She pulled open the main door. The wall of noise escaped for a moment, and the room looked like a reproduction of Dante’s Inferno. Through a haze of artificial smoke, costumed figures of every age and description gyrated. Arms and legs waved in a kind of frieze. Real skeletons stood on either side of the door. The participants seemed to be waving body parts over their heads as the whole vision throbbed to some primordial beat. Lucy had a distinct impression that the props were not from any theatrical hire place, but she couldn’t hear enough of her own voice to ask Alex. She’d heard about the students’ jokes and the housemen’s macabre humor on these occasions: she’d leave it there.

Alex—with mock horror—firmly closed the door to the dance hall, sealing in most of the noise. “Left to drinks!” They nodded agreement, turned to the other door, and entered the bar.

The room was packed with costumed characters, with a bar set up at one end. Its attendants were a wild-haired Dr. Frankenstein and a collection of his followers. The back of the bar was set out like the inside of an anatomy lab. There were rows of bell jars, mixed with chemical retorts, colored flasks, and other apparatus that exhibited specimens of brains, livers, kidneys, hands, feet, all preserved in formalin.

“Damien Hirst would be right at home here,” Lucy remarked as they crushed forward.

“Too close to the bone, do you think?” Alex was confident Lucy’s ironic humor could go the distance; but it was certainly not for the fainthearted.

“Hello, Dr. Stafford.” Frankenstein spoke. “Maybe you and your guest would be happier upstairs? I just saw the honorable Azziz go up, talking to an administrator, ten minutes ago. Take the stair over there.” He gesticulated with his right elbow as he opened two beer bottles with one hand, then dextrously poured all four bottles that he was holding in both hands into four glasses. “Six pounds, please.” He addressed Queen Elizabeth with flaming red hair, as she dug in her purse.

“Bloody uncomfortable, this corset, i’n it,” the queen complained to Alex in a strong South London accent, as she paid and swept the glasses from the bar in both of her hands, plowing back through the crowd.

“I wouldn’t know,” Dr. Frankenstein commented to no one in particular; but he made eye contact with Alex, whose face crumpled into laughter. Frankenstein rendered up a half-bottle of champagne for the two of them and some fresh orange juice, and waved them up. As he had no free hand, Lucy hooked hers securely behind Alex’s upper arm and they pushed across the bar floor, up to the fresh evening air.