Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [56]
‘I was expecting them to appear out of nowhere. Dropped out of a spaceship or something. Materializing in a patch of coloured light at the very least. Not be dragged across a muddy field on a hospital trolley.’
‘You’ll find we’re full of surprises,’ Patsy said, curtly.
‘But running on empty as far as answers are concerned.’
Patsy frowned at him. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
94
Chris thought about this for a moment. ‘Everything. That faceless creature.
What is it?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what it is. That’s the truth!’ she added angrily, when she saw him looking at her. ‘They’re a kind of guard. There are several of them at the hospital.’
Chris couldn’t think of another way of saying this. ‘They’re alien. They don’t belong to this world.’
‘I know.’
‘Do they come from Petruska?’
‘What? No, of course not. Does that thing look like me?’ she shouted, and then suddenly became more reasonable. ‘I don’t think that we’re the first aliens brought to the hospital.’
She turned the light in the carriage out. The first traces of dawn were creeping across the English countryside, turning the blinds on the carriage windows a delicate blue. Chris was surprised when Patsy lay down next to him on the bench. She kept her back to him, but pushed herself against him.
His immediate reaction was to put his arm around her. When she spoke he felt her voice reverberate gently through his body.
‘We came here looking for refuge. Liberation.’ She spat the word out, as if it hurt to have it in her mouth. ‘But your people found us. Found out about us and our abilities. And then we were slaves again.’
Chris wanted to say that the humans of this century weren’t his people, but held back, not wanting to interrupt her. ‘What did they want to use you for.’
Patsy sighed. ‘They discovered our therapeutic value. Our empathic abilities allow us to enter into emotional relationships with people who are otherwise unreachable. Those who are “not available for contact” through ordinary psy-chotherapeutic interventions.’
That explained the asylum. ‘You mean people with psychotic disorders, don’t you?’
Patsy nodded. ‘Pop was an orderly at the hospital. He’s been helping us escape from the asylum for some time now. It’s ironic; on our planet we were the toys of the neurotic rich, then we “escaped” to Earth only to become the companions of the mentally ill.’
‘Out of the frying pan. . . ’ Chris started and then stopped himself. It occurred to him that this must be the second journey Patsy had made from Healey to London. He looked down at the sleepers. ‘How many more of your people are left in the hospital?’
‘I’m not sure. The Major would know. He and Mother have been responsible for bringing them to London, helping them make new lives. I don’t see how we can help those left behind now Pop is dead.’
95
Chris hugged her tightly. ‘I know someone who will be able to help,’ he whispered.
Patsy hadn’t heard him. She was searching the floor of the carriage with her hand.
‘Where’s my drink?’ she said anxiously.
‘I finished it. For your own good.’
Melanie Wotton had been the cleaner at Healey station ever since she had left school. She arrived at the station at six-thirty every morning to wash down the platform, water the plants, and disinfect the toilets.
She knew most of the drivers and ticket collectors on the early trains, sharing a smile and a few words with them in the few minutes while the train was standing on the platform.
After finishing cleaning the platform for the morning, she was about to pour the soapy water in her bucket on to the track, when she caught sight of the figure lying sprawled between the rails of the Westbound line.
It was one of the ticket collectors. A young shy lad, who always had his nose in a book. He hadn’t been at the job long. Just a stop-gap, he always said, before he went to university. Adam. That was his name. He wouldn’t be going to university now.
His sightless eyes stared back at her. His uniform had been removed and fresh blood bled on to his string vest from