The Night Before

“Ink,” said Rhys.

He was in the doorway of 312 at half past five with his telephone in his hand, in the grey sweatshirt, with the expression he kept for messages from across the road.

“Sorry?”

“The sergeant, sir. The butte. She’s had it in the roster in pencil since October. Suspended.” He looked at the telephone. “She says she’s put it in ink.”

Frederick looked at him from the desk by the door.

Rhys did not say anything else. He did not need to. He had a page in his Charter notebook from the twenty-second of August with pencil (father) on it, highlighted in green, and under it, since the third of January, four more words in the same very small hand, highlighted too; and Frederick watched him remember them, standing in the doorway, and decide not to say them, and go pink from the ears inwards with the effort.

“Ink is yes,” said Frederick.

“Yes, sir,” said Rhys, very quietly. “That’s what I thought.”

---

Sam had the times.

He had them on a page of their own, in pencil, in a column, the way he had everything, and he laid the notebook on the end of Frederick’s bed and turned it round so that it could be read, while Rhys stood behind him and read it upside down, though he had already read it the right way up.

Leave hall 6.30.

Gate 6.45.

Summit 7.05. (Dark. Torches. R. has two.)

Stockholm begins 7.00. (15.00.)

Instrument 7.30. (15.30.)

Sunrise 7.26.

“That’s my father’s,” said Frederick. “The seven twenty-six.”

“It’s everybody’s,” said Sam. “It’s the tables. It’s the same number on the city’s website and the airport’s and the Observatory’s.” He put his finger on it. “It’s wrong.”

Rhys looked at him.

“It’s not wrong,” said Sam. “It’s for a flat horizon. Sea level, nothing in the way. Tempe hasn’t got a flat horizon. It’s got the Superstitions.” He turned the page, and there was a small drawing, very neat: a line for the ground, and a bump for the mountains, and a curve for the sun coming up behind the bump, and a great many figures in the margin. “I did the angle. From the summit. The ridge is about forty miles off and about a degree up, and in February the sun comes up at a slant, so it has to go further along to get over.” He looked at the figures. “It clears the ridge about four minutes after the tables.”

“Four minutes,” said Rhys.

“About. I couldn’t get it closer. The mountains aren’t on the map at that resolution.” Sam took off his glasses and cleaned them. “Seven twenty-nine. Seven thirty.”

Nobody said anything.

Rhys looked at the column, at Instrument 7.30, and at the drawing, and at the column again; and Frederick watched him do the sum, slowly, from the bottom up, the way Sam did, and arrive.

“That’s the same time,” said Rhys.

“I know,” said Sam.

“That’s exactly the same…”

“About,” said Sam. “I said about.” He put his glasses back on and closed the notebook. “I’m not going to say it’s the same time and then be wrong by a minute in front of the King of Sweden.”

---

The alarm was still there.

He found it at six, sitting on the bed by the door with the telephone: at the bottom of the list, below NOTHING, which had gone off at eleven every night for nine nights in September and had not been needed since, there was BUTTE, in grey, with the little switch beside it pushed to the left, off. He had switched it off on the sixth of October, at twenty to six in the morning, with his thumb, and not deleted it, and had looked at it perhaps three times since, and each time had not done anything.

It still said 5.40.

He changed it to 5.45, because Sam’s column said so and because he would not be asleep anyway, and looked at it a moment longer; and then he pushed the switch to the right, and it went green.

The telephone said, under it, in small grey letters, Alarm in 11 hours, 45 minutes.

On the bed by the window, Tyler, who had been watching him over the top of the controller without appearing to, said:

“Is that the hill one?”

“Yes.”

“You turned it back on.”

“Yes.”

“Huh,” said Tyler, and went back to the forest.

---

Jack rang at half past six, which was half past one in the morning in Gloucestershire, from the cellar. Frederick could tell from the sound, the low stone ceiling that made everything close, and the drip.

“You’re going up,” said Jack.

“Yes.”

