Meanwhile, the wallpaper gradually worked itself forward from the wall, as if there were two bodies trapped behind it. Then two forms – just blurry columns of papery, restless matter garnished with rosebuds and flowers – budded away from the wall entirely and balanced on her carpet, strange and seething with life.
She watched as the columns resolved themselves into slender arms, narrow shoulders, graceful legs, slim torsos, charming heads with glossy sun-kissed hair, delicate bare feet. And here were her grandchildren. Their faces were deadly serious.
But then Xavier and Honor broke into the lovely smiles she knew so well and loved so much, their beautiful eyes shining with tenderness and concern.
‘Were you thinking of unhappy things, Grandmama?’ asked Honor, her voice gentle and sweet.
Xavier took her hand and squeezed it as he always did. ‘We can’t have that, you know. Everything has to always make you as happy as happy can be.’ He nodded, the light falling on the side of his face in a way that suggested the kind and honourable man he might one day become.
Julia shook her head and chuckled. ‘I was only remembering.’
‘But that’s sad,’ said Xavier, holding her hand more tightly. ‘Why do something that makes you sad.’
‘Well, I suppose there are kinds of sadness that are quite nice,’ Julia pondered. ‘It’s good sometimes to think of wonderful times and people, even when they’ve gone.’
Honor frowned. ‘We have to look after you and make sure that you’re happy and safe and that everything is just exactly as it should be. We can’t do that if you keep thinking.’
‘I do have to think, my darlings.’ Julia kissed each twin on each adorable forehead and felt so proud of them and so fond. She tried to remember when they had first showed her how special they were, the ways in which they were different from other grandchildren. It made her so glad that they trusted her in this way. ‘And as long as I have you both, I will always really be very happy, even if I am a little bit sad.’ She glanced out of the window into the well-maintained vegetable garden with its orderly rows of plants. ‘Now then, why don’t you scamper outside and bring me back something nice to go with your dinner. Perhaps some green beans, or some peas – whatever seems ready and best.’
And both of them did, indeed, patter delightedly off outside, laughing and attempting to play tag with each other – precisely like the good and adventurous and clever and wonderful children that Julia Fetch had read about in storybooks when she was herself a child.
As soon as they were out of sight, she forgot how they had appeared, forgot that that they were unusual in any way. More deeply in her mind was an area that forgot they had been the same age for as long as she had known them. She was unable to find the memory that would tell her how long it was that she had known them. And, deeper than all these clouds and absences and shadows, there was a space somewhere that failed to tell her she lacked all memory of their birth, or of their parents, or of ever having been a mother. If she had ever had a great love, a wonderful husband, a man she wished to share her life with, then her memories of such a man were locked far away, out of sight and out of mind.
BRYONY MAILER AND PUTTA Pattershaun 5 were having an argument. Above them, the sky was perfectly suitable for a summer afternoon with only a scatter of high clouds. They could smell pine trees not too far away and the sweet freshness of well-watered grass. They were walking under the intermittent shade of trees near a burbling stream and could see a merry breeze just tickling at the flag which marked the second hole.
As far as Putta was concerned, he was having a lover’s tiff. In ways that he couldn’t quite recall, he had courted and won this remarkable woman striding along beside him and waving her arms furiously while she yelled at full volume, sometimes in his face and sometimes while growling at the beautiful mature trees and beguiling landscape. He wasn’t too firm on the details of their courtship. Perhaps they were a pair of lawyers who had met over a complicated case, and having a good hearty discussion now and then brought them closer together. Perhaps they were auctioneers and enjoyed shouting. Perhaps…well, who they were was generally pleasantly foggy and why shouldn’t it be? Who needed the pressure of knowing who they were all the time? Putta was sure that if he really concentrated, he would absolutely be able to come up with how they’d met and what they did for a living and where they lived and why they were on this golf course and whether they enjoyed golf – they didn’t seem to have any golf bats or other equipment with them, so probably not – and why they were shouting. He knew he really liked this stuff he was wearing this…tweed. Tweed was a great word, he thought.
