Chapter 62

Mum fussed over me like the proverbial mother hen, just as I knew she would. Truth be told, I was more worried about my being out of action for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t the loss of earnings so much, though that was going to be a big hit in my finances. It was more that I wasn’t going to be up to doing the thing I loved and craved. I was going to turn in to a monk.

I couldn’t very well rock up to a client looking like I’d gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. At least there was one saving grace, Ciaran would still be available for some nookie. He was a real devotee and wouldn’t care what I looked like. He’d fuck me no matter how I looked. But I was going to have to disappoint a lot of clients especially the regulars. Arthur wouldn’t be seeing anything of me for a while, and Ciaran wouldn’t fill in for me, considering the way he feels about the man.

I’d just have to bite the bullet and send a generic e-mail/text to all my contacts, saying that due to circumstances beyond my control, I’d have to cancel/decline all further engagements. This would be until further notice. For the regulars, I’d be a bit more forthcoming and say that I’d fallen down some concrete steps and injured myself. I’d have to conceal the real reason, a homophobic attack would not look good on my CV. Unfortunately, I had paid for a block of adverts in the contact magazine, so I was likely to have to disappoint some new clients.

However, the whole issue of driving lessons was now thrown in to some doubt. Driving in my condition was out of the question. I’d have to contact H and tell him of the delay.

In the meantime, I had a visit from PC Reddish about my attack. Apparently my attackers had been frightened off by an old man walking a small white dog. He’d hung around until the ambulance arrived and had told them about the attack. No useful info about the assailants however.

I asked PC Reddish if they could trace the old man so that perhaps I could show my appreciation in some way.

PC Reddish was less than enthusiastic about that. A couple of hundred quid was what I had in mind. The old guy did save me from possibly more severe injuries, maybe even fatal ones. Seeing as the attack happened less than half a mile away from my front door, maybe I could find him myself. I’d knock on a few doors locally, and ask.

The phone call to uncle H went as well as could be expected. He was polite rather than friendly, clearly he still felt annoyed, but hopefully not irreparably so. He was still very concerned about my welfare but seeing as he was well aware of my injuries, he completely sympathised with me about postponing the driving lessons. Bloody hell, was I ever going to get behind the wheel?