs, dead hot. Sitting on grass in a park watching the Thames, top arc of the eye of London imperceptibly shifting in the distance, Caroline appears before my eyes for the first time in ten months. It really does feel like no time was lost.
On Tottenham Court Road is snappy hotel the Grafton, Edwardian apparently, forced windows open to fight back the heat. Walkable to everywhere. Two days walking London, no buses, no tube, sewing streets and sights together as we go. Nothing sorts out your geography of a city like walking it, not even buses. (Of course, bus and tube everywhere on the last two days – we’re not stupid.)
Hard bustle of Oxford Street. That beautiful curve of Regent St, my personal symbol of London. Eros and McDonald’s billboards in Piccadilly Circus. Settled moments in Leicester Square. Cleopatra’s Needle beside a mucky, thrilling Thames. Covent Garden bursting with music and shade. Westminster, St Pauls, Fleet Street, Soho, Trafalgar Square.
The Brit Museum, my second time, still didn’t manage more than a fraction of it. A show – The Madness of George Dubya, Kubrick’s Strangelove reworked into musical contemporary satire. Ride the Eye, surprised to find it underwhelming, an uncommon sentiment it seems but there you go. Drinking in a London pub, 11pm closing time and homeward stagger, traditional.
Catch up with many wonderful Londonites. Big party out at Frank and Sam’s, backyard barbecue no less. Regent’s Park, James Park, Russell Square, Embankment Gardens, other greens. The Diana hubcap. Tower Hill and the shortest Jack the Ripper tour ever. Dinner in Brick Lane, new heartthrob locale for the BritLit scene, where eager and sincere young men fiercely pimp their eating establishment, throwing in free drinks and discounts to tempt you inside.
Wander the shoulders-back grid of Bloomsbury, absorbing the scene, randomly stumble into an enormous book traders fair full of squinting hobbyists evaluating first editions. Later trip to Spitalfield’s market, the market is empty except for a rather good organic café. The Tate Modern, as full of stunning work as the last time I was there, enormous black Pinocchio riff outside.
London. Absolute magic.
(I bored all the Londoners with my muttering on about it, not to mention Cal who heard it about eight thousand times, but I’m going to say it again – the congestion charge in central London has reduced traffic on the streets to about a third of what it was. It’s amazing the change – it’s like a totally different city. It’s easy to cross the road, the buses rattle along at a healthy pace instead of being just the sitting-down version of walking, noise is down to a healthy shout, the air is cleaner, and the pressure isn’t so intense. It’s a happier place. Give that man what done this a Knighthood already.)
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JUDITH
I don’t exactly know what to say about this but it’d feel false to leave it out. This was never really a travel journal so much as a bunch of rants about what is on my mind. I’m just going to type and see what comes out.
My friend Judith O’Sullivan died on Wednesday of cancer. She was at home in Upper Hutt with family.
On my third day in London, back in September, I spent a wonderful day wandering Greenwich with Elizabeth and Roland (who were, you will recall, my exceedingly kind and generous hosts). As we walked I received a phone call from Judith, to make contact, welcome me to London, and invite me to a party that very evening. I was pleased she rang, because it gave me a chance to tell Elizabeth and Roland one of my favourite stories.
In New Zealand there’s a film festival each year devoted to showing unusual, non-mainstream cinema from around the globe. One year on the bill was the infamous live-action manga ‘The Story of Ricky’, a martial arts flick so stupid, ridiculous and disgustingly extreme that it attained instant classic status among odd-movie aficionados around the world. I went with a small group of people including my friend Billy, who brought along his old friend Judith who I’d never met before. Not only did Judith enjoy the film, but at its conclusion, she ran out into the street and stood there in the rain, stopping traffic, doing kung-fu kicks.
Naturally, we all fell instantly in love with her. (Except Billy, who was used to it.)
I love that story. (That’s the short version, but the longer one just has more description in it.) It’s just so… random and cool. It’s actually important to me, I’ve told it so many times it’s become something of a symbol to me. Symbolic of what exactly I’m not sure. I’m not even sure any more how much of it is true. Not that that matters, because the spirit of it is absolutely right, as all who knew Judith would agree. She was mad in the best possible sense.
She ended up in Auckland and we didn’t see each other often (although she did turn up at one of those infamous Todman Street parties) but we did stay in sporadic touch, even after she moved to London. Really, I was only a minor figure in her life, and she was only a minor figure in mine, but she was a friend. More importantly, she was an incredibly good friend to Billy, who is still pretty much the other me. It’s deeply strange that she is gone.
I didn’t go to the party that day in September. Can’t even remember why not, some lame excuse whose details I’ve forgotten. I figured I’d drop in on her at the Bodyworks exhibition before I left to Rome. Didn’t manage that either – disorganised and short of time. And by the time I got back to London the cancer had been diagnosed and she’d gone back to New Zealand.
Billy, and everyone else close to Judith, I don’t really know what to say. All the usual sentiments I guess, sincerely meant. Peace, and love.
(Don’t get too gloomy, all you readers, that’s the last thing she’d want. Just think how cool it would be to see a girl stopping traffic doing kung fu in the middle of the road in the rain. And however cool you think it’d be – trust me, it was way, way cooler than that.)
———
Take care out there everyone.
~`morgan
What I’m reading:
The Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Just finished:
The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard
Amaryllis Night and Day by Russell Hoban