Doctor Who

by Russell T Davies

  Jackie cupped Rose’s face and said, ‘Oh look at you, you’re exhausted.’ Then she added ‘And your roots need doing too.’ She began shooing everyone out of the flat.

  Rose heaved herself out of the chair, exhaustion hitting her now. She sloped into her bedroom. She couldn’t even be bothered brushing her teeth, she just yanked off her clothes, threw them on the floor and crawled under the duvet.

  Even then, sleep wouldn’t come. The whole night kept replaying, churning behind her eyes. Dummies. Flames. Blue eyes. But most of all, the shame that she had felt earlier grew stronger now, gaining in power in the darkness. The feeling that she’d let everyone down; most of all, herself. She wondered, is this a girl-thing? Would a boy be down the pub with Mickey, laughing, burning off the adrenalin with football and beers, while she lay here feeling embarrassed? She was astonished that she’d surrendered, and allowed that man to push her around. She had expected so much better of herself, and maybe that was the real problem. No one else expected better of her, ever. School never had. Mum didn’t. Jimmy Stone had told her she was thick. Even Mickey, who adored her, knew he didn’t need to try very hard. But secretly, tucked away in her heart, Rose had always thought herself better than anyone else could see … until tonight. Now she knew that the others were right. She was plain, dumb, slow Rose Tyler, no good in a fight, no help in an emergency, no use to anyone.

  It is an enormous blow, to be what everyone expects you to be. She drifted off to sleep, borne there by defeat, dismay and disappointment.

  3 a.m. Rose surfaced, hearing the swish and sway of the cat flap swinging to and fro. They’d never had a cat; Jackie was always promising to nail the flap down to stop strays getting in, but she’d never got round to it.

  Rose propped herself up on one elbow, listening. A shuffle of noise in the hallway, at floor level. And then she heard a tiny tap, low down on her bedroom door. Then a scrabbling. Then stronger, tic-tic-tic against the wood.

  She called out, ‘Go away!’

  A pause.

  Then the scrabbling retreated. Rat-a-tat-tat on the laminate floor. She waited, listening hard, but the flat had fallen back into silence.

  Bloody cats, thought Rose.

  She curled the duvet around her and sank back into darkness. In her deep, dreamless sleep, she didn’t hear the soft, slow tap from the living room.

  Like a finger, tapping, waiting.

  4

  Plastic Attack

  7.30 a.m., the alarm bleeped, and Rose rolled out of bed to begin her Saturday shift. But then her mother’s voice carried through. ‘No point in getting up, darlin’, you’ve got no job to go to.’ A pause, then, ‘Although if you want to make me breakfast, I won’t complain.’

  Rose had a shower then microwaved some porridge for the two of them. Jackie was in full flow; possibly, on some level, in the eternal and mysterious war between mothers and daughters, she reckoned she’d been too kind to Rose the night before, and now she was restoring the balance by going on the attack.

  ‘That job was giving you airs and graces,’ said Jackie. ‘Let’s face it, sweetheart, you’re many things, but you’re not West End. Now Martin & Heath said they needed someone, that’s right up your street.’

  ‘D’you mean the butcher’s?’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘They’re not even proper, they sell scrag ends.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Jackie, victorious. ‘Airs and graces! And don’t tell me you’re too grand to apply for compensation. They owe you, Henrik’s, you’ve had genuine shock and trauma. It’s easy to apply, I’ve seen the form, it’s three pages long, 20 minutes’ work, that’s your lot. I know for a fact, Arianna got two thousand quid off the council because the man at the desk said she looked Greek. I know she is Greek, but that’s not the point, it was a valid claim.’

  ‘Well, look, I suppose, yeah, but give it a day or two,’ said Rose. ‘They’re still searching the wreckage. I don’t want to look ghoulish.’

  ‘Oh I’m ghoulish, am I?’ said Jackie, seizing offence out of thin air. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say to your own mother!’ And she grabbed her mug of tea and marched off to her bedroom. ‘Thank you very much indeed!’

  Rose sighed. She needed a new job, as fast as possible. Not just for the money, but to get away from her mother.

