Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [88]
* * *
Vincent came up into consciousness with the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong. He immediately reached out and found Justine there, right where she should be, sleeping safely beside him. He reached a hand over the curve of her warm hip and slipped it down soft skin to feel the ripe bulge of her belly. Justine was safe and the baby was safe, too.
Vincent lay back on his pillow, trying to relax. It was early. Try to sleep again. No good. His thoughts kept racing. He leaned on one elbow and peered down at Justine’s face, soft and exposed in sleep. She wasn’t like him; she never suffered from insomnia, never had the nightmares any more. Justine had found peace.
Vincent looked across the pillow at her face. The years had begun to alter it, erasing the girl he’d met and drawing a woman in her place. As she aged, her face changed and the changes fascinated him. It was like looking at a familiar and well‐loved place, revealing all its aspects in the changing light of the seasons.
He curled around her under the quilt, absorbing the warmth of her body. But it only made him sweat. His nerves were still jangled from the dream. What had the dream been about? He reached for the memory but it slipped away. Vincent eased away from Justine and swung his long legs over the side of the bed. He caught his reflection in the mirror over the dresser, seeing a lanky, hairy man with a face prematurely creased by worry. He shrugged as he pulled on an old bathrobe. Whatever the dream was, it had left him too anxious to sleep. He stalked down to the kitchen to get something to drink.
Peering into the glowing bowels of the refrigerator he thought: why am I feeling this way? Perhaps it was just superstition. A feeling that things were going too well in his life. In the last few years everything had fallen into place. He had been able to put the past behind him. He had Justine. And now a baby on the way. So perhaps all he was feeling now was primitive dread that his luck would change.
But Vincent’s problem was that words like ‘primitive’ made him think of ancient cultures wiser than his own. The sort of intuitive, insightful people who were at one with nature and who would always trust their gut instinct. They’d never ignore a hunch.
Vincent had a hunch that trouble was coming.
He poured milk for Justine and some orange juice for himself, put the glasses on a tray and carried them upstairs. The staircase ran past a high narrow window edged with stained glass that overlooked the back garden. Coming down he hadn’t glanced out, but now, returning back up the stairs, he paused to peer out between the coloured panes.
There under a tree he saw one of the canvas chairs he’d left out the other night when he’d been sitting with Justine. Drinking vodka, smelling the night, staring at the sky and talking until after midnight. Now a woman was standing under the same tree. She was bending over to talk to a man sitting in the chair.
The milk and orange juice mixed together on the stairs among the shattered fragments of the tumblers. The sound of the glasses breaking roused Justine who called sleepily to him from the room at the top of the stairs. Vincent didn’t reply. He stood staring out the window, still holding the empty tray.
Vincent didn’t know the woman. But he recognized the man in the chair; he hadn’t changed a bit. And now Vincent remembered what his dream had been about.
* * *
The Doctor didn’t look up as Benny joined him under the tree. He’d found an old torn canvas chair somewhere. To Benny it looked as if the chair was soaked with early morning dew but he appeared to be quite comfortably settled in it.
‘I got tired of waiting in the car,’ she said.
‘The ability to wait patiently and do nothing is an art.’
‘I know, but it’s not one I’ve ever been able to cultivate.’
‘Ace shares your problem, I’m afraid.’
‘How’s she doing? I haven’t had a chance to speak to her since I got back.’
‘You couldn’t have spoken to her. She’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
The Doctor shifted wearily