Chapter 56
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.
“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 lot ever think 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.