Season 13 - Chapter 8

 

Season 13 – Chapter 8

 

I’ve become a companion in my own adventures!

And you know, really… it isn’t half bad.

            Dusty’s in charge now. She’s not much good at piloting her ship, but who cares? We’re not really bothered where we go. Just so long as we’re together.

            This control room’s pretty swish. Psychedelic swirls of purple and tangerine. Funny clanking things hanging from the ceiling like gigantic earrings. They serve no purpose whatsoever, from what I can see.

            Get this! She’s got tall, elegant leopards and panthers – all beautifully trained – slinking in and out of the place, bringing refreshments and providing security. Tails flicking elegantly. Snarls twitching. Would I like to see the menu? Would I like to read the Programme Guide?

            There’s a fancy alcove. It’s lit up like a shrine. This is where she keeps her wigs. Each one has a name: Cleopatra, Elizabeth Gaskell, Edith Cavell. Lulu, Cilla, Cher, Divine.

            I keep suggesting: ‘Let’s go to Sheffield. Let’s pick up my friends.’

            ‘Oh… oh, well, all right…’ says Dusty. ‘What year was it again? When did you drop them off..?’

            I try to remember. But like I say, everything has started to fade a little round the edges. The details and stuff. Just like it always does.

            ‘2020..?’ she gasps, when I remember. ‘Oh, let’s not. Let’s not bother, The Doctor. I really don’t think you want to go there.’

            And she distracts me with more and more kissing.

And random, lovely adventures in time and space.

I have a flick through the Programme Guide.

 

*

 

Doc!!

 

There’s a woman here who reckons she knows you!

            Well, from what I can make out, anyway.

            Captain Bush reckons many things. She keeps spouting off and striding about and shouting at the top of her voice. She’s had poor Ravio taken away and clapped in irons!

            ‘I want to talk to this one… by myself!’ she bellows into my face, and tosses out this mane of bright red locks.

            She’s a frightening woman, tiny as she is.

            She’s got this crew of… well, I guess you’d call them desperadoes. All of them are cutthroats. All of them are terrifying.

            Except Alpha Centauri. They aren’t terrifying Not at all. They’re quite friendly, actually, and they’ve made a point of jittering over to where I’m tied up. They’ve blinked their single huge eye and it looked like it was full of sympathy. ‘She never used to be so brutal. But the years have changed Pirate Captain Bush.’

            ‘The years have changed us all,’ I said. ‘And disappointment can do awful things to a person.’

            ‘That’s it! That’s it!’ the green person shrilled. ‘She’s been awfully let down in her life, has Captain Bush. Well, we all have, aboard the pirate ship ‘Charity.’ Turning to a life of space-crime like we have… it’s an attempt to wrest back control of our destinies and to have some fun…’ But even as the nervous hexapod says this, I can tell they aren’t completely convinced. One of their six tentacles ends in a hook, which they wave around limply. ‘Harr harr,’ Alpha Centauri says sadly.

            ‘What’s that?’ I ask.

            ‘It’s what we’re all supposed to say,’ they sigh. ‘In order to sound like pirates. Harr harr. Arrr, lad.’

            ‘Oh, I see.’

            ‘You’ll have to start practising, if you’re to join our crew.’

            ‘I’m joining your crew, am I?’

            ‘Captain Bush has given the nod. You’re just her type. Also, you look disappointed, Graham. You look like you, too, have been left behind.’

            I think that squeaky octopus creature might have a point. They bring me green food and drink.

            Funny how so many of Captain Bush’s piratical followers are green. Bright green! Shipman Erato, for example, who takes up quite a lot of space on the rusty bridge.

            Do I really want to be a pirate? Is this what I travelled through the galaxy for..?

            Harr harr!

 

*

 

Fam!!

            We’ve been having adventures, one after the next. More or less at random! One episode, then another episode. Sometimes running over, from one to the other. Cliffhangers, leitmotifs, running jokes, recurrent images and hints at the season’s climax!

