He knocked on my bedroom door at eight on Sunday morning.
I was already up. I had been sitting at the window with tea and a book I was not really reading, watching the grounds do their quiet Sunday morning thing. Mist sitting low over the grass. Birds taking their time. The kind of morning that asks nothing of you.
I opened the door.
He was not in his usual suit.
Dark trousers. A simple grey jumper. His hair slightly less arranged than it was on days when the world was going to see him. He looked younger. Not dramatically. Just the way people look younger when they are not performing anything.
"Get dressed," he said. "Nothing formal. Something you would actually choose."
I looked at him. "Where are we going."
"Out," he said.
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one I have righ
