Earlier this year I relocated, slipping down the oleaginous Northern Line from Elephant and Castle all the way to Morden, a place I had previously thought was populated exclusively by drunks held in an enclosure to sober up having slept through their tube stop. Since the move into London’s southern fringes, my fondness and enthusiasm for the city has decidedly waned, although I’d be reluctant to conflate this entirely with my move to Morden.
Whereas in Elephant & Castle I would be confronted with the hubbub and bustle of London on a daily basis, barely a 15-minute walk to the river, now on my cycle to and from work at Twickenham I catch a glimpse of the distant Shard, a thorn twisting in my side as a reminder of how divorced from me the city now seems.
Recent excursions have failed to reignite any affection. An attempt to walk the route of the Westway in search of the site of J.G. Ballard’s ‘concrete island’ proved so frustratingly futile that I couldn’t even summon the enthusiasm to write about it. So there was considerable pressure loaded on to a walk across London that I embarked upon one recent Saturday night.
I set off from Morden at just before half-midnight, the early September chill undergoing its autumnal rehearsals, with the aim of walking across London to Hampstead Heath in time for dawn easing itself into Sunday. Not only did the walk surpass expectations but was so suffused with minor revelations as to London’s dynamism and imaginative potency that I would encourage everyone to do the same.
I set out from the slumbering Morden, heading through the equally docile Wimbledon, only encountering the first signs of Saturday nightlife upon reaching Tooting High Street, with the influx of artisan chicken shops and cocktail bars all well attended. Only past Clapham Common and on up the High Street did the night seem to be in full ebullience; perhaps, being 1.30am, just beginning to sink back from its peak, with people spilling from the Infernos club on a high-heeled stagger to KFC. Leaving them behind I passed through the quieter province of Stockwell which appeared to be mostly populated by men loitering in doorways blowing plumes of smoke from spliffs across the pavement.
At Vauxhall, I took to the Embankment, pausing a while on the benches opposite the orange-lit Houses of Parliament glowing like burning wax. It was at this point that I began to remember the depths of thought that can be abseiled down on such travails. By this time I felt I had solved the Syrian refugee crisis, the London housing crisis, and the dilemma of which was the superior Radiohead album, ‘OK Computer’ or ‘Kid A’. (Each solution or answer though was swiftly blown away like psychic cobwebs by the arrival of yet more thought-strands to be woven, the trivial as well as the serious.)
I began to take note of all the different people that I saw and wonder at the disparate stories attached to them. The guy strolling along the Embankment singing along to a song off his iPod; the two French girls arm-in-arm laughing at some event from earlier in the night.
Across the river, I made my way up Whitehall pausing to speak with a lone man encamped opposite Downing Street busy adding to his collection of placards denigrating the government’s efforts at investigating the sexual abuse scandals. Initially a little wary, he soon began talking about how long he had been there (50 days), about how much online attention the protest had received, and how he wouldn’t give up until the “paedo-sadists” were held accountable.
Forging a path through the West End, I became surrounded by the drunken diaspora trying to get home. Smashed young men in blazers clutching a Subway sandwich and blearily trying to interpret the night bus maps as though they were ancient codes to be deciphered. Small groups of girls being hassled by a cavalry of rickshaws plying for trade up and down Charing Cross Road. An abysmally drunk middle-aged couple lodged in a doorway engaged in an amorous embrace oblivious to the less romantic mountain of bin bags right alongside them.
Soho seemed strangely subdued by comparison, with just a couple of wine bars still uncorked for a table or two of smartly-dressed conversations. Although my conscience did give me cause to stop at the edge of Soho Square where a young girl was slumped against some railings. At first I thought she was unconscious but on hearing my “hello?”, it appeared she was only crying, trains of mascara running down her face.
“I thought I’d better check you were okay”, I said. “Do you want me a call a taxi for you?”
“It’s alright, I think one is coming.”
“Shit night huh?”
“Yeah, pretty shit” she said, wiping her eyes on her forearms. She started talking about a guy who had messed her about and made her look stupid, as she did so nodding over the road at an imposing hotel. I sensed there was quite a lot more to the story than she let on but didn’t ask, instead just felt sorry for this girl who could only have been 16 or 17.
“What are you doing?” she asked, and when I explained my walk through London until dawn her reaction was one of mild disbelief. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Dunno, keeps me busy.”
She laughed and said, “You should get a girlfriend instead.”
“Well, I had one until recently. Hence the need to keep busy.”
“That’s a shame”, she said with a sympathetic expression that coming from someone with mascara streaked down their face seemed a little hard to take seriously.
And with that her taxi pulled up and I headed on my way, thinking about this random encounter. This late at night, everyone you pass feels like they are imbued with a different sense of purpose or reason for being out than during the day, each person with their own imaginative sliproad that peels away from the highway of the superficial. No wonder Dickens was so fond of taking his night walks across the city, clearly he became inspired by the interesting, nocturnal characters, each primed with their own unique story to be built around them.
There is a frisson of energy that is transmitted at night, charging places and people with all kinds of possibilities and potential. It is an energy that ripples with the telepathic awareness that things are taking place, things are happening, and though you may not be part of it, you are, in just by sharing the geography, riding the same wave.
This feeling sustains on through Camden, where muffled music seeps from second and third floor windows where people drain the dregs of the night. There is a vague exclusivity about Camden, a sense that it is assessing and judging you on your conformist credentials as a hedonistic ambassador worthy of being inducted into the secretive citadel of the unofficial gathering.
There is a lull that sets in as I reach Belsize Park, the streets deserted, the sound of the slumbering city has a kind of polyphony with the rustling of leaves and the whisper of distant traffic. There is no one around now, the city feels like it has been laid out and arranged purely for me to traverse it, the paving stones ushering my weary feet along on the approach to the Heath.
The night’s deep purple tourniquet loosens to let the dawn bleed across the morning sky, and I trudge through the dew-tipped grass to reach Parliament Hill and the end of my journey. I feel a sense of real achievement, a rejuvenated appreciation for London that is so striking that I remain convinced that everyone should undertake a similar walk at least once. I sit transfixed by the cityscape, a million windows ablaze as the sun hits the glass, construction cranes poised in the air like batons ready to conduct an orchestra through the symphony of a new day.