“Alex told me. He wrote.” A barrel moved, somewhere near the telephone, with a hollow sound. “He wrote to tell me he’d be standing three paces from a wall. He drew the wall.” A pause. “Lukas is going as well. I’m worried for Sweden.”

“So am I.”

“What time’s the sun?”

“Seven thirty. About.”

“And the thing?”

“Seven thirty.”

Jack did not say anything for a moment. The drip went on.

“Course it is,” said Jack. “Course it bloody is.” Then: “Hanover. The hat.”

“Yes.”

“It’s on the shelf?”

“It’s on the shelf. Next to the jumper.”

“It’s for when you go back up,” said Jack. “I said that. At Terminal Four. I said it’s for when you go back up.” He moved, and the stone ceiling moved round his voice. “You’re going back up.”

“I know.”

“So wear it.”

“It’s going to be forty-six degrees. In the dark.”

“I don’t care if it’s snowing,” said Jack. “It’s a cricket hat. My grandad wore it in the rain at Cheltenham for forty years, it’s never once been the right hat for anything.” A pause. “Wear it, and stand at the top, and when it happens, whatever happens, you think, there’s a lemon in Gloucestershire behind a bar at half past two in the afternoon thinking about me.” He stopped. “Mum’s putting the radio on. Behind the bar. She doesn’t know what station. She’s going to try all of them.”

---

Theo rang at eight, which was ten at night in New Westminster.

“It isn’t Sunday,” said Frederick.

“I know what day it is, Freddie.” There was the fan, and a door shutting down a corridor, and very faintly, something wooden knocking against something else, which would be Desmond, by the window, in the draught. “I’m a medical student. I’ve got a calendar with a skeleton on it.”

“Theo.”

“I’m not going to ask you anything.” Theo said it in the voice from the Hartigans’ kitchen. “I’m going to tell you things. Like last time. You can just listen.”

“All right.”

“Eat something before you go. Not a lot. Something with sugar in it. Your blood sugar’s lowest just before you wake up and you’re going to walk up a hill on it in the cold.” A pause. “Drink water. Mr Luna’ll tell you that, but I’m telling you as well, so it’s two of us.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s going to be cold. In the Valley, forty-six’s cold, your hands’ll go. Put them in your pockets on the way up. Not on the rail.”

“Yes.”

Theo was quiet for a moment. The fan went on.

“That’s all the medical ones,” he said.

Frederick waited.

“She sang to me,” said Theo. “I told you. On my sixteenth.” Another pause. “So I’m going to be up. At half past nine here. I’ve got a lab at ten and I’m going to be late for it, and I’ve already told the man I’m going to be late, and he said why, and I said family, and he looked at me, and I said not mine, and he said fine.” He breathed out. “So that’s where I’ll be. In the corridor outside a lab, at half past nine, late, looking at my watch like an idiot.”

“That’s where my father’ll be,” said Frederick. “Looking at his watch. In the Hall.”

“Then that’s two of us,” said Theo.

---

Tyler took the headphones off at nine.

All the way off, round his neck, which was still, after three weeks, a thing he did only for important matters; and turned round in the chair at the desk under the window, with the forest snowing on the two screens behind him.

“So it’s tomorrow,” said Tyler.

“Yes.”

“The Sweden thing. Your mom’s thing.”

“Yes.”

Tyler nodded slowly.

“Is it, like, a test?” he said. “Do you have to do anything?”

“No. I just have to be somewhere.”

“On the hill.”

“On the hill.”

“At seven thirty.” Tyler considered this. “In the morning.”

“Yes.”

Tyler looked at him with the deep, troubled sympathy of a man who has been asked to imagine a thing he has never done.

“Do you want me to come?” he said.

Frederick looked at him.

“Because I would,” said Tyler. “I’d come. If you wanted.” He thought about it honestly. “I’d hate it. But I’d come.”

“No,” said Frederick. “Thank you. It’s Rhys and Sam.”

