She made a Gallic noise. “You should come see me anyway. Judy and I are about to start a new season of the Drag Race, and we would like you to spill the hot tea on the queens for us.”

“I…” I glanced around my slowly de-pristining flat. If I carried on at this rate, by the time Oliver saw it, the place would be a tip again. “I’ll come over tonight.”

“Yippee.”

“Mum, nobody says ‘yippee.’”

“Are you sure? I read it in a phrasebook in 1974. Anyway, Judy and I will see you this evening. I will make my special curry.”

“Do not make your special curry.”

Too late. She’d gone.

I spent the rest of the day taking twice as long to do everything—since now doing anything in my flat required me to tidy up afterwards or else undo all my friends’ hard work. And before I’d even had the chance to milk it for Oliver points. I was just getting ready to hoy for Epsom when my phone rang again.

“Sorry to call unexpectedly,” said Oliver.

I was glad I was alone so I could grin like an idiot without a running commentary. “Why, do you normally book your calls in advance? Do you call ahead? Are you like, Hi, this is Oliver, I’m just ringing you up to say I’m going to be ringing you up.”

There was a tiny pause. “I did not think through how silly that was going to sound. I’m just aware that I told you I was going to be working this weekend, so you might be busy, and I wanted to be respectful of that.”

“I Wanted to Be Respectful of That is totally the title of your sex tape.”

“Well,” he murmured, “I can imagine worse titles.”

“Can you? Can you really? Because I very much cannot.”

“St. Winifred’s School Choir Presents There’s No One Quite Like Grandma?”

My mouth dropped open. “You are a sick man.”

“My apologies. I was just trying to prove a point.”

“I’d say you’d ruined that song for me, but it was kind of pre-ruined by its own existence.”

“Lucien”—he suddenly sounded deadly serious and, despite the lesson I should have learned from the bad news text, I still felt faintly nauseous—“I called because I’ve done all the work I can on my case and I’d…I’d like to see you this evening. If that’s…agreeable.”

My heart stopped trying to choke itself to death. “Jesus, Oliver. Don’t use that voice unless you’re dumping someone or telling them their cat died. Also, did you just say…‘if that’s agreeable’?”

“I panicked.”

“Also: title of your next sex tape.”

“If That’s Agreeable or I Panicked?”

“Both.”

“I take it you’re too busy? And I know we saw each other on Friday, and the papers are likely to be sick of you for at least another week… I’m sorry, I should have planned this better. And please don’t say that’s the title of my third sex tape.”

I could have teased him about his imaginary sex tapes literally forever. But there was the whole wanting-to-see-me thing. Which was…perfect? “I…I’m not… It’s not that I don’t…” Shit. I was coming perilously close to telling Oliver that I’d rather see him than watch old episodes of Drag Race with my mother, her best friend, and her best friend’s spaniels. Which, now I thought about, wasn’t the tremendous compliment I’d built it up to be in my head. Still couldn’t say it, though. “I’ve kind of accidentally told my mum I’ll go see her tonight.”

“I would like you to formally acknowledge that I have taken the moral high road and shall not suggest that Accidentally Told My Mum I’ll Go See Her Tonight is the title of your sex tape.”

“Oh, hell no,” I protested. “You don’t get credit for pretending you’re not making the joke you’re clearly making.”

“Plausible deniability, Lucien. Plausible deniability.” How could I hear him smiling? “But you should visit your mother. I know how much she means to you.”

“I mean… You could…” Help. Words were happening. And I couldn’t seem to stop them “Come? If you wanted to. It’ll be awful, because Mum already thinks you’re Nicole Kidman—don’t ask—and she’s making a curry, which she does not know how to do, but won’t admit she doesn’t know how to do, and her best friend is…this… Actually, I don’t even know how to describe her. But she once told me she’d shot an elephant in her nightdress. And when I said, ‘What was an elephant doing wearing your nightdress?’ she said, ‘It broke into my tent, and I think it got draped over its trunk.’”

“I recommend you breathe at some point in the very near future.”

He had a point. I breathed. “Anyway, you really can sit this one out. I’m pretty sure it’s too early in our fake relationship for you to be meeting my mother.”

“Well, aren’t I going to be meeting your father next week?”

“That’s different. I care about my mum.”

“I’d like to meet her, if it wouldn’t make you uncomfortable.”

I opened my mouth, realised I had no idea what I was going to say, and finally settled on, “Okay then.”

Given I was already late, Oliver suggested we rendezvous at Waterloo, which I suggested sounded like a terrible love song from the forties. Then I texted Mum to let her know I’d be bringing my fake boyfriend, threw on my coat, dashed out the door, and tried not to think too hard about what it meant that I wanted Oliver to meet my mother.

Chapter 24

Half an hour later I was sitting on a train with Oliver. And it was weird. The problem was that being on public transport with someone for more than a couple of stops on the Tube fell down the uncanny butt crack between necessity and social occasion. I mean, it was basically just the two of you, sitting down facing each other, for about as long as you would if you were in a restaurant, only with much worse surroundings and without food to give the whole thing focus. Worse, I was worried I was going to blurt out something awful like “I missed you” or “I tidied my flat for you.”

“So,” I said. “How’s the case?”

“I’m afraid I can’t—”

“Talk about it?”

“Precisely.”

A pause, both of us looking anywhere except at each other.

“And—” he crossed one leg over the other and then uncrossed it when he kicked me in the knee—“your work? It’s going well, I take it?”