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“Mrs. Lamb? He’s awake and ready to see you now.”
Diana steadies herself and follows her into Jackson’s room in intensive care. She didn’t think it was possible for the man to look any worse, but a massive coronary had that effect on people.
They lock eyes in recognition, waiting for the nurse’s footsteps to quiet before speaking.
“You look like shite,” Jackson says in a weak, gravelly whisper.
“Thank you, Diana, for spending the night sleeping on a couch that could be classified as a torture device by the Geneva Convention, while you anxiously waited on the outcome of my surgery,” she says, voice dripping sarcasm. “Oh, and made important life or death decisions for me because I added you as my medical proxy without your knowledge or consent.”
“Ehhh, you make five life or death decisions before breakfast. What’s one more?”
She shakes her head. “This is different.”
“Hardly. I’m just another broken old joe on the rubbish heap of the Service.”
Diana breathes in and out through her nose, conscious of the fact that the nurses said he must be kept calm. “I learned some very interesting things from your doctors while they were under the impression that I was your wife. For example, the fact that you were prescribed a bog standard course of statins and blood pressure medications last year that you never bothered to pick up. As well as a very serious recommendation to quit smoking and eat a low-sodium diet.”
“Doctor suggested I eat spirulina—sounds like a venereal disease.”
“It’s not a joke, Jackson.”
“I see First Desk has done a thorough investigation,” he huffs.
“I needed to know whether or not you’d been poisoned by an enemy actor or if this was just the culmination of your slow-motion suicide of the last twenty years.”
He goes quiet, the harsh silence between them offset by an annoying counterpoint of beeps from various monitors. “So, it was all for the Service, then.”
She lets the barb fly past her, a quiet anger of her own putting the wind in her sails. “Was it everything you’d dreamt of—the white light, the voices from the other side beckoning, St. Peter himself come meet you like heaven’s maître’d? Or, was it the other way—he elevator down, demons ready to drag you away?”
His face is grey but he favors her with a twisted smile. “Only demon I know is right here.”
“You’re very lucky, you know. Quick thinking from your slow horses saved your life. It was Cartwright who brought you back to life with the defibrillator. Though, I imagine they must have fought over the chance to electrocute you.”
“River bloody Cartwright. Doesn’t know when to leave well enough the fuck alone,” he spits.
Her anger simmers away like a kettle, threatening to boil over. “Is it so hard for you to believe that there are people in your life who care for you? That would miss you if you were gone?”
“Those kids would be better off without the likes of me. And don’t pretend you haven’t been itching to shut down Slough House once and for all. You’d have the place shuttered before I was even cold in my grave—”
“That’s not true—”
“Oh yes, you’d be mistress of ceremonies at St. Leonard’s for my funeral, give a real corker of a eulogy for a Service legend,” he sneers, voice still rough and haggard. “Maybe you dreamed of putting a nice little brass plaque on our bench. You could go there and have a fag from time to time, alone with your thoughts.”
She had, in fact, pictured the bench. Herself, alone there for the rest of her life.
“You wretched, insufferable, ungrateful bastard of a man,” she begins, hands shaking as she steps closer to his bedside. “You’ll never believe anything I say, so I guess I’ll have to show you.”
And she kisses him then, firmly and squarely on the lips, full of hurt and fury.
Jackson has had her teetering on the knife edge between anger and despair. She’s not sure which one won in the end.
The frantic beeping of the machines causes her to break the kiss and step away. Jackson looks suitably shocked, red spots of color on his pale cheeks.
“You’re going to follow doctor’s orders or I swear I’ll murder you myself,” she says, flustered at her own reaction.
“I’ll take the pills. I’ll cut back on the cigs and whisky,” he bargains carefully, as if it was just another trade. “But I ain’t eating vegetables I can’t pronounce.”
“I suppose that’s a start,” she sighs.
“Kiss me again like that, you’re like to give me a second heart attack.” A dare and not a rebuke.
“Don’t press your luck.”