“Cool,” said Tyler, at once, and with such relief that Frederick laughed out loud. “‘Cause I’m on nights. I mean, I’m always on nights, but tonight Jussi’s got a thing with his uncle and Aino’s sick, so I’m on wood till like five.” He turned back towards the screens, and stopped, and turned round again. “Wake me up,” he said. “After. When you’re back. Tell me if it worked.”

“I will.”

“And hey.” Tyler pointed at the screen, at the bottom of it, where under the fire there was a line of white writing. “Look.”

It was from Leeds.

good luck tmrw legend. well keep it high for u

And under it, from Finland, from Jussi, who was apparently not with his uncle yet:

7:30 your time. all on wood. 31 + 1

Frederick looked at it for some time.

“Thirty-one plus one,” he said.

“Jussi counts you,” said Tyler. “Since Christmas. He says you’re on the roster.” He put the headphones back on, and then lifted one side, an inch. “Also you should take my power strip.”

“There’s no socket on the butte.”

“You don’t know that,” said Tyler darkly. “There’s always an old guy.” And he let the headphone go, and was gone into the forest, saying “Who’s on wood?” to nobody, because he was.

---

Mr Luna came on at ten.

Frederick went down at half past, in the coat. The lobby was warm and dim, with the radio on low and somebody hitting something in a game far away, and the paper sun on the front of the desk that said IGNACIO, under the lamp, and Mr Luna at the desk in the cardigan writing 10 p.m. 68 on the clipboard.

He pushed the plastic chair out with his foot.

Frederick sat.

“Going up,” said Mr Luna. It was not a question.

“Half past six.”

Mr Luna wrote nothing for a while. He looked at the crossword, and filled in a word in pen, and looked at the clock over the door, and at the grey box on the wall.

“I’m off at six,” he said.

“I know.”

“Day girl comes on at six. With her coffee and her hair in a pencil.” He filled in another word. “I go home. My mother’s up at four. She’ll have the TV on. She’s got the Swedish thing on the computer my granddaughter set up for her, she doesn’t know how it works, she’s going to shout at it.” He looked at the crossword. “I’ll be here.”

Frederick looked at him.

“At half past six,” said Mr Luna. “When you go out.” He wrote another word. “And when you come back.”

“You’ll have been on for nine hours.”

“Ten,” said Mr Luna. “And a bit.” He did not look up. “There’s no form for it, son. I asked Doug. Doug says there’s no form for a man staying.” He put the pen down across the crossword and looked at Frederick over his glasses, at last, for a long moment, with no expression at all. “So nobody can stop me.”

Neither of them said anything for some time.

Then Mr Luna took a butterscotch out of the jar, but did not unwrap it. He held it out across the desk, in its gold wrapper, between his finger and thumb.

“For the top,” he said. “Not now. Put it in your pocket.”

Frederick put it in the pocket of the coat.

“Drink water,” said Mr Luna, and picked up the pen. “Call your mother.”

“She’s going to call me.”

“Then answer it,” said Mr Luna, and went back to the crossword.

---

She rang at a quarter to eleven, which was a quarter to seven in the morning in Stockholm, and he took it on the step.

The stairwell was dark except for the night light on the landing above and the narrow window, which was black, with the car park beyond it under its one lamp and nothing in it. The window was open an inch. The air that came through it was cold, really cold, the first cold air he had felt in the Valley that was not the cold of a machine, and it smelled of nothing at all, which was what cold air smelled of.

“Fredde.”

“Where are you?”

“In my sitting room. At the Palace. In the chair by the window.” She said it in Swedish, low, as though somebody in the next room were asleep. “It is still dark here. It will not be light until after eight. I am looking at the water, and there is nothing on it, and the lamps along Skeppsbron are still on.” A pause. “It is the same dark as yours. Only further on.”

He sat on the step under the narrow window and looked at the black glass.

“Is Dad asleep?”

“Your father has been awake since five. He has set his watch by the speaking clock. Twice. The second time because he was not sure that the first time the speaking clock had been right.” Something that was nearly a laugh. “He has the envelope in his pocket. He has taken it out three times to look at it and put it back. Brannigan has ironed his shirt and he has unironed it by sitting in it.”

