Q: Who found him?
A: Angela.
Q: Who decided you should all go back inside?
A: It was a collective decision.
Q: What time was this?
A: I believe it was around two thirty.
Q: What happened when you came inside?
A: Well, we went back into the sitting room to get warm, wrapped ourselves in some throw blankets, stoked the fire. There was a very good bottle of whisky in the cabinet that I thought we needed to drink to mark the occasion. I got it out.
Q: Using your keys?
A: Yes. But it was awfully dark. I fumbled with them for a bit. Got the bottle out. We drank it. People began to peel off to retire.
Q: Do you recall who went first?
A: Angela or Peter, maybe? Theo went at some point. She usually does a Florence Nightingale run after a long night, delivers water to everyone’s bedside. I know I was in the sitting room with Sooz, Yash, and Julian. Yash became ill and left. Julian and Sooz were having a silly spat about something, and Julian decided to go off. Sooz and I finished the bottle and passed out where we were.
Q: Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?
A: Well, it would be hard to hear anything. The rain was hammering at the windows and whistling in the chimney—it was that kind of night. At some point Sooz said she saw a torchlight go past the window.
Q: Did you see it?
A: No. But I was not . . . incredibly focused.
Q: What time was this?
A: I don’t know. Julian was there, I think. I just remember her saying she saw a light, and she called for Rosie and Noel, but no one answered. Other than that, nothing. The next thing I remember is that it was morning and Theo was standing over me with a mug of tea, saying we should go and look for Rosie and Noel.
Q: Are you currently under the influence of alcohol?
A: I am, yes. I prefer not to be sober today.
Q: It might be best to have some tea or coffee instead. Perhaps something to eat.
A: No, thank you.
Q: All right. You can return to the others. Thank you.
12
RAIN. THE PROMISED RAIN OF ENGLAND—THAT ENDLESS DRIBBLE AND steel clouds. That was the morning outside the window.
The morning after an anxiety attack was always odd in its ordinariness. Hours before, the universe had been collapsing like a flat-pack box, and now day had come and everything had slid back into place. Aside from feeling tired, she was okay. Anxiety was just a weird creep sometimes.
Of course, she had also lost a night in London with David. Winked it right out of existence in a haze of terror and medication. That was what he was saying not to worry about, of course. Last night had not gone precisely to plan, but it had not been a failure either. Tonight would go better.
Today’s schedule was another dense program of tours. She was late waking up, so she took a quick, cold shower and pulled on her hoodie and jeans. Someday she would make more of an effort than that, but today was not that day. There was a raging blister on the back of her left heel. She shoved a folded tissue down the back of her shoe. It wasn’t a great solution, but it would have to do.
“You okay?” Nate asked her as she stepped out. He was leaning in his doorway, dressed in an oversized and pilled brown sweater and slouchy jeans. The gray English light suited him. It was light for indoor people, for ghosts, for royalty and urchins. For writers.
“Fine,” she said.
“Are you sick?” Janelle asked as she and Vi came down the hall. They had put in the usual effort. Vi was wearing a pair of purple overalls with a silver-gray turtleneck underneath. Janelle wore a fuzzy, open-weave red sweater that she had knitted herself, along with a matching hat.
“Just an anxiety attack,” Stevie said. “It’s fine.”
Vi reached over and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. Then it was out into the cold, busy streets of the London morning.
“We should take the bus,” Janelle said. “I’ve worked out the map. We’re going to Westminster, and it’s not far. Most of the stuff we’re going to see today is close together.”
They joined a group of morning commuters at the bus stop and clambered inside the bus, taking the steps up to the second level. They scored seats at the front and brushed away some candy wrappers and soda bottles to take in the view. From here, they got a strange, floating perspective of London and the street, and there was the illusion that cars and bikes were being sucked under the bus as it went along, like a land whale gliding down the street, consuming all in its path.
They were starting at Westminster Abbey, which was a place that Stevie had often heard mentioned but had never taken the time to think about at all. Abbey made it sound like monks or nuns would be living there, but it turned out to be a cathedral on a massive scale. Another day, another tour guide enthused about dates and walls and people named Edward and Henry. Westminster Abbey turned out to be the work of Henry the Third again, who was so obsessed with a guy named Edward the Confessor that he had to go and build a cathedral about it. When he was done, he moved Edward’s body into it, putting it on a massive plinth that had been picked bare of ornament by people coming to worship at it.
“This is what happens when fanboys get out of hand,” Nate said, looking at the monument and then up at the expanse of ceiling. The abbey was designed to make you feel small. Look at this ceiling—look at it barreling up toward heaven. Listen to the spooky echo of the organ, the ethereal sound of human voices in harmony spinning around the room. You got lost in it. The building wanted you to know your place. No matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried, someone was doing more.
It was also, the guide informed them, the place where England kept a lot of its famous dead—over three thousand of them were buried there, and many more memorialized in marble and stone and glass. There were many kings and queens there, buried under mounts of marble with statues of their bodies in repose. You could do a selfie with Elizabeth the First, and people were.
From there, it was across the street to the Houses of Parliament and the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the government of the United Kingdom. It wasn’t where the beheadings happened, but it was often why.
Another break. Another sandwich. Obligatory pictures with the giant lions by Nelson’s Column. A relentless trip through the National Gallery in clammy clothes. The tissue stuffed into her shoe kept sliding out of place and sticking out the back, so she kept hopping and shoving it back in. Eventually, she took it out and allowed the pain to come through.
Art, art, art, art, art. At a certain point, nothing made sense. It was bulk information, stimulus overload. Things to check off a list.
“I’ve got twenty-one schools still on my list,” Janelle said out of nowhere.
“What?” Vi had been considering a dark painting of an arrangement of fruit with what appeared to be genuine interest. It was hard to tell. Vi was great at putting on a neutral face of interest—they wanted to go into some kind of international work to fix the world, and that was going to require going to a lot of meetings about boring things and talking to terrible people. They had mastered the blank stare. It was a gift.
“I was just thinking. Twenty-one schools. Seven are in Boston—well, not just Boston. In Massachusetts. I need to get that list down.”
“Okay.” Vi didn’t seem that interested in the topic of colleges at the moment, so Janelle turned to Nate.