Falling for London Read online

  Except in this case, nothing about that dress was considered trivial in the eyes of the world’s media. With a couple of billion people watching around the world, broadcasters now had a boatload of facts to help fill their time.

  As was widely predicted, it was designed by Sarah Burton of the Alexander McQueen house. The release noted that it was a British firm, but neglected to point out that it was owned by the Italian fashion giant Gucci.

  Members of the Royal School of Needlework hand-made the lace. To maintain secrecy, they were reportedly told that it was being created for an expensive costume drama. Hands had to be washed every thirty minutes and needles changed every three hours to ensure there were no greasy fingerprints or shredded threads on this item of worn history.

  All very fascinating and duly reported to the throngs of royalists watching, but the real sensation trailed just behind Kate: her sister, Pippa, holding the train and slightly stealing the show as she paraded up the aisle in a bridesmaid’s dress that perfectly displayed an exquisitely contoured ass.

  While Kate’s dress was later to go on display at Buckingham Palace, where it raised money for charity, Pippa’s backside launched a web page, Facebook group, and a new target for the paparazzi.

  As for us up in the stands, the beginning of the ceremony meant that we could take a break, as no one would be interested in our fascinating commentary when they could listen to see if Kate managed to remember all of Will’s names as she recited her vows, or watch the prince jamming a slightly too small ring onto his bride’s finger.

  At the end, as the future king and queen paraded down the aisle and out into their horse-drawn carriage, it was time to stand up and start talking again. It was a challenge, because the abbey bells once again started ringing out in deafening fashion — a noise that would continue for another three hours.

  My contribution to the broadcast at this point was something on the order of “It sure is loud here, Dawna. People are excited.”

  There were no plans to submit it for any awards of excellence. The challenge was just to continue filling airtime for an hour or so until the happy couple emerged on the balcony of the palace to deliver the kiss.

  Someone came in my ear asking if I could offer any commentary on the fashions. My heart ran cold. The fascinator wisecrack was the best and only thing I had. So instead I recited David Cameron’s moral struggle over the morning suit.

  “Thanks for that, Sean,” said our anchor, Dawna. “I had no idea.…”

  I suspect she wanted to hear about the lace, the handwashing, and the needle changing.

  Finally, the happy couple emerged on the balcony and gave the people what they wanted. William added a second kiss for good measure. Times had changed for the Royals. These two people actually knew each other, unlike Will’s parents who had only met a handful of times by wedding day. As one astute commentator once said, Charles and the Windsor team had the impossible task of finding a British virgin with royal blood and no embarrassments in her past. The Chuck and Diana kiss was thus forced, chaste, and a harbinger of what was to come in a disastrous marriage.

  Now that the money shot had happened, we could at last sign off from the live broadcast. After we made our way down from the bleachers, I spotted the Canadian camper Bernadette Christie packing up her belongings as she prepared to go to a hotel and her first shower in days.

  “I just couldn’t stop crying,” she said. “It was just beautiful … spectacular beauty. The culture, the history. I can’t say enough. I don’t know what to say.”

  My only task now was to write and narrate a highlight package for the evening news. As I was to discover, much of my work in the London bureau involved watching television, choosing the best video and clips, and preparing a story without leaving the office. The technical term for this exercise is “melting” or “doing a melt.” It is loosely connected to what we sometimes refer to as “journalism.”

  The day after the wedding, the whole crew of collaborators headed home to Canada. I would still be at the Mayfair for another day or two before shifting to a cheaper hotel closer to the bureau.

  I was suddenly alone, and a bit lonely. Now what?

  The search for supper had me wandering through the streets around the hotel on a warm London night, poking my head into tiny restaurants and pubs that were both full and expensive. As I walked in circles vacillating, the phone rang.

  “Hi, Daddy!” yelled an enthusiastic Julia. “Guess what Mommy did.”

  “I dunno. What did Mommy do?”

  “I can’t tell you!”

  “Could you pass me to Mommy?”

  Isabella got on the line.

  “You know, it’s a bit crazy and I can’t really tell you about it,” she said enigmatically, with ill-concealed excitement in her voice. They were clearly driving and talking on speakerphone.

  “Can you give me a hint?” I asked.

  “I can’t yet. It’s really wild, but I feel really good about it.”

  I was leaning against a wall with a slightly wacky smile on my face as we played the game. At least she sounded happy.

  Julia piped up from the back seat.

  “SHE BOUGHT A CAR!!”

  “You bought a car?”

  “Well … yes. AND IT’S SO CUTE!”

  “Okay. What kind of car?”

  “It’s a Fiat … a little Fiat 500. A convertible with a red top. AND I LOVE IT!”

  “So … you bought an Italian ‘fix-it-again-Tony’ ragtop. In Canada. Where it snows. When you’re about to move to London.”

  “Yes, I did. You went to London and I’m buying myself a car I love.”

  I thought the Mazda was perfectly fine; better, it was fully paid for. It was too big for Isabella, though; the Fiat on the other hand was a sweet compact and a fun ride for her and Julia to enjoy in my absence.