  Then she heard that scrabbling again. The tic-tic-tic of claws on flooring. The bloody cat! Where was it, behind the settee? She’d forgotten about waking at 3 a.m., only remembering now, with a rush of anger. Her mother again! Always promising to nail down that cat flap, except …

  A promise to fix the cat flap had been one of the last things Rose’s father had said, on the day he died, or so the story said. It was part of the family lore, the day Pete and Jackie Tyler were due to go to Stuart and Sarah’s wedding, back in 1987. He’d popped out to buy a wedding present. And never came home. Killed by a hit-and-run driver on Jordan Road. Life went on in No.143 but his promises went unfulfilled. To fix that cupboard door. To glue down that lino. To replace those polystyrene tiles and nail down the cat flap. Over the years, other people stepped in to help, replacing doors and carpet and light bulbs. Everything except the cat flap. ‘I’ll do it!’ insisted Jackie, a little bit too shrill, every time, and yet she left it undone. Like she was still waiting for him to come home.

  Rose swallowed her anger. She’d go and give her mum a great big hug and say sorry, as soon as she could find the cat. She looked behind the settee, but tic-tic-tic, the noise scattered away into the corner of the room. Funny sound, thought Rose. Too light for a cat, too … busy. The noise came again, scrabbling, scratching, scraping from behind the armchair, a dark corner enclosed by stacks of Jackie’s old magazines. Now I’ve got you, thought Rose.

  She stepped towards the chair.

  The scrabbling intensified.

  She was holding her breath, as she crept closer.

  Behind the chair, the noise became a drumming on the floor. That thing was furious. Or maybe drawing her in. On purpose. Like it wanted a fight. Rose took hold of the arms of the chair, ready to yank the entire thing away to reveal the intruder …

  But then she heard the cat flap.

  Not another one! She abandoned the chair and stormed down the hall. Passing the framed photographs of her father, blond, watery-eyed Pete, a nervous smile on his face, like he was always about to be found out. Dad, this is your fault, thought Rose, and she could see the cat flap swinging, something nudging it from the other side. She knelt down, ready to grab the little swine, and as she lifted up the flap—

  There was a face!

  His face.

  The Doctor. On his hands and knees outside, staring through the cat flap with a big, silly smile.

  ‘Hello!’ he said.

  Rose stood up, determined to take control this time, as she swung open the front door. But before she could say, ‘What are you doing here?’ he said it first: ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I live here!’ protested Rose.

  ‘Well, what do you do that for?’

  She spluttered. He was always one sentence ahead. She found herself reaching for words, saying hopelessly, ‘Because I do.’

  The Doctor held up his little metal device. ‘I must’ve got the wrong signal. I was scanning for plastic. You’re not plastic, are you?’ And he tapped her on the head. ‘Nope, bonehead. Bye then!’

  He turned to go but she grabbed hold of his leather jacket and yanked him back. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said. ‘Inside. Right now.’

  She pulled him into the hallway and slammed the door shut. But Rose had barely hauled the Doctor five steps inside before Jackie interrupted.

  ‘Who are you then?’ she called out from her bedroom, leaning back from her dressing-table to see.

  ‘Hello,’ said the Doctor in that blunt way of his, and he gave Jackie a little wave as he stood in her bedroom doorway, looking around as though every single detail of No.143 fascinated him. Jackie stood up and R
ose’s heart sank as she saw her mother’s familiar little glance up-and-down, registering the presence of a man in the flat. Jackie cinched the belt on her dressing gown a little tighter and shifted her weight, making herself shorter so she could look up and blink more helplessly. Mascara as subtle as a potato print. ‘Hello stranger.’

  ‘He’s from the council,’ said Rose. Lying to her mother came easily. ‘Leave us alone, you get dressed, I’ll deal with it.’ She walked ahead into the living room but then looked back to see that the Doctor had stayed behind, staring down at her mother.

  ‘She deserves compensation,’ said Jackie. ‘We’re talking millions! I’d happily talk you through it. At length. Except here I am. In my dressing gown.’ She moved a little closer to him. ‘And there’s a strange man in my bedroom.’

