the floor covered indiscriminately with the glossy detritus of this morning’s junk mail—somehow attesting to the fact that much of the day had already elapsed while the thicker letters in white or brown envelopes—final reminders to pay gas bills; missives from the home office—lay bunched by an invisible hand, piled neatly, on the central heating radiator on the side. Ananda paused to peer at them before deciding that this mix of the daily precipitation of official communications and a suspiciously non-committal package addressed to Vivek Patel, probably containing a pornographic magazine, had nothing for him. He opened the door and, once he’d passed the little vestibule—where often garbage bags were kept—turned right towards McDonald’s.
—
Here, at McDonald’s—whose burgers were both disappointing and too expensive for him, the big Mac, for its size, a Herculean task to bite into, but strangely nondescript to the palate—was a junction at which you encountered people crossing from Tottenham Court Road into the futuristic anonymity of Euston Road. Othersheaded through the glass door for (or emerged heavy with) a Big Mac meal, and still others, across the road, milled before Warren Street tube station, either about to disappear inwards, or just coming out, accustoming themselves to the right angle of Warren Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Ananda turned right into the wide busy stretch that went much further than the brain could accommodate; for he had trouble comprehending that
this
Tottenham Court Road was identical to the one after the traffic lights that would sever New Oxford from Oxford Street
—there
lay the more salacious stretch, besides of course the obscure guitar shops in by-lanes, and Foyles, civilised sentinel; but also prostitutes so down-at-heel that you flinched and looked away—they becoming, for a split second, focussed on you as you passed by, giving you the privilege of their attention (it was nice to be noticed, however you might deny it, when you were in the crowd), but becoming bored instantaneously and returning to their vigil; in further by-lanes were the remaining XXX cinemas that, under Thatcher, had become pristine with nipples and buttocks and never the vestige of an erection, the LIVE PEEP SHOW! signs, bursting with unfounded optimism, and the weirder notices pinned to doors: MODELS ON THE FIRST FLOOR. In his first year, he’d been a flâneur of these sites, a frequenter of interiors in which no one acknowledged anyone else as they browsed in stops and starts, and even the faint touch of another man’s shoulder could make you flinch; shops that you slipped into through curtains that had been passed through a shredder; he was uneasy, but the shop assistant (if you could call them that: they were probably on parole) was usually friendly, but sly; only once or twice had Ananda received a whiff of racism, a burly man saying “Vindaloo, vindaloo” in an eerie sing-song to himself. Such people were to be ignored and avoided;there are certain demoniacal beings in the universe, his uncle had said, quoting Taranath the tantric, who are dim but incredibly powerful; they can grow a hundred times their size in a second; they have brute strength; they can fly; but they are not intelligent. You won’t be able to beat them in a contest of strength, but you have to hold your nerve when facing them. His uncle’s reason for referring to Taranath the tantric was to take a dig at Western civilisation, its technological marvels, which he dismissed as a brash, superficial form of energy. Ananda found Taranath the tantric’s definition handy for classifying the whole range of skinheads, football fans, and neo-Nazis he must take care not to run into during his Soho wanders.
—
This
stretch, on which he made his progress towards the college, was boring. He wasn’t even sure if it
was
Tottenham Court Road. Not a dirty magazine to be seen. Instead, the Grafton Hotel, with its
—
Here, at McDonald’s—whose burgers were both disappointing and too expensive for him, the big Mac, for its size, a Herculean task to bite into, but strangely nondescript to the palate—was a junction at which you encountered people crossing from Tottenham Court Road into the futuristic anonymity of Euston Road. Othersheaded through the glass door for (or emerged heavy with) a Big Mac meal, and still others, across the road, milled before Warren Street tube station, either about to disappear inwards, or just coming out, accustoming themselves to the right angle of Warren Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Ananda turned right into the wide busy stretch that went much further than the brain could accommodate; for he had trouble comprehending that
this
Tottenham Court Road was identical to the one after the traffic lights that would sever New Oxford from Oxford Street
—there
lay the more salacious stretch, besides of course the obscure guitar shops in by-lanes, and Foyles, civilised sentinel; but also prostitutes so down-at-heel that you flinched and looked away—they becoming, for a split second, focussed on you as you passed by, giving you the privilege of their attention (it was nice to be noticed, however you might deny it, when you were in the crowd), but becoming bored instantaneously and returning to their vigil; in further by-lanes were the remaining XXX cinemas that, under Thatcher, had become pristine with nipples and buttocks and never the vestige of an erection, the LIVE PEEP SHOW! signs, bursting with unfounded optimism, and the weirder notices pinned to doors: MODELS ON THE FIRST FLOOR. In his first year, he’d been a flâneur of these sites, a frequenter of interiors in which no one acknowledged anyone else as they browsed in stops and starts, and even the faint touch of another man’s shoulder could make you flinch; shops that you slipped into through curtains that had been passed through a shredder; he was uneasy, but the shop assistant (if you could call them that: they were probably on parole) was usually friendly, but sly; only once or twice had Ananda received a whiff of racism, a burly man saying “Vindaloo, vindaloo” in an eerie sing-song to himself. Such people were to be ignored and avoided;there are certain demoniacal beings in the universe, his uncle had said, quoting Taranath the tantric, who are dim but incredibly powerful; they can grow a hundred times their size in a second; they have brute strength; they can fly; but they are not intelligent. You won’t be able to beat them in a contest of strength, but you have to hold your nerve when facing them. His uncle’s reason for referring to Taranath the tantric was to take a dig at Western civilisation, its technological marvels, which he dismissed as a brash, superficial form of energy. Ananda found Taranath the tantric’s definition handy for classifying the whole range of skinheads, football fans, and neo-Nazis he must take care not to run into during his Soho wanders.
—
This
stretch, on which he made his progress towards the college, was boring. He wasn’t even sure if it
was
Tottenham Court Road. Not a dirty magazine to be seen. Instead, the Grafton Hotel, with its
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