Doctor Who: 73 Yards by Scott Handcock

Author:Scott Handcock [Handcock, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473533837
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2023-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Ruby

In the years that followed, Ruby tried her best to live a normal, simple life.

The Woman wasn’t leaving; she’d come to accept that. So instead she found another way to exist. Where before she’d always kept the Woman in sight, now Ruby became less guarded. Sometimes, she’d choose a discreet little coffee shop hidden away in a labyrinth of alleyways, knowing the Woman would be safely out of sight. Then she could meet with friends, Ruby decided; she could hang out with colleagues from work – but she still couldn’t risk them properly noticing the Woman who followed her. Whatever it was she said, it seemed to terrify people. Her own mother had …

No. Best not to think about that.

After a couple of months, Ruby chose to start seeing a therapist, to open up about her sense of isolation. She knew it wasn’t all in her mind, she understood the cause, but perhaps there was a way of coping with this: the lack of control, the isolation. Maybe Ruby had the power to change things.

For several sessions, Ruby explained what she’d been experiencing to a nice young man named Dominic. He tried to help her guide her thoughts, make her consider what this ‘Woman’ represented. Was it something to do with her past? Was it an embodiment of her feelings surrounding her mother – her birth mother, he meant, not Carla; they’d cover that in a different session altogether. And Ruby told him what he wanted to hear. She speculated about why the Woman might appear the way she did, always at a distance, driving people away – of course it was to do with her mother – and for a while, Ruby almost believed it …

Until the day came that Dominic encountered the Woman outside his office. Perhaps he’d engaged so much with Ruby’s story that he couldn’t avoid the connection? And this Woman looked exactly as Ruby had stated, to the point Dominic thought it might be a joke. But then, as he got closer, he learned the truth. The Woman must’ve told him all that she’d said to everyone else; everyone but Ruby, who could never get close enough.

Dominic cancelled all his sessions for the rest of the day and instructed Ruby to never make contact again. He even told her not to recommend him to anyone else, so afraid was he of hearing her name again, even in passing.

These incidents became more frequent. For Trudy’s birthday, they attended a concert at the O2 Arena where, for the shortest of times, Ruby almost allowed herself to forget about the Woman entirely. Then after the warm-up act, she looked down and saw that familiar shock of white hair standing sentinel in the aisle next to their seating block. She stood with her back to them, facing the stage, several rows and 73 yards away, almost as if she had come there to take in the show.

Most people absentmindedly made their way past this strange old woman, squeezing by to take their seats.

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