  The next day I moved to more modest accommodations. The Holiday Inn in Camden Lock was not exactly the Mayfair, but it was good enough and just across the canal from the bureau. Guests got a complimentary pair of earplugs — a useful item due to the late-night din at that time of year. With the weather being mild, young patrons of the many nearby pubs tended to spill out into the street at night, loudly proclaiming their presence.

  The dreary hunt for a short-let apartment dragged on, ruining my mornings with frustration. They were too expensive, required too long a stay, were too far away, or mainly were just too crappy.

  The breakthrough finally came when I expanded my search slightly north. There was a cluster of estate agent offices surrounding the Hampstead Tube stop, with what appeared to be many possibilities posted in their windows. Of course, I had been fooled before by what seemed to be promising pictures.

  I took a chance and went into one office. A Cockney lass named Jade was sure she had a place, picking up the phone and talking to an owner. It seemed that he had had a flat up for sale for months, with no sign of a buyer. She talked him into considering it as a short let, so that at least he could get some income.

  “How’s the market for sales?” I asked her as we walked to her car.

  “Shite.”

  The banking crisis still lingered. Many first-time buyers could not get financing. The rental market, by contrast, was booming, with rents rising impossibly.

  Jade’s car was a white Fiat 500, pretty much the same toy vehicle Isabella had just bought back home.

  After what seemed like a very short drive, we pulled up to a leafy cul-de-sac with a building surrounded by neat and blossoming gardens at the end.

  The flat in question was a 2.5 bedroom on the ground floor — not good. But it was bright, clean, and evidently well-kept. A mere £850 per week, which would work out to almost $6,000 a month.

  But the company would be paying for this one, although the pressure would be on to get a permanent place.

  Sold.

  Back at her office I filled out a rental agreement that ran roughly 250,000 pages, each of which had to be initialed at the bottom.
I handed over my credit card to pay six weeks in advance. Naturally the amount required went way over my limit, and the card was refused, leading to an emergency long distance call to Canada to get the limit increased.

  Head spinning at the many thousands of dollars flying onto my little piece of plastic, there was a coincident feeling of relief. A place had been found. Hallelujah.

  Two days later, I loaded my giant suitcases into a taxi and hauled them up to my new, temporary home. The landlord had already rented a few pieces of furniture — a tacky glass table; a tackier, black fake-leather sofa; and a couple of cheapo beds. All very much like the decor of student apartments from decades ago. The place still echoed with the emptiness.

  There were a couple of pots and pans and about three wire hangers in the closet, but no plates or cutlery, and, crucially, no TV or internet.

  In order to start gathering provisions, the folks at the estate agent’s office advised a visit to the Brent Cross Shopping Centre and the John Lewis department store. There was a Brent Cross stop on the Northern line just two stops away, so it seemed simple enough. Except the Brent Cross Tube stop is actually nowhere near the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. I emerged on a residential street, with no sign of the mall. But there were at least signs, which led me on a circuitous route through a bleak industrial streetscape — a place strewn with beer cans, the grey concrete walls marked with profane graffiti, traffic passing overhead on an expressway. This was not the tourist’s London.

  After a fifteen-minute walk through British dystopia, I arrived. Brent Cross was a mall like any other I would find in North America and John Lewis very much like the department stores back home.

  The list of necessities was long and the pressure great due to the need to find things that would meet with Isabella’s approval. So I called her to talk me through the process … describing the bed linens, cutlery, and plates that I had picked out. She asked me to just get the basics so that she could take care of the larger portion when she came to visit in a few weeks.

  At checkout I filled four huge plastic bags.

  “Would you like us to deliver?” asked the helpful clerk.

  “Nope. I’m good,” I said, the bag handles cutting deeply into my hands as I hoisted them. I was determined to get the flat squared away as soon as possible and did not want to have to wait for a delivery, a decision I kept repeating to myself during the short walk over to the taxi stand, my shoulder muscles screaming, my fingers turning purple with the blood flow cut off, and sweat beading on my forehead.

  The cab driver watched with some amusement as I plopped the bags inside and collapsed onto the seat.

  “Yah know, they’ll deliver that for you, mate?”

  “Mate” had the full London meaning of “fucking idiot” in this case.

  No matter. Now at least I had the means to eat something other than pizza and to sleep in a bed that had sheets, pillows, and a duvet. A quick trip out to a discount electronics store produced a TV. Then another trip to buy a tool kit when I discovered that a nail file was not up to the task of attaching said TV to the cable.

  Pick up some microwave dinners, cereal, milk, and a six-pack of beer, and things were starting to fall into place. But as I sat alone at the glass table, watching TV and eating greasy chicken tikka masala out of a plastic tray, it still felt more like a rather expensive camping trip than a profound experience of one the world’s great cities. I could have just as easily been sitting in an apartment in Timmins, Ontario, drinking cans of Sleeman instead of John Smith’s.

  The acquisition of the short let was only the preface to the tragicomedy to come: the search for a “permanent” place for my reluctant wife and daughter. But at least their introduction to London would be in an enticing neighbourhood.

