Dead of Winter - James Goss [41]
Banana skin.
Amy came bounding up. Little bit like Tigger. If Tigger could totally rock a mini-skirt. ‘Oh, come on, Doctor, it’s just a banana skin.’
‘Yes.’ The Doctor spoke slowly. ‘A. Banana. Skin.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s biodegradable, but fine. I’ll, ah, pick it up.’
The Doctor’s hand grasped my wrist. ‘Repeat the B word.’
‘What? Biodegradable?’
‘Yes.’
I humoured him. ‘Biodegradable.’ Not like I fancied walking home.
The Doctor’s next words came out like a hiss. It reminded me of that history teacher at school. Everyone has one – the one who just loves scoring points and leaving nasty notes in your homework in red pen. ‘This is an alien planet. A totally unique ecosystem. A world that has, up until this precise moment, had no bananas on it. And you’ve dropped one casually onto it.’
‘As I said, sorry, I’ll pick it up…’
‘You have infected this planet, Rory. Imagine what could happen next. That banana could decay, some stray seeds could germinate, and grow and lots of banana trees could sprout, all over the place. Who knows what could happen next? In five years’ time this forest could be utterly dead. No more singing trees. Do you know what – these are the only singing trees for quite a number of star systems. So famous that, when many, many thousands of years from now, when two terrible warring armies meet in this solar system and find this world, what will they do? Will they fight over it? No, they land, and they just look at the trees and listen to them sing. About three hundred yards to the left and five thousand and three years from now, they declare peace. But no. That no longer happens. Not now. Instead they’ll find a dead world, and their war will carry on for thousands more years until both civilisations, billions of people are dead. All because you have just dropped a banana skin.’
I was very, very quiet. Very quiet indeed.
‘Pick it up, now,’ said the Doctor.
I pocketed the banana skin.
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor. He smiled. ‘Of course, it won’t happen. Bananas are good. I’m just saying.’
We walked on.
You see, that’s the kind of grand gesture he loves. But every now and then I wonder, does he realise the mess he’s made of Amy Pond? It’s a brilliant mess, and it’s a mess I absolutely love, but I wonder if he knows it’s all his fault. And if he does know, does it keep him awake at nights too?
I’m just saying. It’s all really complicated. I don’t pretend to understand it.
So anyway, imagine how it feels. You’re trying to do something brave. Instead, the bad people you’re trying to reason with are suddenly, awfully, being really kind.
After I’d stopped coughing, Dr Bloom sat me down in his study. He shut the French windows, and his wife handed me a glass of something. ‘No brandy, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘It’s quite a dry sherry.’
I sipped it. I didn’t taste it. I tried to stop coughing. It wasn’t easy.
‘My poor boy,’ said Dr Bloom. ‘How long have you felt like this?’
He passed me a handkerchief of his own. It had ‘J.B.’ embroidered on it and some flowers. It’s funny what you notice. There was a buzzing in my ears.
Strange. You work in a hospital, you see it all. The saintly old lady who had a fall and banged her head and woke up in a bed screaming and raging at everyone until she died, like she was suddenly letting go of ninety years of anger. The people getting thinner and yellower who still laughed at sitcoms. The worried looks that every patient had when they thought no one noticed. The mothers who came in every day to visit their sick children and tried ever so hard not to look bored, ever.
You see people dealing with bad news in a lot of different ways. Some people burst into tears there and then. Some made jokes about it and only went quiet when they thought they were alone. Some just went numb until the very end.
I guess that’s me. The weak, silent type.
I mean, I was sat in a nice chair in front of a warm fire and I was coughing up blood. And the coughing gradually ebbed away. Just a little. Then it came back.
I had tuberculosis. My lungs were being eaten from the inside