Chance, she thought. Coincidence. And she realised the kettle had clicked off with no sign of a cuppa as she returned her focus to Clive, who was closing the next file and shoving a new one forwards.
‘And how about this one?’ said Clive. ‘He’s more your age.’ Rose saw a photo of a man with a fantastic jaw, dressed in a tweed jacket and bow tie. Then Clive kept the sequence going; an older, angry man in a brown caretaker’s coat, holding a mop; a blonde woman in braces running away from a giant frog in front of Buckingham Palace; a tall, bald black woman wielding a flaming sword; a young girl or boy in a hi-tech wheelchair with what looked like a robot dog at their side …
‘All right,’ said Rose. ‘I get it, they might be secret agents or whatever. Under the same codename, okay. But I’m only interested in my Doctor.’
‘Yes, yes, yes’ said Clive, hurrying to fetch a box-file labelled 09. ‘Let’s focus on yours. Because now it gets tricky.’
‘Oh good.’
‘One theory says that once you’ve been designated a Doctor, the title can be passed down the family line. Like an inheritance. Because look, that’s your Doctor there, yes?’ He pointed to the pterodactyl picture. ‘That’s from five years ago. And yet, here he is, the same man, in America.’ From box-file 09, he showed Rose a photograph of the Doctor, in a crowd, beside a road, being held back by police. ‘But this photograph is from 1963. It’s been verified by the Washington Archive, November 1963, that’s a fact, and yet he looks exactly the same. Must be his dad, don’t you think? Your Doctor’s father is witnessing history, look!’
Grinning, Clive showed more versions of the same photo, each one widening to reveal the context. A police motorcycle. American. An open-top black limousine.
‘Is that the Kennedy assassination?’
‘It is! And he was there!’
‘Oh Clive, look at it. Be serious. That’s not even Photoshop, that’s a pair of scissors and glue, it’s an obvious fake.’
‘Okay, that may not be the best example, but look, look, look,’ said Clive, as he took out more documents. ‘If it is a family line, then it goes way, way back. This is a photograph from 1912. The Daniels family, plus friend, about to embark on the Titanic.’
The sepia photograph showed a family, mum, dad, son, daughter, and the Doctor. Finally out of his leather jacket, in a wing-collar and fancy hat. But still, the same face. Same ears. Same age.
‘Well, if that’s genuine, then they’ve got strong genes, the Doctor family,’ said Rose.
‘Funny thing is,’ said Clive, ‘that photograph was taken the day before they were due to set sail. But at the last minute, they cancelled, and survived. Almost like they knew. And look at this one.’ He pulled out a photocopy of an old parchment, an ink drawing of the same Doctor, this time on a beach. ‘Same lineage. He’s identical. And this Doctor washed up on the shores of Sumatra, the day after Krakatoa exploded.’ He put down the files, that gleam in his eye. ‘D’you see, though? Kennedy, Titanic, Krakatoa. When disaster comes, he is there. The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. He brings the storm in his wake and he has one constant companion.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Death.’
‘Okay,’ said Rose, trying to be kind, thinking of all the Clives of the world, tucked away in their sheds with their obsessions. She was glad this man had Caroline and those two bright-faced lads, back in the house. ‘So tell me. If you know so much. What’s this thing?’ She pointed at a photo of the chunky blue box. It cropped up five, six, seven times in the background behind various Doctors. ‘It keeps on appearing. What is it?’
Clive took a deep breath, as though preparing to make a solemn announcement. He said, ‘I have no idea.’
Rose laughed. Clive laughed too. The relief, to find something without a conspiracy theory attached. He said, ‘I don’t know everything! I keep wondering if it’s a mobile canteen.’
Rose slid the photographs away from her. ‘What about you then, Clive? I mean, how did you get into this, in the first place? All this research, it must’ve taken years.’
‘All my life.’
‘So what started it?’
‘It was my dad,’ said Clive. ‘He died when I was two years old.’
‘Oh, I was six months old when I lost mine,’ said Rose, and they shared a nice little smile.
‘I bet you still think about him.’
‘I do, yeah.’
