The Stone That Never Came Down by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page B

the shop was charging, but even so …”
    “You mean you–?” Ruth began, looking at him with wide eyes, and broke off. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
    Billy spread his hands. “I don’t noise it around, but I don’t make a secret of it, either. It’s the way I am and I feel I’m entitled to live with it.”
    “Yes. Yes, of course.” Ruth hesitated, then turned to pick up her shopping-bag again. “Well, I mainly called in to ask after you, and if Malcolm isn’t in–”
    From behind the closed door of Malcolm’s room came a sudden crash: a plate or saucer smashing.
    “But he is in!” Billy exclaimed, and swung around to try the door-handle. Unlocked, the door swung wide.
    And there was Malcolm at the breakfast-counter dividing the kitchenette from the rest of the room, very pale and swaying visibly as he tried to kick into a pile the fragments of the plate he had dropped. The light in the room was very low; the radio was playing softly; the TV was on, but not its sound, and everywhere books lay open untidily.
    On the breakfast-counter were two bottles of wine: one empty, one newly opened.
    “Hi,” Malcolm muttered. “Sorry, Ruth. I heard you come in, but I just didn’t feel up to … Oh, damn! I’m very drunk, I’m afraid. It seems to help.”
    “I–uh–I wanted to say merry Christmas before I went away,” Ruth said, advancing nervously into the room. “And I brought you a sort of extra present …”
    “Yes, mackere!.” Malcolm closed his eyes, looking infinitely weary. “My favourite. Thank you. But you really shouldn’t have, not with the price of fish.”
    “What?” She stopped dead. “How did you know? I told the fishmonger to wrap it tight in plastic so the smell wouldn’t–”
    “Oh, I just know!” Malcolm snapped. “I know lots of things! Things I thought I’d forgotten years ago, decades ago!” He pointed vaguely at the wine-bottle. “Here, have a drink, help yourselves. Do you know what’s happened?”
    Billy said uncertainly, “Malcolm, you look sick!”
    “Do you know what’s happened?’ With sudden rage. “No, of course not! I’ll tell you! I was so depressed when I came back from the clinic I thought I’d call up Cathy and it was Doug who answered and he said, ‘Who’s that?’ And I said, ‘It’s Daddy!’ And he said–know what he said?” Clinging to the edge of the breakfast-counter, glaring. “He said, ‘No, you’re not my daddy any more. Mummy said so. We’re going to have a new daddy for a Christmas present.’ And then she came on the line herself and said I can’t see Doug and Judy over Christmas because this new man of hers is taking them all away somewhere, goodbye!”
    “Oh, Malcolm!” Ruth breathed.
    “I don’t blame you for getting drunk,” Billy said.
    “It’s my own fault, I suppose,” Malcolm sighed. “Never marry a good church-going girl, Billy! They can always find moral justifications for anything they feel like doing, no matter how it hurts other people … Not that I have to warn you, I guess, on either count.”
    Billy gave a sad chuckle.
    “I was talking about her to this guy Morris I met in the Hampstead Arms,” Malcolm went on. “You know, Ruth–the one who gave me that pill.” A yawn fought its way past his self-control.
    “You took a pill from someone you met at the Hampstead Arms?” Billy echoed incredulously.
    Ruth glanced at him. “Yes, he did–the damned fool! Something called VC. Did you ever hear of it?”
    “VC?” Billy pondered a second, shook his head. “No, it doesn’t mean anything to me. But the Hampstead Arms does. It’s just down the road from where the biggest pusher in London lives, and–”
    “I feel so sleepy,” Malcolm interrupted. “I’m terribly sorry, but I just can’t keep my eyes open any longer and I have to go to bed and …” Giddily, he tried to walk around the end of the counter, and before he had taken more than four paces he pitched forward into