“I’d been fixing it for five weeks.

That’s what fixing it means.”

Part Twenty-Five: The Ballroom

There were a hundred and eighty-four people in that room, against two hundred and eleven covers, which is a normal drop and which my son would have known was a normal drop, because it is his job.

He came in through the double doors at 8:31 and the thing that he has told me he was not prepared for is that nothing happened.

He had imagined a room going quiet.