‘Me too,’ said Clive. ‘My old fella was a soldier with the Infantry. He was in the London Regiment. Proper little Cockney by all accounts, Mam said he was always scrapping. Handy with his fists. They said he died on manoeuvres. But in Shoreditch, of all places. Sounds a bit odd, dying in peacetime on British soil. Accidental discharge of a weapon, they told my mam. And bear in mind, this was back in 1963.’ He nodded at the Kennedy photograph. ‘You didn’t argue, back in those days, you accepted what the establishment said. But not me! I got older, I kept asking questions. Second Lieutenant Gary Jonathan Finch, how did he die?’
He’d taken out a laminated photo, this time from his wallet. His father, in uniform, a black and white snap of a tough, stocky man in his early 30s. The same curly hair. ‘The more I tried to research it, the stranger it seemed. Like something was being hidden. Turns out, Dad’s regiment was caught up in some sort of incident. All very hush-hush. The day he died, they’d sealed off the whole of Shoreditch. Officially, they said a cache of unexploded bombs had been discovered. And there were certainly reports of huge explosions, that day. I tracked down the Service Inquiry, in the end, it was buried deep but I found it. And it said Dad had been killed in a junkyard, in a place called Totter’s Lane. But killed, how? Information redacted. No record of the inquest. But I kept on looking, I searched and searched. Until I found it. The secret.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Are you ready for this?’
‘Go on.’
‘There was something else on the streets that day. Something that had no place in this world.’
Clive took a deep breath and with ceremonial solemnity opened a black folder, showing Rose his most prized photograph. It was a picture of another tank, of sorts, smaller, conical, more like a one-man vessel made of white and gold metal, its lower half studded with balls, odd prongs sticking out of its body, one at the top like an in-built telescope.
Clive said, almost in a whisper, ‘No one knows what it’s called. But I believe this creature, from outer space, murdered my dad.’
Rose felt so sad for him. He’d built this wild, cosmic fantasy in order to make his father’s death heroic. She looked at the photos on the wall. ‘And all of these things, the lizards and the robots and the blobs. They’re all from outer space?’
‘I think so.’
‘But Clive. Look. I’m sorry about your dad, but … All these creatures of yours, they’ve been photographed out on the streets. In the open. They’re next to Big Ben. That giant big tentacle-thing is wrapped around Westminster Abbey. If all these alien invasions happened in public, how come we don’t know about them?’
‘That’s the thing!’ said Clive, excited, moving to sit opposite her so he could look her in the eye, the shine of the light-box uplighting his face. ‘How do we forget? Why? That’s the biggest mystery of all. Some people say they’ve drugged the water. Some people say there’s an amnesia wavelength being beamed into our heads. And some people say there’s a crack in time, leaching away the memories of the human race.’ He paused. ‘That one sounds a bit too fanciful for me.’
‘Me too,’ said Rose.
Then Clive blurted out, ‘You don’t believe any of this, do you?’ And he sagged a little, looking at her with watery eyes. She realised how much effort it must take, not only to convince her but to convince himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rose. ‘I just can’t.’
‘I know. It’s okay. You should hear Caroline banging on about it. She’d burn this shed down. With me inside it, sometimes!’ They both laughed a little. ‘I
just think it’s important for you to know. Because you’ve seen him, you’ve met the Doctor. And if these stories tell us one thing, then meeting the Doctor means danger is on its way.’
‘For me?’
‘For all of us. But yes, you in particular, you should be careful. Because you’ve been singled out.’
‘All right,’ said Rose, carefully. ‘Let’s say what you’ve said is true. Let’s say I believe it. Just for a second. Then you still haven’t answered my question, who is he? Who is the Doctor?’
Clive held up the Kennedy photograph, and he seemed older, wiser and sadder as he confessed his most heartfelt secret. ‘I think all these pictures are the same man. They’re not fathers and sons, it’s the same Doctor, over and over again, throughout history. Because I think he is immortal. I think he is an alien. I think he is a shape-changer.’ Then he opened his arms over the table to include all the files. ‘I think every single one of them is the Doctor. The same Doctor. Because they are many. They are multitudes. They exist for anyone and for everyone and they are everything to me.’ Clive was suddenly on the edge of tears. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘What?’
