He was intrigued by her reaction to the picture of Dennis he’d shown her—the way she’d blushed and seemed reluctant to look too long. He opened two magazines and the recent Christie’s catalog to the pages of the Dennis pictures, and set them side by side. He was sitting at a dark, sticky table in the snug of the Spout Lantern, and he’d had two pints of bitter with lunch, which had been a mistake. His head now felt warm and slightly slow. Outside, the sun was a smear of gold over the dusty window glass. He’d been hoping that the alcohol would ease his thoughts; let him make abstract leaps through the stodge of all his notes and come up with a new plan, a plan of brilliant clarity. Instead, his thoughts kept returning to his dad and his grandpa, and the way the silences between them had sometimes seemed to grow to fill the whole room, the whole house. Grow so heavy and tangible that Zach would squirm and twist and find it impossible to sit still, until finally he would be sent to his room or into the garden.
