Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [22]
The Doctor nodded. ‘A time machine.’
* * *
In the thick, sweet haze of smoke, Chiltern slumbered. His eyes were half-shut, gazing unseeingly across the dark, low-ceilinged room past other slumberers – some still, some restless and muttering – to the brazier. A man crouched beside this, preparing the pipes, his face golden in the faint glow. Chiltern couldn’t tell how old he was. He never could with the Chinese.
He felt better. The headache wouldn’t materialise now. He could barely sense its presence – only a faint, threatening shiver at the edge of his brain. His thoughts slipped around as if the surface of his mind were a wet stone. He liked the sensation. Nothing would sit steady on the shelf of memory, everything tilted and fell and slid away. It was a form of silence. He could rest.
The day had affected him very badly. He didn’t know why. At present, he was no longer even capable of wondering, but earlier he had been puzzled by the depression that had descended on him after the Doctor had left. Miss Jane’s situation was terrible, to be sure, but no worse – indeed, much better – than that of many other patients he’d seen over the years.
The years... Chiltern was afraid for a second he might have been wrong about the headache. He groaned slightly and shifted on the pallet. But no, the pain was lost now, vanished, dispersed.
He sighed sleepily, then blinked. A face was forming out of the smoke, or coming to him through the smoke, he wasn’t sure which. Nor did it matter. It was an effect he was used to and he watched with detached, contented curiosity as the features slowly became clearer. A beautiful male face, like a Botticelli. Pale calm eyes. The smoke wreathed around the head and became tousled, light brown hair. From a great distance, Chiltern felt what might have been a little jolt of surprise. He knew the face.
‘Hello,’ said the Doctor.
‘Doctor...?’ Chiltern tried to sit up, or thought he did. ‘Are you really here?’
‘That depends,’ said the Doctor.
‘On what?’
‘Which way you’d prefer it.’
The smoke thinned away completely, and Chiltern was relieved to see that the Doctor had brought his body with him, though he had exchanged his elegant velvet coat for a long, shabby, black garment that was too big for him.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ said Chiltern.
‘And here I am.’
‘I’m not sure it matters if you’re actually here or not. Just don’t vanish.’
‘Leaving my grin behind. No, I don’t do that any more.’ The Doctor certainly looked real enough, fine droplets of water shining in his hair as if he’d walked in out of the mist. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
Chiltern dreamed for a moment. The Doctor waited, perfectly still, as if he’d been painted on the wall. After a while, Chiltern said, ‘I wanted you to hypnotise me.’
‘Why?’
‘I think...’ Chiltern looked slowly around at the dim, huddled figures. How had the Doctor got in? Why had they let him in? ‘Do you want a pipe?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Why do you come here?’ he said gently.
‘To forget. No... to remember.’
‘Remember what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is there something you don’t remember?’
‘I don’t know.’
The Doctor looked down and his long, flexible mouth twitched. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
‘Tell me about your brother.’
This time, Chiltern knew, he definitely moved, propping up on his elbows. ‘How do you know about him?’
‘I heard.’
‘My brother’s mad.’
‘I heard that too.’
‘He’s violent. Deluded.’ Chiltern sobbed and buried his face in his hands. ‘I keep him locked up.’
‘I know that too,’ whispered the Doctor.
‘It’s horrible,’ Chiltern breathed between his fingers. ‘My own brother! How could I?’
‘What else could you do?’
Chiltern raised his wet face. ‘I could cure him. I’m a doctor. Tell me,’ He groped and found the Doctor’s arm. It was reassuringly solid. ‘Don’t you think it’s all physical? That the mind is wired, like a machine?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘It’s in the flesh, you see – in the flesh. Someday we’ll be able to cure everything with an operation.