Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [12]
JACK. 8 SILCHESTER ROAD. NOTTING HILL 4529.
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Unlike the other untidy scraps of paper in the wallet, this ticket had been carefully tucked away as if it relayed more than just a piece of information.
As if it meant more to the wallet’s owner than simply a name and an address.
The name of the worried-looking boy perhaps?
The Doctor gulped down the hot, gritty coffee and hurried out of the café, pausing only to raise his hat at the couple by the counter who were too busy kissing to notice him at all.
Jack Bartlett heard the door to the Fourth Magpie crash open, letting in a cold gust of night air. For what felt like the thousandth time, he glanced anxiously around hoping to see Eddy hurrying over, looking apologetic, with a tale of missed buses or having to work late.
It wasn’t Eddy. A short man in a strange tweed jacket stood in the doorway shaking the rain from his umbrella. Jack turned back to his pint of M&B.
Where was Eddy? It wasn’t like him to be late. In fact in the five weeks they had been seeing each other Eddy had always been early. More often it was Jack who turned up late and out of breath after hurrying down from the building site at Marylebone.
They had met outside Holborn library. Jack had been hurrying out guiltily, eager to be away from the librarian’s penetrating gaze after borrowing two Oscar Wilde’s and a James Baldwin. He had felt sure that the kindly-looking woman had been able to see straight into his mind: his choice of reading a window to the secrets hidden there. In his hurry to be away, he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going and had run straight into someone on their way in. He’d spluttered apologies as he tried to gather up his fallen books before the newcomer could see what titles he’d borrowed. The stranger had picked up Giovanni’s Room before Jack had been able to retrieve it. Jack had immediately blushed beetroot.
Their eyes had met for the first time as they climbed to their feet. The dark-haired boy was so beautiful that Jack thought that he was going to be physically sick. Either that or just faint dead away. The boy was older than Jack, maybe seventeen or even eighteen, with dark blue eyes framed by long, black lashes.
‘This is by that American, isn’t it? The coloured writer?’ The boy asked, looking from the book in his hands to Jack. He suddenly grinned conspirato-rially. ‘It’s meant to be a bit racy, isn’t it?’
Jack had felt as if someone had just removed all of his clothes. He’d actually wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to cover himself up. But the boy had just said that he hoped it lived up to its reputation, because he hated books which promised things that they didn’t deliver. Then he had looked at Jack intently, meaningfully, for a moment, as if waiting for him to 20
say something. Jack was suddenly scared that this beautiful boy was going to turn around, walk away and that would be it. And from somewhere deep inside of himself, Jack had somehow found the courage to ask the dark-haired boy if he wanted to go for a coffee and Eddy Stone had said yes.
They had seen each other every day since that afternoon. And for Jack, even that didn’t feel as if it were enough. Jack spent his days in the site office either staring into space or worrying that he was going to make some stupid blunder with Eddy and spoil everything. He barely got any work done, and had been twice reprimanded by the foreman for being late preparing the workmen’s wage packets. He didn’t care though, the only thing he cared about was Eddy.
But Eddy hadn’t turned up tonight. Jack looked balefully around the pub lounge. The Fourth Magpie had lost a lot of its charm since it’d been mod-ernized; the comfy settees and cut glass had been replaced with Formica and that new tubular furniture. Jack noticed that Madge, Eddy’s boss, was in one of the booths surrounded by her usual entourage of fawning middle-aged men. They were all laughing, sharing some joke of Madge’s. Madge often drank at the Fourth