Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [111]
Tilda looked alarmed. ‘It’s the most important decision in the world. I wouldn’t want to condemn one of our people to someone with no imagination or to someone who was cruel or cowardly.’
Jack looked back down into his drink. He almost smiled. Almost.
‘The Major said that he’d seen within you a great capacity to shine. And shine you did. You made Eddy, after all.’ She reached over and ruffled his hair. ‘You made someone very special, someone unique. We all loved Eddy Stone.’
‘I. . . I did too,’ Jack said, and it was the first time he had ever dared to say those words out loud. Large swollen tears rolled down his cheeks. He let Tilda wrap him up in her arms and he buried his face in her neck. ‘I miss him so much.’
‘I know,’ Mother whispered, kissing his hair. ‘I miss him too.’
Jack broke the hug and lifted his glass to his lips. The wine tasted smoky and exotic; it warmed him inside.
And it didn’t make him feel sick at all.
∗ ∗ ∗
192
Chris picked up his grubby suit from the bathroom floor, pulled it on, and then descended to find Patsy in the sitting room. She was standing by the window, looking out over the river, a cigarette burning down between her fingers, forgotten. The dying flowers had all been cleared away. He watched her for a whole minute – she was so still that she could have been a photograph, but for the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
‘Hello,’ he said, only to make his presence known.
Patsy came back to life. She turned to face him, resting one hand on her hip and taking both her first and last drag on the cigarette before extinguishing it in a plant pot. But she didn’t say anything.
‘Well you could at least tell me it isn’t true.’
‘And would that satisfy you? If I told you that he died five years ago, or ten years ago, would everything be all right then?’
‘I. . . I don’t know.’
‘How long is all right, Christopher?’
Chris closed his eyes and swallowed. ‘Goddess, Patsy! Doesn’t it bother you at all that your husband’s only been dead a week?’
Patsy looked him straight in the eyes and then shook her head. ‘No. No, it doesn’t. Not even slightly. Does it really bother you?’
‘You’re damn right it bothers me!’ He exploded. ‘I mean what is going on here? Just who the hell are you?’
‘Don’t ask me that question. It’s the only one I don’t have an answer for.’
‘Oh stop being so pretentious.’
‘I’m telling you the truth.’
‘The truth? The truth!’ he sneered at her. ‘Patsy, you wouldn’t know the truth if it ran up and bit you.’
‘Chris –’
‘Oh, just leave me alone. I don’t even want to be near you. Just. . . oh just go away.’
Patsy looked as if she was going to say something, but then turned on her heel and walked out of the sitting room. A moment later he heard the front door slam and he was alone in the house.
Robert Burgess stared down at him from the wedding photograph above the fireplace, smiling smugly.
The taxi dropped Chris off on the corner of Dean Street and Old Compton Street, and he stalked up the stairs to the Tropics, carrying the nameless Chinese boy in his arms. He’d grown tired of waiting for Patsy to return to the house and decided that he could at least complete his mission by bringing the boy to Tilda as he’d promised. And if he’d stayed cooped up in Patsy’s house for another hour he was going to go mad.
193
The door to the club was open and the first thing he noticed was that Patsy was not in sight. Tilda was sitting on a sofa chatting to a teenage lad who looked as if he’d been crying. When Tilda saw Chris she welcomed him by kissing him, ostentatiously, on both cheeks, and then took the Chinese boy from him.
‘You’ve just missed Patsy, Christopher, deah,’ she said, something about her tone informed Chris that Tilda knew all about their fight.
He refused the offer of a drink. ‘I just need to find her, Tilda. I need to speak to her.’
‘She’s helping out with the party preparations.’
‘Party? What party?’
‘Fancy dress. Tonight. Too big for the