Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [25]
So quietly, apprehensively, she’d gone up the twisty little flight of stairs to the top of the house, looking for her. Unlike the ground and first floors, which were warm and cosy, painted cheerful, bright colours, the attic floor gave the impression that they’d run out of money and had left it just as it had been for years: the doors and skirting boards were painted an unappealing brown; the walls had probably once been cream, but were now so scuffed and stained that it was hard to be certain. The bare bulbs that hung from the ceiling glared at her accusingly, making her feel naked and exposed.
That was when she’d heard it: music, coming from nearby.
Normally she wouldn’t have thought anything of it: there was usually a radio or three playing in the house somewhere –
whether Radio 1 in the kitchen during mealtimes, Radio 2 in the residents’ lounge when there was nothing worth watching on the telly, or, occasionally, Radio 3 when Doctor Menzies thought that no one would notice.Which, of course, they usually did pretty quickly. But up here, away from the cosy domesticity of the rest of Graystairs, it seemed creepy, haunting.
This was definitely Radio 3 music, Claudette thought – posh opera as she called it. A woman wailed in some foreign language like her world was falling apart. She suddenly felt like an intruder up here, interfering in someone else’s grief. Maybe Doctor Menzies was running a session in the therapy room at the other end of the corridor. Thinking no more about it, other than how very, very sad the music sounded, Claudette tapped lightly on Megan’s door: Megan’s Room – Private was written, in threatening, blocky letters with a marker pen on one of the peeling panels.
There was no answer, so she knocked again. Maybe she was asleep. Claudette knew she had a real temper on her, and probably wouldn’t take too kindly to being woken for something like clean towels, so she turned away from the door, intending to have another, more determined hunt around the house for them on her own. As she did so, Claudette heard the long, shuddering, indrawn breath of someone sobbing.
She was torn: although it wasn’t forbidden to come up here, it had been strongly suggested that it was not somewhere the staff should be. The treatment room was the reason given, although there was a quiet understanding that Mr Sooal, Graystairs’ reclusive owner, had his room here and valued his privacy. But the sobbing was so pitiful, so lost, that Claudette couldn’t just ignore it. As quietly as she could – and simultaneously aware that if she was caught creeping around, she’d be in even more trouble – she took a few steps along the threadbare Axminster. The music and the crying grew louder until she found herself at a door – a dirty brown door, much like any of the others on the landing.
She flinched sharply as a crash and the sound of breaking china shattered the fragile calm.
‘Hello?’ she called tentatively, hoping, desperately hoping, that no one answered. Quite why she repeated her call, a little louder, she wasn’t sure. At that moment, she wanted to be anywhere but there. Her hand was on the door handle, turning it, her body and her heart racing ahead of her mind and any consideration of the consequences. And as she pushed it open, the music swelled in volume and abruptly ceased.
Hunched over on himself in a tatty, leatherette armchair basking in the sharp, angular morning light that streamed in through the skylight, was a man, his hands wrapped around the back of his neck. More than a man trying to block the world out, Claudette got the cold impression of a man trying to hold himself in. His skin was pale and paper thin, his head skeletal and bald.
‘Hello?’ she found herself saying again – this time in a voice just seconds away from cracking completely.
He turned sharply, explosively, his eyes as pink as a white rat’s, his lips thin and bloodless.
‘What are you doing here?’ he spat. ‘Get out!’
As Claudette fled, the