*
On the Wednesday afternoon before Christmas, Marcus set out for Senate House. He had spent the morning on the telephone to the removals company that was transporting their books and clothes out to the US. After lunch he sat throwing a tennis ball against his window until the partner in the office next door hurled a book at the wall. Marcus reached for his phone and started to dial Mouse, then stood up and pulled on his coat.
He walked up through the City, along High Holborn and up Farringdon Road. Snow blew in gusts along the wide roads. He saw the flushed faces of lunchtime drinkers, ties loosened around fat necks, hands clasping pints as they braved the weather to smoke. He drew out a piece of nicotine gum and chewed it, realising that he didn’t miss smoking. It had become a chore, the need to make chilly forays into the freezing winter for the diminishing hit of his super-light fags.
When he came to Russell Square he looked up at the tower above him, straining his eyes to see the misty summit. There were strange runic designs in copper set into the front of the tower. It looked to him like the headquarters of a cult. He walked through the heavy metal doors and into the entrance hall. It was gloomy inside. The marble floor was wet with muddy footprints, blown-in snow.
Marcus followed signs for the Special Collections Reading Room. He knew this was Mouse’s domain. The lift was an ancient contraption, and it moaned and clunked as it took Marcus up to the fourth floor. He stepped out and walked over to a bank of turnstiles. It was silent in the wood-panelled hallway. He stood at the desk and rang a bell; it trilled loudly enough to make him jump. Finally, a girl wearing thick glasses and a green cardigan walked through the swing doors behind the desk and nodded at him.
‘Can I help you?’
In the instant that the girl moved through the doors, Marcus had seen Mouse. His friend was in the room behind the doors, his feet up on a table, a mug of tea in his hands.
‘I’m looking for Alastair Burrows. If you wouldn’t mind telling him that Marcus is here to see him.’
‘Um, yes, OK. I’ll go and get him.’
The girl disappeared behind the doors again into what Marcus presumed was a staff room. Several minutes passed and then Mouse came out, alone.
‘Hi, Marcus.’
‘Hi.’
They stood looking at one another in the yellow light of the old library.
‘I can do you a day pass if you’d like to come in?’
‘That would be good.’
Marcus waited while Mouse tapped away at a keyboard. The turnstile opened and he walked through. Mouse stepped out from behind the desk and held out his hand to Marcus. Marcus shook it, then reached over to hug him. They stood in this awkward half-embrace for a moment and then Mouse drew back.
‘I just wanted to check that you were OK,’ said Marcus. ‘We missed you at the last Course session. At church, too.’
Mouse shook his head. ‘Are you just passing by? Or can you stay for a bit? We could go up to my room.’
‘I’ve got some time. I told Abby I’d be back for dinner.’
Marcus followed Mouse out to a stairwell. They walked up three flights and the stairs ended in a door marked Staff Only. Mouse unlocked this and it gave onto a smaller stairway. They climbed up together. Marcus counted the floors as they rose through the library. Mouse panted as he climbed. On the fourteenth floor, Mouse opened the heavy brown door on the landing and they stepped out into an empty corridor with a parquet floor. Marcus recognised the howling wind from telephone conversations that he had had with his friend.
‘Not much further,’ Mouse muttered as he led them down the corridor, through a set of swing doors and then around a corner into another long passageway. They walked through more doors and then the corridor turned again, ending abruptly in a brick wall. Mouse opened the last door on the right-hand side and Marcus followed him through it into a large, echoing hall. Along one side of the hall were long windows, with stained glass in the uppermost panes. Marcus saw a date — 1936 — set into the red and green glass. There were no shelves in the hall, but Marcus nonetheless caught the sweet, dusty scent of old books. At the far end, Mouse had built a den. A wardrobe stood against one wall with a duvet and several pillows lining the bottom. Shirts hung above the little nest. A trestle table sat in front of the window with a desk lamp on it, books piled beside it and scattered across the floor around it. There was a cardboard box in which Marcus saw various bottles, a loaf of bread, some toiletries.
‘Is this where you’ve been living?’ Marcus asked, turning to his friend.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Mouse walked over and found a half-full bottle of wine. He pulled the cork out and poured it into plastic cups. ‘It was cold on the boat. The heating isn’t all that good. And I knew you’d come looking for me there.’
Marcus sipped the wine.
‘It’s amazing up here.’
Mouse walked over and opened a window. Snow was falling outside. They both stood and looked out over the roofs and down to the dome of St Paul’s. Mouse drew out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marcus.
‘You have to lean out, otherwise the smoke alarms get you.’
Marcus held up his hand. ‘I’m not smoking.’ He paused. ‘Abby is pregnant.’
Mouse turned to him with delighted eyes. ‘You’re joking. Sport, that’s grand. I’m so happy for you both.’
Marcus was touched by his friend’s joy. ‘I shouldn’t really tell anyone yet. You might have guessed that we’ve had some trouble before. But I’ve a good feeling about this one.’
Mouse put his arm around Marcus’s shoulder and blew a jet of smoke out of the window.
‘Have you got names yet?’
‘No, that would feel like jinxing it somehow.’
The snow began to fall more heavily. Mouse finished his cigarette and closed the window. The wind had picked up and moaned balefully as Mouse opened another bottle of wine. They sat on pillows with their backs against the wood-panelled wall. The light had dropped outside and Mouse switched on the desk lamp.
‘We’re going away for a while,’ Marcus said.
Mouse looked across at him.
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘David has asked Abby to stay on in New York. I’m going to go with her. Only for a year. Two at the most.’
Mouse’s face fell.
‘You’ll have the baby out there?’
Marcus nodded.
‘Oh. I was hoping. . I suppose I can come out to visit.’
‘Of course you can. You can come whenever you want. You’ll be the godfather, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Mouse smiled. ‘When are you going?’
‘Straight after Christmas.’
‘Oh. That’s very soon.’ Mouse stared down at his hands. Marcus’s voice softened.
‘I just realised that we had to grow up. When Abby came back, she seemed changed, suddenly an adult. I’m going to be a father; I’m fed up with pretending I’m still a teenager. I want my kid to have a dad he can be proud of.’
‘You’re a Course leader. You’re a successful lawyer. I don’t understand.’
‘All of us, we’re in hiding, obsessed with our narrow little world. I’m not saying that going to America will change all of that, but at least it’ll change something.’
‘But what about me? What about us?’
‘Lee’s death has altered everything. Things can’t go back to how they were. David will find a new group of Course leaders, but The Revelations are finished.’
They drank the remains of the bottle of wine.
‘Listen, I’m going to have to get going. Abby, you know. .’