19
Time
There are two streams of time here. In one it is 2010 and I wove through a crowd of irritated, panicked, excited passengers towards a noise whose origin, purpose or exact location I could not measure. In the other it is 2018 and I follow that weaving as closely as I can remember. I follow those few psychosomatic echoes of drumming I can muster from memory. In one stream I walked through the back exit of the station, crossed the spiral staircase leading to the station veranda and walked up the craggy slope designed for wheelchair users. In another stream this exit is blocked totally and I am forced to skirt the edges of the station, onto the pavement, pass shops and rusty benches equally as abandoned as that which has come before. Somewhere between these streams – in some imaginary, eternalist temporality – my footsteps of then and now touch. They echo one another over the span of years. In one stream, in 2010, I move onto a cloudy Parliament Row and heard the roaring of men and women and the slapping sound of humans hitting riot shields. Resounding above all of this was the banging and the deep, male chant of E-E-EDL. In 2018, I turn the corner to a Parliament Row devoid of crowds, chanting, banging, flying fists or the fluorescent jackets of police officers. Instead, it is quiet and cool. The only gathering is a group of pigeons pecking at a patch of pastry at the mouth of the alley opposite McDonalds.
There is an allure to both scenes. For silence it is obvious: peace, tranquillity, the perceived lack of danger. But for a crowd like that it is an animal allure, a need that spikes instantly to join and make noise and move violently, regardless of opinions, views or policy. The mass of people – the anonymity, the rapture – exists to swell, to call upon others to join its ranks. When I first saw the crowd I stopped, surprised, and started to slowly accept the circle of armoured riot officers, the yellow police vans, the signs reading Democracy not Theocracy, and No Surrender. Here were hundreds of men and women swearing at police and throwing themselves at riot shields. I watched – hovering in the Venn Diagram between shock, fear and fascination – as one of the police vans started to wobble, then bounce, as it was pushed back and forth by the crowd. A man climbed on top of another and started to jump up and down as he screamed. Almost 8 years later, all traces of the crowd have been erased. As I make my way towards the centre of town I see that even the paving has changed, and futuristic-yet-functional lampposts, bins and multicoloured strip lighting has appeared. Benches are no longer of the iron variety that once lined the perimeter of Wetherspoons but exist as round, rectangular slabs of cold marble to perch on for no more than 5 minutes. Small trees have also arrived. They are manageable, beautifying evergreens. A homeless man and his dog beg for change under one of them.