Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [2]
2
‘Look love, there’s no need to get upset. You can keep your job, just dye it back, all right?’
‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t? Of course you can.’ Madge gently ran her fingers through Eddy’s newly blond hair. He’d done a good job, she had to give him that. If she hadn’t known that Eddy’s hair was really chestnut brown, she would have sworn it was natural. ‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll do it now – in the shop, it won’t take an hour.’
‘No,’ Eddy said quickly. ‘I can’t.’
Madge frowned. He didn’t sound upset now, he sounded a little angry, almost defiant; like a child preparing to throw a tantrum.
‘You’ll do as you’re told, Eddy Stone,’ she snapped, more harshly than she had really meant to. ‘I’m not having you mincing around my shop looking like a ponce. Don’t take it too far, lad. You’re good at what you do, but that doesn’t mean your job’s for life.’
Eddy flinched at the insult, but he met her gaze. ‘They’ll get used to it, Madge,’ he said quietly. ‘People forget. But I can’t change me hair. I won’t.
Not for you. Not for anyone.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t change it? You bloody well can. You bloody well will as well, if you want to keep your job.’
For a moment they stood staring at each other in silence.
Why was he behaving like this? Madge hadn’t thought that Eddy cared about anything enough to make such a fuss, let alone his hair. It was such a silly thing to get so stirred up about. Well, there was no backing down now.
She wasn’t going to have her authority undermined by a teenager, that was for sure. She made up her mind.
‘You can pick your wages up tomorrow night when I cash up. I don’t want to see you until then, and I definitely don’t want to see you after. You understand?’
Eddy Stone just turned on his heel and walked straight out of the shop, not even bothering to pick up his jacket from the hook near the door. Madge felt stunned. She took a long drag on her cigarette and sat down behind her desk.
It was only his bloody hair. What on Earth had got into the boy?
Eddy ran out of the salon and into the rain. At half-past seven in the evening, London’s West End was already bustling with people. Rather than dodge the crowds on the pavement, he ran in the gutter where you only had to be mindful of puddles and black cabs. The rain cooled his temper and he slowed to a brisk walk as he turned on to Wardour Street, relieved to be leaving Leicester Square and Snips Salon behind him.
3
The job didn’t matter, he told himself. Jobs were easy to come by: he could find another. Even if he couldn’t, Mother would be able to fix him up with something.
Mother.
Perhaps he should drop in on the club and tell her what had happened?
He smiled to himself. It didn’t really matter whether or not he did as she would know soon enough. Very little escaped Mother’s attention for long, not if it involved him or one of the others. It was comforting knowing that she was always there, always someone to turn to if he found himself in trouble or needed help. And yet, perhaps that would change along with everything else that was happening to him.
He had arranged to meet Jack in the Magpie at eight. There wasn’t time to go home and change. Still he looked all right; he always dressed smartly for work. The old dears who came to Snips always liked him to be well turned out. Eddy stopped and checked his reflection in a shop window and wondered what Jack would make of his hair.
Just thinking about Jack brought a smile to Eddy’s face. They had been stepping out for about five weeks now. Eddy knew for a fact that Jack was keeping a count of the exact number of days. That was just like Jack; the boy was a born worrier.
Jack worked as a clerk on one of the sprawling building sites on the Marylebone Road. Every night after work they would meet for a drink in Soho at the Magpie, before heading back to Jack’s lodgings in Notting Hill.
So far they had managed to keep their relationship secret from Jack’s landlady, Mrs Carroway, who zealously patrolled the hall outside her ground-floor