“Let’s go back to yours,” I suggest.
“Can we go to your flat? Only, I don’t want to see my father at the moment, and he’s home for a few weeks.”
He’s home. And he couldn’t be bothered to accompany his nineteen-year-old son to his dead wife’s grave on what would have been her fiftieth birthday.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anyone with more vehemence than I do Warwick Oakham II.
“D’you know what I have at my flat? For definite this time because I bought some yesterday . . . Asparagus!” I say.
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” he replies.
Back at my apartment, I cook Lando asparagus carbonara with expensive Waitrose pancetta and a glass of white wine. It’s a mission. I’m officially the world’s worst chef, with the world’s worst shortest temper, and there may have been an incident with an insubordinate colander. But Lando eats my dish as though we’re at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Afterwards, we whackLegally Blondeon the TV even though I wanted to watchWreck It Ralph—I let him win on this occasion.
“Did you wash my pyjamas?” he asks as the movie finishes and we move from the living room to the bedroom.
“Yeah, they’re in the middle drawer.”
Lando had spent so much time over at my flat that he bought special “Harry’s place” PJs. They’re black, of course, silky, and have white piping alongthe seams. He told me he purchased them at Liberty of London, and when I asked him how much they cost, he simply shrugged.
He removes them from my chest of drawers, holds them to his face, and inhales deeply. Even though I’ve seen him naked an awful lot, he still takes his nightwear into the bathroom to get changed.
I use this time to check my messages. They’re all from Mum.
Hope everything is okay?
Text me later, hun.
I’m here if you need me.
A painful lump forms next to my airway. Lando should have what I have. I was right earlier, this isn’t fair. He’s too young to be denied a mother’s love. I swallow down the ache and fire a message back.
Everything good. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you. xx
Lando returns, his face scrubbed clean, his pyjamas all shiny and cosy. He looks like a Christmas elf fell into a Tim Burton movie. He climbs into bed, lies next to me, and puts his head on my chest. We usually lie the other way around, with me in the middle between his thighs so he can run his fingers through my hair.
I cup the back of his head and stare down at his endless curls. “Tell me about you and Daisy. When did you become friends?” I’m not sure why I ask that, but I need to know more about who cares for this precious boy.
“Mr B moved into the cottage opposite the pub in . . . maybe . . . twenty twelve. I was . . . five? His kids used to come over every other weekend to stay with him, and we would play in the fields between our houses. Molly would have been nine or ten, but Daisy was only eighteen months older than me, sowe always got on better. We’d just play together all the time, making magic potions with flowers and mud or playing shops or tag. There’s a canal behind the hill next to my place, and there’s this old abandoned lock-keeper’s house we used to hang around in, pretend it was our house. That was where Daisy told me she liked girls, and I said I thought I liked boys. I was nine. It felt like we were always meant to meet and be friends, you know?”
I hum in acknowledgment.
“Or we’d hang out at Mr B’s pub. He always had loads of crisps and Mars Bars we would steal. And then Dad tried to send me off to boarding school, but I was there for less than a year and Mum got sick, so I came home. Then she died, and I thought, ‘I’m never leaving Mudford’ because it would be like leaving her. And then Covid hit, and lockdown. We were all supposed to stay in our homes, yeah? But rules don’t apply to millionaires, so my father was never around.”
“He was out of the country?”
Lando shrugs. “No idea. I never asked him. Plausible deniability, I guess. Molly was staying at her mum’s, but Daisy was at her dad’s, so I just moved in with them for about three months. It was awesome. And now she’s what . . . eight weeks into a relationship and they’re about ready to take out a mortgage together and open a rehabilitation centre for cats or some shit.”
“Dream life.” I stroke his hair and stare at the TV even though I’ve not heard a single thing any of the actors have said in the past ten minutes. “Do you miss Daisy?”
Lando sucks in a heavy breath. “Yeah, I suppose . . . but I get the feeling that . . . she’s kind of had enough of me. If you know what I mean.”
I can guess, but I want him to tell me, want to hear the words confirmed.
“I think she’s maybe over being my ‘responsible adult.’ Like, I dunno . . . I take advantage of her, I know I do, and I feel like she’s bored with me. She’s twenty-one, she doesn’t need a child to look after at that age, especially not someone like me. I’m holding her back and we both know it. Molly went off to uni, but Daisy stayed here, and she’ll say it’s because she didn’t want to go,but really I know it’s because she didn’t want to leave me. Maybe she didn’t trust me to be by myself.”
“Oh,” I say, my fingers still circling his crown.
“So, I haven’t seen her as often as I used to, but she’s still my bestie. I’m kinda half waiting for her to turn around and say, ‘Lan, you’re doing my fucking head in. We can’t be friends any more.’”
