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We went to the lounge, which was almost empty. The string quartet was now just the thinner Miss Elquitine, playing the violin in between fits of coughing. Scattered around the lounge were a few patients, pale as ghosts, clutching their armchairs like they were using them to grip on to life. In the corner an old lady with no teeth was slurping a cup of broth as if it was her last meal.
‘Not everyone gets cured, then?’ I asked the Doctor.
He shrugged sadly. ‘Only the important people. Another reason I don’t like what’s going on here.’
‘You’re sure Rory is perfectly safe?’
‘Oh yes.’ The Doctor waved an arm around. ‘He can’t tell them anything useful. Don’t worry. Trust me. When they realise there’s nothing there, they’ll let him go. It’ll be fine. Especially after I’ve done the next bit.’ He rubbed his hands together and then coughed loudly.
Miss Elquitine stopped playing her violin, and a hush settled over the room.
‘Ladies, Gentlemen, Boys and Girls,’ began the Doctor. ‘If I might have a word…’
It was kind of like when Hercule Poirot calls everyone into a room to say who did it, although at first everyone in the lounge looked totally uninterested. But the Doctor spoke on. He explained a lot of things – about who he was, about who they were, about why they were here. About all sorts, really.
‘The most important thing to know is that you all have a dreadful, dreadful disease – and you came here looking for a cure. Some of you are still waiting for that cure. The bad news is that the cure won’t work.’
At around about this point, some of the nurses sidled into the room, their faces sharp and interested. The Doctor spoke on. ‘There is a time for everyone. And I’m afraid to say, your time has come. You were all born too early. Dr Bloom is a brilliant man, but his cure won’t work. It can’t be allowed to.’
Helena Elquitine stood, with a little difficulty, her thin frame shaking, and pointed her violin bow at the Doctor. For a second, she looked about to speak, and then sat back down.
A tall, pale-skinned man started shouting at the Doctor. ‘What are you saying? That we’re dying?’ He laughed, a wet and deep laugh. ‘We’ve known that for years… but some of us… some of us have started to hope… that maybe one day we could be cured.’
The Doctor winced. ‘I’m here to take that hope away, sorry.’
That went down very badly. Jedward badly.
‘Tough crowd,’ I whispered to the Doctor.
He glared at me, furious. ‘Not now, Amy.’
I winced. But he’d already turned back to them, walking slowly around the room, like there was all the time in the world, talking to each one, so kind and patient. Trying to reason with them, to explain. To tell them all that they were going to have to die. He did it very nicely, I’ll say that for him. Like he was coaxing and encouraging and cajoling. But he was still spreading really very bad news.
As the Doctor talked, I noticed other patients slip in to listen to him. Mr Nevil came in, followed stiffly by the plump Elquitine sister. The Doctor started talking to a tiny, frail old man who was shaking his head sadly. I pointed out that we really should go, that we were running out of time.
‘So are these people, Amy,’ said the Doctor, straightening the old man’s blanket. He patted the man on the knee.
Olivia Elquitine stood at his side, shaking with fury. ‘What if you’re lying?’ she hissed, jabbing him with a plump finger.
The Doctor looked at her, so dreadfully still. You know how it is when it’s about to rain and there’s just a fraction of a second before the heavens open when the world pauses and braces itself? That’s how still the Doctor was.
‘Olivia, you know I’m not lying. You know. I am sorry.’ He patted her on the shoulder.
Mr Nevil was next, the great brute of a man looking scared. He was huge, old and large, but now he just looked like a scared little boy. Olivia grasped his hand protectively.
At that moment, Dr Bloom made his grand entrance with his wife at his side. They looked magnificently cross. Dr Bloom was in full sail, but Mrs Bloom got there first.
‘My dear Doctor!’ she shouted. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She flashed a smile around the entire room. ‘Oh dear, whatever next! You really mustn’t be up and about, must you now?’ She took an arm, and tugged it firmly. ‘The poor man’s had quite a nasty bump. We’d better get you back to your room before you have Another One.’ She underlined the last two words very neatly. ‘And you, dear Madame Pond.’ Her voice was as sugary as a honey-coated knife. ‘Madame Pond. Here you are, up and around with that dreadful concussion of yours. Why, I do despair. If we’re not careful we’ll find you both dead in your beds tomorrow.’
That surprised me. A clear, actual threat from Mrs Bloom. Sugar-coated, but still. I raised an eyebrow.
She acknowledged the challenge with a tiny, tight little nod, as stiff as the ringlets in her hair. The nod, the smile – it all said, ‘Oh yes, I know your game, and I am telling you right now that it stops.’
Olivia Elquitine stood up again. ‘But Madame Bloom! Dr Bloom! He’s been saying such dreadful things.’
Now it was Dr Bloom’s turn, all soothing warmth. ‘I am sure he has, my dear. This poor man is ever so ill!’ He chuckled, like he was reading a Christmas cracker. ‘Why, he even thinks he’s a doctor!’ More laughter. Which the Doctor joined in with. Startlingly.
He slapped Dr Bloom on the back. ‘Absolutely. Hilarious. Naturally I came in here to tell all your patients that they were going to die. Great joke. Lovely.’
The tiny old man looked up, eyes red and rheumy, and blinked. ‘Are we still getting rice pudding?’ he asked for no apparent reason. I was with him.
‘Yes,’ snapped the Doctor, angrily and coldly. ‘There’ll be rice pudding for you, buns for everyone and plenty of orange juice for the Silurians, too.’
Mrs Bloom tugged at his arm again, and found herself holding the Doctor’s jacket. He’d slipped free of it.
