There are two Edgware Road stations. Getting from one to the other involves taking a train four stops and changing. Getting from one to the other by foot involves walking under a small motorway. I went to the larger of the two, tapping in with my travelcard and staggering down the steps onto the first platform that took my fancy. Direction was an irrelevance. I slumped on a bench, holding my burning hand to my chest and fumbling in my pocket for painkillers. There was a vending machine selling a bottle of volcanically pure, organically treated, beloved, chilled and pampered water for £2.50, or a cardboard pack of sugar-laced, chemically treated fruit juice for 60p. I slurped blackcurrant-flavoured stickiness through a straw and swallowed the painkillers, then kicked another vending machine until it gave me chocolate.
A train pulled up on the opposite platform. It claimed to be going to Barking, but on its arrival it just sat there, chugging and clunking and not bothering to close its doors. The few passengers sat in silence and didn’t seem surprised.
Above my bench the board announced an eastbound Circle Line train was coming, but didn’t tell me when. If London Underground isn’t telling you when the next train is due, you can usually assume it’s bad news. I slurped more fruity sugar and waited. On the far side of the track, an enterprising graffiti artist with no fear of electrocution had written:
GEEF ME MIJN HOED TERUG
My thoughts, which had been left behind when the rest of me decided to run, had finally slipped back into the hollow comfort of my brain. Now they were setting up shop, putting out their wares and asking for a health and safety assessment.
Earle had said: the Midnight Mayor.
Which was alarming enough in itself, but then he’d gone further: the Midnight Mayor is dead.
And the Aldermen thought we’d killed him.
Which, while not true, was still justification for our execution. And we had been attacked at 2.25 a.m., and they said that the Mayor had died at 2.26 a.m., and what was the use of their lying about it?
Even if the Mayor was real.
Even if the Mayor was dead?
I caught the Circle Line from Edgware Road to Baker Street; at Baker Street, changed to the Bakerloo Line for Oxford Circus; and from there took the Central Line, towards Bank and the City of London. The old city; the Golden Mile. The hunting ground of the Aldermen, and home of the Midnight Mayor.
Part 1: The Midnight Mayor
In which the nature of telephones is discussed, a connection made, a curse exposed and a title transferred to an unsuspecting inheritor.
This is the story of the Mayors of London.
Once a year on a usually cold and often drizzling November morning, a heavy carriage of tasteless gold and plump velvet is wheeled out from its resting place in the Guildhall, at the heart of the Corporation of London, the oldest borough of the city. It’s dusted off, given a pair of footmen in white tights and a driver with a big hat, and sent to collect the Lord Mayor of London. In bright red robes and a ridiculous chain of office, this individual will then ride through the centre of town, swear a number of oaths, shake a lot of hands and generally celebrate and make merry for the good of the city. Ludgate Circus and Fleet Street are shut down for his procession; likewise Cheapside, London Wall and Bank are sealed off, cars out and policemen in, along with the tourists and onlookers who come to see the parade. Giant floats of distorted gaseous proportion, dancing bands and singing dancers, jugglers and hot dog vendors take to the streets and generally a fine if slightly pompous time is had by all. As the sun goes down, the Lord Mayor boards a boat on the Thames, between Blackfriars and Waterloo Bridge, and from anchored barges in the middle of the river fireworks are set off, funded by the big financial firms of the city. Champagne is drunk by dignitaries onboard, and the onlookers, as soon as the last boom has died away above the Oxo Tower, are quick to seek out the hidden pubs in the alleys between Fleet Street and Farringdon Road, or behind the National Theatre, Gabriel’s Wharf and Southwark. And so the day is partied away quite nicely thank you and, for another year, the people forget that the Lord Mayor exists.