  Without actually knowing it, I had stumbled into one of the most expensive parts of the city, reputedly with the highest concentration of millionaires anywhere in the United Kingdom. Crossing Frognal, I always had to take care to not be run down by a Rolls or Bentley. Along Church Row, there was a plaque announcing that H.G. Wells once lived there. In the overgrown cemetery farther down the street, there was the mossy gravestone of Hugh Gaitskell, a former Labour Party leader. The painter John Constable is also planted there.

  The MP was Glenda Jackson, once an Oscar-winning actress, by then a bit of a gadfly on the left wing of Labour. Although well-heeled, Hampstead has also been a centre of liberal thinkers.

  The streets surrounding the Hampstead Tube stop are lined with tony shops, charming cafés, and restaurants. I took note of the art supplies store and the PizzaExpress joint — two possible selling points. A few doors down from the Tube stop there is even a McDonald’s, but one that had to fight to wedge its way into the neighbourhood in the 1990s. Ronald and gang battled it out in court with the hostile residents of Hampstead, finally reaching a compromise that saw a subdued storefront for the golden arches.

  It is all on the edge of Hampstead Heath: the massive and ancient expanse of greenery — home to bathing ponds, a million dog-walkers, and one of the best views of the city.

  The flat, which seemed a mere stone’s throw from the Tube stop when riding in Jade’s car, was actually a good ten-minute walk, all uphill. On my first substantial grocery run, I felt every step hauling several jammed grocery bags, which did further damage to my hands. I resolved to add a shopping trolley to my list of things to buy.

  Given the hilly terrain, Hampstead Tube stop is the deepest in the city, the platform more than fifty-eight metres below the surface. Rushing to work in my first week in the flat, I discovered a sign at the entrance advising that the lift was out of order, so I turned to the emergency stairs, beside which is an advisory that there are more than 320 steps. How bad could it be? I held the handrail as I jauntily made my way down the spiral staircase. Partway down my head started to spin and there was a burning in my knees. Why the hell did they not have a backup elevator? Out of breath, sweat gathering in the small of my back, I arrived at the bottom, just as the other lift (the one that was not out of order had I properly read the signs) arrived with a load of passengers. The palm that had gripped the rail on the way down was now black, having rubbed off about a century’s worth of accumulated Londoners’ hand grime.

  Holding my hand at a distance to avoid further contamination, I hopped aboard the southbound train just as the doors were closing. As I congratulated myself on my gazelle-like grace, forward progress came to a sudden stop. The doors had clamped onto my backpack, and it was now thoroughly jammed.

  Pull once. No movement. Pull harder. Nothing. Pull pull pull. Now it was a desperate tug of war to yank it through. London Tube train doors are remarkably powerful. The backpack would not budge. Inside were both my laptop and my passport, which I now pictured being shredded and scattered along the deepest stretch of the Underground.

  A guy on the platform witnessed my flailing, stepped up to the door with a look of impatience and disdain and gave a brisk push, just as I put all my strength into one last yank. Abruptly freed from the deathly embrace of the doors, I stumbled across the car and grabbed a post to avoid doing a face plant.

  Sweat was now pouring down my face, which I wiped with my grimy hand, smearing a substantial black mark across my forehead. The doors had left a grease stain on the backpack, which in the struggle transferred to my formerly white shirt.

  The other passengers on the car watched my fumbling performance with bored indifference. The Underground won this round.

  As I walked into the Interchange, all the TV screens were dominated by pictures of Osama bin Laden. American intelligence had tracked him down to a house in Pakistan, somehow missed by the Pakistani authorities, even though his so-called hideout was a short walk away from a prominent military academy. A squad of U.S. Navy SEALs staged a raid in the dark of night and gunned him down, finally exacting vengeance for 9/11.

  It was in the middle of the night back home, but someone was awake because my iPhone buzzed with an email: “We want
you to go to Pakistan” — puzzling because we had a correspondent who was based in New Delhi, several thousand kilometres closer to the action. But in this kind of job, the correct answer is always: “Okay.”

  Isabella generally worried about my safety, even if I was going to northern Ontario. I was fairly certain she would not be pleased to hear that I was flying halfway around the world to a nation where al Qaeda was active and where its leader had just been killed by Americans who had staged a military raid without permission on sovereign soil, especially given that she and Julia were to be arriving in London in about a week for their first, crucial visit.

  Luckily, it never became an issue because it quickly became apparent that a Pakistani visa was going to be impossible. But this was the first taste of how the demands of being a foreign correspondent often collide with the demands of family.

  The days were whirling by toward the arrival of Isabella and Julia. The flat hunt was intensifying, and thankfully it was becoming marginally less futile as I was at least able to put together a short list of possibles that I could show them.

  Isabella had started searching online and was regularly sending me listings to check out, including an apartment on Buckland Crescent, which was pictured with what appeared to be a quaint little balcony overlooking the street.

  “I think this could be the one,” she said.

  Chapter Three

  Once upon a time there was a hamlet called Heathrow. It was a peaceful place off the main roads and rail lines southwest of London, surrounded by farms that had been there for centuries. The old village apparently sat roughly where Terminal One is now, long since swallowed up by one of the world’s busiest airports.