Dinner tonight is in the open, under the stars. Barbecue atmosphere. You could almost forget the dome and call it al fresco dining.
You could also call it a prison with a sense of dread soaking into every hour, as if the walls are thickening.
Ms Laurel seems drunk, aggressively kissing everybody. The meal is dormouses, dormice, I think that’s the word–whatever the plural of mice is. I don’t recall eating them in Moneyland, but these guys love them. Father Albert keeps dropping the names of Roman emperors as he dangles the crispy rodent carcasses over his tongue then bites the crisped flesh. He hovers over the table of the carpenters and tells a story about how Vespasian would eat deep fried mice dipped in ambrosia. He chats to the washer-people about the Flemish bond style of masonry use
