Toby's party was on the last Sunday in August, when the Notting Hill Carnival would be pounding to its climax, and when many local residents shuttered and locked their houses and left for their second homes with their fingers crossed: since the race riots of two summers earlier the carnival had been a site of heightened hopes and fears. Nick had lain in bed the night before and heard the long-legged beat of reggae from down the hill, mixed in, like the pulse of pleasure, with the sighing of the garden trees. It was his second night without Leo. He lay wide-eyed, dwelling on him in a state beyond mere thought, a kind of dazzled grief, in which everything they'd done together was vivid to him, and the strain of loss was as keen as the thrill of success.
Next morning at eleven they gathered in the hall. Nick, seeing Gerald was wearing a tie, ran up and put one on too. Rachel wore a white linen dress, and her dark hair, with its candid streaks of grey, had the acknowledged splendour of a new cut and a new shape. She smiled her readiness at them, and Nick felt their fondness and efficiency as a family unit. He and Elena stowed the overnight luggage in the Range Rover, and then Gerald drove them out, past blocked-off streets, through gathering crowds. Everywhere there were groups of policemen, to whom he nodded and raised his hand authoritatively from the wheel. Nick, sitting in the back with Elena, felt foolish and conceited at once. He dreaded seeing Leo, on his bike, and dreaded being seen by Leo. He imagined him cruising the carnival, and yearned to belong there in the way that Leo did. He saw him dancing happily with strangers in the street, or biding his turn in the dense mutating crowds at the underground urinals. His longing jumped out in a little groan, which became a throat-clearing and an exclamation: "Oh I say, look at that amazing float."