The London Journey
Day One
Friday:
God alone knows what time of day it is -- our watches are already set for London. It feels as though it is 2 or 3 a.m.. It's been a long day filled with airports and luggage and shuttle buses and information desks (largely unwilling or unable to part with information). Eventually I make my slow way from Louisville to Pittsburgh, and from there to Raleigh, where Marci and I meet up and begin the voyage to Britain.
We
promised ourselves this trip so many years ago. Playing as kids in our
Grandmother's house, we promised one another that someday we'd go to Britain.
Now, nearly thirty years later, we are finally underway.
It's been so long since we've been together like
this. We were such good friends back then, and this past year of rediscovering
that friendship has been a great joy and source of solace in the rough
times. Yet, as I sit here in this now silent airliner cabin, with the
rush of the day behind me and the unknown ahead, I admit to some trepidation.
We've
both lived so much of our lives apart now -- and such different lives.
How much has changed between us? Who is this woman dozing next to me --
so competent and confident and so much more complex than the child I remember?
I'm extremely nervous with strangers for fear of putting a foot wrong.
And I've driven this poor woman half mad over the past hours with my fretting
and deference and timidity.
Surrounded by sleepers yet too full of questions and uncertainties to sleep myself, I glance over at her in the dim light of the night cabin. Marci's face is half buried in what the airlines call a pillow -- the makeup so carefully applied early in the day is gone now, and her face is relaxed and open as she dreams.
And then time bends... as she sometimes does.
And all at once I see her there -- my friend of so long ago. Not a stranger at all. Underneath the veneer that experience has laid down, this is still my confident and ally. I recognize her now and can't understand why I didn't see her before. Somewhere, far out over the Atlantic I begin to relax until at last sleep comes.
Arrival
The first
grey and soggy glimpses of land come into view as we wake. Like ghosts
they appear as vague shadows in the mist and vanish again. We are over
the Irish coast, headed south. There is coffee (of sorts) and we begin
to clear away the detritus around us and ready our carry-on bags.
At length, the darker grey patches begin to resolve themselves, like islands rising from the sea, and I get my first glimpse of Britain. It's a car park (of course), but no less wonderful to my eyes for that. I have been transported in my sleep to another land.
Marci has arranged for us to be driven into London from Gatwick, which is good, as the British roads are simply terrifying. I was prepared for the idea of everything being on the wrong side... but nobody warned me that the roads are about the width of a sidewalk, there is no rhyme or reason to British traffic flow, few lights, and absolutely no fear on the part of either drivers or pedestrians of the potential for sudden violent death all around them.
Looking
out the car windows, I am transported with delight at everything around
me -- even the traffic signs; from the slightly ominous "ADVERSE
CAMBER" to the ribald "HUMP 20 YARDS". There is some difficulty
in locating our Bed and Breakfast. In the middle of traffic our driver
pulls alongside a Black Cab (Yes, Virginia.
They do exist -- passenger doors wrong way round and all) and shouts out
"HOY MATE! SLOANE?" Directions are exchanged between the drivers
in some ritual of professional courtesy unknown to mere mortals, and we
are whisked to our destination.
The delightful young Slavic woman behind the front desk at the Willett (it is apparently against the law for anyone working in London actually to have been born there) informs us that we cannot yet check in. We leave our bags there in the foyer and "go walkies".
Marci has to stop every few yards or so in order that I can exclaim "Ohmygod! I'm in f_ing LONDON!!" I can't seem to wipe the goofy, Midwestern farmboy grin off my face, and it seems a close contest as to whose amusement is greater: mine in just being here, or Marci's in getting to show it off to me. I see my first double-decker bus and squeal like a schoolgirl. I take pictures of street signs. We admire the cast iron, solidly Victorian grit boxes (you can tell, because they say "Grit Box" on the lid) that are set at random about the city in sensible precaution against a snow that occurs only in Dickens novels. I try to take a picture and am nearly run down by a bus in the process. Marci points out the neat lettering on the curb at each intersection: "LOOK RIGHT" or "LOOK LEFT", so that one always knows from which direction vehicular homicide is approaching.
Walkies
We
decide to get some lunch and almost immediately happen across a beautiful
pub, looking like a picture postcard, all polished wood and brass. I expect
it to be filled with jolly, ruddy-faced Londoners, filled with bonhomie
and imbibing under the solicitous eye of a bewiskered and bemused landlord.