‘You’ve met one. And you’ve met him twice. If you meet him a third time, can I come with you? It’s all I’ve ever wanted. My whole life. Just to see the Doctor. To hear their voice. To look into their eyes. Can I? Please?’
Rose slumped back into the Beetle and slammed the car door shut, angry. ‘Waste of time. He was nuts.’ She struggled with the seatbelt, jerking it and jerking it again, remembering her lie about compensation. ‘He didn’t even have the right forms. It was just stupid. Sorry. My fault. Won’t do that again.’
In truth, Clive had scared her. Rose could see her own obsession with the Doctor reflected in his begging. He’d actually sobbed when she’d said she had to go. But even though she felt sorry for him, she couldn’t sanction his fantasies any more. To hell with it, she wanted to get out of here, to drive away, to have pizza and a beer and a nice Saturday night with Mickey.
And she turned to look at him properly, her patient and faithful Mickey Smith, sitting in the driver’s seat, exactly where she’d left him, still here, still waiting, as constant as ever.
He looked a bit odd.
‘Is it hot in here?’ asked Rose, because his skin had a sheen, like sweat.
‘It’s fine!’ said Mickey, with a big, goony smile. Doing a daft voice again. ‘Not hot. I’m not hot. I am not hot. Rose. Not. Hot.’
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘don’t be silly, get me out of here. What have you done to your hair?’
He rolled his eyes up as if he could actually see his hairline. ‘What is wrong with it?’
‘I dunno. It’s just different.’
‘We go now,’ he said, and started the engine.
‘Can we have a pizza? Have you got time before the band?’
‘Band cancelled. They telephoned. They telephoned me. On the telephone. I am all yours, Rose Tyler.’
‘Quite right too. Now stop talking silly, let’s go for a pizza. Have you got any money? Cos I’m skint.’
‘I have no money, no money, no money at all.’
‘Then how are we going to pay for it?’
‘Plastic,’ said Mickey, and they drove away.
9
The Pizza Surprise
On a normal Saturday night they’d grab a takeaway and go to the pub. But there was nothing normal about today, and to hell with it, Rose thought, if Mickey’s paying, then he can treat me for once. So they went to Toni Jo’s Pizzeria. Waiters, starters, tablecloths, nice.
But it didn’t make Rose feel any better. Her hunt for the Doctor had only led to a sad man’s shed and now, without the quest, she was left looking at her life. What little there was of it.
‘I could try the hospital,’ she said, picking at some deep-fried something that tasted only of heat. ‘Suki said they’ve got jobs, in the canteen. That’s just about my level, dishing out chips. But even those jobs are going to vanish, the entire staff of Henrik’s are out there, snapping them up, what chance have I got?’
That was Mickey’s cue, to tell her she was bright, brilliant, amazing, the best, what was wrong with him? He was just staring at her. His grin a little bit too fixed. He’d been doing this routine ever since Juke Street and it was beginning to get on her nerves, like that time he’d spent an entire day being The Fast Show. ‘All right, Mickey, a joke’s a joke.’
‘What is a joke?’ he said in that new, bright voice he’d discovered.
She said, ‘Don’t you even care? What am I going to do with my life?’ She ate a bit more. Maybe it was a prawn. She’d ordered without thinking. ‘I could go back and do my A levels, what d’you think?’
Mickey just smiled. He hadn’t touched his soup.
She decided to provoke him. ‘It’s all Jimmy Stone’s fault.’ Mention of Jimmy Stone always made Mickey angry. But not tonight. He just kept staring and smiling. She went further, feeling a bit sly and mean. ‘If it wasn’t for Jimmy Stone, I’d have stayed at school. It was his fault. All that stubble. Luring me away. But I couldn’t help it, he did look good in those jeans.’
This was weird. Mickey should be fuming by now, but he didn’t even blink. And that shine on his skin was so strange. Maybe he had a temperature. ‘Mickey, are you feeling all right?’
