Freya North 3-Book Collection: Love Rules, Home Truths, Pillow Talk. Freya North

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ worry about it,’ Sally laughed, ‘take him home and put him to bed with a bucket nearby.’

      ‘Thanks,’ said Thea, rolling her eyes, ‘Mark and Alice are giving us a lift.’

      ‘Thea, is everything OK there?’ Sally lowered her voice. ‘Alice seems a little – I don’t know. Distant? Preoccupied?’

      Thea thought for a moment. ‘She’s fine,’ she said, ‘she’s Alice. Mark’s been abroad a lot and she’s feeling a little – needy.’

      ‘We need to make tracks,’ Alice said, her coat already on, ‘Mark’s got to go into the sodding office.’

      ‘You could stay? Cab it home later?’ Thea suggested.

      ‘I think I’ll just catch up on a little work myself,’ Alice said flatly. ‘If you two still want a lift, we’re going now.’

      ‘Bye Alice, bye Mark, bye Thea,’ Sally kissed them all and waved them off from her doorstep. ‘Bye Saul. Oops – easy there, tiger. Christ, is he all right?’

      ‘Fuck bollocks, my knee. Ouch. Wank,’ Saul fulminated in a stagger towards Mark’s very nice Lexus.

      Although Thea focused on Saul for the journey over to Crouch End, noting with alarm a green-tinged pallor permeate his face by the top of Coolhurst Road, she was also able to observe her best friend gazing out of the window in a quiet world of her own, a downward sigh to her shoulders. Just then, she wished she was sitting with her arms around Alice, rather than serving as a buttress to the slumping Saul. Thea also noticed that Mark drove with deliberate attentiveness to the route and road sense, thereby counteracting any chance for chat.

      He’s probably just worried Saul will throw up on the cream leather, Thea told herself, or thinking about the hassles awaiting him at the office, perhaps.

      Thea put Saul in her bed with a bucket at the side and a jug of water and a packet of Nurofen on the bedside table.

      ‘I love you, Thea,’ he slurred while she bustled around him, undressing him and plumping pillows, ‘I really love you and want to get you for ever.’

      ‘Now, let’s go and have a pee, yes?’ she said in a matronly manner. ‘Come along.’

      ‘I don’t want to have a pee,’ he mumbled petulantly.

      ‘Come on,’ she said as she hauled him through to the bathroom and pulled down his boxers, ‘have a nice pee.’

      ‘I don’t want to have a pee,’ said Saul sulkily while it gushed out with Thea’s guidance.

      ‘Now let’s get you into bed.’

      ‘I don’t want to go to bed,’ Saul objected, bashing his shoulder into the door frame but appearing not to notice. ‘Come for a cuddle? A nice shag?’

      ‘Have a snooze first,’ Thea cooed, thinking just then that she really did not want to cuddle let alone shag this beery leery lump.

      ‘I don’t want to have a snooze,’ Saul pouted as she shoved and pushed him to a safe place at the centre of her bed.

      ‘Do you feel OK?’ Thea asked. ‘Because there’s water right here – and a bucket just there if you don’t.’

      ‘I feel very OK,’ Saul muttered with his eyes closed and a frown he couldn’t correct. ‘Room going dizzy.’

      ‘Oh shit,’ Thea whispered under her breath while closing her nose to his. She flicked his cheeks and shook him. ‘Saul. Saul! Open your eyes and sit up. Now. Hey you! Up!’

      Saul’s eyes opened in sluggish succession and he lumbered himself up into a seated position of sorts. He brought his face in the approximate direction of where he thought Thea’s voice had come from and, finding she had quite a few faces, he tried to keep his glazed eyes anchored to some of hers. She didn’t really know his face at all just then and she wasn’t sure whether she was amused or actually a little repelled. ‘I love you, Thea,’ Saul slurred, his eyes welling, ‘marry me, Thea, marry me.’

      ‘Drink some water, Saul,’ Thea said, ‘here – sip. That’s right – it’s a lovely pint of beer. Sip some more. OK. Do you feel OK? Sip some more. Do you want to pee again? Yes? Right, come on then. No, you can’t pee in the bucket. Oh Christ. No no! Not on the carpet – in the bucket, then. There. Good boy. Finished? Good. Oh shit, not finished – careful! OK, now back into bed. More sips of water. I mean beer. Little sips. Don’t gulp. I’m going to wash out the bucket and bring it back. Are you going to puke? No? Well, I’m going to bring the bucket back just in case.’

      ‘I love you Thea and I want to live with us for ever and ever.’

      Thea patted his forehead and went to rinse out the bucket and replenish the glass of water.

      Saul had been so drunk he couldn’t remember a word he’d said to Thea. Saul had been so drunk Thea hadn’t bothered to believe a word he’d said.

Peter, Gabriel

      ‘Thea? Sorry to phone so early – it’s Mark.’

      ‘Hullo, Mark – I was up actually. I slept on the sofa – Saul’s sleeping it off in my bed, drunken bum. Is everything OK?’

      ‘I’ve done something to my neck – that’s why I’m ringing so early – I just wondered if you could squeeze me in? I’m in pain and I can’t move it much.’

      ‘I don’t have my appointments diary – I’ll be at work at nine – I could call you then? I can assess you but you may need an osteo.’

      ‘Nine? Oh. It’s just I have a meeting and I was wondering—’

      ‘Oh. Yes, of course. Can you make eight? In fact, I could probably be there for seven forty-five.’

      ‘Thanks, petal.’

      ‘Don’t be daft! Oh, is Alice there? Can I have a quick word?’

      ‘She’s still asleep, Thea. My neck – you know – anyway, so she slept in the spare room. So as not to disturb me, you see.’

      ‘Sometimes spasms are only partly physiological,’ Thea advised Mark gently as she assessed his predicament an hour later. ‘The pressure of stress can greatly exacerbate even mild twinges.’

      ‘There’s a fair bit going on at the moment,’ he told her.

      Thea nodded.

      ‘At work,’ Mark added, lest she should probe.

      Thea nodded again. Over the years, she’d found that simply nodding whilst looking down at her notepad, pen poised, often encouraged her clients to elaborate with greater honesty than if she asked them outright. She looked down at her notepad and waited for a moment before nodding again. But Mark said no more.

      ‘I would really like you to see one of our osteopaths,’ Thea recommended, ‘Dan and Brent are both excellent. But you СКАЧАТЬ