Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [91]
It happened.
It hadn’t happened in years. Vincent had begun to wonder if he’d lost the talent forever. He had been shocked to discover that he missed it. But, after all, it was part of him and it felt odd to live without it. Like picking up a guitar one day and finding you’ve forgotten how to play. Forgotten what the strings can do, where to put your fingers, how to make music come out of it.
He didn’t want to lose the power. It was part of him. They say some epileptics don’t want to be cured. The fits are part of who they are. In a similar way, it depressed Vincent to think that he’d lost his gift forever.
But now it was back, as intense as before. At the instant of the touch Vincent got a vivid flash of the beggar’s life. A view from a childhood window overlooking a hill. Pale cracked ceramic jug on a washstand, rosy dawn light shining on it. First morning in a new place. Sound of other children in the dormitories below. Running water and sadness. The furious joy of freedom when he was big enough to run away. Hitting the road and never going back. Sleeping rough and falling in with dubious companions, drinking and wandering and never going back. The beatings and brutality, fighting for your life over a scrap of blanket or a pair of shoes. But never going back. Because there was the joy as well. Casting your bread on the waters every day. Never knowing what was around the next corner. Perpetually throwing yourself on the mercy of the world. Like closing your eyes and jumping off a rooftop, blind in the faith that you’d land somewhere soft. And sometimes you did. Sometimes there was the offer of a bed for the night, of a roof over your head, of a meal. Sudden unexpected gifts of cash from the hands of a stranger. Hope blossoming in the most unexpected places.
Vincent felt the emotions of the man course through him, erupting from his own mind, leaving him weak and drained. He found himself sitting on the bench again, too shocked and weak for a moment to move. But also delirious. He had rediscovered a part of himself.
‘Vince, are you all right?’ called Justine, who had gone back to the car. Her voice was anxious.
‘I’m fine.’ Vincent was watching the beggar tottering away along the embankment. The tall, ravaged man was apparently unaware of what had just happened.
Justine was sitting sideways on the front seat of the car, with the door open and her legs out on the pavement, waiting for him. ‘Are you sure?’ But Vincent hardly heard her. For the first time in years the gift had possessed him. He was looking around warily, searching for the results of the contact.
He’d seen and felt the man’s life. But that was only half the story. The energy had passed through him; it must have gone somewhere. It must have changed something. It always had before.
In the past he had spun mirrors through the air, twisted pieces of metal, torn walls down with it. So what had happened this time?
He couldn’t see any change at all. Just the empty early‐morning pavement with the river moving by on one side and traffic flowing past on the other. He got up from the bench and went over to Justine.
‘It happened again. Just now.’
‘I know.’
He began to ask her how she knew but then Justine nodded at something behind him and Vincent turned to see the line of cherry trees, all bare limbs a moment ago.
Now they nodded in the breeze, branches thickly frothed with pink blossom.
* * *
There was no sign of the Doctor or his woman friend when they got back to the house. Vincent noticed however that someone had closed the garage door.
Justine paused to get a few things from the bedroom and he used the time to clean broken glass off the stairs. She was right. The milk and orange juice would wash out of the carpet easily enough but it had stained the wood on the risers, probably forever. He