The Noonday Demon ('Cold Coffee' entry)

[templeremus]

Title: The Noonday Demon

Genre: Angst/Character Study

Word Count: 2262

Characters: Jethro Cane, Dee Dee Blasco (walk-on parts for Biff and Val)

Rating: PG-13 for dark themes, some disturbing imagery

Summary: Midnight has left its mark on the Cane family. Spoilers for episode 10 of series 4.
 

Jethro's parents are aliens.
 

This is a theory that he's entertained for a while now, ever since they forgot about his fifteenth birthday. Recently, though - by which he means since Midnight, though he's admitted this to no-one except himself - the evidence keeps mounting.
 

Take clothes. Val (he calls her Val, sometimes, so that she'll know he's on to her) has long disapproved of anything he's bought under his own steam. It's always been too grubby, too baggy, too draining - You've got such a nice complexion, Jethro, a little colour would really bring it out. Except now he's ditched the T-shirts and cut his hair back, and her smile still goes crooked when she looks at him. Anyone even slightly human could fake a better smile than that, he's certain of it. The Doctor managed it, after all, before -
 

(Here he calls a halt. No use going down that route, not if he plans on getting any peace for the rest of the day. He sinks his chin into his chest; makes both his hands into fists at his sides. The memory releases him soon enough.)
 

Point number two: food. Val's latest obsession is that he's losing weight. On this, if nothing else, Biff concurs. They've started cornering him as soon as he's back from a run, sugary tea and plates of biscuits at the ready. Or they'll sit holding hands across the table while he eats, their own meals barely touched. It's a mystery how they can survive on so little, but any attempt to point this out is dismissed without a moment's thought. He's the one everybody's worried for, the one they think is wasting away. The feeling of their eyes on him makes his stomach churn.
 

"Just a bit more, darling," Val says, bracelets clicking against one another as she rubs a non-existent smudge from the tablecloth. Whenever she's out of the room, Biff is more abrupt.
 

"Look, I don't know what you think you're playing at. Maybe you want to punish me, or your mother, or both of us. But this here, all these stupid games, this isn't good for anyone. What happened, happened. It wasn't even your idea."
 

Jethro can't meet his eyes. There's something so solid about Biff's frustration, and he, Jethro, feels so insubstantial that a single glance might crush him. The same unreal feeling comes over at him at night, when there's no way to avoid getting back on the bus. The dream always picks up at the same point: the Doctor frozen, shivering like an animal in a trap, Sky reaching out her arms with that pale half-smile on her face. Only in this retelling Biff and the Professor are nowhere to be found, which leaves Jethro to finish the job himself, dragging the paralysed body inch by inch as Val fires orders at him and the creature that used to be Sky laughs with delight.
 

"Whose idea was it, then? Go on, Dad. You can tell me."
 

Biff doesn't answer, doesn't even recoil - which is the third plank in Jethro's parents-are-aliens theory. He should be able to see their guilt. It should be written across their faces, just as he knows it is on his. The fact that it isn't, that they can keep on shopping and visiting friends and arguing over who last reprogrammed the car, makes no sense at all as it stands.
 

At least things can't continue like this for long. He surprised pretty much everyone by doing well in his exams, so now there's university to think about, or an apprenticeship. Biff says university is for brainboxes and apprenticeships are for grease monkeys, and why  can't anyone get stuck straight into a job these days, learn what proper work is. Val downloads infopacks from half a dozen colleges and leaves them on the monitor in the kitchen for him to scroll through, "just in case".
 

That's how he finds the address. It's in small print towards the end of the prospectus, almost as if someone's forgotten to take it out, and the pictures haven't loaded, but he's sure it's them. Jethro finds himself actually reaching out for the holoscreen, putting his fingers through it as he grabs at the names. A plan, more real than anything that he's felt for weeks now, pushes its way to the front of his mind and squats there, immovable.
 

The others won't be awake for an hour yet. The house is quiet, holding its breath. "Going for a run," he calls, to nobody in particular, and sprints the half-mile to the station before he can think again.

 

The building he arrives at, two changes and an airbus later, might as well be on another planet. The whole area's neo-Enlightenment in style, which means cobbled pavements and imitation ivy glued around hyper-steel railings. It's history as reconstruction, as sepia-tinted nostalgia, so clean and neat that the sight of other people feels like an intrusion. A flabby man in academic dress squints at him from a far window. A clutch of students hurry down the steps, laughing too loudly for anything to be really funny. He waits until they're well away before trying the comms panel by the door.
 

"Professor Hobbes' office," says a disembodied voice.
 

Jethro is suddenly afraid that he might be sick. "Dee Dee. It's me. I mean, it's Jethro. From..."
 

"I know who you are."

There's a scuffle and a thud, like a door slamming. Just as he's about to give up, she's back on the line. "Look, I can't talk right now. Meet me in the park, after two."

The comms panel blinks at him, once, and shuts off.

A brief walk down the road takes him into a square flanked by terraced houses, identical down to the net curtains blanking out their windows. His disorientation must be obvious, because a middle-aged lady in an unflattering twinset offers him her sandwiches. He turns her down but accepts a drink when the cup is pressed straight into his hands. At first he expects an interrogation, of the kind he gets at home - but it soon becomes clear that she is keen on talking mostly for the sound of her own voice, and all that's expected from him is the occasional nod. When she gets up to leave he feels weirdly bereft, although she's said nothing that he'll remember later. Even before Midnight, he wouldn't have dared approach someone, a stranger, in the same way. Fear would have held him back: fear of saying the wrong thing, of embarrassing himself, all the usual adolescent hang-ups that feel so very insignificant now. How wonderful, to have those kinds of fears again.
 

"Jethro. Hi."