  ‘So?’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Well,’ said Jackie. ‘Anything could happen.’

  ‘No,’ he said, and walked on.

  Rose burst out laughing. Maybe he wasn’t so bad, this man. He had a tough-guy swagger, clumping into the living room in his heavy boots, but his eyes caught the morning light and glittered, like he was much more fun than he first appeared. And then Rose thought: God help me, I’m turning into my mother. Don’t fancy him!

  She checked to see that Jackie had gone back into her bedroom, then said in a low voice, ‘Listen, seriously, we need to go to the police, both of us. And if you won’t, I’m going on my own and I’m telling them all about you.’

  He was ignoring her, picking up a copy of Heat magazine. He glanced at the double-spread celebrity wedding.’That won’t last. He’s gay and she’s an alien.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Rose, ‘I’m not kidding. I don’t know who those dummy people were, and I don’t know what that stuff was in the pipes, but it’s not funny. Wilson’s still missing, and you said he was dead.’

  But now he was looking at himself in the mirror. Ducking to and fro to study his face from different angles. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Could’ve been worse. Nice ears. I’m never ginger, though, why is that?’

  Rose was getting fed up. ‘Doctor,’ she insisted, then adding, ‘Doctor who is it? What’s your name?’

  But he looked up, alert, as they both heard the tic-tic-tic noise. That scrabbling again, from behind the chair. ‘Have you got a cat?’

  ‘No, it must be a stray, they come in off the estate. Anyway! Will you listen to me? I need to know what happened to Wilson. And what entitles you to go around blowing up buildings? There’s, like, 300 of us unemployed, thanks to you.’

  But he just stood there, concentrating, those fine ears like a radar. ‘Doesn’t sound like a cat.’

  ‘Oh God, well if it’s a rat, don’t tell my mother.’ In the background, Jackie’s hairdryer started up. Thank God she couldn’t hear this. ‘She is literally like a cartoon when it comes to rats.’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said the Doctor, and he lifted up the chair.

  No cat. No rat.

  Just the plastic arm from last night, lying on the floor. Palm facing up, fingers curled inwards, like some creature that had died in the dark.

  ‘What’s that doing there?’ said Rose, annoyed. Someone must be playing a trick. ‘I gave it to Mickey, he took it with him, I saw him, he carried it out.’

  ‘It came back,’ said the Doctor, his voice grim. He carefully put the chair to one side and squatted down in front of the arm. As though wary of it.

  Rose said, ‘Well how did it get inside here?’

  ‘Through the cat flap.’

  ‘Who’d do that, though?’

  ‘No one. It did it on its own.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Rose. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  But then, all on its own, the arm flipped 180 degrees, to land palm down, the fingers like legs now, exactly like legs, propelling it along, fast, scuttling with a tic-tic-tic on the floor, and it ran to the Doctor, climbed up his body, all the way up to his neck, where the hand began strangling him.

  The Doctor was being strangled by a plastic hand.

  The Doctor was standing in the middle of No.143, her home, being strangled by an animated plastic hand intent on killing him.

  Rose stood there staring as he said ‘Gaah!’ and ‘Aaak!’ and held on to the arm with both hands, trying to pull it away. Exactly like Mickey had done, in the same room, last night, the same joke. Except she could see the fingers digging into the Doctor’s neck.

  And she thought: I am doing nothing again.

  She threw herself at the Doctor. Grabbed hold of the arm. She pulled and pulled, the Doctor heaving at the arm too, but it wouldn’t shift. It was locked in a death grip. His eyes were boggling now, spit flecking at his lips. It was killing him!

  She pulled to the right. The Doctor pulled to the left. Then they both tried pulling different ways at the same time so they toppled over, landing on Jackie’s bamboo-and-glass coffee table. It shattered into sticks and shards.

  The Doctor rolled onto his back—even in the panic, Rose realised, he was protecting her from the broken glass—and she straddled his chest, heaving at the arm. But its grip tightened as the Doctor let go, digging into his inside-pocket, searching for something. Rose was left alone to hold the arm, and dear God, the strength of it, the heat! She could feel plastic veins and plastic muscles bulging inside the plastic skin.

