Mummy stood, put a hand on my shoulder, and pushed me back down into my chair. This was what passed for affection in our family.
“Calm down, darling. You’ve had a stressful day.”
“Stressful?Stressful?I started the day with everything, and now I have nothing. Absolutelynothing.”
“You have a great front page,” Father said. I screamed and lunged for him, enraged. I found myself pinned back by my mother’s arms. Tears burnt my cheeks. I was filled with anger, but not the fight I needed to go with it. I was exhausted, powerless, helpless. I sank to the floor, sliding from my mother’s arms, my knees crumpling under the weight of me. The will had completely left my body. I had no energy left.
Chapter56
Ludo
“Just here please, driver,” I said. “By the bus stop.” The black cab glided up to the kerb; I paid and got out. I looked up at the first-floor windows. There was no light on in Sunny’s bedroom. He still wasn’t answering my calls, so in a last-ditch act of desperation, I had trekked out to Willesden Green to confront him and explain. I was tired, broken, and in desperate need of a hug. I knocked on the door. No one answered.
“If you’re looking for Sunny, darling,” a voice called from somewhere, “he’s gone home to Leicester.” I looked around to see Rosie hanging out of her upstairs window, freshly lit ciggy in hand, head wrapped in a scarf like it was still the 1950s.
“To Leicester? But he was only here this morning.”
“Got the sack, didn’t he.”
“He what?” My broken heart broke again. This was awful—and it was all my fault.
“So, he’s gone back to Mummy for a bit of home cooking and comfort. Can’t say I blame him.” She sucked on her cigarette. I edged along the pavement until I was standing directly underneath Rosie’s window.
“Did he say when he will be back?”
“Don’t expect he’s coming back, love. Can’t afford the rent on that place without a job. Came to say ta-ta to me this afternoon. Right muddle he was in. I really felt for him. Salt of the earth, that boy.”
Those words again.
“Shame on you, if you don’t mind me saying so, darling,” Rosie said. I stood there, shocked, like I’d just absorbed a right hook to the jaw. The tears started to flow. This was more than I could take today. I looked up at the woman in the window, her eyebrows raised in what I interpreted as disappointment. “He didn’t deserve that. Did you think about what would happen to him? Do your loteverthink about what happens to the pawns in your little games?”
I was shaking. It was more than I could bear. The tears were rolling down my cheeks and inside my shirt collar. The air was cool against my wet skin. I tried to speak, but no words came out. I lifted a hand in thanks for the information and in farewell, and turned back towards the high road to find a cab. In the end, unable to find one, unwilling to cry on the Tube, unable to work out the buses, I walked all the way home. I was cold, exhausted, devastated. In less than a day, my life had shattered.
Chapter57
Sunny
In a bid to cheer me up after the shittiest day of my life, the Brent Boys descended on Crucifix in Vauxhall—a twenty-four-seven homosexual meat market. The club lights were pulsing in time with the banging beats. The dance floor was a sweaty mass of shirtless, muscular, hairy men. Some bald, some with beards, some sweating their faces off in puppy masks. A couple of blokes beside us were making out, hands groping at flesh, boners stretching against tiny pleather shorts.
“But why are you leaving?” Dav said, shouting to be heard over the thumping bass. “Bit of a knee-jerk reaction, isn’t it? Why not stick around and try some of the other papers?”
“Or TV,” Petey added. “You’ve got a good face for TV, bruv. I’ve always said that. Believe.”
“Would you employ someone who was sacked by theBulletinfor unethical behaviour?”
Stavros returned from the bar, fingers stretched around the base of four plastic cups, the liquid in each swirling and lapping and spilling.
“Thanks for the help, boys.” Such sarcasm. We each grabbed a cup.
“What am I, chopped liver?” Nick rolled into a clear space to join the group, plucked a cup from between his legs, and handed it to Dav. We cheersed.
“I just can’t believe you’rechoosingto go back to Leicester,” Dav said. “We spent our entire lives trying to get out of there.”
“At least you can take the people there at their word.”
“Yeah,” Dav said. “If they say they’re going to lamp you, they lamp you.”
“Let’s just dance,” I said. “I’ve got a train to catch in eight hours.”
