4 Protection
When Ben went downstairs the following morning, Jillian and the child had already gone out. Avoiding him, he was sure. Maybe she didn’t trust him around the child.
Or maybe she didn’t trust the child around him.
“You’re looking a wee bit brighter this morning, I see,” said Doctor Macreedie, when Ben entered the kitchen. The doctor poured him a cup of tea without asking. “Cereal? Toast? I’m afraid I can’t offer you a full cooked breakfast as my wife and I are vegetarians.”
Ben stared at him, trying to work out if he was joking or not. There was no sign of humour in the man’s expression: it was just a half-apologetic statement of fact. He clearly didn’t see blood-sharing as a form of eating, or drinking.
Ben ate some bread with the tea.
“Are things any clearer now?” asked Doctor Macreedie after a short time. “Are the memories of your life coming back?”
But that wasn’t possible: Ben didn’t have a life in this world. He shook his head. “I have the memories, all right,” he said. “They just don’t fit in with anything else.”
The doctor waited until Ben had finished his breakfast, then he gestured to the kitchen door. “Come along,” he said. “Come and see my office.”
~
Doctor Macreedie’s “office” was his surgery.
He led Ben through the house to a heavy wooden door, which he unlocked and swung open onto a small corridor. He ushered Ben through.
To the left, there was an archway through to a waiting area. Padded chairs lined the edge of the room, gathered around a low table displaying a selection of magazines. On the walls there were posters about asthma, the dangers of smoking, and a range of common blood disorders. Smaller cards on a display board advertised a mother and toddler group, stress management workshops, weekly meetings of something called the Purity League and other community events and services.
Like so much that Ben had seen in the last day or so, it was familiar and yet subtly changed.
He looked out through the opened blinds and realised that the surgery was in the newer part of the building: the flat-roofed annexe.
“Through here, if you will,” said the doctor.
Ben turned and saw that he was being led into one of the consulting rooms. He went in and sat, and Doctor Macreedie eased the door shut before seating himself behind his desk.
Again – so familiar!
All the normal equipment for testing blood pressure and so on were just as you would expect. There was a small basin with a rubber glove dispenser, an examination bed protected by a pull-down paper towel, gaudy paintings tacked to the wall which could only have been produced by young Adam...
Doctor Macreedie’s fingers pattered on a keyboard and he stared intently at a flat-screen on his desk.
He paused then, and turned to look at Ben, transfixing him.
“You’re not one of us, are you, Ben? That’s why there are no records of you or your family.”
Ben looked at the man. His face was sympathetic, compassionate.
Slowly, Ben shook his head.
“Sergeant Adams said he saw it straight away, but I didn’t believe him at first. I didn’t think it was possible that there could be a boy walking the streets who is not as we are. But he insisted. He persuaded me to take you in and see for myself. He told me you needed help. He was right not to hand you over to the Social Services. Who knows where you might be by now, if he had done that?”
“What will you do?”
“I’m a doctor, Ben: I want to help you. You’re in the best place here. Sergeant Adams was right to entrust you to his family.”
Doctor Macreedie put a gentle hand on Ben’s arm. “I will keep you here, of course, under the protection of my family. We’ll need to take precautions, for your own safety, though. You must not go out as you did last night – you’re a temptation to others and you’re a danger to your own self, wandering the streets like that. Don’t worry, my boy, I’ll look after you.”
The doctor slid open a drawer and reached inside.
Ben looked at little Adam’s paintings on the wall. One showed a stick figure with an over-sized head. Its mouth had been painted a bright red.
He looked back, and Doctor Macreedie was placing a syringe in its plastic wrapper on the top of his desk.
“It’s okay,” the doctor said, in a calming voice.
He took Ben’s arm and turned it, then slid the sleeve up. Removing an antiseptic wipe from a sachet, he cleaned the inside of Ben’s elbow, leaving the skin cold and tingling. Then he reached for the syringe and removed it from its wrapping.
“It’s okay,” he said again. “There’s no need to be alarmed. I just need to do some tests.”
He slid the needle into the vein and Ben ground his teeth to stop himself from crying out.
Slowly, the collecting tube filled a deep red.
When he was done, he sealed the tube in another plastic bag and attached a label. He smiled at Ben. “That’s it,” he said. “All done.”
~
Back in the main part of the house, Ben sat down at the kitchen table. On the inside of his elbow there was a small circular plaster, which he could feel through the sleeve of his shirt.
