Barnabas shrugged. “Oh, Mummy’s in Monaco of course. She gets her drugs through plastic surgery. We both pretend we never notice. Daddy has two other families now, I can never remember the order, so very dreary.”

Cormac looked at him. “I don’t even want to try stitching it up.”

“No,” said Barnabas.

“But could you . . . could you consider readmitting yourself? Otherwise you’re going to find yourself on the floor of A&E again.”

Barnabas waved his hand at Cormac. “Oh, I will, I will. When I’m not so busy.”

He picked up his phone and scrolled through Instagram, wincing at many different shots of his own beautiful face. Cormac stood up.

“Well, if you’re sure you must go, darling . . .”

“Please, please, check yourself in.”

“Oh yes, darling,” said Barnabas. “I’ll add it to the therapists, the rehab people, the psychiatrist, the art therapist, and the yoga guru list Mummy sent over.”

He waved his hand toward a pile of invitations and thick gilt-edged cards.

Cormac was still anxious about him. “Are you in pain?”

“Why, what do you have?” asked Barnabas.

“Not like that. I mean inside.”

Barnabas blinked. “No,” he said finally. “Everything’s fabulous!”

And he heaved himself to his feet.

“Come look.”

He grabbed Cormac by the shoulder, pulled him to the window.

“Look out there,” he said. “Look at everything down there. Look at it. Look at that old tower . . .”

He indicated the vast sprawl of the Tower of London, dotted with red beefeaters talking to brightly windbreakered tourists.

“See down there? That’s layers of living history. Right in front of you. There’s Traitors’ Gate. That’s where they rowed in Anne Boleyn for the last time. You can stand there, feel what went through her mind. Look at that bridge.”

Cormac gasped. He hadn’t even realized the Tower Bridge still opened up. But there it was, the cars and bright red buses lined up on either side of its bright blue span, as, incredibly slowly, the road itself, markings and all, began to move. It was hypnotic, particularly as a tall ship, sails furled, masts high, was carefully, elegantly, sailing straight toward it. On the banks of the river, all sorts of people gathered to watch—parents pointing for children; well-fed businessmen at expensive Shad Thames restaurants, their expense account lunches forgotten, standing up to get a better look—the sun gleaming off the water and the polished teak of the boat’s hull as she glided through, as if impudently unaware of asking an entire city to stop just for her beauty.

“Wow,” he said.

“The city is yours for the taking,” said Barnabas. “I don’t want any more of it.”

He collapsed back onto the sofa. He looked very wasted now.

“Do not,” he said, “let it use you up and spit you out. But do not waste it. And do not miss its magic.”