Chapter 15
Old Bones
How much blame must the Doctor take for his Family's
plight? We know from experience that he has a catalytic effect
on any situation he visits. No one who meets him, even for
just a moment, walks away untouched, unscathed or properly
mangled. His involvement is usually beneficial, but in his
Family's case it's downright catastrophic. If you trace back
the disastrous events in the House, don't they all lead to the
moment when the Doctor failed to come home? Or do they go
further back to the moment when he left? Or still further to
the moment of his birth? Cousin Glospin suspects it goes even
further than that. Perhaps the real problem is that the Doctor
exists at all. Sooner or later he may finally have to start
saying he's sorry.
Poor Satthralope, rudely awakened from her deep sleep. She
is keeper of the keys, the spider at the heart of the House's
web, lost and lulled in shadowy dreams like Aunt Ada Doom, who
saw something nasty in the woodshed at Cold Comfort Farm. It
takes time to wipe the sleep from her rheumy old eyes. But
when she wakes, when she feels the shuddering protests of the
House to which she is wedded, when she sees the transgression
thrown along corridors of mirrors; then forbidden secrets,
lost under the dust of centuries, will be uncovered and the
price of their hiding will be exacted. Far better for
everyone, if she just turns over and goes back to sleep again.
I needed another passage harking back to happier times and
childhood adventures. The only sunlight in Lungbarrow comes in
shafts of memory from life before the darkness. So it's a hot
dry summer in the valley at the foot of Mount Lung. Somewhere
across the meadow the Gallifreyan equivalent of the Famous
Five are solving crimes and being insufferable little oiks,
the Gallifreyan equivalent of Swallows and Amazons are
fighting pirate battles on the lazy river, the blossom thieves
in the magenta orchard are too fagged out to tweet, and even
bookish Cousin Innocet has been led out of doors on a berrying
expedition by her roguish Cousin, the Doctor. Happy days. Any
time now, Moominmamma will arrive with the lemonade. It all
serves to deepen the dank gloom to which the Family are now
condemned. I like this little scene very much.
