Darling: The most shocking psychological thriller you will read this summer

‘You don’t even know my name.’

‘Care to rectify that?’

‘Darling.’

Delight, disbelief, then that dink of dropping copper. Every time.

‘You’re called Darling?’

Genuine pleasure, as if I’d chosen my ostrich feather of a name just to tickle him under the chin.

‘That’s me.’

‘I’m Thomas,’ he said and I knew, before he had even unlocked his phone, that my digits would soon be safe inside, if …

I ran the test.

‘Go ahead, you can laugh, my Stevie’s friends find my name hilarious too. He’s five; my little terror.’

‘Bet he is,’ he looked down for a moment. Two.

I counted in my head. Six, and then he said:

‘We could meet up sometime. Do you know Andante? The café on Stewart Street?’

I did. ‘I’ll find it.’

‘Could I take your number please, Darling?’

We met at Andante on the Tuesday; a safe get-together over coffee. We knocked around a little conversation like beginners playing pool. I did not smoke. Small sips, no clattering spoons. Then, someone else’s boldness breaking through: honeyed nibbles, unasked-for struffoli doughnuts which the owner brought to our table, flushed and apologising for the interruption, telling us that they meant all our Christmases had come that very morning. It was impossible not to give sweeter, more rounded smiles after that. Fortified, we ventured opening gambits, a brisk mapping out of our positions. I told him I was a trained nurse, and lived alone with Stevie; he was an architect, father to sixteen-year-old Lola and the widower of one Tess. The next time, Friday cinema, brought kisses that were warm if prosaic. I believe we wondered if it could be enough. Did we still carry the seeds for so much possibility? We were hardly teens, after all.

We went back to Andante twice the next week. He dropped in on the way back from the office; the first time I left Stevie with Ange, and then the next time with Demarcus, his father. Thomas revealed that this café had become his preferred thinking space in recent years, somewhere to be when Lola was out and he did not want to sit at home alone. In the battered leather and wood landscape we pitched our hopes on common ground. We drip-dropped our thoughts, tongue-felt the body of the house blend. Short, untroubled dates, tuned and timed so I could leave with a little regret, not too much, go home to breathe in secret smoke and marvel.

The second evening at Andante, a confession:

‘I never loved my wife enough.’

After that, a kiss that mattered. A little too much. Slow and familiar, rude and strong, not so dull as to be perfect; a real headfuck of a sensation, a first. It lifted us. We opened ourselves up to the times that might come after that moment; to possibility.

We stayed up.

Later, in the smallest hours, I dropped the DMD bomb.

‘Stevie has this … He’s been diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.’

‘God, what?’

Guilt. Always that pressed-down guilt at tagging the disease on to my son’s little life like some fucked-up medical degree: Stevie White, DMD. But that’s just how it was: one day you were considering the diagnosis and – pow! – your Wonderboy’s future was punched into the ether.

‘Yes. Sorry, this is hard.’

‘Take your time.’

I hesitated. I would indeed take time to explain everything to Thomas: DMD takes time.

‘DMD is a muscle-wasting disorder, a serious one, that mostly affects boys. It’s progressive. The weakness in the thighs starts at around age five. It makes walking more difficult and climbing the stairs, balancing … and obviously running …’

‘Poor kid.’

‘His callipers, or KAFOs – knee-ankle-foot orthoses – make life easier, although Stevie has better balance than most. Terrible rhythm though …’

(Badaboom! Nerve-soothing black joke for new boo.) I raised my sights, determined not to falter before I had picked off the devastating facts.

‘It is not curable—’

‘Really? God, but—’

‘No. It takes and takes until you have to think about things like sitting, ventilation, fractures and swallowing.’

‘No.’

‘It is rare. Affects 1 in 3,500 males and … the average life expectancy of DMD boys is twenty-seven years.’

‘Shit.’

Yes, Duchenne takes time; all of it, in the end. But that was why Stevie would hear over and over that he was my boy, my lovely little one. As long as he stayed my baby, he would be safe.

‘So you see, Thomas,’ I said. ‘Every moment counts.’

‘I do see. Oh. Darling.’

And just like that, I was not alone.

Entangling my limbs with his, I brightened the tone:

‘It’s fine. Stevie and I talk about it, you know? We even laugh, get silly about it. He doesn’t need to know it all. I tell him, “I will look after you always, sweetness. No need to worry, ever.”’

‘That’s good. And his splints, his callipers, does he have to …’

‘His “superlegs”, you mean? Yes, he wears his KAFOS all day long to help him, but none of that is a problem, I take care of it all.’

‘You’re a great mum.’

‘We’ve had some fantastic support, too. These girls, they call themselves Stevie’s Wonders and they’re a miracle, really. About eight months ago, I told this new nurse, Paula, about Stevie’s diagnosis and next thing all her young student mates started fundraising for him. They’ve raised over £12,000 so far. Amazing, isn’t it?’

I went on to tell him how my son had tried a ‘Wonderburger’ at the launch barbecue – cheese and double bacon! – how I had a framed photo of him with smears of it all over his smiley chin. How the girls had got serious about that smiley chin and next thing done a sponsored bike ride; how boyfriends had joined in with some extreme ironing stunt up a big hill; how a newsletter had emerged. Soon to come was a marathon walk, maybe something in the High Desford Gazette. It was without a doubt the most wonderful miracle.

‘They sound ace,’ said Thomas.