ideas”,’ Nicolas clarified. ‘It sounds to me as if you’ve fallen for her line that we could make megabucks, here, if we just turned complementary medicine into a circus.’
‘As I don’t want a treatment centre, Liza’s views are irrelevant.’
But Nicolas wasn’t going to let a logical argument cheat him of an opportunity to vent about Liza. ‘Bloody woman,’ he spat. ‘For years therapists have been battling for respectability, and now Liza’s trying to drag us into gimmickry, for reasons best known to herself.’
‘Survival?’
Sweat popped on Nicolas’s forehead like liquid anger. ‘If that’s what it takes for complementary medicine to survive then I don’t want anything to do with it!’
Dominic made a huge effort not to allow himself to be deflected from his purpose, despite the urge to make Nicolas see the speciousness of that argument. The greater need was to get the meeting over before sleep jumped on him again with both its heavy feet. ‘Which brings us back to where we started. Are you interested in selling your lease?’
The walk home was an ordeal. Dominic fought falling asleep on his feet, heaving one eyelid open then the other, knowing that October wasn’t the time to find a patch of grass for an emergency nap, but the cold hardly registering. Crosswind stayed close to his ankles, his nose touching the back of Dominic legs rather like Ethan’s little hand patting for the attention of a grown up. By the time Dominic finally regained Miranda’s house, his face was a leaden mask and darkness filtered into where his brain ought to be. He managed, ‘Hi,’ for Miranda, as he shut the door.
In the kitchen, folding clothes as she kept an eye on Ethan through the window to the back garden, she glanced around. ‘How did it go?’
‘Later,’ he said. Or thought he said.
Upstairs, heavy, using the handrail to drag himself up, legs like weights, banister, door to his room. Yellow-orange walls combining oddly with his navy quilt cover. Heavy colour, made the box room press in on him. With the last vestige of energy he fumbled his phone timer to thirty minutes and dropped down onto his bed, still wearing his boots.
Fallinggggggg
…
.
He was trying to implement the unusual circumstances and events process with a watch of seriously mute controllers and an air traffic monitor that was completely blank. Through the window, the aerodrome was operating without any control. Kenny stared at him from the left-hand seat and—
Bee-beep, bee-beep.
Thirty minutes had passed in an instant. The phone’s alarm
dragged him awake. His eyelids fluttered and he began to swim through the final flickering images of the Stansted control tower.
He listened to the piercing, unrelenting alarm, giving himself time to orientate, to feel secure, waiting to welcome the approaching clean feeling of being awake and alert from the miracle midday-sleep fix. Slowly, he swung his legs around so he could sit on the edge of the bed,
bee-beep, bee-beep,
reaching for his phone,
bee-beep
, and taking three attempts to drag along the arrow that would clear the alarm.
He blinked in the daylight. Rubbed his eyes, his mouth, ran his fingers through his hair.
Finally, he pushed himself upright and headed for the bathroom. By the time he’d taken his second white pill of the day, brushed his teeth and washed with cold water, he was in gear. He could hear Ethan downstairs, indulging in the joys of yelling, and remembered his promise. Walking a lively three-year-old to the swings behind the village hall would be an OK thing to do on an autumn afternoon, until he got busy with real life again.
But first, he woke up his iPad, clicked on the
contact us
tab on the Port Manor Hotel website and took the number for Isabel Jones: finance and premises. Picked up his phone and moved into phase two of his life: getting Isabel Jones’s direct line, introducing himself and pitching straight in. ‘I’d like to speak to you about the
‘As I don’t want a treatment centre, Liza’s views are irrelevant.’
But Nicolas wasn’t going to let a logical argument cheat him of an opportunity to vent about Liza. ‘Bloody woman,’ he spat. ‘For years therapists have been battling for respectability, and now Liza’s trying to drag us into gimmickry, for reasons best known to herself.’
‘Survival?’
Sweat popped on Nicolas’s forehead like liquid anger. ‘If that’s what it takes for complementary medicine to survive then I don’t want anything to do with it!’
Dominic made a huge effort not to allow himself to be deflected from his purpose, despite the urge to make Nicolas see the speciousness of that argument. The greater need was to get the meeting over before sleep jumped on him again with both its heavy feet. ‘Which brings us back to where we started. Are you interested in selling your lease?’
The walk home was an ordeal. Dominic fought falling asleep on his feet, heaving one eyelid open then the other, knowing that October wasn’t the time to find a patch of grass for an emergency nap, but the cold hardly registering. Crosswind stayed close to his ankles, his nose touching the back of Dominic legs rather like Ethan’s little hand patting for the attention of a grown up. By the time Dominic finally regained Miranda’s house, his face was a leaden mask and darkness filtered into where his brain ought to be. He managed, ‘Hi,’ for Miranda, as he shut the door.
In the kitchen, folding clothes as she kept an eye on Ethan through the window to the back garden, she glanced around. ‘How did it go?’
‘Later,’ he said. Or thought he said.
Upstairs, heavy, using the handrail to drag himself up, legs like weights, banister, door to his room. Yellow-orange walls combining oddly with his navy quilt cover. Heavy colour, made the box room press in on him. With the last vestige of energy he fumbled his phone timer to thirty minutes and dropped down onto his bed, still wearing his boots.
Fallinggggggg
…
.
He was trying to implement the unusual circumstances and events process with a watch of seriously mute controllers and an air traffic monitor that was completely blank. Through the window, the aerodrome was operating without any control. Kenny stared at him from the left-hand seat and—
Bee-beep, bee-beep.
Thirty minutes had passed in an instant. The phone’s alarm
dragged him awake. His eyelids fluttered and he began to swim through the final flickering images of the Stansted control tower.
He listened to the piercing, unrelenting alarm, giving himself time to orientate, to feel secure, waiting to welcome the approaching clean feeling of being awake and alert from the miracle midday-sleep fix. Slowly, he swung his legs around so he could sit on the edge of the bed,
bee-beep, bee-beep,
reaching for his phone,
bee-beep
, and taking three attempts to drag along the arrow that would clear the alarm.
He blinked in the daylight. Rubbed his eyes, his mouth, ran his fingers through his hair.
Finally, he pushed himself upright and headed for the bathroom. By the time he’d taken his second white pill of the day, brushed his teeth and washed with cold water, he was in gear. He could hear Ethan downstairs, indulging in the joys of yelling, and remembered his promise. Walking a lively three-year-old to the swings behind the village hall would be an OK thing to do on an autumn afternoon, until he got busy with real life again.
But first, he woke up his iPad, clicked on the
contact us
tab on the Port Manor Hotel website and took the number for Isabel Jones: finance and premises. Picked up his phone and moved into phase two of his life: getting Isabel Jones’s direct line, introducing himself and pitching straight in. ‘I’d like to speak to you about the
Similar Books
