The White Room (12 page)

He walked. Looked through walls and doorways into other places, darker ones. Saw the flipside. The underside. What happened when the money ran out. When they wouldn't or couldn't pay. The lonely, sad chairs in empty basements, waiting for their next incumbent, showing the strains and stains of tens, or perhaps hundreds, of bloodied, broken bodies. The chairs: taken the weight of those bodies that had given up, attempted to dodge the pain, crashed to the hard, cold, uncaring floor. The chairs: acted as a brace for the kicks which inevitably followed. Brass rings, knives, cricket bats. Small electrical generators, electrodes and water if they were feeling inventive, pliers and Stanley knives if they wanted to be direct. The chairs were there now, some in use, some waiting to be used. He knew this. Because he had used them many times.

Back here, away from the brighter lights, was where he found his Eros, his love. Was where he felt he truly belonged.

But as he walked, the streets began to shiver. His reality began to blur. The pavement turned to solid water, his feet sending out ripples as he walked. He looked down. Another pavement could be glimpsed beneath. An older, shabbier one. He knew what it was. Where it was.

He looked around. The buildings were shimmering, hopes appearing as other buildings, other places, began to show through. An earlier time, a darker time. The past breaking through to his present. He felt himself in flight again, running away. Over walls, down streets. On to a train. Away. He blinked, tried to focus.

It was recurring, the same dream. Each time increasing in strength, each time the older, darker, shabbier streets getting more of a hold. He wanted to run again, over walls, down streets, get on to a train, escape. But he couldn't. His legs turned dream-slow, his arms flailed but were useless. Each time he had given in, let the dream – the old city – claim him, wake him. Not this time.

He stood still, closed his eyes, concentrated. Willed the old city to disappear, let the new one take its place.

And it did.

He opened his eyes, looked around. The new city was gone. His city. And in its place was the old city. And the old city was new again. New, like the city whose heart he loved. Where there was once black, white and grey, it was now neon- and electric-light bright. Where there had been silence, there was noise, slowness there was now speed. And, he knew, he had made it all possible.

He smiled to himself. He looked around and proclaimed it good. The old city was gone, into the past. There was only the new city, now, only the future.

He walked, enjoying it.

The dream held no terror for him now. He smiled to himself. He knew what he had to do.

Where he had to go.

June 1962:

Terms of Human Happiness

The city was alive. Excitement flitted from person to person, buzzing and humming like a swarm of bees in a flower field, hopping plant to plant, flower to flower, but not to gather: to impart. Excitement. And like some highly contagious germ, everyone had caught it.

There were flags and bunting adorning lampposts and telegraph poles. Streets were closed to cars, their places taken by tables and chairs laid out for communal gatherings, street parties, the first since the Coronation. Fireworks were dryly stored, waiting for darkness. Pubs were licensed for day- and night-long drinking. The party was on.

Saturday 9 June 1962. The Blaydon Races Centenary. The event, immortalized in song by local bard Geordie Ridley, concerned a raucous coach journey from the centre of Newcastle, west down the Scotswood Road, then over the bridge to the unlicensed flapping track at Blaydon to watch the races. The song had propelled the event itself. For years it had been sung and celebrated. Now it had become a cornerstone for North-Eastern identity. And had to be honoured.

Dan Smith stood on rough planking and looked around at the crowds before him. The city council boss, the local boy made good, the firebrand maverick clasped uneasily but hopefully to the city's heart. He looked beyond the crowds to his own work. The work done in his name.

Old Scotswood was nearly gone, just mud and rubble. Bulldozers and wrecking balls doing what Hitler and the Luftwaffe had failed to do. He had ordered the wholesale demolition of Scotswood. Slum clearance. Drastic measures for Newcastle's drastic housing shortage. Some people moved out far away to new housing developments in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, some not so far, to Longbenton.

From out of that, phoenix-like, came the new Scotswood. The Elms. The first of six blocks of fifteen-storey flats. Conceived in imagination and hope, midwifed by scaffolding and cranes, borne aloft on confidence and pride. The future.