“And Alexander?”

“Alexander arrived last night, and inspected the Hall of State at nine o’clock in the evening with the Marshal of the Court and a tape measure, and paced three paces from the wall, and said thank you, that is very satisfactory, and went to bed.” A pause. “Lukas asked the Marshal what one wins at a Hall of State. The Marshal did not know what to say. Nobody has ever asked him. I think he is going to be thinking about it for the rest of his life.”

He laughed, on the step, quietly, because the stairwell carried.

Then there was the breath. He heard it come, long and careful, drawn up as though it had to be lifted, and a moment longer than a breath should be; and it was over, and she did not say anything about it, and neither did he.

“Are you going up?” said his mother.

“Yes.”

“With your two officers.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Wear the jumper. It will be forty-six degrees at seven. I looked.” A pause. “I have been looking at the weather in Tempe every morning since August. I know more about the weather in Tempe than anybody in Stockholm. It is a very useless thing to know, and I am going to go on knowing it.”

“I’ll wear it.”

“And Fredde.”

“Yes.”

“At half past three,” said his mother, “do not look at the telephone.”

He sat very still on the step.

“Look at the sun,” she said. “It is the only thing that will be happening. Everything in this room will be a clock and some paper and a great many people in uniform standing very still, and it will all be over before anybody has finished standing still. There is nothing in it to see. I have seen it. I was in it in 2010, from the other side, and I do not remember one thing about it, not one, except that my mother’s hand was cold.” A pause. “Look at the sun. That is what is happening. Everything else is only the law, finding out where you are.”

He did not say anything.

“I will not be looking at the camera,” said his mother. “I never do. You will not be looking at the telephone. So we will both be looking at the right thing.” And then, more lightly, in the voice with the cloth over it: “Your father will be looking at his watch. Somebody has to.”

“All right,” he said.

“That was not okay.”

“No.”

“Good,” said his mother. “Go to sleep. You will not sleep. Lie down, at least, and let the alarm do it.” A pause, shorter. “It is a very ordinary day here, you know. It is a Wednesday. The ferries are running. I asked.”

“Puss, Mamma.”

“Puss, Fredde,” said his mother, and then, before she rang off, very quietly, as though she had not meant him to hear it, or had, and wanted it to sound as though she had not:

“I am glad it is a hill.”

---

He did not sleep.

He lay on his back in the bed by the door with the blanket up and the telephone on the pillow by his ear, the way it had lain every night in August and September, and looked at the crack in the ceiling, which in the light of the snow on Tyler’s screens looked like a river on a map. Tyler was at the desk with the headphones on, in the forest, on wood, saying very quietly every so often to Finland, “I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” and once, “No, east side.” The room was cold. Tyler kept it cold.

Past Tyler’s bed and the two screens, at the edge of the blind, there was the gap, an inch wide; and if he put his head at the very end of the pillow, where his mother had put hers in October, he could see through it a strip of night, a dull dark orange, and at the bottom of the strip, black against the orange, the shoulder of the butte.

He looked at it for a long time.

At midnight it was eight in the morning in Stockholm, and the day had begun there, and somewhere in it the lamps along Skeppsbron would be going off, one after another, and the light coming up grey over the water; and he lay in the dark in Arizona with seven and a half hours still to go and thought that it was the last night that the thing he was heir to would be somebody else’s, and that the somebody was in a chair by a window looking at the ferries, and was glad it was a hill.

At four minutes past one the telephone lit up on the pillow.

It was from a number in Germany that he had had since he was fifteen and had used perhaps six times.

Alexander has been dressed since six. He has ironed his gloves. He has asked me to tell you nothing, so I am telling you that. He has also asked me what I intend to win, and I have said that I do not know yet, and that it is too early in the day to say. L.

He read it, in the dark, with his head at the end of the pillow. Then he put the telephone face down on the blanket, and laughed into the pillow so as not to disturb the forest, and at some time after that, without noticing, with the butterscotch still in the pocket of the coat on the chair, and the alarm called BUTTE green at the bottom of the list, he slept.