Season Thirteen - Part 2

 

Of course, she wasn’t as bright and cheery as she pretended in her messages to her Fam. She put that on, determinedly, mostly in order to cheer herself up. There was no telling whether her friends on Earth would ever hear her messages anyway. They probably wouldn’t. Would they? Maybe they would. Or probably not.

Her hopeful, fleeting words would just go on echoing uselessly down the corridors of her own flippin’ mind.

            Oh, dear, Doctor! You’re being proper mopey tonight! Come on! Get with it! Everyone’s gonna think you’re a right stick in the mud.

            She dressed in a fresh pair of coveralls and combed her hair straight. Tonight there was a gathering in the Great Hall. It was a weekly thing that the governor allowed them. Free Association, he called it. It was the Doctor’s first chance to see everyone in Season Thirteen all together.

            Well, someone had definitely gone to some effort. The Great Hall looked almost festive. There was bunting up, as if they were having a party. There was a bowl of fruit punch, which smelled disturbingly like the disinfectant that they used on everything here. Music was playing. A tune she remembered, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

            Milling around in the Great Hall were women prisoners of every description, all wearing the same drab outfit as the Doctor. Tall women, short women, hairy women. Women with feathers and scales. Antennae, crystal facets, robotic limbs and tentacles. The sheer, messy profusion of different types of life gave the Doctor’s spirits a little lift. She went round nodding and smiling and hoping that someone would look like they might want a chat.

            They were armed guards in every corner of the room, of course. They glared through their visors and their laser pistols were cocked at the ready. What were they expecting? A riot? The Doctor shook her head. Everyone seemed too sapped of energy and spirit to even contemplate such a thing. She frowned. Yes, that was quite right. All the prisoners seemed depleted, didn’t they? Subdued. She sniffed her noxious-coloured punch carefully.

            ‘I do remember you,’ came a droll voice at her elbow and she turned to see the elderly woman who had befriended her yesterday during exercise hour. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I remember you from somewhere?’ The woman had a face like wrinkled fruit and her soft pink hair had been teased into a mass of curls. She was standing on her tiptoes to shout into the Doctor’s face and still only came up to her elbow.

            ‘Oh! Hello, there,’ the Doctor grinned. ‘I was just writing to my friends about you. Telling them I’d only met one person friendly enough to talk to, in this whole place.’

            ‘They don’t like strangers here very much,’ the old woman said. ‘I’m Bianca, by the way. What are you in for?’

            The Doctor leaned forward confidingly. ‘It’s all a terrible mistake. I was dumped here by the Judoon. But I haven’t done anything! I’ve not had a trial or anything.’

            Bianca shrugged. ‘You’ll find that’s the same for most of us. We get shoved here to keep us out of the way. There’s no justice in this galaxy.’

            ‘Huh,’ the Doctor frowned.

            ‘Here, let me introduce you to some of the girls,’ Bianca offered.

            And that was how the Doctor came to meet Dusty Springfield.

 

*

 

Hiya Fam,

 

Well. Maybe this will only mean something to Graham, because he’s the oldest and he’s more likely to remember her name? I’m not sure? But you could google her anyway, and look up clips on youtube, I suppose.

            Anyway, my big news is that I’m now best friends with Dusty Springfield!

            I know! Get me!

Graham, I know you’ll think I’ve gone doo-lally from being locked up, but it’s true! She’s really here. It’s definitely her. We’ve talked for hours and everything and I’m completely convinced. It’s really her. Big blonde beehive. All that black mascara, the lot. I could tell just by her speaking voice. Sort of breathy and dusky and sweet. I stood beside her at that party and you could have knocked me over with a feather.

            ‘You’re Dusty Springfield!’ I gasped. ‘And… you’re in space!’

            She laughed at me, like I was acting like a daft fan. But she was pleased, I could tell. I suppose she doesn’t get recognised all that much, away from Planet Earth. But the question is, what’s she doing here? And what she done that’s meant she’s ended up on this prison asteroid?

            That’s what Bianca told me we’re on. A hollowed out asteroid. She says there’s no way off this hunk of dirt. She’s tried escaping often enough. There’s a whole spaceport of impounded vehicles and ships somewhere at the bottom, or the top, of the asteroid. But there’s no way to get to it. We’ll just have to see about that, I reckon!

            I told her – I goes, I like a challenge, me! I’ve been in worse pickles than this one! You just watch, lady!

            ‘How long do you think I’ve been in here?’ Bianca asks me. ‘Nine hundred years!’