A new way of living, Dan Smith had called the tower blocks. Parkland homes for whole communities, he called them, a countryside showpiece of imaginative municipal development. Taking parks to the people, he said. Landscape architecture with centrepieces made from different-coloured brick, vitreous-enamelled panels below windows, roughcast glass for balconies. Underfloor heating, electric cookers, wash boilers, stainless-steel sinks, plentiful cupboard space. Copper-roofed lifts to get up and down. Four adventure playgrounds for children to play safely. They have to be visited to be appreciated, he said.

Dan Smith's plan for a new city. A new region. The first step. The future.

‘Newcastle is doing the best job of any city council in the country.'

Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the Labour Party. Standing next to Dan Smith in front of a tall, sheet-covered object, speaking to the assembled crowd before them. Reporters, photographers and inhabitants of Scotswood.

‘The rebuilding of any city must include the preservation of the past with planning and thinking for the future. Something Newcastle is doing supremely well.'

Dan Smith nodded, glad he got that bit in. Not that there had been any doubt. The Blaydon Races Centenary had been Dan's idea. Opening the new flats on the same day his idea too. Giving the illusion of looking backwards while in reality looking forwards. Dan smiled, pleased not to have missed a trick.

‘It's always a pleasure,' Hugh Gaitskell went on, ‘to be asked to open a new block of flats or any housing scheme because they mean so much to people in terms of human happiness.'

Dan Smith looked at the Labour leader. He was sweating, breathing hard. Everything seemed an effort to him. That morning he had planted a tree, become a member of Newcastle's Tree Lovers' Guild, seen an example of Dan Smith's imaginative use of architectural space, a children's play area built on top of a car park, opened the Elms, now this. Later they were due to go to Balmbras, the newly opened old-time music hall, and start the grand parade. Dan Smith had doubts about Hugh Gaitskell's stamina. He thought it best not to voice them.

‘Newcastle has one of the most dynamic and impressive town planning schemes in the country. I said that at a planning conference in London when architects and planners from all over the country were present.' His eyes swept the crowd, made sure he had contact. ‘That took some courage.' He smiled. ‘So I'm sure I can say it here.'

He acknowledged the polite laughter, turned his attention to the sheet-wrapped object before him. It was over twice his height, solid and angular. Hugh Gaitskell tugged at the cloth, huffing and puffing, Dan Smith having to step in to help him. They struggled, but together got it uncovered. It was a huge, reinforced-concrete block with a rough patina of bronzing. Gaitskell looked at all twenty-five hundredweight of it, panting, his face twisted with distaste. It looked like an ugly, abstract totem pole, he thought. The kind John Wayne rescued kidnapped white women from. Knowing his place, he looked towards the sculptor, Kenneth Ford, who was hovering on the fringes of the crowd, and managed to find a smile for him. Ford looked nervous, uncomfortable, his wispy hair, ragged beard and pinched features lending him an air of a pained D. H. Lawrence.

‘Mr Ford,' said Hugh Gaitskell, ‘is more or less unknown.' He paused for breath. ‘But extremely talented.'

He looked around at the crowd. Every negative emotion from apprehension to open hostility, derision to incredulity was being mentally flung in the direction of the sculpture. He found his politician's smile again. Plastered it over the cracks.

Dan Smith stood beside him, smiling proudly. He understood the sculpture. What it meant.

‘I understand any concern which might have been felt about the attitude of the city to this symbolic work,' Hugh Gaitskell was saying, ‘but no art can be creative if it is purely imitative.'

A beaming smile, then the start of applause led by Dan Smith. The crowd joined in, realizing this was the end. They had waited all this time for that.

Then handshakes and photos: Smith and Ford, Gaitskell and Ford, Smith and Gaitskell.

‘Well done, Dan,' said Gaitskell, inaudible to anyone else. ‘You've managed to persuade people that that pile of bloody rubbish's a sculpture.'

‘It's art, Hugh,' said Dan Smith, smiling. ‘The first, probably, that people around here have seen. The trick is not to give the people what they want, Hugh. Or what they think they want. Give them what they don't realize they want until they get it.' He looked around at the unsmiling faces. ‘Then they'll love you for it.'

Hugh Gaitskell said nothing, just stared at him.

‘This is only the start. Wait and see.'

Hugh Gaitskell smiled, nodded. ‘Where to next?'

