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to greet her.
    “Oh, you’re here,” she said, “I was worried about you. I know how much you hate humanity en masse and—come and look—it’s rarely more en masse than this.”
    She led him to the edge of the balcony. Looking down from the third floor, it was as if someone had lifted the lid of a tube train in the rush hour—people packed so tight that when the rain came later, it would fail to reach the ground.
    “Have you seen the boys?”
    “Yes, in passing.”
    He had been at Grace and William’s wedding. He and Nessa were godparents of their eldest son and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Nessa would still be part of the boy’s life.
    “Quick, everyone onto the balcony. It’s two minutes to midnight. Bring your glasses.”
    A short wait, almost silence, and then the air is rent with rockets, the gray barges disgorging their cargos with synchronizedfury. Henry is reminded of newsreel footage of the Gulf War. The bangs are sharp, high on treble, and he would like to have given them a little more bass, but no one else seems bothered. He sees that the adults are like children, their eyes bright and mouths agape, but the kids have moved on and are looking over the railings at the people below. The display lasts for sixteen minutes and is judged to have been wonderful. No one sees the wall of fire. Half an hour later, pleading jet lag, Henry left.
    He had been told that the underground station at St. Paul’s would be open, but he couldn’t get close enough to find out. The crowds funneled him against his will into Ludgate Hill and he decided that it was useless to resist. There seemed no alternative but to walk home. It had started raining, a moist, intrusive drizzle. In Fleet Street, the thousands walking west met the thousands walking east. He slowed to a shuffle. For a while, the crowds maintained their good humor. Parents with tired children in pushchairs took refuge in the shop doorways from the rain and the flood of pedestrians. He felt hot, distressed by the body heat of strangers pressed too close and the thick damp wool of his overcoat. As he approached the Aldwych, he stumbled but was kept on his feet by the press of the crowd. He started veering to the left. He wanted to get out of this rat run, to cross Waterloo Bridge and reach the safety of the south bank. Perversely, the bridge had been closed. It seemed crazy to channel people down the Strand towards Trafalgar Square. He stepped over a drunk lying in a bed of broken bottles, the blood on the jagged green glass uncomfortably vivid.
    He kept close to the shop fronts, hoping against hope that the alley by the Savoy had not been closed and that he could escape down onto the Embankment. It was open. He sidled into its sanctuary. Fingers crossed, the multitudes would not follow.
    The steps took him down to the rear of the hotel and he felt that the worst was over. The gate to the gardens was open and he took a shortcut through the shrubbery. The rain had made the ground treacherous and he slipped, sliding down onto the pavement through a sea of mud. Someone helped him up. The crowds, if anything, were more solid than in the Strand. He felt like a foot soldier at the Somme; his fall had left his coat and shoes khaki with mud. Weary now, he joined the slow march to Westminster Bridge. His plan was to cross Parliament Square and then work his way to Belgravia and on to Chelsea. He looked at his watch. He had been walking for an hour and a half.
    As he approached the bridge, youths made unattractive by drink and rain were dancing on a tawdry stage erected in the riverside gardens. The crowds here were impossible, like four football stadiums all letting out at the same time. Henry was frightened—fall now and he might be trampled to death. He started pushing towards the square. A man, just inches from his face said, “Don’t bother, they’ve closed it, we’ve all got to go over the bridge.” Henry turned round and was carried by a surge of