He didn’t know what to think.
His feelings kept swinging from fear and doubt to surges of hope that this doctor might be a man he could trust.
He hardly dared hope that he had really found protection in this evil world.
Already, the long term consequences of his situation were flooding in: even if he was safe now, this secure haven could not last forever. The secret would get out.
But at least he had some breathing space, for now. A chance to learn about this place and to try to work out how he could ever get back to his own world.
“How could it have happened?” he asked. “I don’t belong in this world. I don’t understand what has happened to me.”
“There are stories of people like you,” said Doctor Macreedie. “A failure in development, a genetic flaw. Sharing blood has many medical and social benefits. For most of us, to not share blood leads to physical deterioration, deficiencies, a weakening of the immune system. But for some ... damage at some crucial stage of development, or maybe disease of some form or another, might block the benefits of sharing.
“There have always been stories of wild people who may suffer like that – we call them ‘ferals’.”
Ben remembered hearing Sergeant Adams use that word when he was talking to the doctor on the telephone last night.
In answer to Ben’s curious look, Doctor Macreedie continued. “They are...” He seemed to be struggling for an appropriate word. “People,” he finally said. “People who walk and talk and could almost pass as normal and yet who do not have the capacity to share blood. I have never seen one until now.”
“You think I’m one of these ... ferals?”
The doctor shrugged. “It seems a likely explanation. Something must have happened to afflict your memory, Ben, so that you don’t remember your origins. You must have wandered into Kirby in your confusion.”
“Are there ferals nearby, then?” asked Ben.
“Only stories,” said the doctor. “Every so often the local papers report sightings from Halton, Witheringhoe, Weeley Woods, Cottersett, but it’s all hearsay and foolery, if you ask me. Or rather, that was what I had always thought until you appeared in our midst. I’m not convinced, even now. Your blood tests may tell us more about your origins when we get the results back.”
Ben’s thoughts raced.
So there were other people in this world who were like him! Suddenly things seemed to be improving: he had found protection, and now he had learnt that he wasn’t as alone as he had thought.
A short time later, Ben was still sitting at the kitchen table. He sipped from the too-sweet tea Doctor Macreedie had made him and reached for another home-made biscuit.
Outside, he could hear the nasal whine of a lawnmower, the occasional hum of a passing car.
It all seemed so normal, so familiar.
The doctor had gone to answer the telephone and now Ben started to listen in. He didn’t like to eavesdrop, but it was hard to avoid.
“...yes, yes,” Doctor Macreedie was saying. “You must. You really must. It should be a family event – we should all share in this good fortune. I insist and it would be rude of you to refuse.” His voice was light. He was joking with someone, enjoying himself.
“Yes, you were right, I’m telling you. A feral, just as you said.”
There was a pause, then the doctor said, “No, my blood-cousin, it’s only right. You found it so it’s only right that you should come and share. I took a sample of its blood today... Yes, yes: just a syringe-full. You should have seen the look on its face! I had to try it. It’s sweet and raw and full of strangeness – like none I’ve ever tried. You have to come, my cousin. We should open a vein together. It’s only proper. I think we should celebrate our good fortune, no?”
Ben didn’t move. Couldn’t think straight. All his illusions were shattered. Yes, he had found protection, but at what price? And how long would he survive in the doctor’s care?
Just then, Doctor Macreedie came back into the room, smiling. Ben looked at him. There was something just a little too eager in the doctor’s manner.
“That was Sergeant Adams,” said Doctor Macreedie. “He was asking after you. He’s going to drop in this evening.”
Ben looked away.
“I... I think I’ll go upstairs.”
Ben rose and went out to the stairs. Doctor Macreedie followed him all the way. When Ben went into his room, the doctor shut the door behind him. An instant later, Ben heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
He went over to the window and stared out across the garden. The flat roof was below but he was too high up to jump.
He sat on the bed and tried to think.
Weeley Woods.
Doctor Macreedie had said that some of the sightings of ferals had been from the Woods.
Barlow’s Patch ran alongside the Woods – that was where Ben had been when the change must have happened.
He had to get out of here! He had to get to Weeley Woods.
Maybe if there were real humans hiding out in the woods, they would be able to help him. Where did these people come from, after all? Maybe they had come through from the real world just as Ben had.
And maybe they would know the way back.