‘Balmbras. The parade.'

‘Dancing girls and free beer, eh? Lead the way.'

Dan Smith turned to a collection of men accompanying him. They were all talking in a self-congratulatory way, Wilf Burns, his chief planning officer, looking particularly pleased with himself. He picked out one face that wasn't joining in.

‘You coming, Ralph? The cars are waiting.'

Ralph Bell looked around at the mention of his name. He had been staring at the tower blocks, the square-cut concrete, steel and glass edifices. He was looking at the windows, small and distant, imagining small and distant lives taking place behind them. Wishing his was one of them.

Ralph shook his head.

‘No, I've … I said I'd meet Jean.'

Dan Smith crossed to him. ‘There's a place on the coach for you. The parade. These new homes didn't build themselves. You should be proud of what your company's done.'

Ralph nodded absently.

Dan Smith looked at him, his face etched with concern. ‘Come on, Ralph. Take the day off. You and Jean. Enjoy yourselves. You deserve it.'

Ralph Bell sighed. ‘No, I've got to …'

He gestured with his hand, index finger outstretched, shaking his head.

Dan Smith nodded.

‘I understand, Ralph.'

He looked at Ralph. His clothes looked shabby and smelled of too many wearings, not enough washings. His hair managed the feat of appearing to be both dry and simultaneously greasy. His face held blotches of red, broken skin and prominent, livid purple veins. His eyes were black rimmed and deep set, watery and yellow, like stagnant pools. His breath was rank. His moustache a stained grey.

‘I'd better …' Ralph gestured, a vague oscillation in the direction of the road.

‘Good to see you,' said Dan Smith. He shook his hand, clasping it in both of his. ‘Send my best to Jean.'

Ralph Bell nodded and stumbled off, not seeming to care whether his feet came down on mud or planking.

Hugh Gaitskell watched him go.

‘Bit of a state.'

‘He's had a lot of hardship in the last few years. Left him somewhat broken. But what can you do? You can't just let a man go. Besides, it's his construction company.'

‘I'm surprised he can still manage to run it.'

‘He can't. But his right-hand man can. Quite brilliantly, in fact.'

Hugh Gaitskell nodded.

‘Come on, then.' He clapped Dan Smith on the shoulders. ‘Let's not keep those dancing girls waiting.'

The waves rolled in to Bamburgh beach. Some crashing: greenish water turning to oily foam, landing noisily. Some quiet: a gentle roll, the merest edging of froth. But the follow-up always the same: the tide ebbing, clawing back water from the land, reshaping the beach, indiscriminately depositing shells, seaweed, stones, crustacean skeletons, all manner of seaborne detritus, creating a newly sanded topography.

Jack Smeaton sat on a spread rug and watched, fascinated by the tide's random, passionless beauty. Inexorable, unchanging. Creating, destroying, creating again. He looked at the sky, willed the sunshine to break through the thin cloud covering, justify his choice of clothes. But wishes didn't matter, no matter how fervently he made them: the sun was as arbitrary as the sea.

Sharon Smeaton lay next to him, stretched out, stomach down, elbows propped as she read a paperback novel.
Doctor Zhivago.
Boris Pasternak. A cold love story.

They seemed a perfect couple: Jack tanned, muscled and handsome, in shorts, shirtless. Sharon beautiful and body sculpted, seemingly unmarked by childbirth, in a black one-piece swimsuit that gripped and curved and showcased. Sunglasses hid their eyes from observers, from each other.

Between them was Isaac. Their son. He crouched at the water's edge, gathering sand, beach debris and water, collecting it in his bucket and spade, carrying it back to a castle and moat complex that he was building in the sand. Talking to himself as he rearranged his finds, imagining not sand before him but some vast, elaborate castle, existing only in his mind's eye. Occasionally looking up for parental approval. Jack smiling and nodding at him in return.

Jack thinking: my son.

Feeling strange forming the words, even in his head, even after five years.

He loved the boy, no question. He just couldn't admit it to his son or his wife. To himself. He felt love for Isaac, he felt pride. He struggled to show it. But he couldn't make that final leap. Couldn't just let go and love him unconditionally. There was still too much fear inside Jack.