Chapter 23

I woke up the next day in a clean flat, which was fucking weird. It was almost like I’d moved house—I didn’t recognise anything, or know where anything was, and there was this sense of emptiness I hadn’t been conscious of since Miles moved out. Although there was also a sense of possibility that was completely new.

It was so fresh and exciting that I got out of bed without my customary five-more-minutes-whoops-it’s-noon. I even considered putting actual clothes on, but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with too much maturity all at once and shrugged into my dressing gown instead. What I did do, though, was make the bed. Not as well as Oliver would have but well enough that he wouldn’t rub his temples in dismay at the sight of it.

I was in the kitchen, making coffee very, very carefully so as not to get grounds all over the now-shiny countertops when my phone rang.

“Allô, Luc, mon caneton,” said Mum.

“Hi, Mum. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say how proud I am that you made the effort with your father.”

“I…” I sighed. “I guess it was the right thing to do.”

“Of course it was the right thing to do. He has the cancer. But I would have supported you if you wanted to do the wrong thing as well.”

“Supported me. But not been proud of me.”

“Oh no, I would still have been proud. I admit that a tiny of part of me wishes I had the courage to tell him to go fuck himself.”

“You wrote an entire album telling him to go fuck himself.”

“Yes, but he did not have the cancer then.”

“Well”—sandwiching my phone between my ear and shoulder, I tried to hold the cafetière steady while I pressed the plunger, but I must have overfilled it because it still geysered out the top—“we don’t know how it’s going to go. I may still tell him to go fuck himself.”

“That’s fair. But I do also have a bone to pick with you, mon cher.”

I dabbed desperately at the countertops with what was left of the kitchen roll James Royce-Royce had brought with him. “Why? What have I done?”

“What you have done is not tell me that you have a boyfriend. And, worse, you have told your father. When we both know your father is objectively a complete oyster dick.”

“A complete what?”

“It loses something in translation. And that is not the point. The point is I am very upset that you have been keeping secrets from me.”

“I’m not—” In my eagerness to mop up my minor coffee spillage, I knocked over the rest of the cafetière. Fuck.

“You had an important piece of information to tell me about having a boyfriend, and you did not tell me about having a boyfriend. How is this not a secret?”

“I told you I had a date.”

“Luc, that is chopping up hairs.”

Okay, there were two crises. Mum thought I was lying to her, and I’d already trashed my kitchen. I abandoned the coffee for now and headed back to the living room, where I lay down on the sofa so I couldn’t damage anything else. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s actually a bit more complicated than that.”

“Mon dieu, he’s married, he’s in the wardrobe, you’re secretly straight and seeing a woman—you know, I would love you anyway, even if you were a straight.”

“No. No, it’s none of those things.”

“Wait, I have it. You’re not really dating anybody, you’ve just persuaded some poor man to pretend to be your boyfriend because you are tired of everyone thinking you are lonely and pathetic.”

“Um.” The problem with Mum was that she knew me far too well. “Actually, yeah. That one. Only nobody thinks I’m lonely and pathetic. As it happens, I have a very important work function that I need to take someone to.”

A sigh gusted over the line. “What are you doing, mon caneton? This is not normal behaviour, even when your parents are estranged rock stars from the ’80s.”

“I know, I know. But somehow it’s wound up being the most functional relationship I think I’ve ever had. Please don’t jinx it for me.”

“Oh no, this is all my fault. I did not model positive romantic choices for you when you were growing up and now you are dating a fake man.”

“He’s not a fake man.” I sat upright so abruptly I twisted the cushion half off the sofa. “He’s a real man.”

“Is he even really a gay? Probably you are going to fall for him, and then it is going to turn out he is engaged to this duke, and you are going to try and steal him away from the duke, and the duke will try to have you killed, and he will have consumption and try to make you think he doesn’t love you when really he does and—”

“Mum, is that Moulin Rouge?”

“It could happen. I’m not saying there will be singing. But I’m worried this fake gay will break your heart.”

I put my head in my hands. “Can you please stop using ‘gay’ as a noun?”

“First I’m not meant to use it as a pejorative. Now I’m not meant to use it as a noun. This is very hard for me.”

“Look. Mum.” Time for my best calm and rational voice. “I’m so sorry I didn’t explain this to you earlier. Oliver’s a real person, and he’s not Nicole Kidman, and we’ve got an arrangement where we’re going to pretend to be dating for a couple of months, just to make both our lives easier.”

There was a long silence. “I’m just worried that someone will hurt you again.”

“Yeah well. So was I for a long time, and I think that was hurting me more.”

There was another long silence. Followed by “Then I want to meet him.”

“What part,” I asked, “of fake boyfriend did you miss?”

“I didn’t miss anything. I especially did not miss the part when you said this was the most functional relationship you had ever had.”

Look at me being hoist by my own petard. “It’s still not real.”

“I pay my bills with songs written by a girl I can barely remember being. Real is not something that interests me very much.”

After twenty-eight years I’d reached the point that I only ever argued with Mum to see how I’d lose. “Fine. I’ll ask him. He’s working right now.”

“Does he live in Canada?”

“No. He lives in Clerkenwell.”