“Because lying in bed when awake was inadvisable, she’d come up here to see the dawn arriving. The council left the Top Park open, even at night. The qualities of the view it offered made constant access a must. People felt they might have to nip round anytime and check on the metropolis where it lay uncharacteristically prostrate at their feet. And wasn’t it flat—the city—when you saw it like this, so plainly founded on a tidal basin, rooted in mud?”