It was all just wonderful – that was the important thing. It was wonderful that they were here and wonderful that they were together and wonderful that they were screaming at each other and he couldn’t have been happier without being someone else entirely.
Putta turned to his beloved and bellowed, ‘What on earth are you talking about!?! That can’t possibly be true! If it was true I would know about it, wouldn’t I?!?’ He then smiled and tried to take her hand as he was absolutely sure he usually did at round about this stage in every afternoon. Soon it would be evening. Evenings were so romantic, weren’t they? And in the end they would get married and she would make a lovely wife and iron his socks, or ties, or gloves, or tweed, or whatever, and make meals he enjoyed while he went off and did whatever job it was he did…that would be established before he drove off to do it, or caught the bus, or…And Bryony – yes, that was her name – would be sweet and quiet and soothing and would rub his forehead with eau de cologne – whatever that was – when he was tired after a long day at the office, or the coalmine, or the lion-taming workshop, it would eventually be made clear which…
This all meant that Putta was more that slightly surprised when Bryony ripped her hand out of his grasp and shook him hard by his lapels while yelling at the highest volume she could produce, which was quite impressive.
BRYONY COULDN’T FOR THE life of her work out what was happening. Her head was spinning: literally spinning and also racing and swirling with information she couldn’t manage to cope with. She also didn’t really want to have to try.
She shook Putta again until his teeth clattered together. ‘Putta! Putta! Come on! You can’t have forgotten! The Doctor! You can’t have forgotten the Doctor!’
‘I don’t need a doctor. I’ve never felt better in my life. You do have gorgeous eyes, you know.’
‘No! The Doctor! He just…’ A shudder of grief and loneliness swept over her. ‘You were with me. You saw! It was horrible! It was so horrible!’
Putta grinned at her again like – she should couldn’t help observing – a complete moron. ‘Well, if it was that horrible, why think of it? I’m obviously not.’ He shrugged, in as far as he could while Bryony was still clutching his very resilient jacket. ‘Where will we have dinner? It must be dinner time.’
‘Those men – you can’t have forgotten what happened to them! They were just crushed! They were destroyed! Something is here! Something terrible! And now the Doctor’s gone we’re the only ones left to stop it!’
‘Of course, dear.’ Putta tried gently easing himself away from her. ‘I’m sure you’re right and I realise we do love shouting for some reason, but can’t we stop for a bit?!’
‘Why are you such an idiot!’
‘Why can’t we stop?!’ Putta patted her arm and grinned. ‘Really darling. I’m almost completely sure that we’re enjoying some kind of shared holiday right now and that needn’t involve shouting – not really. We’ve come from somewhere else to be in…in wherever this is…and we’re having a marvellous time. Truly. I’m pretty much certain of that.’ Putta met her eyes and appeared to be a sane and trustworthy and quietly handsome man – in a nervy and lopsided and scruffy, gingery way. ‘Why upset yourself?’
And Bryony felt so tired and alone and weak while she looked at him. It was starting to seem almost sensible that she should give up and pretend sh
e hadn’t seen anything…Maybe that would be for the best. She did have such a stabbing headache, and maybe it really wasn’t necessary to think about things if they were unpleasant and there was nothing you could do about them…Perhaps problems always ought to be left to sort themselves out…
Bryony’s head drooped. ‘Well, you could be right…’ Something inky was rising in her mind. ‘Maybe you’re right…’ There was this comfy, impenetrable cloud that was covering all the upsetting and spiky and frightening ideas Bryony had been having recently in a kind of marshmallow softness…‘Maybe…’ The dark, blurry marshmallow felt comfortable, it felt pleasant. Her own thoughts and memories didn’t.
