Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [55]
TC: Where are you? What do you see yourself doing?
CT: I am. . . graceful. I glide through immaculate corridors. My skirts stroke the polished wooden floor. Swish, swish, swish. I love the oil painting at the end of the hall, and I stop to gaze upon it. Then I am off, past the kitchens and the pantry and towards the back door. I can smell dinner. I look around, but it is very quiet. It is Sunday. It is peaceful. . . Now I’m outside. I’m keeping to the shadows. I am able to hold my dress just above the stony path. . . I come to the shed. I open the door and go inside.
TC: And what’s there? Describe what you see.
CT: It’s musty. The heat of summer has been captured. There’s dirt on the blades of spades; I can smell it. I wait patiently.
TC: Who are you waiting for?
CT: Him. He walks in. It’s like the first lightning flash of a storm. He holds me in his arms, stroking my back with the gentlest of caresses. . . Then that fades. I can’t remember anything else from that day.
TC: What else do you remember?
CT: My stomach is just beginning to swell. I’m looking at myself in the mirror. I’ve made my body wet with tears. I can’t hide any longer.
95
(As with Haward, what followed was some kind of internal dialogue, albeit in this case one seemingly based on recollections of actual past events. I had heard Haward talk in this way before – but never Miss Thorne.) CT ii: Harlot! Whore! You are an abomination in the sight of God and in the eyes of your family! Tell me his name!
CT i: No, Father. I never –
(Her head recoiled then, as if physically struck.) CT ii: Tell me his name, damn you!
CT i: No! Please, Father, don’t. . .
TC: Try to remember something else, if you would rather.
CT: I am having a baby! I’m bellowing in pain – real pain, and the agony of rejection. I’m pushing and pushing and pushing. . .
TC: Did you give birth successfully?
CT: Yes, but. . . They’ve taken him away from me! My baby needs me! He belongs to me!
TC: What happened?
CT: Just for a moment I can see him – mottled skin, a dark and wailing mouth. Fingernails, so small and so perfect. Then. . .
TC: Then?
CT: I’m alone again. I’m alone, and I’m in the carriage, rattling away from the big house that once meant the world to me. It’s not my world any more.
It’s fading already – I can hardly see it. It’s falling back into the folds of the countryside and the gardens. It’s gone.
(I tried to encourage Miss Thorne to cease her awful retrospection, but she seemed gripped by some dreaming mania, and another conversation began.) CT iii: Mother?
CT i: My son! How you have grown!
TC: You see your boy?
CT: He has grown – what a mass of golden curls!
CT i: Come to me! I long to hold you!
CT iii: But you left me! Abandoned me!
CT i: I had no choice. You know that.
CT iii: You left me. Do you know what happened to me? Thrown out like a piece of rubbish! Is that what you thought of me?
CT i: No! Father would never do such a thing. He promised!
CT ii: Slut! Who was it? How often? Did you enjoy it? Slut! Maybe there was more than one? Maybe you spread your legs for all the servants! Never thinking I’d come along! Whore!
CT i: I will always love you, Father!
CT iii: I hate you! I hate you! I hate you more than anyone else!
CT i: You have every right to hate me. But I will always love you.
96
CT iii: But I hate you! If I ever saw you, I’d kill you. I’d take the biggest, longest knife I could find, and cut open your ugly belly.
CT i: But I would still love you.
CT iii: I wish you’d never been born.
CT i: So do I. But I have been. And I still love you.
Now animated,