Season 13 - Chapter 4

 

 

Season 13 – Chapter 4

 

‘Listen, lady,’ I say to her. ‘I think you’ve got some flippin’ explaining to do.’

            I sound so vehement! That’s exactly the word for it. I’m not used to sounding like that. It’s not really me at all. Well, sometimes it is. Sometimes a spot of vehemence is just the thing. A bit breathy, a bit annoyed. Letting the other person know you won’t stand for any nonsense. Oh yes, I’ve been known to be a bit vehement when the moment calls for it.

            Like now. During Association hour in the anti-gravity yard. I’ve got old Bianca in a corner in the shade where no one can really notice. What’s a bit funny is the old anti-gravity aspect, which means that I’ve no sooner got her cornered than we’re both sliding up the coarse stone wall and every move we make to bring ourselves back down has us turning in cartwheels in the other direction.

            ‘Oops.’ I try to spin us back the other way. ‘Sorry.’

            We’re spinning out into open space now and people are noticing, and pointing at us.

            Bianca swears crossly at me and tells me I’m a fool. ‘Let go of me!’ she yells, but I cling on tighter and we go loop-de-loop. No longer are we hidden in a discreet corner of the prison yard. No longer are we having a quietly serious heart-to-heart. Now people are pointing and laughing because we’re having a tussle in mid-air with our hair standing on end, twirling in slow motion for everyone to see.

            ‘You’re making a show of us!’ Bianca yells. ‘This is just what you were like in the old days!’

            Now, that’s what I wanted to talk to her about. That’s what I was feeling all vehement about. All these hints that Bianca’s been dropping. About how she knew me at school. About how we knew each other as kids.

            Well, to be honest, Fam, I’ve had quite enough lately of people saying they know more about my past than I do. I mean, it’s ridiculous! Folk coming out of the flippin’ woodwork. Dropping sly little hints.

They’ve got me lying awake on my bunk in the artificial night and I’m wondering: just how much of my own story do I remember?

            The women in the courtyard below are growing smaller and smaller. They’re jumping up and down, laughing and excited, sending up little puffs of moondust. And Bianca and I are tumbling, clutching hold of each other and I have a sudden stab of fear. Surely there’s a protective shield above our heads? Surely we’ll eventually bounce off the invisible ceiling and float softly back down..? But maybe there isn’t.

Maybe we’ll just go on floating away through nothingness in the most gradual and most hopeless prison break there’s ever been..?

Escape into Nothingness.

Ha! Typical!

            ‘You idiot,’ Bianca snarls at me. I’m still gripping her hand and she’s trying to shake me free. Her orange-painted fingernails are digging into my palm.

            ‘You have to tell me the truth,’ I gasp. ‘Are you really from Gallifrey? Did you really sit next to me at school?’

            ‘What do you think I’ve been telling you?’ She tosses her headful of soft pink curls. ‘Do you think I make up this stuff for the good of my health..?’

            ‘But who are you, though?’ I shout, trying to summon up enough of the required vehemence again. Then I gasp. ‘Oh flip, you’re not another one of me, are you? They’ve been coming out all over the place everywhere this past year! All these me’s I never even knew I was! You’re not, are you, Bianca? Oh, tell me you’re not!’

            This creases Bianca up. She roars with laughter as she shakes off my pathetic grasp and turns cartwheels through the thinning air. ‘You! You! As if I’d be you! Never in a million years, lady! Hahahaha!’

 

*

 

Oh, but it’s true. I’ve never met so many people all claiming to be me as I have this year.

            It’s been a rum do.

            I mean, it’s one thing to have something like a special adventure, you know the kind of thing. When the fate of the universe hangs in the balance and all that jazz, Radio Times cover and blah-de-blah, Anniversary Special. Like, a very special occasion when only the combined talents of more than one Doctor can save the world, etc etc. We’ve seen all that.

