Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [54]
Fern took a step backwards, as if I, had done something to disturb his spirit.
‘I will inform Christie of your general agreement,’ he said quickly.
‘Yes. But. . . is there anything else I can do for you?’
But the moment had passed. ‘They will be wondering where I am,’ said Fern. He turned decisively for the door without a backward look.
Extract from the Diary of Dr Thomas Christie Friday 25th December 1903 (continued)
My dialogue with Haward (and, later, a fascinating exchange with Miss Thorne) I note here based on verbatim notes that Mr Torby and myself made: TC: Did you hear anything last night?
JH: Oh yes. Many things. Things you would not believe.
TC: Did you hear someone scratching below your window?
JH: I heard a conversation. Would you like to hear it?
TC: Very well.
(I was unsure that any intelligible sound could penetrate the thick walls between Haward and Sands but was in any event intrigued by what Haward 93
had to say. So distinct did the various voices of Haward sound that I have given them separate titles, thus JH i, JH ii, et cetera, in the dialogue that follows.)
JH: It went like this. . .
JH i: How am I ever to be free of this place and the plundering of my memories?
JH ii: There are two ways of escape. You sit where you are for what feels like all eternity, until, finally – O blessed day of peace! – the worms crawl in your ears and eat your brains and you turn back to dust. Or. . .
JH i: Yes? What?
JH ii: Or you forfeit all your rights to me – sell your soul, if you wish to use the language of the lowest melodrama. Enter into the first death in the blinking of an eye.
TC: Was that the end of the conversation?
JH: No. There was a moment of silence, then. . .
JH i: You leave me no alternative. Eternity in here is too long. Have your way.
JH ii: You have chosen wisely, my friend.
JH i: What beauty in that voice! What final peace and acceptance it entails!
JH ii: Do not be fooled into thinking that I do not bring gifts. I am the creator and the bringer of all good gifts.
JH i: And the greatest gift is death!
JH ii: Yes, you are right. No gift has greater value or beauty than death. If I could but describe what I feel now – oh, the libraries of the world have not enough paper to hold my description! Each star in heaven is a mere glimpse of what I now feel, minute by minute, decade by decade.
JH i: I am indeed yours. . .
(Haward’s manner returned almost to normal.)
JH: That is what I heard.
TC: Did you hear this from Sands’s cell?
JH: No. What I have told you I heard from my own lips. I am answering you quite truthfully.
TC: And from the next room?
JH: From the woman’s room I heard only the shameless grunting of a woman without a man. And from the man’s room I heard the sinful grunting of a man without a woman. How I long for them to be combined!
TC: Sands is dead.
JH: I know. There is no intercourse greater than death.
(At this point I turned for the door, saddened and sickened by what I had heard.)
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JH: Before you leave, would you like to know what will happen? I know you do not look to the stars for your future, yet still you build castles in the air.
TC: Who has told you of the future?
JH: My friends – they speak with renewed clarity in these days. Let me tell you what will happen. I see a woman whose skull is smashed with such force that splinters of bone enter her brain. Do you know what that looks like? Black hair black with blood I see, and the blood nourishes someone else’s baby. A baby growing fat with the blood of hatred of a mother it has never met. I see a man’s swollen head and a rope at his neck. I see dogs, and I see spiders that look like men.
Haward then had some form of seizure and his words became unintelligible.
Torby commented that he had observed Haward reading the tales of Mr Edgar Allan Poe in recent days; I would not be surprised if such macabre fantasies had prompted this display of lunacy.
A subsequent conversation