Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Magrs

Author:Paul Magrs [Magrs, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Time Travel, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character), Poodles
ISBN: 9780563538455
Publisher: BBC Pubns
Published: 2002-01-06T08:00:00+00:00

‘Oh,’ said Cleavis. ‘She’s based on Baba Yaga, the hag in Russian folk tales.

The one who flies through the air in a mortar and steers with a pestle. And she lives in a shed that runs around on chicken’s legs. And she eats babies for breakfast.’

‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘I know the one. But you still wouldn’t want to go on an adventure with her, would you? She’d drive you bonkers.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Cleavis glumly. ‘Though I don’t actually go on many real adventures. . . ’

‘Oh, I do,’ said the Doctor. ‘And I know.’

Cleavis stared at him.

‘But really,’ said the Doctor. ‘I think It sounds marvellous, your book.’

110

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

‘Are you a writer yourself, Doctor?’

‘Hmm?’

Cleavis patiently repeated the question as the Doctor rubbed his dog’s ears for him.

‘Oh, no,’ the Doctor said. ‘Just a humble student. Just a reader.’

‘Just a reader!’ cried Cleavis hotly. ‘Why, there is no such thing as “just a reader”! To the writer, there is nothing better! It does my heart good to hear you describe yourself thus, Doctor. To know that there is, somewhere in the world, at least one person who happily reads without ever wanting to write pages of his own. . . Really, sometimes I think that everyone else in the world harbours writerly ambitions and hides scrawled-over pages away in drawers and under their beds. . . ’

‘Really?’ said the Doctor.

‘And then they come waving them at you, just because you write, and they think that you can help them. . . ’

‘That sounds absolutely awful,’ said the Doctor.

‘It is,’ said Cleavis. ‘And really, I’ve got enough on my hands already, what with lecturing and tutorials and my own writing. . .

and looking after that

brother of mine. . . ’

‘It must be quite difficult,’ said the Doctor. ‘Tell me, tell me about William Freer.’

Cleavis’s expression changed. ‘Are you a reader of his then, too, Doctor?’

The Doctor’s eyes seemed, for a moment, mesmerising, and Cleavis had to blink. ‘I have read a great many things,’ said the Doctor solemnly.

And suddenly Cleavis had the bizarre impression that this man could see straight into him. He could somehow and, at a glance, read in Cleavis everything he had ever committed to paper. And not only that, he could read there, in his face, everything he would ever write, until the day he died.

It was a very unsettling feeling.

Cleavis swallowed, hard. ‘Freer joined our group. . . ’

‘The Smudgelings?

The Smudgelings, yes. . . at my invitation, Doctor. I host the group meetings in the rooms where my brother and I both live. At first Reg wasn’t happy that this man was going to attend. He had some sort of religious or moral scruples. . . ’

‘On what grounds?’

Cleavis gave an uneasy laugh. ‘That Freer was an adept in the dark arts. . . ’

The Doctor shrugged. ‘The Golden Dawn? Aleister Crowley and that lot?’

Chapter Eighteen

111

Cleavis looked mystified. ‘Who?’

‘Well, it’s not out of the question that he is an adept of some kind,’ sighed the Doctor.

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