‘Tell me about the Ley lines, granddad’, she'd say, even when it was only a week or two since we’d been up here. There’s only so much a six year old can understand, though, even one as sharp as Alice.

I’m feeling a bit drowsy now, Tommy. Is it me, or is it getting warmer?

It seems like only yesterday her mother said she was old enough to cross the heath to the point, and we stood here together. ‘It’s not a point at all, granddad- it’s flat.’ I told her it may be flat, just a grassy field, but it has the finest view in London.

Look carefully, Tommy and you can follow the line of the prime meridian running from the Observatory, through the Queen’s House, the Dome and across to the Isle of Dogs. See where the light reflects in a long white line? That’s the river, winding off to St Paul’s. She'd say it was like a silver ribbon.

Don’t worry about me, Tommy. I’ll soon be swapping yarns with the men who built them, not just St. Paul's but Stonehenge, too. The bible called them magi, the wise men who span the ages. They’ll tell me how they built the Pyramids. We’ll have a laugh about the top of the Canary Wharf Tower, and that group that wanted to turn it into a Temple of Isis. They said it must be the true Omphalus, because it’s protected by water on three sides – that and the cobbled steps up to the ancient circle. Alice liked that story, Tommy, almost as much as the ones about the ghosts.


They knew all about it, Tommy, - the lines of energy crossing the world, the alignment of sacred sites in triangles. They know that Greenwich is the same as Giza was to the ancient Egyptians – our Omphalus, spiritual centre of the world. Such concentration of energy in these intersections, Tommy – portals they called them, and now it looks as if I’m about to go through one at last.

I don’t think I’ll be coming back, though, Tommy, so don’t look for me. I won’t be like poor Christopher Marlowe, murdered in a tavern brawl, or the wandering souls in the Queen’s house – the hooded monk at the foot of the Tulip staircase and the maid who passes through walls. They say they’re stories made up for the tourists, but you and I know better than that, Tommy. Alice knew it, too. Like you and me, she felt it.

Measuring time and space, Tommy. Alice’ll go further than I did, with her degree in Astronomy. I’ve measured my length. I can’t move. She was right about that, too: running round the way you do, you’d trip me up one day.

Sit here beside me, lad. I can’t see the trees anymore. But what’s that crowd coming across the grass? The light’s shining in my eyes and I can’t see who they are. Can you see their arms raised up? I think they want me to join them, Tommy. No,no, not you; they don’t take in dogs, and even if they did, it’s not your time. You stay here and wait for Alice. She’ll know where to find us.