It is, instead, empty and under the doleful watch of a mistrustful-looking
chap who informs us that the food "is not on yet." We order
tea, consult our maps, and wait for the appointed time when we can lawfully
order our fish and chips (Yes, the pub had other, more varied fare. But
I am in London, for pete's sake... I want fish and chips. I am also delighted
to report that the entire day is grey and wet and wonderfully British.
I feel as though I am in some vast theme park with even the climate having
been laid on especially for my benefit)
Eventually served and sated, we pay for our meal before returning to the Willett. I'm just beginning to get a handle on the coinage here and I love it. In a tactile sense, it is immensely gratifying to handle. These are coins of substance, solid and heavy and reassuring. You get yourself a pocket full of these, mate, and you know you've got money. (Of course if you fall into any substantial body of water with a pocket full of these, you'll also go straight to the bottom like a shot, but it seems a small price to pay).
Arriving at the Willet, we are grateful to find that our bags have already been transfered to our room. I use the word "grateful" most sincerely, as our room is on the fourth floor.
Now, for those of you who don't read a great deal of British detective fiction, I should explain that what we call the "First Floor" in the States is, in fact, the "Ground Floor" in Britain. Consequently the first floor becomes the second, the second the third, and so on.
Thus, after having been awake for God know how many hours, having trudged up to the fourth (read "fifth") floor, making our way through the several doors which led to our room, and having successfully wrestled with the door key (which was inexplicably attached to a brass bludgeon roughly the size of a sheep's leg), we were ready to freshen ourselves up and see the sights.
The Tower
I confess that at first I found the London subways system utterly baffling. Having lived in several cities, none of which had possessed the forethought (or the size) to install an underground transit system), I was at a loss, holding my little magnetic ticket and studying the crayon-colored lines of the subway map.
I was much more intrigued by the minutiae (as usual), such as the exit signs
which read "WAY OUT" ("Groovy, man!" I thought), the
wonderful mix of languages and accents, and the lilting female voice which
politely admonished me to "Mind the Gap" each time I stepped
onto the platform. Fortunately Marci, being an old hand at riding the
tubes, takes me firmly in hand, gets us wedged onto the correct train,
and soon we are bound for east London.
The
is nothing to prepare me for the shock of exiting the tube station, passing
through the tunnel beneath the roadway, and emerging to find the fortress
of William the Conqueror sitting passively in front of me. I stand rooted
to the spot while dozens of Japanese
school children flow past me in a little sea of blue blazers.
"It.."
I began.
"It's just.." I wave my arms in frustration.
"It's just f_ing THERE!!!"
And sadly, despite years of education and a reasonable vocabulary, that's still the best way I can find to describe the impact. The Tower of London... palace, fortress, prison, nightmare ... a place as steeped in blood as it is in legend. It's just there. Suddenly, and improbably there.
I walk the grounds by fits and starts, tired but energized, caught between wanting to run like a child and see it all and once, and the desire to touch every stone and stair. I opt for the latter, willing myself backwards through time, into the minds of those who had walked these paths for nearly a thousand years; trying to see, if only for a moment, through their eyes.
Marci
and I do not follow the guided tours, but wander at will. We view the
inner courtyard from the narrow windows of the White Tower; stand on the
small walkway outside Sir Walter Raleigh's rooms overlooking the Thames;
stand on the spot where so many had met the headsman's blade ; and look
through Traitor's Gate, trying to imagine how it must have appeared to
the young Princess Elizabeth as she was taken through it to imprisonment
and a fate she could no foresee.
William I, Thomas More, Richard III, Henry V... how many legends have walked over these stones beneath my feet? I stand outside a battlement, looking towards the defensive arrow slit try to imagine the alarm of seeing an arrow emerge from it, and knowing (if only for an instant) that ones hour has come
My
favorite photo of the trip is one I take in the White Tower. Effigies
of noble Men at Arms once accompanied the armored effigies of their royal
masters in the Hall of the Kings. Most have been removed now for repair
and refurbishment. But a cabinet remains which holds their wooden heads.
And looking into those eyes from another time, another
world, I can see my own reflection there among them, mirrored in the glass.
Day One ends, and our minds can absorb no more. We find food and take the tube back to Sloane Station and trudge up the stairs to our room, where we almost literally collapse. I lie for awhile in the darkness, trying to remember it all. Suddenly I giggle. Marci asks what's wrong.
"I'm in f-ing London!"
"Go to sleep."
"Hey Marci?" I'm grinning hugely now.
"What?"
"Thank you."
There's a slight pause, and I can feel her smile through the darkness.
"You're welcome."
Visit the Tower of London Online
