The address they had with them belonged to a former school, or maybe it was an insane asylum, with a large hall where dozens of Poles had spread out their suitcases and bags, their children and clothing, among their mattresses. A mattress cost fifteen pounds per week, and Peter’s mother signed a promissory note to a hairy Polish man. Back home his surroundings hadn’t mattered to him. They didn’t bother him. But this was unbearable. Loud. It smelled of food and people and poverty. Peter couldn’t sleep. He listened to his own heartbeat, which didn’t calm him. He yearned for someone to hold him, and knew he wouldn’t be able to stand being held.

Peter’s mother disappeared early in the morning to find work in Manchester; there was a strip where day laborers could cheerfully offer themselves to various idiots. All Peter’s mother had said was “Wait here.” Before she left. She’d given up talking to Peter. The mother-child bond left a bit to be desired, which was Peter’s fault. Like everything. War, poverty, the weather—all his fault. Peter stared at his hand. He ate cookies that his mother brought home each night, and didn’t dare at first to go out into the streets. During the first weeks. After a while, when he’d had enough of the stench of the hall, he stood at the door for a few days and stared out at the nonexistent trees. A few days later he made it to the first cross street, and then at some point Peter wandered around the neighborhood. Through which from then on he took the same circular route. Sometimes for nine hours a day to calm himself.

Peter spoke to nobody.

Something wrong with that boy, said the people who needed to know. Who watched him walk past. Who had nothing wrong with them whatsoever, stand-up folks who never thought about the fact that they were freaks of nature, primates who despised each other and fell out of windows, fell down stairs, hung themselves during sex, took pictures of their toenails to post online, who believed in elections and in the queen who loved to wave to them as she rushed around in her gilded carriage.

Speaking of which,