Page 65 of Corrupt

So I took the tea out to the balcony.

From there, the city looked nothing like the London I’d been raised in. The canal slid past below, slow and dark, edged with slicks of oil catching the light in fractured rainbows. Brick walls wore layers of graffiti like history rewritten in spray paint. Old warehouses loomed beside new glass, neither pretending to belong to the other. It was real. Unfiltered. There were no clipped hedges. No uniform terraces. No polite silence broken only by traffic and espresso machines.

This was louder. Rougher. Honest.

And yet… it was strangely calming. Distinct. Alive in a way West London had never been. Baron’s Court had been constructed. Controlled. Designed to reassure. This place didn’t reassure at all. It simply existed.

I sipped my tea as I leant on the railing, feeling strangely, and ridiculously at home.

My phone rang, reminding me I wasn’t.

I frowned at the screen. Henry. Right. I’d forgotten I’d called him.

I answered. “Hey, Hen.”

“Tris.” His voice came through winded, breath rough with movement. Traffic hissed in the background. “I’m legging it home from work. Just crossing the bridge.”

I leant my hip against the railing, tightening my hold on the mug. Henry lived out in Chiswick now. Tree-lined streets, clean pavements, a house his parents had helped him into. Legally his. Technically though without the trust fund waiting in the wings he’d never have touched that postcode on his salary alone. That was how things worked for us. Soft landings. Deferred payments. Safety nets disguised as independence.

“Good shift?” I asked.

Henry let out a short, hollow laugh. “They’re never good shifts, Tristan. That’s why we strike. To make this mess better.”

“Mm.” I leant my forearms on the balcony rail, tea cooling between my palms, and stared across the canal. The brick opposite was layered in graffiti. Old tags bleeding through newer ones, paint flaking where the damp had eaten it back. Nothing here tried to be pretty. It just was. “You know you could choose a different profession. Literally anything.”

“So could you.”

I chewed my lip in realisation. “Look at us, eh? Locked into the decisions we made at twelve, when the world bent itself out of shape to make them possible. Funded academia. Tutors. Placements. Networks. All very noble. We should be grateful.”

“What else would we do? Join a circus?”

“I think you’d make an excellent clown, Henry Redmayne.”

“Most days in A&E, I already feel like one.”

I chuckled.

“So anyway…I re-read your message from yesterday. Came through while I was dealing with a bloke who’d tried to impress his mates by slamming a pint glass down on the table. Hand went straight through it. Severed a tendon. Blood everywhere. He kept apologising to me while I was fishing glass out of his palm.” He tutted. “Friday nights, eh? Sorry I couldn’t call back sooner.”

I closed my eyes. The smell of the canal hung in the air. Oil, old water, cigarette smoke trapped between concrete walls. It clung to my skin, unfamiliar and grounding all at once. Not Mayfair. Not Baron’s Court. Not Henry’s antiseptic corridors either.

“Dad’s got lung cancer,” I blurted.

The silence on the line was instant. Complete. As if Henry had stopped moving altogether.

“Shit.” I heard traffic pause, then resume. “When did you find out?”

“Last night.” My throat tightened. “Everyone else has known for months.”

“That’s—” He broke off, breath catching as he slowed to a walk. “I’m so sorry, Tris.”

“Yeah.” I stared out at the skyline beyond the water. Cranes, scaffolding, the sharp geometry of buildings that didn’t care who you were or where you came from. “Me too.”

“Do we know what stage?”

“Marcus wasn’t exactly forthcoming.” I rubbed my forehead. “Or maybe I wasn’t in a state to listen. I got angry. Walked out. He told me not to concern myself with it.” I rolled my eyes. “Which feels… optimistic.”

Henry was quiet for a beat, then said gently, “Early-stage lung cancers can have very good prognoses now. Treatments have come on massively. Surgery, chemo, immunotherapy. He could make a full recovery.”