He strode into the centre of the room. ‘Dr Bloom, you are a brilliant, brilliant man, but you know that what you’re trying to do is wrong – it’s a short-cut, and it’s a short-cut that isn’t going to work. I’m going to give you a tip – fresh air, rest, lots of hygiene. That’s all on the right lines. Stick with that. But stop, I absolutely beg you, stop trying to use that thing on the beach to cure these people. It’s not going to work. It can’t work.’
Dr Bloom smiled a slow ‘got you’ smile. ‘If the cure is so wrong,’ he said, ‘why have you let me use it on your friend Mr Williams?’
‘Ah.’ The Doctor’s manner fell. He was met by a storm of muttering protest from the patients.
Mrs Bloom was at his side in an instant, wrapping his jacket around his shoulders. ‘See, Doctor, you’ve got yourself all in a dreadful tizzy. We really should just pop you back in bed. Come away now and stop making such a dreadful scene…’
The Doctor’s reply, when it came, was very quiet; as soft as an old towel. ‘I am letting you cure Rory because he shouldn’t be here. He definitely shouldn’t be sick. And because he’s too important to Amy for me to let anything happen to him.’
‘Interesting,’ said Mrs Bloom, her words all gooey with caring. ‘Can’t you see what a muddle you’re in? Tch! Tch! What a pickle! Perhaps it’ll all seem clearer when you’ve had A Little Rest.’ Clearly that was a signal – the attendants moved closer, gathering in around the Doctor. I wondered if they’d invented the padded cell yet.
‘Oh, very good.’ The Doctor frowned. ‘You did it deliberately, didn’t you? You infected Rory so that… so that…’ He slumped, letting two attendants grab hold of him. I felt someone else grab my arm. So that was it then, rebellion over. Well, we’ve had better.
Dr Bloom started, frowning at the Doctor. ‘I didn’t!’ he protested, his voice troubled. ‘Please, I really must assure you.’
Eyeball-to-eyeball the Doctor replied, ‘No, you didn’t, did you? So if you didn’t, who did?’
A crackling silence settled between the two of them.
Dr Bloom faltered. ‘I don’t… I mean… I don’t know…’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Something else is going on here, Dr Bloom. You think you’re at the centre of the web – you’re really a long way off. You’re just a fly. So who is the spider?’
Dr Bloom’s wife squeezed his shoulder. ‘My husband is a very important man.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ the Doctor looked bored. ‘But… someone else is running things, aren’t they?’
Perdita stood very still.
So did the other patients in the room.
It was electrifyingly odd.
‘Oh,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s curious. It’s been listening.’
‘What?’
The Doctor waved around the room. ‘Look at them… something has got into all their minds. Something very vicious and nasty.’
The patients stood there. Silently. Awkwardly. Staring at us.
‘Er, Dr Bloom,’ whispered the Doctor. ‘I really, really think you should listen to me when I say this… Something is very badly wrong with your patients.’
‘How so?’ Dr Bloom looked baffled.
The patients all stepped forward. Shuffling closer. As one, they raised their hands. BANG! The French windows burst open and the storm started to pour in. The candles blew out… but the room stayed lit – a strange green glow was seeping up from the floor.
The Doctor looked at the Blooms and then at the patients.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Interesting. Fifty-seven varieties of interesting. Dr Bloom, you woke up something very alien but mostly benevolent on that beach. You saw a way to use it to cure people. Only something’s taken control of that creature, and instead of using it to take bad things out of people… to cure them… only now, it’s putting things back into them.’
‘Really?’ asked Dr Bloom.
One of the Elquitine sisters twisted slowly towards him, fog pouring from her mouth and clothes. The same thing was happening across the room – skirts and jackets billowing and leaking out a thick, green mist. It stank.
It was a terrible sight, so bad that it shook Mr Nevil from his trance. ‘Olivia!’ he roared. ‘What’s happening to her?’ he demanded. ‘Is this your doing, sir?’
‘No,’ the Doctor sounded alarmed. ‘There is a strong psychic link between the thing on the beach and the patients. Someone has been using it to affect the patients and the creature…’
Inside the mist, lightning crackled – it was like the storm was in the room.
‘That is very bad.’ The Doctor shook his head, warding us back. ‘That psychic link needs severing… It’s not going to be pretty.’
Mr Nevil stood there, his hands shaking. ‘I have a gun, sir, I have a gun!’ he yelled, pulling one out.
‘Well, please don’t shoot it at the weather,’ snapped the Doctor.
‘Nonsense!’ roared Nevil. ‘I don’t care about that. I’m going to take down a couple of these leaky blighters. Soon square them up sharpish.’ He took aim. The Doctor reached out to push away his hand, but instead the storm acted – a bolt of lightning lashed out of the mist, striking the gun and wrapping Nevil in St Elmo’s Fire. He stood there, jerking and yelling like an angry puppet toad and then stopped.
The light around him faded – the room was dark now, dark apart from the crackling green fog that was pouring out of Mr Nevil’s mouth.
‘It’s the storm,’ I said. ‘How are they doing that?’
‘Tell you in a minute.’ The Doctor grabbed my hand. ‘I need you all to get out of here…’
The lounge was changed – the shutters were banging wide open in the rain, and the fog was pouring in through the windows – that same fog from the beach, curling up around everyone’s feet and lighting the room a pale green glow.
Something pulled at my brain. I couldn’t move. I looked at the Doctor, desperately, but there was something… something in my throat.
The Doctor seemed to realise. ‘Please, hurry. It’s me they’re after…’ He turned and shouted to the storm. ‘Yeah, go on, lovely juicy brain. Come and get it!’
I could move my feet a little. ‘What are you doing?’ I demanded.
‘Hopefully giving you all a bit of space. Run!’ The Doctor stood there alone, confronted by the steadily advancing patients. Fancy dress zombies shuffling closer and closer towards him.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
We made it to the door before the Doctor started to cry out. Whatever he was doing, it hurt him.
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