By two in the morning, there was still no word from Ludo and I was lying in bed, smashing GayHoller. I was on a mission. A headless torso at a house party a few streets away was trying to convince me to put some pants on, join him for a few drinks, “and see how it goes.” The only thing I wanted less than more booze was to leave the house. All I wanted at this point was to efficiently bust a nut with someone with a full set of teeth, an OK physique, and a face that didn’t look like it had been freshly unzipped from a body bag. I wanted shallow, meaningless, transactional sex. I wanted a bus stop boy to come upstairs, swipe his Oyster card against my reader, and piss off back to his own life so I never had to see him again.
My phone chimed.
GayHoller:Cabbage98 has sent you a message.
Shit! I threw my phone onto the duvet. I sat bolt upright and rubbed my eyes, trying to sober up or wake up or whatever up it was my body needed to be a normal functioning human being in that moment. I straightened my hair. I checked my breath. Pointless, but standards, and all that. I opened the message.
Cabbage98:Sunny. Sorry. I’ve been at the hospital. It’s Uncle Ben. They think he’s had a stroke. I’ve only just got home. Sorry to miss meeting your friends. Another day, for sure. I hope you had a lovely time. Ludo x.
I felt like a douchebag. I’d been out partying and celebrating and cruising for an online hook-up, getting angrier and angrier with Ludo, while Ludo was sitting in the hospital, worried sick about his godfather. I thought about my nan when she was in the hospital and how lost I’d felt. I just wanted to comfort Ludo in whatever way I could, to be the shoulder he needed. Suddenly sober, I jumped out of bed and grabbed my work rucksack, rummaging through it to find the folder Torsten had given me on the plane. I rifled through the papers, looking for the page with everyone’s contact details on it. And there it was. Ludo’s actual phone number. I sat on the edge of the bed and typed it into my phone. My heart was in my throat, waiting for the call to connect, to hear Ludo’s voice.
It went to voicemail.
I tried several times, with the same result. If I thought I’d felt like crap before, I’d just found new depths to my misery.
Chapter32
Ludo
The last place I felt like being was the office, but Father had insisted my punishment stood. Fortunately, that frightful bore Bob Wynn-Jones resigned at eight o’clock on Sunday morning. It had been inevitable. It was a welcome distraction. It made for a busy shift in theSentinel’s Westminster bureau, but despite being incredibly tired, having a face that was more purple than pink and a phone full of missed calls from an unknown number, and being incredibly distracted by Uncle Ben’s situation, I was confident I had everything under control. Until, that is, the prime minister went ahead and announced that rather than just replacing his energy secretary, he would be holding a general cabinet reshuffle on the coming Tuesday.
All hell broke loose. It had roughly the same effect as slipping amphetamines into the water supply of an old folks’ home. Suddenly, sleepy Sunday Westminster was buzzing with frantic energy. Ford Goodall, our political editor and a man whose personality would be greatly improved by amphetamines in the water supply, came into the office on his day off to write the lead stories and the analysis pieces on the reshuffle. That left me to cover the Wynn-Jones resignation itself. I began working the phones, calling Wynn-Jones’s political enemies, looking for any gossip I could get, before moving on to his allies. I’d just been hung up on, yet again, when someone knocked on the bureau door. Ford covered the mouthpiece of his phone.
“Come in,” he called.
The door opened, and there stood Sunny Miller, wearing sneakers and a slouchy grey tracksuit that had “lazy Sunday” written all over it. Not literally, you understand. That was the general vibe. What on earth was he doing here? He looked sheepish.
“I thought you might need coffee,” he said, producing a small cardboard tray with two small takeaway coffee cups. It looked remarkably like an olive branch. “Can I come in?”
Ford was on the phone, working his contacts, so I didn’t think that was a good idea. Whatever was about to be said, Ford didn’t need to hear it.
“How about I come out?” I suggested. I nodded to Ford and pointed at the door, indicating I was going out for a minute. He nodded back and waved goodbye to Sunny without breaking off from his phone call.
The corridor was busy with reporters bustling to and fro, half of them looking hung-over and ropeable that they’d been called in, the other half looking thrilled to have got out of ferrying their kids to football matches or horse riding lessons or whatever familial horrors Sunday usually entailed. Sunny plucked a coffee out of the tray and passed it to me. Our fingers touched as the paper cup slid from his hand into mine, sending a little charge through me.
“Thanks,” I said. I suggested we go for a walk, rather than loiter outside the bureau.
“I’m sorry about your uncle Ben,” he said. I tried to smile. “Any news from the hospital?”
“Nothing yet today. Mummy is going in after lunch. She’ll update us afterwards.”
Sunny nodded, his expression uncertain.
After a few paces I felt his hand on my elbow. We stopped on a threadbare bit of carpet, and he pulled me gently around to face him.
“I’m sorry,” Sunny said. “About the text. It was me who was bang out of order. I just?—”
“You weren’t to know what was going on.”
“I tried to call you last night.”
My heart skipped. Sunny’s hand was hot against my elbow. His peridot eyes looked sad, tired, intense.
“That was you?” I smiled, my mind racing with what this meant.
“I wanted to apologise. And I thought you might need to talk.”
“Jolly thoughtful of you,” I said. “Sorry. My phone was on silent and, um, I knocked myself out with half a Valium to get some sleep.”
