David told me that in Rome, site of his recent troubles, there were great oil paintings of the apocalypse, and catacombs under the city, and that aboveground the city was full of statues of great men whose faces had been destroyed, the noses chiseled off by waves of invaders, and that right in the center were the ruins of the giant Colosseum, where you could sit on stone seats, look down, and see the underground passageways where the animals were led or kept chained before being released to gobble up Christians.

“They used to damn people to beasts.” His voice was dreamy. “I had a dream once they set a fanged giraffe onto me. If you killed a parent, they put you in a leather bag full of vipers and then drowned you all together in a bucket.”

He told me he’d been at the manor four days, that he’d walked a mile to the nearest pub to call me, and was about to give up when I answered.

Something slapped upon the surface of the water and the bathing moon broke into ripples.

“It’s the kraken,” he said. “It wakes up at the end of the world, says so in Revelation.”

“Peter’s father is a vicar,” I said. “But he never reads from the good bits. I think he’s embarrassed by them. It’s all love and peace and Christian fellowship with him.”

“Clever Peter,” he said, “who’s missing the end of the world in the service of algebra.”

He touched my arm. The skin of his palm was dry. I followed him back down the path to a spot on the lawn by the water’s edge where we pondered the reeds in silence. I was waiting for him to try something. After all, he’d called me, not one of the others. I’d come because I wanted to know what I’d do. If I would turn my back on him, or laugh, let him kiss me, or say something mean. But David didn’t do anything, even though I was standing a small step closer than was necessary, even though afterward he could say he was drunk, even though it was the end of the world.

Instead, he stood there, eyes to the sky, waiting. The moon was her fat self, pouring out a cold, pale light that put the stars to shame. I stole a couple of quick glances at his face and then back to the night. We waited and I could tell David was listening, so I listened too. The road had fallen silent, and in the quiet it was possible to feel, if not to hear, the music of the place, the manor itself, and of the great chalk ridges of the Downs, and the moon’s chilling melody.