Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [16]
Haward looked around and saw for the first time the food that was scattered across the floor. He reached for the dry bread and floury potato hungrily, tearing off chunks and – against all expectation – swallowing them whole.
He started to hum a tune under his breath, pausing from time to time to encourage himself further. ‘Yes, that’s it, keep thinking of something else.’
I dismissed Craig, still standing nervously in the doorway, then returned my attention to poor Haward. He stopped eating, the tune now stillborn on his lips, and began once again to look around in panic.
‘No. . . Something has moved!’ he exclaimed. ‘A huge wave is coming. The beach is bloodied. The crescendo!’
He tumbled to the floor as if enveloped by a very literal tidal bore and lay still.
‘ There he is, ’ he said, but his voice was transformed now, almost into a woman’s shrill, mocking falsetto. ‘ On the floor, as usual. A disgrace. ’
Then, in his normal voice: ‘Do not speak about me as if I cannot hear you.
Address me directly, let me explain my actions and protest my innocence – or leave me be.’
(I have noted in these journals before how incredibly rare it is to find such well-developed personalities within the one frame. Indeed, in all my years in the field, I have never before encountered a man such as Haward, who seems 27
to contain within him a plethora of disparate characters. I sometimes think I would not be surprised to hear him say, ‘My name is Legion, because many devils have entered into me!’ – not that I would accept this over-spiritualised way of looking at the world and its ills.)
‘ Does he think himself a man? ’ This time the voice was deep and sonorous.
‘ Does he have a purpose any longer? ’
‘ Do we need him? ’ Haward now sounded young and girlish.
‘ I heard that he was plagued by visions this morning. He hardly deserves to eat, ’ confided the woman’s voice.
‘ What sort of visions? ’ asked the male ‘visitor’, as if intrigued.
Haward answered with the girl’s voice. ‘ Visions of evil. Pure evil. ’
There was silence for a moment, and then Haward thrust his fingers into his temples as if an even greater pressure were now coursing through the channels of his mind. A final ‘visitor’ spoke, clear and analytical, tinted with what might have been a trace of sadness.
‘ I have seen this creature’s future. So sad. . . ’
Haward’s head snapped from side to side, and I saw that his eyes were tightly closed as if to try to block out whatever it was that he saw. He pointed at the window. ‘Do you see it?’ he asked. ‘Is it not fearsome to behold? A seraph of evil – the angel of death!’ His eyes now snapped open, almost in wonder. ‘She shows me many things.’
‘What do you see?’ I asked, desperate for anything that might help me understand Haward’s condition.
‘I see a murder – not feared, but welcomed with open arms. I see a woman, begging for merciful release.’ A pause, then – ‘Death itself stalking through room after room and finding no one to stop it! A body hangs from a tree. The fingers twitch.’
He turned from wall to wall as if every internal vista were different – and yet more hideous than the last. ‘Spiders scuttle. Dogs bark and bay. They slaver, they want to hound me to my death – an open grave, a stone sarcophagus swallowing me up.’ His eyes stretched wider still. ‘And the angel of death is all in all. She scythes down souls. She reaps from the living a harvest of the dead. Beware!’
And then he collapsed on to the floor and was silent.
28
Four
There’s a Ghost in My House
(Frontier Psychiatrists)
‘How am I doing?’ Laska asked. She let her hands come to rest, palms upwards, as if revealing a poker hand. ‘In layman’s terms,’ she