The door clicked shut behind Dr Gu, and Colin let his hand travel the four inches to the bedside table, found his mobile by feel, and brought it up to his face. The screen lit up white in the dim room, and he had to squint till his eyes adjusted.
He checked on Lysander first.
There were six photos waiting on him, including a sunset that looked digitally enhanced and a small clay-coloured dog wearing a bandana. Colin scrolled through them, and smiled at the dog. Lysander had always wanted one; his ex Dane never had. As soon as his son got home to London, Colin was going to suggest a trip to the Lost Dogs’ Home to see if there was a pup waiting there for him. He tapped out a reply with his thumb working across the screen at half its usual pace.
Hello my love. I’m sure Stephen’s been keeping you up to date. Heat came on early and they wanted to keep an eye on meat St Mary’s. Stephen’s been here the whole time and Ryland’s been filling my freezer with soup, so I’m being properly fussed over. No need to come home early. You can have your turn fussing when you’re back from your grand tour. Love you, my boy.
He read it twice before he sent it. His eyes were fuzzy, and it took far longer than it should for him to properly make out the shape of words and assign meaning to them.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. Lysander composing and deleting, composing and deleting, the way he always did when he was trying to work out how worried to sound without tipping over into the kind of fussing that was more his older twin Stephen’s vibe, not his.
The reply came through in four separate messages, because Lysander had never sent a single text when six would do.
omg dad
are you ok????
stephen said you were in hospital but he was being all cagey about it which means its either really bad or really embarrassing
pls tell me its just something embarrassing
Colin’s mouth twitched. He typed back:Heat came on early. They’re keeping me in for monitoring. Nothing dramatic. How’s Geoffrey?
The photo arrived within seconds. Geoffrey the lizard was perched on what appeared to be a bar coaster, his tiny head cocked at an angle of deep philosophical consideration, a wedge of lime balanced on the rim of a glass behind him.
His boy was all right. Lysander had spent years performing on camera with his ex-boyfriend Dane, maintaining an OnlyFans account that paid the bills better than any of Colin’s jobs ever had, and Colin had kept his mouth shut about it the whole way through. He certainly had his opinions aboutLysander’s career choices, but he’d raised that boy, and he trusted what he’d put into him. Whether he wanted his son selling himself online was beside the point. Lysander was a grown man and was allowed to make his own choices.
Now Dane was a long way behind him, their OnlyFans account was wound up, and his boy was out in Thailand with a lizard and a rucksack and no particular plan beyond which country he fancied going to next. That was exactly where Colin wanted him, far away from the camera and working out what came next at his own pace.
He sent back a single line:He’s looking well. Make sure he’s getting enough flies.
Then he scrolled down to the next message.
Mr Singh from two flats down had sent three texts across the week, each more apologetic than the last about bothering him. The first said he’d noticed Colin’s bins hadn’t gone out on Tuesday and he’d taken them down himself, no trouble at all. The second said he’d brought the empty bins back up on Wednesday evening. The third said his wife had made too much dhal and would Colin like some when he was home.
Colin breathed out through his nose. He thumbed back a thank-you, said he’d be home in a day or two, and that yes, he’d love some dhal. Mrs Singh was a saint and Mr Singh wasn’t far off himself.
He scrolled down again.
The messages from Diwa de la Vega sat in a tidy little stack from three days back, and Colin’s stomach curled into itself in a move that he interpreted as coming from the residual nausea of his heat.
Hi Colin, hope this isn’t a bother. I’ve got a list of things now that I think are actual handyman jobs and not me being a clown. Dripping tap in the upstairs bathroom (the cold one, drip about every 6 secs). The radiator in the back bedroom isn’tgetting warm at the bottom. And the latch on the garden gate is hanging off. I can hold it on with one hand but I think it needs proper screws. I know there are contractors in and out but they’re mid-build and I don’t want to pull them off the big stuff. No rush though. Whenever you’ve got a window.
Then, an hour later:Should have said, happy to pay your call-out plus hourly, whatever your normal rate is. Not a smoothie this time, promise.
Then thirty minutes after that:Unless you do want a smoothie? I can put mango in.
Then, two days after that:No worries if you’re booked up. Just let me know either way when you’ve got a sec.
Immediately after:I thought we made a good team with the light bulb.
Colin looked at the messages for a long moment. The cold tap drip was a washer, fifteen minutes’ work. The radiator wanted bleeding. The gate latch was probably just going to need new screws into fresh wood. None of it was hard, but he could get a couple of hours’ work out of it.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
He thought about the tariff schedule taped to the inside of his kitchen cupboard, and the medications Dr Gu had just told him he’d need to purchase. The man had bought a home in Notting Hill and was renting out something in Marylebone while he waited out the renovations. Colin’s hourly rate wouldn’t even register on his bank statement.
He typed a message back.