  Then the Doctor pulled out his metal device, dug it right into the arm and made it whirr, loud and shrill.

  The arm stopped. It stiffened like a dead thing, and Rose pulled it away from the Doctor’s neck. She saw a patina of cracks scatter across its skin, like old varnish.

  The Doctor struggled to catch his breath. And then he grinned at her. That brilliant smile. Rose looked down and couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.

  ‘What the hell?’

  It was Jackie. Standing in the doorway. Seeing her daughter panting and dishevelled, straddling the chest of a man in a leather jacket lying in the wreckage of her precious coffee table while holding a spare arm.

  ‘Rose Tyler,’ she said. ‘You … tart!’

  5

  The Turn of the Earth

  Rose ran along the walkway, chasing the Doctor. ‘Wait a minute,’ she yelled. As soon as Jackie had appeared, he’d stood up, brushed the glass off his clothes, taken the plastic arm off Rose, said ‘Thanks!’ with that daft grin and strode out. Jackie had started yelling about the table, the mess, the shame of it, but Rose had barged past her, heading after the Doctor.

  She caught up with him as he yomped down the stairwell. Behind her, she could hear Jackie, still yelling, announcing to the entire estate that the coffee table was a gift from her own mother. ‘Real bamboo, not fake!’

  But Rose focused on the Doctor. ‘Hold on a minute!’ she said. ‘You can’t just go swanning off.’

  ‘Yes, I can, this is me, swanning off, see you around, Rose Tyler.’ He said her name as though knowing it gave him power over her.

  She fought back. ‘Well who are you, then?’

  ‘I told you. The Doctor.’

  ‘Yeah, but Doctor what?’

  ‘Just, the Doctor.’

  ‘The Doctor?’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, and gave her a little wave with the plastic arm, as he kept charging down, down, down. They rattled along together, tenth floor, ninth, Rose running to keep up. ‘Nobody’s called “the Doctor”.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Is that supposed to sound impressive?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Well you’ve failed.’

  ‘Really?’ He stopped dead. How ridiculous; he looked upset. He said in a small voice, ‘I like it.’ And then he shook it off, taking the stairs two at a time. Seventh floor, sixth, fifth.

  Rose kept following. ‘But that arm was moving. I saw it! The fingers were digging into you, they had knuckles and everything. It was trying to strangle you! You can’t just walk away, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’
>
  ‘All right then. I’ll go to the police! I’ll tell everyone. You said, if I did that, I’d get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me, or I’ll start talking.’

  ‘Now you’re threatening me, Rose Tyler. Proud of yourself?’

  They reached the ground floor, the Doctor bursting through the doors to head across the concrete plaza. He lobbed the plastic arm up into the air and it landed in one of the industrial grey metal rubbish bins behind him; he hadn’t even looked in that direction, and yet achieved a perfect hit.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Rose called out. ‘You can’t chuck that thing away, isn’t it dangerous?’

  ‘Not any more. I killed it.’

  ‘How can you kill it if it isn’t alive?’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t make any sense at all. Fantastic, isn’t it?’

  She kept following, not so angry now, more fascinated, trotting to keep up with his speed as he strode towards the rear of the estate, past the garages, on to the bare scrubland beyond. She kept her voice calm, trying to reason with him. ‘So come on. You can tell me, I’ve seen enough. Are you the police?’

  ‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘I was just passing through. I’m a long way from home.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘Miles away. Miles and miles.’

  ‘What, like, Manchester?’

  ‘Bit further than that.’

  ‘But tell me, cos I really need to know. Those plastic things. How come they keep chasing after me?’

  ‘Oh, suddenly the entire world revolves around you. You were just an accident. You got in the way, that’s all.’

  ‘That arm tried to kill me!’

  ‘It was after me, not you. Last night, in the shop, I was there, nice and busy, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down, but it was tracking me down at the same time. The only link it had to me was you. It came looking for you because you’d met me.’

  This sounded to Rose like every story every man had ever told her. ‘So you’re saying the world actually revolves around you?’