Chapter Six

With the swift turn of a simple mechanical action that had been performed many times before Lizzy flicked the latch and swung the attic window up and open. She lent her forearms on the sill and shuffled forward, leaning out over the rooftops. She listened to the echoing sirens and shouts from the streets below. Her mind, cloistered in the convoluted scribblings she had been transcribing, was rapidly brought back to modernity. She contentedly gazed at the moving clouds and darkening skies. Suddenly she was aware of the time. And she was late. She hoisted herself down, and quickly and skilfully tidied the papers in their requisite boxes, glanced about, flicked off the light and was down the ladder.
On the way out of the house she popped her head round the kitchen door. She knew Charles would be mixing his hot toddy, despite the residual warmth of the evening.
“I’m just off”, she called. It was no good. He had his back to her. He was unlikely to be aware of her presence, let alone to have heard her half-hearted call. She waited the heartbeat it took for him to turn, the golden liquid sloshing about the glass, and called again.
“I’m just off now. I’ll be back tomorrow morning I expect.” He gave a slow nod of understanding. “I’ve nearly finished the first journal,” she continued, and, as he looked expectant, she smiled reassuringly. “I’m really enjoying doing it. It’s really interesting.”
Lizzy jogged down the front steps, bag banging against her knee. She strode towards the tube station with a satisfying sense of purpose. She had spent the last couple of months so immersed in the journal, she had hardly thought about anything else. She had attempted to persuade Charles to allow her to move the journals to one of the libraries, to be catalogued properly. He was stubborn and possessive of the manuscripts, and understandably so. It was an incredibly important find, but that wasn’t really the reason of course. He was reluctant, to the point of obsession, to change anything about the house since Dee had died. Favourite mugs, forty years old, when broken, were mourned as part of the house, part of Dee even. The journals of her predecessor, therefore, stayed in the attic.
It was only chance that Lizzy had met Charles at a gallery opening for an exhibition of letters and journals. Charles had mentioned his wife had some manuscripts in the attic that they had always meant to have transcribed, and Lizzy mentioned the work she had done. She remembered telling an American colleague about the find; he had made some witticism about the British being the only nation who could accidentally come across journals of such significance in a grimy attic. She felt thrilled to be given access to them, even if it had meant staying in London longer than planned, and spending the spring months sequestered in an attic at the top of Charles’ house, while he pottered around below.
As Lizzy stepped on to the top of the escalator, Matt opened the door of the Globe.
He stepped in furtively, and immediately scanned the room for a familiar face. He wanted to establish quickly that he was here for some sort of reunion, and not to be papped by some enterprising photographer who would be paid well for images of him in a pub. The only advantage of that, perhaps, would be the likelihood that it would take the heat out of the AFL meetings. Abstinence from alcohol was not popular at the Anti-Fundamentalist League. The large following he had gathered over the last few years and the evangelising of his people meant that the AFL had taken begun to take an active interest in the organisation. It was to be expected these days, but Matt still found the interviews galling. He’d an intensive set the week before, after someone claiming affiliation with him had tried to protest outside Parliament, striding up and down, shouting slogans. Parliament had become increasingly sensitive about that type of thing, but luckily Matt had been able to distance himself from the lone individual.
It took a second look, long-extended, to recognise Nat. She was not how he had expected her to look. Her hair was gathered at the nape of her neck, fly-away sections framing her face. She was wrapped in a large woollen garment. It must have been a cardigan of sorts. She had lost the savvy look of the city, and Matt strode with a little more confidence. He felt knowing and secure in response, aware that his robes gave him authority.

Chapter Five


It was with her order of her first drink that Nat broke the first of her boss’ rules. It was generally accepted that drinking on the job was, to say the least, inadvisable. Control was highly prized, and on a normal job, Nat would have abstained. But, despite herself, she was nervous. The weight of her knowledge felt heavy. She already felt she knew too much about these people – she knew what stories they would tell, she knew what lies they would pass off as their personal truths. As she scanned the room again, a habit learned from years of surveillance, she noticed a figure furtively step into the Globe. She wasn’t surprised Matt was uncertain. Not only did the Globe appear very different, she suspected it had been many years since he had entered a drinking establishment. She had been surprised that he had agreed to it even now, considering the damage being seen here could do to his…well…business. She regretted, in terms of her desire to remain inconspicuous, that he had arrived first. They would be a strange sight, a bizarre couple indeed.
Sarah had the metallic taste of early mornings and long journeys in her mouth. Her eyes were swollen with unsatisfying and interrupted sleep. She could have wept with tired frustration. The grey and faceless airport lounge presented the worst aspects of British culture; the florescent lights lit a building of aspirations to continental sophistication, but it instead contained barely manageable sordidness. The benches were populated by travellers out of time and place, waiting to be relocated, wary of theft and irritable of each other. The shops sold pretentious bad food at extortionate prices, smug with the knowledge that the travellers had little choice and that travel would have already worn down any level of resistance. It was in this position that Sarah found herself. Although she could guide a green gapper through their first week away from home, she had booked her taxi an hour late. She slid into an uncomfortable chair and ordered a breakfast that came badly-cooked and tersely-served. As she picked it over, thoughts that she had managed to suppress for the flight begged her attention. She had other things than the reunion on her mind, other reasons for being in London. She knew, logically, returning to the UK was the best thing at this point, but she couldn’t help feeling as if she was giving up something of herself for her husband. She was worried about losing her sense of independence, that England would trap and restrict her, that living on the same continent would reveal rifts in her marriage. She knew she shouldn’t think, but the fact he’d been married before, twice in fact, made her worry that his understanding of the marriage vows was very different from her own.
They had met, or reunited, in Africa. It had been a strange coincidence, a story hardly believable when told second hand. Some people would call it destiny. I would really rather not. She had been travelling to the outer villages, trying to find a way to transport more children to the school and enjoying learning more about the surrounding area. She had recognised the way he carried himself, and his gestures from a distance, as he had a discussion with a local guide. After the initial rush of emotion, the conversation ebbed and flowed naturally, as they strolled around the village. It was so good to fall back easily into a pattern of conversation, so familiar. It seemed he was recovering from bankruptcy and divorce. Apparently the ex-wife was not so keen on his company when it didn’t also come with penthouses, holidays and regular surgery. He mentioned his other marriage too; he said it was a familiar story, being too young, too selfish and too idealistic eventually broke them apart acrimoniously. He seemed ashamed by these examples of failure, more so than his spectacular bankruptcy – from wealth to nothing in a couple of months. They talked long into the twilight. Sarah had the impression that a continued faith in the technology that had made him rich prevented him from absolute despair. That, and a strange doctrine that was currently sweeping Britain; The Truth of the Muse. Sarah had laughed derisively at first, but he earnestly explained how much it had helped him, and many others. He tried, and failed, to explain the ideas to her. She mulled it over, it sounded a little cultish to be honest, although not altogether dangerous. In the airport, she smiled. She hoped he’d moved on, as he usually did, to something new; the prospect of explaining The Truth of the Muse to her mum was not something she relished.