‘So make sure you all get your beauty sleep tonight,’ Marius commands. ‘We need everything to be absolutely slick tomorrow, and then by Friday we’ll be a hundred per cent up to speed.’ He widens his eyes at Eddie. ‘No twenty-four-hour bug crap, okay?’
‘Definitely not,’ Eddie says, meaning it. Because this time he won’t let Marius down.
*
And this thought is burning fiercely in Eddie’s mind as he wakes at eight on a crisp, bright Thursday morning. Hesits up in bed, propped up by a flat pillow – he’s known naan breads that are puffier – and reaches for his phone.
Two messages. The first from his mum:Remember it’s Granddad’s birthday on Saturday! Did you send a card?
No, he didn’t send a card because that would have involved going to the shops and buying one, and a stamp, and then posting it – in an actual postbox – which feels like a logistical nightmare to Eddie. He doesn’t even know where any postboxes are.
I’ll text him,he replies.
Could you send a Moonpig e-card?
For fuck’s sake, Mother! He doesn’t bother replying to that.
The second message is from Lyla.Can you come to a PV with me tonight?
Eddie blinks at it. He doesn’t know what a PV is, any more than he knew who Jill Gilbert was until Marius told him. So he googles it. How would he survive without Google? He can’t understand how his granddad manages with that ancient phone.
Eddie frowns. ‘Photovoltaic’ is the top result, something to do with converting sunlight into electrical energy. He’s assuming Lyla didn’t mean that.
Surely PV isn’t short for PVC and she’s taking him to some kind of sex club? He wouldn’t have thought she was the type. But then he doesn’t know what type she is, not really. Eddie rubs at his face, under pressure now.
Fuck it, he’ll just call her.
‘It’s aprivate view,’ Lyla says, with emphasis.
‘What?’
‘An art opening, Eddie.’ Oh, of course. He goes to them all the time! (He doesn’t really. She might as well have asked him to the ballet). ‘Mum’ll be there,’ she adds. ‘The artist’s a friend of hers. She likes seeing us together. It’ll be nice—’
‘Sorry, I can’t do it,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m starting work at twelve. I won’t finish till midnight …’
‘It’s only a couple of hours,’ she protests.
‘I can’t just take a couple of hours off in the middle of a shift! We’ve got a new menu—’
‘—Dinah’s anamazingartist,’ Lyla goes on, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘She’s a psychotherapist. Like a really top one. And she channels her clients’ traumas and it all pours out into these amazingly powerful, intuitive works.’
Eddie wonders if he could actually do with some psychotherapy. It feels like it sometimes. Would this Dinah woman do him a special rate?
‘Eddie?’ Lyla prompts him. ‘Can you come, or—’
‘Are we going to keep this going?’ he blurts out, shocking himself with his directness.
In the pause that follows he can tell he’s shocked her too. ‘Keep what going?’ she asks.
‘Pretending to be together, like a normal couple?’ His left eyelid is flickering now, through stress.
‘Uh, I don’t know …’ For once, she sounds hesitant. ‘It’s … difficult,’ she murmurs. Talk about understatements. Then: ‘Are you going to work right now?’
He checks the time. ‘No, I’ve got a couple of hours before I start. Why d’you ask?’
‘You don’t … fancy coming over, do you? For a quick coffee?’
Eddie frowns. Of course he wants to. He wants that more than anything – but what does Lyla want?
