Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [85]
‘I know this whole place is screwed up,’ she added, more gently this time, ‘but what can we do? Just let them treat Gran, please, and then... then we can sort out what to do.’
The Doctor. That’s what he called himself. Just the Doctor.
Eddie remembered the teashop, remembered the way he’d run, scared of what this Doctor was making him think, making him feel.
Just the name brought up the hairs of the back of his neck: doctors had done things to him; doctors were the ones who messed about with your head, put bad thoughts in there, evil thoughts. He remembered the treatment room, being given pills, injections. He remembered something small and metallic being placed on his skin, just in front of his ear. And then it all went dark, fuzzy.
Eddie needed to know more about this man. Something in their curtailed conversation had made him wonder if this doctor could help him.
So now the two of them sat in the shady chill of the boathouse down by the loch, well away from both the woods and from Graystairs. The Doctor just stared blankly ahead, out over the still water, whilst Eddie pulled his cardigan around himself and shivered. He’d lost track of how long he’d been away from the house: at least two days, he guessed. He’d heard the staff blundering through the bushes on a couple of occasions, calling out his name, but he’d stayed low and still. Did they really expect him to reply? To hold his hands up and be taken back to that place? He’d left not knowing where he was going or what he was going to do, and the cold nights in the forest hadn’t supplied him with any new ideas. He’d gone into the teashop, looking for something to eat. But the Doctor’s arrival had spoiled that. Maybe the Doctor would know what to do now.
‘They put things in my head,’ Eddie said, trying to keep his voice from cracking.
‘Things? What things?’ The Doctor’s voice was still wobbly, his gaze unfocussed and inclined to slide sideways.
‘Bad things.’ Eddie tried not to think about the bad things.
‘Tell me... more.’
Eddie shook his head. ‘I don’t want to talk about them.’ His voice came out whining and pathetic, and he felt ashamed, inadequate. ‘When we met at the teashop,’ he said after a pause,
‘you talked about being human.’
‘Did I?’ The Doctor seemed genuinely surprised. No wonder, Eddie thought, not if they’d done to the Doctor even half of what they’d done to him. ‘And why did I do that, I wonder?’ He winced as if even his own voice was too loud.
Eddie didn’t know the answer and said so. The Doctor nodded sagely, although Eddie got the impression that he was just playing for time, giving him chance to root around in his own memories, put things in some sort of order. Eventually, when he wondered if the Doctor had drifted out of the conversation altogether, Eddie grabbed his hand.
‘These thoughts,’ he said. ‘These things, here –’ he tapped the side of his head with his other hand, ‘– they’re not, you know, not right, are they?’
‘Not human? Is that what you mean?’
It sounded silly put into words like that. Not human. Is that what they were doing? Turning him into something not human?
The Doctor’s gaze had drifted away again, his eyes glazing over before closing. Slowly, his chin dipped towards his chest. Eddie sat back. Let him sleep, he thought. He needed it.
Whereas before the pub had possessed a certain charm and warmth, now it was just miserable and dead. Ace sat in a corner and nursed a half of bitter. With the Doctor’s disappearance, the act of ordering a pint seemed to have lost the little rebellious thrill that it had held earlier. Claire kept throwing her solicitous glances from the other side of the bar; all Ace could do was to smile back, tight lipped. She checked her watch again. Michael should be here any moment. She tried to work out where the Doctor could have wandered off to, but in his half-baked state he could be almost anywhere. Even, she realised coldly, back at Graystairs. Being subjected to more of Sooal’s experiments.
A wintry draught heralded the arrival of two blokes, both of whom she’d seen around the village