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Saturday 22 November 2008

Low Life

Gathering Storm

While I was up there on the plinth, two other men emerged simultaneously from the cubicles. I only saw them with my peripheral vision, but I think they came out of the same one. The rain hammered on the roof and cascaded noisily down from the overflowing guttering outside. Then some city types came bounding in and then three drenched cyclists came in, pushing their bikes ahead of them. Then more men in suits came in, some of them talking into their mobile phones, and then an elderly man pulling a long-haired dachshund on a lead. And then a party of about 40 French schoolchildren, plus three teachers wearing luminous yellow tabards, forced their way in. The French schoolchildren were babbling excitedly among themselves, as French schoolchildren in England generally do, finding each other far more fascinating and congenial than anything our poor benighted country might have to offer.

While I stood waiting for the rain to stop, I tested this observation by transplanting this particular party of French schoolchildren via my imagination to the Cenotaph during the minute’s silence on Remembrance Day, and from there to a tie-breaking frame of the world snooker final.

The dinning on the roof decreased slightly. I exchanged hopeful glances with one of the men recently out of the cubicle. Yes, it was definitely easing off. Men straightened their shoulders and smoothed their hair as though waiting to disembark from a plane. The rain slowed, then ceased as suddenly as it had started. We filed out under the dripping plane trees and went our separate ways. The volume and intensity of the French schoolchildren’s chatter was the same going as it was coming. The rain held off for the duration of the rooftop party.

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