Dear Doctor Lily by Monica Dickens Page B

stayed at home, his mother would say, ‘Given up on Eddie Waite at last. If you have nothing to do, my friend and helper, I have a hundred jobs for you.’
    â€˜Your father called,’ she told him at supper, using that quotation-mark voice, as if Dad were not really his father, but only called himself that. ‘He wants you to call him.’
    â€˜He still mad?’
    â€˜He didn’t want to talk to
me.
He wants to talk to you.’
    Terry made the call. From the depths of his unhappiness, he managed quite a sprightly, ‘What’s up, Dad?’
    â€˜I’d like to see you. Want to come round for supper tomorrow night? I’ve got a piece of steak.’
    If he was offering steak, he couldn’t be mad, so it was safe to ask, ‘Are you still mad at me?’
    â€˜Of course not. I just want to talk to you.’
    â€˜What about?’
    â€˜Oh – things. My trip to England. Stuff like that.’
    â€˜Did Mom say I could?’ The Law said that he was only supposed to be with his father one weekend in three.
    â€˜I didn’t ask her. Get her to come to the phone.’
    But she wouldn’t. ‘Go back and see what he wants, lover boy.’
    â€˜He wants me to go round for supper tomorrow.’
    â€˜Oh, you know? He’s supposed to check with me before he asks you.’
    â€˜But you won’t go to the phone.’
    â€˜But he asked you before he knew I wouldn’t.’
    â€˜Cut it out, Mom!’ Terry screamed and stamped at her.
    â€˜Oh, you and I understand each other, don’t we, honey?’ His mother tipped her chair backwards to put an arm round him, but he retreated to the doorway.
    â€˜Yes or no?’ At this point he wasn’t even sure which he wanted.
    â€˜I don’t see why not.’
    â€˜What took so long?’ his father asked when he picked up the phone.
    Terry did not say, ‘She wouldn’t talk to you.’ He would never tell either of them anything against the other, especially now when he was about to break the righteous news that was going to make everything all right again for all of them.
    â€˜She says okay.’
    He waited outside the house for his father to fetch him. He did not say anything about Eddie until they were upstairs in the apartment. It was at the top of an old bulbous-fronted yellow sandstone building at the outer end of a long avenue, that wandered through half a dozen jumbled neighbourhoods on its way into Boston.
    His father’s apartment had odd-shaped rooms with funny angles and windows at the end of walls instead of in the middle, because it had been cut up from a larger one. There was not much furniture, but a lot of light and a jungle of plants clamouring to get out of the big rounded bay window. Across the broad avenue were the high brick buildings of a small college, where students went up and down the wide red steps, and hung about in groups. Between, endless traffic and the green trolley-cars sliding by below.
    Terry liked the apartment and this busy view. A good place to break his sensational news. He turned indoors, and with his back to the plant forest, he called to his father.
    â€˜By the way, Dad, I want to tell you something.’
    â€˜What’s that?’ His father came through from the small kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel.
    â€˜I’m not seeing Eddie now.’ Terry had his hands behind him on the edge of the windowsill, propping him up, because it was hard to say.
    â€˜Why?’ His father came forward and sat on the arm of the sofa.
    â€˜Oh – I don’t know. I guess I don’t like him any more.’
    â€˜But he’s your best friend. You can’t suddenly not like him.’
    â€˜Well, I don’t,’ Terry lied, ‘so you don’t have nothing to worry about no more.’ He deliberately said it that way, as a secret tribute to Eddie, but his father let it go.
    â€˜I worry about you dropping him,