Chapter 37 Sunny
Sunny
Alarm bells started ringing in my head the instant I saw the queue and the expensive-looking people standing in it.
Ludo had suggested breakfast at a posh place on the Hampstead High Street called Arabella McPhee’s.
It had cute blue-and-green tartan tablecloths and gold lettering on the door and called itself a patisserie.
“You join the queue,” I said. “I’ll grab a menu.”
Ludo nodded. He’d been quiet since we left the house, which I found unsettling.
I found the menu by the door. Fear confirmed. A piece of toast with jam here would clear out my bank account.
I scoured the list for the full English. “Twenty-four quid? Piss off!”
An elderly woman in the queue clutched her chihuahua and glared at me. I apologised. She didn’t reply. That decided it. I wasn’t eating here. It was time for Ludo to visit the wrong side of the tracks.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I announced, finding him at the end of the queue. “There’s a great little caff near mine. Proper full English. Bottomless coffee. You’ll love it.”
Ludo frowned.
“But this is the most popular place in Hampstead. People fly in from Paris just for the friands.”
“Let me take you to the most popular place in Willesden.”
He raised his eyebrows. Then shrugged, giving in.
“Fine, let’s find a cab.”
“Sod that. It’s a ten-minute walk to Swiss Cottage, and we can take the Jubilee line to Dollis Hill. We’ll be there in no time.”
* * *
Half an hour later we were sitting at a table outside Gloria’s, Willesden’s best greasy spoon.
Your elbows stuck to the table, but it was five quid for a fry-up, and they kept your coffee mug topped up.
The waitress came out instantly and took our order.
Two full English breakfasts and two bottomless coffees, for the grand total of fourteen pounds. Sweet.
The waitress disappeared back into the caff. Ludo picked up the used ashtray that sat between us, intent on moving it to another table, but fumbled it, and it fell to the pavement, spilling ash and cigarette butts all over the ground and my trainers.
“Bloody buggery bollocks! Sorry!”
It was pretty much the most he’d spoken since we left his house. His quietness had started to weird me out. Something was bothering him, but I didn’t know what it was. Did he regret last night? Was it something I’d done? I picked up the ashtray and put it on the table over my shoulder.
“How can someone who has done ballet his whole life be so uncoordinated?”
“It only happens when I’m nervous or flustered or in a rush.”
Ludo pulled out a wet wipe sachet, which he apparently had in his wallet.
“So, which are you now, nervous, flustered, or rushed?” I asked.
“Well, I was nervous, but now I’ve ruined your shoes and got cigarette ash all over my hands, and I’m flustered as well.” He tore open the sachet and began wiping his hands.
“What have you got to be nervous about?”
“You saying we need to have a serious talk.” He leant over the table, almost whispering. “Right after we’ve had sex. That’s break-up language, Sunny—and we’re not even anything official yet.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is. ‘We need to talk.’ ‘It’s not you; it’s me.’ ‘I’ve been shagging my secretary.’ ‘You should get yourself tested.’ See? It’s break-up language.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
“I meant we need to talk about what Leaf and Karma told us last night,” I said. “It’s a huge story, Ludo, and it would be a career-defining scoop for either of us. We need to decide what to do about it.”
Ludo’s whole body seem to relax. His shoulders dropped; he sighed; the smile finally returned to his face. He passed me the wet wipe, and I cleaned my mitts.
“Can’t we just work on it together?” he said, reaching out across the table and sliding his slightly damp hands into mine.
“And publish it where?”
“We could work on it together and each write our own version of the final story and give it to our own papers.”
I considered this for moment but dismissed it.
“It’s too risky. Someone would publish first, and the one who missed out would never forgive the other. It’d ruin everything.”
“You think I’d do that to you?” Ludo said. His brow furrowed. He sat back and pushed his glasses up onto his nose.
“I think our editors wouldn’t care a toss about any deal we’d made between ourselves.”
Ludo leant forward again, his eyes intense with inspiration.
“So, we don’t tell them we’re working on it,” he said.
“We do all the legwork ourselves, write our stories, and pitch and file them on the same day. Then we tell Father and JT we know for certain the other paper has the story as well and they’re running it the next day.
That way they’ll run it the same day, and no one can gazump anyone else. ”
I gripped Ludo’s hands tightly, enjoying the feel of them in mine—and the public display of affection—while I mulled over his suggestion.
“That might just work,” I said, finally. “They’d kill us if they found out, though.”
“I sincerely hope my father wouldn’t kill me.”
“JT wouldn’t think twice before killing me. If IKEA sold guillotines, he’d be at the office now, screwdriver in hand, staring at a leftover nut, trying to work out whether the machine was still lethal enough to separate my head from my neck. This has to be a total secret.”
Ludo nodded in agreement.
“And it’s vital we share everything we discover,” I added. “No holding back. Trust is going to be everything if we’re going to make this work.”
“Name one time I ever held anything back from you,” Ludo said. His eyes sparkled, and he was smiling. I almost didn’t have the heart to pull the pin out of this grenade. But I did, obviously, because trust requires absolute honesty. And I’d been dying for an excuse to ask him about it.
“You never told me you puked on Krishnan Varma-Rajan,” I said.
Ludo pulled his hands away from mine and sat up straight, hands clutched to his chest, like a prairie dog holding a handbag.
“How the hell do you know about that?”
“I have my sources.” I was playing it cool.
“No, tell me, because Krishnan made everyone in the room sign an NDA.”
Ludo seemed genuinely upset, and I sensed this might be no time to play games. The last thing I wanted was to upset him. Not just because I liked him but because we needed to be able to work together on this story.
“Can I trust you?” I asked.
“You know you can. I didn’t tell you because, one, I’d signed an NDA, and two, would you tell someone you’re sweet on a story like that? When was I meant to tell you? On the helicopter trip while you were chundering your guts up? This morning while your face was buried in my crotch?”
I squeezed Ludo’s hands.
“You’re sweet on me? How long have you been sweet on me?”
“Stop deflecting,” he said. The waitress returned, plonking our mugs of coffee down in front of us.
“Food won’t be a minute, boys,” she said. We chirped thank yous like hungry nestlings.
“Come on, tell me who told you,” Ludo said.
“My mate Petey is a producer on Wake Up Britain.”
“You’re friends with Made in Dagenham?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” He sighed heavily, like the air in the bottom of his lungs had somewhere else it needed to be. “Well, thank you for not telling the Bulletin’s infamous gossip columnists about it, at least.”
“Are we agreed on the ground rules, then?” I asked.
“Agreed.” Ludo squeezed my hand.
“Still feeling nervous? Flustered?”
“No,” he said, smiling. “I’m excited for what’s to come.”
The waitress appeared beside the table.
“Two full English, one with black pudding, one without but with an extra sausage.”
I indicated the extra sausage was mine, and Ludo raised a finger in ownership of the black pudding. Was I meant to kiss him after he’d eaten that? His plate connected with the table, and Ludo raised his eyebrows.
“Enjoy, boys,” the waitress said, disappearing inside.
“This is a lot of food,” Ludo said.
I reached for the red sauce.
“This’ll set you up for the day,” I said.
As we ate, normal, happy, talkative Ludo returned.
I looked at the stunner sitting across from me, talking about the show he’d seen and the review he had to go home to finish writing.
And I thought about the story we’d just agreed to write together—against every rule and journalistic instinct—and really hoped that I could trust him.