Bryony looked across at Putta and felt herself becoming more and more convinced that she was on some kind of honeymoon and about to be fantastically happy. She was, in fact, beginning to be impatient to get married to this strange, skinny man with his charmingly ludicrous sawn-off trousers, oversized jacket and clumping big shoes. She thought that maybe her husband would stay at home after the marriage. This would leave her free to work as a world-renowned historian, giving lectures and receiving prizes in many glamorous ceremonies…Yes, that seemed likely. Really, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion. She could picture all the awards she was going to be given and all the fantastically impressive degrees she was going to earn and all the fantastically impressive award-receiving gowns she was going to own. Putta would cook and clean their home and do gardening in his spare time, she imagined, and she would come home after trips abroad with extra award statuettes and certificates for her achievements, which would be kept on display in a vast cabinet, probably in the dining room. And then she would be given a Nobel Prize for…Well, for something or other…
‘WHY DON’T WE GO back to the hotel!?’ howled Putta with the air of a man indulging a slightly quirky girlfriend who has decided to like loud conversations. ‘I’m getting a little hoarse!’ He chuckled. ‘Ha-ha…That’s what I would say if I wanted to buy a pony, wouldn’t I? I’d say I’m getting a little horse.’ Which was a remarkably silly remark to make and a very bad pun.
And at that point Putta suddenly and violently remembered the Doctor. The Doctor, that remarkable being – probably remarkable even for a Time Lord. The Doctor was exactly the kind of person who would say something silly right now – say something in his delighted and playful and deadly serious voice at just this point when everybody’s mind was being manipulated by some exterior, powerful, seductive…
Hang on a minute…
I couldn’t even really describe how I got here…I was doing something…No…Something terrible was happening…There was…The Doctor…Something terrible was happening to the Doctor…
And Putta – painfully, very painfully – remembered the Doctor’s large and intelligent eyes, the gangly energy he had as he pelted towards dangers that scared Putta out of his wits. And then there was the way the Doctor had of making Putta feel guilty about all the things he hadn’t done very well in his life. And then again, the Doctor had also made Putta feel pretty sure that doing more impressive things later on could be possible. Sometimes, when the Doctor had grinned at him and slipped him a sideways clever look, Putta had believed that doing remarkable, brave and memorable things was going to be inevitable really soon.
And then Putta knew, all over again, how warm and alive and just happy standing next to the Doctor seemed to make you feel.
But the Doctor was gone. Putta had stood and watched and been scared and out of his wits as the Doctor had been disappeared – simply ripped out of existence.
‘Oh!’ Putta dropped to his knees. ‘Oh, no!’ He’d never had what other beings referred to as a family – a group of genetically related entities who liked him, or at least were willing to eat more food than was absolutely necessary with him on certain important festival dates and the anniversary of his first leaving the broodcapsule. Still, he imagined this was how losing a member of his family might feel. ‘Oh!’ Yet even as he felt terribly sad, his head started to throb as if someone had blasted it with a UB17 on the 5+ setting and he began finding it slightly hard to recall why he was upset.
‘Bryony? What’s happening?’ Putta reached up from where he was still crouching, surrounded by a monumental headache. He tried to take her hand.
She seemed bewildered. ‘I don’t know…It’s as if someone is taking a long, hot spoon and sort of scooping out my memories.’ She slapped herself on the cheek. ‘Ah – ow – that worked a bit.’ She winced afterwards, but seemed encouraged. ‘Yeah…Try it. Go on, Putta. Give yourself a good wallop on the face.’
‘Urn…I’m not that good at hitting people…I suppose I am good at being hit…But mainly I run away…But the Doctor, Bryony – how could I have forgotten him? I miss him, Bryony. I miss him so much.’
Putta felt a thought being pushed into his brain from somewhere. It was the idea that the Doctor was perfectly fine and on holiday in Plymouth, wherever that was. Putta was even being given an image of the Doctor’s face – the face that had encouraged him and taken the time to look friendly while he had stared up at it from the hungry bunker and wondered if he was going to not only die, but die in a horrible way – the face which had made him know that everything would probably be all right and that even terrible situations could somehow still be enjoyable. In the picture he was being given, the Doctor’s face was nodding – a bit stiffly – and saying that Plymouth was lovely and he’d send them a postcard.
Putta realised he had to get rid of this lie before he started to believe it. And if slapping worked…
He swung his arm out wildly, hoping to hit his now strangely painless head.
