A November morning; glorious sunshine from a bright blue sky; cold. I can feel my mood lift as I walk from Charing Cross and through the back streets towards Covent Garden. The endless grey clouds of past weeks which made me irritable and sluggish, have dispersed. Even the other commuters seemed appeased, more polite and understanding than usual. No arguments or tart comments about the lack of space; no delays.
Covent Garden. Everyone - well, actually visitors and tourists - seem to hold this space as the epitome of London, and yet if you actually live in London you rarely visit it. I recall vividly how glamorous it seemed as a teenager to go to Covent Garden, to visit the shops, take in the street entertainment, drink in the bars and dance in the expensive clubs. And yet even then I remember pondering the fact that the majority of people frequenting these places weren't Londoners, but ephemeral faerie folk, just alighted in London on a sojourn, or people who weren't real in the proper sense of the word, i.e. they didn't hold down full-time jobs and struggle to pay bills and curse London with as much passion as they complimented it. If you visit Covent Garden as a London resident, you are struck with the lack of community, a soullessness. Interesting as it wasn't always thus; the space was once a privilege held only by the very rich until the new fashion for town planning developed the area into a public space, and the underside of London began to infiltrate, ruining the wealthy classes peace and privacy. They took themselves off to the newer more segregated spotys such as Bloomsbury Square, which had bars to keep out the riff-raff. Artists and bohemians took over Covent Garden. In later years, Covent Garden developed into a huge fruit and veg market, which filled all of the area, particularly rising in popularity after the Great Fire of London when the ravages had destroyed many other markets. This continued until the 1970s when the area became so central to commuters and visitors that the market started to cause congestion problems. Thus New Covent Garden Market at Nine Elms. And presumably the loss of community at the original site of the market.
I have the pleasure of calling myself a bona fide Londoner these days, and yet here I am in Covent Garden, the theatre of the transient.
Turning from Beford Street into King Street, I eye up the coffee shops and imagine a warm pastry and a large cup of tea. It's an unusually early start for me and an unusual location. I enjoy feeling like a tourist, but a tourist with the added advantage of a savvy that comes from living in the city. I can negotiate the short-cuts and the side-streets, I know what to expect and perfect the slightly bored look of a city-dweller. As I turn a corner I see what at first glance appears to be a corpse, but as I swing my gaze back, I realise it's just me over-active imagination again, encouraged by crime novels and CSI. The feet under the cardboard now make sense to me as they reveal one of the homeless, in actual truth probably half-dead from the cold.
As I round the last corner, Covent Garden suddenly appears in front of me, exactly where it is supposed to be. There is a huge Christmas decoration of a reindeer made from spruce, and blue dancing lights (not of a police car, but of fairy lights). It is so early that hardly anyone is around, only stall holders and labourers emptying dustbins. It's an insight into a Covent Garden I haven't seen before and one I am instantly enamoured with; no tourists, no bustle. I can see the architecture and the cobbled streets. The charming beauty of the place fills me with a contained happiness. In this early morning sunshine, the empty streets seem incredibly beautiful.
I walk past a bench seat filled with tired looking young men in high vis jackets, tucking into white bread sandwiches and tea. They seem to radiate a tired yet mildly aggressive energy, something very male and slightly intimidating. One of them seems to stare at me in the way bulls do - low head on a thick neck, not a flicker of a human within. I suddenly feel very aware of my short skirt and loose hair, and the bull-like man gives me a long hard almost leering look, bizarrely free of desire or acknowledgement, but a look filled with something I can't quite put my finger on. It chills me and I stride past quickly, taking the next right and down another side-street to take me to Endell Street. I can't quite compute the man's look. Usually when men leer they call out a raucous comment, or a cheeky greeting. They at least smile or laugh, perhaps to hide the fact that deep down they feel embarrassed. There was such a detachment in this man's expression, maybe pure exhaustion, maybe something else?
A few hours later I linger by Trafalgar Square before heading back to Charing Cross. The whole city has undergone a transformation and people are beetling about everywhere, covering up the city with their rushed activity. The magical sense of a curtained stage has vanished.