He said, ‘I’m fine, baby, babes, sugababe, babyface, babycakes, baby boomer, babyboombastic, boom boom bang-a-boom.’
‘No, really, stop it, what’s wrong with you?’
He lost the smile, sat forward and said, ‘The Doctor.’
She froze. ‘Who told you about him?’
‘I know all about the Doctor.’
She felt that old horror, like the awful day she’d had to tell him about Jimmy Stone, but now, today, how? Had Jackie phoned him up? And told him that she’d caught her rolling on the floor with a stranger? ‘My bloody mother!’ But Rose had done nothing wrong; she rallied, anger taking over. ‘I didn’t tell you about the Doctor because I’ve got very good reasons, okay? And I am not sitting here letting you get angry with me. That is not on the menu, so you can stop it, right now.’
‘But I need to know,’ said Mickey, leaning further forward, staring, eyes wide. ‘I need to know about the Doctor. Where he is. Who he is. What his plan is. And the only person who can tell me, is you!’
He thrust his head forward to emphasise the last word, and his eye fell out.
His left eye.
His left eye fell out and plopped into his soup.
His left eye was now bobbing in the soup, staring at her.
She looked up, expecting an awful gaping bloodied mess in Mickey’s face. But she saw the skin around his eye-socket closing up neatly, flesh flowing like liquid to seal off the hole, no wound, no scar, just a smooth scoop where the eye had once been.
‘I apologise,’ said Mickey. ‘This replica was manufactured in haste. Normally the Consciousness would have immaculate standards of duplication.’ He plucked the eyeball out of the soup, licked it clean, and popped it back into place, the skin parting to allow the eyeball in. Mickey’s left eye glistened with a teardrop of tomato soup.
Rose looked at his face. The shine. The teeth, too white. His hair, every perfect root. His eyebrows, not a single strand out of place. Everything glossy and far too perfect.
Plastic.
It was a plastic Mickey.
‘Now tell me,’ he said, and his voice wasn’t funny any more. ‘I want to know everything about the Doctor. Or I will kill them.’
‘Who?’
‘The people. The diners. The humans.’
She looked around. A couple, at the next table, laughing. Nearby, a family, two kids. Next to them, two women on a date. Behind her, a gang of school mates on a night out. All in danger. Because of her. She’d brought this terrible thing into the room and sat him down in the middle of them all. She felt a raw terror like never before, because other people were in danger now, not just her.
And this monstrosity was in the shape of her boyfriend.
Mickey. The real Mickey. Where was he?
‘Excuse me,’ said a waiter, sidling up to the table. ‘Your champagne.’ He hovered at Mickey’s side, offering the bottle.
Mickey kept staring at Rose. ‘We didn’t order champagne.’
‘Madam, your champagne,’ said the waiter, stepping closer to Rose.
She didn’t even look up, keeping her eyes on Mickey, terrified of him making a move. She muttered to the waiter, ‘Don’t say anything, just get away, get away from the table, it’s not safe.’
But the waiter huffed, annoyed, ‘Doesn’t anybody want this champagne?’
Mickey glared and looked up, ‘We didn’t order—’
Then he stopped, and smiled.
Rose looked up.
It was the Doctor.
The waiter was the Doctor, holding a champagne bottle, a teacloth over his arm as his only concession to disguise.
‘At last,’ said Mickey.
‘Hello!’ The Doctor shook the bottle hard. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just toasting the happy couple. On the house!’
He aimed the bottle, and, pop!
The cork flew into Mickey’s face. Literally, into it, hitting the nose but not stopping as the skin swamped in to close over the site of impact, swallowing the cork into Mickey’s head. His entire skull wobbled, rippled, settled. Mickey gulped. Then he opened his mouth, impossibly wide, and spat the cork out. He grinned at the Doctor like a man accepting a duel.
Rose was aware that she was just sitting there like a plum. But now she moved fast, staggering back as Mickey lifted up both arms and the entire table went flying—everyone in the pizzeria turning to look—as his hands expanded.
Doctor Who Page 6