Dee Dee stands a little way off, clutching several folders to her chest. The cardigan he remembers from last time has been exchanged for one in pale pink, but otherwise she looks much the same on first glance. "Sorry," she says, not looking at him, "Essay crisis. I've got a spot at a cafe where we can..."
 

She orders coffee and cake for two people, and by this time he's too hungry to refuse. Their table is in the far corner, already hidden underneath her books. He ends up balancing his plate on his knees while she fusses with endless sheets of paper, still talking in the rapid staccato that leaves no space for interruption.
 

"I haven't seen him again. The Doctor. If that's why you wanted to see me. Though I've been looking, when I get a chance. The Professor lets me use the library after hours. There's a lot out there, myths and stuff, bits from the Torchwood archives. Nothing to pin him down to one place. I wish there was. So I could explain to him, y'know? Or, if not that, just say how sorry I am."
 

Jethro ploughs on with the cake, not really tasting it. Exhaustion has set in at last and made him irritable. It was a mistake to come here thinking she'd have answers. Only more anxieties, to pile on top of his. "Dunno why you should feel bad," he says. "You didn't do anything."
 

Dee Dee wraps both hands around her mug. Her fingernails, he sees now, are bitten ragged, some right down to the quick. "Exactly," she says. "Exactly. I didn't."
 

There's no possible reply for that. He wants out, wants to slip into the gap that the silence leaves and disappear completely. When he was a kid, every cafe like this one had a virtual reality headset. A week's pocket money would buy him half an hour's escape; a trip to the Moon, or into zero gravity, or wandering the streets of a city he'd never visit. The sessions were a secret between him and Biff, a weekend treat while Val was at her gymrobics class. Chocolate shakes and thirty minutes' plug-in time, and let's make sure we're home before Mum is, eh Jeffo?
 

They didn't last, those headsets. People got addicted. Proprietors started needing a license for every set, and before long they disappeared from view.  Jethro was crushed, though he tried not to show it; even then, at nine years old, he knew which subjects were inadmissible to grown-ups. The details of the simulation had never mattered much; he wasn't attracted to any one scenario over the others. Rather, he'd liked how fluid everything was. A VR encounter could be rebooted any number of times, played out in a hundred different ways, provided you had the money. Whenever things got difficult in real life - when Biff and Val argued, say, or he flunked a test - he would imagine unplugging this version of the world and starting over.
 

"Something's wrong with my parents." He can hear himself saying the words, as if they're being drawn out of him by some force beyond his control. "Not- like Mrs Silvestry,  not repeating, but...they don't eat. They won't talk about what happened. They just - watch me. All the time. It's driving me mad. But I can't - there's nothing that..."
 

None of the things he was most afraid of actually happen. Dee Dee stays where she is, shuffling occasionally through her papers. She doesn't laugh, or change the subject. She waits until he's finished, until there are no more words left and he's feeling empty and wretched. Only then, and for the first time that day, does she look him straight in the eye. "You know, I almost turned around back there, when I saw you. The hair, and the shirt and everything. You looked so different. Older. And I'm stood there like a kid in my Mum's clothes thinking, 'well he's doing alright, he's getting on with his life, why's he even bothering me?'" Now she laughs, a brittle humourless cough of a sound. "Isn't that stupid? As if I was the only one it happened to..."
 

Around them, the cafe has begun to fill up. People are jostling for space, flushed with the warmth and the effort of making themselves understood over each other's noise. Somebody knocks into the back of Dee Dee's chair, making her start. She drops the thought unfinished and makes a lunge for her bag, producing a fistful of credits that she pushes to his side of the table.
 

"Your parents. I think we should call them. There's a booth downstairs."
 

Jethro weighs the money in the palm of his hand, so light it's barely there. "I don't - want to," he says, "Go home, I mean. Carry on pretending, like it's fine, like all... that, on Midnight, never even happened."
 

Dee Dee huffs - not irritated, as he'd first thought when he heard her voice, but tired, worn down by the strain of holding herself together. They have moved closer to each other without realising it, their foreheads only inches apart. Anyone looking at them now would assume that they were lovers - or co-conspirators, perhaps, mulling over some illicit plan.
 

"So don't pretend," she says at last. "Tell them the truth. Everything that's going on with you. You're young, Jethro. I know you probably don't feel like you are, but you are. You can still change things, start again if you want. But right now, you need their help. And I honestly think they need you too."
 

He can't answer her. The effort of talking has pushed a lump up into his throat, so that he's half-choked with it. When Dee Dee makes to get up he does the same, letting his thoughts go blank, allowing himself to be guided into the knot of shouting, laughing strangers and out the other side.
 

It takes an age for his number to be recognised. Jethro's fingers feel clumsy, as though he's wearing gloves that don't fit. He can see Dee Dee on the other side of the booth's glass partition, still holding her papers and her mug of cold coffee. When she catches him looking she jerks to attention, as if someone's pulled her up on a string, and gives him a tiny, watery smile.
 

The call burrs once more, and connects. The voice that answers has panic crackling through every word. "Jethro? Oh my god, sweetheart, is that you? Say something, please, oh just tell me where you are-"
 

"Mum," Jethro says. Whispers, really; the lump is still there, a clenched fist of emotion pressed against his windpipe.
 

"Yes, darling," says the voice. "Yes, it's me."
 

The fist in his throat has relaxed, a very little. Through the glass, Dee Dee toasts him silently, raising her cup and mouthing the words, Go on.
 

Jethro takes a breath, and begins.

Comments

[paynesgrey]

Interesting introspection on this minor character. I almost forgot about that episode.
Well done.

[templeremus]

Thank you. This episode was definitely one of RTD's most disturbing scripts, to me. A very effective look at how people, with only a bit of external pressure, can turn monstrous.