Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [55]
Sleep, the Doctor’s voice said, somewhere deep in Jack’s mind.
So Jack slept.
‘Piss off,’ Patsy told the man in the bowler hat. ‘This compartment’s full.’
The man turned scarlet at the insult. For a moment he looked as if he were about to launch into a tirade of middle class outrage, and then he caught sight of the two sleeping figures in loosened straitjackets on the floor of the carriage and hastily made his exit.
‘Thank you,’ Patsy said to the retreating figure, her voice full of syrupy sweetness.
They hadn’t returned to the guest house to retrieve their luggage. Although Patsy had bemoaned the loss of her favourite cocktail dress which was in her suitcase, Chris had been adamant that he wasn’t going to face the wrath of Mrs Hardly, not with two escaped inmates from the local asylum in tow.
His eye was swollen and bruised. The cut on his back ached. Chris perched on the edge of one of the carriage benches, pulled his shirt off, and tried unsuccessfully to look over his shoulder to assess the damage.
‘Here let me,’ Patsy pushed him roughly around until she had a clear view of his back. Her hands were like ice on his skin: goose-bumps rose on his arms.
‘I don’t think it’s serious, just badly grazed. How’s your eye?’
‘Sore.’
‘They don’t pull their punches.’
‘They?’ He started to turn around, but Patsy stopped him.
‘I’m not finished here. It isn’t easy cleaning a wound with only spit and a hanky.’
Chris winced. ‘Nice. Well I suppose your saliva is mostly alcohol.’
She slapped him on the back. ‘Booze! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?’
Chris glanced over his shoulder. Patsy had pulled out a quarter bottle of whisky from the inside pocket of her suit jacket. There was an inch of brass-coloured liquid in the bottom of the bottle. She poured a little on to her handkerchief and was about to tuck the bottle away, when she obviously changed her mind and stole a quick nip.
‘You drinking that stuff this early?’
93
‘Listen, Christopher, when you drink as much as I do, you have to start early.’
She set the bottle down on the floor and pressed the handkerchief against the wound. Hard.
‘Oww! That burns.’
She grinned sadistically and tucked the hanky away in her jacket. ‘Good.
All done.’
He lay back on the bench, aware that Patsy was studying him carefully. He noticed her eyes drop to appraise his bare chest. He managed to stop himself flexing his muscles. But only just.
She ran a finger down the middle of his torso, through the six-pack of hardened stomach muscles and then paused at the top of his belt. ‘Impressive. You must spend your whole life doing sit-ups,’ she said.
Her eyes didn’t leave his, but he felt her fingers rest heavily and deliberately on his belt buckle.
Chris shivered. It felt somehow sacrilegious, although he didn’t know why.
Maybe it was just too soon after Roz’s death. ‘I can’t –’ he started. ‘Don’t.
Please.’
Patsy removed her hand quickly, as if something had bitten it. ‘I said I liked it, I didn’t say I wanted to kiss it,’ she snapped at him and lit a cigarette.
Silence. Chris pulled on his shirt. The cold and wet material slapped uncomfortably against his skin.
Patsy tended to the sleepers. She made an unlikely nurse. It had been hard work dragging them on the broken gurney to Healey’s tiny railway station.
For most of the journey, their cargo had been silent and motionless, like mannequins. Occasionally, the Chinese boy would stir and whimper in pain. Patsy would pause to whisper words of reassurance to him.
The first train back to London had not been until six in the morning, so they had set up camp in the waiting room on the station platform. The light in the waiting room wasn’t working and they had sat silently in the dark for hours listening to the soft breathing of the sleepers. A thousand questions about them had formed in Chris’s mind, but he’d been too exhausted to try to articulate them.
He took the last swig of whisky from the bottle and jammed it down the side of the seat. He wasn’t too tired