Ten minutes and nineteen seconds until midnight. Josh and I have come inside the house, where he is leading me into the yawning mouth of a long, dark corridor. The silence ticks, and all the lights are off, because the house is so vast, it’s not immediately obvious where any of the switches are.
‘Josh, this is creepy,’ I say, glancing around the galleried walls as we walk, our footsteps echoing against the flagstones. ‘All the oil paintings are scowling at us. And there are literal suits of armour.’
‘Yeah, but they’re guarding something really good. Wait and see.’
‘The party’s outside.’
‘No, the party is very much... in here.’
We pause by a heavy wooden door, at which Josh withdraws an enormous wrought-iron key from his pocket.
I lift an eyebrow. ‘I think you forgot your kerosene lamp.’
He simply smiles and unlocks the door, heaving it open. It groans and creaks in a way that suggests it hasn’t been used since the last time anyone celebrated a millennium.
As I peer past him, a stiff chill ascends. I can see only a flight of steps, swallowed up by a damp-stone darkness, and a banister made of rope. ‘You know, if this was a horror film, I’d be saying we deserve everything that’s about to happen to us.’
He leans over and flicks on a light. It fizzes and sings, as though the bulb’s seconds from blowing. ‘Does this help?’
‘No. Not in the least.’
‘Shall I go first?’
‘Do you even need to ask?’
He starts to descend. Nervously, I follow him, hanging on to the rope, just waiting for that door to slam shut and the light to sputter out.
But when we reach the bottom I make a sharp intake of breath.
We are in a cellar with a domed ceiling, every wall lined with rack upon rack of glinting bottles. A tiny cathedral of hedonism, just for us.
I start laughing. ‘Oh, my God.’
By my side, Josh beams. ‘Ingrid told me where to find the good champagne.’
We nestle down on Josh’s jacket, lean back against the chilled stone of the cellar wall.
‘We can’t take a magnum,’ I protest.
‘The world’s about to end. We can do what we like.’
I suppress a smile. ‘I’m surprised you’re not out there looting shops.’
‘Well, I would be, but... I actually had an ulterior motive for bringing you down here,’ he says, tugging the cork from the bottle he’s picked out.
I smile as it pops. ‘Oh, yeah?’
The bulb-light barely stretches to where we are sitting. Josh’s face is sliced with shadow, his eyes rich and dark as damp earth. He nods, passes me the champagne. ‘Yeah. If there’s some sort of biblical explosion up there in the next five minutes, we’re essentially in a nuclear bunker, with enough booze to last for another thousand years.’
The bottle’s so big, I have to hold it with both hands. I take a swig, the bubbles tart on my tongue, then pass it back to him. ‘What about our friends?’
‘Ah, screw them. They’re going down happy.’
It is silent down here, except for a soft stalactital drip somewhere in the cellar’s far corner. Above ground, the music is still pumping.
‘You were really sweet with Blake tonight,’ I say, picturing him with Polly’s son earlier.
He smiles lopsidedly, rubs a hand through his hair. ‘Yeah, although he took it too literally when I told him to hold on tight. Virtually scalped me.’