He managed to miss entirely.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Putta! Don’t be so useless!’ Bryony snapped at him. ‘If you don’t slap you then I’ll have to slap you – it really does seem to…Oh, hang on, though.’ Her face grew calmer, less alive. ‘I think giving ourselves pain overcomes what it’s doing to us, but it seems to adapt really quickly…And it gives us pain if we remember and takes it away if we can’t…And it gives us horrible, fake bits of half-memory…And I don’t like other people interfering with MY BRAIN.’ She thumped her hand against a tree trunk and then yelped, alert once more. ‘It might not be possible to keep ourselves in enough pain to resist it. And, then again, it seems to find it really easy to punish us whenever it likes…Carrot and stick…But mainly stick…whatever it is…Argh.’ She grimaced as some spasm of hurt was inflicted as a penalty for trying to work out the identity of their tormentor. ‘Oh, the Doctor would know what to do. I don’t…I can’t…’
‘Me too…’ nodded Putta, miserably. But as he allowed himself to be overtaken by gloom he noticed that his head cleared and felt less sensitive. He frowned and – as an experiment – he carefully thought how completely lousy he must look and how unlikely it was Bryony would ever think of him as anything other than an irritation and how pathetically easy it had been to convince him that he was going to marry her and they were in love. At once his heart felt leaden, but he also seemed to be freer and more himself. ‘Being miserable seems to work as well, though.’ And if there was one activity at which Putta excelled it was being miserable.
Gathering all his energy he conjured up the first – and last – time his broodfather met him and found him a disgrace to the family name and the reputation of the Yinzill Domestic Propagation Service. Putta scrolled through memories of being laughed at by his broodbrothers, mocked by his teachers, rejected by playmates, avoided by females and taunted by both streetyouths and Civil Security personnel. He listed all the sports he couldn’t play and all the times he had injured himself trying to, all the abilities he didn’t have, all the lonely nights he had spent – plus all the lonely mornings, afternoons and evenings – and all the times he had peered up at the night sky and wondered what the point of anything was and, more particularly, whether there was any point to Putta Pattershaun 5, because if there was it was really well hidden.
A thic
k wave of despair raced up and over him like the dirty swell from a cold and polluted ocean, crashing onto an ugly and useless beach. ‘Oh-h.’ His head was now savagely clear. But in immediate retaliation, it was also gripped by a new icy, clamping ache. ‘Oww-www.’ He found that – kneeling as he was – he had folded himself over, bent double with his forehead touching the dusty path.
‘Putta. Are you OK?’
‘Not exactly.’ As soon as the pain had forced him to stop thinking, in came those soothing tempting thoughts and mirages from outside. ‘It feels like either my brain’s going to burst, or I’m going to make myself depressed for ever. And this was the first time I was…you know…I mean, being here on Earth and at the hotel and…and…’ He stopped himself before he said something absurd like – and you, Bryony. ‘The atmosphere and everything was very…cheerful.’
‘Cheerful!?’ Bryony walloped her own leg. ‘This place is appalling. And what’s the nearest big city…? Arbroath. Not exactly as glamorous as Manhattan. Famous for smoke-damaged haddock…Lately my life has been making me feel the whole of human evolution was some kind of a nasty joke and…’ She suppressed a look of glee. ‘Oh, yes – feeling completely hopeless it quite effective. Aghgh!’ And was clearly pummelled in the brain for it immediately.
Putta looked on, aghast, as what was obviously a horrible headache snapped in to overcome any avoidance of the implanted ideas. Bryony, grimaced across at him, ‘Oh, Putta. I’m not sure we’re going to win this one.’
‘Well, then I’m really going to…’ Putt had no confidence that he was really going to do anything much, but he had decided that if he managed to punch himself in the jaw and maybe knock himself out then maybe the alien intelligence might think he was dead and would leave him. Then he’d be OK when he woke up. He wasn’t looking forward to this and, blushing to a temperature he suspected might be medically harmful, he again extended a hand towards Bryony and waited – unable to speak – until she did this time take hold of it, while narrowing her eyes at him and looking suspicious.
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