            ‘You must have done terrible things,’ I gasp.

            ‘I did nothing,’ she protests. ‘Like I say, there’s no justice.’

            ‘I bet Dusty didn’t do anything, either,’ I say.

            ‘That’s the thing about prison,’ Bianca smiles. ‘You always bump into someone you recognise. Like me with you.’

            I squinch my nose apologetically. ‘Thing is, with all my years of travel and adventures and stuff, it’s all a bit of a blur. I hardly ever recognise faces. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. I might have met you before, Bianca, but who’s to say. I’ve been just about everywhere!’

            Bianca sniffs sadly and I feel a bit bad then. I feel like I’ve been showing off. No one likes a bragger. And that’s just what I sound like, don’t I?

            Anyway, the music blares out louder then. Someone’s kickstarted the karaoke. Dusty’s protesting feebly but they’re laughing and shoving her – all the alien ladies – and next thing, she’s up on top of one of the tables. She’s giving us ‘I Only Want to Be With You.’

            We’re all singing along and clapping.

            For a minute or two it’s like we all forget where we are.

            Towards the end of the song Bianca nudges me with her bony elbow. ‘I’ll give you a clue.’

            ‘You what?’

            ‘Where I remember you from.’

            ‘Go on, then.’ The applause for Dusty is huge. All the women are shouting ‘More! More!’

            ‘We sat beside each other once upon a time,’ Bianca said. ‘At metal desks you couldn’t even write on. We both sat right at the back of the class so we could talk and no one would notice. You were fetched home at the end of each day by someone you said was your best friend. He was a huge robotic badger.’

            In all the joyful noise and tumult of that room I turned to stare down at the short, wrinkled woman. Dusty was giving into the crowd’s demands and doing them a second number. If my mind had been fully on her performance I’d have realised she wasn’t far enough along her own time line to be able to sing that particular song yet. But my eyes were fixed on the bright, mischievous eyes of Bianca. ‘What did you say? Say it again!’

            ‘Of course… I wasn’t called Bianca in those days...’

 

*

 

Doc!

It’s me again. Little update, even though I know the chances of you getting this are basically zero. Maybe you will. Stranger things have happened, haven’t they? Specially to us!

            I’m getting out and about. At last! Wearing a little mask. I went out with Ryan to do the weekly shop and made sure we got something other than tinned spaghetti hoops.

            We nipped round to see the others. The ones from that post-apocalyptic dystopian future. You know the ones. We rescued them from the Cybermen. They were the last human beings left alive and we brought them back with us. Now they’re living on the Primrose estate in a stolen TARDIS disguised as a Wimpy home.

Anyway. Me and Rylan went knocking on their door to see how they were getting on. We stood socially distanced, halfway down the garden path, of course. Ravio came to the door. She was the nice-looking older lady. I thought she had a bit of a soft spot for me, you know. In as much as you can tell when you’re running for your life on a giant ship full of Cybermen. But you know. I thought she took a shine. Not that I’m bothered. Not so soon after Grace, of course. And lockdown is a terrible time to even contemplate romance.

            ‘Oh, it’s you,’ Ravio said. She was stood there in a dressing gown and her hair wrapped in a towel.

            ‘It’s me as well,’ Ryan said, and she glanced at him.

            ‘What do you want?’

            ‘Well, I just wanted to check that you’re getting on all right,’ I explained. ‘New planet and all. And… er… it’s not always like this, you know. This is unusual for all of us. The pandemic and that.’

            She shrugged. Rubbed at her hair. ‘To be honest, I don’t mind. After the future we came from, all this is still pretty nice. Even in the circumstances.’

            And then it hit me. She was standing in the doorway of a Wimpy home. A semi-detatched, three-bedroom Wimpy home in the middle of the Primrose estate. Except that’s not what it really was, was it?

            ‘Erm… the Doc hasn’t tried to get in touch, has she?’ I asked, hopefully. ‘I mean, TARDIS to TARDIS, like?’

            It had suddenly struck me that this was the best way to try and get to you. These little notes of mine… there must be a way to get them to you, somehow? Using Ravio’s TARDIS?

            ‘Her? There’s not been a squeak out of her,’ Ravio said.

            ‘Can we come in?’ I asked. ‘We’ll keep our masks on.’

            ‘You can be in my Bubble,’ she smiled at me ruefully. Then she glared at Ryan. ‘But you’ll have to wait out there.’

 

*