            First we had a gently quirky kind of escapade aboard a Drahvin ship. Elderly Drahvins. Women warriors near retirement. They’d converted their warship into a boutique called ‘Curl up and Dye’ and Dusty and I paid a little visit. Of course it had all to do with those wicked women setting their sights on Dusty’s marvellous transdimensional wigs. Quite a palaver!

            The thing you have to say when you step inside Dusty’s TARDIS is: ‘Ooh! It’s even more fabulous on the inside than it is on the outside!’

            She flippin’ loves it when you say that.

            Then we zoomed off to the far future. The year ten million. Just to see how things are on the outermost edges of reality. Turns out it’s all amoebas. Nihilistic ones at that. Quite hard to fill up a whole episode with just drifting about in a rotten mood. But we did some songs to liven it up.

            Episode three was a historical adventure featuring someone famous from history meeting alien invaders. We popped in on old time Hollywood to see Greta Garbo and guess what? No aliens. We just had some drinks and made our excuses.

            ‘It’s altogether possible,’ said Dusty tersely. ‘That we are the aliens.’

            ‘Never mind,’ shrugged Garbo, who didn’t want to be alone at all, it turned out. I think she was glad of the company.

            A double-episode, then. Quite action packed. Reviving an old enemy in a surprising way. It was the Quarks. Quite fun, really. Noisy. Dusty kept rolling her eyes.

            Then what they call a Pure Historical! Set in 1832 in Manchester, during the cholera epidemic. Quite gruelling.

            Then a Dusty-lite episode set entirely inside the mind of one of her wigs. Quite mind-bending.

            An episode featuring the return of an old friend! I’d forgotten who they were, but kept smiling and nodding and I don’t think they realised.

            What was the big theme of our season in the sun? Who was the Big Bad?

            I kind of lost count. For once I wasn’t paying attention! I was just having a good time. Keeping track of all that was Dusty’s job.

            Wicked jellyfish monsters in Bath. Jane Austen co-stars.

            The web planet! It’s inside a steaming compost heap at the bottom of someone’s garden! Dusty’s wig is possessed by the spirit of the bees!

            Andy Warhol’s Factory! Superstars! We stay with Dusty’s fancy sorcerer friend in Greenwich Village and it all goes a bit mystical and peculiar. Plus… something about Merlin!

            A finale that sees us in New York, 1976. A lovely disco at Studio 54. But what’s the Brigadier doing there? His disguise doesn’t fool us!

            Something cosmic and grand. That’s where all of this is heading. Timelines and history getting bent all out of shape. Is it Daleks? Dusty hopes it’s Daleks. I’m not so keen. Do we get a Radio Times cover, though?

            Ahh! That’s it! The repeated motif! We’re being chased! Of course we are!

            All through our fabulous adventures we’ve kept getting glimpses of this woman with pink hair…

            Bianca! Bianca’s chasing after us. With guards from the prison.

            The governor has sent them… The governor wants us back.

            And at the end of our adventures it all comes crashing down.

            Dusty… we can run but we can’t hide.

 We’ve got nowhere left to run.

Glitter comes falling down through the strobing lights.

            Bianca snatches the wig off your head.

            We’re on the dancefloor during the last night at Studio 54. Dancing with Bianca Jagger, Grace Jones and… a robot dog.

            And the guards are coming for us, Dusty. It’s season’s end.

            Time to face another kind of music.

            There’s an autumnal note in the air.

            But it was fun while it lasted. It was good, wasn’t it, Dusty?

            Oh, don’t cry. Your mascara’s running…

            They won’t do anything bad. They won’t take away your memories. They can’t take away your wigs. I’ve been put on trial before… I know how it works…

            I guess we had too much freedom. We had too much fun.

            It’s that Bianca. She betrayed us. Look at her over there. So chuffed with herself!

            I thought she was supposed to be an old friend!

            Come on, Dusty. It’s time.

 

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