“You know what?” he said. His voice was calm and measured, his vowels long and flat and Leicestery. “Fuck you, Ludo.”
We looked at each other for a moment, unflinching. The tears finally spilt from Sunny’s eyes. I had broken him. Had I gone too far? Had I been unfair? Sunny set his jaw, hunched his shoulders, shoved his hands into his pockets, and set off across the park.
“Have a nice life,” he said. He didn’t look back.
I felt something tear away inside me, pulling me apart. I sank to my knees on the grass and cried and cried and cried.
Chapter44
Sunny
Iwalked all the way home to Willesden Green from Hampstead Heath. It took an hour and a half, mostly because I wasted a lot of time trying to jump the railway line at Kilburn. Every step was freezing. My nipples were so hard they’d just about cut holes in my shirt by the time I got to my front door. When I got in, I had a warm shower in a bid to stave off hypothermia, but the shivering continued even after I climbed into bed. I was still pure raging, and I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, awake, going through everything in my mind. Fuck Ludo. Honestly, fuck that overprivileged bellend for the crappy stunt he’d pulled and his crappy reasons for doing it. For all his claims to the contrary, it was just like I’d told him it was that first night at Maxime’s. He was just another posh twat, pulling the door closed behind him, stopping people like me getting through.
* * *
I was still raging about it the next day, as I slouched on the couch in front of the telly in Dav and Nick’s flat, watching Westminster Abbey fill up with yet more posh twats ahead of the coronation of King George VII and Queen Philippa. The republican at the feast. Dav was effing and blinding from the kitchen. A loud metallic clatter suggested things weren’t going well. The smell of something turning to charcoal wafted across to the living room.
“You better not be burning Amita’s bhajis,” I called out. More swearing from the kitchen.
Nick glided in front of me, blocking my view of the TV, spun his wheelchair around to face me, picked a can out of his lap, and held it out for me.
“You look like you could use another one of these,” he said. I took it. Why did everything always sound kinder in a lilting Aberdonian accent?
“Ta, mate.” I leant over. “Has he burnt Amita’s bhajis?”
“Let’s just say they’re very,verybrown.”
I shook my head. Could today get any worse?
Nick wheeled around to the side of the couch, popped his brakes on, and edged himself onto the seat beside me. On the screen, Bimpe Lasisi was navigating her way around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, gripping her invitation like it had been signed by God himself. She was dressed in royal blue with gold trim. She would still be themostregal person in the abbey, even when the King arrived. Her gele was enormous.
“Imagine being invited to the coronation and missing the whole damn thing because you’re sat behind Bimpe and can’t see around her hat,” Nick said. He cracked his can and held it up to say cheers. I opened mine and tapped it against his.
“You all right, pal?” he said.
“Not really.” I gulped at my beer, swallowed, then gulped at it again. I’d already told Dav and Nick what had happened with Ludo. I’d sent them a text saying I wasn’t coming because I was still fuming. Dav wasn’t having it.
“I ain’t put up all this bloody bunting and bought a lorryload of sausage rolls just so you can lie in bed all day, crying into your foreskin about how lonely you is,” he’d said.
I’m very susceptible to peer pressure where Dav is concerned. Possibly because of the expressive way he likes to paint failure. On the screen, Jemima Carstairs and her husband were walking into the abbey. Carstairs had got the note about not upstaging the monarch. She wore a blue version of her trademark pantsuit, with a fascinator that looked a lot like a wind turbine. Was she ever not on message? Take a day off, Jem.
“I get that you’re angry with Ludo right now,” Nick said. I sighed, waiting for his enduring sensibleness. “But can you see where he’s coming from? Like, if people are constantly using him to get to his parents, just to further their careers.”
“I wasn’t using him.” I spoke too quickly. There was a snarl in my voice. “Sorry,” I said.
“That’s not how it’ll look to him, though, is it? That must have been really triggering for him when you and his old man started talking about you joining the paper.”
“Hugo started it!”
“That’s not really the point, though, is it?”
“The point is, I’ve never given Ludo any reason to think I’m using him to get into theSentinel.”
“And it was never in the back of your mind? Really? Not even a tiny bit?”
The defensive answer was no, it wasn’t. But in the moment, I wasn’t sure if that was true. I’d apologised to Ludo after Maxime’s to avoid the potential career damage. Was that as good as the same thing? And was there a part of me, deep down, that knew working with Ludo on the nuclear power plant story would get Hugo’s attention? I didn’t want to be offered a job just because I was shagging his son, but I’d jumped at the chance to talk with him about my career at a party I’d only been invited tobecauseI was shagging his son. I started to feel uncomfortable.
“Either way, you’ve buggered it now,” Nick said. “You’ve lost Ludo and probably any chance you had of ever working at theSentinel.”
