Marta had made it a generous 104 years, so although her passing was somber news, I couldn’t say it was an actively tragic development; enjoying a century of robust health and then dying in your own bed is the best-case scenario for any of us. She had lived through two world wars, the moon landing, the Berlin Wall coming down, and the invention of television and the internet and her beloved mobile phone. She had been the final empress of India, a muse for Dior in her middle age, and had hosted Gandhi, Churchill, and Kennedy at her dinner table (albeit not at the same time). Marta’s life lent itself beautifully to hours of televised retrospectives—not least because when you’re that old, everyone has oodles of time to prepare for your exit. Every time I turned on the TV in the eight days since her death, I found a program called some variation of A Nation Pays Its Respects, or Farewell to Great Britain’s Great-Grandmother. Or, as Nick was watching now, round-the-clock news coverage, even without news to report. Marta would have had no patience for how cloying most of it was, but she would have been delighted to see Idris Elba tweet that he felt “gutted.”

“The body of Queen Marta the Queen Mother will lie in state through tomorrow, with Britons and tourists alike lining up for a chance to walk past and say bon voyage to the late queen,” Keldah said, over a shot of a sobbing woman standing in line at Westminster Hall. “For more on what to expect in the next few days, we go to our special correspondent, Clive Fitzwilliam of The Sun. Welcome, Clive.”

“Piss off, Clive,” Nick muttered.

“Thank you, Keldah. I’m delighted to be here,” Clive said, and then his face arranged itself in a sad expression. “And gutted that it’s under such mournful circumstances.”

“You take Idris Elba’s feelings right out of your mouth,” I told the TV.

“The crowds in Westminster have far outpaced the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence, though, of course—you can take it from me—the Queen Mother is substantially more beloved,” Clive said. “The hope is that all well-wishers can get through before the funeral. A few lucky ones will catch the family members taking up the rotating guard posts near the casket, so there’s that to look forward to.”

“Look forward to,” Nick repeated. “Yes, there’s so much to enjoy about a wake, you simpering twerp.”