In the vicinity of the Bank, the streets are crammed with more white stone buildings. Behind these, a little further away, glass skyscrapers rise up. All this would surely inspire feelings of awe in any who came here, or perhaps envy.
Richard emerged from Bank tube station and was confronted by the sight of all this history and glory. He felt a sense of disgust at the sight, both with the buildings and with himself for continuing to work here.
Yet capitalism was a necessary step on the way to socialism. Marx himself had promised this much. And, looking up, if not to Richard but to the impartial observer, at that moment the City seemed celestial. Fluffy white clouds were moving across a porcelain-blue sky. It was almost expected that horn-blowing cherubs would appear, unrolling scrolls of parchment so that some triumphant announcement could be made. You could believe that perhaps they would proclaim that here, right here, they were constructing the New Jerusalem which Ezekiel had prophesied.
It was obvious that heaven and the celestial sphere was an abstract dimension hidden just out of sight of most mortals, as the world of finance was.
Looking back at the Bank of England, it becomes clear the temple is at ground level and the wall it is built on is, in fact, its foundations. Everything else at that level is also subterranean. Black cabs and bright red buses crawl through these underground passageways, while swarms of pedestrians bustle along shadowy walkways. Above this, a better world exists in sunlight and splendour.
◆◆◆
The headquarters of VirtuBank Software (UK) Ltd were in the heart of the City. No expense had been spared to express the image of cutting-edge technological prowess. The whole façade of the building was gleaming, precision-cut, plate glass, apart from six vertical stainless-steel tracks where transparent lifts slid up and down the exterior.
Richard stepped into one of these lifts from the reception area and, as the brushed steel doors closed behind him, he stepped forward and looked through the plate glass walls at the view. The small courtyard through which he had just passed held its usual throng of tourists and office workers; some looking up at the building, some taking photographs. It was an impressive enough building to merit a photograph.
From inside the building, members of the VirtuBank dev team on the fifth floor would be able to observe Richard, standing stock-still, ascending to their level as though by supernatural force.
Inside the lift, illusions of reflection and translucence bewildered the senses. The views of the surrounding buildings were mirrored back at the same time as other images were permitted to pass through directly, so that it was hard to tell what was real and what was reflection. The image of the skyscraper of St Mary Axe, popularly known as the Gherkin, floated upwards over the receptionist in an adjacent office while, turning round, Richard saw the more solid frame of the building itself looming above him. It shone like a sky-rocket.
Richard walked past reception, along a wide passage and into a large open-plan office. But he did not venture far. The hot-desks were nearest reception so that he, and other travelling consultants, would not disturb the office-based staff, many of whom, scattered randomly, were already bowed over their personal desks, or concentrating on their workstations. He sat down at one of the hot-desks and opened his laptop.
