“As if they do not already know I am a terrible person,” he said, with a bravado he did not feel.

“Oh, Matthew.” Her voice was cold as she turned away from him. “You have no idea what terrible people are like.”

13 BLUE RUIN

Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew

Wanted to know what the river knew,

For they were young, and the Thames was old,

And this is the tale that the River told.

—Rudyard Kipling, “The River’s Tale”

James sat on the edge of a stone bastion atop Blackfriars Bridge, his legs dangling over the edge. The dark-jade water of the Thames flowed by below. Small rowboats and lighters chugged alongside river barges, distinguished by their characteristic red-brown sails, like splotches of blood against the cloud-darkened sky. Aboard them, men in flat caps yelled to each other through the river spray.

To the north, the dome of St. Paul’s glowed against a backdrop of thunderclouds; on the other side of the river, the Bankside Power Station puffed black smoke into the sky.

The rhythmic slap of the tidal river against the granite piers of the bridge was as familiar to James as a lullaby. Blackfriars was a special place in his family: it figured in quite a few of his parents’ stories. He usually found it comforting here. The river rolled on, regardless of the turmoil in the lives of the people who crossed the bridge or boated across the water. They could leave no real mark on the river, as their troubles left no real mark on time.

Now it was not comforting. Now he did not feel as if he could breathe. The pain he felt was physical, as if sharp steel rods had been slid through his ribs, stopping his heart.

“James?”

James glanced up. Matthew was walking toward him, his topcoat open. He was hatless, fair hair tangling in the breeze off the river, scented with coal and salt.

“I’ve been looking for you all over the City,” Matthew said, swinging himself up on the stone bastion beside James. James fought the urge to tell him to be careful. It was a long fall to the river, but Matthew’s hands were steady as he braced himself. “Tell me what happened.”

James couldn’t explain it—the choking feeling, the dizziness. He recalled his father saying that love was pain, but this felt other than pain. It felt as if he had been deprived of air almost to the point of death and now was gasping and choking on it, trying desperately to get enough into his lungs. He couldn’t find words, couldn’t do anything but lean over and put his head down on Matthew’s shoulder.

“Jamie, Jamie,” Matthew said, and his hand came up to press itself strongly against James’s back, between his shoulder blades. “Don’t.”