Like a funeral, when you see family members you’ve avoided for years. Jostling along and trying to make the best of feeling awkward with all that proximity. Inappropriate drunkenness and everyone in their best clothes, glaring at each other. Is that so-and-so? Is that his new pal..? Digging up the past as you bury the hatchet. That’s my experience of Multi-Doctor episodes.

            Flippin’ Blinovitch and his time limitation effect. No flippin’ use.

            Anyway, this year… well, Fam. It’s been different.

            There was, for example, Ruth.

 

*

 

Later, after that embarrassing scene in the anti-gravity exercise yard, I’m having a cup of tea with Dusty in her cell and explaining all about Ruth.

            As best I can.

            Something about Dusty tempts me into honesty.

            ‘I knew there was something different about her. Something special. Something that was hidden… even from herself.’

            Sagely Dusty nods and sips her tea. ‘And you went to the coast with her? For a weekend?’

            I shrug. ‘The details have gone a bit hazy. It were months ago now, and so many peculiar things have happened since. And you know, each time I go back to Gallifrey, something bizarre happens to my memory. I’ve never figured that out.’

            Dusty snorts with soft laughter. ‘Home can really screw you up. It’s why I rarely look back. I’ve always kept moving. I try to keep travelling…’

            ‘Well,’ I carry on. ‘Ruth had lost her fella, and I’d lost my Fam, somehow. I forget how. This was in Bristol, I think. 2020. Terrible year. Horrible year. I don’t know what I was even thinking, being there in that year, but there I was. And Ruth had this idea about going back to the house that her mum and dad had left her in their wills, right on the seafront. A lighthouse. That’s what it was. She said – you know what? We have to go to the lighthouse.’

            ‘Like Virginia Woolf,’ Dusty smiles.

            I frown. ‘That’s a whole other story.’

            ‘I don’t doubt it. And what happened at the lighthouse..?’

            ‘We had a few lovely days. Fire blazing. Red wine and chocolate. She told me about her husband and her work. I told her about travelling in time and space. She looked at me a bit blank at first. And then she had a funny do.’

            ‘A funny do..?’

            ‘At first she looked less friendly. Her eyes were strange. Like, focused on something just over my shoulder while we were talking. Like something was materialising just behind me… Which isn’t unheard of, of course. So I started feeling a bit paranoid…’

            Dusty smiles. ‘You were expecting a nice, romantic time…’

            I shrug. ‘Dunno what I was expecting. Hasn’t been much time and space in my life for romance since… since…’ I drift off then, trying to remember. ‘Anyway, Ruth had the Judoon hot on her trail. For some reason they were after her. Space rhinos. Hunting a nice, friendly woman from Bristol. A tour guide. We had no idea why. Until… gradually… after a weekend with me at the seaside… her memories started to come back…’

            Dusty’s black-lined eyes widen. ‘Oh, yes..?’

            I nod. ‘I think it came as a shock to both of us. Maybe more to her. We’d been for a walk along the beach. There was no one around. I was thinking, it’d be nice to have a dog, if you lived here. Taking them for long yomps along the beach…’ I stretch out my legs on the bunk in Dusty’s room. Not much space in here and suddenly I’m longing for that beach where I walked with Ruth.

            ‘Was it like a flash of lightning?’ Dusty asks. ‘Her moment of realisation? A real epiphany?’

            ‘Apparently,’ I say. ‘And she raced off back indoors to change all her clothes. She came out ages later in quite a different outfit. A whole different attitude. Well, I’d left her to it. I thought she needed some time by herself. But when she came back out, she was in a frock coat, a waistcoat, a cravat and glasses with blue lenses. She was wearing the kind of boots that you need to wear when you’re set on having serious adventures, you know? Seven-league boots for striding through the galaxy…’

            ‘Oh,’ says Dusty. ‘So she wasn’t just a tour guide from Bristol?’

            ‘If I’m learning one thing in this incarnation,’ I sigh. ‘It’s that with women… there are always complications. There’s always extra layers. There’s stuff you’d never even dream of.’

            ‘Hahaha,’ laughs Dusty. ‘You’ve no idea, The Doctor. You’ve got no idea. Just you wait..!’

 

*