Colson offered to take me home in the self-driving car, but in the end I got in a taxi because I needed very much to collect myself and get sensible. Annie had quite adroitly doubled my oblique family repair work back upon me in a style of manipulation that I recognised as my own and Michael’s mixed. I didn’t want to default on grandfatherly assistance or fatherly amends, so I had at least to think it over, even if my first reaction was to run a mile from such a strange, enormous undertaking. In the event, I couldn’t think at all on the journey, because it seemed to me that the ride was swooping and abrupt. All the drivers around me must be mad or drunk, and the motion of my own taxi seemed saner only by a narrow margin. Instead of going all the way, I let myself out in Islington. I bought a sketchbook from a supply shop, along with some Caran d’Ache pencils, and walked to a tea shop. It was a fine place with a mezzanine looking over the room and a chandelier made of grey Murano glass.