As for me, I’m feeling pleasantly stimulated, like I’ve had sufficient caffeine and vitamins and can tackle a new project.
The guide hangs back playing Pokémon GO on his phone while August takes over. The women in the group range from twenties to about seventy, but they all push past each other to stand near August. As I walk along in the little crowd, I suspect August must have taken these Jack the Ripper tours dozens of times, memorizing details and brainstorming his own next Inspector Hall scenes.
We continue through Mitre Square as August describes with gusto the mad police rush on the night of the double murders. He tells us the Ripper goaded the police by mailing in pieces of the victims’ organs and handwritten notes. Sparing no detail, he paints a gruesome and chaotic series of events as skillfully as he writes an Inspector Hall scene.
My thoughts become a little more raw and uncensored.
I’m finding it harder than usual to take my eyes off August. I wonder what he looks like naked.
Will I ever see him naked? My mind slows and then races, “sticking” on random thoughts that grow as big as a universe in my mind: Will I ever see August Dansworth naked? Will I forget what Philip looked like naked? Thinking of Philip naked segues to Oedipal-like stream-of-consciousness thoughts about Mirabel. Weird. I see Mirabel’s lipsticked face as clear as a photograph in my mind. I hear her threats as if she’s shouting them in my ear now. “Peculiar,”she called me.
I stare down at my dark clothes, the jet necklace. Philip’s urn weighs heavily in my bag.
I’m notpeculiar.
Or maybe I am, and Mirabel will get my son.
What if I am mentally unfit?
I’m fucking high, walking about on a Jack the Ripper tour. Panic and paranoia flutter again as I start ruminating once more about how long marijuana stays in the system.
We’re near the end of the tour at Fournier Street in Spitalfields, just in front of The Ten Bells pub. The women crowd about August, who basks in the attention. They all vie to ask him questions while their husbands tip the student-guide and head into the pub for a drink. One by one, the women take selfies with August and flirt, begging for tidbits from the next Chadwick Hall book.
I lean against a lamppost and fumble in my purse for my phone.
“Henry?”
“Lizzie! Sorry I couldn’t call you back earlier.” Traffic sounds in the background. “I had the longest goddamn court...”
“Henry, I’m fucked.”
“Hey—what’s going on?”
“I’m in London.”
“Yeah? Iknow.You don’t sound right. Are you safe?”
“He just gave me a gummy.”
“Who gave you a gummy?”
“You know, A.D. Hemmings.”
“The author? Lizzie, you’re talking gibberish.Whogave you something? Where are you? Wait, don’t move. I’m going to call Ms. Fernsby. Don’t go off alone with anyone.”
“I’m fine! I really am hanging out with Hemmings. His real name is August. Look...” I text him our selfie.
“That sure does look like him.”
“Itishim. We’re writer buddies now. But that’s not thepoint, Henry. I called you because Mirabel is threatening to fight for custody of Heathcliff. She told me so on the phone tonight. I’m fucked if she does. She’ll dress him up in little bow ties like Ted. She’ll teach him how to shoot innocent garden groundhogs. She’ll have him sipping mint juleps...”
Henry laughs loudly as he shuts his car door and turns on the ignition.
“This isn’tfunny! Why are you laughing?”
“Because, Lizzie, trust me, with all the crap I’m finding, no judge is going to give Mirabel Wells custody of a hedgehog. And I think that gummy’s playing with your head and you’re getting paranoid. Right now, I’m not worried about your piece-of-work mother-in-law, but I am worried that you’re safe.”
“She couldn’t be bloody safer!” August says suddenly into the phone, from over my shoulder.
