Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [86]
Somewhere deep in Vincent’s mind the seed of a storm began to stir.
He tried to let go, to relax his hand, but his muscles didn’t obey. It was as if he’d forgotten how to operate them. Then he felt a tremor. A stirring of feeling around his knuckles and his fingers, a sensation of unknotting. And he could move his hand again. He pulled hard, tugging with all the strength of his arm, but she wasn’t going to let go. The girl felt the jerky movement and just tightened her grip. She was far stronger than he was. Vincent pulled again, then gave up. His head lolled. The girl was no longer in his visual field. Now all he could see was the bathtub enamel, a blank ivory landscape curving away to infinity at the edges of his vision. He closed his eyes.
It was going to happen again and there was nothing he could do about it.
His body jerked. He forced himself to fight back. It was like trying to lift something heavy underwater. He twisted his head, pulling his cheek away from the pleasant cool smoothness of the tub. He forced his eyes open and stared dreamily up at his hand and the girl’s, still locked together. He stared at intertwined lingers, his clean and pale, hers dirty and tanned. The girl’s fingernails were bitten to the quick. His were long and translucent and softened from the long months in the barrel. He could see them bending back easily where they touched her. He could see the pale blue skin under those nails.
The sensation of holding hands and the colour blue.
Memories stirred in Vincent’s mind. They were stronger than the fear. And they weren’t his memories.
Feeling a hand in his and seeing the colour blue. And then he seeing something else.
Blue.
Blue shoes.
Tiny blue shoes on tiny feet.
She’s very proud of her shoes. She is wearing her favourite shoes. She is looking down, watching her own feet as she walks. Her mother had told her not to do this because she might trip over. So she looks up again, a well‐mannered little girl. Looks around herself. The world is huge. Grown‐ups walk past, benign giants on incomprehensible missions. Ignoring little kids the way they do. Sometimes you wonder if they even know you are there.
In the bathtub Vincent Wheaton twisted and shook. It was like the time Calvin touched him, but much more intense. Much worse. He felt himself sinking into the girl’s memories. She is seven. Experiencing the feel of childhood again. Her name is Justine. Childhood’s simplified desires and the furnace‐hot intensity of vision.
Her name was Justine.
A hand was clasping Justine’s. Her friend Cheryl. Cheryl was only six but that was all right. She was very grown‐up for six and there was no shame in being seen with her. Justine and Cheryl were coming home from school, walking out of the tube station.
Justine loved this moment. The station was made of old concrete, paint peeling off the dirty walls. It was grey and dead and cold and shadowy. But as you stepped out of the station everything changed. There was a burst of green. Trees grew thickly along the streets that led to the station. There were big houses and outside the houses there were trees. The houses belonged to rich people, her father said. When the trees were in leaf there was nothing but green as far as you could see. Justine loved walking under the towering green trees. She could feel the thick weight of leaves above her head. A ceiling of green to protect her.
They had taught her about trees in school, how they drew food and water up into their long bodies, into their graceful branches and leaves. And the way they sucked up bad things and dirt in the